How to not ruin Dark Souls with co-op play?

I remember when I first beat Dark Souls, it was significantly harder than it is now (back when humanity was really scarce, there was no real wiki, and online did not work correctly).

I loved it.

Nowadays its easy to be robbed at least a little by online play. Don't get me wrong here, you summon someone, and you can get anything, and I don't have a problem with the amazing for their level helpers, but for the first run through, it can really yonk a lot away.

Anyway. My girlfriend is thinking of getting Dark Souls, she is a gamer, but she wants to play it with me. Now if that was up to me, I would just make a new character, with a design in mind, and kill some butt with her, but I know that, since I have so much experience and can easily get +15 weapons at minimum level, I was thinking of a system that avoids just ruining it. I understand that statement is a bit of a paradox.

Here's the plan:
I intend to make a charter for lower soul level play, I have cheats, so I can re-roll it whenever I want (thank goodness for that, its like a BB glitch, and I don't use it to abuse people, I can just remake whenever, really breathed life into Dark Souls PvP for me and my dragon love).

Something similar to this is the end game plan:
http://mmdks.com/2523

Yeah not 100% on it. I dunno, when I was designing an INT build, I've always wanted to use the moonlight butterfly horn, but I hated the spells. Then I remembered there was new dark magic (new for me). I love it. I actually used to prefer FAI spells, but other then Great Magic Barrier plus Black Knight Shield (for awesomeness!), it doesn't really appeal to me anymore. I may actually just go full fire, as I haven't make a pyro character in a while. The build would be pretty similar.

So when we play together, after I help with Torus Demon, here is what I think I will do.

-I will not upgrade anything, my dragon self included. It will be at +0.
-Before each time she can summon me, or perhaps once per area summon, she will have to fight me in PvP, with the build at +0.
-If she wins, which at first is unlikely, then I will upgrade +1 to all weapons, after the 5th win, it will start on the Divine path.
-After each win, I will give 10 dragon scales to upgrade myself.
-After each 3rd win, I will increase the BK shield +1.
-After the 10th win, I will change the Force and Magic Barrier into WotG and GMB.
-I will be the exact same level as her.

I found that system interesting. As it teaches PvP, its not easy, and the better she does, the better I do, and worse she does, the worse I do. It means that even with continued defeat, eventually she will beat me, as it would be hard to beat someone with +7 weapons with +0. The stronger she plays, the better her phantom gets to be as well, so its win-lose-lose-win-win-win-lose-lose for everyone.

What are your thoughts on Dark Souls co-op, how would you not ruin it, and what do you think of my system?

If you have two friends, make a starting class playthrough. You can level up your equipment (maybe leave out fire/chaos/lightning) and armor. You only use the equipment you get in the beginning of the game (f.e. Warrior: only use Warrior armor, Heater Shields and Longswords). You can enable the free use of rings to help.
All you got to do is not level up and beat the game like this. You could make rules for yourself for easy bossen (like Gargoyles): don't heal during boss-fights.

Enjoy

I've always wanted to be Solaire during a bossfight.

But you can do just that, in the Gargoyles fight, Solaire fat rolls and doesn't do as much damage compared to Solaire at Anor Londo, or in the Demon's Ruins.

Well I'd rather play as my own character, even though I've been attracted to a couple others, and I almost only play dragonoid.

Well then, dragon fistycuffs only playthrough. It can do a lot of damage too, but it's a bit slower than punching. For low level mobs, you could always use the breath attack. You should be able to manage the first bosses without a shield. I've been thinking of doing the same thing.

A girlfriend who wants to play Dark Souls?
****, I envy you man

Haha yeah I'm a lucky guy to have someone like her.

I would do it this way:

Fat roll always, no parries.
Level up Vit, End, Res(!), and whatever stats you're using for combat equally.

Don't use elemental weapons.
Don't tell her where to go or what to do.
Only get whatever gear is available from places that she's gone to. If she misses a merchant, too bad, it's not available to you either.
Only level up gear that she does. If she levels up her armour instead of a weapon, you do the same, and only to the same degree.
Only give her humanity so you can continue to play together.


Fast rolling and focused stat investment makes the game really easy.

The only other thing I would really recommend is to always be under levelled, both of you. It can be annoying to summon each other, and when you eventually do, its really annoying to have your slow, enjoyable playthrough interrupted by a maxed out invader with a +5 lightning weapon.

THe only information I would give her is what stats are important and what they do, so she doesn't make a garbage character that she later scraps.

This is how I'd do it. Fast roll makes the game easy.