@stavekoff is right. Just pick something for which you like the moveset.
You don’t really get to dig into the core upgrade system, until you find the other blacksmith. and it will probably take you awhile to find him.
There are a couple of weapons easy to find early, however, which can make things a bit easier.
Also, once you obtain the “Red Hot Demon’s Soul”, DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH IT. You need it to trade to that Blacksmith, to utilize his services. But only he tells you that. You might otherwise be tempted to consume it for a large amount of Souls.
Demons is actually easier, you’re probably thinking too hard about it
As in every DS, halberd is king
Do yourself a favor and just FAQ how the weapon upgrade system works, I am a huge proponent of not spoiling yourself on these games and rolling with the punches but this particular system is just too frustratingly obtuse
Parrying is a lot harder and sort of a mechanical sideshow, don’t bother with it imo
Yeah, Demon’s has a weapon upgrading system that is almost impossible to figure out on your own beyond dumb luck working in your favor so look all that up immediately.
I generally started my playthroughs using a spear until I got a solid grasp of things as it is a fairly safe weapon that lets you block while using it. It also strikes in a straight line and in Demon’s your weapon attacks are much more likely to be interrupted by hitting a wall or other environmental object. I believe they tuned down how likely that happening was in the Dark games (either that or they are just more wide open), but it is something to be aware of.
I hate to recommend looking up the location of a specific item… but the cling ring is in 1-1 and is borderline mandatory as it reduces the amount of health you lose due to not being in “human” form from 50% to 25%.
You can become over-encumbered in Demon’s and have to drop stuff in order to move, and that dropped stuff disappears forever if you leave the stage or die. Regularly drop stuff off with Stockpile Thomas.
easiest way to get started is pick royal as your starting class because they begin with the basic soul arrow spell and an mp regeneration ring, then pick up the crescent falchion and adjudicator’s shield early in 4-1
if you dig crushing things with a greatsword, try the meat cleaver it fuckin’ rules
as others have said it’s a lot easier than the other games, you can carry 99 of every healing item and 1-* in particular throws them at you, you’ll likely cap a few of them by the end
The Original US release of Demon’s came with a big guide that explained everything it is great and how i played so look up all you need! Maybe there are scans of the guide!
Yeah the healing system, aggro system and stagger system are all completely broken in the player’s favor in Demon’s. They balanced all of those in DkS1 (respectively: flask limits, group aggro triggers and separate poise-damage stat), so as many cheeses as that game has, it’s not even half as cheesable as Demon’s
yeah demon’s is still Hard on its face but it’s also a lot less interested in constraining you into a specific playstyle, it has a lot more of that dungeon crawler heritage, you have to switch weapons in tight hallways and you’ll have plenty of items and it’s all fun and weird and fine
Nodding my head furiously as y’all talk about Demons.
I wonder what direction the series would’ve went if they explored the Equipment and Carrying weight thing. I like the feeling of being a dude carrying a bunch of stuff and always having the right tool for the occasion, but the menus just clunk that up in a bad way. I dont want to get good at those menus like I want to get good at spacing enemies and reading attacks.
Well equipment weight stays throughout the series. But I can see why they got rid of carrying weight. Its a lot easier to focus on equipment variety and upgrade paths, if you aren’t worried about whether or not you can carry your materials, etc. There were a few times in Demon’s Souls, where I had to dump stuff so that I could pick up some not so common materials. and that’s annoying. and then it was like, ok, now that I have sacrificed stuff just to “hold” these…do I go back to the Nexus and dump stuff or keep exploring like I really want to?
I think that if you’re gonna have a carry weight, you should probably pare down the complexity of your item systems. Having to make sacrifices, just so that you can keep moving through a level, is not fun for me. Thankfully, Demon’s Souls doesn’t work out so that You are limited too many times (probably because you can’t sell shit for currency). But some of those other dungeon crawler games get super annoying with how many times you have to go back to town and dump/sell shit. Just so that you can keep going.
If they had kept the carrying weight, I think they would probably have made healing items heavier. To try and limit those more. Instead they just straight up limited how much you could have, with the flasks. Thus balancing that you can otherwise carry as much other stuff, as you want. Doing away with a lot of tedium and micro management. And even then, they realized things were still a little too far with armor upgrades and whatnot. So they got rid of that, too, for DkS3.
They also let you access your storage box at any Bonfire. They went the direction of wanting to keep you “in it”. I’m a fan of that.
Wooo, I’m so into this discussion. Please consider the player’s demon hunting Mari Kondo when reading this post:
The reason why Carry Wt is so interesting to me is because you can’t just loot everything and be like, “fucking sweet I’ll deal with this later”. You have to make decisions about your environment immediately. Pumping your Carry Wt stat would be like speccing your character to be a hoarder and actually making that a useful skill for the player to maximize. And while “wanting to be a hoarder” is definitely Forum Axe territory, I’m totally being serious. In Dragon’s Dogma I specced my Pawn to be a mule (and I’m sure many other folks did) to carry all of my stuff. Sancho Panza is such an interesting character, you know?
So!
AFAIK the concept is Carry Wt is a stat about preparedness. The Nexus is so much more impactful than the Bonfire because you do so much more planning. Do you take 10lbs of arrows? Do you take 20lbs? Do you bring armor sets for poison, fire, and physical resistance? You know there are enemies strong to slash & smash so you take pokey, but…it’s unfamiliar and not upgraded, should you still take your smash hammer? I think a lot of the downplay of this is from experience 1) you know what you’re up against so you stop overpacking 2) you have learned how to deal with particular situations with suboptimal tools so you can even underpack
(Note, I think Chalice dungeons were borked because they didn’t force you to choose in these specific ways. You could go and grab and didn’t have to think about either step. If you did, infinite dungeons would be so much more interesting.)
So, onto what you actually said re: design:
Pare Down Complexity of Item Systems
I totally agree! I hate going back to town to drop loot for $$$ in case you could use those $$$ to do a thing, and the lack of resell is kind of awesome. I think persistent dropped items would solve this problem. There’s no value in bringing it back to homebase if you’re not going to use it, and if you are going to use it but you’re maxing out on Carry Wt then you have to make smart decisions. But as is, instead of dropping an item you’re essentially deleting it, and that’s bogus.
Healing Items and Wt
This is totally understandable! I wished they played around with Carry Wt more because I think this is a logical conclusion. Also, I think another interesting conclusion would be to spread out items and/or have a crafting system. Just looking at healing items: have multiple healing type items that all healed slightly differently (over time, with a penalty, with a positive side effect) and different properties (heavy, craftable with other items, lifetime [sup Dragon’s Dogma]). Tbh, instant heal items are bogus and I hope games get rid of them like… 20 years ago. But, even on top of that, having healing items that are good in combat/out of combat/while running/casting magic/etc would be cool. And then, since at times healing items are sparse, having to deal with a less-than-optimal healing item would be very interesting. Have this spread over to stat recovery items, boons, throwables, etc… that’d be rad AF. Again, I think this is a thing that FROM probably thought about but couldn’t design a simple interface for, so… I wish they tried (and succeeded) tho
Making each bonfire functionally a Nexus was kinda cool. I found myself doing the first loop in 2-1 instinctively going towards the archstone, but then realizing the only thing I’d get is topping off my health and two long 2008 loading screens. JFC how did we deal with those for so long
Anyone know how much combat is in the new Anno? I read it doesn’t have ground combat anymore but still has naval combat and I’m not sure how prominent of a focus that is. I just want a chill city builder where my problems are economic and geographic. I don’t want to kill things all the time. I remember liking one of the old Annos a lot. Maybe it was 1404? I think it was also called Age of Discovery.
Was the Settlers a pacifistic city builder franchise?
