[Youpi]

Given Namco-Bandai's history with DLC in their own titles, I am somewhat scared about their involvement. There's a lot of inventive ways to ruin PVP that could be offered for sale.

I hope the camp system will make it easier to find people to co-op with once the game will be more than a few months old. Worlds 2, 3, and 5 are real ghost towns on the Asian servers now.


This little guy I played offline with a permanent death rule, using every cheap sniping and poisoning trick I could pull off, is my pride—mostly because I didn't imagine I might actually manage to do it:
http://i.imgur.com/k97FK.jpg
No deaths, but still, that was 20 times slower than the speedruns, I used the nexial binding twice, I skipped the tutorial fight, and because of my lack of planning the build is very incoherent, with a way higher level than necessary.
But it's pretty interesting to play the game that way!
I'll probably try these rules again someday, without poison, boss snipings, or teleportation to the nexus. I'll need a better plan, maybe I could go for a strength and vitality build, using heavy armor and a spear.

[Youpi]

[Youpi]

The woman in 5-1 sells the halberd. Sometimes the soldiers in the palace drop the weapon they carried, I think some have halberds in 1-1, and definitely some winged spears.

If you wanna see an invasion, pay a visit to 1-3, 2-1, or 4-1, in body form, with the level boss still alive.
In general, when you see 2+ blue soul signs at the start of a level, expect invaders within minutes.


As the Asian version gets less popular, I wish they'd patch in a "summon me anywhere" function. I like playing as a blue but there are very few takers in the slow levels. When I drop the blue eye stone in 3-1 and 3-2, I mostly end up summoned by the old monk instead - not that I mind. Only worlds 1 and 4 see any MP action when Japan is sleeping.

[Youpi]

A nice way to learn the stages and bosses is to use the blue eye stone in soul form. Another player will eventually summon to their game you to get some help fighting enemies and invaders. Follow closely and try to make yourself useful! Worst case scenario, both of you get lost. Once you're ready to tackle the stage, go in body form, summon blue phantoms, and don't hesitate to rely on them. They rarely think twice about throwing their life away if that's what it takes to keep the host alive.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

My flamelurker strategy:
use water veil, prepare to have to cast it again during the fight, fight with soul arrow, a two-handed weapon, or a weapon + purple flame shield (1-1, by the dragons). Only roll to the back, the sides aren't safe, and stay in the open, you're likely to panic if you get trapped under the skeletons.

In 2-2, you can reach the boss very fast by taking shortcuts to the right: if you bring along two blues you're almost certain to have at least one survive until the boss. (Make sure to practice the shortcut in soul form if you've not taken it yet, this platforming section has a pretty high online fatality rate)


Maneaters, I always turtle them by the fire. Gravity is a bigger threat than this wimpy pair!

[Youpi]

- Using the blue eye stone anywhere in 3 makes you more likely to be summoned as a black phantom by the old monk than as a blue phantom as you intended
- Using the black eye stone in 3-3 never seems to work
- Player who aren't looking forward to a duel can easily find 2 allies, since the blue eye stone is often dropped in 3-3 by players who wish to play as either kind of phantom. (Never won a fair 3 vs 1 ever, but I'm not a great fighter, I turtle way too much!)
- The stairs have pretty difficult enemies, it's not unusual for the host to die before the fight
- The old monk can hide and open with firestorm or rage of god (instant death possible on 1st loop)
- The cutscene and stairs are so long that the old monk might leave or be AFK when you arrrive
- As a side-effect of the global summoning thing, you find fewer blue phantoms on 3-1 and 3-2, yet blue phantoms can be very useful in both stages (to rush the jailers, to attempt the risky maneuver of rolling past the statue in 3-1, or to fight the maneaters 2 on 2)

I hope Dark Souls has a similar event as the Old Monk... just one where you spend more time duelling than waiting.

[Youpi]

I strongly agree with both sides of the metagaming debate!

Going in completely ignorant twice then reading absolutely everything on the wiki is probably the best way to play this game. Definitely how I'll play Dark Souls—although I'll want to know from the start, at least, in which contexts (if any) it is always 100% safe to make a quick pause. That's the first bit of info I looked up about Demon's Souls.




I'd like to run a little experiment for anyone who has a few minutes, played the game, and (optional) can operate eyelids:
Can you visualize in your head the whole of the Boletarian Palace? Can you visualize yourself going through it in reverse (to jam your memories of what comes next) from the final elevator to the first archstone, making detours along the way?

After a month without playing while the PSN was down, I had no trouble recalling the place in great detail. I don't have a photographic memory or anything, there's really no videogame level like this one for me.
I'm not sure how to put it, but I don't seem to remember it the way I'd generally remember large 3d game spaces.
I don't remember what comes next, I remember it the way I'd remember a real place. I can't only tell what is behind every door, I can also tell what is behind the wall or above the ceiling.

[Youpi]

I know there's no way I will ever understand the full layout of 3-1 or be able to imagine a bird's-eye view of 5-2, those levels are full-on assaults on the parts of my brain meant to understand space!

[Youpi]

[Youpi]

Don't forget that everything (you included) takes many more hits to kill. That + infinite healing makes it much harder to screw up.

I mean, before Dark Souls, I used to think those red eye knights were scary.

Now I think they don't kill you in one hit.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

No way the whole Boletarian Palace is everything I love about the level design. Everything just loops and twists so perfectly.
1-3 is pretty sad though. A bunch of guys waiting to be killed one by one.
But I miss having a level entirely about fighting a ton of weaklings at the same time in DAS.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

Let's take long bets how long before private servers are made.
My money is on 02017.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

A significant difference between the two games for me is the speed. Demon's looks like it's played in fast forward. Slower feels better. I think the games would be better if input precision and precise timing were not factors at all.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

The problem is that From has clearly shown that they do not understand multiplayer. The just happen to have a ton of cool ideas how to implement it! So I'd rather separate my understanding of slow movement: as a deliberate aesthetic, as a gameplay choice, and as an attempt to conceal lag.

I want the big guys with big swords and big armors to really show the trade-off that is made. Your swings are powerful, even if you don't really know how to handle your weapon, and your armor is impervious to weak attacks, but to merely walk around in it requires strong muscles and serious willpower. That was a success (until lol DWGR) in Dark Souls.

In terms of gameplay, I think I like both games because they are fighting games I can handle. Your options are limited enough to keep all of them in your head at all times, and they require very little mechanical skill to execute. You play the real game as soon as you know the commands, not as soon as you've spent 10 hours drilling them. You have enough time to consider your next action carefully in every combat situation. But the parries are bullshit. I wish the parry window was longer and depended on your perception of the timing of the swing, not your opponent's. Highly reliable parries that are no stronger than a normal hit would make things much more interesting. Too much of the vocabulary is useless.

And using the slow speed to conceal lag is a crutch that doesn't solve the real problem that plagues our society - light travels only at 300 kilometers per millisecond.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

Since you've had first-hand experience working with these issues, do you see anything specific to the Souls games that would make it hard to implement a system similar to fighting games to rollback whatever both clients don't agree really happened?
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

Demon's had enough health that winning actually meant maybe you were the better fighter probably, but it had like five viable weapons, two viable armor sets, and one viable gender.
Half of the equipment in Dark Souls is viable but everything dies so fast you need to play the same person a dozen times before you start having a clue who is the better fighter.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

If the old monk cutscene plays before you open the gate it's an invasion, and I think you always get an invasion message after the cutscene.
However, putting your blue stone in 3-1, 3-2, or 3-3 will often disregard your wish and summon you to play as the old monk instead: some people who don't want to play that role (with the 5 minutes wait it implies) disconnect, in which case the cutscene interrupts you but you fight the AI.
_________________
Twitter: @youpi

[Youpi]

The only time I've died against Flamelurker is when I tried to improve my no-deaths run :/

Fuck you flamelurker
_________________
Twitter: @youpi