Just started, a few quesitons

Ok, just started playing Dark Souls after a video game hiatus. Loving it so far, was a huge Demon's Souls fan so I've got most of the basic idea of how the game works, still I've got some questions.

1: Did they change a lot of the parameters for getting invaded by Red Phantoms? When I played Demon's Souls, I think I got invaded a grand total of about 4 times. I've only been playing Dark Souls for a few hours, and I've been invaded 5 times already. Literally, I think the longest I've gone "restored" is about 3 minutes before I was attacked. This wouldn't be such an issue if it wasn't for...

2: Is there some sort of glitch in regards to the invasion match-ups? I'll never say I'm a great Demon/Dark Souls player, but I'm decent, yet the people they're matching me up with seem so utterly beyond my level I can't see how the game could possibly think it's fair. I was playing as a Warrior and was armed with a standard longsword, and my backstab was doing about 15 damage. This was when I was at like level 10 or something.

3: Does not being hollow offer any benefits besides being able to summon (and be invaded) and being able to kindle bonfires?

Not sure about 1. As for #2, there's a glitch that lets people move high level items over to low level characters, and it's frequently abused at low levels. You shouldn't have too much trouble with it once you move beyond the parish. And for #3, yes. Check out the wiki page on humanity here:

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Humanity

It boosts a bunch of stuff.

Sadly you're seeing the bad side of the community, usually in any match up it looks for +-10% of your level, if that fails it falls to secondary settings that depend on the item being used, such as Darkwraiths red orb having no upper limit. You are being matched right but due to a glitch the last patch made more easy alot of people like to grief the first few areas you can get to. They just have stupidly powerful weapons.

You have point 3 correct, all human does is kindling and summoning, however you can store humanity and you do gain boosts without turning human. The first few levels can be done hollow and after that it gets a much better. If you do want to get into fair PvP matches there are fight clubs based on SL120 for both systems~

I wish you good luck in playing and try not to let them ruin it for you.

Whknight wrote:
You have point 3 correct, all human does is kindling and summoning, however you can store humanity and you do gain boosts without turning human.

Oops, you're right. For some reason I always thought that it did the same thing as eating a humanity. I should start testing things before posting...

zappo wrote:

Whknight wrote:
You have point 3 correct, all human does is kindling and summoning, however you can store humanity and you do gain boosts without turning human.

Oops, you're right. For some reason I always thought that it did the same thing as eating a humanity. I should start testing things before posting...

i can recomend as im a new player to that in the first area just go unhollow when you need help whit the boss fight i did the same mistake and went in humman form and got invaded all the time over and over agien..

@Ornerysloth. I know exactly what you mean. I played Demon Souls through twice and rarely got invaded and when I was my opponent was always about my level, so even though it was annoying,it was a fair match. It's worth noting, though, that I played Demon Souls first on import for six months before the U.K. version launched.

The problem with Dark Souls is that, not only are more people playing it but PvP has taken over, so much so that I rarely play in human form when I'm going for a boss, which means that I can't summon help with that boss. This isn't any fairer on me than it is on any other PvE player but it is the only option if you don't want to have some griefer spoiling your game and, believe me there are plenty of those. Take heart though because I recently completed my first play through and I beat all the hard bosses without summoning help which made it more satisfying in the long run.

i would go the whole game hollow if its your first time, like slakemoth said it'll be very satisfying knowing you did it yourself and it will make you a better player, there's no point in beign human other than to invade or co op, its not like in demon's souls where you got punished for beign hollow which i think its lame that dark doesnt give you an incentive to be alive but whatever. you wont miss much if you go hollow the whole game, i think its only the armor of thorns and barbed sword that you would miss which you could get on your second playthrough, armor of thorns is my fave armor in the game.

Thanks for the advice ya'll, I think that for this run through, I'm just gonna stay Hollowed the whole time. If I keep getting my *** handed to me by a boss (I'm already dreading Smough and Ornstein) then I'm just gonna have to beat them the old fashioned way: Soul farming What do ya'll think: when the inevitable sequel or "spiritual sequel" or whatever pops up, do you think you should be able to turn off invasions? Or maybe make it like WoW, where you have to accept the challenge?

Ornerysloth wrote:Thanks for the advice ya'll, I think that for this run through, I'm just gonna stay Hollowed the whole time. If I keep getting my *** handed to me by a boss (I'm already dreading Smough and Ornstein) then I'm just gonna have to beat them the old fashioned way: Soul farming What do ya'll think: when the inevitable sequel or "spiritual sequel" or whatever pops up, do you think you should be able to turn off invasions? Or maybe make it like WoW, where you have to accept the challenge?

RGH dont bring the word WoW in here argh my eyes...it buuurns it buuurns

The matches seem very unfair because of changes From made from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls. Leveling your character has severe diminishing returns now, so upgrading your equipment will make you more powerful than leveling up your character. So people can be low level but, with maxed equipment, they will seem much higher.

This is NOT all due to the BB glitch. You could always do the game low level to obtain all the gear you want. And most of the people who use the BB glitch to get their gear are scrubs anyways. It's those who got the gear themselves you should be afraid of.

Another thing: humanity. When you level up your character, whatever stat you increase, your defense increases also. Each humanity you add to your count (next to the health and stamina bars) will have the same effect on your defense as going up a level would. So if you're SL30 with 99 humanity, you'll have the defense of someone who's SL129.

So they have OP gear for their level, and their defense is that of someone 99 levels higher. That's why they seem so much higher than you!


Edit: you can turn off invasions. Play offline. The point of invasions is to balance the fact that you can summon. Can't have one without the other.

I played most of the game at sl 8 and only got invaded once past the undead burg. Finish the undead burgs hollow. Once you ring the first bell you can basically run around human the rest of the way human...if you keep your level low. Being a demon veteran it shouldn't be too tough. Four kings was kinda tough until i used magic shield and Beatrice.

Keeping your soul level low will allow you to spend souls on upgrades