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Common Questions:
All items are carried over except for keys. This includes weapons, armor, ore, consumables, soul levels, spells, and all items with Stockpile Thomas. All world and character tendencies are carried over as well. Again, the only exception are keys. Keys are not carried over to NG+
Yes
The median level seems to be about 80 before people defeat the end bosses their first playthrough, but it ranges from about 60 to over 100. Be aware that NG+ will be significantly harder than the first time, so make sure you are leveled enough to be comfortable. The same enemies in NG+ seem to give several times more experience, so that is a reason to move on for levelling up, but consider farming for as many items as you can before NG+ while it's less risky.
Yes, roughly 8% harder each new game, and the amount of souls you receive from enemies increases as well.
The enemies do substantially more damage and have 8% more life. The gap between NG and NG+ is more (around 200%), but each subsequent NG+ is only 8% more life from there.
Yes, you will get a lot more souls in NG+. Rate of obtaining souls increase up to 4x on mobs, and bosses gives you really more souls. For example: I know for sure that the Flame Lurker gives you 90k Souls per kill. Another example at neutral tendency: the silver sword skeletons at the start of 4-1 give 294 souls each the first playthrough, and 1176 (four times more) in NG+.
That red cloud is a sign that you have increased souls coming from killing enemies. The Ring of Avarice and the Silver Bracelets each impart this effect.
There is little if any benefit to killing the NPCs in the Nexus, and there is no guarantee you will not encounter a last-minute need to access a spell-trainer or vendor. However, if you do not experience such a need there is little reason not to kill them. Note, however, that killing NPCs will alter your character tendency, which will carry over into NG+.
Note: Do NOT kill Stockpile Thomas for he is holding all your items which will carry over to NG+
This does not mean you have reached the maximum power of the equipped weapon. It simply means that by increasing strength by one point, you don't increase the bonus the weapon gets from strength. It may take a few points in strength to increase the power of your weapon, especially if the bonus it gets is low. For example, a weapon with an S from strength may get a point for each strength upgrade, but a weapon with a C maybe only get an increase in power every 3 upgrades to strength. Note: I'm not 100% sure on this, but from what I've seen this is how it works.
It's likely that your character tendency shifted towards black, either because you killed a non-hostile NPC or you successfully invaded another player's world as a Black Phantom at some point. When you're in Soul Form, your character tendency alters your damage output, with pure white giving you the largest increase - if you moved away from pure white, your damage would have decreased.
The backstab is an attack your character does if you are exactly behind an enemy. Practice on the dreglings in 1-1 or the miners in 2-1 to get the hang of it. Just get behind the enemy and use your regular attack (R1), your character should go into a brutal looking animation depending on what weapon you have. Also, your off-hand blocking equipment must be down for the backstab to materialize (release or don't hold L1). You have to sneak up on the enemy, usually by walking and / or wearing the Thief's Ring.
The general consensus on GameFaqs is that enemies "max out" in NG +7, meaning the game is as hard as it will ever be at that point (and thus no more increases in souls either). I'm not sure where they came up with it but anything on youtube should really be taken with a grain of salt when compared to an active community of gamers.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
- Demon's Souls Online
- PvP Tips
- The Eye Stones
- How to Emote (controls)
- World Tendency
- Character Tendency
Common Questions:
This happens occasionally as the servers get really busy. Problems can include, but are not limited to "Failed to connect to host's world", inability to read messages, inability to write messages, etc. The easiest solution is to quit the game and restart it. This is the only means to reinitialize a connection with the server.
When playing as a Blue Phantom, killing a boss in the Host's world does not kill the boss in your own world. You still have the opportunity to kill that boss in your world, and get the Demon's Soul. If you have summoned a Blue Phantom, you still get to pick up the Demon's Soul, as usual.
If you are the Blue Phantom, upon killing the boss, you are revived and returned to your own world. As a Blue Phantom, you cannot interact with friendly NPCs, nor can you pick up any items, unless the items have been dropped by other players currently in that world.
You will lose a Soul Level if you are killed by anything other than an enemy player, including falling to your death or being killed by environmental hazards (traps, fires, etc.). You will not, however, lose a Soul Level if you allow the Host to enter the boss area, but you will if you use the White Eye Stone to voluntarily leave. You will not lose a Soul Level if the Host uses the Banish spell to remove you.
Those are just other players playing the same world online at the same time. They don't affect your game at all, other than you may still learn from observing them occasionally. Especially if you see one sniping from a certain point or accessing a place you have not gotten to.
Any of the Asian versions, (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) use the same servers, and hence can play together. The North American Atlus version, however, uses separate servers and cannot play with any of the Asian versions.
This can be caused by several things:
- World Tendency, while you are not logged in, follows the trend of all other users on the server. Typically, this means that WT will shift to white slowly while you are not logged in.
- There is a bug in which if a player logs off in the Nexus, all worlds will be reset to Neutral WT.
- As a special event for Halloween 2009, all WT shifted more towards black.
No, this was a special event only for Halloween.
Yes, your character tendency increases as you help other players defeat bosses.
Besides exploring another aspect of the game play, the benefits of invading include:
- Getting your body form back, assuming that the Host dies (by your hands or otherwise);
- Getting souls from any Blue Phantoms you kill;
- Testing and honing your skills with Player-versus-Player combat;
- The challenge of having a more formidable enemy than the AI, especially when it can be up to 3 (including 2 blue phantoms) against 1 and you are not at full health;
- Turning your character tendency to black without killing any NPCs.
- Turning the world tendency to black without using a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes.
- The enjoyment of ruining someone's run to the Boss (sadistic, but some people enjoy this);
- Exploring a level without having to worry about the monsters attacking you; and
- Helping the Host player without having to worry about the monsters attacking you (although, you won't be able to enter the boss area, so have the host Banish you or kill you before he fights the boss, or you'll lose a Soul Level).
You would need to be in your own world to touch your bloodstain
"Uniter of the world" are players that have recently completed the game while online. If you check quickly you can find yourself in both sections of the pantheon for "Uniter of the World" (local and online). I'm not positive whether it only shows players who have achieved the trophy (i.e. only one time) in the online section or not, but the local section reflects game completions for any character in any of your four profile slots. All pantheon exhibits show characters and their equipment only at the time of their last game completion.
There are a few possible ways to explain this. If you die as a Black Phantom, and you didn't kill any Blue Phantoms before dying, you lose all of your souls. If you killed any Blue Phantoms, you lose half of the souls you got for killing them, and lose all the souls you didn't get from killing them. Basically, don't invade with a lot of souls, because if you die you might lose them.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
Common Questions:
Once you deal a certain amount of damage to a given NPC, he/she becomes hostile. There is no way to make the NPC friendly again in the current game, but all NPCs are reset upon beginning NG+.
Unfortunately there is no way to revive any NPC after they have been killed in the current game. Note, however, that they will be present once you start a NG+. If the NPC died by falling off the world, you can simply reload the current game, and you should find their loot at their usual spawn point.
Yes. When characters appear as Black Phantoms, this is in addition to the normal appearance of the NPC. The Human version of the NPC and the Black Phantom version should be treated as two seperate characters.
No, the Monumental can't be killed. He completely ignores your attacks.
There are 5 NPCs in the Nexus at different times which can teach Magic/Miracles, but you cannot learn or memorize spells anywhere except the Nexus. See Magic and Miracles for more information.
If you rescued Yurt, he will begin to kill a NPC in the Nexus after each boss you beat. See Yurt for more information.
If you just started NewGame+ then all the NPCs you rescued in the previous game are now reset back to their original locations for you to rescue again. The original NPCs such as Stockpile Thomas, Blacksmith Boldwin and the Maiden in Black are always there at the beginning. Also the NPCs of the elementary Magic and Miracle trainers do not get unlocked until 1-1 has been completed. If you release Yurt from his cage in 3-2 and do not kill him on the spot or immediately after you return to the Nexus, he will start killing NPCs.
Yes, you can. Succeeding in this will kill the Black Phantom, get you the drops but won't affect your Character Tendency.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
- World Tendency
- Boletarian Palace
- Stonefang Tunnel
- Tower of Latria
- Shrine of Storms
- Valley of Defilement
Common Questions:
These numbers do not appear anywhere inside the game; it is just a shorthand way to refer to how the game is divided up. There are 5 Archstones (Boletaria is Archstone 1, for instance) and within each Archstone there multiple waypoints that will warp you back to the Nexus (they appear as a sword sticking out of a stone). Each section of a level in between waypoints is referred to as a sublevel. For example, Boletaria is World 1 so any location within Boletaria will be 1-X. The beginning of Boletaria all the way up to the fight with Phalanx is referred to as 1-1, because it is the first subsection of Boletaria. After you fight Phalanx a new archstone appears (in the game referred to as the "Phalanx archstone") and a continuation route is opened up which eventually leads to the next boss, the Tower Knight. The section of world 1 between the Phalanx archstone and the Tower Knight archstone is referred to as 1-2.
It may not be the way the original developers intended, but all the discussion on the web uses the same numbering:
World 1: Boletarian Palace
World 2: Stonefang Mine
World 3: Towers of Latria
World 4: Shrine of Storms
World 5: Valley of Defilement
There is no particular order in which you have to take on each level, it is a good idea for new players to concentrate on 1-2, 2-1 as they are some of the easier sections. Try to beat the bosses, and start upgrading your stats, just keep moving forward! Explore through whatever you can, acquiring souls and items and weapons. You will learn that the different worlds have different kinds of drops and loot.
As you gain higher levels and learn the enemy patterns, each area will become easier to manage. As a beginning player, if you go right away to try starting worlds 3, 4, or 5 you should expect to die a lot as you learn these harder areas, especially the Shrine of Storms which starts with a rude skeleton welcome committee. The later levels have much stronger enemies, but do result in greater benefits. It's your choice what you do. That's the great thing about this game - you choose what, and how you do things.
You need to kill any final Boss in one of the other worlds: stage 2-3, 3-3, 4-3 or 5-3.
You need to go back to the Nexus and then back to the world in question before the tendency will change.
You'll get the key from Ostrava of Boletaria (Prince Ariona Allant) in 1-4 if you save him all 3 times you meet him. Alternately you can kill Ostava or let him be killed by enemies at any point and he will drop the key.
Biorr is in 1-2, off of the small room right after the last bridge section and right before the boss. There's a locked door in the antechamber guarded by the two blue-eyed knights, on the other side of the room from the stairs leading up to the archers, and that locked door leads down into a dungeon. You get the key to this door in 1-3 from the fat official.
See 1-2, 1-3, and Biorr, of the Twin Fangs for more information.
Check the note number 2 on the first map of 2-2 (http://mycheats.1up.com/view/section/3169297/26623/demon_s_souls/ps3). Remember that your world 2 tendency must be at Pure Black. If you are on the tunnel landing where the bedroll/campsite/candle is and where the 2 crystal geckos spawn, you are in the right place. If he is not there it can only be because your world is not Pure Black, or he has been defeated already!
Warp into Stonefang at 2-2 (Armor Spider Archstone). Take the tunnel to the right, with several miners in it. At the end of that tunnel, you'll come to a large pit, where you have to gradually jump down via wooden planks. Eventually, you'll see a small cave landing about halfway down (all the way down leads to some worms and Flamelurker). Jump off here, and inside the cave, toward the back, you'll see two Crystal Geckos on the left side. On the right side, you'll see the living Scirvir (Pure White world tendency) or the Black Phantom Scirvir (Pure Black world tendency).
Relevant Wiki Pages:
Common Questions:
Go back to the Nexus with it and show it to your trainer. They may offer a new skill or weapon to you, so don't just "use" it in for souls unless there is no skill on offer. Also note that Blacksmith Ed can use demon souls to boost weapons later in the game. See the Demon's Souls page for more info.
You must kill another world's Archdemon (one of the last bosses in a world, the 2-4 Dragon God for example) before the fog after the "Tower Knight" will be lifted and you can enter 1-3 and then 1-4. However, once you've beaten one Archdemon, you can kill the boss of 1-4 before beating all the rest. The The Maiden in Black will allow you to upgrade until all of the world bosses have been defeated.
You can kill the Red Dragon in 1-2 and the Blue Dragon in 1-4.
You need pure white world tendency. See the 2-3 walkthrough for details.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
Common Questions:
The speed of many weapons will increase when they are held in both hands, but is not affected by any stat. Some weapons are naturally faster than others.
You can just equip a weapon on the left and right hand, attack with L1 and L2. You cannot preform special moves like the Black Skeletons in the Shrine of Storms with them.
In general, a weapon in the offhand is not a good decision - weapons in your left hand cannot combo attacks together like they can in your right hand (they are limited to repeated single attacks). However, there are circumstances where it can be beneficial. The Parrying Dagger allows for easier parrying. The Large Sword of Searching's effect works when it is equipped in the off-hand as well. You can use talismans/catalysts in your off-hand to be able to cast magic at will while still being able to attack.
That is the added damage that you get from your stats.
It's negative because your stats don't meet the base requirements to wield the item. You can still wield it, but you have severe penalties for doing so. See line 10 on this screenshot for the stats required for your items.
The Lava bow will consistently out-damage the White bow with lower stat requirements. On the other hand the White bow can be upgraded with colorless demon souls and can eventually out-damage the Lava Bow. On the third hand, the White Bow is free (whereas the Lava Bow needs the spider demon's soul and a +7 bow).
Finally, note that the Sticky Compound Long Bow +5 is the best bow in the game as Dexterity goes above about 30.
No. All bows use the same animation.
It would be a good idea to have an alternate weapon depending on your opponent, and choosing to have a strong weapon to break a strong opponents guard and switching to a faster weapon and finishing your opponent would be a good idea but it all depends if you manage to hit your opponent.
Alternate Answer: Many areas have weapon types that will be particularly effective upon many of the enemies within. Most of the time, sticking to a single weapon of this weapon type is sufficient for much of the area. For instance, the first stage of Stonefang (2-1) includes a great number of enemies resilient to slashing damage, so holding to a piercing weapon proves highly effective. Likewise, the Shrine of Storms includes a great number of enemies weak to bludgeoning damage, making maces or hammers highly effective. The exception to this rule is magic weapons: a magic armament tends to be highly effective in almost all areas and against almost all opponents. For the most part one can wield a single melee weapon, switching to a backup weapon with a different damage type when encountering enemies resistant to its damage type.
No, the fastest way to shoot arrows is to tap R1/R2 as fast as you can, but you can never go faster than the draw/release animation
It depends, but a dagger is definitely the best for critical strikes. it has the highest critical strikes. seeing as fatal is made specifically for back stab or reposte and the dagger has higher in the first place that makes it the best choice.
A direct hit happens when you see a quick flash of white light upon striking an enemy. Direct hits can be scored on enemies that are a particular distance away (specifically, if you power push an enemy with the weapons that can do it, the next hit will almost always be a direct one). Direct hits get bonus damage on blunt weapons and axes. I'm sure it is possible to score direct hits with the LSoM, but not every single connection is a direct hit like you imply. Also note that backstabs DO NOT count as direct hits.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
Common Questions:
Make sure you have the base weapon in your inventory, and make sure you have given Ed the Red Hot Demon's Soul (Flamelurker's soul) during that playthrough. He will not create any unique weapons from boss Demon's souls until he has been given the Red Hot soul.
Please refer to the upgrade page for complete information.
Please refer to the upgrade page for information.
Meltstones will purge out all of the ore you invested in that weapon and you will not get any ore back. Some weapons cannot be bought from vendors and can only be gained from treasure or farming. If you forge with the wrong ore or do not like the current stats you can reset and re-forge the weapon without restarting your character or waiting until New Game+ to get the new weapon again.
If you ask different people you will get many different suggestions, but there is no "absolute best" option. You need to decide what types of weapons you like (Pole weapons, European swords, blunt weapons, large weapons) and what stats you are aiming for. Obviously, you are going to want to choose weapons that have high ('A' or 'S') Stat Bonusesfor the stats you are going to be building up high.
No you do not need to have the Demon soul in your character inventory. It can be stored with Stockpile Thomas. However to learn Spells and Miracles from Saint Urbain and Sage Freke you do need to have the Demon Soul on your character.
Relevant Wiki Pages:
Common Questions:
Just use them. All they do is give you souls of varying amounts. Tip: save using them for when you're in the Nexus as while they're in item form you can't lose them like you can souls when you die.
They are a treasure item which is found in all worlds like other items, grass, etc. Use the maps; overall you can find 25 or so as treasure just lying around. Also they are a drop if you kill plague babies in 5-3, or shift your 5 world tendency to black, then kill the giant goblins and Black Phantom giant goblins, who often drop the stones.
No, you can farm them. Get pure black tendency for world 5 and farm the trolls before the first fog and those after you go past the slug nest in 5-2. (There will be an extra Black Phantom Giant Goblin on each group so be careful) They will keep dropping Ephemeral Eyes.
More info: Stone of Ephemeral Eyes Farming
There are 2 ways to get one (see the NPCs page for more details on each below)
- Push world 2 to Pure Black world tendency, and then find and kill Black Phantom Scirvir, he will drop one.
- Release Yurt in 3-2, and get Pure Black character tendency, and you can encounter Mephistopheles on the second floor of the Nexus. She will give a series of NPC assassination quests, and for each there is a reward. One of the NPCs to kill is Ostrava, and the reward for killing him is a Talisman of Beasts.
I got my world tendency to white on Boletaria Palace, but when I killed the Black-Phantom Dreglings (I've tried both online and offline), they only drop Crescent Moon Grass.
You won't ever get it from them either. I'm pretty sure that only AI Black Phantoms will drop the stone so you will have to go to 2-2, 3-1, or 4-1 if you want it that badly.
Yes the disadvantage is you lose more stamina/hit blocked.
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There are some inconsistencies in the game. Some of which are documented here.