Dusting off the thread for a moment...
I've bought DS3 only a couple of days ago. I've always been hesitating with this series, but I decided to give it a try (it was on sale). So yeah, it's my first ever game in the franchise (never played Demon Souls either). Although I watched a considerable amount of "let's plays" and live streams of people playing it (specifically DS3, that is), but I usually tried not to watch too long of the same session to avoid too many spoilers (but I have seen a bunch of bosses... s'not a big deal by now though since I never actually memorized what they do in those videos).
Now I have a few questions:
1) Is it common to lose anything along the lines of 5000+ souls? / To not recover the "full" amount of lost souls?
- When I die, I have to go retrieve my lost souls. However, sometimes I die again on my way to get them back, and when I get to the spot where I died the second time there's usually just nothing (at least so far). At one point I did manage to get back to the spot where I "first" died (the first death since I started the game for that session, for example) but the amount of souls I got back was either half or less than half of what I originally had. For example I would have had 4000 souls, but when I get to the spot where the glowing green lost souls are I get 1500 back or something like that. So, ultimately, I eventually lost a solid 5000+ souls after 4 or 5 deaths I think (maybe 3, not sure anymore). I essentially literally lost my time with a 2 hours-long session with basically no progress whatsoever. Now the next time I start up the game (which will take me quite a while) will mean that I'll need to "grind" the souls back to where I was to actually do some progress (leveling, etc).
2) What is the "progress-before-risk-of-dying / going-back-to-main-base-to-level-up" cycle supposed to be like?
- Related to the above... I'm assuming that I'm simply not playing the game in the "right way". I'm wondering what I should be doing whenever I reach say... something like 1000+ souls. Am I actually supposed to leave the area I'm at regardless of the progress I made there to go back to the main base to level up, because I'd otherwise risk to die too much and lose my souls? But on the other hand forcing that area I was progressing at to completely reset and respawn the enemies? Or am I actually supposed to do as much progress as possible regardless of my level (or regardless of my desire to level up) and just plain risk all the souls I have all the time and never looking back to the previous Bonfire? I'm a bit confused here.
- My "common sense" tells me I have to go back to the main base AS SOON as I have just enough souls to level up, while obviously resetting everything I did in the area I was in. However, if I do that... I might as well never progress and never play the game again? What would be the point? I think it's either a pure case of being way too noob to this series, or a case of "you've got to decide how to actually play the game on your own since there's no 'good way' to play it anyway". It's supposed to be a frustrating game, I get that. My problem is the concept (on paper, and in practice) of forcing an area to reset simply because I basically have to go back to another map to level up, because otherwise I'm gonna die and lose all my souls (and lose my time in the process). That's the part that I just don't quite fathom right now (people find that... fun?). But, as I said, I might be missing something here game-play wise.
3) Again related to souls... how do I know when I have enough to level up? / Are there any cues or clear indications as to the actual souls 'cost' of the next level up?
- I might be missing some visual cue on the GUI somewhere, or there's simply no such cue for whenever I have enough souls to level up. The thing is, if was actually knew whenever I have enough THEN I would probably go back to the main base to avoid risking death and the loss of my souls (and if I did that because I knew whenever the time was right then perhaps I would endure the area's enemies resetting a little better).
4) I'm playing the default Sorcerer class, was that a good pick for a first playthrough? / Or is there no "best" ' first-time-class ' in this game?
- I went with the Sorc thinking that staying long range most of the time would help. At the beginning it was actually like that, I'd rarely get hit and usually dispose of almost all enemies in one charged spell attack (don't recall the name by heart right now but it's the one that eats a lot of FP or whatever the Mana name is in this game). But right now it's getting much more complicated than I thought it would be. Now I'm at a spot where there's a dragon breathing fire down some hallway in a castle with indoor and outdoor areas (the dragon is outdoor... obviously). That map in general starts to get on my nerves since enemies actually charge at me for melee... I'm a Sorcerer. I'm good from long range, that's fine. But overall that area for now is problematic... especially against those Knights in armor with a shield + sword or shield + axe combos. Should I just start all over again and go with a more typical full armored Knight or Warrior class? Or is the game actually balanced enough to favor no particular class?
And that's about it for now. So far the game is alright. It's nothing mind-blowing, it's not "bad". I'm tolerating some of it. I might also be willing at some point to start over again if the Sorc ends up being my ultimate problem (although starting all over again will take me months before doing it... games like this tend to burn my patience for months before I touch them again). I have to admit, however, that right now as I type this all I can feel from this game is just frustration as a whole (simply because that session where I lost 2 hours of progress and 5000+ souls happened barely 1 hour ago... it's very fresh and quite engraved in my very soul right now).