Dark Souls 3 hype thread!

[EvilRoy]

I fucking... cannot deal with how much game there is here. I'm like 17 hours in, just got to the second cinderlord, and even as I sod around avoiding having to fight him - I KEEP FINDING MORE NEW SHIT. I'm even pretty sure I missed a coal somehow, and I left the vast majority of the swamp unexplored because I just didn't FEEL like it, man.

It wouldn't worry me so much, except I can tell that aside from the odd branching path this is clearly a largely linear game. Meaning that after I kill this asshole, chances are there is a whole nother segment of fuckery to be explored.

I keep being worried that I missed something too. I probably missed a coal as well, and I think I missed a covenant. Can anyone tell me whether I should have found the covenant that lets you put down the purple summons? I'm in the Boreal Valley, and kept seeing those everywhere in the Undead Settlement, but never found the covenant for them.

Oh yeah, that's a weird one. Like fox said there are two ways apparently, but I suggest the boss. You're probably overleveled for it now, but its a good fight. That's another one of the crazy things though. The most useful messages in this game are the "Critical Foe" and "Not Critical Foe" notes people leave around, because that is the only way I would ever know if I stumbled into an optional boss fight or a critical one. And MAN I stumble into a lot of bosses.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I have to say I'm sick of getting invaded because I want to play it in co-op. I get that it's "part of the experience", but the fact is that losing embers to that shit, while they risk nothing is just straight up a bad choice of design.

My mate just told me that it might be because I'm part of blue covenant? If anyone can elaborate, I'd love to hear how the hell I deal with this part of the game. Alternatively I guess we can just shelf it and wait a year, so most of the community has moved on.

Edit; Forgot to mention that I keep getting invaded within a few minutes of using an ember. It's become nearly unplayable.

Being in the blue covenant shouldn't lead to you getting invaded more, as far as I know, but should rather get someone from the Blue Sentinels summoned to help you fight the invader. I take it this isn't working? It's very odd, since I was in the Blue Sentinels for ages and didn't get summoned once. Not sure if it's broken or what.

If you're running out of embers, I recommend leaving your summoning sign right outside of a boss room. If someone summons you and you help them kill the boss, you will get embered again. And killing bosses with other people is a lot of fun anyway. Good souls in it too.

That's the mound builders covenant. There are two ways to find it. The first is to go to the undead burg, cross the first bridge, and immediately take a right turn. There's a path hidden by some debris. After killing some enemies on a roof, you should find one of those big red guys with a saw. This one is non-hostile. He has a cage on his back. Walk up behind him and get into his cage. He'll take you to the covenant room. Talk to the guy there. He'll ask you a question. Choose the first option.

Alternatively you should be able to join it after defeating the huge tree boss in the church in undead burg. Go to the underground boss room after you win, and there should be an alter and a dead body. Approach it to join the covenant.

I believe the covenant is a dueling covenant that allows you to duel other players without invading them.

Big red guy with a saw, huh? If I stumbled upon him, chances are I attacked him on sight, but I'll take a look. And I could've sworn I'd checked that underground tree room for anything like that, but I guess I wasn't rigorous enough in my examination. Thanks for the tip!

 

[PapaGreg096]

Has anyone beat the old demon king because that boss is cheap

I beat him just now, but he was a mean bastard. After a few failed attempts, I decided to summon a phantom. Unfortunately, he got killed about 30 seconds into the fight, leaving me on my own. So I decided I would try a different strategy of a slightly more cheesy variety, and switched to a ranged weapon. With my trusty Arbalest+3 I pumped almost all of my standard bolts into him before he finally went down. At a distance, it's much easier to avoid most of his fire attacks, which are just bullshit when you're stuck under him slashing at his legs.

To help survive what fire attacks I couldn't avoid, I buffed my fire absorption as much as I could. I was wearing the red stoneplate ring, and casting the pyromancy spell "flash sweat". When my mana ran out, I started munching on red bug pellets. I still ended up using most of my estus flasks though. To keep my distance, I circled around the giant piles of demon corpses, allowing me to back away from him throughout the whole fight while I shot at him. Those piles were also useful in blocking the fireballs he summons to rain down on you once you've taken about half his health.

Overall, I've got no clue how you're supposed to solo him with a melee weapon. So many of his fire attacks cover almost the entire floor and would require dodge rolls of the highest precision to avoid. But since you're stuck under him, it becomes almost impossible to read his next attack when you're mostly stuck looking at his legs. But ranged weapons really do work pretty well.

Thanks, I personally just spam arrows at him and he pretty much went down

 

[EvilRoy]

Being in the blue covenant shouldn't lead to you getting invaded more, as far as I know, but should rather get someone from the Blue Sentinels summoned to help you fight the invader. I take it this isn't working? It's very odd, since I was in the Blue Sentinels for ages and didn't get summoned once. Not sure if it's broken or what.

If you're running out of embers, I recommend leaving your summoning sign right outside of a boss room. If someone summons you and you help them kill the boss, you will get embered again. And killing bosses with other people is a lot of fun anyway. Good souls in it too.

In somewhere between twenty and thirty invasions, I've had one defender show up. I swapped over to Sunlight and had 1 in 3 invasions so far. I'm almost exclusively in co-op, so I've had help every time anyway, but two newbies against twink veterans is still not much of a fight.
Having read up bits and pieces here and there, it seems that invaders gets a list they can choose from and they can supposedly see what covenant you're in.

It stands to reason that the people who just want to PvP and win, pick players with blue covenant since they're likely to be new players. Having seen how rarely you actually get a defender or help from blue, it's an added incentive for ez ganking.

I'll try swapping over to Farron and see if it discourages people even more.

That's nuts man. I've been invaded like once - but I also have no covenant at all. Maybe you're painting a target on your back by being involved in a pvp covenant in this game? I suppose it could be like marking yourself as wanting to get into combat - although I don't know how being a sunbro would get many invasions either.