Be Excellent To Each Other

Seriously though, it's not lacking in enemy variety. How far did you get?

Edit: you only rang the first bell according to cheevos! Boo! You're in no position to criticise a game for lack of enemy variety when you've only seen about 10% of it! Boooooo!

There's plenty of variety, but there's also plenty of running through the same areas with respawned enemies. When you finish the game it should tell you how many times you killed the hollows between Firelink and the Undead Burg.

I might have another stab at this. Although the pissing ghosts and the Four Kings will probably infuriate me once again.

The backtracking is part of the fun.

You penis.

Actually, I might restart. Not convinced doing a dex build was the right choice.

Quitter!

It's the repetition that is boring. I get to that boss that runs at you and kills you with one hit, and who has two dogs. I die, fair enough, learning curve. I fight the same load f bad guys to get back to him. And then again. And again. If fighting the skellingtons and rogues and stuff was fun, then yay. It simply isn't, as you can win easily by sitting back, blocking, ten attacking on the counter, but that is quite spectacularly dull. So after getting bored senseless by fighting these chaps for the hundredth time, you try to do it quicker, and lose some life. So you go back to the slow grind. Which is dull.

The different bad guys are fun, the mindless repetition is not.

That boss is in my view the worst bit of the game. Took me about 30 attempts, with a deeply tedious run from Firelink each time.

A mate killed his face off first try

That boss is the bit I stopped playing at. Killed the game for me.

And, as per your earlier point, it's the camera that kills you most of the time when fighting him.

Oh god I might not restart. I'd have to do Capra again.

I wouldnt say hesvthat hard. Roll round him to the right then dash for the stairs. Kill the dogs before he reaches you too. By himself hes not that hard,even not using the stairs to your advantage.

make sure you have the firespell before you leave if youre a pyro. Itll be a little while until you can return for it.

Yeah, up until that part, I had enjoyed the game. If I can get past that but does it get less annoying?

It's only annoying because you suck!

You did it first time? Fair enough.

I think I might have dodged a bullet with this game. My interest in it has waned to the point of almost nil. Might stick it on Amazon Marketplace.

I had a few goes against him before going off elsewhere and leveling up a bit, getting better weapons / armour / spells etc and then I wen't back to him and killed him after 3 attempts.

He's not a dead end at that stage in the game.

Poof

Capra? Second attempt IIRC. The game only punishes you if you let your concentration slip. The combat is the most refined I've ever experienced in a game of this type. Once you know what you're doing, no enemy is too tough. Although some will grind you down. Patience and concentration!

This game rewards resilience.

If Curio and craster struggled with it, then I'm in for a monster challenge, then. Cripes. I've ordered another homeplug thingy so I can get back on XBoxLive again, as the other is now servicing the PC.

If Capra is enough to cause 2 of the 10 or so people here to quit the game, then it qualifies as an annoying boss regardless of who else found it easy.

Z, where else can you go when you're up to Capra?

It's not an "annoying" boss. It's a difficult boss and some people just aren't good enough or patient enough to beat it.

Its a quite dufferent kind of difficult. Its not enormously quick, and a fair think and some planning go a long way.

Still, for me, by far the best game of the generation.

The single most important thing to remember is that the very second you start getting cocky or let your guard down, it sits you on your arse.

The Catacombs , Darkroot Basin...

I defo buggered off for a bit, can't remember the order though.

You don't need to kill the Capra before ringing the first bell, do you?

No, you ring the first bell before you meet him, IIRC.

The Capra is only a bastard because he attacks you the moment you enter his area. You need to be prepared for that and get out of the way. Then you need to take care of the dogs. Then it's just a case of playing cat and mouse with the Capra, picking away at his health until he dies.

Those dogs are key though. They stagger you and allow the Capra to attack you with your guard down, which means you're dead.

No, it's an annoying boss, for a few reasons.

1) The way it's set up (small room, instant rush) means it's pretty much guaranteed that it'll take you a few attempts to work out what the fuck's going on and how to avoid the first charge. Which means at least a couple of runs from Firelink, which is irritating.
2) The camera is broken in that room. Half the time it decides that a sensible place for it to be is behind the ivy covering the walls, which means you can't see what's going on.

For the point it is in the game, it's a difficulty and annoyance jump (the bosses in the depths and Blighttown are much less irritating) that shouldn't be there. Or at least they should have fixed the bloody camera. It's by far the most complained about boss, and I'm not surprised it's caused people to give up on the game.

Dark Souls is brilliant. Capra is unnecessarily irritating.

hes required for the second bell unless you have the awesome key perk.
ut yeah,thetes plenty to do, although not much that will make him easier.(a change of tactics might help if stuck. armour is something of a hinderance in the fight, althiugh a solid shield would certainly be a plus. I dont think a tower shield is avsilable by that point though.
B

Well all I can say is: Don't give up, people! One of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Tower shield is unnecessary - just a regular shield with 100 stability does the job. That way you take stamina damage rather than health. There are a few 100 stability shields about in the starting areas. I used the multi coloured knight shield (I think that's what it was called) for the entire game. Got it right at the beginning of the game.

The combat is not that great.

*hide behind shield*

*wait for enemy attack*

*block*

*attack enemy*

*repeat*

Some things mix it up slightly, such as the plant things in the Basin who can one bite kill you with an unblock able attack, or the annoying soldiers who sing a song that stuns you until you die, but the generic enemy is just block/attack/repeat.

This one:

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/knight-shield

And sorry, not stability, damage reduction! This one has 100% physical damage reduction. That's what you want. Stability is what determines how much you stagger when blocking an attack I think.

At the most basic level, yeah.

Street Fighter is just bashing buttons faster than your opponent, by that rationale. You're neglecting parries, ripostes, dodging, rolling, backstabbing, etc. No wonder you're stuck!

There's also the fact that practically every weapon and shield in the game (and there are LOADS) act differently.

AND you can use everything one or two handed, plus there are strong attacks, weak attacks, and other special attacks with direction buttons and attacks.

Then there are the enemies themselves who have their own tells, combat styles and tactics. It's the deepest, most tactical fighting system I've ever encountered.

Stability's more important. If Capra stuns you because your endurance has dropped to nothing, you're dead. If he hits you and you've got a 95% DR shield instead of a 100%, you take a bit of damage and carry on.

???
Approachong combat like that will get you killed. Repeatedly. Unless youre only just beginning.

Suppose it depends how much you've invested in stamina. That shield worked for me because I was quite stamina heavy.

Oh, either will work, of course. But in general, having the stability outweighs the DR, I find. Also, having the Grass Crest shield, which I believe is a pretty poor DR, but has stamina regen. Don't think you can get that before Capra, mind.

See I don't like taking damage whilst blocking. I had enough stamina to withstand at least two heavy attacks without taking damage, by which point most enemies have stopped hitting you to recover, which gives you time to get out of the stagger.

See?! Depth! Craster and I used two entirely different shield tactics. And you don't even necessarily have to use a shield!

No more depth than, say, Soul Calibur's weapons, with a fleeting fraction of the moves.

The enemy is vulnerable! Shall I use the Light Stab or the Heavy Stab! What great depth!

You suck!

In fairness, some of the combat was good fun, but only when being attacked by multiple enemies. Otherwise, at that point at least, everything bar the ones I mentioned could be killed with the block fest tactics without worry.

And combat on stairs is broken.

And that's why you struggle against an enemy like Capra that hits so damned hard. You get used to blocking instead of avoiding and he'll beat you into the floor. Which means getting staggered, which means getting dead.

And, has been pointed out before, if you get cocky even the weakest enemies can down you. Which means those "at least a couple" of runs can't just be pelted through, making them deeply tedious.

Mr Dave's already pointed this out but it's worth repeating:

You don't need to even bother with the Capra Demon unless you really, really want to.

1) If you've brought along the skeleton key you can avoid that area altogether.

2) With the latest update you can BUY THE SKELETON KEY and y'know, avoid it altogether (the dragon area leads to Blightown and the second bell). .

Plus, once you're stronger, you can wade in and kill him in a couple of hits. Let's not forget you start fighting swathes of Capra Demon's later in the game who are exactly the same as this 'boss' who isn't really a boss.

Yeah,but you need to beat the capra demin to get tovthat merchant. You can still avoid blighttown,mind.

Get a chum to help with the bosses. Always.

I pointed it out!

Unless you're following a guide though, you'll have absolutely no way of knowing that. The limited signposting the game provides is going to lead you towards Capra and The Depths.

Also, if you skip out Lower Undead Burg and The Depths, you'll be so underskilled/underlevelled that you'll just get murderised when you reach Blighttown. And you'll miss out on the exceedingly useful spider shield and other good loot.

There's no way I'd ever advise a first-timer to skip those areas.

"Don't play Dark Souls."