Dark Souls 3

Yeah, but the levels I’d played so far (1-1,1-2, 2-1,2-2,2-3,3-1,3-2,4-1,5-1) were designed so that you never got that far away from the archstone, as compared to Dark Souls where you get much farther away.

For all of Dark Souls’s vaunted shortcuts, I do think a lot of the Demon’s Souls’s shortcuts were designed to give you a much better path through the level to the boss.

It took me forever to realize that while many bosses have annoying runs up to the boss in almost all instances you could run past all the bad guys and go straight to the fog door. I used to kill everything in the way and then get to the fog door down an estus or two. Now I just run past that.

So I had something happen yesterday that I don’t think has ever happened to me before. I was going from boss to boss putting down my summon sign. I finally did it in front of the Pontiff’s door. I was summoned in and upon materializing was instantly attacked by both Pontiff guards and one of those dark ghoul things who are normally down by the shortcut gate. I had been ambushed. The Host who had summoned me was nowhere to be found. The guy must have been in an NG+ game of some level because the Pontiff guards were hell to kill, and nearly killed me. After surviving the ambush I looked around thinking the host might show up but he never did. I wonder if he had used a White Birch Branch and was just there somewhere watching the whole thing. I also wonder just how he did it. He got three enemies to be at that spot as I showed up and they didn’t go after him. Pretty slick.

I also helped a guy take down the Lothric Twins. He had me and another summons, a Sunbro. After that fight I warped to the Final Boss of the DLCr and there was the summon sign of the exact same Sunbro. So I summoned him and we destroyed the boss. That was kinda cool.

What’s all this D1 chat doing in the D3 thread!?

j/k obviously, I love it.

Been a bit out of the game for the last week as I’ve gotten my new pc up and running. Now that it’s working, and I have everything reinstalled, I keep hovering my mouse over DS3…but not clicking on it.

The DLC for the souls games really does seem geared toward people who play the base game at/or near release. The wait for new content after finishing the game would seem to serve as a necessary cooling off period.

But when played together, it feels like a slog. Having done this three times in a row now, the difficulty ramp up counters whatever pleasure I find in exploring new content. The painted world was fine. I had a good time with it. Partly, because I hit it before making the end run at the base game. The Ringed City is just hard as nails, and completely unforgiving.

That was certainly the case for me for Dark Souls 2, and I just said nope, and haven’t been back. Maybe one day. Once I’ve finished all the other Souls game and Souls-like games and am desperate for more. (I doubt that will happen).

But the DLC for the original Dark Souls wasn’t like that. I felt the base game was getting a little long in the tooth near the end, and I wasn’t sure if I was up for more, and that’s when the people in the thread told me to do the DLC and it really reinvigorated my playthrough. That content was fresh and felt different and it injected life back into the game for me.

I certainly felt that way! At least in the opening parts of both DLCs (Ringed City much more so than Ashes); after the initial WTF difficulty spike, I found the latter bits slightly more “open” and interesting, although the boss fights of both were ridiculous (but Ashes quite a bit of fun to do co-op).

The DS3 DLC aren’t really that long and are pretty linear. The DS2 DLC are like puzzles, and while linear they don’t really feel that way. But I have never bought the DLC with the original game so playing them was something new and interesting when I finally did play them.

The DLC always have had some of the hardest content and best boss fights, even going back to DS1.

I have finished the game and have just spent the last couple days putting my summon sign down. Yesterday I co-oped the The Ringed City from the run at the start to to opening up the short cut at the bottom. I was literally with the same person for 45 minutes, we got invaded 3 times, and cleaned out the swamp at the bottom of all enemies. Loved doing that. It is weird running around with over a half million souls.

Honestly I kind of loved it, after I called in the sunbro cavalry, and especially helping a dozen or so folks through it afterward. I probably could have beaten it solo…eventually, but I decided I just wasn’t up for the kind of repetition it would have called for after like 60 hours in game up to that point.

EDIT: Just happened upon a new area in DS1 by chance. So neat.

Where?

I am a bit of a completionist, and my last time thru I did everything I could to beat the game solo. Plus I did get summoned a lot. I think I finished the game with a Soul Level in the 160’s. My philosophy was to do whatever I needed to do to get the job done.

So if you think a few levels in the right place will make a difference, by all means get them. The game does give you the chance thru materials found and materials available for purchase to pretty much upgrade anything you want. I think the only item with some limit are Titanite Slabs.

I think I finished up around 120 or so. I didn’t do any grinding whatsoever except for upgrade materials. Even with limited slabs I was able to upgrade several weapons to max. I did get a large number of souls, probably, from helping people with bosses. I didn’t actually even realize I was getting souls from that at first.

Well, I was on my way back from Darkroot Garden when I thought I’d go back to the Asylum again for another stab at the Stray Demon. I fell off the jump for the nth time, but this time I figured eh might as well collect those items laying around and hey where do these stairs go probably to a corpse with an item oh ho what’s this cave???

Edit: Wow, Tomb of Giants kind of blows ass, and I think I might be stuck down here.

Edit2: Ok, I found my way back out. Pretty insane they let you get all the way in there without being able to progress forward.

At your level a great place to get souls and get summoned is the bonfire in front of the Archive door.

Supposedly soul level has nothing to do with getting summoned, only with invading. I finished this run thru at SL130, and am currently running around with over a million souls because I don’t want to level up any more.

My thing is towards the end 1/5 of the game (including DLCs) you can easily find yourself with 30-50k souls and I am too freaked by losing souls that I will go someplace in the game and farm while waiting to be summoned. Then I will spend everything on levels and/or materials before I start running again.

Souls from getting summoned into boss fights vary depending on the fight and the number of people summoned. Bosses later in the game are worth more and so you get more for helping the boss.

I am not sure what you mean by being unable to go forward? Did you find Pinwheel? There is a ladder that will take you from there to the next area and from there you progress down a fairly linear path to an eventual boss fight. The area is a bitch. You also meet an old friend, or in this case I guess a new friend.

Yes, Pinwheel is at the end of the Catacombs. Tomb of Giants is indeed a bitch, and it was a very unpleasant surprise to get out of that only to be greeted by an impassable yellow fog wall that apparently can only be opened once you’ve acquired the Lordvessel, and thus to be faced with going back out the way you came in (which I at first was not sure it was possible to do), let me tell you.

I guess I have never gone that far before having the Lord Vessel. I have gone down and killed Pinwheel for what you get from him early in the game. You learn new things all the time. Have you been to Anor Londo yet? You have rung bells obviously?

Yep, bells been rung. Went a little way into Sen’s and died to a couple snake dudes next to the onion knight (thanks for the help, guy). Decided to try Stray Demon again since I wasn’t doing an overwhelming amount of damage to the snakes and it had been a few soul levels since I tried him last, and that’s when I stumbled on the Catacombs and kept going.

I don’t think you need the Lord Vessel to go to the bottom of the Catecombs, but I am not exactly sure what triggers it. Although, now that I think of it, the yellow fog door you described in the Tomb of Giants is something I encountered outside another area where a great Lord is, and I think it opened after I got the Lord Vessel, so you are probably right.

Yeah, I looked it up because I got there and was like wtf do I need to kill Nito first, but I couldn’t find any other way to go, and nope, opens after Lordvessel (as, apparently, does a similar door in Demon Ruins, which makes me very glad I didn’t go down there yet, either).

Wow, the knight archer bit in Anor Londo is far more brutal than the similar section in DS3.