Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

do it :o! it's so fun :3

If using no shield, you should stick a Grass Crest or Sanctus or such on your back so you can benefit from the passive effect at least!

Which formulae did you use for those shield ratings?

well, xD

the first table I took shields that had at least 70 stability, and under or equal to 16 str.

Then I took the highest number of each section (magical, fire, poison, etc) and gave those shields 1 point. If a shield came within 5 of that number they got a .5, if within 10 they got a .25.

The overall (2nd table) I simply divided the shield's value with the highest value of the shields I was comparing. For example, say I was finding the point value of fire resist. I would take the shield value, say eagle shield has 55, then divide it by the highest (black knight) of 95, to get 0.473684...

Used excel to just do all the math for me and add it all up to spit out 8.75 for overall.

For other stats I took the main 3, Stability, Weight, and Physical, then took the attribute (say fire) and multiplied its point value by 2 (eagle shield would get 0.95). I multiplied it by 2 to make it stand out more, seems to be the right move I think.

I mean, they look correct to me...

Downloading it now :)

I'm actually very surprised by how powerful the tower kite shield gets at +15, since you get it at the beginning of the game on the Knight class.

What about Lightning / Fire / Magic... enchantments? upgrades? (never knew what it was called in this game), but what about those for shields? They do slightly build against that element, would it be an option for some shields to make them better?

Too much of a stability loss as far as I'm concerned :(

Oh you're right, it is a heavy loss x.x;

Maybe good for PvE

I'm not sure about that either to be honest; there's not much elemental damage in the game that's worth blocking vs dodging. Only really Gwyn's fire hits?

Was thinking situational pieces, like the fire drake or lightning breath.

Can you even make a shield for the drake? Or do you have to have enough stamina to block it completely.

Character in progress.

You mean the Hellkite dragon? I've never managed to fully block its onslaught but I haven't tried with BK Shield +5. Most of the time fighting it you shouldn't be getting hit anyway, and the fight is too inconsequential to make it worthwhile upgrading a shield for it specifically I think.

~.~ I'm stuck...

hope this helps:

In addition to this, in case you don't have the master key

What is your final build going to look like?

Keeping in mind that the highest I would take a PvP build is around 130-135 and that is pushing it.

Also what is up with your STR and DEX? Are you planning a quality build with 28 STR and 40 DEX?

I have a character with a quality faith build at lvl 130. You can use the Dragonslayer Spear which is sweet because of the range and the mura with the sunlight weapon buff is nasty.

BTW for those not familiar with PvP speak, quality just means a character with points invested in both STR and DEX, typically 28/40 or 27/40. It has nothing to do with how good the build is.

Do the rats in the underbridge stop dropping humanity after a certain point? I'm 28/30 for the Darkwraith covenant :/

Nvm, surprised how long it took to get one with max item discovery, lol.

I'm quite enjoying my Zweihander. It was a bit of a challenge to get used to the speed though. Used to using significantly faster weapons.

Feeling an urge to make a Chaos Blade build with Pyromancy as support.

Probably done making DMB builds (the only buff builds I'm interested in) because it's far too time consuming.

I've been playing Dark Souls for the last week or so almost non-stop and it's absolutely amazing. It's also the only game besides Skyrim in the past ~10 years or so that I've been voluntarily choosing to play instead of FFXI (I've been logging in to fish and work on Lu Shang's every day though). Now that the introductory stuff is outta the way, I have a topic of discussion!

As we all know, some people are calling Dark Souls "The Hardest Game of All Time" (not including Demon Souls). Many people agree that it is indeed difficult and some others are saying it's not hard at all. I don't know if it's because they're Demon Souls veterans, super amazingly talented or just trying to make themselves sound cool. I definitely agree that the difficulty lies in the extremely steep learning curve, as Raenil so perfectly put it, and also that there haven't been many genuinely hard games in a loooong time. It's not like Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden "endless respawning Mach 1 speed tactical pattern bats appearing from the edge of the screen to knock you backwards into a pit of water even though they hit you in the back and you should have flied forwards" sorta *** hard - it's hard because you have to think, observe enemy patterns, stay calm, focus, don't rush in to new areas etc.

So my question is, what game(s) do you consider to be harder than Dark Souls?

I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I really can't think of many games that are extremely challenging, but fair, where it's more about your wits and less about poor game design/gimmicks/cheap tactics. Definitely nothing I can think of this generation. All I can really come up with are older games like Resident Evil and other survival horror games (Eternal Darkness was aaaawesome) or going back to NES/SNES days with like... Contra without the 30 lives code. Even then I don't think they're as hard as Dark Souls is and nowhere near as rewarding when you finally beat that boss that's been kicking your *** for the past few hours.

I can't remember the last game that had me endlessly cursing into a pillow at 3 AM like someone suffering from advanced-stage Turrets and then 10 minutes later dancing around because I finally beat Finsternis and Prufrock (I wonder how many of you guys have been playing FFXI long enough to get that!). Then I thought I was untouchable until I ran into New Londo like a boss and get eaten by nasty ghost ladies coming through the walls.

If you include modded games, Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3 is insanely difficult. So difficult, it's completely possible to lose the tutorial battle if you don't play smart. But it's also fairly luck based, so I wouldn't say it's a fair game.

Silent Hill 2/3 have petty hard puzzles on higher riddle difficulty levels. Those felt rather rewarding once you figured them out. Myst/Riven too for that matter. I kinda want to replay them now...

I wouldn't say they're harder than Dark Souls though. Once you do the puzzle once, you'll never have to figure them out again. No matter how many times you play through Dark Souls, every enemy is completely capable of killing you (to an extent) if you don't pay attention to them.

Like in this instance, for example. I did the exact same thing after I beat the game the first time and made a second character. Got my *** destroyed by hollow soldiers. ._.

And I got the Finsternis and Prufrock thing. Haven't watched that stuff in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages though.

Son of a *** FFT 1.3 x.x it took me 2 hours to beat the tutorial XD

I will never beat FFT 1.3. It's not rewarding at all, IMO. And to beat it, you have to use fairly precise strategy, so you can't just use your favorite jobs. :<

It's considered noob because of the tactics 95% of the users pull.

The defense and poise allow people to run right through an attack from any weapon and nail you with a hornet ring boosted backstab with an elemental rapier. Any build based around buffs/magic and/or scaling has a vitality deficiency and are instantly killed every time.

Tranquil Walk of Peace is the only thing I feel is potentially broken in PvP. All other spells are easily avoidable if you keep on the move.

Very hot topic going on from some recent news.

Dark Souls director considering an Easy mode, "really sad" about game's fearsome reputation
"Difficult" doesn't mean "satisfying", says From Software man

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Dark Souls is hands down one of the hardest games you'll play, but that's not why you'll want to play it. Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki has spoken out against the popular view that the only truly fulfilling titles are those which beat their players raw.

"I personally want my games to be described as satisfying rather than difficult," he told the Metro in an interview (the translation is a bit "murky" by the paper's admission, so apologies for any Engrish). "As a matter of fact, I am aiming at giving players sense of accomplishment in the use of difficulty.

"Having said that, however, it is true that Dark Souls is rather difficult and a number of people may hesitate to play. This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about whether I should prepare another difficulty that everyone can complete or carefully send all gamers the messages behind our difficult games.

"However, I suppose gamers do not particularly prefer easy games," Miyazaki went on. "What they want is interesting and worthwhile games to play, so I think it is natural that hindrance or stress that does not attribute to such interesting and worthwhile elements will be removed in the end.

"If the number of easy games is increasing nowadays, I guess it is because difficulty is not related to interesting and worthwhile game elements in many games among players."

For my part, I'd suggest that too many "high difficulty" modes are founded on blind luck and repetition, and too many "low difficulty" modes hinge on reducing NPC health by half.

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I'm honestly disappointed with this news. I didn't find the game to be too difficult really :\

How I pretty much feel about this news :\

ENB discussed this in a few vids, he came up with a very good alternative to an easy mode, he names it organic difficulty, which is already sort of in dark souls.

Ornstein & Smough fight is a good example, it's designed to be a challenge for 1 player since it's 2 bosses vs you, but if you wanted an easier time you could summon Brolaire to assist you. Having these sort of options as an "easy mode" built into the game while retaining it's natural difficulty for those who don't use it and want a challenge, which also removes the need for the devs to try balance the game several times to cater to different preset difficulty levels.

random question about the game:

i just finished killing the gargoyles, rang the bell and all that. spent some time in that area getting invaded and getting owned and then helping some people with their boss, etc. was really fun, went on to kill the moonlight butterfly, loved it.

figured i should move on with the actual story(?) and went down to new londo where there's all those screaming ghosts >.> ugh, do not want. after dying i really didn't want to go back, that sort of thing really doesn't agree with me. soo i ended up finding this other place, the depths i think? pretty gross down there too, bleh.

i'm totally fine with surprises, dudes popping out from doors and whatever. it's the near-silent hill shiet that i just don't want to deal with. that first 3~ hours of the game was mostly knights and such, so i really got into the game. those that have completed the game, how much of that nightmare inducing crap am i looking forward to? if it's mostly that from here on out, it's probably not for me.

inb4 i'm a puss, yeah, yeah.

xD you shouldn't be in new londo for a long time :X!

If you picked up the key outside of the church by the gate, go back to where the dragon swooped down the first time and may have killed you or close. It's where you talked to the sun guy that gave you the white soap stone.

There is a door there with a way down to the bottom of undead burg, go there!

ah, sorry, yeah i went there. you're talking about where the capra demon is right? i ganked him and went down to "the depths" with the key he dropped. some pretty borked stuff down there (imo of course, demon butchers and whatever >.>). can deal with it but if it's mostly that sort of thing till the end of the game.. meh.

The Depths, the Blightown (below the depths), then Demon Ruins (below blighttown), then Lost Izalith (yup), all have the same theme really... nasty destruction. Although the end of blighttown is the beginning of hell really, lava everywhere etc.

New Londo was just flooded to keep in the darkwraiths. Other than those areas everything else is quite lovely.

In Blightown there is a hidden zone called the Great Hollow, further down is Ash Lake, one of my favorite areas in the game from looks alone.

Don't worry, the game isn't all nasty, it has it's good moments even though everything will always try to kill you :P