From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Wunderbar]

The worst of which is how to save Solaire, that one absolutely makes zero sense whatsoever and you are meant to be able to save him, he has dialogue and can become a useless summon for Gwyn if you save him. You need to kill a specific monster where Solaire is going to spawn to stop him from getting the sunlight maggot. There is no way to have previous knowledge of how to do this whatsoever. The only way to save him on a blind playthrough is to be obsessed with the chaos covenant and unlock the shortcut wasting so much humanity on a useless covenant and ending up killing the mob before you reach the fail state for Solaire. That's the very definition of RANDOM.

nah, you're not meant to able to save him. It's just another way to solve his questline for NG+.

Solaire going crazy and getting killed - feels horrible, but at the same time kinda fitting in the grim world of the game.
Solaire not going crazy and just ranting in the dark cave - feels incomplete. Yeah, you can summon him for Gwyn, but he have no special lines during that encounter.

 

[Newfag-er]

Years of shitposting online must've made you drink your own kool-aid. Here's a little hint: people that are actually good at something generally don't say things like "git gud, bra". Which is why I am pretty certain all of you claiming how easy that or this boss is are full of shit, and probably took 300 times to beat every single boss after reading/watching every walkthrough. But hey, if you want to keep bragging like a lil kid, keep doing it. At the end of the day, YOU know how many times you died, and nothing you say will change that.

That might be true Porky, but I only died to Pinwheel twice

 

[newtmonkey]

PorkyThePaladin
Everyone has bosses they find difficult that others consider easy, so there's nothing wrong with having trouble with Pinwheel. I had a ton of trouble with the Gravetender boss fight in DS3 (even with a character that was completely overleveled at that point), whereas most people have no problem at all with that fight. I think the people busting your chops about it are doing so with a "laughing with you rather than laughing at you" mindset, so there's no need to get defensive.

Having said that, Pinwheel is ridiculously underpowered considering the point in the game where the majority of players will encounter him, almost to the point where some people thought early on that the boss was bugged or something. I think that is why people are being somewhat brutal about it. The typical experience is to stumble upon the boss, kill it in a few hits, expect a difficult second form or something, and then go "... that's it?"

 

[Atomkilla]

Everyone has bosses they find difficult that others consider easy, so there's nothing wrong with having trouble with Pinwheel.

This is so true. Quelaag is a nightmare for me to this day.

 

[toro]

Everyone has bosses they find difficult that others consider easy, so there's nothing wrong with having trouble with Pinwheel.

This is so true. Quelaag is a nightmare for me to this day.

It's funny because it's only in your mind.

 

[Atomkilla]

Everyone has bosses they find difficult that others consider easy, so there's nothing wrong with having trouble with Pinwheel.

This is so true. Quelaag is a nightmare for me to this day.

It's funny because it's only in your mind.

True, true, and admittedly it's funny.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

See, people can't even read and do basic math, and then they claim to have SKILLZ.

That might be true Porky, but I only died to Pinwheel twice

And I said in the original post that I beat him on 3rd or 4th try. Now, if you engage in basic arithmetic, if I beat him on 3rd try, that would imply that I also died to him twice.

PorkyThePaladin
Everyone has bosses they find difficult that others consider easy, so there's nothing wrong with having trouble with Pinwheel.

And where did I say that I had trouble with him? I beat him on 3rd or 4th try, once again. That is pretty easy stuff, except to online nerds who pretend to have beat every boss in DS on the first attempt, and then expect me not to laugh at them. Case in point:

I've written previously that the only Dark Souls enemy I had much trouble with on my first playthrough was the Gaping Dragon, who is generally considered an easier boss.
On the other hand, I beat Capra Demon on my second try (was stunlocked by the dogs on my first attempt) and triumphed over Ornstein & Smough on my first attempt (with Solaire summoned).

Ok there, e-Achilles. You'll excuse me if I have my doubts.

 

[Deflowerer]

Nah, it can come down to luck. I beat both Ornstein and Capra on second attempt as well. On Ornstein, my last hit connected a second before Smough's and since I had no Estus as well, it would've been the end of me.

It is true for many Souls bosses though is that if you play passively for a minute or two, you get a pretty good sense of the patterns.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Capra always takes me like 20 tries. And PorkyThePaladin, having trouble with Gaping Dragon is also pretty unbelievable once you've gotten gud enough to be able to observe its movement and attack patterns, but that didn't stop me from dying like crazy to it on my first playthrough.

I think it's something about the cutscene that kicks the fight off, and the sheer size of the thing. Still one of my favourite bosses, just for the "oh shit" factor.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

... Pinwheel tho

 

[Atomkilla]

Capra is one of the few bosses in DS1 that are downright crap. Like, the boss itself is fine, even the dogs are fine as a temporary nuisance, but that intro through the fog combined with the poorly designed arena really make a shitty experience.
Besides, what's the deal with Capra? He's just chilling around in one of the random back alleys of Undead Burg for no reason at all? I get it, Taurus and Capra Demon came to the neighborhood and have been misbehaving a bit, but with Taurus you get the sense of what it has been doing. Up on that tower, near the Parish, he was probably trying to get "deeper", to scout the place for whatever reason before you surprised him so the demon jumps at you - but Capra? He's just chilling there with the dogs and doing absolutely nothing. Oh sure, he's keeping the key to the Depths, but why?

Poor boss design if we don't count the aesthetics.

 

[L'Montes]

Having said that, Pinwheel is ridiculously underpowered considering the point in the game where the majority of players will encounter him, almost to the point where some people thought early on that the boss was bugged or something. I think that is why people are being somewhat brutal about it. The typical experience is to stumble upon the boss, kill it in a few hits, expect a difficult second form or something, and then go "... that's it?"

I think he gets a bad rap.

To me the actual issue might not be that "Dark Souls players are SOOOO good that they stomp the boss", but rather:
"Dark Souls players are SUCH pussies that they wuss out of going down to the catacombs as their first or second boss."

In short, I think you can make a case for it being a plausible early option for a starting player. In that context, I don't think Pinwheel is too easy, rather, his HP/tactics would on the level for a "first boss" you're fighting with an un-upgraded Mace or whatever. At least, Compared to Taurus or Moonlight Butterfly or some of the other "first" options. That, or possibly some of the difficulty is meant to be short resources, since getting banged around by wheel skeletons or figuring out the reviving skeleton trick might take some effort for a genuinely new player.

You're rewarded with a difficulty release valve of sorts (Kindling), some interesting loot, introduced to Patches, and you get a mask that provides a passive bonus (relatively unusual in DS1).

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Capra always takes me like 20 tries. And PorkyThePaladin, having trouble with Gaping Dragon is also pretty unbelievable once you've gotten gud enough to be able to observe its movement and attack patterns, but that didn't stop me from dying like crazy to it on my first playthrough.

I think it's something about the cutscene that kicks the fight off, and the sheer size of the thing. Still one of my favourite bosses, just for the "oh shit" factor.

Funny you should mention the gaping dragon. I just killed him a few minutes ago. On 3rd try.

Gotta agree about the cutscene, it's perfect. The small head making you think it's some lizard or croc, and then the rest of it rises up. I almost shat myself. The fight itself, once you clean up the underwear is fairly straightforward. The first two times I died because i strafed to his right, and each time after a while, he grabbed me in his front paw and shoved me into his gape-hole. That does pretty massive damage. Not sure if the grab is dodgeable, but it comes really fast without tells.

So third time, I went to his left, and tried staying behind and to the left, and kept shoving my sword up his butt, rolling away as needed, and repeating. Worked pretty well.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think he gets a bad rap.

To me the actual issue might not be that "Dark Souls players are SOOOO good that they stomp the boss", but rather:
"Dark Souls players are SUCH pussies that they wuss out of going down to the catacombs as their first or second boss."

In short, I think you can make a case for it being a plausible early option for a starting player. In that context, I don't think Pinwheel is too easy, rather, his HP/tactics would on the level for a "first boss" you're fighting with an un-upgraded Mace or whatever. At least, Compared to Taurus or Moonlight Butterfly or some of the other "first" options. That, or possibly some of the difficulty is meant to be short resources, since getting banged around by wheel skeletons or figuring out the reviving skeleton trick might take some effort for a genuinely new player.

You're rewarded with a difficulty release valve of sorts (Kindling), some interesting loot, introduced to Patches, and you get a mask that provides a passive bonus (relatively unusual in DS1).

The problem with this is that the skeletons are more dangerous than the silver knights in anor londo. They definitely fucked up the difficulty curve in there. Especially since the skellies drop fuck all for souls AND the catacombs are full of traps. New londo is an easier first area by far, and that place is still pretty dicks.

That said, if you know the shortcut, you can go through the catacombs after getting past like 2 skellies and fight pinwheel for the rite of kindling and a stupid amount of souls hilariously fast.

 

[Jezal_k23]

The Catacombs themselves are definitely difficult early in the game and obviously not meant for a player in the early game. Pinwheel is obviously meant for a player in the early game. So yeah they did somehow manage to fuck this up.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I'd say that the wheel skeletons are the real boss of that area.

 

[L'Montes]

They're much easier, I would say, than the skeletons in 4-1 (often considered a viable starting point, the same as all the first stages in Demon's). I'd also disagree that they're in any way harder than the silver knights. At least by pure stats, they're both easier to block with a shield in terms of stamina drain and take fewer hits to drop. They also fall to the floor if you smack them with blunt objects (and there's that free morning star in Firelink).

It's mostly the revival mechanic that can be tricky to deal with, however, even without a holy weapon, you'll find the early ones eager to suicide by jumping into pits with their psycho-crusher attack. Moving slowly, and methodically makes it not terribly difficult for unleveled characters without holy weapons to get through there (can be an object lesson in learning to use kick too). A basic ranged weapon of any flavor (say, from the Undead Burg) is sufficient to easily kill the necros with literally zero skill/timing, who have practically no HP. At least some grasp of the mechanics makes it not too hard to rush them. The necros are mostly at the start of their areas too, meaning you put a few wooden arrows/bolts in them before having to spend much time dealing with their respective sets of skeletons.

Another consideration I think is the bonfires. Remember how people complain about Dark Souls 2 and 3 sometimes and say they have "TOO MANY BONFIRES", and it makes it too easy? Coming from Firelink, you have a whopping 3 bonfires in the Catacombs BEFORE Pinwheel (two pre-remaster). They're very generous about it (and that's not counting the Gravelord bonfire).

I would say, the hardest part of the Catacombs is getting to the first bonfire as a newer player (reviving skeletons first there), and evading the bonewheels on the way to the boss. Assuming you drop down on ledges and are in human form though, Leeroy trivializes the bonewheels (and Pinwheel - he's basically a cheese NPC, similar to Beatrice for Moonlight).

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Ok there, e-Achilles. You'll excuse me if I have my doubts.

I'm not particularly good at this sort of game, but I had prior experience in Demon's Souls, and I attempt to play these games as much like an RPG as possible, which is to say taking my time to explore, being careful, and minimizing my number of deaths. For Ornstein & Smough, I had summoned Solaire, who engaged with Ornstein. Since it seemed prudent to focus on eliminating one of the two, I also attacked Ornstein while evading Smough, which ended the first phase of the fight quickly. In the second phase against giant Smough, Solaire soon perished, and I nearly died when fighting Smough in melee. At this point, I backed away, kept a broken column between myself and Smough, switched to the bow, and opportunistically whittled away Smough's health with arrows until I had won the battle.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Coming from Firelink, you have a whopping 3 bonfires in the Catacombs BEFORE Pinwheel (two pre-remaster).

What, the remaster added more bonfires? But the catacombs were nearly perfect in that respect! I was hugely relieved when I found the first one, and the second one is more of a hidden bonus than anything, so many players would go through the whole thing without finding it. Shit, I'm glad I didn't buy the remaster.

 

[L'Montes]

Coming from Firelink, you have a whopping 3 bonfires in the Catacombs BEFORE Pinwheel (two pre-remaster).

What, the remaster added more bonfires? But the catacombs were nearly perfect in that respect! I was hugely relieved when I found the first one, and the second one is more of a hidden bonus than anything, so many players would go through the whole thing without finding it. Shit, I'm glad I didn't buy the remaster.

It's one of the only actual changes to the "world" in the remaster actually. They added a bonfire next to Vamos, so there's the top one by the first necro, the secret wall one by Patches, and one down on the ground floor by the smith.

The new Vamos one is warpable I think, post-Lord Vessel, unless I'm mistaken.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Coming from Firelink, you have a whopping 3 bonfires in the Catacombs BEFORE Pinwheel (two pre-remaster).

What, the remaster added more bonfires? But the catacombs were nearly perfect in that respect! I was hugely relieved when I found the first one, and the second one is more of a hidden bonus than anything, so many players would go through the whole thing without finding it. Shit, I'm glad I didn't buy the remaster.

It's one of the only actual changes to the "world" in the remaster actually. They added a bonfire next to Vamos, so there's the top one by the first necro, the secret wall one by Patches, and one down on the ground floor by the smith.

The new Vamos one is warpable I think, post-Lord Vessel, unless I'm mistaken.

Oh yeah, so it's just a convenience feature, that makes sense. They patched in the bonfire in the old parish post-release too, IIRC. That makes it less egregious, but I still think more bonfires is the last thing any Dark Souls game needs.

 

[L'Montes]

For people that didn't play from release, most of the games have had some pretty big changes post-release in patches. The extra warp points always struck me as an interesting one.

A single Dark Souls 1 patch for example http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/11/23/whats-changed-in-dark-souls-patch-105-2

Equipment General Changes:

Reported some weapon scaling gets improved at higher normal upgrades (+15 uchi dex scaling goes to A).
Some scaling reported as changing from A to S with higher upgrades.

Upgrade Changes:

Normal scaling buffed by 5-20% (20% at +14).
Crystal scaling buffed by 5-20% (20% at +4).
Lightning +4 nerfed by 2% (+5 remains unchanged).
Raw scaling buffed by 10% (all levels).
Magic stat scaling buffed by 10-20% (20% at +9).
Enchanted stat scaling buffed by 15-20% (20% at +4).
Divine stat scaling buffed by 10-20% (20% at +9).
Occult stat scaling buffed by 15-20% (20% at +4).
Fire +9 nerfed by 2%. (+5 remains unchanged)
Dragon stat scaling buffed by 5-20% (20% at +5).

Reading between the lines, you can see why a lot of those patch changes happened (lots of big ones in that patch, like the defense reduction for stored humanity).

Dark Souls 2 also eviscerated miracles with a famous "mistaken" patch note saying they were getting a buff to compensate. And so on. The evolution of the balance/mechanics in these games is kinda interesting, sometimes misplaced imho (they never seem to nerf subtly).

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Just beat Queelag for the first time. Tough fight compared to most other bosses I've faced so far (except maybe Capra Demon). I started meleeing her, but between the lava pools her 8 legged horse shits out everywhere, and the back-blast from its ass and sides when you try to flank it, and the huge size compared to the tiny hitbox, it was just a nightmare.

So I said fuck it, and switched to my longbow. That worked better, but still, I had to die a bunch of times to learn when to dodge her fire-sword, how to side step lava etc.

That Knight asshole in the Asylum lied to me. I rang both bells, and still don't know shit. Oh well, at least 2 new areas opened up. Damn snakemen...

 

[racofer]

Just you wait...

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Ah, you reached Sen's? You'll soon get to see the Amazing Chest.