Dark Souls

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ShakyJake

<Donor>
7,597
19,181
All this talk of Dark Souls II makes me want to go back and complete the first one.

I bought Dark Souls when it first came out and just rolled my own character and just randomly went with stats and weapon choices. Game got annoyingly difficult late in the game and I gave up at the multi-King boss (the one where you had to kill several iterations very quickly in order to defeat it).

I think I'd rather just start over with an "easy mode" build. Can anyone point me to a FAQ (and I know there are several) that's considered the best for a reasonably easy run-through of the game?
 
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Nemesis

Bridgeburner
1,191
628
the lazy is strong with this one

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Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,463
get a black knight halberd, upgrade to +5, defeat every regular enemy in 1 hit, every hard enemy with 2 and every boss with 5 to 10.

Or Zweihander +15. Hydra died with 4 heads still up, because my damage was so ridiculously overkill per hit.
 

Saladus

Bronze Knight of the Realm
271
11
Funny enough I had the same urge to finish this game first now that DS2 is out. About maybe a year ago I got to the archers in Anor Londo, and decided fuck this, I'm taking a break. For a year, a fucking year, I've given that part maybe 10-15 tries every month for one session, said "Fuck this," and put the game away again for another month. A few days ago I pushed myself to do it again. I FINALLY, FINALLY get past the archers, shitting myself with joy, get to the bonfire, die shortly after, only to realize I lit the bonfire, BUT I DIDN'T FUCKING REST THERE. So I'm all like FUCK EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS GAME as I once again charge up on my next attempt past the archers, and low and behold, I get past them once again with one attempt. So yea... now I can finally play the game.

I get it with people saying that part isn't THAT hard. To me though that whole part was just so frustrating to put up with. It was VERY frustrating to deal with that whole run, and then sometimes get stunlocked with arrows fucking you up the ass if you made just one single wrong move. Any other part of the game is fine if I'm dying a lot, because it would be me dying due to making mistakes in combat. But those fucking archers man.
 

ShakyJake

<Donor>
7,597
19,181
I get it with people saying that part isn't THAT hard. To me though that whole part was just so frustrating to put up with. It was VERY frustrating to deal with that whole run, and then sometimes get stunlocked with arrows fucking you up the ass if you made just one single wrong move. Any other part of the game is fine if I'm dying a lot, because it would be me dying due to making mistakes in combat. But those fucking archers man.
God damn, I forgot about that section. Ugh, I really don't want to replay through all of that. It's funny, I've played Dark Souls on and off for the past, what? 2 years, get stuck on an area, finally get passed it, and hit a brick wall again. Those archers were a pain in the ass. The bosses to that area were rage inducing but I managed to get past them after MANY tries.

I don't mean to sound "lazy" but it gets to a point where it's no longer fun. I believe I hamstrung myself by going with a paladin/cleric'ish type build (chain armor, using pole arms, with heals). Doing a quick scan of the Wiki it looks like I'm close to the end. Looks like I've completed everything up to the Abyss. But "The Four Kings" is killing me. Every time I have to run ALL the way back only to die in an under a minute.

It's funny, I beat the original Demon Souls and never had this sense of frustration and just wanting to say "fuck this" and snap the disc in half.
 

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
God damn, I forgot about that section. Ugh, I really don't want to replay through all of that. It's funny, I've played Dark Souls on and off for the past, what? 2 years, get stuck on an area, finally get passed it, and hit a brick wall again. Those archers were a pain in the ass. The bosses to that area were rage inducing but I managed to get past them after MANY tries.

I don't mean to sound "lazy" but it gets to a point where it's no longer fun. I believe I hamstrung myself by going with a paladin/cleric'ish type build (chain armor, using pole arms, with heals). Doing a quick scan of the Wiki it looks like I'm close to the end. Looks like I've completed everything up to the Abyss. But "The Four Kings" is killing me. Every time I have to run ALL the way back only to die in an under a minute.

It's funny, I beat the original Demon Souls and never had this sense of frustration and just wanting to say "fuck this" and snap the disc in half.
I felt the same way at times. In fact, I still haven't ever killed the final boss without using summons.

I think the big difference between the two games is that Demons Souls was intended to be hard but I don't think the developers quite knew what kind of reaction they were going to get. So it was very difficult but it was also something you could really learn from. Every single time I died in Demons Souls, I could point out one spot where I screwed up and it got me killed. So I was able to learn a lot from those mistakes and get better at the game. Dark Souls was different though. The developers knew that Demons Souls was very popular because of the difficulty so they decided to double down on that. However, the only real why to do that was to make some areas really cheap (the archers in Anor Londo being the biggest example of cheap deaths). The first time I played through the area, it took me a solid two hours to get through it. The difference between this area and difficult areas in Demons Souls is that I knew EXACTLY what to do and I was still dying over and over again. Doing those runs, a lot of my deaths simply came down to bad luck.
 

cabbitcabbit

NeoGaf Donator
2,595
7,740
I wouldn't say anything about those encounters are "cheap."

Every time I died over and over to a particular spot in demons souls/dark souls/dark souls II, I never thought "fuck this game." It's always been "fuck me. If only I was 1/4 of a second faster..."
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
3,249
2,707
Archers aren't that big of a deal. Either cheese them with poison arrows or just run and/or block. Helps if you're light. After you get to the first ledge, repeat to get to the one on the right first, since the one on the left can't see you there.

The four kings can be a pain, helps if you use the chloromanthy ring and eat a green blossom. I prefer a fast weapon, I've beaten them with a katana and the furysword. Just run up and start wailing, stay close and their swings barely hurt, shield block the explosion, estus when needed. Keep swinging during the death animation as it will still take health off the meter.
 

Elerion

N00b
735
46
Four Kings:
First, google "Four Kings shortcut" and you'll find a video that shows you how to run back in 2 minutes tops.
Second, upgrade/buff your weapon. Four Kings is just a DPS gear check, it's probably the easiest boss in the game mechanically.
Finally, either practice rolling through their swings (it's super easy tbh, every single swing is highly telegraphed) or just wear lots of poise and facetank them. Stick very close, they deal less damage there. Either way is easy.

4kings is hard on NG+ and so on, but on NG it's easy peasy.
 

cyrusreij

Trakanon Raider
1,712
575
I did the 4 Kings by wearing Full Havel's and using some high damage two hander iirc. I literally just ran up to them and facetanked it, I only fought one at a time up until 3/4 they dropped so easily. I couldn't actually tell you if that fight had any strategy because it sure as hell doesn't require it on NG.
 

ShakyJake

<Donor>
7,597
19,181
Fucking hilarious. Tried Four Kings again, after shelving the game for 6 months, and beat it first try.
confused.png
 

Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,463
Anyone know where the Black Knight Greataxe comes from? I miss that weapon.

Currently in the big castle place, using a Drangelic Greatsword +3 and Fire Longsword +10.
Catacombs Black Knight has it, probably drops it, but not guaranteed as all BK weapons
 

Kreugen

Vyemm Raider
6,599
793
I loaded this up out of curiosity yesterday. First off, I couldn't get dsfix to uncap the framerate without crashing. Now I read it may have to do with a combo of win8 + dsfix + using a gamepad. But I tooled around with it at dogshit 30fps (how the fuck can peasants stand it?) and couldn't figure out why I was getting shitstomped. It felt like I had never played the game before - everything I did was awkward as fuck. I kept switching to two handed grip instead of attacking, or I'd parry instead of blocking. I kept forgetting that trying to move backwards causes you to slooooowly turn around before walking towards the camera. Eventually I realized the problem was that I played this game with kbm the first time, and I see why. The control scheme on the gamepad is fucking awful, and so much different than the rest of the genre. Using the bumper buttons to attack/block is the the most awkward thing ever. Even after ten minutes of playing I would hit the x/y to attack and the trigger button to block. I felt like an absolute retard playing this with a gamepad.

I'm sure I could get used to it eventually, but kbm works so well in this that it doesn't really matter. It was just funny for a bit, puzzling out why it felt like I had never played the damn game before.
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
3,249
2,707
People make kb/m sound much worse then it is. Just had to remap a few keys and was fine, except kicks and jump attacks, which can't be remapped. Simultaneous mouseclick and keypress is a pain in the ass. I played 30fps for a bit because I read about the bug caused by unlocking to 60. But eventually said fuck it, and ended up only having one fall through the world off a ladder in several hundred hours. That said, 30fps isn't horrible as long as you have high res and all the other shit on.

Still don't get why anyone would run Win8. I upgraded to 7 because of fucking DX10 and more ram, but I would never consider 8, and all I hear about it are problems.