Started the game last night, went Pyromancer first up, got to lvl 15 before I signed off. So far I am really enjoying it, tutorial boss was a cinch and Taurus Demon wasn't anything too hard. I thought the close-up visuals in some places were very impressive and already died a few times but regathered my souls each time. Only decent normal enemy I fought was a black knight who I beat by spamming fire bomb and then circle strafing him for about a minute, hitting him every so often. Went in the tower and saw a heavily armored dude downstairs, he owned me in one hit so didn't bother next attempt. Is he carrying anything worth getting ?

Yes.

Ok, will have another crack at him I guess, will try find a better weapon first though, I'm intending to have a good session with this tonight

Had a great session with this game last night, got the drake sword but didn't really need to use it much, upgraded my axe to +3 and that took care of most enemies , I've learned a lot coming from demon's souls !!. I cleared out a portion of Darkroot garden including killing the moonlight butterfly, I also defeated the titanite demon guarding the entrance and the mecha boar aswell as Havel who was easy enough once I figured out how to dodge his attacks, that ring is definitely useful !!. I might go after the gargoyles next.

EDIT: I have beaten the gargoyles who were easy , Capra Demon took a few tries mainly due to me being killed before I could get past him. I headed into the depths and have been cursed !!, this sucks lol but the game is awesome fun.

EDIT 2: Damn the depths were annoying, I managed to lift the curse but the place is a maze, luckily the gaping dragon was easy but somehow I lost all the souls he gave me even though I don't think I died . Blighttown reminds me of world 5 in Demon's Souls, danger of falling off 90% of the time and poison everywhere !!. I became a bit desperate for a bonfire after first having issues with the ogres and then slowly using my estus flasks throughout my journey, then I ran out of them and came across an old bridge, two goblins attacked me and I battled with them, I nearly lost my balance numerous times, basically fell off but was caught by a piece of wood sticking out of the bridge, rolled past them many times and nearly fell off that way too. I came through with a sliver of health left, rounded the corner and there was the bonfire, hell yeah !!. In the end I killed Qualag with the help of this warrior I summoned, now I am at Sen's fortress getting my ass handed to me by some snake guards, methinks it may be time to get a better weapon !!.

It sad no one plays this anymore , I am having a great time but the difficulty is catching up with me now !!.

Sen's fortress is down !!, found an awesome lightning spear which is doing work so thinking of swapping my drake sword out for it as I have upgraded it to +3

The lightning spear is the next tier weapon after the drake sword. The one most people go on to, I mean.
How'd you like the mimics?

Oh, he got me first time, nearly killed me, gave him another hit and was surprised he was that big !, reward was sweet of course .

Also, a minor annoyance in sens fortress, was going up the elevator with the spikes at the top, at the place where you are supposed to get out, a phantom was waiting, hit me back in the elevator, took off half my health, then as I had not gotten out, got crushed by spikes and the dude finished me off on the way back down, annoying !! .

Damn Anor Londo is a step up in difficulty, I think I have nearly conquered it now though. I have learnt how to parry and it kills the silver knights in one hit, opened up a secret door to the bonfire and now trying to take out a titinite demon in a small room and he is tough !, his attacks hit really hard !!.

Ok now I need help, the boss fight with smough and ornstein is tough as hell, I'm going for ornstein first but I just can't separate the two. Smough is too fast and keeps up with his partner so I can't get hits in without taking damage. I'm trying to get him stuck behind a pillar but when ornstein does his dash, he jumps back to smough before I can get hits in, it doesn't really help that my lightning spear is doing barely any damage to them. They also keep tag teaming me and they hit real hard so I can barely stay alive half the time, help ?

Well, for starters, they're both Lightning elemental creatures. Your spear isn't going to do jack.
Bring fire.

Solaire is available for summoning outside the room on the first landing on the steps to the right. However, he doesn't live long in there. Most people drop summon signs in the bonfire room. Another competent player makes a huge difference.

The one of them that you defeat last determines who's Soul you get. In addition, the merchant from the Depths will be moving to Firelink Shrine after this. He will sell a version of their armor (again, the one you killed last). If that's Ornstein, his armor is actually really good. Smough's is some of the strongest in the game, but is very heavy and has a high stamina regen penalty.

As for actually fighting them, I mostly went backwards in a kind of circle first time I beat them. Took our Ornstein first by dodging a Smough charge, then an Orn one, then getting a quick hit in on him before dodging another Smough charge. Repeat. How well that works will depend on your weapon.
They're tough, no mistake. Now when I fight them, I always bring summons.

I opened a few nice shortcuts so I am back at the Firelink Shrine, I think I need to work on my pyromancy as it does do nice damage to them, may farm some souls and upgrade it a bit. I have given up on Smough and Ornstein for now, I was taking too long to damage them, best I could do was getting Smough in his second form down to about 4/5 health.

Thanks for the help Monkey, much appreciated .

Smough and Ornstein are down !!!, it took a real,effort beforehand though. First I went to Darkrootbasin and got owned by the Hydra while trying to get up to Sif, then I saved up 20000 souls to unlock the sealed door and defeated Sif second try, used the souls to level up a bit including my pyromancer flame. Next I looked at the wiki and decided on creating the Quelaags fury sword for its fire damage, got a falchion to +10 and killed all the titanite demons In sens fortress after grabbing the rusted iron ring, went to anor londo, farmed souls and made the sword using the giant blacksmith and got it to +5.

Intending to summon Soliaire, I reversed hollowing at the bonfire but on my way to his summon sign, some jerk invaded and killed me forcing me to waste another humanity to get back to human, these stupid invaders really annoy me, what do they achieve apart from just pissing me off ?. I went offline and summoned solaire, went into the fight and found my new sword was damaging them FAR better than my lightning spear !!, killed ornstein really quickly and after solaire died, got smough down to nearly no health, I just said to hell with it and ran in for the killing blow only to get over half my health bar depleted by a surprise attack and the follow up killed me. I went in there alone the second time and made no silly mistakes that time, happy that I did it alone in the end, sounds more impressive . That fury sword was well worth it, made the battle much more manageable !!.

Quote :

these stupid invaders really annoy me, what do they achieve apart from just pissing me off ?

They fight you for the fun of it.
Yes, they also get Humanity and a copy of all your held souls when they kill you, same as you would get from their bloodstain if you killed them.
But it's mostly because people enjoy fighting other people because they generally provide the greatest challenge.
There are trolls, of course, and people who use cheap tactics/unbalanced stuff, or at least they did before that last patch. Not sure how balanced everything is now.
But again, it's for the fun and challenge for most.

I invade as often as I drop a summon sign. Hunting down another player while fearing that they will get the drop on me is great.
There's an alcove they could hide in ahead. What if they're sneaking up on me? Where could they have been when I spawned? Are they making a run for the fog door? Has that tree always been there (Chameleon spell)? Am I suited to fight this person? How will my gear stack up? Do they have phantoms with them? Is it going to be 3 v 1?

It's a rush.

Well I got a few hits in but he nearly one shotted me even though I was wearing Havel's armour !! (Still somehow under 50% equipment burden)

I think I am over half way through now, discovered all the covenants I can this play-through and beat the stray demon, Gwyndelin and Priscilla last night. I enjoyed the great hollow area I must say but those toad things are annoying with their curse attack.

I am now moving onto the main bosses again, going to New Londo Ruins now, heard 4 kings are hard but Smough and Ornstein will be hard to beat in terms of shear difficulty. I am at nearly 30 hours playtime now and still loving it !!.

I beat the game, 38 hours on the clock, all bosses defeated except Hydra, all but 2 covenants discovered and found a decent amount of loot. Might do a sorcerer character if I have time and go for more covenants + try out more spells.

Overall fantastic game, better than Demon's Souls imo. I thought the difficulty wasn't as bad (maybe due to getting used to the way the game is played) as Demon's Souls but different environments were more numerous, and there were more bosses, more enemies and more gear.

Final boss was good, fairly challenging and a much more worthy final boss than king Allant from DS's. I ended up having to tank him, iron flesh, havel's armor set and Qualaags sword made quick work of the battle, he missed some crucial attacks so I was able to heal up when I needed too, a bit lucky but all in the fun .

Ornstein and Smough were the hardest boss fight in my opinion, other than them, I never found the difficulty overwhelming and a few retries got through every other tough moment., although it was never easy enough to let my guard down which is great too . I think the game is amazing and I'll definitely be replaying it at some point !!.

Congrats, Mitch.
Imo, DS was easier than Demon's Souls for a couple of reasons. Firstly, just the same as you, prior experience with the general combat system.
Second, bonfires as opposed to Archstones. Bonfires are slightly more common, and the various shortcuts mean you can frequently go straight from bonfire to boss with little effort once you've opened them. No more redoing the entire level over. Can you imagine if you had to, say, restart from Firelink Shrine and go all the way back through the Undead Burg and Parish every time you died to the Gargoyles? That makes it a lot easier to learn a boss' tactics quickly.

I just picked it up

Nice Nobody, let us know what you think as you always do !!, also if you can get past Ornstein and Smough first try without summons I applaud you.

Am liking the look of the dlc expansion but it's a bit pricey at $25 NZ, I have a $30 PSN card left over from my birthday but there are are a few other things I have my eye on such as Borderlands 2 dlc and Black Ops 2 map packs, although I could always go for the Prepare to Die Edition and sell my current copy, only if I find a good price though which may be difficult.

EDIT: Have you played the dlc yet Monkey ?, any good ?, I've heard that it is very good and has some challenging boss fights in it !.

My name is spelled with a lower case "n". you guys keep spelling with with a capital n. Please stop.

also this is kinda stupid. I cant be in an xbox live party and have access to online mode. This means if I want to play the game and talk to someone while playing I cant do anything with the online mode. seems like an arbitrary thing to do

EDIT: just created my character, went with a hunter, because i've been playing so much far cry 3 and really in a bow mood. however I get the feeling this class is kind of weak and I would of been better off with something else. went with a master key as my gift because I hate being locked out of stuff, I want to explore everything. and not sure if physique matters but I went with slim. Another choice I think I will probably end up regretting. Really going to hate it if this limits how much I can carry, but I felt like going with slim.

Also I like to experiment and find stuff out on my own, im not using any outside help. so please limit giving me tips on things I haven't done yet. though I do want to discuss things as I go.

The reason I spell your name with a capital N is too avoid making terrible puns, it makes sentences like "the competition was won by nobody" seem a bit more like an actual person won it other than "nobody" :p, I'll stop if you wish .

I'm happy to give tips if you need them, particularly for melee based characters. I am no where near as experienced as Cobalt is but I did complete the game in a good time while discovering a majority of the content so will always be up for a discussion .

but that is the entire point of my name. to cause confusion and create great pun opportunities.

Also just killed the 1st boss. took 2 tries. Would of killed it 1st time if I would of jumped down on it when I 1st got there. even without doing that I would of killed it if I had been more used to the controls. I find having the attacks on the shoulders to be very odd. I keep using items instead of attacking.

also dont know why I didnt post this earlier. (probably because I never really entered this topic much)

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Haha lol ^^

I didn't have an issue with the controls, Dead Island functioned similarly which I finished recently, also, FPS games have the button on the shoulder buttons and I play my fair share of those too.

The reason he wants you to stop is so that those terrible puns will exist. Nobody cares about that sort of thing.

It's quite likely that in most cases the practicality of not having to follow every instance of your name with a set of parenthesis explaining that we meant the person and not "no one" will lose out to simply capitalizing Nobody. I mean in effect, not capitalizing it just changes your name from "nobody" to "nobody (the person)" which really isn't better. I'm afraid laziness will easily win out over puns in this case. Sorry, bud.
Besides, names get capitalized. It's just how our language works. You're a writer, so I know you know this.

Now then.
Mitch. I haven't yet played the DLC. Most likely about to start it as I've just finished Dishonored. I'd like to do a little more play with that to get a real feel for the viability of other playstyles before I move on and do a review for it. But then it's off to Lordran again. By all accounts, the end boss is murderously hard. Looking forward to it.

Nobody, your physique doesn't make any difference beyond cosmetic purposes, so you can rest easy on that.
The Master Key doesn't allow access to anything you wouldn't otherwise get, but it does allow for some sequence breaking. Nothing harmful, of course, but it can make the game easier to skip certain parts. Or harder, I guess, if you go to the wrong neighborhood too early.

There are people who excel with the bow, but for most it's a support weapon for kiting. If you want to use it as more than that, get good at headshots. A solid one will stun *most* foes.

Oh, and here's a beginner tip that everyone you meet will thank you for knowing. When someone is summoned to your world, they cannot heal themselves normally. Only by using Miracles or Humanity, which not everyone has or has to spare. Instead, non-NPC phantoms you summon can only be healed when you chug an Estus. It heals everyone present for the normal amount.

The decision not to allow for outside communication was intentional. I'm sure if they could stop PSN/XBLA messages as well it would have been done. Loneliness and isolation were big themes for the game. Limiting your communication to gestures and premade orange soapstone message makes it much harder to talk out tactics and give warning. You just have to watch each other's back react to the situations that present themselves.
That said, I wholly understand your discontent. This game is interfering with your system's basic functionality.