Pretty sure the only thing that patrols are the mind flayers in the Tower of Latria. I suppose the Grim Reaper minions kinda patrol, but mostly they just lumber about a given area. Everything else I can think of waits till you trigger it and then rushes at you.
ckessel
1682
Ah, yea, killed him already. Somehow missed the ring though.
Heh, trust me to pick a class that’s not easy :) I’m not so far in that starting over matters much. I’ll dump the goodies I’ve got so far in the stockpile and start over with a Royal. That’ll give my Royal a bit of a head start. Well, assuming the stockpile works like I assume and is cross-character accessible.
JZigish
1683
You can do just fine without fast rolling, as long as you use a shield. I started as a Knight, who starts without magic but has a nice shield and armor. The key is to ALWAYS have the shield up :) Unless you are at that exact moment attacking, you should have a shield up and facing whatever is dangerous.
Another hint, if you see a knight with a spear and a big red eye, run the hell away. I died like 3 times trying to kill that guy in 1-1, and he’s completely optional and meant for later in the game.
I murdered that guy as a level 1 Royal. Magic Missile’d him to death.
I ignored the two messages “Beginners should do this area later” and “a formidable foe lies ahead” and all the blood splatters near him.
Right, so then you can follow the instructions from my first post (go down the stairs, and roll over the wall onto the stage below, on the stage is the ring as well as “adventures with dumbass that are much easier if you can missile people from the stage”). It’s really hard to perceive how much difference the ring makes when you’re just measuring it with its effect on others, but the first time a black phantom uses it on you, you’ll realize how confounding it must be for the AI.
Heh, trust me to pick a class that’s not easy :) I’m not so far in that starting over matters much. I’ll dump the goodies I’ve got so far in the stockpile and start over with a Royal. That’ll give my Royal a bit of a head start. Well, assuming the stockpile works like I assume and is cross-character accessible.
It doesn’t, but knowing where stuff is makes it much more easy to replace. Just with the x-1’s of each level you can get quite a lot of stuff, once you know what you want.
Right, but the risk/reward ratio makes no sense for someone who hasn’t gotten past phalanx yet. It’s super if you can take care of it then, but it’s an unfortunate thing to be focused on before you’ve beat the level.
Armor is basically worthless in this game; I started as a Knight and immediately stripped off my armor (except pants) to get under the weight limit. This game is about damage avoidance, not damage soak (excepting, a good shield). While you can get through the first level as a traditional tank character, you will quickly run into guys that will kill you in 1 hit, armor or no. That’s why it’s basically worthwhile to spend the first level learning how to dodge and evade, rather than plowing through in full armor, because you won’t be able to do that in basically any other level (unless you want to burn through healing items, of course).
In my opinion, the best tools for a beginner to learn combat on are a shield (purple flame shield is easy to get in the first level), and a spear (winged spears are also easy to get, but you can buy a short spear from the vendor in the first level before then). Spears give you a substantial range advantage over most attackers, and let you attack while guarding, which is great. You can also backstab with spears. After you understand how to fight with a shield and spear, and the overall timing of combat, you can then progress to different weapon types and find the one you like the most. But other weapons (barring the rapier types, if I remember right) don’t let you attack from guard…so you have to understand combat timing. Or you can just stick with the spear, which works…
And get a bow. Bows are definitely key in this game as well.
Which just simply shows how the Royal really is easy mode (for the beginning). Once I got the magic regen ring, and soul arrow, I went back into the first level and just laughed at how easy that setup made it.
ckessel
1687
Ah, ok, I squished a different knight guarding a different fog door. I remember that “beginners should not do this” and ran away :)
So I just got this game. Hell man is it tough, but I’m really loving it. I’m playing as a Temple Knight. I’m starting to get the hang of the way the game works and what to expect… I think. The game has some amazing atmosphere too.
Also, this ninja girl with a big one handed axe has been kicking the shit out of me, I’ve had to give up taking that path because I can hardly hit her.
I wondered what it would be like to have Executioner Miralda available in your first attempt at the game, since usually you have to play quite a bit before that gate opens. Just be aware that she is supposed to be an additional challenge, and that the door will remain open to her from here forward in that saved game so you can come back later…it’s best to just beat her in full black tendency and get it over with.
It’s the red knights you need to worry about avoiding much more than the blue knights, and they should be a consideration only after you are able to level your character (since otherwise it’s just a risk you are taking with little additional reward since you can’t invest the souls you get).
Blue knights are par for the course, and once you beat the tower knight, a convenient source of healing grasses as you come up behind them and ruin their day.
ckessel
1691
Is there some trick to aiming my magic bolt when I’m not locked onto an opponent? I can’t hit a damn thing unless it’s auto-aiming. I’ve met some big axe-man in the area just to the stairs down the left in the starting area (after toasting a few red looking spirits things). He’s killing me easily and I’m not sure what to do with him. If I could aim my bolt I could run away and pincushion him from afar, but aiming is hard…
Jab
1692
Not really unfortunately, one trick I found that sorta helps is to use the right analog stick to move the camera view up, sometimes it raises the trajectory of the shot.
ckessel
1693
Ok, very frustrating. I had 15000 souls. Got killed. Fine, I’m trying to get back carefully and step off a ledge by accident and die. I’ve lost my entire days worth of souls. I get having the game be hard, but man, it should give you an option to keep your old soul regain point or use the new one. Losing an entire days effort is beyond demoralizing.
malkav11
1694
Got back into the game to fiddle with pure white tendency a bit. Snag all those sweet, sweet dragon guarded treasures, try my hand at Miralda (she whacked me twice, I tried to get back a bit to snipe her with magic, stepped off massive drop, died - fair amount of loot in the Grounds leading up to her, though), that sort of thing. I didn’t do the same for black tendency because, well…all the black tendency special stuff is tough-as-nails black phantoms, pretty much. I’m not that good yet.
But I have said loot now, and went ahead and beat down the Tower Knight, which got me enough souls to pump my strength to a point where I should be able to comfortably use the Compound Shortbow from 1-2 to snipe the dragon, at such time as I may have the many many arrows it takes.
JZigish
1697
The armor greatly impacts how much damage you actually take from what goes past the hit res of your shield, and the bleed/plague/poison resist you get off it is pretty essential later on. I’ve had 0 trouble beating the game by tanking all the normal enemies. you go through a lot of healing items, but the game gives you TONS. I only had to explicitly buy healing items one time the entire game.
Sure, if you’re really good at dodging and never ever screw up you don’t need armor. I screw up a lot, however, and the armor + shield means I can survive a few big hits from pretty much anyone. The exception is bosses, but for them I always just use magic or arrows anyway.
1-1 is the opening area of Boletaria Palace up until Phalanx. 1-2 is the area from there until Tower Knight, 1-3 the next area up until that boss, etc.
2-1 is the starting part of the next world up the stairs from the 1-1 archstone, then 2-2, etc.
And so on around that staircase until 5-1, which is accessed at the bottom of the other side of the stairs.
That’s no man, although I suppose there could be some complicated transvestite backstory. You can aim spells once you have a bow (not a crossbow). You sight in with the bow in first person view, then switch back to the third person view with your wand of choice and fire away. Just be aware that spells have limited range, moreso than arrows usually.
Miralda is very killable if you rely on her fairly predictable routine of chasing after you if you don’t have a thief ring equipped. You keep backpedaling and casting magic missiles while locked on (you can lure her up to the bridge where you start if needed, and use that scary hole to trick her into falling in-her drop is an axe which is a dime a dozen). In fact, I would expect that luring her out, and then going back into her starting area and seeing how well she fares on those narrow beams would probably be great as well. Either way, be aware you don’t get credit for killing her as a black phantom until you kill her in full black tendency, which is slightly harder.
It should be said that this is completely unreliably enforced, and you kind of have to be jogging at the right angle at the right chunk of rock to hop up on it. Many other identical ledges will not respond the same way. This gets especially treacherous in 3-1, imo.
Libra
1700
