DARK SOULS: if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so mvrch comes tomorrow

I think I saw that if you are human for boss fights then you can summon an NPC or two to help, but honestly I haven't noticed any summons sign. Is it possible that if you're playing offline you can't even summon (or be invaded by) NPCs?

Here's another question, speaking of NPCs. I've rescued a few dummies trapped in barrels here and there, and they're now often/always hanging by Firelink, offering to help. But if I've been putting stats toward strength/dex, which is what my warrior began high in, and not intelligence or faith or whatever, then there's not much help a magic dude or pyromancer or whatever can give me, is there? Same for certain sets of weapons and armor I've come across, or ways to ascend my own weapons, right? That is, if I have a weapon, there's no reason to make it magical, or fire, or lightning etc. unless I have stats leaning sympathetically in those directions, because unless I do it seems like I would actually just make my weapons *less* powerful.

That weapon/scaling stuff is super confusing. Say I bring my claymore up to +10, or max it out to +15 (I think). Will I still have serious non-strategic trouble with any enemies? Obviously I can win the game with the broken sworn hilt, or even my fists, if I've read correctly, but I'd prefer to do it with a good weapon I can stick with for the duration (bow and arrow aside). I mean, I do have the Zweihander, which seems pretty huge and awesome. I haven't really used it, because it is slow, but would it be to my significant advantage to start improving it? Or is it cool and sensible to stick with one primary weapon I'm good with? I understand as hard as this game can be it gets harder - and the bosses get harder - after Blightown (which I still haven't found!).

you can still summon and be invaded offline but npc invasions are rare and summons are sometimes hidden and often dependent on gameplay triggers

sometimes it pays off to have a sub-optimal weapon handy, as you've seen for those blobs in the depths, but generally you're right. most equipment you won't use or even be able to try

i may be misremembering but your pyromancy hand either doesn't scale or doesn't need any levels in INT to be leveled up, you need only the souls to spend. fire and lightning weapons don't scale at all, they're the same for any build

Say I bring my claymore up to +10, or max it out to +15 (I think). Will I still have serious non-strategic trouble with any enemies?

yes

I understand as hard as this game can be it gets harder

it's not that hard, if you ever did a 2nd playthrough you'd breeze throught it, it'd probably take you less than 2 hours to get where you're at now once you know what to expect. enjoy the mystery while it lasts

Say I bring my claymore up to +10, or max it out to +15 (I think). Will I still have serious non-strategic trouble with any enemies?

What I meant was, will my +10 (or however much) claymore ever be woefully underpowered for a boss? The way early weapons might be for some of the tougher early enemies, like the black knight or Havel or the skeletons (who are now more strategically tough, relatively speaking, than HP tough).

So you're saying I can use pyro even if I am not a pyromancer? And you're saying the fire and lighting weapons don't scale, so (like the drake sword) they just have a max damage that can't be increased? What are all those other ones (raw, chaos, etc.)?

Your claymore +10 - +15 will get you through everything, really.

The regular upgrade path that you're taking is generally preferable. Fire and lightning do cap out and don't receive boosts from your DEX and STR points.

https://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Claymore

So you're saying that after the first play through, with surprises ruined and strategies revealed, subsequent playthroughs are less difficult and more about having fun, just killing things and beating the game new ways, with new builds and weapons and methods? I can see that.

it’s an extremely replayable game, and if you’re not relying on a guide there are almost certainly things you’ll miss the first time through

yep, and even with a guide things will be missed by virtue of being mutually exclusive, there's no 100% path where you see everything there is to see

So you're saying I can use pyro even if I am not a pyromancer?

yes, the starting classes are just for default equipment and levels. pyromancy in particular only requires spending of souls to level up your hand and buying spells. and at least one attunement slot, so some levels do need to go into that stat

What are all those other ones (raw, chaos, etc.)?

raw is extra pure physical damage with all scaling removed. it's supposedly crap or so i've heard

chaos is a split from fire +5 (instead of fire +6 you upgrade to chaos +1) that adds scaling with humanity (up to 10)

enchanted is a split from magic +5 that does... i'm not sure what honestly, maybe better scaling with INT than regular magic path?

divine is sorta like magic but scales with faith and adds bonus damage against certain enemy types, eg npc/internet invaders. talk to andre, he'll tell you what it's good for

you'll end up finding special weapons with some of the above properties, in fact you probably have some in your inventory right now

Blightown (which I still haven't found!).

Did you find the merchant in the Depths, not far from the hallway that leads to the Gaping Dragon?

(also raw infusion is great for early game, but quickly gets outclassed once your stats start to go up)

I did find the merchant. Most of his stuff was super-expensive, but I did buy a gold pine resin, which I used on one dragon attempt (though it didn't seem to help much; gaping dragon has a ton of health). Blightown near there?

I've been focusing on building vitality and endurance right now, which will eventually hit some sort of soft cap, right (30/40 or the other way around)? But I should probably start putting more souls toward strength and dex (which are currently both over 20) to help scale my favored sword. Is that how it works? I had been leveling up the katana, too, but it seemed faster but less effective, especially for thrusting. It does apparently have the power to make things bleed, whatever that means, but I couldn't really figure out those mechanics.

the blighttown door is right next to the merchant

like poison and curse, bleed is a status effect. try fighting the skeletons near firelink and let them hit you with your shield up: you won't take normal damage but a status bar will start filling up whenever they hit your character or your shield.
let the bar fill all the way up and enjoy having 30% of your max health disappear instantly signaled by ! BLOOD LOSS ! on screen. that's bleed and it was apparently really useful in pvp against players who hid behind their shield constantly

only some enemies are susceptible to bleeding. common sense applies most of the time, darkroot stone giants probably don't bleed. there's no visual or auditory feedback of whether bleed damage is accumulating on enemies like there is for your character but the signature blood loss sound effect does play when it triggers.

imo if you like the claymore's moveset more then that's your weapon. the katanas probably scale better but, again, don't min-max, especially since you're not even playing online

this has been a deeply enjoyable conversation to see btw; always fun when newbs go from "so wait, do i actually LOSE all my souls if i don't get them back on the next life" to detailed min/maxing conversations on leveling favorite weapons

Hmm. So, I found Blightown and I guess was doing well enough, relatively speaking, once I figured out the first wave of monsters and pests. Got poisoned once, which sucked, esp. since I kept taking the wrong curing purple moss while I wasted estus. But then I more or less got lost or ran out of places to go - the ladders are hard to see - so fell on purpose down to another platform where I saw that giant spider thing stomping around ... and it more or less immediately killed me. I'll try again later.

On the plus side, I don't think the dart guys I killed come back, so there's that.

okay, decided giant spider thing that was apparently impervious to arrows and killed me with one shot was a clear hint that I should go a different direction. Almost made it to the bottom of Blighttown, lower than scaffolds, but inexplicably slipped off a rock or something and fell like 5 feet but still died. Maybe something else is going on?

(That is, maybe something I didn't see killed me and I fell off.) Super glad I found the Blightown bonfire, which I missed the first few times I descended from the Depths.

OK, figured out how to kill that giant spider, but don't know to what end. Oh, wait, I got pyro something! I'll have to look into that. Anyway, now I can get down to the bottom of Blightown OK with minor setbacks (getting lost, getting attacked), but as soon as I get down there I get ganged up on and poisoned to death by either the giant mosquitos or something else I can't see. At least I can understand why some people find this area frustrating.

Oh, and I think I came across a glitch, even in this remastered version, because I thought I had killed all the dart dudes (at least up top) but kept hearing one and seeing one firing at me from a distance. So I spent some time searching for it, and all that time I couldn't find it (and don't think I was getting shot at anymore). Maybe it walked off the edge of a platform or something?

Well, I resorted to a guide today, after mistakenly getting scissored by ghost ladies and then accidentally walking out into "The Valley Of The Drakes" at entry level and grabbing a very heavy sword and getting one-hit by a dragon as a result and getting chased by stupid ogres and still, because I don't know what I'm doing, going back to reclaim my lost 300-or-so souls and what not, and getting one-hit again on the way back...

And the guide told me "um go up the stairs" and immediately I'm meeting friendly carcasses who are obligingly dying in front of me and suddenly the guide is put away and I'm having no problems making short work of this grenadier or that man with a very long shish-kebab and I basically died a couple of times before encountering an ugly black knight who killed me a few times but I rather cunningly upped my vitality and stamina and then made short work of his ass

I wouldn't say the game has "opened up to me" but it has been a really, really long time since I've played a game where the monsters don't scale-- i.e. grinding is good-- and so it is very nice and refreshing to look forward to a future where I might actually get good at this

One of the aspects I'm enjoying the most, in a rueful sort of way, is that pretty much every enemy has killed me at least once, if I do something dumb, or let my guard down, or just don't expect to be attacked a certain way. And when that happens it's kind of funny. But farting around in the bottom of Blightown (which, fgti, looms a little later for you, but not that far off) I'm encountering my first instances of simply being overwhelmed: dying of poison while being hit by ogre things throwing rocks while being poisoned and bit by mosquitos while fire spider-fly-whip creatures beat on me. All more or less in sight of my bonfire, which is located across a poison swamp that slows you down and kills you as you wade through it. It's pretty ott, especially since I don't think there's an easy way to traverse these particular challenges, you just have to do it and be done with it. I think.

On the plus side, I'm inadvertently accumulating more souls each run, so that every time I reclaim my pile of lost souls (never far away) the total goes up, until I just eventually cash out for more leveling.

The most useful item I've found, btw, is the grass crest shield, earlier, which really helps with endurance regeneration, allowing me to run farther, swing more, etc. It's been a big help.

Technically there are rings that let you walk in the swamp without being slowed down, resist poison, items that cure it, etc but it's unrealistic to find all those on your first blind playthrough. And they're not actually necessary, but can make subsequent trips a breeze once you know what you're doing.

Ok, killed Chaos Witch Quelaag on my first try, so I must be doing something right! After ringing the second bell it looks like I am supposed to head back to that Undead castle where the big gate is. but I suppose if I want I can still go from Firelink to Valley of the Drakes or New Londo I think?

Oh, and realized this far in that I can level up humanity or whatever it is those numbers mean without reverse hollowing. For some reason I thought I was no longer a skeleton zombie when I had the white numbers up, but it turns out that nope, still ugly.

Are the number of fires I can kindle limited? That was useful to do in Blightown.

You can kindle all bonfires equally.

the game gives a lot of freedom in how to tackle it, with the master key as starting gift there're at least 8 different choices for 2nd boss to fight (asylum demon being the 1st) after arriving in lordran. obviously the intended, newbie friendly path is taurus > gargoyles > ...

I really wish I remembered there was the giant gate that takes 20,000 souls to hoping. I spent my balance down to like seven.

open not hoping

Btw, a giant dinosaur/dragon monster just started hanging out at Firelink, nbd.

I am doing fine. I can only offer this game 30 minutes or so a day but I enjoyed using a resin+sword to murder a Taurus Demon and was capable enough to dispatch a large boar and found a blacksmith and murdered a big big knight and then was swarmed to death by an army of teenyboppers in the loft of the Undead Parish

I just had to fart around for a while to accumulate 20,000 souls to buy a seal to open a giant garden wall (Kong awaits?), but on my way back to the blacksmith I ... fell off a wall. Fortunately was able to retrieve the souls!

I'm enjoying this a lot, and love learning how the world is connected (even if I don't exactly know what I'm doing, where I'm going, why, and what to do with 95% of what I'm carrying around with me).

Very proud of you guys.

praise the sun!

Yeah I'm kind of curious if there is any future for all the undead t-shirts and undead sun-hats clogging up my inventory, if they're just going to accumulate and prove useless or if one day I might outfit my own private undead squad

Here's a question: I'm constantly being asked to join a covenant (kind of like being recruited for a frat). What does this get me? Does it matter if I'm playing offline? I know I can summon covenant bros like sun dude and others if I'm not hollow, right?

covenants are mostly an online deal, i don't recall offhand what rewards each gives and which are online exclusive

join each and every one you come across

Can you join more than one? It seemed to me that you can only join one at a time.

Most of the covenants are online-based. They have an offline quest line to join (some of which are overly complicated), but you rank up in them through online actions (either coop or invasions of one sort or another). There's one that's just to get cool pyromancy stuff tho.

Xp one at a time, and in this one there are penalties for switching (that only matter if you've started ranking up)

if you've met alvina, join them and i think you get a new merchant immediately.

i don't know if they've fixed this in the remaster but in the original versions, covenants and other plot triggers required a forced reload of the area to activate some of their effects, either by walking to a new area and back or more simply by quitting to the main menu and reloading your save

Fgti those are strictly for fashion. I mean you can sell them, but not for much. Duplicates are useless, although you can drop them for other players if you're online (maybe to suggest outfits?).

I don't think it counts as spoilers to read about how the covenants work :
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/covenants

re: the cool pyromancy one, that's one that definitely doesn't need online in order to level up in and get the loot

xp i looked at that page and it has what I would classify as spoilers, fwiw. especially the notes section

then again, i doubt fgti and josh are as strict as me

Huh. Well, I didn't find that Chaos stuff in Blightown and don't know if I feel like going all the way back in search of pyromancer powers (which I think I got somewhere else? that dude in firelink, that I had rescued from ... lower undead?). Regardless, I've yet to use any magic or fire or whatever. Will I need to learn how to do that, or is it mostly ancillary? Will I need to bother with covenants at all? Is it mostly to summon, NPCs or otherwise? So far fighting bosses I have not summoned any NPCs, nor have even known how to do so (maybe because I've mostly been hollow?). Is that a vital part of the game later, summoning NPCs? Or is every boss/enemy defeatable without NPC/summon help?

xpost I am not playing entirely blind, as the game keeps so many secrets from you that I mostly didn't want to spend hours picking around aimlessly, but I'm still trying to save some surprises. Which is to say, I have yet to encounter any section or enemy that did not kick my ass because I knew it was coming, or hiding or whatever. Each thing has remained challenging enough, even when I had to look up what I was supposed to do.

Every boss is doable without summoning, and it's more satisfying to do so imo (no shame on anyone who feels otherwise though).

Magic isn't necessary either, it's just another way to play the game.

I've seen bits of playthroughs before, and one was all "this game is easy!" and they were just firing off ranged spells from a distance, which seemed ... lame to me. And another was "this boss is easy!" and they kept summoning help, which I thought was lame, too. I'm looking stuff up as needed, when stumped, but I'm not making this easy just for the sake of it. I like the challenge, since so far it's been doable.

You're about to get to my favorite stretch of the game, I'd say (aside from the dlc)

you can ignore all the covenants though i don't see any reason not to join every one you do manage to find

summons sometimes actively make things harder because the ai is crap and having a summon buffs up the boss' hp, other times they are very useful. you do need to be human to summon/be invaded. i suck at these games and like co-op so i summoned human/npc help whenever i could

play however you want to, explore how much you'd like, it will be beatable all the same

the game keeps so many secrets from you that I mostly didn't want to spend hours picking around aimlessly

I don't mind that, but per our discussion of hidden rooms and fake walls, let alone leveling and scaling and the like, there is tons of stuff I literally would never know if I didn't ask or look it up. Which is cool if I wanted to dedicate my life to playing this over and over, but as a new PS4 owner I've got DS2, DS3, Bloodborne, Uncharted, Last of Us, etc. to go. And God of War and Spider-man, when I get them. I know better than to buy Red Dead any time soon, if at all.

RIP Sif! (Remarkably, only took me a few tries.) But man, the forest is not only the first place where I felt bad killing things (wolf, mushroom people, even those giant rolling wildcats) but the first place where I just got my ass kicked repeatedly by NPCs until I reached the shelter of the talking cat/dog thing and joined the forest covenant, which protected me. I don't know if I could have successfully fought my way to Sif and had any estus left, even if in the end I somehow beat Sif with just one estus refill. I think I got lucky, which I think is still more likely than getting good. Sif is also the first time I've had an enemy glitch on me, in this case floating above a ridge where it couldn't hit me but I couldn't hit it. Don't think that helped me at all, though, since when it got free it and I locked on again it promptly killed me.

So I can go back to Undead Asylum? Why? Do I want to do that?