From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Multidirectional]

Dark Souls 2 seemed harder than first one to me on first run, but then I never used spears. If you found it too easy you should definitely go for DLCs, they are significantly more challenging. It's my most played entry in the series because of best online aspect. Can't even finish Dark Souls 3 to this day, something about it doesn't click for me.

 

[Elwro]

DS2 dlcs are definitely worth it. And if you liked the pvp aspect then there are some bosses tailored for coop!

 

[Hyperion]

Looking Glass Knight is a highly unappreciated boss and really deserves a shout out. Its invasion mechanic didn't always work out that well, but my goodness when it did, what a rush it could be. Infuriating being assraped by a boss + a human player, but oh-so-satisfying if you kill the boss anyway. Just a giant middle finger in that phantom's face.

And I'd 4th the DLC thing. Absolutely a must-play if you're a Souls guy.

 

[Mozg]

LGK is also a really good fight on an SL1 run, setting aside his player invasion gimmick. His stats and HP aren't really good enough to stand up to the typical character at that point in the game so you just kind of speedbump over him normally, but it's a good boss design around the gimmick of an impenetrable tower shield causing you to bounce unless you to plan to get on his undefended side or just sneak swings in based on their animation. Plus the NPC phantom stages of the fight.

 

[Jasede]

That LGK didn't summon anything on my playthrough, neither NPC nor PC... I think I may have done too much damage too quickly?

I wanted to PVP a bit so I made a new character and speedran to the chariot because I wanted to use a scythe, so I killed Tichy for his. Then I noticed it requires Int and Faith. I was a bandit...
Well, no problem, I will buy a Great Scythe then! ...

Oh, only he sells them and they rarely drop from spiders.
So now I am waiting for his tombstone to appear.

By the way, invading is SO much fun, though kind of pointless. I sincerely wish I didn't have to farm Cracked Red Eye Orbs.
Also, by some miracle, I have only been stabbed while bowing (my own fault, you can roll out of it) three or four times in the 45 hours or so I spent on the game so far. Also, thanks to the Humble Monthly, online activity is crazy right now. PVP every minute, always someone to invade or duel. It's a great PVP game.

Somewhat off-topic, but: is it just me or is armor useless again? I have gotten way more out of increasing Vigor than from wearing armor. Essentially it appears you can wear whatever you think looks good, or maybe take 1 or maybe 2 hits more if you throw on some heavy armor. But that can't possibly be worth the shorter roll distance...

Currently rocking the Tseldora + Nahr Alma set and a Covetous Silver Serpent Ring. I am drowning in souls. I am like level 70 and I have been playing this character for an hour or two maximum. Also helped a few people kill the Pursuer when you first meet him.


You know, replaying a Souls game after you beat it once is such a gratifying experience. Once you learned the patterns and the timings, you can kill everything naked with weapons you can find five minutes into the game with ease.

 

[Hyperion]

I sincerely wish I didn't have to farm Cracked Red Eye Orbs.

Don't you get one as a reward for winning a duel when using the Arena statues by Tichy? May not be an Invasion, but at least it's PvP based on SL instead of memory.

Edit: Great Machetes and the Bone Scythe are other Reaper options for you, but they're Strength scaling, not Dex.

 

[Jasede]

I am doing a quality build so I don't mind what scaling, as long as it's STR and/or DEX.

And yeah, my naked spear dude has 99 Orbs because of duels. Getting 50 points was... quite hard. Who the fuck has time to get 500, lolmao? That's insane, you need like infinite time. Getting 50 points took me... like 8 hours straight and my winrate was very, very good, something like 75%.

 

[Arnust]

Spoiler

Did a Havel sketch. I call it "In Memory of Poise"

 

[Akratus]

The Dragontooth club looks like it will snap off, but other than that it's pretty sweet.

 

[Silva]

Doing another run of DS on PC, I felt the game kinda floaty with the "frames unlocked" option of DSfix on. Turned it off and the game was much more "grounded". Weird, didn't noticed it before.

 

[Arnust]

The Dragontooth club looks like it will snap off, but other than that it's pretty sweet.

Proportion isn't my strength, not when I'm only using a vague idea of the model. Just look at the helm, heh.

 

[Akratus]

The Dragontooth club looks like it will snap off, but other than that it's pretty sweet.

Proportion isn't my strength, not when I'm only using a vague idea of the model. Just look at the helm, heh.

Oh man proportions are a BITCH. Nothing worse than stepping back and realizing shit's not where it's supposed..

 

[Silva]

I think DS1 lost a bit (just a bit) of it's charm to me. Coming straight from a BB playthrough and it feels kinda.. empty? Perhaps I grew accustomed by Bloodborne super dense environments, super dense lore, super dense everything, and here everything is kinda vague.

See, what are those Gargoiles in the roof and why do they attack us in first place? How about that drake? And Taurus Demon, how he got there in first place since through Izalith > Blightown > Depths > Lower Burg > Upper Burg is just IMPOSSIBLE due to it's size? In Bloodborne everything has a "raeson de tre", a meaning (sometimes more than one). And most bosses are foreshadowed in a way that makes you care about them. Gaza, Amelia, Witches, Logarius, Rom, Ebrietas, etc. everything has a place in the tapestry of the game's lore. There's very little filler. Sure, DS1 gets more "meaningful" once you reach Anor Londo, but until that point the game is weirdly empty and some elements seem to be there because it's a game, not because what would realistic happen in the situation (those early bosses mainly).

Or maybe this "emptiness" is part of the magic that made it my personal favorite, and now I just need to recalibrate coming from BB.

*fake edit: DS3 seem to have followed BB in this respect and made the world more "meaningful"/less vague since the beginning, besides bombarding you with more lore since the start. Though I think it exagerated and all this lore feels disjointed in various parts (specially when it references DS2 elements). DIdn't play Ringed City yet though, maybe it wraps it all nicely.

 

[praetor]

Silva

"raison d'etre"

and i think the emptiness is part of the magic. it's a dying world, after all, where even the gods are on the verge of dying (). the understatedness (sp?), the kind of "subtlety" (as much as can the word be used in an action game ), the meaningful emptiness (dear god i sound like a fucking hipster. kill me now) is what gives the game its strange beauty

 

[Jasede]

Being a melancholy person makes DeS and DS like ten times better. The Majula theme, too. Sadly DS2's environments do not really have that sadness anymore. And DS3 is just pretty and awe-inspiring (did you know awful used to mean awe-inspiring before its usage changed?) but I don't feel any emptiness or sadness in it either and it bums me out. Everything is too ... cluttered. I'd have appreciated more quiet time. (Not a bad game by any means, don't get me wrong.)

 

[Hyperion]

DS2 is, imo, the most melancholy of the bunch. It's less about traversing and trying to revive a dead world, and more about the effect of the Hollowing on humans. Far more personal in that regard. Lucatiel is a great example of that process of degradation, while Vendrick gives you that "before using meth" and "after using meth" effect.

Vendrick destroyed the giants (not without the help of our time traveling chosen undead, of course), and sought the crowns to battle the hollowing, but (probably) failed because Nashandra found him. He's no pussy, but you still see the husk of a once great man.

What's most interesting is Vendrick actually suggests 'hollow' is the true nature of man when you obtain 2, and then 3 DLC crowns.

"Shadow is not cast, but born of fire.
And, the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow.
Inherit fire, and harness the Dark.
Such is the calling of a true leader…"


"One day, fire will fade, and Dark will become a curse.
Men will be free from death, left to wander eternally.
Dark will again be ours, and in our true shape…
We can bury the false legends of yore… Only…
Is this our only choice?
Seeker of fire, coveter of the throne.
Seek strength.
The rest will follow…"​

Sounds to me like Vendrick (and his brother, Aldia) knows we're fucked, and doomed to be Hollow no matter what happens, but wanted to fight the good fight anyway. DS1 allows you to 'sin,' and light the fire at the cost of your own life, like Gwyn. Before the DLC, DS2 allows you to take the throne and control the giants...while facing the inevitability of hollowing. In Scholar, you obtain all 3 Crowns and fight off Hollowing, but only for 1 person. Unless you can carry the flame within you to preserve humanity, you're left both alone and aware. Pretty damn depressing.

Oh, and the Shaded Woods into Tseldora is all animals, and demi-humans. Most likely a dumping ground for Aldia's failed experiments towards obtaining immortality or whatever. Pretty sadistic shit.

 

[Silva]

One sad part in DS3 is when you give the eyes to the firekeeper. The music changes and all. It made me feel bad for wanting to put down the flame.

But yeah, Majula is the strongest one regarding the consequences of hollowing. It's fave hub of the series due to its emotional punch.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I understood that hollowing / the undead curse is a side effect of lighting the flame.
To me, this whole undead curse thing is due to not letting the dark take its curse, and trying to stop the natural order. When Gwyn linked the flame, he disrupted that order and that resulted in the clusterfuck we have now.
So basically, the gods ruined everything. Nice tits tho.

 

[Black Angel]

So basically, the gods ruined everything. Nice tits tho.

But the tits is a lie >:

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Doesn't matter, gimme those illusory tits.
It does beg the question though...are Gwynevere's tits really that big, or does Gwyndolin have some sort of sister complex?

 

[Hyperion]

Huh, interesting. Isn't this what Yuria suggests in DaS3 as well? That hollowing is the true face of humanity.

Just looked it up, since I remember nothing of DS3 lore. She calls it the most 'honest,' which could be understood as true form.

I understood that hollowing / the undead curse is a side effect of lighting the flame.

The pygmy, much like Gwyn, shattered his souls into pieces. From that rose humanity. Humanities in DS1 are fragments of the pygmy's Dark Soul. Kaathe tells you Gwyn used his soul to light the flame because he was a huge pussy and was scared of humanity. I would imagine the Age of Fire created humans the way we understand them?

He basically fucked with the course of nature to try and extend the power of he and his bros.

I don't read manga, but from what I understand DS shamelessly apes Berserk like it's nobody's business. In my very limited knowledge, Berserk uses 'dark' or 'black' for Guts, who is essentially the 'good guy.' DS1 and 2 sorta hint to you that you're probably better off letting The Age of Dark come for men. DS3 changed that a little bit, especially in the Ringed City, when you start to see more and more of the effects of the Abyss.

Starting to think the only truly good bros in the entire series are Seigward and Yhorm, and the Undead's best bro Benhart.

 

[Suicidal]

Decided to make a video out of my DS1 adventures after some of my friends and coworkers couldn't shut the fuck up about how this is the best game ever made and that I'll never beat it because it's too hard.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It isn't that hard though. Dark Souls was never about difficulty. The only reason why everyone kept hyping up the difficulty was because it was released at a time when games held your hand and were quite linear, and that reputation stuck.
Compared to DS2 and onwards, it really isn't that hard in retrospect.

 

[Jasede]

Plus, the marketing. There were ads on TV about how you need to git gud. Anyone who actually knows a bit about games knows that bullet hell shmups, arcade fighting games, many turn-based strategy games, lots of puzzle games, and, of course, pure action games like Devil May Cry are most definitely more difficult - they simply aren't advertised as such. Dark Souls is just a normal (at the time above-average) difficulty game with no difficulty select and a relatively harsh (at the time) death penalty; we'd have laughed into our cups about it during NES days!

(Note: not saying it is easy.)

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Plus, the marketing. There were ads on TV about how you need to git gud. Anyone who actually knows a bit about games knows that bullet hell shmups, arcade fighting games, many turn-based strategy games, lots of puzzle games, and, of course, pure action games like Devil May Cry are most definitely more difficult - they simply aren't advertised as such. Dark Souls is just a normal (at the time above-average) difficulty game with no difficulty select and a relatively harsh (at the time) death penalty; we'd have laughed into our cups about it during NES days!

(Note: not saying it is easy.)

Yeah, Namco Bandai took advantage of that, and pushed From to add more bullshit in the later games to sell more copies. Everything unfair, tedious and cheesy about DS2? Well, you can blame the hype for that.