[DeadHedge]

 Briar King, on 11 March 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

Hmm I guess I ll redo though I have almost 5 hrs farm time in Firelink. I can make it up

Now you have the hang of it Bk you will get your place back fast. I'd recommend farming at the undead burg bonfire, in total there are 18 hollows to take out and can be done in about 2 minutes especially using magic.

[amphibian]

 Briar King, on 11 March 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

Hmm I guess I ll redo though I have almost 5 hrs farm time in Firelink. I can make it up

You uhh... spent way too much time at Firelink. Next go-round, you'll get in and out quicker. As DeadHedge says, the next bonfire has more farmable zombies that will help you level up. It's soon after the "something big that flew over you" (you don't actually fight it yet).

[Traveller]

You don't really sell stuff in DS.. you have to kill for those souls!

Don't worry about farming in firelink, you'll get way more souls from advancing.

[DeadHedge]

 Briar King, on 11 March 2016 - 09:52 PM, said:

Yea I just don't want to sift through 50 pgs of items if I make it into game after awhile.

Started new one with MK still went with Sor though I came close to doing Pyro.

You can buy a bottomless box from that merchant. It Allows you to sort your inventory from any bonfire, it's invaluable.

You will also want to but the residence key from him.

[amphibian]

Oh, one thing: don't consume Boss Souls. You can eventually make them into weapons, which are really good weapons.

[amphibian]

Figure out how to bait attacks and back out just beyond range. Then slice em up. As for the room full of zombies in the tower beyond the bridge that the firebombers throw onto, charge in there and hit them fast. If you can take out one fast, the others are easy to manage.

[amphibian]

You recharge Estus Flasks (healing potions you carry around with you) by sitting at the bonfire.

To get it more powerful, you use a firekeeper's soul to reinforce the Flasks by talking to a living firekeeper.

To get more Estus, you have to get the Rite of Kindling by beating Pinwheel (which you can't do yet). So make do with your five and look out for firekeeper's souls. Kindling bonfires will come later.

Humanity is this soul-like thing. When you/we have it infused in us, we aren't dead. The flesh visually fills out and you're open to crossing over to other worlds or others coming into yours. When we die, we become Hollows/zombies because we are cursed by the Dark Sign to live despite death occurring. To use a Humanity at a bonfire reverses hollowing and we become human again.

If you are playing fully online, being human all the time can lead to being invaded a lot. Since you're new, they are probably going to beat you up and kill you. I suggest figuring out how to play offline for a few days yet, so that the only invasions you get are the game's scripted invasions.

Otherwise, try to stay human. It's usually worth it in terms of getting better item drops. There are even weapons that get more powerful the more humanity you carry around with you.

[amphibian]

The Firelink bonfire is special. You should talk to the NPCs everywhere you can. Exhaust their dialogue. There's this odd prison thing under the Firelink bonfire that you can find if you explore the stairs down.

[amphibian]

 Briar King, on 12 March 2016 - 02:11 AM, said:

Ok. So will I keep/recharge the 5 originals throughout game atleast?

Yeah, you won't ever dip below 5.

The max is 20, so when you do beat the boss that gives you the Kindling Rite, you'll be able to amp up each bonfire to 20 Estus refills (sacrificing a humanity each time you kindle it).

[Traveller]

Amph, you only need the rite to boost to over ten estus.

From the start, you can boost ANY bonfire up to 10 by kindling it.. Just use one humanity to turn human, then use one more to kindle it.

So BK, you should pick a bonfire you use a lot and boost that to 10. There's a firekeepers soul on an alter in the undead parish, which gives you more health per flask. There's another one a short way into the flooded ghost town just down the steps from firelink too - use the transient curse item that you find on the way (it lets you stab ghosts) and grab it early.

Also, humanity is precious in the first part of the game. I hardly ever play as human - I stay hollow to avoid invasions and preserve humanity for boosting bonfires, as when you die you lose humanity along with souls.

Just had a go at Sif. Then changed my mind, went through Sens fortress and beat the Iron Golem instead. With a halberd.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 12 March 2016 - 07:01 AM

[Traveller]

The dark souls wiki is really helpful.

[DeadHedge]

I'd recommend playing offline and turning human. This can be done easily on xbox by going into a party.

This allows you to get the npc invasions especially kirk in the depths, but also allows you to summon not help for bosses.

There are 2 bonfires I'd recommend you kindle as soon as you can and that's the first one in the burg and the one in the parish above the blacksmith, these are used repeatedly through your playthrough.

And contrary to popular belief you can get the right of kindling before anything else in the game, you just need to know the shortcuts and summon leeroy, I know I did it on my faith build as pinwheel has next to no health.

[DeadHedge]

Bk we are enjoying your messages on how you are getting on, reminds us of our first playthroughs lol.

[amphibian]

 DeadHedge, on 12 March 2016 - 07:27 AM, said:

Bk we are enjoying your messages on how you are getting on, reminds us of our first playthroughs lol.

It really does.

I tried not to Google much, so my first few runs were spent running around like a rabid chipmunk with about as much effect on the bigger enemies as a rabid chipmunk would have on a zombie (little to none).

Sorry for the off-key bonfire advice, it's been a year since I played the first one and almost six months since I put aside the second one to wait for a better graphics card/CPU.

[Traveller]

I was playing last night, and while running through the forest area I could see what Apt was on about with the textures and the way things are fitted - but I seriously don't care, there's way more atmosphere just in the forest than in the beautifully rendered landscapes of the new gen games like DA Inquisition and Witcher 3.

I finished Sens fortress pretty quickly, but instead of heading straight to Anor Londo I went back down into the depths to get the gold hemmed set; killed Ceaseless, and then charged my pyro flame to a +10 from the witch down there. Plus I spent some souls on the Dragoncrest Ring, and the lightning defence ring, in preparation for Orstein and Smough. I can't remember if Sif is better before or after those guys.

In regard to accessibility - the lore, crafting, humanity etc.. while I agree that an improved help menu in regard to the mechanics would do a lot to help people new to the series, I think the fact that I used to go elsewhere to look up weapons, crafting and other stuff has added another element to the game. It reminds me of those games that used to come with a big manual or accompanying book, that you could refer to as you played - I can see how having to look up help probably pisses a lot of people off, but it's actually added to the game experience for me. I used to like looking up boss weapons, then going to find the right ember and components.

edit.. just beat Sif while the kids cheered me on.. very satisfying!

This post has been edited by Traveller: 13 March 2016 - 10:35 AM

[Traveller]

 Briar King, on 13 March 2016 - 04:53 PM, said:

Looked up humanity and I'm left more confused then helped. I could read the words but they didn't make sense to me.

All you need to know at the moment is, if you equip and use two humanities, sit at a bonfire, use the menu option to turn human, then kindle the fire, you'll have 10 flasks whenever you return there.

[Traveller]

Wouldn't worry for now then. Just see how far you can get.

(Might be worth noting that you can run past a lot of things to reach bosses/bonfires. Just sprint past and roll if anything has time to poke at you.)

[DeadHedge]

You have the unpatched version of DS bk so you will be having a harder time than most as the original release is more brutal.

If you can hook the xbox up to Internet I'd recommend patching.

Some non consumable items can only be got once per playthrough, the same with firekeeper souls, boss souls and any white items off corpses. However usable consumables like firebombs and humanity you can carry 99 of them on your person and have as many stacks of 99 in your bottomless box.

As for humanity as said above if you have 2 in the top left of the screen turn human and kindle the bonfires.

[Morgoth]

 Briar King, on 13 March 2016 - 08:31 PM, said:

Amp says Firelink was special so I just had a thought. If I jog back there will it give me the 10 at it or is it one time thing?

It always does

[Traveller]

 Briar King, on 13 March 2016 - 08:31 PM, said:

Amp says Firelink was special so I just had a thought. If I jog back there will it give me the 10 at it or is it one time thing?

It will but then all the enemies respawn..