Thanks to both V_Arnold for original format/information and Sullichin for re-edit.
Beginner's Guide
Character Creation
Class: Your class only determines your starting stats and equipment. You are not locked to anything! You can alter your stats later on, you can equip any weapon that your stats allow to do comfortably so, and you can cast spells as long as you have the required item and enough attunement slots.
Starting item: Master key is a useful accessory that lets you open some locked doors, allowing you to tackle certain areas in a different order or skip them entirely, so it is considered to be the best starting item. All of the starting items can be obtained in-game, but by the time you can get the master key otherwise, it's not nearly as useful.
Gameplay Basics
The combat is very simple and straightforward once you familiarize yourself with how it works. Your vitality (red meter) is of course your health, and if it reaches 0 guess what happens. The green bar underneath is stamina, which depletes if you perform action such as blocking an attack, rolling, jumping, attacking (heavy attacks are more exhausting than simple attacks). If you decide to block an attack with a weapon, the amount of damage that will get through is the attack's damage minus the reduced amount of your weapon's "physical block". The shields are way more effective if you plan on blocking a lot, quickly reaching the 90-100% block damage reduce area where you take minimal or no damage if you block, but you will lose stamina. When walking with your shield up, your stamina regenerates at a much slower rate, so it is important to sometimes lower your shield to allow your stamina to recover. The two main melee/ranged combat stats are strength and dexterity. Heavy weapons like Clubs and Great Axes require a strength investment, while quicker weapons and bows benefit from dexterity. Others require a healthy, balanced towards one or other mix of the two. It is wise to base your strength and dexterity stats around your weapon choices.
Weapons have minimum requirements to wield, and some weapons have damage scaling bonuses with certain stats. There is a "Param Bonus" section of the item detail screen that will tell you which stats if any affect the damage of the weapon. They will be indicated with a letter, with S and A being the best, E being the lowest. For example, something with A scaling in strength will add more damage to the weapon with your strength stat than a weapon that only has D scaling in strength. It should be noted that elemental weapons (Fire, Chaos, Lightning) lose ALL param bonuses -- the weapon will do elemental damage at the expense of no longer adding additional physical damage based on any of your stats. As an example, a Lightning Claymore +5 with 16 strength (the minimum requirement for the weapon) will do the same damage as a Lightning Claymore +5 with 50 strength.
There are several kinds of upgrade paths that require different materials and the skill of a blacksmith. The various paths and materials required are outlined nicely here. Upgrading your weapon will usually yield a higher return of damage increase than increasing a stat like strength or dexterity. Upgrading weapons is very important, and ANY weapon in the game is viable when upgraded. Use what you like! You're also going to want to upgrade your shields (increased stability) and armor (increased resistances).
Sorceries scale with your Intelligence, and Miracles scale with your Faith. Miracles and Spells will scale damage depending on the MagAdjust stat of your equipped talisman or catalyst, respectively. Pyromancy damage is not governed by any stat, but increasing attunement lets you equip more spells of any type. The damage done by pyromancy is affected by upgrading the pyromancy glove. You can find NPCs in your journey that will allow you to do this.
TL;DR:
VIT for health,
END for stamina and equip load,
STR/DEX for weapons,
FAI/INT/ATT for magic. Don't bother upgrading Resistance.
Combat Tips
- Parrying and finding openings: The combat revolves around striking at the right moment -- dodging or blocking attacks and then attacking yourself when the opponent is recovering. You can parry also, which can be achieved by hitting L2 /LT/Tab just as your opponent's weapon is about to hit you. After this, a sound effect confirms your parry, and you will perform a special attack with increased damage. While you are engaged in a parry attack animation, you are immune to damage. Parrying is risky because the window to do so is very narrow and mistiming will result in you eating a counter attack from your foe. Typically, only humanoid enemies can be parried.
- Don't get hit-stunned: If you engage 4-5 opponents by going into a room where they are, chances are that you will have to block the first, then the second, then the third, and by the time you blocked all (and ran out of endurance to act), the first mob will already start his second attack. Do not do this. Plan ahead by having always a path open for a small retreat - you will be comfortable with faking a retreat than hitting back, if the mob's weapon and behavior is compatible with this play-style - but do not engage more than 2 mobs together unless you are really, really good, or simply are over-geared and confident. See: death section
You can raise the threshold that an enemy attack will interrupt your own by equipping armor with higher poise.
- Watch your step. Everyone can be tossed down from a cliff/building. If you have no wall behind your back, you will be pushed down even if you block, however slightly. Blocked and connected attacks push everything, you can kill and you can be killed by being pushed down on such places. If any mob dies while you are nearby, you will gain the soul from its death, but any potential loot gained will be lost if he falls to the abyss.
- Rolling/dodging is often better than blocking. Especially with bosses, their hits are HUGE. They can deplete your stamina by 50% with one hit if you decide to block - and if that attack has a followup, you will be toppled sooner or later, with no option to counterattack. Find the pattern, roll if you can, as this costs less endurance than blocking the hits. This is not always the case in tight spaces and non-boss fights, but you will know it in time. Again, always keep an eye on your stamina.
About Bonfires, Death and Humanity:
Bonfires: Bonfires are like checkpoints. While you can save anywhere if you quit the game, you will re-spawn at the last bonfire you rested at once you die.
Resting at a bonfire replenishes all of your spells and Estus flasks (healing potions), and offers several options. You can attune new spells and level up. The "reverse hollowing" option allows you to return to human form provided you have at least one active humanity (see humanity section below). Once in human form you can kindle the bonfire. This uses up another humanity, but it permanently increases the number of Estus Flasks you will receive when you rest at that particular bonfire.
Humanity: Humanity is a semi-complex gameplay mechanic that affects various aspects of the game. Your character's "active humanity" is represented by a number in the left upper corner of the screen. This number can go all the way up to 99, and higher numbers will provide a few passive bonuses: it increases item discovery (loot drops) up to 10 humanity, the damage of chaos weapons up to 10 humanity, curse resistance up to 30 humanity, and certain defenses all the way up to 99.
Having active humanity is required to kindle and reverse hollowing at bonfires. Having a number greater than 0 in your counter does not mean you are in human form, necessarily. You must reverse hollowing to become human, changing your appearance and lighting up the humanity counter. While in human form, you may summon help and get invaded (see Co-Op section below).
Humanity is available as a semi-rare consumable item. Certain enemies like rats can drop them. Consuming the item will add one to your humanity counter (two if it's a twin humanities), and restore your health fully. You can otherwise increase the number in your humanity counter by successfully beating a boss in someone else's world, winning an invasion, or randomly after killing a certain number of enemies in an area with an undefeated boss.
Death: If you die, you lose all collected souls and active humanity. If you were human upon death, you will lose your human form.
If you can successfully run back to your bloodstain, you can regain your lost humanity points and souls, but you will NOT revert back to human form. If you die again, the souls and the humanity points will be lost permanently and a new bloodstain will appear in the place you last died. If you fall off from somewhere, your stain will appear in the last valid and reachable position in the map, nearby to the place you died.
Pro-tip: You can equip a ring of sacrifice after dying, and if you die again on the way back to your bloodstain, you will lose nothing as a new bloodstain will not replace the one with all of your souls, allowing you another chance to retrieve it.
Co-Op and Invasions
You can get help from other people on your journey to tackle tough areas and bosses, and you can go into someone's world to help them. To summon a co-op partner, you must be in human form (see humanity section above), and the area boss must be alive. Look on the ground for white and orange signs, typically near bonfires and before boss entrances. These are other players in your level range that you can summon. Some areas have NPCs that can be summoned as well. The conditions for them appearing are the same - must be human, boss must be alive.
To help someone else, you need the white soapstone, which is acquired very early in the game. You can be in hollow or human form and the area boss can be alive or dead. Use the item to place your summon sign on the ground, and wait to get summoned into someone else's world. Defeating the area boss will net you 1 humanity in your counter.
Being in human form allows you to summon help, but it's a 'double-edged sword.' You can now be invaded by other players. Eventually you can obtain items that will allow you to invade another player's game world.
If you hit a Stone Wall and aren't making progress:
- Wander around somewhere else. Maybe you should clear another area first. Dark Souls's world is vast, after all. Many new players head to New Londo Ruins or the graveyard/catacombs from the starting area, Firelink Shrine. This is not recommended.
- Change up your fighting style. Every weapon (at least every weapon type, but there are further differences even within the same weapon types) has a different attack animation, hit-box, attack speed, and recovery length. Find what you're comfortable with and master the move sets. The last thing you want to do is an accidental horizontal attack in a tight corridor, unless you like having your sword clank against the wall while a snake-man bites your head off. This is very important on boss fights too - you need to know the spacing of your weapons and attacks to properly counterattack after you roll out of danger.
- Switch your ring/armor setup too, to best fit the situation.
- Upgrade your weapons. Upgrading only costs souls and (mostly) easily obtainable materials. See upgrade & stats/combat sections above.
- Grind a few levels, but realize that it is possible to tackle any section of the game at any level -- a strong weapon is more important than a high level. Make sure to address your problems in this grind process: if you need more endurance to equip heavier armor, get an extra swing out of your sword or roll faster, increase that. If you need more health, increase the Vitality. If you have a fancy new potential weapon, but need more strength, increase that. But if you're just grinding levels hoping that it will make a tough section suddenly easier, it won't.
- Practice. You're going to die a lot. It doesn't matter, you'll gain more from continued experience with the game than you will from leveling up.
- Ask for help in this thread.
