The only problem with farming souls is that if you want to do any multiplayer it will get increasingly difficult to find people the higher your SL since you are paired with people +/- 10 of your SL. So you'll end up locking yourself out of a lot of pvp and co op opportunities. And if you do get into some pvp with someone your level that person will have vastly superior equipment because he'll likely be farther in the game than you putting you at a severe disadvantage.

This is why I only use farmed souls for buying spells and upgrading equipment. I use souls gained by traversing dungeons and beating bosses to level myself up, for the most part. I end up fudging it a bit every once in a while.

Yeah, I've been thinking about the PVP implications and have resorted to only upgrading equipment with souls farmed from Darkroot. I'm just a too high with my soul lvl being at 44 @ the Iron Golem in Sen's.

Yeah I've pretty much just stopped at 105 SL. I should have stopped earlier but I had really bad vit/end so I needed it to get up. 
 
I do think that the "optimal" pvp range should get to around there. If I remember right that was about what it was for demon souls. (like 95-105) 

I haven't tried this yet, I've yet actually to enter that part of the forest so I'm not even sure of what I'm supposed to do (nobody tell me either.). That said, I've thought it over and decided that if I do use it it'll be only to buy a bunch of expensive items or like a crap ton of arrows.

@AlKusanagi said:

So now people have found an actual infinite souls glitch involving the Dragon Covenant. Now that one IS cheating since it glitches the game rather than exploiting dumb AI pathing.

This is something I wouldn't do.

But I have used the Darkroot farming a little bit. I didn't do too much at all, though. Just some upgrades and a few soul levels. Plus that door is an excellent short cut for the Sif fight.

Everyone has different opinions what makes a game fun. I love games like Dark Souls that give players the opportunity to make your own experience. If you think it ruins the game than it's easily remedied by not doing it. Or you can simply re-roll a character and try a different approach.

I personally get satisfaction in games that allow the player to grind to hell and back. This was great in Final Fantasy and great with this game with this trick. In Final Fantasy games–I'd spend countless hours grinding to get my characters super high so I could potentially one shot the final boss. Some say this takes the fun out of the encounter at hand. However, I made the experience what I wanted it to be. I like feeling weak in the beginning of the game and then feeling powerful in the end. You don't quite get that same experience when you're increasing in level but every new area that is opened up to explore has NPC's that are also increased in level. You don't get that sense of becoming more powerful–at least in my opinion. (Of course you could travel back to previous zones to get that feeling).

The grind is worth the reward to me. I'm not planning on doing pvp or having others help me in online coop so it made a fantastic game even more enjoyable for my personal taste.

@White said:

1. Did you sit just outside the range of an enemy and pelt him with cheap arrows until he dies?
2. Did you constantly circle strafe around a slow turning enemy and take cheap shots from behind him?
3. Did you force the enemy to jump off a cliff or ledge, falling to its death, rather than fighting it?
4. Did you make an enemy get stuck in a geometry, leaving it completely helpless as you wail on it without fear of retaliation?
5. Did you opt to use cheap magic and ranged attacks even though you can clearly fight the boss in melee?

If you said yes to any of the above, you have exploited a part of the game; the AI. What's stopping you from exploiting a method of farming? =3

Agreed. I don't think this trick is in the same category as glitching or duping in Oblivion back in the day.

I farmed there for abit and no I don't feel like a cheater, why? Because I can kill them each individually if I wanted to, but i'd rather watch them throw themselves off a cliff.

I've started farming this area for souls, but not using the ledge trick. I'm already strong enough where I have more fun just taking them on one at a time using legitimate means.

But can someone can help me clarify something about the forest hunter enemies in that area?

Out of the ones that appear there's the invisible lady hunter (Pharis) for 5000 souls. She's like a miniboss and doesn't respawn.

The other 5 human enemies are: Sorcerer, Cleric, Thief (invisible) Bandit and a beefy Knight (invisible) with greatsword who is 3000 souls. The first four guys respawn, but the knight seems a little weird.

The knight respawned once after I beat him the first time. But after I made him die a second time, I've not seen him appear again. He's invisible so he's a little hard to locate. Is he just not noticing me running around the woods, or is he gone for good? I'm just baffled since he did respawn once.

You all are crazy. farming 6k souls while waiting for them to run off the cliff. Farming the 2 human enemies that spawn once u kill Guenevere in anor londo give you 5k each and can be taken down in 2-3 hits then using the homeward bone and running back down to them. Farmed 500k souls in about an hour. This way though is not considered underhanded though as it is just killing re-spawned enemies, which you have to actually kill and not have them run off a cliff.

@mason: if it was the knight that stands by the ruins once you join, he is gone forever. He only shows up once you join. so there are only 4 npc's there besides the cat, the thief, cleric, axe man, and caster.

@jozzy, talk about lost souls meaning more. glitched the dragon in undead burg with 1 arrow, collected my 10,000 souls, proceeded to fall off a cliff later on, then died trying to recollect my souls...karmic justice on the behalf of dark souls???

I'm down. I did the same thing in Demons Souls with the ghost/revenant guy in the flying mantis world.

Us Forest Hunters are gonna fuck you up.

I did it and it is great. Demon/Dark Souls is all about exploiting the game. A good dark souls player uses ALL aspects of the game. :) :)

BTW Blighttown was still scary at 55. Gear seems to matter more than SL. The extra health is nice though.