Dark Souls

[patsu]

Yap, that girl. I ask about magic because

Spoiler

the level 30 guy in the chatroom told me that magic is super powerful and I should spend points on it to make the game easier.

But he's unwilling to share his secrets because he's afraid of people copying the same build and eventually invade him as well. ^_^

 

[Yemeth]

Hi,

after two days not playing, I have yesterday finally beaten the boss I mentioned in the last post and dying about 10 times to get up/out of the area I really am intrigued by the "chiefd" comments.

If there is an Yurt like person in Dark Souls, please be so kind and spoil the hell out of it (you can PM me, as long as you do not say that the butler is the murderer, I just want to ensure that I do not get Yurted ), because that would ruin it for me. I have so many unused items and I would hate to loose them now because of such an treatment. BTW, if there are any people reading who have not finished Demon's Souls I will spoiler tag it.

Currently I am trying to farm humanity with not much success, but I am more than glad to got out of the Valley of Defilement copy in Dark Souls. BTW, maany nice things can be found there . Now I look to get through an formerly closed gate.

Carl B, what is your PSN name? Care to add me to your friends list, mine is Yemeth? And I have found a second covenant, but I have not joined them, were too creepy for me .

Cheers and good luck to everyone!

 

[patsu]

Don't worry about it !

Spoiler

It'll happen either way. It's a story thing. ^_^

You'll have recourse though.

I was told the best way to earn humanity is to invade other people. Co-op seems to have long wait time for whatever reasons.

EDIT: Add spoiler tag upon Cornsnake's advice.

 

[Cornsnake]

Hi,

after two days not playing, I have yesterday finally beaten the boss I mentioned in the last post and dying about 10 times to get up/out of the area I really am intrigued by the "chiefd" comments.

If there is an Yurt like person in Dark Souls, please be so kind and spoil the hell out of it (you can PM me, as long as you do not say that the butler is the murderer, I just want to ensure that I do not get Yurted ), because that would ruin it for me. I have so many unused items and I would hate to loose them now because of such an treatment. BTW, if there are any people reading who have not finished Demon's Souls I will spoiler tag it.

Currently I am trying to farm humanity with not much success, but I am more than glad to got out of the Valley of Defilement copy in Dark Souls. BTW, maany nice things can be found there . Now I look to get through an formerly closed gate.

Carl B, what is your PSN name? Care to add me to your friends list, mine is Yemeth? And I have found a second covenant, but I have not joined them, were too creepy for me .

Cheers and good luck to everyone!

And now I wonder.

 

[patsu]

Wonder about what ?

 

[Yemeth]

Don't worry about it ! "Spoiler removed"


I was told the best way to earn humanity is to invade other people. Co-op seems to have long wait time for whatever reasons.

Thanks patsu, this character will not invade as he is part of the goody two shoe covenant .Never invaded in Demon's Souls, I could not bring myself to do it in this game either. I could not manage to help out either (this I have tried, but no one called for me).

Cornsnake, I do not get it? What do you wonder about?

 

[Cornsnake]

Can someone edit the above post to match this?

Don't worry about it !

Spoiler

It'll happen either way. It's a story thing. ^_^

You'll have recourse though.

I was told the best way to earn humanity is to invade other people. Co-op seems to have long wait time for whatever reasons.

 

[Carl B]

Hi,

after two days not playing, I have yesterday finally beaten the boss I mentioned in the last post and dying about 10 times to get up/out of the area I really am intrigued by the "chiefd" comments.

If there is an Yurt like person in Dark Souls, please be so kind and spoil the hell out of it (you can PM me, as long as you do not say that the butler is the murderer, I just want to ensure that I do not get Yurted ), because that would ruin it for me. I have so many unused items and I would hate to loose them now because of such an treatment. BTW, if there are any people reading who have not finished Demon's Souls I will spoiler tag it.

Currently I am trying to farm humanity with not much success, but I am more than glad to got out of the Valley of Defilement copy in Dark Souls. BTW, maany nice things can be found there . Now I look to get through an formerly closed gate.

Carl B, what is your PSN name? Care to add me to your friends list, mine is Yemeth? And I have found a second covenant, but I have not joined them, were too creepy for me .

Cheers and good luck to everyone!

If you come across him, you will probably know. I actually won't spoiler it even though requested, save to say that the effects are slightly different than good ol' Yurt. But... certainly analogous.

xbdestroya is my screen name - feel free to add! I actually need to add a number of people, I've gotten lazy and years have gone by with essential pplz not having been added.

 

[patsu]

Spoiler

Backed out from Darkroot Garden (Some enemies are too strong). ^_^

Completed the Depth. Now I know why Cornsnake likes to farm Gaping Dragon.

Onto Blighttown.

Hot damn this is a dangerous world. Fell to death 5 times in a row.

 

[joker454]

Finally gave up on this game, tried to enjoy it but I just can't see the appeal. You guys are serious masochists! Definitely not for me.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Hi,

after two days not playing, I have yesterday finally beaten the boss I mentioned in the last post and dying about 10 times to get up/out of the area I really am intrigued by the "chiefd" comments.

If there is an Yurt like person in Dark Souls, please be so kind and spoil the hell out of it (you can PM me, as long as you do not say that the butler is the murderer, I just want to ensure that I do not get Yurted ), because that would ruin it for me. I have so many unused items and I would hate to loose them now because of such an treatment. BTW, if there are any people reading who have not finished Demon's Souls I will spoiler tag it.

Currently I am trying to farm humanity with not much success, but I am more than glad to got out of the Valley of Defilement copy in Dark Souls. BTW, maany nice things can be found there . Now I look to get through an formerly closed gate.

Carl B, what is your PSN name? Care to add me to your friends list, mine is Yemeth? And I have found a second covenant, but I have not joined them, were too creepy for me .

Cheers and good luck to everyone!

The only way to avoid getting Yurted is

Spoiler

to kill the bastard when he shows up at the Firelink Shrine. You can kill him earlier, but then you won't get his reward for freeing him. (and not freeing him doesn't help either, because he'll free himself sooner or later) You'll know him when you see him. Still, even if you let him live for the sake of his story, he is nowhere near as damaging to your game as the original Yurt was in Demon's Souls. He kills one character and you lose one bonfire, but you can resurrect that character and re-ignite the fire later in the game. If you choose to take that route you'll get his armor too, but at that point in the game the armor wasn't really cutting it anymore

I'm now in new game+ by the way.

 

[Carl B]

Finally gave up on this game, tried to enjoy it but I just can't see the appeal. You guys are serious masochists! Definitely not for me.

I can understand and respect that decision... I wanted you to like it though Joker!

 

[patsu]

Where did you give up joker454 ? ^_^

 

[Carl B]

Ok... so, just when I think I'm going to push on from it all and either start a new game or start a Game+...

Spoiler

I can't figure out how to cross the bridge in Anor Londo! Did I need to progress through New Londo or Grave of Giants in order to cross that bridge? New Londo there's a certain key I obviously need that I simply could not find, so I abandoned the effort - do I need to go back?

I'm iffy as to whether I actually want any of these questions answered...

 

[patsu]

[Give one night cool-off period to xbd to reconsider whether he wants those questions answered]

 

[joker454]

Where did you give up joker454 ? ^_^

Not far, somewhere in the Undead Burg. The game mechanics are just so frustrating to me, I didn't realize that when people said you will die over and over again that they meant you will literally die over and over and over again. The controls seem really clunky, like as a spell caster enemies can often lob stuff at you and yet you can't target them properly. Or you back up a bit too far and fall off a ledge and die. Or if you die and didn't use a campfire for a while because you didn't want the enemies to respawn then it puts you so far back that I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Or that it seems like you have to go over the same parts of the game over and over again to figure out what to do. Or in a bout of utter ridiculousless of game design, I'm playing and someone adds me to party chat like is so common to do so we can all chat while playing our respective games, except Dark Souls abruptly ended my game when party chat started. What in hell was that, did they actually design it that way that purposely? That's just stupid. I dunno, the whole game was making my blood pressure rise that I had to step away from it and play something comparitively relaxing, like beating the bosses in Mega Man 1 or playing japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2.

 

[N_B]

Party chat purposely doesn't work with Dark Souls. It would take away from the atmosphere and tension. Perhaps booting you isn't the best way to go about it, but the game is constantly saving so you wont lose progress.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Or if you die and didn't use a campfire for a while because you didn't want the enemies to respawn then it puts you so far back that I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Or that it seems like you have to go over the same parts of the game over and over again to figure out what to do.

Which, along with respawning enemies, makes the game a horrible chore. Take CarlB above - should he go this way or that? Well to find out he has to fight throw all those baddies again. And if he picks the wrong route, has to fight his way back. It's not so bad if you have a weapon that can kill many enemies in 1 or 2 hits, but these are only available through insider knowledge and you still have to fight the critters. Then there are the uber-baddies that you don't know are uber-baddies until you fight them, and then you die, and have to do it all again, which makes you afraid to explore! And not in a 'fear of the enemy; kind of way, but a 'fear of the game' way.

Party chat purposely doesn't work with Dark Souls. It would take away from the atmosphere and tension. Perhaps booting you isn't the best way to go about it, but the game is constantly saving so you wont lose progress.

Except you will if you've cleared an area of enemies only for them all to come back for no sake of your own. The way it's handled sounds totally insane. Offer a selection screen that warns the player that accepting a chat conversation will end the game. Although perhaps that's an MS thing as the game can't block the OS, and the only way to deal with it is to end the game? Well, in that case they could give a time limit. Start the chat through the OS and have the game say, "If you continue to use chat, this game will end in one minute. For me details see the manual."

The forced silence is part of the game (yet look at the amount of discussion held in forums...) so that's understandable, but the way of dealing with it is extremely poor design!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Seems to me the problem is you're a lazy completionist/hoarder.

Kinda.

...these things aren't required.

True, but you want those things. Playing epic adventurers, you want the uber-weapons that can empower you. Sadly the Japanese designers feel the only people who deserve that stuff are those who work for it, rather than providing access to the uber content through more enjoyable means. You wouldn't get Halo taunting you with a Gravity Hammer and requiring you to fight 100 rounds of enemies without taking any damage before it'd let you have it, or Gears of War only letting you use grenades after you've collected 75 different species of bugs. Any optional challenges in Western games are far more moderate.

Now, as you say, if the Japanese games are catering to a hardcore audience then they probably can't change that. But as I say, that's why I've lost interest in Japanese games! I'm not hardcore enough. I don't have 100+ hours to sink into a game any more.

 

[N_B]

Which, along with respawning enemies, makes the game a horrible chore. Take CarlB above - should he go this way or that? Well to find out he has to fight throw all those baddies again. And if he picks the wrong route, has to fight his way back. It's not so bad if you have a weapon that can kill many enemies in 1 or 2 hits, but these are only available through insider knowledge and you still have to fight the critters. Then there are the uber-baddies that you don't know are uber-baddies until you fight them, and then you die, and have to do it all again, which makes you afraid to explore! And not in a 'fear of the enemy; kind of way, but a 'fear of the game' way.

Except you will if you've cleared an area of enemies only for them all to come back for no sake of your own. The way it's handled sounds totally insane. Offer a selection screen that warns the player that accepting a chat conversation will end the game. Although perhaps that's an MS thing as the game can't block the OS, and the only way to deal with it is to end the game? Well, in that case they could give a time limit. Start the chat through the OS and have the game say, "If you continue to use chat, this game will end in one minute. For me details see the manual."

The forced silence is part of the game (yet look at the amount of discussion held in forums...) so that's understandable, but the way of dealing with it is extremely poor design!

Enemies shouldn't return in that situation. Saving keeps track of enemies killed and your position, you should load at exactly (or not long from) where you left off.

I am suprised that there is no warning about party chat, seems like a simple thing to leave out.

Kinda.

True, but you want those things. Playing epic adventurers, you want the uber-weapons that can empower you. Sadly the Japanese designers feel the only people who deserve that stuff are those who work for it, rather than providing access to the uber content through more enjoyable means. You wouldn't get Halo taunting you with a Gravity Hammer and requiring you to fight 100 rounds of enemies without taking any damage before it'd let you have it, or Gears of War only letting you use grenades after you've collected 75 different species of bugs. Any optional challenges in Western games are far more moderate.

Now, as you say, if the Japanese games are catering to a hardcore audience then they probably can't change that. But as I say, that's why I've lost interest in Japanese games! I'm not hardcore enough. I don't have 100+ hours to sink into a game any more.

I don't think this is part of Japansese design but simply the genre. You always get the best loot in RPGs by working for it. Through quests, dungeons, tough enemies, etc.