From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

Reminds me of Tower of Latria from Demon's Souls, which is good because Tower of Latria is one of the best thematically designed areas ever.

 

I have yet to play this game.

How's the performance on PC? Is it as bad as everyone says it is?

 

Not as good as it could be but not nearly as bad as was expected before release.

 

Ran decently enough on my computer, which is pretty old. 2GB Ram, windows XP, etc.

 

I'm having a very decent performance (mostly 40-60 FPS) with latest DSfix on i5-2320 3Ghz CPU and GTX 460 SE (cheaper version) GPU with 4xMSAA/16xAF forced. It's not as optimized as it should be, but way better than at the time of release, which was also playable, except for occasional drop to 15 FPS during heavier scenes (those are completely gone now).

 

Oh I see. Awesome. Has anyone played the game with Mouse and Keyboard controls?

 

3 hours in playthrough with new char, in preparation for that Let's Play. Thanks a lot for the help!

Below is the plan I have for it, tell me what you think about it:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Aside from showing gameplay, I want to tell about backstories, lore, presumptions and all things related, like item descriptions, drawing conclusions/theories etc. I also want to cover content such as quest chains of Solaire, Siegmeyer, Petrus etc., seeing Darkstalker Kaathe, killing Gwyndolin and uncovering his scheme and other "hidden" stuff.

1: Undead Asylum & Firelink Shrine (Asylum Demon)
2: Undead Burg (Taurus Demon)
3: Undead Parish (Bell Gargoyles)
4: Lower Undead Burg and exploring things like Darkroot Garden, Black Knights and other vanity stuff (Capra Demon, Moonlight Butterfly)
5: Depths (Gaping Dragon)
6: Blighttown
7: Queelag's Domain, return to Firelink Shrine (Queelag)
8: Catacombs (Pinwheel), rescuing Reah, Undead Asylum (Stray Demon)
9: Sen's Fortress (Iron Golem)
10: Anor Londo (Ornstein & Smough)
11: Darkroot Basin (Great Grey Wolf Sif)
12: New Londo Ruins (Four Kings)
13: Anor Londo Revisited (Dark Sun Gwyndolin)
14: Painted World of Ariamis
15: Duke Archives pt.1, for DLC (Sanctuary Guardian)
16: Royal Garden (Knight Artorias)
17: Oolacile's Township (Manus, Father of the Abyss, Black Dragon Kalameet)
18: Duke's Archives pt.2 (Seath the Scaleless)
19: Demon Ruins pt.1 (Ceaseless Discharge, Demon Firesage)
20: Demon Ruins pt.2 (Centipede Demon)
21: Lost Izalith (Bed of Chaos)
22: Ash Lake for Siegmeyer's quest
23: Tomb of Giants (Nito)
24: Wrapping things up/missed content
25: Kiln of the First Flame (Gwyn, Lord of Cinder)

Right now, I have the screens for the first 4 episodes, and I don't really want to begin anything until I'll have at least around half of the playthrough saved as screenshots.

 

What kind of character are you going to use? It would be kind of boring to see someone run around with a greatsword/great shield just brute forcing everything. Also will you be doing any Covenant stuff?

Also, not murdering Reah. What are you some kind of white knight? Lautrec would be very displeased.

 

I've created a Pyromancer (but right now,after NG+, it feels kinda too easy) that's currently running around with Claymore/Zweihander with Black Knight Shield, sometimes two-handing and dodging. Nevertheless, I want to show stuff like Fire Tempest sometimes. I also backstab, but I can't really into parry/riposte.

What's with Reah? I haven't completed this questline yet.

 

Nice, thought I think that doing Seth before the DLC content would be more interesting...

Also, I admire your pure heart in not killing Priscilla.

 

Reah/Petrus/Lautrec have a brilliant (minimalist) little story going on. Do chase it up.

 

Well if you want to get the bonus cutscene you should at least do the DLC up to rescuing Sif and getting the shield, before doing the Sif fight in Darkroot Basin.

 

Hobo Elf
Gwyn disappointing compared to Allant? after all the talk i heard about him (Allant... and Flamelurker, while we're at it) i was greatly disappointed with a fight vs a boss that telegraphs his moves years in advance and leaves you months in-between to heal or rebuff or do whatever you want. easily one of the most boring fights in both games (one of the few where i never died). at least Gwyn can be somewhat challenging if you don't parry him, but for Allant i'd have to blindfold myself to be challenged

agentorange
Dragon God was as shitty of a boss as BoC, although it was significantly better atmosphere-wise and it had a less bullshit in it. yeah, the 4 lords souls bosses were quite disappointing (particularly Nito, imo) but after all the talk i've heard about DeS and it's awesome bosses i was greatly disappointed by their difficulty. Flamelurker isn't that hard although he's probably the most fun in the game, Allant is ridiculously easy, Maneaters are problematic pretty much only because of the environment (Gargoyles in DkS are almost identical, except the arena is much "easier" and so by comparison they're almost trivial) and Penetrator feels like a tamer, slower, more predictable, less fun and dynamic Artorias. and yes, i played DeS before DkS and find the latter significantly better in pretty much every way

 

Yep. It's horrible in vanilla but much better with the fix.
Regarding performance, I'm having 30 FPS with an occasional drop to 15 on my i5-2500K and GTS 250. I tried unlocking 60 with the mod but it didn't change much. Need a better video card I guess.

 

Started the game again, this time with a pyromance woman that I intend to put lots of DEX in, light armor, small shields to riposte etc. Feels already much different yet awesome. Just rang the first bell and will go to the depths asap to free that pyromancer bro down there. I haven't found the other pyromancer woman down in Blighttown in my last playthrough, need to look out for her this time since I will likely need her.

 

That, or tinker with settings a bit. What DOF resolution do you use? If 1080, lowering to 810 might improve it a lot without reducing quality much. Also, it's better to use anisotropic filtering by forcing it on Data.exe rather then turning it on in DSfix. Turning off SSAO might help too, if it's on. I disabled it simply because it causes visual glitches sometimes. This game is supposedly mainly CPU dependant and your CPU is a bit better than mine.

 

you need a pyro glove +15 and defeated quelaag for her to appear

 

+10. I had +11 and she appeared for me just fine.

 

Ah, this explains it. Thanks! I am really on a run, defeated all the bosses without dying once yet, just fell the gaping dragon and I was pretty close to be vanished. I have to say, this dex build is much more fun than to hide behind a shield all the time. I'm still using my +5 Scimitar, is there any other cool Dex based weapon you guys would recommend? I thought about using the Whip later on just to experiment with, something exotic etc...

Only bad thing is that the fireballs or orbs have a very very short range. But then again, I mostly use the pyromancies as support when I am sure I can cast them without getting hit.

 

Bandit's Knife has highest crit modifier in the game. I also liked the mail breaker.

Balder Side Sword is pretty good.

Silver Knight Straight Sword?

 

I mostly used katanas (Chaos Blade later on) on my dex build, their heavy attacks suck but they're still good.
Also Ricard's Rapier (killed Gwyn with it) and Priscilla's Dagger when I wanted something different.
Bows are very useful too. Sniping is kinda cheesy though because of retarded AI.

 

If you get a headshot with an arrow you get much better stun off the attack. Not sure if it's guaranteed or what, but very useful.

 

Balder Side Sword and Uchigatana. I went with a lightning Uchi and a +15 Balder to cover most situations. And, er, ended up just using the Balder with occasional pine resin/charcoal.

 

dark silver tracer has a higher crit modifier (plus a toxifying R2 attack). mail breaker is the worst piercing sword in the game

seconding BSS and katanas (Iaito for PvE, CB for PvP) for dex weapons, adding falchion (this thing buffed deals insane DPS), Quelaag's Furysword (top tier PvE weapon, good backup PvP weapon), the claw is pretty fun, murakumo used to be godly (well, still is on the consoles until they get patched) although it's technically a "quality" weapon, silver knight spear is always good to have, great/lifehunt scythe are both excellent weapons

 

So my plan to skip Undead Burg worked fine. But then I got curious, can you clear it going backwards? And the answer is, for the most part you can, but you can't enter the Taurus Demon fight through the rear fog. I am disappoint.