From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Lutte]

Is this Dex need true for what games exactly? Because I just finished Thief builds in both DS1 and DS3 and I didn't feel it. Dex was pretty strong.

Only Dark Souls 2. And dex weapons are not inherently bad, it's dex scaling as the stat that is terrible shit. You can even still use the rapier just effectively on a STR build with just bare minimum DEX on your char to fit the weapon requirement. A letter D on STR is like a letter B on DEX. Pretty much the only weapon class that justifies investing in dex is going full Katana.

I also played DS3 mostly through a dex build I have nothing bad to say about this. If anything Dark Souls 3 made Dex builds not just equal but overpowered compared to STR. Multi-hits twinblade types like the sellsword, paired with the pontiff ring and a morion blade or old wolf curved sword staying at your back, along with the carthus buff, will destroy literally any boss in the game. The cumulative damage buffs from keeping pressure on the enemy reaches insanity. Pure dex is the way to go for a peaceful run of the game, and the best buff, Carthus Beacon, only requires 12int/12faith. DS3 makes high investment spell sword type builds kinda pointless compared to the previous games, and I don't feel heavy weapons are as useful with the rhythm of the game.

If you're curious why DS2 has that quirk with the dex stat compared to the other games : they wanted to make DEX a stat mostly for improving your bleeds and poisons. Upping dex ups your ability to bleed and they cut down on the damage scaling because they probably thought it was balanced. Unfortunately bleed and poison builds are useless shit.

In Dark Souls 3 they made up a new stat relevant for bleed bonus : Luck.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Best part of STR builds is winding up a full r2 and hitting someone even harder than a backstab. Being able to ignore parrying with heavy weapons is great too, and just smashing down shields instead of fucking around.

I always felt like dex builds deserved more damage per stamina to begin with, since they give up a lot of other advantages, and most of them aren't much faster in terms of windows to score hits, rapier notwithstanding.

 

[Lutte]

Best part of STR builds is winding up a full r2 and hitting someone even harder than a backstab. Being able to ignore parrying with heavy weapons is great too, and just smashing down shields instead of fucking around.

I always felt like dex builds deserved more damage per stamina to begin with, since they give up a lot of other advantages, and most of them aren't much faster in terms of windows to score hits, rapier notwithstanding.

There's a few dex weapons with the shield breaking weapon art too. The Lothric Knight Straight Sword infused with a sharp gem is an excellent dex scaling weapon for dealing with regular enemies while exploring the world. It's pretty much the baller swag sword of DS1 being brought back to life. Except that this time, you don't have to spend the fucking billion hours of farming to get it (this is something about DS1 I will never, ever miss)

 

[80Maxwell08]

While I'm building this character here, what are some good/fun powerstancing weapons? I haven't touched that mechanic at all my whole time playing DS2.

 

[Wunderbar]

While I'm building this character here, what are some good/fun powerstancing weapons? I haven't touched that mechanic at all my whole time playing DS2.

dual maces

 

[Talby]

Dark Souls Remastered.jpg

 

[newtmonkey]

I watched "Dark Souls 2 Critique" from Matthewmatosis, which was fine, but now Youtube has flooded my Youtube start page with a bunch of freaks responding back and forth about how they are wrong about this is fun, that is not fun. And of course, there is a point at the beginning where every single one of them says something like, "... now, my goal is to do this full time, and if you are interested in seeing that happen, please consider donating to my Patreon so that I can quit my job and do this as a career." LOL what. How long do these people think the Souls gravy train will last, that they believe they can fucking retire on bitchy Dark Souls videos

 

[cvv]

Dark Souls Remastered.jpg

 

[toro]

I feel low killing Sif

 

[Jezal_k23]

Think of the nice coat his fur would make!

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Playing Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition (rather aptly named). Got a question about Black Knights.

I started with the Undead Burg (after the Asylum), cleared it out and killed the Taurus demon. I am playing a Dexterity based Dark Wanderer with a scimitar/starting round shield and a spear for some bosses.

So I am able to parry/counterarrack all the regular undead without any issues, got the timing down cold. But the Black Knight in the basement of Undead Burg is giving me fits. I don't know what it is, but his animations don't seem to match his attacks or something. I try to shield parry based on when it looks his attacks will land (same as with regular undead), and the parry never triggers.

I read on the wiki that I should watch his hand instead of the weapon, but it's kinda hard to see and follow. Also people suggest face-hugging him so you are not out of range for parrying, but if I come close to him, it messes the camera, and then I can't see his movement well.

Suggestions?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

You might just need a shield with better parry frames.

 

[Lutte]

I don't know what it is, but his animations don't seem to match his attacks or something. I try to shield parry based on when it looks his attacks will land (same as with regular undead), and the parry never triggers.

Hint: don't watch the weapon, watch the hands that holds them. It's when the hands look like they too could hit you that parrying is best triggered. When the black knight looks like he's going to give you the pimp hand (imagine the same animation but without seeing the weapon he's holding) that's when you should fire parry.

Dark Souls 1 is the only game where I can reliably parry with any shield, even medium shields with low parry frames, because it just works. All parryable attacks work on the same timing and overall visual indication of the hands. There's no need for bucklers. DS1 is remarkably consistent on this point.. but maybe to a fault because anything that can be parried in the game is a fucking joke once you understand parries.. making the final boss parryable was the biggest joke possible.

 

[toro]

I lost 15+ humanities and all my Transient Curses trying to kill Four Kings with a +10 Claymore. I simply could not do enough damage and I lost the fight twice at one hit remaining. I could handle one King but not two.

Got angry, upgraded Claymore to +15 Lightning and went back. Easy mode.

Anyway, got into Darkwraith covenant and I found out that ... I'm a despicable human being

Absolutely no honor, I killed 2 guys right in front of O&S fog gate, I killed people fighting mobs or even talking with the blacksmith. The only fights I lost are to Dark Bead users, Scythe users and ganks. I only spared one guy in Havel which gave me 2 Humanities

I don't know but PvP seems viable with my stupid build: Level 45, Vig and End pumped up. I can even wear the Favor Set. The thing is: Claymore two-handed moveset is great for PvP: thrust followed by slash. At least it works with most players which are not PvP experts.

But then I found something even worse: disconnecting losers (one guy disconnected 3 times on me) and summons for O&S. I mean you have to be special to summon phantoms for the best fight int the game (vanilla at least). I hate those guys.

Well, at least I have some fun until the servers are dead again.

 

[agentorange]

I watched "Dark Souls 2 Critique" from Matthewmatosis, which was fine, but now Youtube has flooded my Youtube start page with a bunch of freaks responding back and forth about how they are wrong about this is fun, that is not fun. And of course, there is a point at the beginning where every single one of them says something like, "... now, my goal is to do this full time, and if you are interested in seeing that happen, please consider donating to my Patreon so that I can quit my job and do this as a career." LOL what. How long do these people think the Souls gravy train will last, that they believe they can fucking retire on bitchy Dark Souls videos

It always baffled me how so many of these Souls videos exist. Most games treat the player like a retard and overload the game with so much trite exposition to coddle the player and ensure they doesn't miss a single detail, then a game like Souls treats the player like they have a brain and crafts a story/world that is suitably vague but still able to be figured out if the player pays attention--and what do people but go online and look at the youtube video equivalent of cliff notes. It shouldn't aggravate me as much as it does but, like in your example, I tend to listen to video game music on youtube or watch speedruns so now youtube has categorized me in a way that I am shown fucking loads of these "video game theory" videos including a seemingly endless supply of Souls related ones.

 

[L'Montes]

I watched "Dark Souls 2 Critique" from Matthewmatosis, which was fine, but [...] How long do these people think the Souls gravy train will last, that they believe they can fucking retire on bitchy Dark Souls videos

-and what do people but go online and look at the youtube video equivalent of cliff notes. It shouldn't aggravate me as much as it does but, like in your example, I tend to listen to video game music on youtube or watch speedruns so now youtube has categorized me in a way that I am shown fucking loads of these "video game theory" videos including a seemingly endless supply of Souls related ones.

There's a range of videos. There's a subset of people that featured the souls-games early on, and they got some minor notoriety in the process. Epicnamebro comes to mind, but he and a few others wound being contracted to work/write on some of the strategy guides. Various "famous" early PvPers had enough of a following that Namco felt like inviting them to events. Part of that whole social media "influencer" type thing that seems more common now.

I think as soon as some people started seeing the success/free-shit that some of the early streamer/youtubers were getting, they all wanted to get in on that. Part of that is the obvious "hey look, it's free shit/travel/job-opportunities" element. The other part is that at least some of the early popular people weren't that good. I don't mean they were *bad*, but they weren't great players, they had wildly speculative analysis, mediocre at PvP, etc. The latter part creates one of those itches like an obvious misspelled word on the internet where people just have to show that they know better, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA Matthewmatosis is thoughtful at least, and isn't necessarily a Souls-specific reviewer.

I think the appeal of a lot of the lore videos isn't explaining it necessarily, or rather... it may just be finding validation for your own interpretation. Then you pat yourself on the back in a, "yeah, I already knew that shit, because I'm *brilliant*" kind of way. Some people finish the games without ever looking at an item and while skipping dialog (I have friends that do this). Demon's or Dark Souls 1 might've been too slow, but they play Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3 like it's more of a Devil May Cry kind of game. Then they watch a lore video later on, and it's like, "Oh, so that's what the game was about."

As far as the gravy-train though, there's a subset of players that are really angsty about this. You find them on reddit, gamefaqs, and elsewhere banging a drum for supporting your local PvP streamer, and it's all about those brave souls that keep the game alive after all the noobs have moved on. They deserve your respect for their 57th samey stream/vid doing meta pvp in the same arena months after the population has died down!

Really though, there's been a cottage industry around streaming and making souls-related videos since DS1 at least, and you can tell they're feeling the pinch in the long gap between some titles with nothing new to make a video on ("The significance of the Rubbish item... a 30 minute analysis!"). I can only imagine what they thought when Miyazaki said he was done with souls, or when it was said Sekiro isn't really a "souls" game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Protip for people as aggravated as me by shit youtube sends you: there are options for why you're not interested in a video that help cull your list. It's not perfect by any means (I doubt theres a way to get it to show me more variety for example), but it should be decent enough to get rid of something like lore videos but still send you speedruns and music.

 

[Silva]

I never managed to get the hang of parrying in Dark Souls but I mastered it in Bloodborne. For some reason my brain processes shooting someone in the face better than swinging a shield.

Have you tried target shields in DS? They're almost cheesing level stuff.

About BB, I admit only learning to parry consistently in my 3rd playthrough or something.

 

[Silva]

Anyway, got into Darkwraith covenant and I found out that ... I'm a despicable human being

Absolutely no honor, I killed 2 guys right in front of O&S fog gate, I killed people fighting mobs or even talking with the blacksmith.

 

[toro]

*The sound is from some girl streaming Fallout.

I honestly feel bad killing people with one hit because I know that many of them worked hard to get to this part of the game (I was in their shoes at the beginning) therefore I will stop with this shit.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

OK, I figured out what my issue was with parrying Black Knights.

So first of all, thanks for the advice on the buckler at the Undead Burg Merchant. The DS UI is so horrible because of the console port, I didn't realize he had additional tabs of goods, only ever saw the first tab with consumables. So I bought the buckler, but the Black Knight was still killing me.

Then I saw that the parry animation wasn't triggering at all, so I figured it's not that the shield was bad, but the Black Knight attacks very fast compared to other enemies in DS. So basically with my shitty aging reflexes, if I wait to see his attack begin (whether by watching the weapon move or the hand), it's too late. If I click parry at that moment, his attack hits me before the parry initiates and negates it.

So using my old man brains instead, I figured instead of waiting for him, I should just try to anticipitate his attacks and click parry early, before I actually see him attack. Worked like a charm, parried him 3 times straight and killed his ugly ass. Crispy, there's hope for us yet.

 

[Crispy]

Games are supposed to be fun, not exercises in self-masochism. Don't lump me in with you ever again.

 

[toro]

 

[Talby]

The people who make these silly DS pvp meme videos are the true heroes.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I thought about another thing to bitch about the remastered.

You know how you always have to kill Sif, either because she's protecting her master's grave or because she doesn't want her savior corrupted by the Abyss? You know how no one liked that?
Well, From had an opportunity to easily fix that in the Remastered.
What they could have done is have a third cutscene, where if you have the staff of Manus in your inventory when talking to Sif in the present, she recognizes that you are strong enough to survive the Abyss. You would get the covenant ring and Artorias's Soul (Why would her soul give you Artorias's stuff? Makes more sense if the soul you get was his soul, not the dog's, but anyway) with no fight.
Done, puppy death avoided, fan base happy.
But no, they had to take the path with the least amount of effort, and charge 40 bucks for some minimal graphical improvements and a new bonfire.