PS5 Demon’s Souls 2020

[DisturbedSwan]

21 hours ago, mfnick said:

Right, which class should I be? 
 

I’ve heard Royal a few times but I don’t want to pick that class just because it’s easy. I don’t want to feel like I’m just cheating my way through. & Is that class actually fun? From what I’ve heard that class nerfed in later games too so if I do get into this it’s going to actually make future ones harder when picking a different class? 

Royalty is the simple and sensible answer. It is a very fun class to play as, at no point did I feel like I was cheating, it just gives you a little more breathing room than playing one of the melee classes would. If you’re new to Souls then you need to take every advantage you can get, use summons too if you’re stuck in a boss or a particular area (you need to be in human form to do this). 

 

Forget about later games, I’ve always chosen a standard knight character in every Dark Souls game I’ve played, Sekiro doesn’t have classes.

[OCH]

 

21 hours ago, mfnick said:

From what I’ve heard that class nerfed in later games too so if I do get into this it’s going to actually make future ones harder when picking a different class? 

 

To elaborate further. Demon's Souls is the only Souls game wherein Magic is a viable option. Pyromancy and the later Spells received heavy nerfing via patches and updates. There was a spell called "Sunlight Spear", in Dark Souls 2. An upgrade to a Lightning Spear and a very potent spell. In version 1.0. Every version after that, they reduced the amount of casts for the spell and the base damage.

 

My philosophy with Souls is you learn by doing. Nothing is impossible in the game if you have the right approach and mindset. You can do it all alone and feel rewarded for doing so.

[mfnick]

If I say I prefer melee to throwing magic balls at enemies in games would you still recommend Royal over Knight? 

[DisturbedSwan]

17 minutes ago, mfnick said:

If I say I prefer melee to throwing magic balls at enemies in games would you still recommend Royal over Knight? 

Knowing that you’re new to Souls, yep. As I said, take every advantage you can get would be my recommendation.

 

If you want to try Knight (or another class) by all means, but be prepared to restart the game if you hit a brick wall.

[OCH]

Temple Knight is the go-to Class for melee. Especially for beginners, as it has a relatively high life stat off the bat. It also starts with the Heal spell. Which no one else does, aside from the Priest class.

 

Right, next thing: Upgrades. Weapon upgrades in DeS are more convoluted than any other Souls game. If you want to go with a melee build, I would recommend you proceed down the 'Quality' upgrade path. 

The Quality path is levelling up your Strength and Dexterity equally. 

[OCH]

The End...

 

 

Zark II - Level 88 Magician

(Normally, ala Dark Souls Remastered, I'd give my loadout. But it is a bit too spoilery in this game) 

Final Boss defeated and as such, I'm done. Never been interested in NG+ and without an added Archstone, there is nothing else for me here. I was pleased with the game overall. Although I wasn't a fan of some of Bluepoint's aesthetic changes. Still my favourite Souls game though. 9/10

[mfnick]

Made a start. I’m going to try and push through this time but I’m already wavering after a hour.

 

I ended up going Royal class. Firstly I’m not sure if I’ve already made a mistake here. There’s no challenge to the normal enemies at all, I’m basically not engaging with them. Stand back and shoot. They die. Easy but not fun. When I have gone to my melee weapon and I’m teasing out enemies and strafing round and stabbing them in their back is really satisfying. As is the parry - I fucking love that. 
 

So before I start again as the Knight, can I spec the Royal to be more melee but with magic as a back up for really tough parts? Or should I just change because I’m not finding using magic fun at all in comparison to the melee. 
 

Now my main issue. I’ve died 3 times but 2 of those felt like bullshit. One I fell into a hole. Fair enough. One was from a very OP enemy who I stumbled across while exploring. The second bullshit death was on the famous bridge. I was at the beginning, first time the fire missed me. I didn’t run straight away though due to a enemy so stayed back to let him flame the bridge again and the 2nd time, even though I was stood in the same place it hit and killed me for some reason. The fuck? Once it put me back at the beginning of the level again I decided to turn it off to try later. 
 

In any other game this would be rightly slagged off for being shit checkpointing. Don’t understand why these games get away with it. Not like I’m learning anything from these beginning fodder enemies anymore. I’ve gone through them 3 times with ease. It’s just boring doing it again. I unlocked a small shortcut but I’m still having to repeat a large section. 
 

Like I said, I’m going to try and push through this time and see if it clicks but man. It’s sooo boring doing the same long sections repeatedly.

 

Looks good at least.

[one-armed dwarf]

To answer your question all the classes are just basic presets, you can go anywhere you want with then after that. It might not be purely optimal but maybe you might find a cool mid power melee battlemage rather than starting again

 

I do think melee is the more fun way to play these games but you do have to learn things the harder way and manage threat and resources more carefully

[OCH]

I did stress that Royal is Easy Mode.

 

5 hours ago, mfnick said:

In any other game this would be rightly slagged off for being shit checkpointing. Don’t understand why these games get away with it. Not like I’m learning anything from these beginning fodder enemies anymore. I’ve gone through them 3 times with ease. It’s just boring doing it again. I unlocked a small shortcut but I’m still having to repeat a large section. 

 

? You're missing the context. At the time of Demon's Souls difficulty was treated as a dirty word. 'X' to win, was the most popular form of gaming. This has the checkpointing of the 2D platform era IE None. You don't get a break just because you beat a challenging corridor. The shortcuts do make it easier but not easy. The trick though, is that you can run through those early sections without incident. If you know where you're going.

[mfnick]

50 minutes ago, OCH said:

The trick though, is that you can run through those early sections without incident. If you know where you're going.

So what you’re saying is you find a way to avoid engaging with these parts of the game because they’re boring? ??

 

The thing is those games you’re on about were just too easy and the tutorials were really intrusive to the point it felt your hand was being held throughout. So these games were a breathe of fresh air.
 

However, the problem with those games was never the checkpoints, it was just how easy they were. But this game isn’t even that hard really - especially with the royal class. But what it does instead is waste your time and test your patience. Not necessarily your skill level. Which is what I have issue with. I don’t know what making you repeat a 10 minute section because you fell down a hole because of poor lighting in a prison improves? 
 

Anyway, as I may have given away there I’m on the first section of the 3rd level now. Completed the 1st big bosses in the first 2 archstones. Didn’t die at all in the 2nd level which was surprising but most enemies in that didnt even agro so was pretty easy. 
 

Reached the 1st floor of the prison but got a bit lost around a big archer statue thing so having another break. 
 

Just another quick question regarding spending skill points on my character. I’m putting most of my souls into strength with some in magic. Will I fuck myself up later in the game doing this? Am I better just specialising in one? Or will I be ok spending some in both? 

[OCH]

18 minutes ago, mfnick said:

Which is what I have issue with. I don’t know what making you repeat a 10 minute section because you fell down a hole because of poor lighting in a prison improves?

Your mental map. It is as simple as that. You might have noticed these games have no mini-map function at all. Plotting where you are going is all down to you.

 

19 minutes ago, mfnick said:

So what you’re saying is you find a way to avoid engaging with these parts of the game because they’re boring?

No. What I'm saying is you only ever have to do each part once. The first time. After that, you can run though all of them. There is no part of the game this doesn't apply to.

 

21 minutes ago, mfnick said:

Just another quick question regarding spending skill points on my character. I’m putting most of my souls into strength with some in magic. Will I fuck myself up later in the game doing this? Am I better just specialising in one? Or will I be ok spending some in both? 

How you spec leads towards specific builds. Which gives access to unique weapons and spells later on. EG the Sword I'm wielding in the pic above has a requirement to use in Four stats.

However, spread yourself too thin IE apply skill points to every stat and that will cost you later. Focusing on two stats is perfectly fine.

However, note that to get the most out of spells you need to put skill points into Magic and Intelligence. As the latter raises your MP and increases the number of Spell slots you have.

[DisturbedSwan]

With what to put points into, I put mine into Intelligence and Magic and a few into Vitality every now and again. I was going for a pure magic build though, if you’re going for a mage-knight kind of hybrid then strength would be a good stat to put points into I think. 
 

I will say as well that there’s a ring (cling ring I think) at the end of 1-1 that boosts your health when in Soul form which might help as well.

 

As for the lack of checkpoints, that’s just the way it is, there’s more bonfires in DS2, DS3 and Sekiro (to its detriment in my view) but this, DS1 and BB rely mainly on shortcuts to get you to the boss door quicker. Accept it, learn from it and stay patient.

 

You seem to of made good progress so far though in beating the 1-1 and 1-2 (I assume?), 1-2 surprised me with how easy it was as well to be honest, as long as you avoid the dragons fire it’s pretty much a straight shot to the boss. 

[mfnick]

23 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

You seem to of made good progress so far though in beating the 1-1 and 1-2

No I did 1-1 then 2-1. Did 2-1 without dying and beat the

Spoiler

Spider too. Don’t know if that’s a spoiler but hey.

 

. I’m on 3-1 now doing the prison. Going to go back and do 1-2, 2-2 etc when I hit a wall doing this route. Not gone back to it yet but like I say doing ok in 3-1, just got lost now I’m on 1f and got a bit archer statue firing along a bridge. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Nice one, I struggled with 2-1 a little at first and the boss a bit too until I got a strategy down for it. 
 

I got lost in 3-1 for hours and fell down so many goddamn holes ?

[OCH]

Nice approach too. The only real "wall" you might have with tackling them in number order is 5-1. Which is... trickier, than the other first levels. That is mostly because World 5 is a harder world overall. On the flipside of that, by the time you reach that point your skills should be more than up for the challenge.

[OCH]

Oh I forgot to ask [those who have already finished the game] did you challenge the Super Boss?

 

Spoiler

Old King Doran

 

[mfnick]

3-1 done. Once I figured out how to get passed that bridge (was way overthinking it!) it was easy sailing.

Started 4-1, difficulty is starting to jump up now. Im genuinely starting to worry if I’m going to get stuck due to my character spec later though. My main magic attack is already basically useless, this was the case throughout all 3-1 even though Ive levelled it up quite a bit. I have unlocked a new spell from using a Demon Soul which does a lot more but uses loads of MP while still not being powerful enough to warrant it. 
My strength is decent but still quite lacking and need more health and defence when going in close but my stats in those areas are shocking! 
 

Think I’ll go back to 1-2 now as I just seem hopelessly outmatched by the skeletons. 

[OCH]

The latter two worlds are where the real difficulty of the game is apparent. Yet the "easiest" two worlds, 2 & 3,  each have one of the hardest bosses. So there is an acknowledged trade-off there.

 

The secret to progression is learning the Weakness of each world. Much like Mega-Man. I'll put this as a spoiler, although I don't think it really is:

Spoiler

 

World One - The default without a singular weakness

World Two - Piercing weapons against the Miners and Bugs

World Three - Ironically is magic

World Four - Blunt Weapons (Clubs, hammers and funnily enough your bare fists, make short work of the Skeletons)

World Five - Long range attacks and/or Fire based

 

 

[mfnick]

Ah so using the incorrect weapon could be hampering my progress there. I had no idea it had those kind of weaknesses at ply in the worlds.

 

Bit of a concern regarding world 3 though with how useless mine was in that world.

Havent got any of the type of weapons required for W4 so good excuse to go back to the other worlds. 

[DisturbedSwan]

It sounds to me like you might just need to put a few more Souls into the intelligence and magic stats. There is a sword in 4-1 (I think) that’ll help with your mana pool and stamina.