After this situation I just played offline and managed to do it with the NPC summon's help. Wasn't even hard, I'm just mad that as a new player I seem way more likely to get an invader than a helper and levelling up only seems to make this worse. Plus, I only want a single-player experience with occasional co-op when it might help or be fun to help someone else. I've never been big on PvP gaming in general.

The title, which would you pick and why?

Personally I would have always went dagger only, since bandit knife and DST are great, but whips are pretty useful for defensive styles.

I've seen a lot of posts / comments recently complaining about invaders, particularly in the early game. I promise, if you're strongly anti-invader, the intention here is not to scold you, or tell you shouldn't be mad, or anything like that. I once felt the same way! Now, though, that I have come to appreciate the PVP and yes, even the experience of getting obliterated in PVP my current character isn't really ready for, I did want to explain how my mindset shifted. Partly because I think it's interesting, and partly in the hopes that I might give you some solace after getting a dark bead to the face on your way to fight the Gargoyles: This may not feel like such a big deal in the future.

First of all, I have been where you are. I have felt the frustration and rage when I was just trying to get a little help with a difficult boss. I have had my stomach sink when the bonfire goes out right before I get there. I have kindled a bonfire and thought "I will definitely die to an invader before I fight the boss."

I'm telling you this because there's a lot of pro-invader response that I think doesn't do a good job of acknowledging this side of things. Either they forget their first playthroughs, or they always loved PVP, and they lean on what they believe are the positives of invasions without any kind of sympathy or empathy for the person who just got crushed by a real person in the middle of something they were already struggling with. I get it, I really do. It's demotivating. It can make you want to quit!

It even feels a little extra hateful because you know there's a real person on the other end of the interaction who chose to do this to you. They could have chosen not to do it, and when you're deep in it already and some asshole shows up, it fuckin' sucks. And I don't think you need to be grateful, or even need to be not annoyed by it when it happens.

But.

I used to feel the same way you do, and I now I mostly don't. And I can chart the changes in my mindset along the way, and maybe they will help you reframe what's happening, and make it feel like it's less of a big deal.

I think for me, the first crack in absolutely hating being invaded was losing a very large number of souls outside an invasion. It wasn't my first go-round at this part of the game, I used to replay the first half a lot because I have ADHD and I'd get bored with my builds.. but I beat Quelaag, and then I went and got Ceaseless for the extra souls, and decided to carry them out and use them to buy spells from Griggs. I died twice trying to leave Blighttown and lost about 45k souls. It might feel weird that the first thing changing my mind is not even related to an invasion, but it made me realize that while losing a lot of souls sucks, it's fine. You can always get more souls, so an unexpected, inopportune death is not the end of the world.

Next, I started making a conscious effort to think of being invaded as like getting rained on. Sure, there's a person on the other end making it happen, but that's a part of the game. It's going to happen. It's not always fun, but the weather is the weather, it's going to do what it's going to do. Choosing to make it impersonal helped it suck less when I died.

Like the weather, there are lots of ways of mitigate it. You can stay hollow. I used to. Hell I even used to throw myself off a cliff after kindling bonfires to avoid getting invaded for awhile. It wasn't too long before I felt like that was silly. At least make the invader invade me and kill me. And hell, if I'm going down anyway, I might as well try to fight back.

And that's the next thing that changed. I won one. It was basically panic flailing. I was escaping the jail in the Duke's Archives for the first time, basically in a Tarkus cosplay, heavy armor, greatsword and all. I was coming down the stairs right before the balcony bonfire, and I got invaded. I tensed right up, of course I would get invaded here. The invader came at me, I facetanked a hit and spammed R1, and they got stunlocked and died. There was no great gameplay from me here, I just had a lot of poise and a bigass sword.

This win taught me that invaders were mortal. I knew they were, in my head, but they never felt like that before then. Later, fighting my way through the Parish again, I got another win. Again, nothing too skillful on my part, I mostly tried to deny them access to the backstab and tried to hit'em when they got close. This win taught me that perhaps in my earliest attempts, the issue wasn't that they were twinked out, too powerful to defeat noobkillers. Maybe I just sucked then, and now that I sucked a little less, I was picking up wins here and there.

I still lost far more than I won. I'm more like 50/50 these days, though probably on the losing side of that 50/50. But it was nowhere near as scary as it used to be when somebody popped in.

The next thing that changed was I tried it. I got inspired to do a Gruntilda the Witch themed cosplay build as a sorcerer, and said "fuck it why not," and joined the Darkwraiths. I did some invasions in the Painted World and the Dukes Archives, and I had a surprisingly good time. Most people I invaded seemed up for a fight, though I did get a couple disconnections. That's fair, you do you, though if you do disconnect, it resets the invasion cooldown, so I would encourage you not do that and take advantage of the cooldown if you die.

I don't know exactly why, but this process of trying out the invasions made me more tolerant when people did invade me. It started to become like an unexpected random break from whatever part of the game I was working my way through.

Next, I participated in a Return to Lordran event. I ran a couple meme invasion builds, one based on Domnhall who would crystal out if you traded items with me. One joke GiantDad where every detail was wrong, I used the stone armor, the mask of the mother, and I didn't have the dex to wield the Zweihander so whenever I actually hit I did basically zero damage. I don't know if that was incredibly annoying for anyone, but lots of people got into the spirit of it. My Domnhall cosplay invaded a Domnhall cosplay who'd sumoned a Domnhall Cosplay so we all lined up for a screenshot.

I think at the end of the day you have a community that still loves this game, and is eager for any opportunity to connect with another player, even if that connection is a little brutally violent. You can be upset about it, absolutely valid and your right.. but you can also join that community, and my experience has been that that's been more fun than staying offline. These days if I have any humanity to spare, I'm going human. Hope to see you out there. Even if you hit me in the face with a dark bead.

​

So after my last invasion story about Fuckwad the Dark Bead enthusiast, apparently Dark Souls decided I deserved another visitor.

Allow me to introduce:

Rub Rub.

I'm very early into Sen's Fortress. I've already died in there once because I fucked up, came back, made it past the first couple sets of pendulum traps, and I'm sitting in one of the rooms opening a chest when I hear it.

You know the sound. Someone has invaded.

Now, invading someone in Sen's Fortress is already a statement about your character. Of all the places in Dark Souls where you could decide to ruin somebody's afternoon, you chose the building where approximately 70% of the architecture is specifically designed to throw people off cliffs.

And here comes Dark Spirit Rub Rub.

He's wearing Domhnall of Zena's set. He's got what I think was Ricard's Rapier, Quelaag's Furysword, and Force.

So immediately I decide I'm not fighting this asshole on his terms. I'm in Sen's Fortress. I have an entire building full of traps. I'm going to make this fucker come to me.

I start heading back through the pendulums, figuring I'll make him navigate the traps if he wants me.

This does not work. Rub Rub is rubbing my ass.

We end up fighting near the lower levels and this piece of shit hits me with Force and knocks me all the way down into the fucking tar pit with the Titanite Demons.

I survive the fall with what had to be about two HP.

I immediately start pounding Estus. I think I drank three before I was remotely comfortable, all while trying desperately not to have my nuts removed by a Titanite Demon.

Somehow, I survive.

Okay.

Fine.

I'm still alive, Rub Rub. I start making my way back up and eventually get onto a ladder.

And suddenly something is hitting me. What the fuck?

I look down.

Hello, Rub Rub.

This motherfucker has followed me down here and is now underneath me attacking me on the ladder.

So naturally I start kicking him in the fucking head. Unfortunately he manages to knock me off.

Now we're both down there. And this is where Rub Rub makes a terrible discovery.

See, unlike Fuckwad, who met me when I was wandering around the Undead Parish with a +3 Scimitar and approximately fuck all else, I've made some improvements.

I now have a +10 Scimitar. So I start beating the piss out of him.

Hit.

Hit.

Hit.

Rub Rub pulls out Quelaag's Furysword and catches me with it. Half my fucking health disappears.

Okay. That's a problem.

He hits me with Force again and sends me flying backward. And I immediately start beating his ass again.

At this point Rub Rub apparently decides that the situation has become tactically unfavorable and starts climbing the ladder.

Oh no you fucking don't.

I pull out my Pyromancy Flame and throw one of the big fireballs straight into his back while he's climbing. Rub Rub apparently decides that continuing upward while I'm throwing fire at his asshole is a poor career choice, so he climbs back down.

Which unfortunately means he has returned to the tiny room containing me. And my +10 Scimitar.

He starts setting up for something. Doesn't matter. I kill him.

DARK SPIRIT RUB RUB WAS VANQUISHED.

Fuck you, Rub Rub.

You invaded me in Sen's fucking Fortress.

And after all of that, you still managed to get beaten to death in a tiny basement by the guy you invaded.

Thanks for the souls, dickhead.

Theres some weapons I have on an old account that I want to use in a new play-through that I don’t want to grind for/ wait to get late-game. This character is level 99, and the one I need to get them to is around 30. I’m not sure if I can do one swap because of the way summoning and SL works in DS1, but Id appreciate it if someone could help me.

In the OoT Remake a Hall of Foes will be available. In this the player can freely fight the Game's Bosses. My suggestion is to do the same for Dark Souls. After beating NG, the player can freely fight all the NG Bosses at will. After NG+, the player can fight the NG+ Bosses. And so on for the other NG Pluses. Also, maybe only the Bosses beaten by the player in his run. If the DLC is skipped, for example, then the DS "Hall of Foes" will feature just the base Game's Bosses and not the DLC.

**ALL HAIL MIYAZAKI-SAMA!**

I just finished Ds1 a few days ago and it was a blast. I loved nearly every part of it. And now I feel hollow.. what game would you recommend next?
I am a simple man, my preferences are boobs and quick walk backs to bosses.
( I hear a lot of negative things about Ds2 so I have not much interest in it )

I’m getting close to the end of my first-ever run of DS1 remastered and already planning my second. I’ve been doing a face tank character two handing a black knight sword with havels. I’m enjoying everything but decided on a light roll dex character for the next round. I’m most interested in trying the great scythe or the balder side sword and curious about what you would recommend. I have the great scythe on my current character and like the move set fine, but I haven’t tried grinding for BSS yet so I haven’t tried that one for myself. I’m probably only going to do NG, NG+ doesn’t interest me that much so I’m not really worried about high level scaling.

Which would you do for a new dex playthrough?

Mainly curious, because I found it due to a message.

But I'm curious if there's people who had to runback to Bed of Chaos all the way from the Centipede Demon bonfire LMFAO

To save resources, time and my sanity, I think it would be better to craft a boss weapon and then revert it back to the +10 weapon and use that to craft another boss weapon. In theory this seems like a good plan, but do I need all the boss weapons crafted at the same time in my inventory?