From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[toro]

Well, DaS1 without the Master Key can be really brutal for a new player ... or an old player :D

Lower Undead Burg -> Capra -> Depths -> Sewers -> Gaping Dragon -> BlightTown -> Elevator -> New Londo Ruins ->Firelink Shrine

Honestly I think this path is the most brutal path from all the DaS games:
- I killed Capra on first try but I've died 5+ times to the rats and assassins jumping on me before entering his area,
- I went directly to the Gaping Dragon and I was raped by the Channeler cause I forgot about him,
- Second try I died because I was greedy and he jumped on my head,
- Third try took like 2 minutes cause my lvl 10 bitch was doing very low damage,
Note: I never knew he has a second phase
- And then you can access Blightown from the worst direction ever, an absolute nightmare on the 1st run but now it took me just one try to speedrun ... only to die 10+ to the elevator,
- Yeah, I died 10+ times on the elevator because for some reason my character was clipping through the floor each time I tried to roll off the damn thing,
- After finally the collision detection kicked in, I was able to reach Anor Londo Ruins door just to find out that I don't have the key for it :/
Note: The key is in a chest at the top of the Blighttown.
- Like an idiot I went to screw with the sleeping Dragon which slapped me like a little bitch,
- In the end it was a good thing because on return I found the Key to New Londo Ruins and I was finally able to reach the Firelink Shrine.
Note: By the way, the link between the Valley of the Drakes and New Londo Ruins makes no sense topographically.

The only difference between DaS2 and DaS1 in this regard is that in DaS2 case you literally take an elevator to a sea of lava. But whatever.

So yeah, world design and firelinks locations matter a lot. And in this department DaS1 is above DaS2 while both of them are simply superior to DaS3.
On the other hand, DaS2 locations are more fun than DaS1 locations. They are barren, there is no much complexity in their design (except the DLCs) but they never interrupt the experience flow as BlightTown, Sen's Fortress or Anor Londo do.
It looks like DaS2 gave players a break and to be honest, I enjoyed it more than the relentless cheap tricks and bleak atmosphere of DaS1 (which is back in DaS3 but in a more refined retarded way).

Also someone mentioned Heide's Tower of Flame which indeed is shitty for PvE ... but it was a blast for the PvP. Many spin-to-win happened there

 

[Damned Registrations]

DS1 topography didn't always makes sense but the descent from burg, to depths, to blighttown, to izalith (which you can also see from the tomb, which is friggin' awesome) made sense just fine, and helped set the atmosphere. The problem with Iron Keep wasn't that you reached it via elevator, it's that it's in the absolute dumbest place it could possibly be. Literally any other location in the game makes more sense than floating in the sky, especially with all the lore going on about how they delved too deeply. Bitch, you've got like 5 more levels to delve through before you even reach the gulch. And all they had to do was make the fucking elevator go down instead of up.

 

[Arnust]

especially with all the lore going on about how they delved too deeply.

They didn't delve too deeply, the solid iron castle just sank into the earth through sheer weight and it caused massive techtonic damage and also just happening to let demons and buried souls out for some reason

Hoping for any sense of creativity in the game that has Artorias's fanclub as an actual in game faction and covenant? I mean, I totally lost any feeling for the atmosphere of the game. As a whole. When I saw this. I'm sorry but the Abyss Wachers may be a good boss mechanically, I liked fighting it, but it ruined the mood. So there's this fucking gang of people cosplaying Artorias gathering around a wolf still caring about fighting the abyss in a world that is literally ending and they're also like the forest covenant of ds1 which stopped people from desecrating Artorias's grave because this is so friggin important. And of course let's forget anything about ds2 and how people should not even remember Artorias after so many cycles have gone through anyway or how Artorias was a fucking failure, a phony to begin with since he lost to Manus and the true abyss walker was DS1's player character and this entire artorias shit was basically just Dusk misremembering being saved by the useless cunt.
DS1's entire point of the plot thread was to show how pathetic the known hero truly was and the first thing you do to enter oolacile is put him out of his misery. Not grovel under his feet.
I'm not too heavily into the lore shit but I've always liked the atmosphere of souls games. Except that DS3 does everything it can to ruin any possibility of the atmosphere coming into place. There's just too much retardation to suspend your disbelief.

Well, it STILL could do something with those same elements. 1 did with the callbacks to DeS. 2 did it to an extent, with Vendrick as the parallel to Gwyn making him one of the better actual characters in the games, and a bunch more stuff. 3 really does stay on "remember his?" "yeah, why's this here?" "uhhh idk I just thought you'd like it... look, here's another!" <repeat>

The original ending of 2's was kinda mediocre IMHO. Sit on the throne and think for yourself whether your char burned or not.. it was just a repeat of DS1 and the choice there felt like having a gun pointed at your head.
SOTFS fixed the ending by letting you.. just walk away. No dark lord, no monarch linking the fire. Just indifference or looking for alternatives. This is actually the ending the series should have had as a whole. It didn't need to go on. It's a great ending, one where you don't bow to the principles and wishes built by others.

Agreed on the latter. On the former, what makes it for me is how it's still a very goddamn ambiguous ending (to be fair the only thing I've missed is OG/Non SOTFS, Even in the PS3 version it still had Aldia and that stuff). And it still has a quite damn different pathos, to be way more informed by the DLC.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, DS3 is such a mixed bag. Abyss Watchers really feel lame as a concept (though I like the boss fight), as do that giant king whose entire stage feels half baked. And it turns even more retarded with the addition of the non-Siegmeier dude that inexplicably is an old friend of him.

On the other hand, the burning of 5 Souls on 5 thrones as a reenactment of the original myth, Aldritch, Irithyl, and Londor are good ideas.

 

[Akratus]

So now that I've killed all bosses in Dark Souls 1 I've moved onto Dark Souls 2. I almost quit at some point. It's just so uninspired in comparison to DS1 and I was using the shitty greataxe and had multiple little issues with the game. But it's still a souls game so it's still fun, of course. And now I've got a bit of a second wind because I got myself the Zweihander and that weapon is now definitely like my waifu as far as weapons go. I also upgraded it to +10 and here's the bosses I've killed:

Spoiler

The Last Giant
The Pursuer
Dragonrider
Ruin Sentinels
The Lost Sinner
Old Dragonslayer
Flexile Sentry
Royal Rat Vanguard
The Rotten
Skeleton Lords
Executioner's Chariot
Covetous Demon
Mytha, the Baneful Queen
Smelter Demon

Oh and I also got the Dragon Talon so I'll be heading into the DLC soon. I know that the Crown of the Sunken King is the first one, but when should I go into it? And I assume I can go back at any time? I also heard the DLC are well suited to melee builds, so I should be good. But is there anything else I might need?

 

[Jezal_k23]

The DS2 DLC is pretty much endgame content (so I think you could go now if you want, but it's probably meant for later). They're also the best DLCs ever released by Fromsoft imo. A SERIOUS improvement in comparison to the base game. Also I don't think DS2 has an incredible stretch like Lower Undead Burg -> Blighttown like DS1, but in general I always found its areas consistently fun. They just don't reach the same heights as DS1 (the DLC does, but I'm talking about the base game only here), but neither does the game feature anything as boring as Lost Izalith.

 

[Seaking4]

I think it's true that Firelink Shrine to the 2nd bell is pretty much the most interesting part of DS. Mostly because it gives you so many different ways to tackle the 'ring 2 bells' problem. At then it follows it up with Sen's Fortress which is as good a level as there is in the entire series.

DS2 and 3 had better individual level design (compared to DS1 they have many more branching paths within each level) but they each had worse interconnectivity (I mostly think this was the result of letting people warp to any bonfire whenever they wanted but it could be the other way around). DS3 suffered even more because of how linear it was whereas at least DS2 gave you a bunch of different options at the beginning of the game.

Ya you're better off doing the DLC near the end of the game. And you can go back whenever you want. The DLCs are legitimately amazing. The first one is as good a dungeon crawl as you could hope for in DS.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think pretending the well or forest were options at the beginning of DS2 is pretty disingenuous. They're arguably less accessible than Lothric was in DS3. There's a sweet spot in DS2 where you have a lot of options after you've gotten a branch of yore, unless you use it on the wrong spot, which is pretty much completely up to chance. Likewise you can spend a long ass time waiting for that well to become accessible if you're not spoiled on how to do it. The DLC in DS2 is far and away it's best feature.

 

[L'Montes]

The majula pit is a pretty viable option, the only starting character that can't make the drop with silvercat ring is the Swordsman (lowest starting VGR).

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2...a_pit_just_how_much_hp_is_needed_in_order_to/

The silvercat ring is also sold in Majula (13k souls or so) directly across from where you'd use it. You can also do it without the silvercat with the Way of Blue Ring + Life Ring, with a somewhat iffier stat total (1200-1300, iirc). I can recall both from the 35k and under and/or Agape-based runs I did in SotFS. Both the rat-area and the gutter itself are pretty easy, even for a newer player as well. It's mostly either rats or unarmored hollows, and preceeding carefully more than sufficient for a character in starting gear to get through there. All that to say, it's pretty close to fofg/heide's for starting options.

Shaded woods are a bit more sketchy as a "starting" area, -- a more apt comparison to saying Lothric is a starting option. Or at least, you can get through the woods and moaning-tree area easily enough by hugging the wall, but the Shaded Ruins area (curse pots, invisible guys, etc.) is a more awkward ask of an actual new player with starting gear. If it had been an option pre-SotFS, then maybe (the Lions are trivially easily to backstab-kill, even with starting sorcerer stats), but the SotFS untargetable phantoms are a larger nuisance if we're assuming the player won't just be sprinting to the boss. Oddly, the unlockable phantoms strike me as mostly harder than the Tseldora fodder (spiders, some casters).

Still, I'd wager a ring to drop down sold by a nearby NPC is no more inscrutable than murdering a friendly NPC for the DS3 skip. From personal observation, I'd say people choke on Dancer (even experienced players that aren't new) a lot more frequently than they get stuck on dropping in the pit.

 

[Arnust]

I also heard the DLC are well suited to melee builds, so I should be good. But is there anything else I might need?

You'd have to go there at about past midgame, plus it's when most of the DLC entrances and respective keys area avaleible anyway. And then release order, yeah.

 

[toro]

So now that I've killed all bosses in Dark Souls 1 I've moved onto Dark Souls 2. I almost quit at some point. It's just so uninspired in comparison to DS1 and I was using the shitty greataxe and had multiple little issues with the game. But it's still a souls game so it's still fun, of course. And now I've got a bit of a second wind because I got myself the Zweihander and that weapon is now definitely like my waifu as far as weapons go. I also upgraded it to +10 and here's the bosses I've killed:

Spoiler

The Last Giant
The Pursuer
Dragonrider
Ruin Sentinels
The Lost Sinner
Old Dragonslayer
Flexile Sentry
Royal Rat Vanguard
The Rotten
Skeleton Lords
Executioner's Chariot
Covetous Demon
Mytha, the Baneful Queen
Smelter Demon

Oh and I also got the Dragon Talon so I'll be heading into the DLC soon. I know that the Crown of the Sunken King is the first one, but when should I go into it? And I assume I can go back at any time? I also heard the DLC are well suited to melee builds, so I should be good. But is there anything else I might need?

Call me when you kill Fume/Allone ... with the Zweihander

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So now that I've killed all bosses in Dark Souls 1 I've moved onto Dark Souls 2. I almost quit at some point. It's just so uninspired in comparison to DS1 and I was using the shitty greataxe and had multiple little issues with the game. But it's still a souls game so it's still fun, of course. And now I've got a bit of a second wind because I got myself the Zweihander and that weapon is now definitely like my waifu as far as weapons go. I also upgraded it to +10 and here's the bosses I've killed:

Spoiler

The Last Giant
The Pursuer
Dragonrider
Ruin Sentinels
The Lost Sinner
Old Dragonslayer
Flexile Sentry
Royal Rat Vanguard
The Rotten
Skeleton Lords
Executioner's Chariot
Covetous Demon
Mytha, the Baneful Queen
Smelter Demon

Oh and I also got the Dragon Talon so I'll be heading into the DLC soon. I know that the Crown of the Sunken King is the first one, but when should I go into it? And I assume I can go back at any time? I also heard the DLC are well suited to melee builds, so I should be good. But is there anything else I might need?

Wait until you get a certain item that

Spoiler

allows you to warp back to a bonfire.

You'll need it. Also stack up on poison resist, because most enemies in that DLC inflict poison.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Oh, and get some iron arrows or iron bolts. You'll need them to deal with a certain enemy type that's unique to that DLC.
And to the game, really; I don't think there's an equivalent. You'll see what I mean when to get to the temple interior.

Anyway, I liked the level design for sunken. Its actually the closest area in the game to DS1's levels, as there are a lot of shortcuts you can unlock and feels a little more open.
A pity the bosses at the end are complete cunts though.

 

[Wunderbar]

Well, DaS1 without the Master Key can be really brutal for a new player ... or an old player :D

Lower Undead Burg -> Capra -> Depths -> Sewers -> Gaping Dragon -> BlightTown -> Elevator -> New Londo Ruins ->Firelink Shrine

"brutal"? It is the intended way of progression. I always go this way even with master key.

 

[sullynathan]

Isn't it possible to skip much of lower undead burg?

 

[L'Montes]

Isn't it possible to skip much of lower undead burg?

You don't have to go to the undead burg at all. With a master key, you can go straight to NL --> Valley of Drakes--> Blightown-->Bell and/or NL --> Valley of Drakes --> Darkroot Basin --> Undead Parish --> Bell.

Both the Taurus's and Capra's sections of the burg are optional with the Key. Even without the key, there's not much to the lower undead burg as an area to begin with. Two sets of ambushing thieves, a handful of dogs, Griggs, and Capra. There's a few different roll-skips for parts of the burg too (about 2 or 3 used to drop from upper to lower).

If you do skip the regular part of the undead burg (by going around into the Parish first with the master key) the Hellkite Drake doesn't spawn on the bridge either. So, that's kinda interesting too.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

You still need to access the depths though if you want to level up normal weapons to +10

 

[L'Montes]

You still need to access the depths though if you want to level up normal weapons to +10

While true, I've always been impressed with how much of Dark Souls 1 is technically skippable. Taurus, Capra, Gaping, Ceaseless, Firesage, Centipede, Gwyndy, Moonlight, Priscilla, Asylum D., and... the DLC I guess?

Beating the game with a maxed enchanted/magic/fire/chaos/dragon/unique weapon is easy enough too.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

You still need to access the depths though if you want to level up normal weapons to +10

While true, I've always been impressed with how much of Dark Souls 1 is technically skippable. Taurus, Capra, Gaping, Ceaseless, Firesage, Centipede, Gwyndy, Moonlight, Priscilla, Asylum D., and... the DLC I guess?

Beating the game with a maxed enchanted/magic/fire/chaos/dragon/unique weapon is easy enough too.

Yeah, that is great. Its not as if you need the Large or Very Large embers either to beat the game either, as there are other ways to get fully upgraded weapons. Boss weapons, dragon weapons and special weapons, do not need any item to max out, and the elemental paths each have their own embers that tend to be in accessible locations. Or you can just beat the game with no upgrades if your dick is huge enough.

What annoys me about DS2 is that you can't really skip anything, as its all so linear. Even the shrine of winter skip is pointless, as you still have to grind out several million souls, or have an absurd amount of consumable souls. They should have based it on soul memory, not on souls gained in a playthrough.

 

[Lutte]

as you still have to grind out several million souls

"""grind"""
kill the rotten 4 times through bonfire ascetics, an easy boss that doesn't take much time to down. I wouldn't call that a grind. It's the route all (legit, non glitch using, because glitchers don't even need that) speedrunners take and it skips a lot more content than ds1 allows.

While true, I've always been impressed with how much of Dark Souls 1 is technically skippable. Taurus, Capra, Gaping, Ceaseless, Firesage, Centipede, Gwyndy, Moonlight, Priscilla, Asylum D., and... the DLC I guess?

You don't need to do Old Dragonslayer, the first Dragonrider, Flexile Sentry, (or do the latter two and skip the pursuer if want lost bastille for the smith), Royal Rat Vanguard, Vendrick, Skeleton Lords, Executioner's Chariot, Belfry Gargoyle, Mytha, Smelter, Najka, Rat Authority, Prowling Magus, Freja, Ancient Dragon... need I go on?
You need to do -some- of your picking and get a route to get decent amount of ascetics (nobody is going to grind dem souls on random hollows obviously) but the game is pretty free in terms of progress.

 

[Multidirectional]

I know that the Crown of the Sunken King is the first one, but when should I go into it?

When you are almost done with main game. I always start DLCs when final boss fight in main game becomes available. They are all significantly harder than main game. Also better, so I like to save best for last.

 

[Lutte]

DLCs for all souls is "when you have a max upgrade weapon" more or less. It's what cuts down most of the tedium of doing the dlc. Sure, char stats matter if you have like too low vigor and die in one hit or something but it's nothing compared to the pain of wacking the same trash mob a billion time because your weapon is garbage.

With a full upgrade weapon you can go whenever you want.

 

[L'Montes]

For Akratus in particular, the maxed Zwei should be very solid for Sunken King's enemies. Though there's a few spots in the interior where a weapon that large might be banging off the walls. Alternatively, weapons like the Large Club or Great Club will straight-up pancake most of the armored enemies, which is amusing - if cheap.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Or the dragon tooth. Which is a hilarious weapon to use in DS2. You can even get it pretty early in Scholar if you kill the gargoyles.

 

[Lutte]

For Akratus in particular, the maxed Zwei should be very solid for Sunken King's enemies. Though there's a few spots in the interior where a weapon that large might be banging off the walls. Alternatively, weapons like the Large Club or Great Club will straight-up pancake most of the armored enemies, which is amusing - if cheap.

Just use The Greatsword. The Greatsword is the Greatest weapon of DS2. That vertical two handed R1 is just a thing of beauty, it's even useful in the brume tower for example against the enemies that teleport behind you to backstab.

When things get more roomy you one hand it and sweep across large groups, hitting that r1 when they get closer but before they start attacking you. Mashing your entire stamina bar that way gets rid of most common, lower HP enemies.

The one true GREATSWORD has all the damage you need, no real dex req and variations of moveset between one handed vs two handed that makes it highly versatile. I don't know why someone would go for the zweihander, which does less damage and is obtained later in the game when this awesome gem can be had in no man's wharf.