If you wear light armor, and wear the Theif ring, the enemies usually have a pretty hard time detecting you. Also, when you're in soul form, your stealth goes up as well. Each weapon as a different degree of angle for backstabbing, and I'm fairly certain the dagger has the largest. Most backstabs will be acomplished by evading attacks and rolling behind the enemy, but you can usually engage battle with one if you tread carefully.
Stealth is achieved through positioning, speed of movement, and what you're wearing. If you're wearing full plate, it's hard to be stealthy. If you're encumbrance is low enough that you can roll around, you're good to be sneaky too. Wearing the thief rings helps out a lot too.
If you really don't like the bow, maybe a crossbow? Or you need to work on your magic. I think a bow is the best choice, as it's the only one with precision aiming, and lets you fire from much further away because of it. You don't have to be close enough to lock on with a bow. Whichever way you go, though, you need some sort of projectile/distance attack. From what I've seen, throwing knives don't even come close to cutting it, either.
When you say 'work on your magic', is there a leveling system of sorts in this game? I noticed a soul level, but saw nothing in the way of an experience bar, so I did wonder how I raised any 'skills' I might have.
Whew, I'm a newb at this one.
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To raise your soul level, and improve your skills, you pay the black maiden (after you defeat the first boss) souls to increase one attribute. For arcane magic you improve intelligence and magic. For divine, faith.
You can focus on one of the 3 forms of combat (melee, ranged, magic), but you want to have at least a working knowledge of the other two to up your survival rate quite a bit.
Kenny007: Oh, I'd never want to play offline, it was more of a hypothetical 'In the future' question. I actually read the short EULA for DS and it said they could go down anytime after 4/9/2010, so I just got to wondering what WOULD happen if that were to pass. Is there any form of stealth to enable one to backstab, or is this accomplished by positioning during battle only? I did play with the bow a bit, and while I liked the FPS aspect of it, bows are generally too slow for my liking, so if I can avoid using it for most of my travels, without gimping my char, I just might.
Oh, I'd never want to play offline, it was more of a hypothetical 'In the future' question. I actually read the short EULA for DS and it said they could go down anytime after 4/9/2010, so I just got to wondering what WOULD happen if that were to pass.
Is there any form of stealth to enable one to backstab, or is this accomplished by positioning during battle only?
I did play with the bow a bit, and while I liked the FPS aspect of it, bows are generally too slow for my liking, so if I can avoid using it for most of my travels, without gimping my char, I just might.
You need a bow, 2 of the best farming spots in the game require bows, killing dragons requires bows, or INSANE amounts of "spice(magic refill) but don't worry about it. You'll get bows in early levels, just remember to KEEP compound longbow and compound shortbow.
You'll want to upgrade one of them to +7 vanillia, then you can do a nice upgrade later. The other bow you can tweak to your character build or ignore it (I only did the +7 for the special bow)
Bows are a must for a melee toon, especially if you plan on stealth. Certain levels are set up such that enemies have bows and are up high.... unless you have magic, it's way faster to pick them off w/ bows.
That said, 99% of my combat is sword.
Offline/online is a tricky thing. The "rule" now is IF you are in "body form" and "online" that essentially is an open invite to PVP. Since DS has been out for a few weeks now, people are REALLY GOOD at PVP and spend all their time invading as BPs.
If you beat the boss you can't be invaded in body form, but if you haven't beat the level bosses yet, you can get invaded. This can get real annoying when you are trying to beat a level, and a BP invades you, plagues you, poisons you, armor corrodes you, then fire AoE's you and takes all your souls.
PVP is basically rock/paper/scissors. As a host, you need to be ready for plague/magic/fire/poison/stealth attack. That's a lot to prepare for and more than you can hotkey. So basically hope to get lucky.
Since I play PVE in full plate, it's almost useless PVP since it's so slow, although I did beat one dude in plate, he was nice enough not to plague me. I didnt have plague either so it was a "fair" fight.
Playing offline is key for many reasons. SOmetimes world tendency can glitch online, so if you are making a world black or white, progress can be shifted by the glitch. If you are offline this wont happen.
If you want to farm ores for upgrades or are beating a level for the first time, getting invaded can be a real bummer, so going offline is key for that
I love backstab, and surprisingly you can backstab wearing full plate and using a giant sword if it has that thrust attack. I'd say 80% of my primary weapons have backstab ability.
Backstabbing in PVP is the only part of PVP I enjoyed. I got backstabbed once, and I backstabbed the BP once. Fun times.. other than that, I've never been a fan of RPG PVP, it never seems balanced as "Tank" builds are generally useless.
I think you can actually beat the tutorial without dying? IDK I got 1 hit killed too
Hmmm...I never thought about getting ganked, despite my overall love for PVP. I hope I don't have too much trouble with that.
Can you use an offhand weapon instead of a shield?
When twohanding a weapon, is the block move as sufficient as blocking with a shield or is it easier to get around?
Kenny007: Hmmm...I never thought about getting ganked, despite my overall love for PVP. I hope I don't have too much trouble with that. Can you use an offhand weapon instead of a shield? When twohanding a weapon, is the block move as sufficient as blocking with a shield or is it easier to get around?
That's the great thing about DS, blocking or dodging, up to you and your build. How good is your shield? Some weapons ignore shield, other weapons are fully blocked by a shield... for PVP it's a constant tactics and preparation deal.
SOme players swear by shield, others 2 hand swords ... many PVP fight naked for faster movement, some spam magic, others stalk and backstab,
The catch is even if you are the same level, someone might have better upgraded gear and more PVP experience. So they may have the Baby Nail + 1 and a custom +5 mercury weapon, they will plague you poison you, then switch out to AoE magic etc...
If you love PVP DS will keep you going for a long long time, over the atlus boards 95% of the people posting..its about PVP and they are *real* serious about it Lol
For instance you can get invaded by 2 BPs and you can summon Blues to help you etc... it can get pretty wild
My only complaint is you have to exit the game to disable online. I just wish there was a simple toggle for host yes./no . The reason being, I like to be in BODY form for 2 rings instead of soul form for 1 ring and the cling ring..
I think it makes you die in the tutorial. I got the vanguard down to about 1/10th of its health by getting in under it's sword, and then rolling a lot, but staying right under and behind him. At about 1/10 health, it did something that was super fast and filled the whole area. It may be possible to kill him, but even getting close, I couldn't do it.
Maskim: I think it makes you die in the tutorial. I got the vanguard down to about 1/10th of its health by getting in under it's sword, and then rolling a lot, but staying right under and behind him. At about 1/10 health, it did something that was super fast and filled the whole area. It may be possible to kill him, but even getting close, I couldn't do it.
lol at least you hit him.
Those with Deluxe Editions will be able to trade in their defective Strategy guides (ink wear/fading) to Atlus. They will post more details on the program soon, but you will essentially send in the front cover and first page as proof.
Here's the link below to the Atlus forums. http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5072
now howzabout some DLC new WORLDS new ITEMS NEW MAGIC!!! NEW VENDORS!!! NEW SECRETS!!! NEW WORLD TENDENCY!!
Make it happen na0!!!
G-Nitro: Those with Deluxe Editions will be able to trade in their defective Strategy guides (ink wear/fading) to Atlus. They will post more details on the program soon, but you will essentially send in the front cover and first page as proof. Here's the link below to the Atlus forums. http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5072
Sweet! That's my one gripe about this game is my strat guide looks like garbage and I haven't even read it much. I know I won't follow up on the Atlus boards in checking it to see when they start doing this, so keep us informed!
Kenny007:Sorry Mech, but by the time I got your message I'd already picked a thief
Sure...ignore my advice.
Kenny007:The integration of others floating around, the bloodstains, etc, was awesome as well...a small feature I'm surprised we haven't seen sooner and one that amazed my PC playing friends when I described it.
Beyond using the bloodstains and messages, i'm only now really starting to get involved with the MP aspects of the game and I can't help but be blown away from the unique way MP was implemented in a SP RPG. Fought (and killed) the Old Monk boss at the end of 3-3 last night and almost crapped myself when I saw the message that a Red Phantom invaded my game while I was ascending the stairs.
Didn't bother to even read the wiki about the Old Monk, just wanted to be surprised and adapt my strategy as needed. It impressed me that DS finds a player looking for a MP game and pulls them in the role as the boss for the stage. I'm really hoping that other SP RPGs adopt similar elements - the way MP was incorporated really adds much more than I expected.
Edge gave me a laugh in an article they recently put out titled "The most boring game of the year" regarding Demon's Souls - the piece is actually majority praise for the game surprisingly. What got me was an analogy at the end of the article stating DS was "like tantric sex with a slide rule".
LOL + Win
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Mechazawa005: Kenny007:Sorry Mech, but by the time I got your message I'd already picked a thief Sure...ignore my advice. Kenny007:The integration of others floating around, the bloodstains, etc, was awesome as well...a small feature I'm surprised we haven't seen sooner and one that amazed my PC playing friends when I described it. Beyond using the bloodstains and messages, i'm only now really starting to get involved with the MP aspects of the game and I can't help but be blown away from the unique way MP was implemented in a SP RPG. Fought (and killed) the Old Monk boss at the end of 3-3 last night and almost crapped myself when I saw the message that a Red Phantom invaded my game while I was ascending the stairs. Didn't bother to even read the wiki about the Old Monk, just wanted to be surprised and adapt my strategy as needed. It impressed me that DS finds a player looking for a MP game and pulls them in the role as the boss for the stage. I'm really hoping that other SP RPGs adopt similar elements - the way MP was incorporated really adds much more than I expected. Edge gave me a laugh in an article they recently put out titled "The most boring game of the year" regarding Demon's Souls - the piece is actually majority praise for the game surprisingly. What got me was an analogy at the end of the article stating DS was "like tantric sex with a slide rule". LOL + Win
You got lucky on old monk (having a PVP player you could beat). If a serious PVP player gets summoned that could halt progress for many.
I also had no idea that OM would be a BP, but when I went to face him the BP left the game so it was just the CPU ai, and it was way easy.
If it's humanly possible, the False king seems even harder the second time through than the first.
Only thing standing between me and newgame ++