Be Excellent To Each Other

Sinner's Rise seems to have some tough enemies in the water section, so I might get back to the forest after I've conquered the three bosses. Just had a quick go and almost did it on my own with zapp pow lasers. Actually the magic, bows and cross bows seem to do far more damage than they ever did in DS1. They're worth using now, which I like, whereas before the bows and crossbows did pathetic amounts of damage as to be utterly useless.

The soul vessel might be handy for reallocating stats if you made yourself into a duff build. I think the other chest had something to repower your magic.

I'm super enjoying this now. It seems bloody huge (again).

Did you ever finish DS1?

From what I've seen so far, ds2 should be easier to complete, although it has many more times you have to deal with multiple enemies.

Nope, got as far as the boss fight in New Londo, got stuck and bored.

So what part of you decided buying DS2 was the way to go??

The masochist part?

Having helped 30 odd people to beat the chap out of bosses they were too weak to beat the chap out of themselves, it's quite apparent that coop is easy mode.

Aside from a few of cases of idiot host rushing in and dying before anyone could help and one of it spawning me in the floor, there was little threat of defeat.

Completely changed the battles though, less tactics, more punching.

Fewer tactics.

I enjoyed it a lot up to that point, and got massive amounts of play time out of it.

I'm impressed that DS2 took the 'barely existing' tutorial section from DS1 and just removed it completely. That's a dedication to being a deliberate pain in the arse right there.

Eh? It's possible to chop the tutorial up, but it's there and much more comprehensive

That reminds me, I need to go back and have a go at those big beasties by the water. I think there was a boat on the shoreline (might be decorative though...).

You can get in. Didn't seem to do anything for me though. May be covenant related, it's a lot like the coffin for ds1s gravelled covenant.

I'm purposefully saying away from any Wiki's at the minute. 90% of Dark Souls is just discovering and sharing. The remaining 10% is dying.

Indeed. Although I would be stuffed without all the notes on the floor. Very useful.

Although my (now 2) horse related messages are massively outperforming my useful message.

It is? I don't appear to have encountered any such thing. Admittedly didn't get terribly far before something with a club poisoned me and beat me to death while I was erroneously attempting to close a door.

Did you go into the fog doors after the old hags? If you follow them in order it's essentially your tutorial (they've got little messages on posts I think).

Yeah, it's also easily missable. Could certainly be signposted as a tutorial.

Also : poison club men - not the way to go, incase that wasn't already obvious.

Oh. No I didn't. 'Going through fog doors' is something I have a tendency to avoid in DS until I have to

I did the same thing.

I would pay attention to signs by fog doors. Ones with bonfire and not, say, boss are worth going in.

I finished the first Dark Souls yesterday and started right away with NG+. Is there any point to it besides gaining levels or is there new loot?

Higher challenge, some multiplayer things like gravellord covenant only really become active in ng+. But no new loot, although some things like boss souls can only be used once per playthrough and are used to create multiple things, and if you defeat ornstein and slough in a different order you can get different items too.

Well, i don't see much of a challenge. In under an hour i defeated the rooftop gargoyles, which probably took me almost 10 hours in my first playthrough.

Still, even without new stuff there aren't any other games i'd rather play (except perhaps for hearthstone) until DS2 comes out for pc.

Yeah, it begins notably easier (although you'll probably find that if just starting a standard new game) but does get harder than standard.

I much preferred being able to wail on the early baddies on my new game+, it made me feel like a big man. It allowed me to concentrate on bosses to get their magic weapons, getting my stats up to wield the big weapons I'd collected, kill all the NPC's and generally doss about a bit to see what happens!

There is a patch out, but it won't download.

Damn them delaying my dark souls 2.

Just downloaded for me.

(Also - try playing dark souls again with a new character. You'lll realise it is you who has leveled up.)

I do currently seem to have hit something of a wall. Between too dark, too poisony/magicky and too firey the routes currently available are proving a little hard.

too poisony:done
too firey: done

4 souls collected.

Huh. Miniature death pigs. YOU DIED.

Even now (I think) I'm well over half way into the game, those pigs take multiple hits to kill.

I've had a couple of days off from this and it's showing. Bloody chariot boss and bloody skeleton trio. I thought I'd defeated all the skeleton bosses until I was facing a small army of the bastards. Geesh.

I've only met both bosses once, mind, because I was messing about trying to get that item where you drop off the bridge near the chariot. Every time I dropped off I could jump the gap to reach the item. Musta been 5 times I did it until I just dropped off the other side of the bridge right onto the item. Stupid me. Then I saw the secret cave leading off the platform (ace level design this game has) and learned that you press x to open secret doors rather than whacking them. I must have missed a few secret doors not knowing that tid bit. The Last Basilte, I think, has a secret door near the pirate ship bonfire. Must remember to go back and try it.

Skeleton bosses are the ones I was referring to with

"It's not terribly easy.
Edit: Scratch that, it was easy."
First attempt I got similarly ambushed. Second time, expecting it, slowed down and passed easily.

Chariot dude I only found yesterday. Having been previously deterred by its guardians and then forgetting about it. Beat it after 4 attempts, I think.

Re: secret doors.Yeah, I only found out about that due to the button for open being the same as for read message. Although there are places where you have to smack with weapon too. Although I can only think of the one of those in the lost bastille hides a ring of picking up more stuff.

Finding weapon/shield durability to be a bit of an issue.
In a boss fight yesterday, got it down to mostly when it broke my shield. Trying to finish it off using only rolling was fun, but given the range of his weapon compared to mine made it quite hard. Then ran out of estus too. Chuck gold pine resin on to try and get the fight finished, get it down to a point where the first one of us to land a hit wins.

He won. Couldn't get close enough.

Beat them the next time, mind.

Also, have you gone in the belfry near the lost bastille yet?

Sinner's Rise? Yeah, I mentioned it earlier as I hit it earlier on after the pirate ship. The big guys in the water were a bit strong for me so I'm saving it until I've got some decent steel.

Also: RATS! Just thought I'd stroll through the rats to find out what was going on. I was "summoned as a grey spirit" in the tomb. I didn't even drop a white marker or nothing and the first set of rats were dead so I went looking for my summoner who must be further along and in need of my expert help!

... he was standing behind a wall waiting to slice me up. Which he did. Bastard.

I finally met the rat king and found out why. Tch. Still, I joined my first covenant and I'm now the rat kings loyal servant.

I'd dropped deeper and deeper down the well and was exploded losing 13500 souls. I then went back to get them, missed a footing and fell to my death losing the lot. I was so annoyed at myself I tried to turn the PS3 off before it could save my prat fall! Fack knows if it worked! I'll find out later, but feel like a dick head.

Nah, Belfry Luna. It's boss is... interesting.


I joined them, only to unjoin them a bit later. Think I've whored myself out of most covenants by now.



I'd check you haven't at least corrupted your save. As you'll probably want to retrieve from psn+ if you have before that gets overwritten by the corrupted one. I speak from experience of Dark Souls corrupting my save for no apparent reason.

Is the Belfry after Sinner's Rise then? I'm surprised how intricate The Lost Bastille is.

I doubt it'll corrupt my save. Quickly resetting the game was a viable solution to the knight boss kicking my ass on Demon's Souls and left you just outside his chamber! I'll see though. Fingers crossed it's ok.

Nah, it's an optional branch off the bastille, shortly after the sentinels battle. Through a face stone.

Don't know exactly what happens if you don't do it, but the signs were a little insistent that I did.

Bastard, I'd just dumped my only device in one of the faces in the rat kings lair, before I'd even seen that there's about 10 of the bloody faces dotted about. I think they're supposed to activate traps for invasions but I ain't pissing away any more to find out.

Yeah, having come across similar tricks elsewhere , I check around to see if there are many faces, and then ignore them.

I've not really ever found myself lacking in keystones though, despite wasting about 3.

Shitting hell, you found The Gutter? It's terrifying down here!

Yeah. Passed the gutter too.And indeed, all the areas that follow it*. Levelled up intelligence and bought a ring of I'm a massive genius such that I could cast light.

(It would be the "Too dark" I mentioned earlier)

* - As far as I'm aware, my list of places I can progress in is now only the castle that we were told to go to at the beginning of the game.

Nice one. I'm in.

Hang on, I've been invaded and deadid.

I'll be back Dark Souls.

Shit, I still ain't killed the church boss. Jesus, I've got loads to do.

Since you liked the rat covenant so much, WEelcome to the bell covenant.

I knew about one thing before playing Dark Souls 2. Which was a particular boss who sounded super hard.

I just met him.

He wasn't hard. Surprisingly so.

This is so bloody good. Progressing slowly. Especially as keep getting distracted by multiplayer.

I think this area may well be the new blightstone area - the one everyone loves to hate. Or just hates.

I'm actually going for the strategy of exhausting the enemy supply :/

The castle in forest of the giants feels very much like dark souls, I'm having a jolly time. The a massive bastard appeared on a rooftop next to me, I ran away, and he disappeared. Scared now.

You'll see him again later Maybe more than once. And hate him.

---
On a separate note:

A word of warning: Later in the game (much much later) you'll go down a corridor which (at least now) is full of messages suggesting torches, weakness: torch, try torch etc etc.

Ignore them. They seem to be trolling you.

Did anyone notice in the room where you fight those three bosses in the Lost Bastille that there's a load of secret rooms? TRUFAX. Not much in them but still.

I noticed the signs in front of them.

Whether that's all of them I couldn't say. Found one next to the cage (that I still can't figure out) on a return visit, so probably not.