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Demon's Souls |OT2| Soulsuckingly brilliant RPG full of Demon's Crack

Dark is better than Demon's but you should play both and start with Demon's. They play largely the same with the exception of DaS being an open world vs the more linear progression of DeS, but there were a few changes made in DaS like the removal of item burden, and being able to be summoned while human for example, that might make it a bit annoying to play DeS afterward.
 

Mike M

Nick N
Its been a few days since I started, but I have now entered the Stonefang Tunnel. Got stuck in a fight with the miners that was surprisingly difficult thanks to their numbers, but managed to get out alive.This level looks much more open than the last one which is interesting, will be fun to see how far I can get before the infamous "You have died" pops up again :)

Did some leveling as well, upgraded my sword to get +1, probably not the smartest thing to do since I guess im getting better equipment soon, but whatever. Also did three points in endurance, one in strength and one in vitality. Going all melee character here I guess :)

Edit: Btw, you guys are all calling the levels with numbers, where do I see these numbers in the game? And should I do normal Mario-style progression, complete world 1, then move on to world 2 etc, or just do it random like I am now?

Aaaaaaand I got killed by some magic dude :(

It's never a bad thing to level weapons, as there's not really any particular weapon you're going to find or buy that's clearly superior. It's all about finding something with a move set you like and taking it along an appropriate upgrade path. If you like the sword, upgrade the shit out of it. Sharp stone is plentiful and easy to come by, so if you find something later that you like better, you can upgrade that one without worrying too much about it.

Levels are numbered as follows:

1. Boletarian Palace
2. Stonefang Tunnels
3. Tower of Latria
4. Shrine of Storms
5. Valley of Defilement

I don't think they're ever numbered in-game, but that's the accepted numeration. You can tackle them in any order. You may want to do all of Stonefang ASAP so you can get the item needed to forge weapons from the boss souls,
and then the final area is fairly short and easy, so just wrap the whole area up.

Enemies tend to get more difficult as you progress into a world, but really this is scarcely noticeable outside of 1-3 and 1-4 since the other X-3 levels are all incredibly short and consist largely if bosses that are absolute pushovers.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
It's never a bad thing to level weapons, as there's not really any particular weapon you're going to find or buy that's clearly superior. It's all about finding something with a move set you like and taking it along an appropriate upgrade path. If you like the sword, upgrade the shit out of it. Sharp stone is plentiful and easy to come by, so if you find something later that you like better, you can upgrade that one without worrying too much about it.

Levels are numbered as follows:

1. Boletarian Palace
2. Stonefang Tunnels
3. Tower of Latria
4. Shrine of Storms
5. Valley of Defilement

I don't think they're ever numbered in-game, but that's the accepted numeration. You can tackle them in any order. You may want to do all of Stonefang ASAP so you can get the item needed to forge weapons from the boss souls,
and then the final area is fairly short and easy, so just wrap the whole area up.

Enemies tend to get more difficult as you progress into a world, but really this is scarcely noticeable outside of 1-3 and 1-4 since the other X-3 levels are all incredibly short and consist largely if bosses that are absolute pushovers.

Thanks! I think I have more or less completed this area by now, gotten tons of upgrade-materials and have used it to upgrade my sword to a Quality Sword, which sounded awesome. Also got a big shield that im not strong enough to wield, so I guess my next souls are into strength. I think this level was much easier than the first one, but I guess im just getting better? The magicians are pretty dangerous if not careful though. Awesome game!
 

Sullichin

Member
Fuck. Decided to give SL1 Allant a try again after months. fuck fuck fuck. So close. FUCK.
This is really the only insanely difficult part of SL1 run; otherwise I think it's easier than Dark Souls at SL1.
 

Mike M

Nick N
Thanks! I think I have more or less completed this area by now, gotten tons of upgrade-materials and have used it to upgrade my sword to a Quality Sword, which sounded awesome. Also got a big shield that im not strong enough to wield, so I guess my next souls are into strength. I think this level was much easier than the first one, but I guess im just getting better? The magicians are pretty dangerous if not careful though. Awesome game!

Quality's OK. Good for early on if you don't know where you want to focus stats, but not super suitable for the long haul. The upgrade paths are as follows:

Hard/Sharpstone: Basic upgrade path, doesn't confer any special bonuses

Quality: Moderate boost to both DEX and STR scaling (Takes both to C, I think)

Crushing: Boosts STR scaling by a lot, eliminates DEX scaling

Sharp: Boosts DEX scaling by a lot, drops STR scaling

Dragon: Increases base damage, adds fire damage, eliminates all scaling (Not really viable long term, but situationally useful)

Tearing: Adds Bleeding, increases DEX scaling, lowers STR scaling.

Mercury: Adds chance to inflict Poison status

Fatal: Ups your riposte/backstab damage, lowers base damage.

Moon: Adds magic damage that scales to MAG stat.

Crescent: Adds MAG scaling magic damage and MP regeneration, eliminates DEX and STR scaling.

Blessed: Adds FTH scaling magic damage and HP regeneration, lowers DEX and STR scaling.

Sticky: Greatly increases DEX scaling on bows, lowers STR scaling, increases range.

Dark: Increases a shield's magic damage reduction, resets guard break reduction to that of the shield's base stat.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Ok I cant beat the spider, so ive started to do some grinding. You get enough souls to gain a level by slaining two magicians, so I just enter the area, kill the two early magicians, and go

Edit: Which also helps me stockpile recovery items since they usually drop one or two.
 

Mike M

Nick N
Ok I cant beat the spider, so ive started to do some grinding. You get enough souls to gain a level by slaining two magicians, so I just enter the area, kill the two early magicians, and go

Edit: Which also helps me stockpile recovery items since they usually drop one or two.

Do you have any ranged attacks? There's a shallow nook to the left when you enter where he doesn't hit you with his fire attack if you hug the wall (though I think the web attack does). Ducking in and out of that spot to shoot arrows from a bow is pretty effective.
 

panda21

Member
just started this over and got through 1-1 to opening the door to the boss pretty easily. I didn't die yet and amassed about 3000 souls.

I have a feeling I might die fighting the boss, but I'm not sure what I could spend my souls on at this point that would be helpful? I can't level yet since the MIB hasn't appeared in the nexus yet.

I'm a temple knight and already have a bastard sword, scimitar, and a few other swords..
 

Sullichin

Member
just started this over and got through 1-1 to opening the door to the boss pretty easily. I didn't die yet and amassed about 3000 souls.

I have a feeling I might die fighting the boss, but I'm not sure what I could spend my souls on at this point that would be helpful? I can't level yet since the MIB hasn't appeared in the nexus yet.

I'm a temple knight and already have a bastard sword, scimitar, and a few other swords..

Nothing much you can get except some crappy items from the first vendor. If you die you'll probably be able to pick up your bloodstain before dying again considering you have the shortcut open and the boss won't kill you that fast.
 

2AdEPT

Member
Fuck. Decided to give SL1 Allant a try again after months. fuck fuck fuck. So close. FUCK.
This is really the only insanely difficult part of SL1 run; otherwise I think it's easier than Dark Souls at SL1.

yeah I have been off for a while as well...did a whole month away from home on vacation and got back yesterday....I know I can get allant sooner or later but would have to keep going such that I string together some flawless decision making...hasn't happened yet though!!! :) Best I have done is about half health for Allant. I think I needed to farm some more supplies and upgrade a few things but thought I would rather just do it bare bones....isn't working.

I think I have forgotten what to do to dodge each attack its been so long now! IIRC though I was just baiting the big charge straight at me, then rolling away at last minute....use Allant's recovery to run away, then spam soul ray at range. like I said, foolproof plan if you don't make any mistakes you can't heal from...usually go about 6 rushes and then screw up....Would have to do 12 to beat him. Tried using hyper mode a few time but get one shot and healing didn't work....would reduce the number of rushes from 12 to 4 maybe...but I need my heals for some reason as I get nicked here and there with this method.

just started this over and got through 1-1 to opening the door to the boss pretty easily. I didn't die yet and amassed about 3000 souls.

I have a feeling I might die fighting the boss, but I'm not sure what I could spend my souls on at this point that would be helpful? I can't level yet since the MIB hasn't appeared in the nexus yet.

I'm a temple knight and already have a bastard sword, scimitar, and a few other swords..

I always spend my dough on a spear and firebombs. The fire makes the 1st boss trivial as each bomb hits multiple blobs all at once...especially if they are clustered together on the main blob. The spear isn't really necessary but enables you to attack from behind a shield...always helpful to have your shield raised against those blobs if you get caught having to face them at any angle other than from behind!
if you pile about 5 or 6 bombs on the main blob, and then when you run out (keep moving so you don't get speared) seek and destroy the stragglers from behind, you can do this level without losing any health at all.
 

Kweh

Member
I've come back to this after a few years of not playing and finishing Dark Souls in between so I can't believe I'm asking this, but how / where do you spend your points to level up?
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I've come back to this after a few years of not playing and finishing Dark Souls in between so I can't believe I'm asking this, but how / where do you spend your points to level up?
Talk to the Maiden in Black in the Nexus. You need to have beaten Phalanx and spoken to the Monumental.
 

Mogwai

Member
I cleared 1-1 on a new character today. But at the bridge, the dragon wouldn't spit any fire. I barely made it across the bridge as it was jam packed with undeads. Tried to retrigger the dragon but it would only fly over and yell. Is it a bug or something?
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Does sticky white stuff have any purpose outside of weapon enchant?

I see messages everywhere saying to use it... I can't tell if it's just trolls trying to get you to use it unnecessarily, trying to be funny (it's often posted near women in the game), or if it really has some other purpose.

I'm leaning toward people just trolling...
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Man, I am really annoyed right now.

I got 1-1 to PWWT and fought Executioner Miralda but I was low-lvl without a shield and she kicked my butt, twice. Fine.

So I turned it off for the night and decided to go back when I wasn't so sleepy.

Today I mess around in 4-1 for awhile and grab some gear, upgrade some weapons, and go back to fight her. She's not there. Did she fall or something, her gear isn't there. Wtf. So I load up wiki (I try not to use wiki, ever) and see if maybe I only had a few chances to kill her before she disappeared (thinking this was unlikely, probably just a bug I'm experiencing). Nope!

Apparently, if I'm reading correctly, just quitting the game in a level (you know, to go to sleep or something) if you're online will reduce world tendency? Really!?

Wow. Great.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Play offline if you want full control over world tendency stuff. It's annoying, I know. On the flip side when you are online you're pretty much always just shy of PWWT, so just killing one boss or one invader will shift you into pure white (assuming you don't die in body form too) so that makes it easier to get PWWT back.

I'd tell you to not worry about WT stuff too much as most of it is not worth the bother, but if you have a female character Miralda does drop the best female armour set, so that's a shame. If you ever reach PWWT again in world 1, do go for her.
 

Soulhouf

Member
You can also summon a phantom and resurrect him to switch the WT toward white.

Don't worry, as long as the last boss of each world (or the dragons in 1-1) are still alive, you can still be able to shift the world to PWWT.
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Play offline if you want full control over world tendency stuff. It's annoying, I know. On the flip side when you are online you're pretty much always just shy of PWWT, so just killing one boss or one invader will shift you into pure white (assuming you don't die in body form too) so that makes it easier to get PWWT back.

I'd tell you to not worry about WT stuff too much as most of it is not worth the bother, but if you have a female character Miralda does drop the best female armour set, so that's a shame. If you ever reach PWWT again in world 1, do go for her.

Yeah, I made this character specifically to grab her armor. That's why it was annoying. I ended up just killing the tower knight to get PWWT back, and now I have her armor (killed her straight up, no shield too, no cheese... so proud!) and going forward I have no intention of messing or thinking about WT. Like I said, I think wiki takes the fun out of games... so I try not to read them. I know I'm going to miss stuff, that's fine.

I've played DS for probably a few hundred hours, but I have never beaten it. I always get pretty far and then reroll thinking I'd rather play this build or that, and never finish. This time I am committed to finishing the game lol.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Yeah, I thought this seemed wrong. :p If you still have a boss open you can have a friend invade you (or drop a red sign) to kill him a few times to get PWWT, though.
 

IZZO

Neo Member
I'm having trouble beating false king. the rest of the game was easy for my mage. i 1 hit most of the bosses with firestorm.

I feel like this is karma lol.

any advice?

I use dark silver shield and +4 crescent uchigatana. i got soul ray, firestorm, and warding for spells. using mostly leather armor cuz i can't roll fast with any heavy armor.
 

IZZO

Neo Member

King Allant
Junior Member
(Today, 09:15 PM)

I'm having a hard time trusting your advice. lol

Should i rely on melee or magic. his attacks are not that hard to avoid. but he deals a ton of damage so there is no room for error. i get him low a few times but i make a mistake and boom i'm dead. Once i thought i was out of his shockwave range so i used old spice to get my mana back. and BOOM i'm dead lol.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I never understood why people struggled against the False King. I never died to him once. Just dodge his attacks (or grass if you miss a dodge) and wail it on him, each one of his attacks is massively telegraphed.
 

Curufinwe

Member
I got soul sucked a bunch of times, but somehow managed to beat him on my first try using regular combat. I guess I just had the right build/armor/items for him because almost all the other bosses I only beat by cheesing with arrows. And I only beat the Maneaters thanks to that poison cloud trick.
 

IZZO

Neo Member
I never understood why people struggled against the False King. I never died to him once. Just dodge his attacks (or grass if you miss a dodge) and wail it on him, each one of his attacks is massively telegraphed.

yeah his attack aren't hard to avoid but if i make a mistake i'm dead. and since he have a ton of HP. i get impatient eventually and make a mistake or two.

I haven't tried melee yet. I mostly use my soul ray from a distance. would my crescent uchigatana be effective or does his magic defense make it useless?
 

IZZO

Neo Member
I got soul sucked a bunch of times, but somehow managed to beat him on my first try using regular combat. I guess I just had the right build/armor/items for him because almost all the other bosses I only beat by cheesing with arrows. And I only beat the Maneaters thanks to that poison cloud trick.

I beat most bosses on the first try including maneater. Firestorm is so overpowered I kinda wish i didn't play a caster to be honest. it wasn't satisfying to beat those bosses.
 
I found it much easier with melee and once you got his attack pattern down it get much easier. Just have a good shield and the eternal warrior ring(which you get from king doran corpse) to help. Only hard part for me was getting back to fight him
 

Soulhouf

Member
I never understood why people struggled against the False King. I never died to him once. Just dodge his attacks (or grass if you miss a dodge) and wail it on him, each one of his attacks is massively telegraphed.

I never had any problem with him until I did a SL1 run. I took me like 50 tries to beat him level 1. He is without a question the hardest boss in the game.
 

IZZO

Neo Member
yeah melee is better. I can beat him. I had him to just one hit to win but he kept attacking relentlessly and instead of running an healing or waiting for a chance to hit I kept mashing R1. and I lost. my biggest fault. I'm so impatient.
 

Mogwai

Member
I need a heads up on World Tendency. How does it exactly work when playing offline?

As long as I stay signed out of PSN while ingame, can I quit the game and return without resets in tendency?

If I play offline on one character and online on others, will the offline character be affected by those other characters?
 

one85x

Member
Playing offline is just a sure-fire way to maintain PWWT/PBWT across multiple sessions. When you load up a character online, the server shifts your WT toward an average, which is usually 1 or 2 shades below PWWT. This shift only occurs for the character you load up though.
 

Astarte

Member
Meat Cleaver was the best weapon. Slap some curse weapon on that and you're down to destroying everything...not online. Online it's scraping spears and miridan hammers. I beat False King on my first try, but god damn did he do a number on me.
 

Mogwai

Member
Playing offline is just a sure-fire way to maintain PWWT/PBWT across multiple sessions. When you load up a character online, the server shifts your WT toward an average, which is usually 1 or 2 shades below PWWT. This shift only occurs for the character you load up though.

I'll get going with my offline character then, thanks :)
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Meat Cleaver was the best weapon. Slap some curse weapon on that and you're down to destroying everything...
Why would you do that, when you can curse a great axe instead and hit much harder without spreading points everywhere? ;)
Meat Cleaver is better with LW than CW.
 

panda21

Member
do black phantoms respawn in this or not? i thought they didn't because I killed the one outside the boss in 3-1 and it didnt seem to come back, but then the bp mind flayer in 3-2 before the boss seems to respawn?

do the bps in 1-4 respawn? i really hope not
 

Mogwai

Member
do black phantoms respawn in this or not? i thought they didn't because I killed the one outside the boss in 3-1 and it didnt seem to come back, but then the bp mind flayer in 3-2 before the boss seems to respawn?

do the bps in 1-4 respawn? i really hope not
In 1-4 they don't.
 

Astarte

Member
Why would you do that, when you can curse a great axe instead and hit much harder without spreading points everywhere? ;)
Meat Cleaver is better with LW than CW.

Nothing makes you feel like you WENT HARD than slapping the crap out of something with a purple meat cleaver.
It's true, try it out in real life
 

RustyO

Member
Guess who just got their Pure White World Tendancy screwed by accidently starting up when logged in?

I need to go back to Demon's Souls. I'm starting to forget things which is not a good sign.

No its not. Makes it all that much better when you go back to Boletaria, you remember that place? You went there on holidays when you were young.
 

Gartooth

Member
Progress so far on my first playthrough is that I have completed every X-1 in addition to 1-2, 2-2, and 2-3. Trying to hold off on going any further in "world 1" given the difficulty of latter parts. Right now I'm trying to get through either 4-2 or 5-2, both have their annoyances though, either fight rather hard enemies or go through an annoying swamp.
 

Mogwai

Member
Progress so far on my first playthrough is that I have completed every X-1 in addition to 1-2, 2-2, and 2-3. Trying to hold off on going any further in "world 1" given the difficulty of latter parts. Right now I'm trying to get through either 4-2 or 5-2, both have their annoyances though, either fight rather hard enemies or go through an annoying swamp.

4-2 is quite tricky. Unless you have an uber-crave for fighting the all enemies, it's possible to sprint through passages to make it less annoying.

30 minutes ago I finally finished the game for the first time. I definitely enjoyed the regular enemies and areas more than the bosses. A good chunk of the bosses are too primitive after having played Dark Souls.
Phalanx, Adjudicator and Dirty Colossus are just plain boring and slow. The Maiden Astraea/Garl Vinland combo level was pretty cool on paper, but again poorly executed.
All the intricacies in regard to the lore and secrets were very cool and almost as good as Dark Souls. I did a little farming for some shards and cleared the lizards. NG+ is awaiting now. I'm excited to see how much the difficulty is upped.
 

Gartooth

Member
4-2 is quite tricky. Unless you have an uber-crave for fighting the all enemies, it's possible to sprint through passages to make it less annoying.

30 minutes ago I finally finished the game for the first time. I definitely enjoyed the regular enemies and areas more than the bosses. A good chunk of the bosses are too primitive after having played Dark Souls.
Phalanx, Adjudicator and Dirty Colossus are just plain boring and slow. The Maiden Astraea/Garl Vinland combo level was pretty cool on paper, but again poorly executed.
All the intricacies in regard to the lore and secrets were very cool and almost as good as Dark Souls. I did a little farming for some shards and cleared the lizards. NG+ is awaiting now. I'm excited to see how much the difficulty is upped.

I can echo your sentiments about the bosses. I too played Dark Souls first and now am playing through Demon's Souls, and so far the bosses have been underwhelming. They haven't been that deadly either, and don't have the threatening presence that the Dark Souls bosses had over me. I was so incredibly disappointed in the
Dragon God boss which was basically run away from attacks and press X on mounted weapons for damage, rather than actually fighting it until it was practically dead.
So far the most difficult part of the game is just progressing through the levels and surviving until the fog gate itself.
 

Mogwai

Member
I can echo your sentiments about the bosses. I too played Dark Souls first and now am playing through Demon's Souls, and so far the bosses have been underwhelming. They haven't been that deadly either, and don't have the threatening presence that the Dark Souls bosses had over me. I was so incredibly disappointed in the
Dragon God boss which was basically run away from attacks and press X on mounted weapons for damage, rather than actually fighting it until it was practically dead.
So far the most difficult part of the game is just progressing through the levels and surviving until the fog gate itself.

I totally agree about the bosses not being deadly enough. Demon's Souls only has a few bosses that really fucks you up if you're not ready when you enter the fog gate. The others are too forgiving. Combined with the slow pace and it just becomes a pushover.

I believe the problem about the environmental bosses (be it DaS or DeS) is the lack of the combat system. When you detract that from a boss fight the result is just a broken platformer puzzle. Bed of Chaos was the pinnacle of shittiness and I don't hope we'll anything like it in DaS2. I support the ideas of alternative bosses, but if they are this uninspired I'll rather take a boss fight with regular combat.
 

Gartooth

Member
Finished 4-2, 4-3, 3-2, and 3-3 today! Maneaters were such a headache, my triumph over them was a big sigh of relief for me. Comparatively all the other bosses were rather easy, killed them all on my first try. Surprised I had such an easy time with the Old Monk though, isn't he supposed to be much harder?

Anyway time to finish up 5-2 and 5-3 next. After that finish up the rest of 1-3 and 1-4 then finish the game!
 

Sullichin

Member
Finished 4-2, 4-3, 3-2, and 3-3 today! Maneaters were such a headache, my triumph over them was a big sigh of relief for me. Comparatively all the other bosses were rather easy, killed them all on my first try. Surprised I had such an easy time with the Old Monk though, isn't he supposed to be much harder?

Anyway time to finish up 5-2 and 5-3 next. After that finish up the rest of 1-3 and 1-4 then finish the game!

I agree with you that the bosses are easier than Dark Souls. BUT, nothing is harder than the last boss in Demon's Souls at SL1. In a normal playthrough though, it's not bad. There's a handful of really great bosses in Demon's but I think Dark has better bosses, because half of the bosses in Demon's are really easy.
 
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