Poll: Getting Dark Souls for my friend; good decision?

[sextus the crazy]

Sure, it's something different and it seems like he might give it a shot. good luck.

 

[ServebotFrank]

I wasn't expecting the amount of replies I got! You guys are awesome.

Do it.
Tell him to use his shield and take his time. That's really all you need before you start things off.

I'd extend that to stamina management. The difference in stamina recovery with or without a raised shield. Then the difference between the weak and strong attacks. Should do well for starters.

Dark Souls tends to be divisive; can you tell us any more about their tastes?

He just stated that he's interested in something new. All he has are shooters for the moment, so I decided to oblige. I was just afraid that the difficulty might turn him off. I plan to go through the Undead Asylum with him and let him lose after Firelink.

Make sure he has access to the wiki.

The game is brilliant in many respects, but there's some things that the game simply doesn't tell you.

I've heard this complaint before, and I was wondering what specifically you found frustratingly ambiguous?

I'm definitely not defending Dark Souls, it was just so long ago that I played it for the first time. My memory of trying to discover everything in my initial play-through has been clouded. I mentioned to a friend recently that I remembered the game being vague about certain things the player must do, but couldn't remember any certain instances of being stuck due to lack of proper explanation.

Daystar mentioned Poise. That is one thing that's not explained explicitly. How the heck does one control it?? I'm not sure that a first time player is going to understand Poise all that quickly. :-D

There's also weapon stat scaling. Right.... Which one scales wonderfully with Dexterity? Strength, Faith, Intelligence? There's also the required levels for wielding a weapon, which can grate on you in the beginning.

There's more, but I can't fire up the game right now and check as I'm on my phone right now.

Well, I got a copy of Dark Souls for my birthday and I'm happy. Although, I was going to get it anyway and that wasn't really a secret - it was #1 on my wishlist. So I'd say go ahead.

What's the worse that could happen? ...well, your friend could get frustrated by DS to the point he murders you in your sleep, then carving the words

on your forehead, of course, but I still think it's a risk worth taking.

Could be worse, he could just tattoo Jolly Cooperation on my face. :-D

YES!

The game offers so much and it's 50% off on steam right now, granted they have NO cd keys left so your friend may have to wait a day or two.

I'm giving him the PS3 version with the DLC. Futzing around with mods and fixes isn't for everyone. Also, the blatant cheating in the PC community is going to piss him off. I stopped playing multiplayer on PC for that alone. Otherwise, I'd just buy him a Steam gift card and gift him Dark Souls along with extra credit for him to buy other games with.

Some people aren't aware of this when they start but by pressing select(Or back, what ever fucking system he's on) on some menus such as the stat screen and the weapon stats screen, the game will explain what each stat is and what it does. So people saying the game doesn't explain enough haven't really looked all that into the game very much.

OT: A good class to start is the Pyromancer, SL 1 which means you can pretty much scale his stats to anything you want to. Tell him to not go with Heavy Armor unless his endurance is high or he plans to tank the entire game Tarkus style. All and all, unless he's slow to change the game is pretty easy I say.

Also that blatant hacking is on the consoles. I was playing through the DLC two days ago and ran into a guy with fucking invincibility. This was on the 360 by the way which I thought would ban you instantly if you go online with that shit. So hacking is still a thing on the consoles.

 

[thesilentman]

Spoiler

Do it.
Tell him to use his shield and take his time. That's really all you need before you start things off.

The whole easy mode debate has become so old and outdone, so if he complains of it kick him in the dick and tell him to man up.

Dark Souls tends to be divisive; can you tell us any more about their tastes?

Make sure he has access to the wiki.

The game is brilliant in many respects, but there's some things that the game simply doesn't tell you.

Doitdoitdoitdoit.

It's a great game and if he doesn't mind a little challenge, then by all means.

As far as things that may dissuade him:
- Little of the storyline is directly handed to you. Yes, the world and lore are very detailed and epic, but it's something you need to research and explore to see.
- The difficulty involves learning and adapting, and it requires a certain amount of running through areas you've already done to take a secone/third/etc. crack at whatever killed you. He says he wants difficulty, but this is a different sort of difficulty than you see in other "difficult" games.
- Online play while interesting and a huge part of the game is a bastion for cheaters.. even when the lag and connection issues don't screw things up before they get interesting.

Well, I got a copy of Dark Souls for my birthday and I'm happy. Although, I was going to get it anyway and that wasn't really a secret - it was #1 on my wishlist. So I'd say go ahead.

What's the worse that could happen? ...well, your friend could get frustrated by DS to the point he murders you in your sleep, then carving the words

on your forehead, of course, but I still think it's a risk worth taking.

Well, I got a copy of Dark Souls for my birthday and I'm happy. Although, I was going to get it anyway and that wasn't really a secret - it was #1 on my wishlist. So I'd say go ahead.

What's the worse that could happen? ...well, your friend could get frustrated by DS to the point he murders you in your sleep, then carving the words

on your forehead, of course, but I still think it's a risk worth taking.

YES!

The game offers so much and it's 50% off on steam right now, granted they have NO cd keys left so your friend may have to wait a day or two.

snip

Yeah, you're starting to jog my memory. Come to think of it, the game never explains poise does it? That is one of the most important stats you have.

Sure, it's something different and it seems like he might give it a shot. good luck.

I wasn't expecting the amount of replies I got! You guys are awesome.

Do it.
Tell him to use his shield and take his time. That's really all you need before you start things off.

I'd extend that to stamina management. The difference in stamina recovery with or without a raised shield. Then the difference between the weak and strong attacks. Should do well for starters.

Dark Souls tends to be divisive; can you tell us any more about their tastes?

He just stated that he's interested in something new. All he has are shooters for the moment, so I decided to oblige. I was just afraid that the difficulty might turn him off. I plan to go through the Undead Asylum with him and let him lose after Firelink.

Make sure he has access to the wiki.

The game is brilliant in many respects, but there's some things that the game simply doesn't tell you.

I've heard this complaint before, and I was wondering what specifically you found frustratingly ambiguous?

I'm definitely not defending Dark Souls, it was just so long ago that I played it for the first time. My memory of trying to discover everything in my initial play-through has been clouded. I mentioned to a friend recently that I remembered the game being vague about certain things the player must do, but couldn't remember any certain instances of being stuck due to lack of proper explanation.

Daystar mentioned Poise. That is one thing that's not explained explicitly. How the heck does one control it?? I'm not sure that a first time player is going to understand Poise all that quickly. :-D

There's also weapon stat scaling. Right.... Which one scales wonderfully with Dexterity? Strength, Faith, Intelligence? There's also the required levels for wielding a weapon, which can grate on you in the beginning.

There's more, but I can't fire up the game right now and check as I'm on my phone right now.

Well, I got a copy of Dark Souls for my birthday and I'm happy. Although, I was going to get it anyway and that wasn't really a secret - it was #1 on my wishlist. So I'd say go ahead.

What's the worse that could happen? ...well, your friend could get frustrated by DS to the point he murders you in your sleep, then carving the words

on your forehead, of course, but I still think it's a risk worth taking.

Could be worse, he could just tattoo Jolly Cooperation on my face. :-D

YES!

The game offers so much and it's 50% off on steam right now, granted they have NO cd keys left so your friend may have to wait a day or two.

I'm giving him the PS3 version with the DLC. Futzing around with mods and fixes isn't for everyone. Also, the blatant cheating in the PC community is going to piss him off. I stopped playing multiplayer on PC for that alone. Otherwise, I'd just buy him a Steam gift card and gift him Dark Souls along with extra credit for him to buy other games with.

Some people aren't aware of this when they start but by pressing select(Or back, what ever fucking system he's on) on some menus such as the stat screen and the weapon stats screen, the game will explain what each stat is and what it does. So people saying the game doesn't explain enough haven't really looked all that into the game very much.

OT: A good class to start is the Pyromancer, SL 1 which means you can pretty much scale his stats to anything you want to. Tell him to not go with Heavy Armor unless his endurance is high or he plans to tank the entire game Tarkus style. All and all, unless he's slow to change the game is pretty easy I say.

Also that blatant hacking is on the consoles. I was playing through the DLC two days ago and ran into a guy with fucking invincibility. This was on the 360 by the way which I thought would ban you instantly if you go online with that shit. So hacking is still a thing on the consoles.

Eh, it's a free gift.
He can't complain, even if he doesn't like it.

It's not quite as hard as it's made out to be. If you want to watch someone suffer something cruelly difficult, give them I Wanna Be The Guy. Dark Souls is more 'satisfyingly difficult'. For people who find that beating a boss on the first try saps their will to continue more than beating it after fifty failed attempts.

One thing to mention. The PC port is incredibly lazy, and the game is simply unplayable using a mouse and keyboard. It's exactly like the console version if you have an xbox controller though. And by exactly, I mean it's rendered internally at 1024x720 and stretched to whatever resolution you select, and the frame rate is locked at 30 fps. None of this makes the game unplayable if you have a controller, but it's disappointing if you are used to running PC games at high res.

Note that someone did make a resolution fix, but it makes the messages on the floor show up blank.

Sorry to get back late, but he's having a lot of fun with Dark Souls. He actually did pretty well, almost killing the Asylum Demon on his first shot, whereas it took me 7. He just needs to get the controls down and he's set to kill some Undead.

Thanks for all your help guys.