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[Septimius]

You make some good points about the reservation system. FWIW, I am a programmer on an actual online game currently in development and I actually implemented a very similar reservation system for our own game. There are some differences though, and in particular the level range requirement creates some complications.

It's difficult to say "find a player in the following level range that meets the following conditions, but do it in such a way that no other players also end up finding the same player". I mean there is an obvious solution, but it would completely destroy scalability. And in fact that may very well be why they decided to go with multiple disjoint "lobbies".

I can think of other solutions as well, but they are not simple and all have other pros and cons, such as memory usage explosion or not being reliable.

That being said, I don't think that's really an excuse. There are solutions that would have worked, and I think ended up being better than the current solution.


Keep in mind that part of this separation into lobbies may have been totally non-technical, and a design decision. In Demon's Souls you had the issue where many random people had difficulty finding co-op partners because people would decline them and say "sorry waiting for a friend". They may have been trying to remove this by design.

Thanks for the feedback It's a good point you make about people leaving when they're summon. Now you take what you get, and that's certainly an improvement, especially when you've been waiting for 10 minutes, loading for 2, only for the guy to leave.

I suppose having a system where you can align worlds only at Firelink would mean that you were REALLY keen on playing with someone, and that seems somewhat of a compromise. I think it's good if a studio has integrity to make "unpopular" design choices, but they could compromise and possibly get a reception of the game.

 

[cpp_is_king]

next to the water wheel. I think you need to be in the forest hunter covenant too.

Wait whaaaat? I've gone up and down that water wheel 100 times and never seen a person. Is he at the top or the bottom? Where exactly?

 

[LProtag]

I'm almost debating starting up a new character to make an Int based build because I think it is the build that will fare the best. THIS GAME IS TAKING OVER MY LIFE.

 

[Amir0x]

next to the water wheel. I think you need to be in the forest hunter covenant too.

oh fuck that covenant

 

[1stStrike]

I'm kind of getting annoyed/bored with the game right now. I'm at the part where I need to fight the bosses

Spoiler

behind the doors that were previously inaccessible before Anor Londo

and every area is such a huge pain in the ass.

It feels like the game is just a bit too long. I was ready to go to the last boss after Anor Londo. I've played for nearly 70 hours and it's like - are we there yet?

 

[Septimius]

oh fuck that covenant

Exactly. Join it, meet these guys. Buy stuff. Kill them. Kill everyone on the covenant. Get invaded by me, because I kill sinners. Oh yes.

 

[electroshockwave]

Does anyone have any recommendations for divine weapons?

 

[vilmer_]

Praise the Sun I now wield a Meat Cleaver!

 

[Gregorn]

You first have to join the forest covenant. Then those NPCs will spawn at the covenant. When you go to Blighttown they move there too. It is recommended to kill them at Blight so the ninja doesn't go full retard and backflip off the cliff.

If he falls off the cliff the ring will spawn where he was standing the next time you go there.

next to the water wheel. I think you need to be in the forest hunter covenant too.

What about if the forest hunters hate me? Can I never get the items from the merchant?

 

[Orayn]

A massive shame tbh. If the game had more time in the oven it would literally be the best game ever.

Look on the bright side - If Demon's Souls cut hit status overseas encouraged From enough to make this, just imagine what they'd do if DkS was a million-seller abroad. I would accept a longer dev cycle for their next action-RPG if it means a slam dunk GOTY.

 

[Kyoufu]

Yessssssssssssss I got my 3 kills. Ring of Fog, woot!

Time to slay the ninja.

 

[koryuken]

Warrior, I'd say. I started a wanderer, but I rerolled. Warrior's starting equipment is light enough to be under 50% of equip burden, thus allowing you to do medium fast rolls (less than 25% of equip burden means fastest rolls). They start with a longsword, which is great to begin with. For healing magic - which is a bit redundant in this game, since you regain all your 'heals' (flasks) when you rest as a bonfire, which is also how you regain your magic uses by doing the same - you need to use miracles. That relies on faith.

If you're going Katanas later, they're DEX based. I've been keeping moderate on the DEX so far, because I haven't gotten a katana yet (getting the Iaito soon), but when I get it, I'll get more DEX. I'd say you'll find that healing magic isn't that necessary, because they take possibly longer to do than using a flask, so at least give it a go, then see what you find.

Thanks so much, very helpful. Do you recommend any magic for a 1h weapon/sheild dex/str build??

 

[Amir0x]

Exactly. Join it, meet these guys. Buy stuff. Kill them. Kill everyone on the covenant. Get invaded by me, because I kill sinners. Oh yes.

no i already said fuck you to the cat if that's the covenant that these guys belong to

fuck the cat

i am a man of honor, I do not go back on my covenants

 

[Kyoufu]

If he falls off the cliff the ring will spawn where he was standing the next time you go there.




What about if the forest hunters hate me? Can I never get the items from the merchant?

If the hunters hate you, you can cough up the Absolution fee from the belltower guy.

Are you sure the ninja will spawn the ring if he falls off? Pretty sure he won't...

 

[Cloudius12]

I'm kind of getting annoyed/bored with the game right now. I'm at the part where I need to fight the bosses

Spoiler

behind the doors that were previously inaccessible before Anor Londo

and every area is such a huge pain in the ass.

It feels like the game is just a bit too long. I was ready to go to the last boss after Anor Londo. I've played for nearly 70 hours and it's like - are we there yet?

Spoiler

Duke's Archive

is pretty hard, goddamn.

 

[33-Hit-Combo]

It feels so good to 4-hit Drakes. Gettin' in the way of my ore farming! I hear that the New Londo physical enemies are the only guys who drop titanite chunks?

 

[JVIDICAN]

If he falls off the cliff the ring will spawn where he was standing the next time you go there.




What about if the forest hunters hate me? Can I never get the items from the merchant?

Farm their hate filled asses and then use their souls to pay the priest guy in the bell tower to be cleased of sin. >

 

[1stStrike]

Spoiler

Duke's Archive

is pretty hard, goddamn.

Yeah, I gave up on that place for now. You know what I'm really not looking forward to? The Catacombs. I ventured about 30 feet in there, turned around and said fuck this place. I'm doing that last. Place is so crappy that it might even dissuade me from doing another play through.

I love the game - but the end-game portion is draining my interest. Everything up until now was amazing.

 

[TheExodu5]

You make some good points about the reservation system. FWIW, I am a programmer on an actual online game currently in development and I actually implemented a very similar reservation system for our own game. There are some differences though, and in particular the level range requirement creates some complications.

It's difficult to say "find a player in the following level range that meets the following conditions, but do it in such a way that no other players also end up finding the same player". I mean there is an obvious solution, but it would completely destroy scalability. And in fact that may very well be why they decided to go with multiple disjoint "lobbies".

I can think of other solutions as well, but they are not simple and all have other pros and cons, such as memory usage explosion or not being reliable.

That being said, I don't think that's really an excuse. There are solutions that would have worked, and I think ended up being better than the current solution.


Keep in mind that part of this separation into lobbies may have been totally non-technical, and a design decision. In Demon's Souls you had the issue where many random people had difficulty finding co-op partners because people would decline them and say "sorry waiting for a friend". They may have been trying to remove this by design.

Is it really that hard? For invasions: create a player search engine and make it so each player has a status flag that indicated whether they're being invaded or not. Of course, the efficiency of the search engine will be key, but it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

 

[Septimius]

Thanks so much, very helpful. Do you recommend any magic for a 1h weapon/sheild dex/str build??

I'm in the process of figuring this one out myself. I'm carrying soul arrows, now. Might swap that with some basic pyro skills. It doesn't take much to get access to some slots to have magic in, and get the skills to be able to cast them.

One very popular build in Demon's Souls was to buff your weapon with some magic enhancement, and I actually made a SUPER TWEAKED SL120 that used that build, but it simply didn't work better than a well-upgraded katana, without having the "hold on, I just have to buff my weapon" thing going. It was a much more stable build.

That's why I'm not jumping straight at some of the magics that enhances shield and weapons, but they can definitely be worth it for boss fights, etc. There's no reason to join any covenants to get access to magic - be it miracles, sorcery or pyromancy. Just get 10 int

Shield is definitely my best friend in PvM - in PvP I go 2h. I dodge their attacks, then counter, but you can't do that reliably in PvM.

 

[Riposte]

Is there anything to be gained from killing the rock dropping golem in Sen's Fortress? The one you can hit with arrows only.

You can jump across. Also he constantly respawns.

 

[Septimius]

no i already said fuck you to the cat if that's the covenant that these guys belong to

fuck the cat

i am a man of honor, I do not go back on my covenants

Aww. Then I'll have to join you when I'm in the Red Eye covenant. Don't worry, I invade to be mean regularly, too.

 

[DarkKyo]

fuck me everytime I see a wide open field or something i know a boss fight is coming. I just opened that pass with 20,000 and after killing mad ghosts and shit I came to a field with a huge sword at the end. I just know if I go there I'll have to fight some bitch. I can't even bring myself to do it right now it's so scurry

For reals.

 

[JVIDICAN]

Anyone know if

Spoiler

defeating the boss of catacombs in new game + is guaranteed to give you a different mask

?

 

[Amir0x]

Aww. Then I'll have to join you when I'm in the Red Eye covenant. Don't worry, I invade to be mean regularly, too.

i fuck up the invaders like so many flies on a flyswatter, you can try though. i won't feel bad. as i gank all your souls off your lifeless corpse and suck the humanity out of your eyesocket with a straw

 

[Dever]

So there's a place in Blighttown where there's a very narrow bridge... that you can only cross in one direction, unless maybe if you roll. But rolling would naturally be suicide since it's a narrow goddamn bridge. I have 8000 souls and 6 humanity on the wrong side. Restored a few times but died trying to cross. We'll see how it develops from here.

 

[1stStrike]

I'm in the process of figuring this one out myself. I'm carrying soul arrows, now. Might swap that with some basic pyro skills. It doesn't take much to get access to some slots to have magic in, and get the skills to be able to cast them.

One very popular build in Demon's Souls was to buff your weapon with some magic enhancement, and I actually made a SUPER TWEAKED SL120 that used that build, but it simply didn't work better than a well-upgraded katana, without having the "hold on, I just have to buff my weapon" thing going. It was a much more stable build.

That's why I'm not jumping straight at some of the magics that enhances shield and weapons, but they can definitely be worth it for boss fights, etc. There's no reason to join any covenants to get access to magic - be it miracles, sorcery or pyromancy. Just get 10 int

Shield is definitely my best friend in PvM - in PvP I go 2h. I dodge their attacks, then counter, but you can't do that reliably in PvM.

The magic I use changes depending on the situation - don't rely on just one. For new areas I usually carry healing, and then I'll use soul arrow or combusion for some others. It depends on what enemies are weak to and what will benefit me the most.

Also, the basic magic weapon isn't worth it - but the advanced one certainly is, as it boosts your damage by a lot. Magic Shield is also really good.

 

[See You Next Wednesday]

Another question, can you summon 2 non-playable NPC to help you (like you can with real humans) or is it only limited to one?

 

[1stStrike]

Anyone know if

Spoiler

defeating the boss of catacombs in new game + is guaranteed to give you a different mask

?

You can buy

Spoiler

all the masks off Patches after he ends up back at firelink shrine

 

[Gregorn]

If the hunters hate you, you can cough up the Absolution fee from the belltower guy.

Are you sure the ninja will spawn the ring if he falls off? Pretty sure he won't...

Oh yeah, I forgot about that guy.

I kicked him off the cliff not knowing he had a cool ring, then when I came back after dying from Sif the ring was there on the ground.

 

[JVIDICAN]

You can buy

Spoiler

all the masks off Patches after he ends up back at firelink shrine

Oh! fantastic!

 

[MechaX]

You first have to join the forest covenant. Then those NPCs will spawn at the covenant. When you go to Blighttown they move there too. It is recommended to kill them at Blight so the ninja doesn't go full retard and backflip off the cliff.

Actually, it might be more advantageous to kill them with the "cliff method".

What I did was try to attack them at Blight Town and I got owned. I immediately quit the game and reloaded. The game spawned me in a dying stance, but neither of the covenant people were there. I got disappointed thinking I blew my chance and I went to the forest to do the farming method. However, as soon as I got there, everybody got aggro'd to me, as expected. However, Shiva (gold armor guy) and the invisible ninja were actually right back in the forest and acted like I had not tried to kill them before (I've heard that if you miss your chance in Blight Town, they are gone permanently if the covenant is broken).

Interestingly enough, the cliff method works with both Shiva and the invisible ninja guy. Once they were dead, I either reloaded or left the area (I forgot which) and their loot reappeared at the points where they spawned at.

 

[Cutwolf]

You will laugh, but Club. A scaling. Fast attacks, good damage. Upgrade it to +10 or +5 divine, and it will be awesome. Dishing out 250-300 damage easily with a one fast hit. More if you use heavy and/or two-hand it.

Divine club is D scaling with strength, unfortunately. I have one.

Maybe I'll "undo" it back to a +10 club.

 

[Cloudius12]

Yeah, I gave up on that place for now. You know what I'm really not looking forward to? The Catacombs. I ventured about 30 feet in there, turned around and said fuck this place. I'm doing that last. Place is so crappy that it might even dissuade me from doing another play through.

I love the game - but the end-game portion is draining my interest. Everything up until now was amazing.

After I'm done with with Londo Ruins, I might might just suck it up and go to that place, I I was getting hit from arrows that takes like 70% of my hp....WHAT. I know the Channeler is there and he can buff up the mobs around him but damn even killing this guy is challenging.

 

[electricpirate]

I really should have bought some moss from the crazy moss lady before going into the depths for the first time.

I thought I was doing pretty well by clearing out a few mini bosses like the

Spoiler

butcher and giant rat

down there and even managed to outrun the big eye frog things when I accidentally fell down a hole, but then I got poisoned by a pack of rats and ended up running around like a lunatic looking for a bonfire while wasting all my Estus Flasks. If I had one more Estus then I probably could have outlasted the poison effect.

Vee hee hee!

Remember, if you run out of estes, using a consumable humanity will heal you.

 

[Septimius]

i fuck up the invaders like so many flies on a flyswatter, you can try though. i won't feel bad. as i gank all your souls off your lifeless corpse and suck the humanity out of your eyesocket with a straw

This is the kind of spunk I like my invadees to have. Too bad I have a math exam on Friday and can't play

 

[MMaRsu]

Aww fuck I one shotted the red dragon can I still get drake sword? I feel like astora straight sword might be weak,, does it scale with any stat? Ddo I have to do blighttown now? I did the depths, catacoms and alll what comes before that..

 

[33-Hit-Combo]

Divine club is D scaling with strength, unfortunately. I have one.

Maybe I'll "undo" it back to a +10 club.

Did you manage to do those guys?

 

[1stStrike]

After I'm done with with Londo Ruins, I might might just suck it up and go to that place, I I was getting hit from arrows that takes like 70% of my hp....WHAT. I know the Channeler is there and he can buff up the mobs around him but damn even killing this guy is challenging.

I didn't even get that far. I cleared out the first area, ran upstairs and went ooo a

Spoiler

chest and then proceeded to get eaten because I was a retard and didn't check it first with my weapon.

After that I was just like, "I'm outta here."

Also, the channeler wouldn't be so bad if he didn't fucking

Spoiler

teleport

. That shit annoys the crap out of me.

Luckily, I've stocked up on arrows and upgraded the shit out of my bow, so we'll see how it goes. I also have the best shield in the game.

 

[Dever]

So there's a place in Blighttown where there's a very narrow bridge... that you can only cross in one direction, unless maybe if you roll. But rolling would naturally be suicide since it's a narrow goddamn bridge. I have 8000 souls and 6 humanity on the wrong side. Restored a few times but died trying to cross. We'll see how it develops from here.

Sprinting solved the issue... I feel pretty good about myself

 

[33-Hit-Combo]

I didn't even get that far. I cleared out the first area, ran upstairs and went ooo a

Spoiler

chest and then proceeded to get eaten because I was a retard and didn't check it first with my weapon.

Also, the channeler wouldn't be so bad if he didn't fucking

Spoiler

teleport

. That shit annoys the crap out of me.

It annoys me more that he dances..

 

[tokkun]

So I got killed by curse twice, and my life bar is at half. I thought it was supposed to be halved every time you get cursed, so I was expecting it to be at 1/4.

Did they change the way this works?

 

[Riposte]

What they needed to do with stats:

Increase STR and DEX damage scaling on weapons +11 and above(B, A, and S). Give minor scaling to some weapon types without it.

STR - Decides Equip Burden(nerfing Endurance in the process), goes up a little faster. Very small increases of Stability on weapons and shields.

RES - x2.3 or x2.5 defense growth instead of x2. 1 point of Poise every 10 or 15 levels starting with 20(probably up to 3 or 4 points)

DEX - Decrease fall damage. Increase backstab damage. Add a new mechanic and make it DEX dependent, something like: Allow players to parry some giant/boss attacks in a special way. Instead of setting up a riposte, the player will do an invincible roll(or ninja flip, w/e) to the right side of the enemy.

 

[Cloudius12]

I didn't even get that far. I cleared out the first area, ran upstairs and went ooo a

Spoiler

chest and then proceeded to get eaten because I was a retard and didn't check it first with my weapon.

After that I was just like, "I'm outta here."

Also, the channeler wouldn't be so bad if he didn't fucking

Spoiler

teleport

. That shit annoys the crap out of me.

Luckily, I've stocked up on arrows and upgraded the shit out of my bow, so we'll see how it goes. I also have the best shield in the game.

If that is what it takes just to make it upstairs, that is what I'm gonna do. Farm the shit of out the forest dudes and upgrade my bow and buy shit tons of arrows.

So I got killed by curse twice, and my life bar is at half. I thought it was supposed to be halved every time you get cursed, so I was expecting it to be at 1/4.

Did they change the way this works?

patched out

 

[Johnny2Bags]

I'm a level 40 pyro.. i need a decent weapon.. i have gargoyle tail plus 8 and some others... what on earth do I get?? or how do i properly upgrade the ones that I have.. II have two bosses souls.. please someone point me in the right direction.. I'd prefer a badass axe, but will take anything at this point.. str. is 25 and i'm planning to up it more in the near future.. also butcher's gets a B for str. catalyst... should i go with that instead of gargoyle. tail?? I get the feeling everyone on this board has some lightining weapon or somehting far greater than what I have and i'm sad ...

 

[Johnas]

So I got killed by curse twice, and my life bar is at half. I thought it was supposed to be halved every time you get cursed, so I was expecting it to be at 1/4.

Did they change the way this works?

Patch 1.03 eliminated curse stacking, thank goodness.

 

[Don]

Remember, if you run out of estes, using a consumable humanity will heal you.

Ah, I didn't even think of that. Pretty sure that I had 2 humanity on me too.

Luckily I found the key for the bonfire room before I died and it was easy to get there coming in from the beginning of the Depths again.

 

[zlatko]

So I have a few questions:

1) What does kindleing do?

2) What is the number in the upper left hand of my screen for?

3) Any tips on the Gargoyle boss? I have no issues until it's two on one and the fire breathing starts.

4) I saw one guy behind a door in the lower undead burg, but had no key to open the door?

5) I saw a different man before the Gargoyle boss in a cage who wanted out. I didn't let him out yet because he gave me a vibe similar to that dude from Demon's Souls in the cage who would slaughter towns people if you let him free.

Thanks to anyone who can clear some of this up for me.

 

[cpp_is_king]

Is it really that hard? For invasions: create a player search engine and make it so each player has a status flag that indicated whether they're being invaded or not. Of course, the efficiency of the search engine will be key, but it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

It's hard to say without knowing more details about their server architecture, but in general it's not always as easy as it sounds. It could involve serializing database access across multiple operations (search and update being distinct operations) and this could totally kill scalability.

Nobody knows for sure how hard or easy it is without seeing the details of their server, but the point I was making is just that it's not necessarily easy. It's very easy when you get into these types of situations to have "race conditions" where two people do the same thing at the same time, but each person's operation would change the world state in such a way that the other's request is no longer valid. It's not always easy to come up with a solution that is seamless.

You could just pick one person to "win" and the other person's request fails. Maybe that's even why you see "Summoning Failed" sometimes.

You could also do it by adding a higher level of serialization across server requests, but then this kills performance, which is often why you see MMOs "sharded" into different worlds.

So it's kind of a trade-off either way.

Another thing to consider is that Dark Souls was always intended to, and probably already has, sold WAY more copies than Demon's Souls. So with Demon's Souls they didn't really plan to scale very high on the server because there just wasn't a lot of need. When you start scaling out though, it's really hard. You just can't service that many people with a single server for a game like this, but trying to synchronize data across multiple machines is a major technical challenge.

 

[QisTopTier]

o man, this is hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ5gLGWcKBY&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Holy shit LOLOLOLOL that is all XD