I edited my previous post to reflect how absurd your statement is that the game gets easier later on as a sorcerer.
Maybe if you've already beaten the game as a melee character, it might be easier as a sorcerer. But the reverse is true as well.
Also, if they are exploring they'll probably find Dusk pretty easily, and Hidden Body pretty much trivializes every difficult encounter in the game.
I explored every area of the game and never discovered Dusk. To find Dusk you'd have to know that you need to go download it, which again points out why players shouldn't be expected to go into the game blind or receive help. I diidn't even know there was an invisibility spell.
Dusk is just a bonus that turns the sorcerer game from easy to oh-gosh-this-is-pathetic.
Certainly, you can expect a new player to upgrade their shield. And just +1 strength (10) lets a sorcerer wield one of the best shield available to non-str builds.
Have fun finding all that titanite with a shitty shield, a handful of spells, and no backstabbing or parrying. What shield are you referring to anyways? (Good thing there's a wiki for this kind of stuff, huh?)
Finding titanite is hard now? It's fucking everywhere. If you are assuming players can't find basic weapon upgrade material then your melee is going to be fucked 100x worse than your casters.
Shitty shield? You can buy 100 phys block shields pretty much everywhere.
Handful of spells - already obviously not true, unless you think 84x your magic adjust stat isn't enough damage output. That's enough to get through any area even with tons of misses. Let me reiterate, you have nearly 10k potential spell damage available before entering the first non-tutorial area.
Shield I'm referring to is the kite shields at Andre. Even if you don't know item stats from a wiki, other shields like the Spider Shield, Green Crest shield, or Dragon Crest shield are all nearly as good with their own bonuses. You can block 90% of attacks in the game with these.
Figuring out poise isn't that hard, the stat screen tells you what it does. Poise has nothing to do with blocking. Indeed, if you block you'll never need poise. Poise is for tanking hits without getting stunned. They'll have run past an armor suit or something by then. And armor really doesn't do much to protect you, you can survive butt naked and tank hits. The most armor is worthwhile for is preventing chip damage.
You're right about that, but magic builds will most likely have little stamina as well. When your guard is broken, armor becomes very important indeed. Again, without endurance all the armor you find amounts to useless loot.
Magic builds have more than enough stamina considering they don't use any for hitting things with heavy sticks of metal. Nevermind if a player uses Magic Shield, which transforms even the str-10 shields into greatshield-tier stability.
I have. Most of the game was absurdly easy, the rest of it was about normal. Even if I wasn't abusing buffs to OHKO most bosses, I'd be able to kill them in 3-5 spells and that would hardly be much worse.
What buffs? Are you talking about miracles or pyromancy? Miracles aren't available unless you're putting points in faith stat, and both take up valuable attunment slots.
Also how do you take out ANY boss in 3-5 spells? I could see that for early bosses in NG+ with crystal spells or something but not later bosses in first playthrough.
Red tearstone ring and Power Within mostly. Red tearstone ring is kind of silly and out of the way, but Power Within is literally impossible to miss unless you are sequence-breaking with the thief key (in which case it's hard to miss), requires no stat investment and works well with everything. And even without Power Within, you have more than enough firepower to make the game pretty easy.
Naturally you can't kill the earlier bosses so easily, but once you get Logan's spells you should be around that power level. The main point isn't that spells can kill bosses fast, it's that they can kill bosses beyond the range at which they can effectively threaten you. That's why spells are easy.
Operating under the assumption that the player will find anything in particular ASAP is retarded. My first playthrough I did blighttown in reverse because I didn't find the depths after Capra (it's easy to miss on your way in when you tunnel vision on the fog door, and I left via homeward spell) and never found the second ember for normal upgrades. I also never found dusk (how the fuck would you find her? who the fuck explores an area they've already explored that was completely fucking empty? Especially since it's behind 50 leagues of water.) I also never found Gwyndolin (didn't realize the thing wasn't at the bottom already) or the pyro witch, or the great hollow. I did the painted world as soon as I got there, and fought Sif before the iron giant. I also missed pretty much all of the npc summons.
It is very very easy to take a route besides the optimal one, and even easier to miss something entirely. Assuming that everyone who plays a sorceror will beeline for new londo and run over to a fucking cliff instead of one of the other half dozen routes they could take is retarded. I happened to find logan myself, but I can easily imagine someone missing out on him, which would leave you utterly fucked. The only major help you're basically guaranteed to find is Andre; you need to go to Sen's eventually, and his smithing sounds are very obvious the second you walk into the building. And even then, you could never go near him until you've rang both bells, killed sif, pinwheel and god knows what else. I died a dozen times before I ever found the undead burg because I found the paths to new londo and the catacombs first, and they didn't seem outright impossible.
People who say magic is OP looked up a guide on how to run around with 2 different spell buffing items and a red tearstone ring while at 20% hp, and they already know where everything is so they don't get one shot themselves when they walk past a pillar with 50hp. Most people would end up with the dragon crest ring and thats it. And they wouldn't have the souls for it until some time around anor londo (right when logan wants you to dump 100k on new spells, go figure)
Griggs and the smith in New Londo should be almost impossible to miss. The smith is literally in the starting location of the game, how do you not explore your starting location? If you can't find him then you are literally incompetent. Griggs should be impossible to miss unless you took the thief key and are sequence breaking. In which case, you know you are sequence breaking and if you aren't incompetent you know to go back and check for things you missed on other paths. Everything else is just a bonus really, those two will provide what you need (though you should find most of the others).
You sound like the degenerate kind of consoletard dev who is so worried that someone somewhere might screw up that they put in handholding tutorials everywhere. Exploring your surroundings fully before moving on is basic stuff. The only excuse acceptable is for characters like Dusk with semi-complex triggers for their appearance.
i do remember my first blind run as a sorcerer and it was fuckin hard.
