Dark Souls is on Steam

[Armenius]

My greatest "a-ha" moment in Dark Souls was accidentally discovering how to jump. After all this time I have movesets down pretty well, but I'm still mastering the timing of iframes. I think that is what is so rewarding about this game, is that you always seem to be learning something new.

 

[Zibigan]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I picked up DS1 and am going to have a go.

 

[ghostwich]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I picked up DS1 and am going to have a go.

I'm tempted to tell you to NOT look up any hints and go into the game blind. Actually maybe go in blind and come back here for hints and pointers

 

[Zibigan]

Well that is what is gonna happen...I am going in blind.

 

[BeavermanA]

I loved all the Witcher games. Also recently completed Bloodborne, and that was spectacular. So picked up DS1 & 2 during the Steam lunar sale. For some reason I started with DS2. Beat the main part of the game already, thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[LeviathanZERO]

Well that is what is gonna happen...I am going in blind.

 

[Ryom]

ROFL on #20

The gloves come off...

 

[ghostwich]

And #11 I mean...

 

[MrWrong]

The first time I played i went right to #11 and was like WTF why am I not doing very much damage. I probably died 20 times before I gave up and realized there were other was to go.

 

[Zibigan]

I can't seem to be able to get a triple monitor resolution to work. I have tried pre-DSFIX and post-DSFIX. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[evilsofa]

I can't seem to be able to get a triple monitor resolution to work. I have tried pre-DSFIX and post-DSFIX. Anybody have any suggestions?

Widescreen Fixer (courtesy the WSGF article for DS1) doesn't work for you?

 

[Armenius]

And #11 I mean...

What, you don't do #11 first to get the Rite of Kindling? Am I doing it wrong?


I used to absolutely hate The Catacombs, but now I don't see what the big deal is. I guess it's still good advice for noobs and casuls .

All kidding aside, that picture has some great advice on there.

And it's an oldie, but a goodie (in reference to #20, skip to 4:05).

 

[LeviathanZERO]

(in reference to #20, skip to 4:05).

 

[jiminator]

First playthrough I went past the catacombs into the tomb, discovered the gold barrier,. Getting out, yeah, good times

 

[polonyc2]

First playthrough I went past the catacombs into the tomb, discovered the gold barrier,. Getting out, yeah, good times

my first playthrough I went into the Ornstein and Smough fight thinking my Drake Sword would be fine since I was doing great with it up to that point...ended up having to do a bunch of farming to get a new weapon (Quelaag's Furysword)

 

[Domingo]

I followed a good friend's suggestion of playing the game long enough to get to sewers (or just the Kapra Demon) and then starting over. That's right around the time where you start to get the game and can do much better in the earlier areas. I'd recommend that approach to anyone. You'll lose/waste far fewer souls and generally notice far more on your 2nd go-round in an area.
I wouldn't totally ignore the value of blocking, too. It's pretty useful outside of boss enemies and especially when dealing with groups.

IMO, the single most important advice I can offer you is this: After an enemy hits you with something particularly damaging - do NOT heal right away. Be aware that their follow up is almost guaranteed to be faster than you can drink a potion. No matter how tempting it is when you're on death's door - be ready to either dodge or retreat before healing. The game does this very much on purpose. There are exceptions (Four Kings being one), but you generally want to get away after getting waylaid.

 

[Armenius]

First playthrough I went past the catacombs into the tomb, discovered the gold barrier,. Getting out, yeah, good times

My first playthrough I stumbled into The Great Hollow and found myself in Ash Lake without the Lordvessel. I couldn't climb out of that pit, so I just deleted the character and started over. Of course these days I have no issues with climbing out of the bottom of The Great Hollow, but at the time I was so pissed that they would design something like that. The fact that they never fixed the collision issue on the one platform before the ladders still makes me angry because I swear that they fixed it on the console versions...

 

[polonyc2]

I followed a good friend's suggestion of playing the game long enough to get to sewers (or just the Kapra Demon) and then starting over. That's right around the time where you start to get the game and can do much better in the earlier areas. I'd recommend that approach to anyone. You'll lose/waste far fewer souls and generally notice far more on your 2nd go-round in an area.
I wouldn't totally ignore the value of blocking, too. It's pretty useful outside of boss enemies and especially when dealing with groups

I only started to feel comfortable with the game after reaching Anor Londo...the scaling, gameplay, stats etc were all confusing as hell early on...honestly I only fully understood the game after completing it the first time

 

[Domingo]

I think I had a working understanding of the game mechanics pretty early. Some things borderline require a hint guide (like how stats interact with weapon damage and random items with crazy uses), but I think I at least got the gist of things right around reaching/killing the Capra Demon.

With all of the technical issues Street Fighter 5 is having, I'm 1/2 tempted to give the first game a go again.

 

[Armenius]

I just put another 60 hours into it the past couple of weeks. Now that there are Steam achievements I just had to go back and get them all again . I think it passed Titan Quest as my most-played game now.

 

[polonyc2]

I last played the game a few months back and noticed the MP base has dwindled dramatically...hard to find invaders/pvp

 

[Domingo]

I think my old GFWL achievements ported over to Steam. The only thing that keeps me from starting anew is just thinking about how daunting the game is.
Still, I never did kill Kalameet on my previous NG+ run. On your first pass, the difficulty for most enemies is about 30-40% less...assuming you level up your stats and weapons normally.

 

[chockomonkey]

I just had a chance to load this up last night. It is definitely funny how much better you do on subsequent playthroughs. My first guy is level 69 and nowhere near as far as my second guy, level 49.

I didn't actually play at all last night cause i couldn't seem to get dsfix working correctly. For some reason my ui is bugged, the d-pad options only show two and when pressed they light up where they ought to be. Really weird.

Does anyone know how to get the game to show up on a secondary monitor? I have a tv hooked up to my computer that i'd love to play on.

 

[H-street]

set it as clone , primary, or run it in a borderless window mode (not 100% if Dark Souls supports borderless window)

 

[Armenius]

I last played the game a few months back and noticed the MP base has dwindled dramatically...hard to find invaders/pvp

I was constantly being invaded in the usual places the past couple of weeks. The amount of people wanting to engage in jolly coop, though, is definitely down, but I saw 7 or 8 summon signs at the Anor Londo bonfire last night.

I think my old GFWL achievements ported over to Steam. The only thing that keeps me from starting anew is just thinking about how daunting the game is.
Still, I never did kill Kalameet on my previous NG+ run. On your first pass, the difficulty for most enemies is about 30-40% less...assuming you level up your stats and weapons normally.

My GFWL achievements didn't carry over. There are a couple areas that still annoy the hell out of me, like Lost Izalith and The Duke's Archive.

Once you recognize Kalameet's attack patterns he isn't that hard (like any other boss), it just takes a long ass time. I'm guilty of getting impatient during that fight and getting myself killed, though. He has high defense against pretty much anything, especially Fire and Magic, and a lot of HP. The last time on NG+2 it took me nearly 15 minutes to kill him by myself with a GLGS +5 at 40 STR and 6 Crystal Soul Spears at 44 INT with a Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring/Crown of Dusk/TCC...

 

[chockomonkey]

set it as clone , primary, or run it in a borderless window mode (not 100% if Dark Souls supports borderless window)

Ahh cool thanks! I'll set it as primary and see how that goes, seems easiest approach. Sadly i can't do clone cause of varying resolutions.

 

[Domingo]

If you need to run Dark Souls in a borderless window, the program "Borderless Gaming" will do the trick. That's what I use for any game that doesn't do that natively.

 

[H-street]

Ahh cool thanks! I'll set it as primary and see how that goes, seems easiest approach. Sadly i can't do clone cause of varying resolutions.

if you do clone it'll take the lowest res of the two..

I personally prefer clone but both my TV and monitor at the same (1080p)

 

[chockomonkey]

if you do clone it'll take the lowest res of the two..

I personally prefer clone but both my TV and monitor at the same (1080p)

Cloning doesn't affect performance does it? Just saw Winkey+P is a quick toggle for screen settings! Cool!

 

[LeviathanZERO]

If you need to run Dark Souls in a borderless window, the program "Borderless Gaming" will do the trick. That's what I use for any game that doesn't do that natively.

DSfix has an option.
You have to set the in game option to windowed first though.

 

[chockomonkey]

So I sat down to play last night. Got my DSfix all sorted out, looking at my characters. Decide to load up Kenshin, my newest and furthest character, a Katana-wielding manslayer! But boy was it overwhelming looking at all the gear and stuff... trying to figure out wtf i was doing with my build, where i was trying to go, etc. Almost quit and just made a new character but the thought of having to do Blighttown again prevented that, thankfully

I wanted something fun to do so I figured I'd go try the ceaceless discharge and explore that area since I never have... i ended up beating him on my first try, no glitches even. Just dodge and attack. It must have been a long time ago that i last tried this guy. Anyway.... two hours later that passed in the blink of an eye I'd killed two more bosses and cannot wait to get off work to continue exploring this awesome lavacave thingie =P

I still have no idea why I'm wearing the gear I am (this red pointy-hat and robe set).. and trying to compare gear and stuff last night made me remember that I never really cared for the armor in this game. Not enough of a difference, it's all so subtle.

 

[chockomonkey]

So I accidentally killed Quelaan while trying to level up her covenant for chaos firestorm (damnit autosave making a stupid mistake permanent), is this going to be a problem for this character? Is chaos firestorm pretty awesome?

 

[jiminator]

may be useful for multiplayer or trying to oneshot bosses, but otherwise no. It sucks up a couple of slots and is rather limited.

 

[BeavermanA]

Ok thank god for this DSFix. Started playing this on my laptop while on a business trip on Friday. Wasn't sure if I could continue playing, even though it said 1080p it looked absolutely terrible.

 

[polonyc2]

those Prowling Demons are still one of the most disturbing and creepy enemies I've ever seen in a game...they really creep me out and I never get creeped out in any game or horror movie

 

[ghostwich]

those Prowling Demons are still one of the most disturbing and creepy enemies I've ever seen in a game...they really creep me out and I never get creeped out in any game or horror movie

The bottom of Sen's Fortress... oh man.

 

[chockomonkey]

I'm getting a huge FPS hit when lava is on-screen. Anyone know what settings affect this? It doesn't seem to be AO.

Seems that unlocking the framerate helped a lot, 30fps instead of 15 when lava is on the screen. Odd..

 

[Armenius]

You're not using any texture overrides, are you? That and AO are really the only things that have a big impact on performance in my experience. Speaking of texture overrides I would make sure that you only have that enabled and have texture dumping disabled.

 

[chockomonkey]

You're not using any texture overrides, are you? That and AO are really the only things that have a big impact on performance in my experience. Speaking of texture overrides I would make sure that you only have that enabled and have texture dumping disabled.

Nope. The last time I used a texture override I remember it introducing some stutter while loading new areas so I just went with DSFix this time around. Ever since I unlocked the framerate all has been good. Been able to get to exploring this Lost Izalith place... it's kinda creepy D=

 

[Armenius]

This game certainly does make the imagination run wild in its various environs. Ash Lake really freaks me out.

Spoiler: Ash Lake

The huge skeleton of one of the dragons on the beach is just part of it. But the fact that the entire world of fire rests in the canopy of those humongous tree makes my brain want to eat itself. It is such an amazing idea and the scope just boggles the mind.