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[2 Dark 2 Souls] Sequel imminent... Tears imminent...
Satsumomo
Rated PG!Registered User regular
Rated PG!Registered User regular
Welcome to the Dark Souls thread!
Dark Souls is a hardcore action-RPG by From Software, a spiritual successor to their previous game Demon's Souls. It's also as "difficult" as you've heard it is, but provides an experience that you rarely get in other modern games. But rather than difficult, the game is more unforgiving than just being artificially difficult. You overcome this difficulty by becoming better at the game, not because you increased your stats (Although they do matter!)
There are no difficulty levels and no manual saves, you cannot pause and combat is entirely skill based. By defeating enemies and using certain items you gain souls, which are everything. You use them to level up your character, buy and upgrade items and magic and in certain cases create powerful unique weapons.
As well as souls, there is a secondary resource you'll be collecting called humanity. You start the game as an undead (hollow), weaker and overall less effective than you are in human form. By collecting and spending humanity you can revert yourself back to human form, increasing certain resistances and improving your item discovery rate. Becoming human also allows you to be summoned to and invade other players worlds.
Doesn't sound too bad right? Well let's talk about death. You'll see this a lot. Death is as much a part of Dark Souls as collecting the precious souls themselves. If you die you keep your items but lose all your souls and humanity and leave behind a bloodstain. If you make it back to your bloodstain you can recover them, but die on your way back to your corpse and you lose them for good.
Rush forward with abandon to pick up that shiny item? You're going to die. Let your guard down because you've been through the starting enemies 20 times before? You're going to die. You'll learn to respect death as it starts out by beating you into the ground but then teaches you that every step forward, every dark corner and every closed door in this place demands respect.
Despite the shadow of death following you everywhere you go, there is one place you can gain some respite.
Bonfires are the one place you can rest and restore. You can spend your souls to increase your character stats, repair your weapons and armour and restore a limited number of healing flasks. Spend your humanity here and you can also make them more powerful and have them restore more healing items. Bonfires are also your only checkpoints, as long as you've lit one you will return to it once you die.
Of course it's not that easy. Anytime you touch a bonfire or warp back to one after dying, every enemy you've previously killed respawns ready to take you down again.
So that's Dark Souls. Prepare to die.
Multiplayer
or as we prefer to call it
Co-op
When co-opping in Dark Souls you can either summon players to your world or be a phantom summoned to another's world. To summon you must be human but phantoms can be either human or hollow. The summoning system isn't your normal "invite to game" thing though. In game you throw down a summoning sign and anyone within 10 levels of you can bring you into their world until you die, exit or kill the boss of that area.
PVP and Invading
Although becoming human allows you to summon others to your world when you want, it also opens you up to being invaded by anyone with an easy to obtain consumable item. The invader however doesn't choose what world to invade, it is random but limited to the zone you are currently in. Invasions and PVP can also be initiated by joining certain covenants that hold specific conditions.
Other Online Stuff
If you're not engaging in co-op or PVP, it still pays to play while online. Players can leave messages around the world warning of traps or monsters, giving instructions for hidden items or just being dicks and fucking you over. You'll also see other player's bloodstains throughout the world that show you how they met their maker.
Screenshots
Tips, guides & tricks
DSFix by Durante
Download here!
http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix
DSFix is an amazing tweak for Dark Souls on PC. It will allow you to render the game at higher resolutions, and it includes several other tweaks, such as better lighting, texture mods, save backups, mouse cursor fixes and more. It is highly recommended to use this mod!
NOTE BEFORE INSTALLING DSFIX!
You MUST run the game first without DSFix, and disable the in-game AA option. Otherwise your game will crash on launch.
Here is a small example of the difference between Vanilla and with DSFix:
http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix
DSFix is an amazing tweak for Dark Souls on PC. It will allow you to render the game at higher resolutions, and it includes several other tweaks, such as better lighting, texture mods, save backups, mouse cursor fixes and more. It is highly recommended to use this mod!
NOTE BEFORE INSTALLING DSFIX!
You MUST run the game first without DSFix, and disable the in-game AA option. Otherwise your game will crash on launch.
Here is a small example of the difference between Vanilla and with DSFix:
Playing with a Keyboard + Mouse?
While it is STRONGLY recommended to play with a gamepad (Preferably an X360 gamepad), there are some things you can do to improve your experience when doing KBAM.
Here is a guide, with links to improve KBAM controls in Dark Souls.
Dark Souls Connectivity Fix
DSCfix aims to improve the online experience when attempting to engage in jolly cooperation with friends. It is an interception DLL intended to be used with DSfix and functions by adding any online GFWL friends to your P2P connection pool before searching for random peers. This means that direct connections to friends are established right away, whereas in vanilla Dark Souls this only happens after the first successful summon or invasion (if you were even lucky to get that far).
Download here: http://darksouls.nexusmods.com/mods/334//?
Download here: http://darksouls.nexusmods.com/mods/334//?
Tips for new players (No spoilers, but I'm spoiling it anyways!)
Blendtec's armour guide
Humanity: The number to the left of your health bar, occasionally obtained from defeating enemies. Used to return to human form to summon others, kindle bonfires (5 more estus flask uses) and level up some covenants. Increases item drop rates and Chaos damage (cap at 10).
Endurance: Increases stamina and maximum equip burden. Stamina is used for attacking, blocking, sprinting and rolling – basically everything. Under 25% of your max burden and you can roll freely, 25-50% and your movement speed and roll are slower, 50-100% and you’re much slower and roll heavily with a long animation to get up. Over 100% and you plod ridiculously slowly and can’t roll at all.
40: The stamina hard cap, increasing past this point will only raise your equip burden.
Attunement: Determines how many spell slots you have for all sorceries, miracles and pyromancies.
10/12/14/16/19/23/28/34/41/50: 1-10 spell slots, 4-6 is generally sufficient.
Vitality: Your health. 30-50 is a good number for PvP and NG+.
Strength: Determines whether or not you can swing a weapon or use a shield effectively, increases damage dealt with weapons that scale with it. Multiplied by 1.5x when two handing a weapon.
16: Claymore, Zweihander (two handed), Eagle Shield, Black Knight Shield. The go-to value for non-strength builds.
28: Covers every weapon that might benefit from both dexterity and strength, hits 40 when two handed.
40: Diminishing returns on damage scaling past this point. Can one hand almost everything and two hand everything else.
(51/58/66): Every shield/one hand every weapon/max possible damage two handing (none of these are worth it).
Dexterity: Increases damage for weapons that scale with it, slightly increases casting speed.
18: Lets you use all Black Knight weapons and crossbows.
25: Covers every weapon that has a dexterity requirement to wield at all.
40: Diminishing scaling returns past this point.
(45): Max casting speed (not worth it).
Magic: Requirement for sorceries, increases damage for sorceries and weapons that scale with it (Magic/Enchanted).
10: Let’s you buy spells from the vendor at Firelink and Logan at the Archives, can use some basic utility spells.
Mag 16: Oolacile Catalyst, all utility spells, Dark Beads
Mag 25/32: Crystal Magic Weapon/Tin Crystallisation Catalyst and 5 orbs with the Soul mass spells and the Pursuers dark sorcery
44: Crystal Soul Spear sorcery.
(50): White Dragon Breath sorcery (not really worth it).
Faith: Increases magic defence, requirement for miracles, increases damage for miracles and weapons that scale with it (Blessed/Occult).
18: Emit Force and Homeward utility miracles.
28/30: Wrath of God miracle/Darkmoon and Sunlight Blade weapon buffs.
40: Diminishing returns past this point.
(50): Sunlight Spear (not really worth it).
Resistance: Joke stat, disregard. (Increases poison resistance, and increases defence slightly faster than other stats).
Poise: The most important stat on your armour. Higher poise means that you won’t get staggered when you’re hit by heavier attacks, which is particularly useful in PvP.
40: One hit from most one-handed weapons.
53: One hit from larger weapons (notably the Claymore and its ilk).
76: One hit from very large weapons, eg. Black Knight Greataxe and Zweihander.
Endurance: Increases stamina and maximum equip burden. Stamina is used for attacking, blocking, sprinting and rolling – basically everything. Under 25% of your max burden and you can roll freely, 25-50% and your movement speed and roll are slower, 50-100% and you’re much slower and roll heavily with a long animation to get up. Over 100% and you plod ridiculously slowly and can’t roll at all.
40: The stamina hard cap, increasing past this point will only raise your equip burden.
Attunement: Determines how many spell slots you have for all sorceries, miracles and pyromancies.
10/12/14/16/19/23/28/34/41/50: 1-10 spell slots, 4-6 is generally sufficient.
Vitality: Your health. 30-50 is a good number for PvP and NG+.
Strength: Determines whether or not you can swing a weapon or use a shield effectively, increases damage dealt with weapons that scale with it. Multiplied by 1.5x when two handing a weapon.
16: Claymore, Zweihander (two handed), Eagle Shield, Black Knight Shield. The go-to value for non-strength builds.
28: Covers every weapon that might benefit from both dexterity and strength, hits 40 when two handed.
40: Diminishing returns on damage scaling past this point. Can one hand almost everything and two hand everything else.
(51/58/66): Every shield/one hand every weapon/max possible damage two handing (none of these are worth it).
Dexterity: Increases damage for weapons that scale with it, slightly increases casting speed.
18: Lets you use all Black Knight weapons and crossbows.
25: Covers every weapon that has a dexterity requirement to wield at all.
40: Diminishing scaling returns past this point.
(45): Max casting speed (not worth it).
Magic: Requirement for sorceries, increases damage for sorceries and weapons that scale with it (Magic/Enchanted).
10: Let’s you buy spells from the vendor at Firelink and Logan at the Archives, can use some basic utility spells.
Mag 16: Oolacile Catalyst, all utility spells, Dark Beads
Mag 25/32: Crystal Magic Weapon/Tin Crystallisation Catalyst and 5 orbs with the Soul mass spells and the Pursuers dark sorcery
44: Crystal Soul Spear sorcery.
(50): White Dragon Breath sorcery (not really worth it).
Faith: Increases magic defence, requirement for miracles, increases damage for miracles and weapons that scale with it (Blessed/Occult).
18: Emit Force and Homeward utility miracles.
28/30: Wrath of God miracle/Darkmoon and Sunlight Blade weapon buffs.
40: Diminishing returns past this point.
(50): Sunlight Spear (not really worth it).
Resistance: Joke stat, disregard. (Increases poison resistance, and increases defence slightly faster than other stats).
Poise: The most important stat on your armour. Higher poise means that you won’t get staggered when you’re hit by heavier attacks, which is particularly useful in PvP.
40: One hit from most one-handed weapons.
53: One hit from larger weapons (notably the Claymore and its ilk).
76: One hit from very large weapons, eg. Black Knight Greataxe and Zweihander.
Stats Calculator
A bunch of helpful calculators can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/
A bunch of helpful calculators can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/
Dark Souls II
Dark Souls II is scheduled to release on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in March 2014. No current plans for a next-gen release.
DSII has been extensively shown on the floor at E3 2013, and several journalists have confirmed that the game is just as hard and unforgiving as its predecessor.
Features that have been confirmed:
- Dedicated servers for multiplayer
- 3 weapon slots per character
- Dual wielding
- Projectile deflecting
- Backstabs no longer work as a "grab"
There may be more info, but I am keeping myself in the dark about DS2, I like playing through blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoA
DSII has been extensively shown on the floor at E3 2013, and several journalists have confirmed that the game is just as hard and unforgiving as its predecessor.
Features that have been confirmed:
- Dedicated servers for multiplayer
- 3 weapon slots per character
- Dual wielding
- Projectile deflecting
- Backstabs no longer work as a "grab"
There may be more info, but I am keeping myself in the dark about DS2, I like playing through blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoASo, once again, welcome to the Dark Souls thread!
Please tag your spoilers, but don't hesitate to ask for help, we'll be as helfpul as possible, without spoiling anything.
Praise the Sun!
Satsumomo on
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Posts
EDIT: You might wanna use this but we are using the bandwidth from someone in 4chan.
-Removed the tips. Those are on the OP now.-
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I checked around some wikis, and while they do have some armor guides, they weren't really organized enough for me. So I made my own. It's pretty simplistic, I just wanted to see numbers when a set was maxed to compare things a bit better. Google Docs said it was too big or something, so I just print screened it. Spoilers cause they're fairly large pictures.
That's super lame.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/413936/previews/dark-souls-2-hands-on-beautiful-and-brutal/
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
A) That is awesome, the Old Monk mechanic was an amazing aspect of Demons Souls
b) Is pretty much a given :P but! it won't be Xx_MegaCheatingDouchehole777_xX since there are dedicated servers.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
In concept, they could fix it by constricting the gear of the invading player. Ex: The invader is always in the same default 'enemy mirror knight' setup (so no spell bindings or any UI things need to be tweaked by the invader) and the gear/stats scale with the host player's SL.
I'd suggest that the invader mirror the hosts gear and spec, (do go with the theme of the fight) but that might be difficult with spells as it would take time for the invader to figure out what they had available. But it's certainly not impossible.
Origin: Viycktor
My fears of Dark Souls becoming even more casualized seem to be being put to rest. Now they just need to bring back constant and ever present invasions as soon as you finish the first stage, Demon's Souls style (which also lowers the abundance twinks because it doesn't require to you twink to PvP early/low levels when you give infinite PvP access to everyone right at the start).
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Which means the player you were invading wasn't worthy to face you. Heh.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Thought so. Now my expectations have been appropriately tempered.
Having to go through so many loopholes and waiting with invasions in Dark was aggravating. Not to mention the smaller invasion/summon sign areas with the disruptive fog walls. Invasions were for the whole entire area in Demon's. It was a hunt.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
We've said it over and over but this right here is the simplest way to fix a lot (not all, but a lot) of the PvP imbalance. It's simple and elegant and better be in the game.
Red Eye Orb equivalent right off the bat. Basically at the same equivalent point we got the White Soapstone. Bam. Done.
Play Demon's Souls. That's exactly how it works there.
And messages had +- votes everywhere because you didn't need an item for them. Just press Select. And they lasted much much longer because they were saved to the server.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
The X-1's first. And 4-2's probably the best early 'grinding spot'.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
That's correct, but you can't see if it's voted positively or negatively unless you have a specific spell. That was really dumb imo.
Mainly because always-online is something I desire about as much as syphilis. I can barely tolerate it in MMOs, and it's crucial for those games to work.
Hopefully I won't have to choose between being in party chat and playing online this time around, because that was dumb as hell.
Any idea how it got there? I'm thinking some guy got killed in PVP but I can't think of how it happened. I'm pretty rusty as far as Dark Souls knowledge goes.
Probably got cursed, ran up there and got killed by the fire hollow, that guy is an ass.
You might know me as D'Brickashaw on Steam.
Fella seems to be on NG++.
EDIT: Too big?
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA