Demon's Souls - Catch All

Some aspects are easier in each game. Right now I think DeS is harder on the balance, but I also don't have 100 hours or whatever put into it.

I thought they turned off the multiplayer aspect of Demons Souls?

And yeah, I much prefer Dark Souls to Demons Souls.

Xeknos wrote:

I thought they turned off the multiplayer aspect of Demons Souls?

No, they said they might, then changed their minds and said the servers would be up for the foreseeable future. They are also about to release the game on PSN, so that's a sign of continued support and expected new players.

I see tons of player phantoms as I play DeS's early levels, and have co-oped in the third level several times.

Whichever one you play 2nd is probably easier.

EDIT: Technically Dark Souls is easier because the bonfires are placed closer to boss areas and are more numerous than the stages in Demon's. Not having to go through as long of stretches without dying to get to an objective makes it easier, by default.

Stele wrote:

Whichever one you play 2nd is probably easier. ;)

Agreed. Even coming from many hours of DkS, there are quite a few mechanics that are quite different, so I'm sure it would take some getting used to either way. I don't think DeS has any cheap areas or fights though, unlike the couple from DkS.

I think I can recognize that DkS is a better game overall (besides the multiplayer elements), but I'll probably always love DeS most, as it was where I first discovered and devoured the Souls magic.

Stele wrote:

Whichever one you play 2nd is probably easier.

EDIT: Technically Dark Souls is easier because the bonfires are placed closer to boss areas and are more numerous than the stages in Demon's. Not having to go through as long of stretches without dying to get to an objective makes it easier, by default.

I think a lot of the level design and mechanics are more refined in Dark Souls and make for an easier time. Not worrying about grass, for example. It's not that the combat is easier (that's where whichever you played 2nd comes in), it's that the game gets in your way a lot less.

Dark Souls is clearly a better-made game.

The distance between arch stones being greater than bonfires is largely mitigated by all the opening of shortcuts in DeS.

Today begins Demon's Souls being a downloadable title on PSN, and a Pure White World Tendency for six days!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Today begins Demon's Souls being a downloadable title on PSN, and a Pure White World Tendency for six days!

+1

I have a friend playing this with me, and I'll be logging in to take advantage of some of this stuff for sure.

I look to have pure white world tendencies everywhere, but the Miranda gate in 1-1 won't open and the dragons are still spewing fire. Any tips? I've tried reloading, returning to the nexus, going to other worlds. I'd really like to sample some of the world tendency stuff, but if it's not going to work, that will certainly curtail any efforts I might make in the future.

Homard wrote:

I look to have pure white world tendencies everywhere, but the Miranda gate in 1-1 won't open and the dragons are still spewing fire. Any tips? I've tried reloading, returning to the nexus, going to other worlds. I'd really like to sample some of the world tendency stuff, but if it's not going to work, that will certainly curtail any efforts I might make in the future.

Are you playing offline?

RoughneckGeek wrote:

The tendencies that are one step away from pure white or pure black look very close to the actual thing. World 1 tends to stay close enough to pure white that you can sometimes bump it up to pure white by killing a boss, but as soon as you return to the nexus it resets back to the global average.

In short, if you want to do pure black or pure white content outside of world events then you have to play offline to keep your tendency.

It's guaranteed pure white tendency right now as per the developers for one week.

Yeah, I'm online for sure. I see the sign on and then the message in the log telling me about the event. I don't understand why it won't work.

The problem is that your real life is being invaded by a hostile phantom, so it can't reset things properly!

Maybe it just hasn't started up yet. In any case, I got to playing again for a bit and I'm having a blast again. I'd dispatched the 1-1 and 1-2 bosses and the 2-1 spider boss an that's it. Today I managed to take out the Grey Demon in 4-1 and get the uchigatana or whatever. Now I'm trying to decide which weapon I should use. I've got a crescent falchion +1 and a Heater Shield +3 and I'm doing alright so far. Will the Uchi hit harder? I'm at a point where I can almost 1 shot a lot of things. If I *could* one shot them, I'd be cruising.

I also have no idea what to wear for armor. I have a plate helm, wizards gloves, leather boots and something else on at the moment. Also, should I be looking at spells or miracles? Are they useful? I've been working on stamina, getting strength for the Uchi and thinking about raising faith to 10? for miracle use. Any advice?

OK, I'm going to tackle 5-1 with some black poison resist gear on. Do I need 10 in magic and faith to learn spells and miracles? Even after looking at wikis and things, the information is pretty fuzzy on how to go about getting magic if you start with none. I have a couple catalysts for sure. They both look the same in their stats, but they have different names.

Homard wrote:

OK, I'm going to tackle 5-1 with some black poison resist gear on. Do I need 10 in magic and faith to learn spells and miracles? Even after looking at wikis and things, the information is pretty fuzzy on how to go about getting magic if you start with none. I have a couple catalysts for sure. They both look the same in their stats, but they have different names.

Wooden catalyst has no bonuses and no penalties. Silver catalyst boosts your total MP but reduces the strength of your spells by 20%, same with the silver coronet. Kris blade boosts your spell power but also decreases your spell resistance, same with the ring of magical sharpness.

Getting miracles and spells is easy, you buy them from people in the nexus. You have to rescue sage freke for high level spells, and there are a few other people like that you can populate your nexus with as you find/rescue them. Having a couple low power spells is useful as a heavy strength or dex build, but don't gimp yourself trying to have everything. Yes, it will work, but it slow your pogress, although you've made a very fine start already.

Homard wrote:

Maybe it just hasn't started up yet. In any case, I got to playing again for a bit and I'm having a blast again. I'd dispatched the 1-1 and 1-2 bosses and the 2-1 spider boss an that's it. Today I managed to take out the Grey Demon in 4-1 and get the uchigatana or whatever. Now I'm trying to decide which weapon I should use. I've got a crescent falchion +1 and a Heater Shield +3 and I'm doing alright so far. Will the Uchi hit harder? I'm at a point where I can almost 1 shot a lot of things. If I *could* one shot them, I'd be cruising.

I also have no idea what to wear for armor. I have a plate helm, wizards gloves, leather boots and something else on at the moment. Also, should I be looking at spells or miracles? Are they useful? I've been working on stamina, getting strength for the Uchi and thinking about raising faith to 10? for miracle use. Any advice?

No it has started, my friend Rivlen was able to get to Executioner Miralda yesterday; I could not, so I am in the same boat as you for some reason. Perhaps it's because I killed Ostrava?

Thanks for the help Dakuna. Things went white at 4PM pacific. I killed the executioner last evening. The dragons were still there though. Maybe killing the executioner changed the tendency locally. I expect if I relogin, the dragons will be gone now. I can't find anyone in the nexus who will teach me spells, but I'm going to keep looking. I think my weapon plan is to continue using my crescent falchion until I can get a kijili (sp?) and then try to make that into a crescent to upgrade it. My long term plan is to cast spells and stay with curved swords.
Stupidly tried to pick up the heavy armor by the executioner and only managed to get the helmet and shield. The rest is lost forever I guess. The helmet was the best piece for me, so it's not too bad anyway.
I had forgotten how awesome this game is. The atmosphere combined with the challenge is makes for a great experience. Now to get farming darkmoon stone, wherever that is.

Homard wrote:

I can't find anyone in the nexus who will teach me spells, but I'm going to keep looking.

You have to find them in the world first and "rescue" them to unlock them in the Nexus. Well, the good spells, at least. I thought the basic spells could be learned in the nexus when you get your int or faith to either 10 or 12, can't remember which.

I had the same experience where I killed the Executioner and then the dragons were still there. I will try reloading. I also killed the red-eyed knight.

Turns out that I still had the chance to rescue Ostrava, so I did. So right now my only big oops are having killed Patches and missing out on several crystal lizards. Hopefully that's not game-ruining.

I did 1-1 the other day as a Royal. Damn, those dudes are overpowered! That mans regen is a cheat code!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I had the same experience where I killed the Executioner and then the dragons were still there. I will try reloading. I also killed the red-eyed knight.

Turns out that I still had the chance to rescue Ostrava, so I did. So right now my only big oops are having killed Patches and missing out on several crystal lizards. Hopefully that's not game-ruining.

I did 1-1 the other day as a Royal. Damn, those dudes are overpowered! That mans regen is a cheat code!

Wait til you get the thief ring... the thief ring makes casting so OP it's ridiculous, although it doesn't make every boss fight a cakewalk (only most of them).

The crystal lizards will always respawn as long as they don't die, so if they jump off a cliff, this uses up one of their respawns. If they simply 'disappear' then they will always respawn. Each lizard has a set number of death/respawns, but this is only triggered if the lizard actually dies. Also, it is sometimes better to avoid killing the crystal lizards until you have high luck, to ensure you get the drops that you want from them. Some stones only come from specific lizards, and most lizards only respawn 2-3 times. You might want to do some research regarding which lizards drop what and at what luck level and how many times they respawn.

This was my most hated part of this game, lost forevers always annoy me in any game.

Executioner Miralda down first attempt, without taking or blocking a single hit! Thief ring + soul arrow ftw?

So since I never finished this, last night I thought I'd give it another try. Started from scratch with a Royal, got through the tutorial, and promptly got my ass handed to me in 1-1. To be fair, it was late, I was tired, and probably not mentally ready to take on the game, but I ended up making literally zero progress. Gave up after getting squished by the boulder on the stairs and went to bed aggravated. Never even opened up the first shortcut.

I think i'll stick with it though, and make sure I've got enough time to devote to a decent play session. It's true you learn by dying, and I learned a lot in that hour or so I played.

beanman101283 wrote:

So since I never finished this, last night I thought I'd give it another try. Started from scratch with a Royal, got through the tutorial, and promptly got my ass handed to me in 1-1. To be fair, it was late, I was tired, and probably not mentally ready to take on the game, but I ended up making literally zero progress. Gave up after getting squished by the boulder on the stairs and went to bed aggravated. Never even opened up the first shortcut.

I think i'll stick with it though, and make sure I've got enough time to devote to a decent play session. It's true you learn by dying, and I learned a lot in that hour or so I played.

The best kind of experience, assuming it hooks you. I love reading about other people's experiences in the Souls games! How far had you gotten previously?

RoughneckGeek wrote:
beanman101283 wrote:

So since I never finished this, last night I thought I'd give it another try. Started from scratch with a Royal, got through the tutorial, and promptly got my ass handed to me in 1-1. To be fair, it was late, I was tired, and probably not mentally ready to take on the game, but I ended up making literally zero progress. Gave up after getting squished by the boulder on the stairs and went to bed aggravated. Never even opened up the first shortcut.

I think i'll stick with it though, and make sure I've got enough time to devote to a decent play session. It's true you learn by dying, and I learned a lot in that hour or so I played.

I had over 6 hours of play before I successfully reached the 1-1 boss... and frankly, I never found the first shortcut until I was working on my NG+.

I found the shortcuts but otherwise, similar experience. It took me a long time to really get it.

Dakuna wrote:

The best kind of experience, assuming it hooks you. I love reading about other people's experiences in the Souls games! How far had you gotten previously?

I had completed 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, and stopped after the Octopus Men in 3-1 ruined my day. That was another source of frustration last night, that I knew I had made decent progress before and seemed to be doing much more terribly than I remembered.

I think it also took me 5 or 6 hours to beat the 1-1 boss my first time. Now I can get to him in 30 min no prob.

I always meant to go back and finish the platinum. I guess the white tendency event could help with some of that.

But I'm busy playing Dark Souls on PC right now for the DLC. Be tough to switch over again.

Dakuna wrote:

Executioner Miralda down first attempt, without taking or blocking a single hit! Thief ring + soul arrow ftw?

Oh man, thief ring! That plus blessed weapons were the items/upgrades I missed most in the transition from Demon's to Dark Souls. I almost never took that ring off. It let you take a somewhat stealthy approach to exploration.