Why am i not having a good time with this game, after loving the first

Long story short, i played most of Dark Souls during my summer break and had a blast. The movement was great, the weapons, everything. At first i thought it was clunky but got the hang of it and it was an amazing game. So i went and got Dark Souls 2, and saw the two versions and went straight for the the scholar edition understanding it is harder, but figured that i would be ok since i am fresh off the first game. SOOOO, what im getting at is:

I am 6 hours game play in, and still only at the Pursuer, i find myself always low on health because when i die the health bar lowers, and i have only 3 estus flasks?? what happened to 5. I feel like the game is unresponsive with my xbox one controller, he doesn't dodge when i want, roll when i want or attack, i feel like there is always a delay, and i'm always dying when i was fully anticipating the attack and everything.

The stamina runs out way faster, and when i get hit once, i feel like i'm locked in to that target and they get 5 swipes on me and i have no chance to dodge.

Now that i am typing out what i am having some problems with i understand "its dark souls" get used to it mentality, but the game just doesn't feel like i'm as agile when i was in dark souls 1. And now from what i noticed, the stamina and endurance are two separate points now? and there is agility or something, which i was reading and it said that it will help my roll. IDK, i keep playing because i want to play, but i just am not having a good time with it, at all

Yeah I had the same problem, I summoned on the Pursuer. But then again I summoned on a lot of the bosses in Dark Souls One.

Sometimes I wonder if getting Scholar of the First Sin was a mistake, because the enemy placement does seem a lot harder. But they do stop spawning eventually so maybe that balances it out.

@jaycrockett: so after i finish the pursuer things might lighten up a bit, or enemies might change? all it is right now is the zombies that walk so slow and its so hard to time a parry. And i don't really have a weapon to properly do damage on the pursuer

Pro tip go to Hides tower of flame and get the Ring of Binding it is the cling ring of this game aka it caps the health lose at like 75% or so.

Also Endurance gives you more stamina (Green Bar)

@memonk: is this tower before or after the pursuer area? I went down from where the bonfire was, and there is some frog looking thing that shoots fire, i don't know how to approach it. Looks like i have to enter that area from the rear?

Is that ring going to be like Havel's ring for me? lol, one that is going to pretty much be on me all the time from DS1

The first few areas in Scholar can be rough but the rest of the game felt easier to me. They removed a lot of the tougher enemies in many areas. Most of the reviewers saying it's harder probably only tested the updated Heide's Tower of Flame and Forest of Fallen Giants areas...

Anyway, be sure to use those life gems. They help out a lot in the beginning, when you only have a few charges of Estus. The first time through I made the mistake of hoarding them, thinking there would be some super tough areas later on where I would need all the help I could get. So I ended up never using the gems in the original version, which only made the game harder for me.

You could also try dropping your summon sign in the tower area for some jolly co-op and easily get 10 or 20 extra levels there to help you get started on your journey.

It is a very enjoyable game once you get over the initial hump.

My general feeling after playing both games is that DS2 was much more punishing in the early game than DaS1 was. I think this was due to several reasons: 1) a lack of an 'easy' class to start with (e.g. the Royal in DeS or the Pyro in DaS1) that has reliable and effective ranged attacks. 2) Less of a goal/direction in DS2 compared to DaS1 (i.e., ringing the bells in DaS1 is a more narrow goal then finding the great souls in DaS2), and 3) The stats are more ambiguous. For example, when DS2 came out, I remember that there was so much discussion about the Adaptability stat. This lead to people not spec-ing wisely in the early game and therefore having trouble progressing.

With all of that said, I felt that the late game was easier in DaS2.as I leveled up.

There are tons of people who prefer DaS1 over 2. I'm one of them, and while the early game problems is part of it, the majority of my gripe is that the world of Das1 was just more intriguing and interconnected, and the lore was more interesting. Others prefer DaS2 for offering more class customization and item variety. While I do like DaS1 more, I still really enjoyed my time with DaS2 (easily in the top 2 games for me of 2014, maybe even GOTY) and I can't wait for the third one.

The take home message here is that I would advise you to stick with it because the game can get better. It did for me. Get to the end game, and then decide on which is better.

EDIT - I should mention that I played original DaS2, not the Scholar version which has some remixes in it. It's possible that the beginning is even tougher? Hopefully they lightened it up and made the end game tougher....

Dark Souls 2 gets much easier after the beginning. When you start, they give you very few estus flasks, you have low stamina, and low adaptability (the ADP stat), which means you can barely roll through attacks. Throughout the game you will find estus flask shards, which you take to the emerald herald (the level-up lady) to increase your amount of estus flasks. You can also buy life gems to heal with, from the old merchant lady that you find in the Forest of Fallen Giants and later moves to Majula. If your health bar gets low from dying too much, a human effigy will restore it. There is also a ring called the Cling Ring found in a chest in Heide's Tower that will reduce your health penalty from dying, so that you will never lose more than 25% of your total health. As for rolling, you will want to level ADP to at least 24, which I believe gives you 99 agility, and makes you invincible for longer during your rolls (closer to Dark Souls 1 rolls). You can increase this further to make it even better, but I think after 32 ADP the benefits get very small. Blocking everything is harder in DS2 than it was in DS1 so you will want to be able to use rolls (I didn't use a shield at all).

Also, the Scholar of the First Sin edition isn't really harder than the original. They added some tough enemies to a few spots that are mostly avoidable, but for the most part the enemies are just rearranged into places that make more sense. Some areas are a bit tougher, and some are actually easier. I'm not sure why you would have an input delay. Some televisions have an input lag when playing video games. I never noticed it on my PS4 version, except rarely some weird stuff with the run button.

@aldrenar47: based on my ADP being only 5, and my specs off the top of my head is about 15 str, 13 dex, 12 vit and 10 endurance, maybe it might be worth it to start over with something with a higher initial adp? or is the forest of the giants even a good area to farm for souls. I find that i am only getting about 90 souls per kill, and need 2000 per upgrade and beyond right now. I think my character is 27? but i only sunk in maybe 7 levels. I chose the Soldier i think it was, high strength fighter, and found that it was already high level out of the gate.

H ides tower of flame is the other way u can go from Majula by the cats place

I had the exact same issues you're experiencing when I played DSII for the first time. I don't think it's an issue of picking up Scholar, I think you're just making the same mistake I did and expecting the game to handle just like the first Dark Souls. I hated DSII the first week I got it. Then I found a weapon I liked (the flame longsword down a tunnel in Forest of the Fallen Giants), a shield I liked (bought one from Maughlin in Majula) and put at least 15 points into Adaptability to get the character moving faster.

If you're breaking yourself against the Pursuer, try Heide's Tower of Flame for a bit.

@maedhros925: is it possible to get to this tower before the boss?

In addition to the cling ring, some good early equipment are the mace and the estoc. Both work very well against armored enemies, which you will encounter a lot in the early areas. All these are obtainable before fighting the pursuer.

@luca717: Yep, totally. It's the area people are talking about with the Cling Ring equivalent. You get to it through Majula, the central town. Find a building with an open doorway that takes you down a tunnel. It's by the house with the talking cat.

@luca717: None of the classes start off with high ADP to my knowledge, so I wouldn't advise starting over. You level really fast in DS2 compared to DS1. Each boss you kill should get you 4 to 5 levels or so. Also, you should make sure you didn't join the company of champions covenant. A lot of people make that mistake and it makes everything in the game harder. If you have this icon in the top left of your screen, you need to talk to the cat in Majula to abandon your covenant:

Funny you should post this; I am having pretty much the same experience myself. I played through DS1 about half a year ago and while it took a while to get into, I ended up loving the crap out of it. A recent 50% off on Steam persuaded me to pick up the Scholar edition, and my time with it mirrors a lot of what you say, especially the bit about it feeling like there's way more input delay on the controller.

I am not downright hating it, but it's taking me a while to get used to for sure. There was input buffering going on in DS1 too, but the timing and feel of it all is simply different in this one. Overall I am still enjoying myself though, and the performance is rock solid on my PC so yay for that.

@aldrenar47: dude, if this is true your my hero. I did join that thing right away? And now I'm looking it up and it spikes the difficulty a bit. No wonder the shitty skeleton guys have so much health and hit me so hard. Like its forest of the Giants and first stage and I couldn't believe why everything is simply destroying me. 6 hours in and I'm still at the start. Fuck. As soon as I get home I'm dropping the covenant lol. Since I'm on the topic, how do those work anyways? Is there one I should join or anything?

@luca717: To start the only covenant you need to deal with is The Way of the Blue which is supposed to have another covenant members (Blue Sentinels) notified if you are invaded so they can assist you.

When I played (when the game came out) no one ever did. Probably because the game just came out, I don't know.

So you know you can also drop a covenant by joining another one.

To join The Way of the Blue just talk to the typical crest fallen soldier. In DS2 he's by the statue up on the hill in Majula.

Edit: Late in the game there are some fun PvP covenants too, but you'll find those. I don't want to spoil that.

I think all the games have that period where you're not getting to grips with them. I've finally hit the first boss in Bloodborne after forcing myself past the same enemies constantly. I've made it through 3 bosses on Scholar and I too summoned on Persuer. I've restarted with the intention of soloing him, though. My main issue has been dealing with mobs but I think, ever since Dark Souls From have changed tact on mobs and decided running past them is the more viable option.

The Pursuer is a fuckboy. I had more deaths on him than anywhere else in the entire game, which seems really bizarre. He is presented as the second(ish) boss when it is really debatable if he is meant to be.

Overall, I think the first half of DS2 is much weaker than the second half with the first few hours being especially bad. It makes starting new characters a real hassle because I REALLY dislike the first few areas of the game, despite now liking it a lot overall (still less than the first though). So I'd just say don't get discouraged, the game gets much better despite the weak opening.

Git gud!

(Praise the sun!)

In the forest of the giants, in that room with a bunch of ballista's you can get the cloranthy ring from the basement. You need to get a pharoes lockstone which I believe you can buy from the women with that huge backpack, if you have the key to the mansion in town I have a feeling there is one in there somewhere as well.

The Cloranthy ring is practically manditory for me, along with the ring of binding to reduce health loss.

That adaptability (mainly agility) stat is really important. For example, your agility needs to be at 96 to give you the same amount of invincibility during a roll as a medium roll from Dark Souls 1. So if you're really used to the timing from the first game, having a low agility stat in the second screws you all up. Agility also effects the timing of consumable usage, though to a lesser degree. Still, chugging an Estus 1/3rd of a second faster can mean life or death.

So yep, drop the Champions covenant and focus a bit on your adaptability, and I'd wager you'll enjoy yourself a lot more. Dark Souls 2 is my favorite of the bunch (being my first) and Scholar was a great re-working of it. Don't be afraid to use your lifegems. They can be bought for 300 souls a piece, and are found everywhere. Save your Estus for combat healing. Also, there's an Estus shard found in just about every major area, so it won't be long until you're back to 5.

Like you I just picked up scholar last week. I never played any previous souls game in the franchise but I was immediately frustrated from the start. I died multiple times

And took my 6 hours just to get beat the last giant. I ended starting over with a different class and was able to make it back to the last giant in a hour and only dying twice. The learning curve is extremely steep in the beginning, especially for new players but after it "clicked" the game becomes a fair challenge that's so satisfying. I'm excited to finish this and get into the other souls games.

Ps fuck armorer Dennis.

If you're still having trouble try using the humble and completely plain mace. It was kind of depressing when I found out I'd essentially finished most of the game (I can't quite remember if it was the whole game, but it definitely was the majority) using the plain old mace I bought at the start of the game.

I think they definitely ramped up the difficulty for the early stages with Scholar. I had played the original DS2 to completion with little trouble, but when I started Scholar it took me quite some time to get my legs. Only advice I have is to keep pressing on!

I also picked this up on sale last week and I swear I've died more times in the first area than I did the entirety of my last DS1 play through. They love to mob you with hollows who will happily stun lock you the first bad move you make. I almost gave up at one point when I'd broken my starting weapon. Now I've beaten Last Giant and gotten some decent equipment and upgraded it a little bit, things are running much smoother. The Estoc is awesome. I never used it in past Souls' games. I decided to give it a shot. The move set is a bit weird, but very effective and versatile once you get the hang of it. Its heavy attack is great against groups of hollows and wrecked Last Giant's ankles.

I haven't played the remix but you're probably not enjoying it as much because it's a much worse game start to finish than Dark Souls was.

I was having a good time, then I reached the Shrine of Amana

Are you asking for advice on the Pursuer specifically? Like most bosses, beating him is really a matter of figuring out what his attack patterns are and using your i frames to roll through them. Don't use a shield and try to lower your equip load. Also, use a blunt weapon (e.g. the mace). Raise your adaptability if you are having trouble.

When he does the quick closing uppercut swipe, roll TOWARD him and slightly toward his shield side. He will miss every time. Took me a long time to figure that out. I think I died to him like 10 times my first play through but now I consistently beat him during the first encounter, often without taking any damage. So it's really just a matter of practice.

Also, I would highly recommend that if you have wasted any estus on the way up to him, drop down a summon sign in front of the boss gate. If you coopand help someone kill the boss, it will recharge all of your estus for when you face him on your own game.

@luca717: I only played the Scholars of the First Sin Edition of Dark Souls 2(beat it within the last month), and I cannot think of another game where my opinion of said game swung so hard so many times as when I played through DS2. I went back and forth from hating it to loving it over and over again.

The world design is considerably less interesting than DS1. Whereas the first game was this wonderfully intricate and interconnected use of three-dimensional space, Dark Souls 2 feels like a bunch of entirely separate regions connected by small pathways. I got the feeling that if we could see a birds-eye view of the world, it would look similar to one of the continents in WoW. There are some really cool areas in this game, but a good number of them are frustrating for many reasons, one of which I'll put in a spoiler block(game mechanic spoiler). Areas where you can be forced into PVP(even forced into other players worlds) regardless of whether you've burned an effigy to avoid PVP.

The humanity system is garbage. Losing your souls was already kind of toeing the line of what sort of punishment for failure people were willing to accept. Losing a chunk of your maximum life in a game where even weak enemies are capable of halving your HP after a slight misjudgement of what animation they were doing or a moment's indecision on the players part is absurd. If there were more ways to regain your humanity (more items that recover it, acquiring a certain number of souls, killing a certain number or type enemies, etc), it wouldn't matter as much, but the way it is currently, it's nonsense. Later on, you'll have enough Human Effigy's to throw them about willy-nilly, but early on it's rough.

There are a lot of disappointing boss battles. Some of the major bosses of the game are slight variants of bosses from DS1, and one is literally a boss from DS1, but less dangerous(Ornstein). Some fights are dramatically different, but underwhelming(Skeleton Lords, for instance). Some fights are completely fucking ridiculous(the Looking Glass Knight can summon players to help him kill you). However, some are fantastic. My favorite fight in a Dark Souls game is in Dark Souls 2 (Sir Alonne).

There are a great deal of smaller improvements on the first game that I won't bother listing out, and I think that the regular encounters are generally better in DS2:SotFS than they were in DS1, but the overall experience is a goddamn rollercoaster. If you stick with it, you may very well find that your favorite Dark Souls moments are in this game; your least favorite moments as well.

This.

Just to get it out of the way, I'm with the crowd that has DS 2 ranked as the worst game in the Souls series. To quantify that a bit though, each of the four games does something particularly better than the rest of the games. In the case of DS2, there are more approaches to viable builds than any game in the series IMO (Austin touched on this a bit as to why it's his favorite). However, it has the weakest bosses overall, the humanity system is junk, the mandatory PVP is unforgivable, etc. It is also IMO the hardest game in the series, although that's mostly for the steep learning curve near the beginning.

Scholar of the First Sin is an improvement on vanilla, but that being said, it also makes for a worse jumping off point for newcomers to the series. Some areas got harder while others definitely got easier, but the early areas definitely got the largest boosts in difficulty. I love that the Heide Knights are now where they belong and all, but they make an already challenging early area pretty daunting for a newcomer. There are so many more enemies in No-Man's Wharf than before. And of course, there are the multiple Pursuer fights in the Lost Bastille. And btw, I love that the Pursuer actually pursues you now, but did they have to put all but one of the new encounters in the same area?

If you're stuck early on, remember there are two paths you can take at the start. Even though you only need to go through one to advance in the game, I'd suggest tackling both. It will give you ample opportunity to learn the game's combat as well as get your character leveled for later in the game. Remember, unlike previous Souls games, you can respec in this game, so feel free to experiment a little. Early on, you'll want to dump points into vigor, endurance, and adaptability as it never hurts to have more HP, stamina, and agility. On the other hand, you probably don't know what weapon you're going to end up liking, so putting lots of points towards weapons you're not sure if you're going to use doesn't help as much. For a newcomer, I'd probably start with a melee build though as even mages at some point have to do a little melee combat, and if you don't learn the feel of it early on, you'll regret it when you need it in tougher situations.

for all that suggested drop the covenant, thank you so much. I joined and had no idea what it did. I wasted 7 hours and have not even finished forest of the giants, and all iw as doing was dying. I dropped the covenant and it felt "normal" in the sense the difficulty was scaled, damage recieved and done was what i was expecting, and wasnt taking half health hits from low monsters. I left the covenant, and literally went through all the mobs like it was a cake walk. So i guess i can now finally see if the game is better or worse then 1 hahahaha. THEN MAYBE BLOODBORNE??

thanks everyone!!!

@luca717 Also, there is a trick to beating him if you look around the environment. They were probably planning on most people figuring this out after dying countless times. Also, Dark Souls one is a much better game. (I still really enjoyed DS2) It is funny that you joined the Champion covenant though.

That's where my playthrough of SotFS also took a screeching halt. I'm not even sure if it's harder or not compared to vanilla. All I know is that I got frustrated enough to put it down for a while and I haven't picked it up again since.

I'm on team "Dark Souls 2 is pretty great" and advise you to stick with it. It should be a lot easier since you dumped the Covenant of Champions. DS2 is also a lot more flexible than the first game in terms of viable character builds and there's a respec option if you mess up (it's an item you can give to one of the witches in that starting area).

I got through it during the weekend after a few dozen tries. I seem to remember that area being more annoying in the vanilla version of the game, although it still sucks in Scholarship Edition.

I'm also on pro Dark Souls II team. While it may not be as inventive as the original Dark Souls, it still is a very very fun game (i'm replaying it for the DLC and still enjoying the hell out of it).

It's easier than the original version of the area in vanilla, but harder than post-patch vanilla IIRC. I'm convinced the Shrine of Amana is less super hard at this point and more is meant to screw over strict-melee build characters who didn't upgrade a bow of some kind. You also have to take your time with it and not trigger too many enemies at once. When I did my SotFS play through, I beat it on the first try, but I knew what to expect by that point so it's harder to judge from that perspective.

Mang, this game, I dunno what to expect anymore.

Easyhardeasyhardeasyhardeasyhard!!

The Forest of Fallen Giants hollow groups destroyed me repeatedly. I smoked the Last Giant second try. The Pursuer wrecked me a couple dozen times. The Lost Bastille killed me a few times until I found out I was just at a dead-end adjunct and needed to go elsewhere. Heide's Tower of Flame obliterated me. I ended up farming the fatties to extinction before entering the fog because I couldn't get there with any Estus left. Then, the stupid Dragon Rider went down first try with barely a fight. I strolled through much of the Wharf without a death and called it a night. I've still only gotten 3 Estus. That'd better change soon because I recently ate up my last Lifegem.

WTF DS2? Who balanced you?

Great. I just got to this area last night....

@sinusoidal said:

This is one of the game's biggest issues.

A lot of the blame can be laid on having both health restoring items as well as an Estus Flask. So they create the scenario, especially later in the game, where unless you can die in any encounter the game starts to feel too easy. There is rarely a lasting penalty to doing really poorly in any particular encounter since you can pop gems, even if you run out of Estus. One of the many reasons the earlier areas feel harder is that you have yet to build up a stockpile of said gems. Once you do, take an area such as Drangleic Castle. Sure, the Royal Swordsmen are more difficult than the enemies you fought in say Heide's Tower of Flame. However, as long as you don't let 3 or 4 of them attack you at once, you're usually in a position where you can retreat and heal. And thus that area is fairly easy as long as you don't try to fight every enemy in that one particular room at once. DeS, which also has unlimited healing items, largely gets around this by creating tons of instant death scenarios involving traps, ambushes, fighting on ledges, etc. that don't exist quite as much in the other games in the series. DeS's combat itself is far easier than the other games in the series IMO. Then there are the insane amount of bonfires. DeS has the problem of not having enough shortcuts, while Dark 2 is has far too many and Bloodborne and Dark Souls are inbetween (Bloodborne is shortcut porn, and I adore that aspect of it).

This is among the reasons I prefer Dark Souls and Bloodborne to DeS and DS 2. The limitation on Estus Flask uses/blood vials makes it a lot easier to attune an area's difficulty as there is a known stock of health items for the player. Even DeS is better than Dark 2 though as at least there is only grass for the designers to worry about. Strange thing is, I prefer DeS, but I think I'd rather replay Dark 2 at this point because I prefer the ways in which it is replayable to DeS. It's all personal preference to some degree.They're all good, but flawed games.

33 hours in and now the big four are dealt with. I go round in circles on this game. Some areas area chore to get through like the Iron Keep but the bosses feel like cakewalks. The healing items at least give you the opportunity to take some parts slower and clobbering bosses make you feel powerful. It's a very idiosyncratic game. It also seems like it has the Bloodborne ideology where you find a weapon you like and stick with it. I've spent the majority of the game with a Hand Axe and the Drangleic gear and I've spent most of the boss souls because I've no reason to hold on to them. Adaptability's at a point where I have a decent window to use items so I'm left with just bolstering health and stamina.

It's the kind of game that would probably be a great 'spiritual successor' but as an actual sequel it feels sometimes at odds with the Dark Souls groundwork.

But I feel like I'm enjoying it.

I finished it some time ago now. Almost 100%. I never killed Darklurker because besides being completely optional (I killed plenty of other optional bosses) getting to him involves killing a whole bunch of really annoying red phantoms. I said fuckit the third or fourth death on the full Havel's set guy. I also never killed the Graveyard Trio because I had no idea they even existed until a week or so after I was done with the game. I spent close to 130 hours with it, and I doubt I'll ever go back.

Blue Smelter was the hardest boss fight I've ever taken the time to beat. And he's not even that interesting. He's just a ridiculously hard, swapped color palate of regular Smelter. Cheap. I ended up farming up a whole lotta crap to get a Rebel Shield to +10 and a Dark Estoc +10 so I could stand a chance. Even then, the fight took every Estus Flask I had (which was maxed at 12 at that point) and a few lifegems besides.

Overall, I liked the large amount of content in this souls. The combat was tight. A bit tighter than DaS1. That definitely took some getting used to since I played them back to back. The level design pales in comparison to the first though. And the difficulty balance is really, well honestly, not balanced. Bits of the first half of the game were pretty easy and other bits seemed unreasonably hard. Then most of the rest of the main game was a cakewalk. Then the DLC bosses and areas ran the gamut from great and challenging to practically unfair.

It's still a great game, just not the amazing game the first one was.

After the first two areas, the game is atrociously easy.

Also, the game is just much worse in general...but I never had the responsiveness problems you had, and I played it on Xbone. In fact, the responsiveness is a great thing about it.

It's probably because DS2 is an incredibly disappointing, and weak entry. Lots of moronic game design choices, and step backwards in almost every regard. Skip it, and play Bloodborne which in it's own way wasn't paralytic great with it's many short comings as a souls game, but still better than DS2.

Dark Souls II is in the unfortunate position of being constantly compared to its predecessor. No, it's not as good overall, but it's definitely worth going through.

The Pursuer isn't a required boss fight. Go through Heide's Tower of Flame and then through No Man's Wharf and then you'll be in The Last Bastille, not too far Sinner's Rise. You'll probably be at a low level for that area, but that's OK - by going this route, you'll open up a good chunk of the world to explore and kill things in and gain levels and such.

And I wrote that and then realized that this thread is three months old. Oh well.

I mean, I'm making quicker work of it now but its not feeling as memorable as Dark Souls. I feel compelled to finish this. Not in a badge of honour sense but more from the fact that, at some basic level, I'm having fun.

And now its done. Summoned through the last two bosses after some 'close enough' attempts. Those two bosses jar against everything that's gone before it.

I consider Dark Souls II to be an inferior game, but not for any of the reasons you mentioned. My complaints all stem from level design, lore, enemy design, and certain mechanics. I think they actually improved the combat in II. Combat, weapon upgrading, and magic are the only things they actually did better, so your experience is very confusing to me (especially the input lag, which sounds like a bug or issue with your setup to me). Dark Souls II is kind of bland and forgettable, but I found it immensely enjoyable to play in the moment because it controls stupid well. It's everything around that core gameplay loop that's lacking. All that said though, it's still a very good game that you should theoretically be able to enjoy if you like the first game.

I will say that you really need to do some research about the stats since you are clearly floundering in confusion. That'll help you a lot. Agility may be super important to you or not, depending how you play. I hit the soft cap (30) as soon as I could. It does two important things. First, it increases the amount of invincibility frames in the middle of your roll, which makes it easier to roll through attacks. It also makes you chug flasks a little bit quicker. Not as big a deal as the roll, but it helps in boss fights. If you do a lot of rolling through attacks and feel comfortable doing it, more agility will make the game a lot easier. If you don't do that a lot and don't feel comfortable with it in general, putting points into agility is going to hurt you because you could be doing more damage or taking more hits instead.

You need to spend an amount of souls on leveling up your stamina and adaptation ratio, especially adaptation. Also - try not to use the full set of armor, adjust your weight to minimum.