Help a noob.

[faetal]

You can level those kinds of complaints about any game by listing the specific movements which are not part of that game.
Honestly, I think you need to consider that you might be way off the mark with this one.
Your logic is really ropey and your difficulties seem to stem almost entirely from being inflexible with your input devices.
I bought a gamepad for DkS - made me LOVE the game and warm to gamepads, I bought a HOTAS for Elite: Dangerous - same story.
Your almost religious insistence on never deviating from your one setup and irritation at the mere mention of gamepads hints at this being a problem with the user rather than the system.

[Judith]

DS is a console port, PS3 timed exclusive, if I remember correctly. The game was designed for gamepads in mind, and you're wrong thinking input devices are not key components of games. They can be programmed to act as an invisible artifact for the player and his/her character, but that is not the only way to do this. From designing functions of buttons in a specific controller layout to programming the rumble motors, everything influences the way you play the game, and it reinforces the theme of the game, if done correctly.

Brothers, the game you missed the point of by playing it with kb+m, uses the controller to reinforce the theme of a bit weird nature of relationships between the two boys in a family. Later on it's more about the loss, obviously. Games like the DmC have great controller layout and character abilities that let you have this state of zen-flow, where you use functions and combos way faster than you think, in a super-fluid manner. It makes sense, because it reinforces the theme of being a supernatural asshole

In DS games the main theme is hardship. Of everything, really. You're a decomposing zombie, struggling not to get hollow in a world that doesn't give a shit about you. In the end, you're just a bit more powerful zombie, with the very same problem. The controls reinforce that theme, at the same time giving you the power to be whatever kind of zombie you want

And it's not that you can't control your character well, it's just quite hard. Look at youtube videos how people beat bosses or guys doing speedruns. They have mastered the controls. The very fact that this game is used for speedruns means it has consistent controls – how else would you shave off those minutes and seconds in subsequent runs, if the game mechanics wasn't consistent? Speedrunners wouldn't bother, there are tons of other games to play.

But you don't have to be that guy to understand that all this is by design. If the DS series won't teach you to question your approach, thinking more "I must be missing something" rather than "this game sucks!", then you are wasting your time. Like, looking for precise jumps over pits that you don't need to jump over, in the boss fight that ends with one hit.

[Starker]

You all make it sound like the input-scheme is a huge part of a game. It is not. It's a detail. For me, a game, or at least the games I play, are about me being a fantasy character in a fantasy world, who has adventures. With a story, and some lore. Etc, etc. It's not about pressing the right button at the right time.

But it is a huge part. The game is designed for a gamepad, from the ground up. The UI, the movement, the combat, the camera -- everything is designed with a gamepad in mind. Yes, it is also a fantasy RPG, but first and foremost it is an action game. A large part of it is about pressing the right button at the right time, because pressing it at the wrong time (or being at the wrong place or dodging in the wrong direction or picking the wrong target, etc) will get you horribly murdered. Saying that the input method is just a detail is a bit like people saying that SS2 could be ported to a console with minimal changes to the UI. (And no, I don't wish to repeat that argument here.)

Oh, and it's perfectly okay to criticise the port, btw. I don't think even the most ardent followers of Souls games can in good conscience say that From did a good job on that. From themselves admitted that they were very inexperienced in PC development and it shows. But they got better at it pretty quickly. The DS2 port was miles ahead of DS as far as technical details were concerned (and a step back in other regards, IMO).

[Gryzemuis]

Those Darkwraiths at the bottom of the New Londo Ruins are actually really easy. Two hits with my Halberd+15 and they are dead. Just avoid their 4-slash combo, and boom, they are dead. The first time I ran into them I was a lot lower level, my Halberd was only +10, I probably tried to fight them with a simple jagged blade. And most importantly, the first two times I ran into them, there were 2 or 3 of them at the same time, plus some blob-monster.

Now I am fighting them on my own terms. Huge difference.

Preparation is everything in this game.

Edit: and before anyone thinks that means I don't like DS1 .... I actually like the fact that preparation can help you in an RPG. There are loads of gamers who think that if they are good at button-pressing, they should be able to play and finish any game without much difficulty. I am not like that. I think in an RPG, the success of my fantasy-character should depend on the stats and gear of my fantasy-character. It shouldn't depend on the twitch-reflexes of the person behind the controller or keyboard.

[Gryzemuis]

rather than "this game sucks!"

How many times do I need to repeat that I don't think this game sucks ?
I'm playing the game, am I not ? And I'm making progress. And I am enjoying myself. And I plan to play DS2 and DS3 some day.

I've said that I am enjoying the game many times over the past 3 weeks (since I started playing again). I just think that DS1 could use a lot more polish. Especially the parts that are specific to PCs. (The resolution, the rendering, the UI, and the flexibility of possible inputs). I am not the first one to mention this. And I won't be the last.

Looking back at my first try of DS2, 18 months ago, the one biggest problem was the fact that I tried to play DS2 dual-wielding swords. I think that is a huge problem for a new player. Especially one that is struggling with controls (and thus with dodging and evading attacks). I should have started playing with a shield (like I did when I started DS1 three weeks ago). Gameplay is much slower with a shield. That would have made a huge difference. Slow gameplay gives you time to learn.

[Thirith]

As I wrote before, input-devices are a necessary evil. They are not a key component of a game. They are a tool.

On this at least, I fundamentally disagree. While the degree of this differs from game to game, how a game controls is essential to what the game is, and the more a game is about (manual) dexterity and reflexes the more the exact way a game controls is inherent to what the game is. It is nice if a game offers multiple valid ways of controlling it, but I completely disagree with you that it's bad design to make a game that plays best on one kind of controller and all others are compromises at best, and IMO this is as true for Dark Souls etc. as it is for flight simulators, racing games, beat 'em ups and the like.

[Judith]

Quotes are there for a reason, as in "this game sucks" approach, not literally.

You're blaming the game and trying to poke holes in what is a set of conscious design decisions. DS1 was a pretty bad console port, but with DSFix and a controller it's fine for what it is. DS2 was a bit better in that regard, i.e. 60 fps and higher resolution, so no need for mods, but controls are pretty much the same.

[Twist]

It's funny to me because, as I said much earlier in this thread, Dark Souls was the game that taught me to love the Xbox 360 gamepad, and with it I think the game controls like a dream. I previously had been a bit of a stubborn KB&M player, but I already said all this so I'm feeling redundant... like this thread.

For what it's worth (nothing), I do wonder if the last couple of pages have been a little misdirected at Gryz. It's like Avalon threw a temper tantrum and everyone's looking at Gryz.

[Renzatic]

It's like Avalon threw a temper tantrum and everyone's looking at Gryz.

Pretty much. Gryz has some weird tastes and biases, but he's welcome to them.

It does seem to be a common thing that most people coming from a primarily PC background do have trouble with DS' control scheme, which is far more console-like in its design. All 3rd person action games, especially those coming out of Japan, seem to use Zelda as their control template, where pressing a direction immediate pivots your character in that direction, and you only strafe and backpeddle when you're locked onto something.

I've been playing games like this for years, so DS felt immediately familiar to me. Never once had a problem with it. But if your experiences are mostly with western games that use an FPS style control scheme even for 3PP games, I could see how it'd kinda screw with you.

[Gryzemuis]

Thanks guys. I was wondering what I had done to deserve those strong attacks.

So I farmed a few Titanite Chunks. While trying out different weapons. It turns out that my Halberd+15 is still better than the Great Scythe+14. The Halberd hits for 312 in its R1 thrust attack. And the Great Scythe hits for 299 with its R1 overhead slam attack. I think the Halberd's R1 attack is a bit quicker than the Great Scythe's R1 attack. So you are less vulnerable when attacking. I also think the Halberd has slightly larger reach. I found this table. There's no Great Scythe, only normal Scythe. Assuming they have the same reach, the Halberd is slightly better (8.5 for R1H1 Halberd versus 8.0 for R1H1 GScythe). Backstabs are a winner for the Halberd too: 710 versus 687.

I am at 40 dex and 26 str. The Halberd scales D/C/-/-/- and the GScythe scales E/A/-/-/-. As I am already at dex 40, more dex won't have any impact. But more strength will. Until I have 40 strenght. But the Halberd is gonna benefit more of more strength than the GScythe. So the Halberd will (probably) run even further ahead, as I increase my strength.

The only other thing I can come up with would be the fact that the Halberd maybe does more piercing damage. And pierces through more armor of the Darkwraiths than the Scythe. That could mean the GScythe would do better in comparison against enemies without armor.

And the GScythe might be better at boss fights. As I've written earlier, I sometimes have problems hitting a boss, with and without target-lockon. The GScythe might make it easier to hit tall bosses in the arse.

So as I thought, I had found the best weapon pretty early in the game. In any case, the best weapon according to my own preferences.

My armor is all at +9 now. Time to return to the Bed of Chaos.

Edit: Bed's dead, baby. Bed's dead.
Edit2: 4 Kings also dead. Two attempts where I killed 2 kings. Then went and got the SpellStone ring. Third attempt all 4 of them died.

[Gryzemuis]

I think I had my first real Dark Souls experience.

I decided to go check out Oolacile, before finishing the game. I got 3 Lord Souls, only the Scaleless is remaining. So I think I'm getting closer to the end. Yesterday evening I entered Oolacile. I went in blind, didn't read anything about the area, the bosses or strategy. The Sanctuary Guardian went down the first try. Today I returned. I made it to Artorias.

Took me 15 tries or so. On my 2nd or 3rd try, I got him to ~20-30%. So I thought "this isn't gonna be hard". But Artorias buffs himself. (I didn't know that). And the fight gets a lot harder as it progresses. That early good attempt was proably just me being lucky. So I did another 8 or 10 tries. Once Artorias buffed himself a 2nd time, he one-shots me. Every time. Especially those 3 overhead slams were deadly. You can't get out of them.

So I read a little about him. I learned he buffs himself. You can interrupt that. Tried that with a bow a few times, didn't work. I started running towards him to deal out damage to interrupt him. Didn't work. However, I did notice that he started buffing himself at 75% or so. And when I hit him 2-3 times, trying to interrupt his buff-spell, he went from 75% to under 50%. Conclusion: he's pretty vulnerable when he buffs himself !

After that discovery, I did 2 or 3 more tries. During the last try, I got him to 30%, he started buffing again. I kept hitting him, he stopped casting his spell. He hit me. I went from 80% health to 40% or so. In a split second, I decided to not back off to heal, but keep hitting him. So I hit him, he hit me, I went down to 15% health. I hit him again. He died.

First time in ages I screamed behind my computer !

I guess that was my first proper Dark Souls experience. Early bosses-fights felt like gimmicks. Later boss-fights were easy, because I was high level and had good gear. They all went down in a few tries. But Artorias was the first proper fight. Like a boss-fight in WoW. You need to learn the strategy, you need to learn when to expect abilities from the boss, you need to learn when to get the fuck away. You need to learn to stay alive at all times. You need to learn when is the window for you to do damage, when to heal, when to back off. And then you need to practice to execute all that in a perfect way, without making (too many) mistakes. The harder WoW raid bosses work like that. It can take you a full night, sometimes even multiple nights to learn and beat a boss. Artorias felt a bit like that.

(FYI, SL99, Halberd+15, Grass Crest Shield+10, Thief Dark Leather set+9, got most rings now, I think. 40 Dex, 41 Endurance, 28 Strength, 35 Vitality, always under 25% weight. My play-style is all dodging. No pyromancy, no bow&arrows from a safe distance, no turtling behind a greatshield).

When I looked for information about Artorias's abilities, I ran into this movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqL52CZO2FI&t=17m15s
Look at the 2nd part of the movie. Listen to how the guy is experiencing the fight. Compared to him, I was completely calm. I still find DS1 a fun game.



Another question:
I've been ignoring Covenants completely. I didn't join a single one.
I read this guide:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=121136547

I absolutely don't want to do PvP. I've been playing as a hollow most of the time. (Only when kindling bonfires I go from hollow to undead). I've not been invaded yet. I also don't care about summoning other players for help. I rather beat bosses solo. From that guide, it seems I am not missing out on anything important, right ? I get to experience all bosses, all areas, and I can get most equipment (but not everything).
I don't think I will join a covenant.

[Renzatic]

The Experience

This is why we all suggested you didn't guide your way through the game. You get the most out of it when you learn as you go, getting your ass kicked the entire way. It makes victory that much sweeter.

When I looked for information about Artorias's abilities, I ran into this movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqL52CZO2FI&t=17m15s
Look at the 2nd part of the movie. Listen to how the guy is experiencing the fight. Compared to him, I was completely calm. I still find DS1 a fun game.

...though when you're getting your ass kicked, you do tend to sound like that guy. I usually do the "whatever, I rolled through that!" quite a bit. Or do this thing where, when I die, I'll just stare at the screen for about a minute. I won't do anything else. Just stare. Then I'll sigh, pick up the controller, and try it all again.

Another question:
I've been ignoring Covenants completely. I didn't join a single one.

...it seems I am not missing out on anything important, right ? I get to experience all bosses, all areas, and I can get most equipment (but not everything).
I don't think I will join a covenant.

Yeah. Other than a few nice pieces of equipment, you're not missing out on anything.

[faetal]

Oddly, I found Artorius one of the easier bosses and I had no idea you could interrupt his buffing. He's very easily countered by lots of rolling to the side.
Manus, on the other hand...

[Gryzemuis]

Dark Souls is supposed to be one of the harder games of this decade. And everywhere on the Net I read that the expansion-bosses are harder than the bosses from the main game. Yeah, I guess that means Artorius must be one of the easier bosses. Just roll a little ..... I wonder which bosses in DS you found hard.


I did the Duke's Archives this afternoon. Great fun. I love the area, the visuals. Remember the Thief levels that were staged in libraries ? The Keeper's library, "casing the joint", etc. The Duke's Archives reminded me a bit of that. If only TTLG had existed today, and had been able to create games today with today's technology ...


Then came Crystal Cave. Fuck that. I spend an hour or two in there. Felt like a week. Boring, frustrating, stupid gameplay. I was so dumb to try to recover 16k souls (which is nothing now) that I lost on my way to the Blue Titanite Slab. Yes, I was dumb. But god, who came up with the idea of this cave .... The snowflakes are supposed to be an indication of where the invisible path is .... Except for the hardest part (with a Z-corner). Exactly at the Z-part it seems there were no snowflakes. And you had to guess. I reverted to copying/restoring my save-file again.

Seathe was a wimp. Killed him on my first try. I didn't read any strategy guide, didn't watch YT. I just had read somewhere earlier this week: "the biggest problem is his curse". So I put on the Cursebite ring, Bloodshield and the Crimson set. He didn't take any damage at first, then I remembered about the crystal (some NPC told me). One hit was enough to destroy the crystal. And then I just kept hacking at his tail till he was dead. Easy. I hardly took any serious damage, I guess because of the curse-resist gear. Unfortunately he died before I hacked his tail off.


I think there's a trend here. Many bosses seem to do a particular type of AoE damage (Area of Effect). If you know what type (fire, lightning, curse, etc), just put on the appropriate resistance-gear. And the fight becomes pretty easy. I think Quelaag and Discharge (fire resist), Four Kings (magic resist), O&S (lightning resist) and now Seathe (curse resist). Those fights all seemed very easy once you put on the proper resist gear.

World of Warcraft used that too in their raid-boss fights. First you have to acquire the propriate resist-gear, and then you can fight the boss. It might take a few weeks before all your raiders (10, 20, 25 or even 40 man) had all that gear. It was a strategy to prolongue the duration before a new raid was cleared. After a few years Blizzard stopped doing resist fights. I missed them, I liked it that I could prepare myself better for raids. But in Dark Souls it makes a little less sense.


Anyway, 125 hours played. Kalameet, Manus and Gwyn left.
They'll die next weekend.

[faetal]

Dark Souls is supposed to be one of the harder games of this decade. And everywhere on the Net I read that the expansion-bosses are harder than the bosses from the main game. Yeah, I guess that means Artorius must be one of the easier bosses. Just roll a little ..... I wonder which bosses in DS you found hard.

Asylum Demon, Ornstein & Smough, Manus, Kalameet, Sif, Capra Asshole. I'm not doing the whole "nah, hard boss is actually easy" thing, I'm genuinely surprised I found him realtively easy to beat given that most people have the opposite impression and I'm not that great at the game (I only beat Manus because I had Malleus helping me - ie doing all of the legwork).

The snowflakes are supposed to be an indication of where the invisible path is .... Except for the hardest part (with a Z-corner). Exactly at the Z-part it seems there were no snowflakes. And you had to guess. I reverted to copying/restoring my save-file again.

Prism stones are also useful.

[Renzatic]

I hated the crystal caves. Hated it with the passion of a billion burning suns. It is easily the least fun part of the entire series, bar none.

While the idea of it was clever in theory, having an entire multilevel area filled with entirely invisible catwalks that you can only detect by watching where the occasional stray snowflake lands, or by obsessively throwing prism stones about for every step you take wasn't at all fun in practice.

[faetal]

I'm starting to think I'm odd as I didn't find them that difficult. They were a bit tedious, because the easiest way to navigate was to walk at the slowest speed and to stop regularly to get a read on things, but once I'd died a couple of times, it was OK. It's certainly not as annoying as Blight Town where you can see where you're going and it's all bullshit.

[Judith]

I hated both CC and BT, they seemed more nasty than everything. And, the Tomb of Giants, although it's not so scary once you get to know it.

Initially, I had problems with most bosses, as they seemed genuinely scary and powerful (and, as always, animation timings did the trick). Also, I spent most of my time just playing and exploring, looking for lore clues, not bothering with excel sheets with weapon and character stats, so my character wasn't really powerful. And I decided to take a caster for my first playthrough, not a good idea.

[faetal]

God yes, I forgot about ToG - that was horrendous, even with the torch hat.

[Malleus]

obsessively throwing prism stones about for every step

68 prism stones later...

[Renzatic]

Well hey, at least it looks pretty.

Oh, and I loved the Tomb of Giants. It was pure, unadulterated fun tension.

[Gryzemuis]

Asylum Demon, Ornstein & Smough, Manus, Kalameet, Sif, Capra Asshole. ... I'm genuinely surprised I found him realtively easy to beat given that most people have the opposite impression and I'm not that great at the game

People's opinions on various bosses might vary, depending on play-style (ranged, magic, heavy armor or dodge). I know that some parts of the game were very tedious for me. The parts where I couldn't dodge around (like Sen's Fortress inside). A few times I put on Havel's armor, ring, and the wolf ring, and I then breezed through those areas.
I also think resistances play a much greater roll than people realize. Once I got different resist gear for different bosses, they suddenly became a lot easier. For some reason, lots of people disliked resist-gear in WoW. I don't know why. But fact was, having proper resist-gear would make some bosses go from unpossible to ezmode.

It's certainly not as annoying as Blight Town where you can see where you're going and it's all bullshit.

Weird. I found Blighttown maybe the most fun part of the game. It was everything that a game should be, imho.

Maybe because I was wearing the Thief-set, which has good poison-resist. Once I got myself the Old Rusty Ring (no slow-down in the swamp) and the Spider shield (more poison resist) I felt completely at home there.

[Renzatic]

Weird. I found Blighttown maybe the most fun part of the game. It was everything that a game should be, imho.

Maybe because I was wearing the Thief-set, which has good poison-resist. Once I got myself the Old Rusty Ring (no slow-down in the swamp) and the Spider shield (more poison resist) I felt completely at home there.

You know that brown stuff's poop water, right?

[twisty]

Blighttown was close to being my favourite part of the game, apart from some of the bugginess (e.g. flying bugs being able to go through floor boards) of the last leg of the journey down to the swamp. It's one of the only examples that I can think of where a game developer has managed to design and execute an environment that is as much repulsive as it is beautiful.

On a separate note, much better than that what they did with that boggy skankland surrounding Farron Keep in DS3.

[Renzatic]

Hey, I rather liked the trip to Farron Keep, up to and including the boggy skankland. Though admittedly, it had more in common with the Valley of Defilement concerning mood than it did Blighttown.

Though one of the things that I realized made BT such a threatening place wasn't the location itself. It's the fact that when you were there, you were there for the long haul. No easy way in. No easy way out. The only safety you had was a single bonfire to retreat to. This is probably one of the reasons why the original DS is still the most well regarded among the three, even if the others have been improved in every other conceivable aspect. Being able to warp between the bonfires starting out takes away some of that sense of danger and isolation that DS heaped upon you in overly generous amounts.