Dark Souls

[Supergoal]

I was on it till 1:30am as well. So tired this morning but such a quality game.

A thing about one of the covenants near the second bell.

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After ringing the second bell I found an illusion wall that I somehow managed to open by whacking my sword. After passing through, there was this weird egg man who asked me if I followed some covenant or not. I said no as I was in another one at the time. So he wouldn't let me past after answering no. So I killed him and walked in to the bonfire located next to the scary looking woman in the wall who doesn't say anything. If you go past that bonfire it seems to be a dead end, but I saw a few orange messages suggesting another invisible doorway. I couldn't get it open though. How do you open it?

Seriously that bonfire is a bit weird.

[Btang84]

Made some good progress after finishing Blighttown, I went to Darkroot Gardens and Basin and cleared out all the bosses and mini-bosses in the area.

Having done all that, I've attempted Sen's Fortress. Wow, this place is tough! I started it with a low soul count and whilst I've collected a decent amount of souls there and lost them very quickly, I don't mind. This place is a bitch. Everything up to now feels positively easy in comparison. Any tips? So far in the fortress I've managed to

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get to the room where you are dodging the rolling ball for the second time. At that point there is a choice of going up the stairs to where the ball comes from or down the stairs to where the ball is headed. Any quick ideas? Or should I start falling into the pits and taking on the titanite demons? Is that an easier pathway? Because the normal route through the fortress has already killed me countless times.

I'm loving the open world structure. The initial shortcuts are brilliant but it all still links together very very well. Think I would have liked a truer shortcut to the bottom of the swamp rather than the route through the valley of the drakes. There's a lot more to this game rather than just the grinding and the difficulty, there's loads of secrets to discover. My stance is that sharing and reading up on this is contributing towards the enjoyment of this game.

[Adam]

Btang

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Go up when you see the 2nd rolling boulders, in the direction the boulders are coming from. You'll get hit once by one on the way up (yet to find a way up without getting hit by it) there's a mechanism that lets you control the direction the boulders roll. Some of them open up new areas by smashing in walls and more importantly, keep the way you need go safe. As for the whole place, I can only encourage running through everything and not fighting. The lizard men at the start kill themselves on the pendulum things, or atleast get knocked down to the bottom where they are no threat. There's nothing down there much, it's just a pit you have to climb out of if you're lucky enough to live after falling down there. There are a few more pendulum crossings to take too... and they aren't nice. The final one has a lizard thingy shooting electricity at you while you're trying to cross. Died so much on the various traps that's why I say run through the place as fast as possible

[Brad]

Did Capra and the mini boss at bottom of he tower where the hydra is and the ice golem things. Did Capra first time which is surprising as I wasn't actually expecting a boss behind the mist door!

Then I wen back to the beginning. Mistake! That stray demon is impossible at my current level, as is the knight downstairs. My drake sword is quite ineffective against him. Time to start grinding although I might grab some arrows and take out the hydra. I found a safe spot (unless it changed its attack pattern at some point).

[Btang84]

Hah, typical! I ask for help here and before I even get the chance to take a look at the response, I instead manage to somehow get to the roof of the fortress! Nevertheless, thanks Adam! Your help is still much appreciated. I was very careful, thankfully found the bonfire, explored and got all the treasure too.

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Iron Golem

down. Took me three goes at him. My fireball did most of the work and his swings were easy enough to read and subsequently avoid.

Think part of the difficulty comes from reading threads like these and other forums where people are exclaiming X, Y and Z are the hardest places/bosses around. Perhaps I'm overpowered for the areas I'm in but even if that's the case, this game is still not an easy proposition.

[Synthesthesia]

Hah, typical! I ask for help here and before I even get the chance to take a look at the response, I instead manage to somehow get to the roof of the fortress! Nevertheless, thanks Adam! Your help is still much appreciated. I was very careful, thankfully found the bonfire, explored and got all the treasure too.

->Open Spoiler<-

Iron Golem

down. Took me three goes at him. My fireball did most of the work and his swings were easy enough to read and subsequently avoid.

Think part of the difficulty comes from reading threads like these and other forums where people are exclaiming X, Y and Z are the hardest places/bosses around. Perhaps I'm overpowered for the areas I'm in but even if that's the case, this game is still not an easy proposition.

There's a bonfire in sen's fortress?

[Btang84]

There's a bonfire in sen's fortress?

There is.

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It's pretty hard to spot though. When you get to the roof and see the outdoors, there's a section that's being spammed by the big firebombs. Part of the wall is collapsed so you are able to jump off it onto a ledge below for the bonfire. It's before you reach the black knight. There should be orange markings next to the broken wall to let you know.

Sounds as though you got through it without the bonfire. Pretty hardcore if that's the case.

[rmoxon]

There is not much point in that semi secret bonfire in Sens fortress though, if you find the lift shortcut then it is virtually the same distance from either bonfire. The Boss is one of the eaiser ones too, I did die about 10 times on him but its becuase I kept falling off the roof rather than him killing me.

Ive been playing around 50 hours and have had no issues with inputting commands on this. In fact I can safley say that this is one of the very few games I have ever played that I feel controls absolubtley perfectly in respect to what the developers were aiming for. Well, almost perfectly, I was killed by the camera on one ocasion when it swung behind a wall and I couldnt see anything, but I dont think anyone will ever get a perfect camera in a game.

My only major issues with the game so far have been the horrible framerate in Blighttown, where about 75% of the area is played in slow motion, and the fact that the A.I. teammates you can summon completely ruin the game as they make boss fights virtually a process of standing and watching, so much so that the couple of times I have used them I actually restarted the game becuase i felt I was cheating.

The summoning of NPC's goes completely against what I feel from Software actualy want these games to be about. They have always said they wanted to make the most challenging game possible, yet here they have included a mode where the game completes itself for you if you let it.

I was on it till 1:30am as well. So tired this morning but such a quality game.

A thing about one of the covenants near the second bell.

->Open Spoiler<-

After ringing the second bell I found an illusion wall that I somehow managed to open by whacking my sword. After passing through, there was this weird egg man who asked me if I followed some covenant or not. I said no as I was in another one at the time. So he wouldn't let me past after answering no. So I killed him and walked in to the bonfire located next to the scary looking woman in the wall who doesn't say anything. If you go past that bonfire it seems to be a dead end, but I saw a few orange messages suggesting another invisible doorway. I couldn't get it open though. How do you open it?

Seriously that bonfire is a bit weird.

[briareos_kerensky]

A thing about one of the covenants near the second bell.

It's worth noting that she's a

->Open Spoiler<-

Firekeeper, so she can upgrade the Estus Flask. You could have answered yes to the eggman and she would have let you past without forcing you to join the covenant, which is something you do by speaking to the girl. He can upgrade Piromancy catalysts, BTW. The shortcut there is only opened if you belong to this covenant and you offered enough items to let you rank up.

[rmoxon]

It's worth noting that she's a

->Open Spoiler<-

Firekeeper, so she can upgrade the Estus Flask. You could have answered yes to the eggman and she would have let you past without forcing you to join the covenant, which is something you do by speaking to the girl. He can upgrade Piromancy catalysts, BTW. The shortcut there is only opened if you belong to this covenant and you offered enough items to let you rank up.

Thats not quite true, you can use the bonfire without being forced to do anything.

If you

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say yes to him he allows you past. You dont have to join his covenant for this to happen, you can then talk to the woman and tell her you want to join her covenant. You can even then cancel halfway through the process and stay in your current covenant but still get an achievment for joing this new one (even though you didn't).

[Sane]

The summoning of NPC's goes completely against what I feel from Software actualy want these games to be about. They have always said they wanted to make the most challenging game possible, yet here they have included a mode where the game completes itself for you if you let it.

This is very true, I've done 2 bosses with summons and I got them both on the first try. Quite sure that wouldn't have been the case if I had been alone. On the other hand this is really their only concession in a game that's otherwise pretty brutal and you have to admit the online stuff is really well done.

[Adam]

They've messed up the messeges imo. You can only keep like 6 total? Your older ones get deleted when you write new ones. You also have to use an item to rate them, meaning noone will do it. I've never had a messege rated and I've left ones I think are very helpful. Also, not sure if correct on this but there isn't a server anymore? I think when you log off, your messeges disapear for everyone and only show back up when you are back in the game.

Summoning other players fails far too often aswell.

Love the game though

[Neon Ignition]

Though a small amount I've done a couple of hours now which in the grand scheme probably equates to 0.1% of the game

I'm trying to break through the wall with it as I'm finding impatience to be my biggest hurdle. So far I'd say that the game isn't technically that hard, however it's all too easy to try and move through fights too quickly after a death and then lose your souls. There are sizeable chunks of playtime where the game can be pretty boring to play and then something cool will happen or you'll have a good run and it'll pick up. Then dip for a while again. Still on the fence I guess.

[PeteJ]

What version are you on rmoxon? I'm on 360 PAL and there is a definite issue of delayed input. Doesn't happen all the time but it is a pretty major bug in a game of this type.

I've found the AI NPCs to be mostly useless to be honest, they never survive a fight. I (eventually) managed to summon an AI and a player to do the second bell boss but both died in about 20 seconds so was left to tank the rest on my own. The online side is really interesting but its so broken, hardly works at all.

Btw that speedrun vid, he manages to ring the second bell within

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24 minutes

[rmoxon]

Though a small amount I've done a couple of hours now which in the grand scheme probably equates to 0.1% of the game

I'm trying to break through the wall with it as I'm finding impatience to be my biggest hurdle. So far I'd say that the game isn't technically that hard, however it's all too easy to try and move through fights too quickly after a death and then lose your souls. There are sizeable chunks of playtime where the game can be pretty boring to play and then something cool will happen or you'll have a good run and it'll pick up. Then dip for a while again. Still on the fence I guess.

The game actually starts out a lot easier than Demons souls but as it goes on it becomes incredibly hard.

I disagree that the game is ever boring at all, I think every second of it is amazing and addictive. I can't belive youu have played so little of it really. It's the type of game that deserves long play sessions.