From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Damned Registrations]

No idea. But you don't need a lot even for heavy hits. 50 shrugs off two handers. A wolf ring would easily do the trick.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's highly variable between monsters though. In any case, my answer for Capra is: All you can get (up to 50% weight of course). Can't hurt being able to shrug off both dogs at once if need be.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I fail at Capra Demon. Yeah, I know the basic strategy but it doesn't stop me from getting stunlocked right at the door 75% of the time.

Unless you have enough poise to shrug off the dogs I don't think anyone has a 100% foolproof way to get through Capra the first time you are supposed to meet him.

Anyone know exactly how much poise that is by the way?

This is probably the one thing I did well in DS on my first playthrough - I wandered in, completely unprepared but managed to get really lucky and beat him on my first try. I was using a spear and the highest stability shield I had (probably the hollow shield or knight shield), so basically I was just running around with my shield up all the time which is what saved my ass; IIRC the dogs bounced off my shield before I even realized what was going on. That gave me enough time to run up the stairs to get them both in front of me without having to worry about the Capra Demon for a few moments.

Total luck, but generally, when in doubt spear+ high stability shield makes everything much easier. Even on heavy attack enemies like the Capra Demon, it will stop one attack. Usually you can recover from the shield-break stun quickly enough to roll out of attack range. Only downside is you basically need to stay low weight so you can quickroll away to drop your shield and recharge stamina. In my case that meant low poise. But since dodging is far more useful on the Capra demon, it wasn't a huge issue for me in that fight.

 

[mugarod]

I must have really lucked out on that Capra demon since I was able to kill him with my first try as well. I accidently entered in the area saw a boss and run for safety up the stairs thinking that dammit now I will have to respawn againI was able to just quickly kill the dogs and then dropped to first floor with him and just kept smashing his face till he died. Will have to try him with different character and see if it was luck or he is really not that bad. To be fair the first dark knight you meet gave me way more problems and made me terrfied from meeting any boss like creatures.

 

[Murk]

If you have hidden body or ring of fog, the Capra sees you but the dogs won't so you can parse it out like that. I haven't tried that, but it works as confirmed by others. I beat him on attempt 2, first time I got camera-locked in one of the corners after rolling and killed by Capra. Second time I rolled to the left and killed the dog, then just dodge/melee'd him. His low health and my high damage (black knight sword) put him out in a few swings.

I don't think Capra is actually all that tough so much as he's a closet troll in what is basically a closet, and the dogs can really fuck up your game by stun-locking you with their rather fast range-closing attack.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, Capra is basically a black knight that trades blocking for the big lunging attack, which is easily avoidable and therefore makes defeating him alone almost effortless. It's the combination of confined area + wide ranging attacks + 2 dogs that are fast, quick to strike and hard to hit.

One could say that he's there to teach a specific lesson to the player. While the earlier bosses could be dodged around as a shieldless naked character and easily humiliated by falling attacks, sometimes bosses demand a more tanky approach with a good armor and shield.

To be fair the first dark knight you meet gave me way more problems and made me terrfied from meeting any boss like creatures.

Funny story. The first black knight I encountered after taking the "shortcut" jump down to the blue tearstone ring (which I thought was a cleverly hidden secret area, lol). I wonder if that's an intentional trap for "clever" players, because you land right in front of him and there is no where to run.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd imagine so. I dpn't think you can get an angle to see him from that side either.

The capra demon fight is pretty lame tbh. It's largely random, since which attack the demon uses will determine if you should dodge or block him or sidestep. But since you've never met him before, and getting hit once there will just lead to you being chain stunned to death... yeah....

Every other boss gives you some room to evade attacks by running, so you can see how they work and figure out what to do before you get up close and personal.

 

[mugarod]

Lol that was actually the same first encounter I had with him as well. I kept rolling to my death from the bridge trying to get to a "secret" area and when I finally landed on the edge and got my prize I got destroyed in seconds.

 

[Heresiarch]

Playing with a walking tank wielding a Zweihander. It's so much fun smashing enemies flat with the overhead smash. If faced enemies not fit for meleeing there's also the good old fireballs to fall back to.

Weird, the more I play it the more I feel...lonely, depressed, and hopeless. I thought this game was just another generic fantasy shit, but it turns out it's full of...incomprehensible things. The game is beautiful with all those spectacular sights and awesome buildings, but they only make the game feeling more weird because of all the death and decay, hostile monsters that may or may not be sane, weird items and creatures and ruins that look like having tons of history behind but the game never bother to tell you, etc.

I especially like how the game present the story to you - it doesn't even tell you the story (like how Kingdom of Aramur did - boring the player with FUCKTONS of background stories with EVERY NPC), just gives you random clues and let you solve it by yourself. For example, at first I thought being Undead isn't that bad at all - just like how a lot of those NPC think - but then I realized it's essentially TNO's curse en masse, only in this game's case it's worse because you not only lose memories but also go completely crazy when you die too much. Now I can even understand what being "hollow" means - I think all the characters who got ragequitted by players who got frustrated by being stuck at dying over and over again by bosses/traps/areas are essentially "gone hollow".

The only downside this game has is it's giving me nightmares when I sleep. This game is even more bleak and depressing than a post apocalypse game (though the game is more or less post apocalypse). Everything tries to kill you, everywhere is deadly if you run too fast, and the more "money" you keep on your body the stress is even greater. NPC are almost always completely lost their will to live and fight (well, I can imagine even the players will go insane being stuck at the same boss 20x times) and their fate often don't end well...it's almost like reading some Lovecraftian story.

 

[Jasede]

You have the perfect mind for this game. You must play these games as well:

Nier, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Demon's Souls, Thief, System Shock 2, Scratches - whichever you haven't played.

It takes a certain kind of person to truly appreciate certain touches of atmosphere and I think you're that kind of person.

Have you noticed how speaking to every single NPC is depressing? How they all spiral into darkness? Have you noticed the sadness and strangeness to their voices, ever-growing? And some people don't like the translation or voice acting in this game!

I assure you all, it's deliberate, meticulous and nothing short of perfect.

Edit: I envy you, you haven't even seen the most powerful places of this game yet.

 

[Darklife]

The Onion Knight and Solaire can keep their shit together if you play your cards right.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

The Onion Knight and Solaire can keep their shit together if you play your cards right.

Yeah, but that requires quite a bit of metagaming. I think doing so successfully would be rare on an unspoiled first playthrough. Incidentally, IMHO both Solaire and Onion bro are really terrific examples of quests where "failure" is as rewarding narratively (and, in the case of Solaire, gameplay wise) as success.

You have the perfect mind for this game. You must play these games as well:

Nier, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Demon's Souls, Thief, System Shock 2, Scratches - whichever you haven't played.

All of those games are very solid (I haven't heard of Scratches, but if that's the company it keeps, its definitely going on my list). I do want to single out Nier, though; in spite of the somewhat unremarkable combat, I thought Nier was an underrated masterpiece (as opposed to the other games which were appropriately-rated masterpieces.). If you play it, definitely try and get all four endings. Totally worth it!

 

[Jasede]

Nier is nothing short of a masterpiece, despite its combat.

 

[Fat Dragon]

The Onion Knight and Solaire can keep their shit together if you play your cards right.

Spoiler

Actually, neither of those guys get what you would call a happy ending, they actually have the worst fates in the game.

Solaire downward spirals into depression and either hollows and gets possessed by the demon bug, forcing you to kill him after he's been made to believe he's finally found his sun. Or helps you kill Gwyn, and after returning to his own world rekindles the flame and burns alive for a few thousand years as its sacrifice, again thinking he found his own sun (confirmed by devs).

As for Onion, he actually gets more depressed the more you help him. It causes him to lose his self-worth as a warrior, leading him to try and sacrifice himself for you by fighting the chaos monsters in the Demon Ruins, for no other reason than to regain his worth as a warrior. Only you can save him there too, making him feel even more weak and useless. He journeys to Ash Lake to fight the hydra in one last attempt to prove himself, only to go hollow and force his own daughter to kill him. His only "good" ending is to die a warrior's death against the chaos monsters.

 

[Fat Dragon]

Also, are From's King's Field games worth checking out? I hear they're supposed to be pretty old school dungeon crawlers and kind of the predecessors for the Souls games, but also hear they have really terrible controls and wonky gameplay?

 

[Darklife]

The Onion Knight and Solaire can keep their shit together if you play your cards right.

Yeah, but that requires quite a bit of metagaming. I think doing so successfully would be rare on an unspoiled first playthrough. Incidentally, IMHO both Solaire and Onion bro are really terrific examples of quests where "failure" is as rewarding narratively (and, in the case of Solaire, gameplay wise) as success.

You have the perfect mind for this game. You must play these games as well:

Nier, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Demon's Souls, Thief, System Shock 2, Scratches - whichever you haven't played.

All of those games are very solid (I haven't heard of Scratches, but if that's the company it keeps, its definitely going on my list). I do want to single out Nier, though; in spite of the somewhat unremarkable combat, I thought Nier was an underrated masterpiece (as opposed to the other games which were appropriately-rated masterpieces.). If you play it, definitely try and get all four endings. Totally worth it!

Yeah Solaire's bit is just completely fucking arbitrary. The chances of someone going through that entire process independently seem tiny.

 

[Darklife]

The Onion Knight and Solaire can keep their shit together if you play your cards right.

Spoiler

Actually, neither of those guys get what you would call a happy ending, they actually have the worst fates in the game.

Solaire downward spirals into depression and either hollows and gets possessed by the demon bug, forcing you to kill him after he's been made to believe he's finally found his sun. Or helps you kill Gwyn, and after returning to his own world rekindles the flame and burns alive for a few thousand years as its sacrifice, again thinking he found his own sun (confirmed by devs).

As for Onion, he actually gets more depressed the more you help him. It causes him to lose his self-worth as a warrior, leading him to try and sacrifice himself for you by fighting the chaos monsters in the Demon Ruins, for no other reason than to regain his worth as a warrior. Only you can save him there too, making him feel even more weak and useless. He journeys to Ash Lake to fight the hydra in one last attempt to prove himself, only to go hollow and force his own daughter to kill him. His only "good" ending is to die a warrior's death against the chaos monsters.

Spoiler

Huh, didn't know that about Solaire. However Onion can be saved, or is a least presumed to be. There's a specific line of events you have to follow, which ends with him simply disappearing after the poisonous worms in the Demon Ruins. God damn wikis, always spoiling my adventures.

 

[Jaedar]

Nier is nothing short of a masterpiece, despite its combat.

If only there was a pc version.

 

[DraQ]

I would have bought Dark Souls, especially seeing that it's apparently an incredibly atmospheric game, but shoddy port AND windows live?

Fuck those losers.

 

[Jasede]

Fuck off.

 

[Murk]

Fat Dragon, try King's Field 2 -- it's first person and has PS1 controls but it's worth a bit of struggle. Very cool game, IMO.

As for Dark Souls' lore and tidbits -- make sure to read item descriptions. There's a lot of unsaid connections you can piece together, and the seemingly random bits of dialog NPCs give you all fit into that framework as well. It's rather well thought out, tho there's still a lot of "and now you fight this guy because... well, yeah.".

 

[Heresiarch]

Ok, there's one more thing that Dark Souls - or in general, a ton of those Jap games, with Fire Emblem being the most infamous - kicks the balls of western games and wrenches the hearts of players, is how they dare to be cruel to the player and force permanent consequences on everything. Accidentally killed an NPC? He/She'll be gone for GOOD. Saved an NPC? Someone else may die. Didn't do anything? Someone may got killed. Only in this game it's 100x worse because you can't reload if you accidentally mess up something. Entire quest lines, spells, upgrades, shops will be gone for good if your finger twitched while having a conversation with an NPC.

Also, it seems that a LOT of NPC can be easily missed out completely if you don't metagame or have a trustable player note found. And those are not meaningless NPC, but fucking trainers and merchants that provides critical spells and items. The thing is, while a few NPC's whereabouts do have hints (and then it's only in half a sentence of a random conversation and it's easily missed unless you listen very carefully to everything), a lot do not, it's almost like it's a hidden feature. For instance, without prior knowledge, who would think one of the most important NPC will appear in the middle of a dark, monster riddled swamp? Not to mention illusionary walls that have no hint at all to the players (except for the occasional "Beware of liar" sign on the ground). Seriously I'm still very interested at HOW do the first players who've found the covenants actually FIND them, and how many replays the first players have before discovering like 80% of the content.

 

[felipepepe]

IMHO they are still free from the "everyone has to do everything in one playthrough" mindset.

I feel that western developers either make "disposable" games, that have nothing to offer once you beat'em, or games like AssCreed, where you just keep playing until you reach 100% completion. Meanwhile, japs tend to prefer multiple playthroughs, incluiding the famous NewGame+ modes. Even the most story fag, linear and days-long jRPGs will still have secrets to be seen and stuff only available on a second playthought, and that helps to keep that aura of mystery around the game, that "have you done/seen this" talk going on.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Accidentally killed an NPC? He/She'll be gone for GOOD. Saved an NPC? Someone else may die. Didn't do anything? Someone may got killed.

Demons' souls was even more intense - every single magic/miracle trainer could die due to your inaction. Since you could only switch which spells you had memorized at the trainers, that meant you were stuck with whatever magic you had equipped.

Although it was easier to figure out how to stop that from happening in Demons' Souls than in Dark Souls.

 

[roll-a-die]

Yeah, Capra is basically a black knight that trades blocking for the big lunging attack, which is easily avoidable and therefore makes defeating him alone almost effortless. It's the combination of confined area + wide ranging attacks + 2 dogs that are fast, quick to strike and hard to hit.

One could say that he's there to teach a specific lesson to the player. While the earlier bosses could be dodged around as a shieldless naked character and easily humiliated by falling attacks, sometimes bosses demand a more tanky approach with a good armor and shield.

To be fair the first dark knight you meet gave me way more problems and made me terrfied from meeting any boss like creatures.

Funny story. The first black knight I encountered after taking the "shortcut" jump down to the blue tearstone ring (which I thought was a cleverly hidden secret area, lol). I wonder if that's an intentional trap for "clever" players, because you land right in front of him and there is no where to run.

I beat capra the first time by accident, I discovered after around 15 minutes of dodge rolling that if you stood on a particular spot on the balcony and got him to lunge you could get him to fall. I ran with an estoc no armor and a black knight shield for my first play through because I hated moving at anything slower than the fastest speed.