While I got to lvl 96 legit I was curious to try it out after seeing an article about it on IGN, I would post the link but the article got taken down I think. I went down to the dragon covenant cause it was sooooooooooooo tempting. I mean I didn't want a ton of free levels but just a little boost ya know. Hell I'm already tired of grinding!! I put some time in!! So I kind of felt dirty at first using it but I saw a ghost of someone else doing the exact same thing lol at the ash lake.

So has anyone else been tempted to do this or has done so already? You think FS will try and fix it quickly? I mean it's a pretty game breaking exploit.

It'd just make me not want to play the game anymore, that's why I'm not doing it. and I believe the upcoming patch fixes it.

@maskedarcstrike: I did it i just thought like "fuck it i want a cappped character b4 this exploit gets fixed and i can always run through the game without using it after". But the biggest surprise was actually how long it would take to reach level cap using this exploit im like lvl 600 something but the last levels takes soooo long if anyone actually makes it to cap without this exploit /bravo to him

@maskedarcstrike: It isn't really game breaking at all, honestly. All it gets you is souls; the same thing is achievable through grinding (albeit slower, but you can get 25k a minute in NG+). Jack your level up and all you do is really lower the available pool of PVP choices, as that becomes the big draw of the game once you pass a couple of NG+ runs.

Honestly, it's just kind of boring. You don't get super strong because the equipment scaling is still kind of broken, and then you have no one to fight against/help out.

@Maginnovision said:

It'd just make me not want to play the game anymore, that's why I'm not doing it. and I believe the upcoming patch fixes it.

Not only will it fix that, but it's also going to fix soul level scaling when you invade and get invaded.

So if you use the exploit you'll just be a lonely dude running around at a high soul level.

I used it to wear havels gear and shield and stopped once i was able to run around fine. Otherwise it is only usefull if you MUST powerlevel to the highest you can possibly be or if you want to max out your humanity. It is cool to have the option to use this to see how all the items work but it is not game breaking. It doesn't mean people SL 400 can enter your game when your only SL 90.. you can still get slapped around easily if your not paying attention to bosses. It just makes it so you can use everything basically at your hearts content and Even then, at a certain point you need hundreds and hundreds if not millions of souls to level 1 stat which would require you to hold down square for a very very long time which would make this just not worth it after a certain point. A patch would be cool but it is not needed as if you think the game sucks because you used it on 1 character then you shouldn't be playing this as all you would need to do is remake a character and play again.

Such overt cheating disgusts me.

I think it's fine because the level scaling means those people that get to level 400 or whatever will not be able to invade anyone but other likewise players. Sometimes you just want something that takes 5-10 stat points out of your regular build but at soul level 50+ it takes a while to get them. I have 8 Faith but I'd like to be able to use some of the very basic faith miracles that require 14 faith. At my SL 65 getting 6 points is not going to be that easy, I think I average 20k per point. I can run through the Anor Lando castle killing those silver knights for 900 souls a pop or I can just dragon head it.

Some people don't have that much free time basically. Sometimes when I get home from work I can get like 1-2 hours of gaming in during the week. Once I was sitting outside gaping dragons boss area, waiting to get summoned. At that point in the game I got a ton of souls for helping people kill that easy boss. So I spent a good hour there or more and got summoned like 4 times and 2 out of those tries ended with the host dying because there was no way I could tell him "hey don't stand in front of that thing he's gonna...ah..."

This made me realize I'm wasting a ton of time there and just left and got on with the game. That one guy that did the speedrun in 1 hour 25 min proved that you don't need awesome stats to beat the game.

Nah, I'm really not into such things.
 
At the very most I might farm 30k souls at the forest tonight on my alternate character since I lost that amount today due to some real silly thing.
But even that I'm not sure off.
I like working for it, like the entire game tries to teach you.

Leveling up just makes it harder to find multiplayer partners and the higher you go the more dupers/exploiters you encounter. With weapon scaling kinda broken at the moment someone with 99 strength can still be beaten by a level 40 guy with +5 lightning on his weapon.

I did it.  I was starting to get bored with the game, so I wanted to increase the rate at which I progressed.  I didn't bump myself up all that high though, so there was still a decent challenge and some of the cheap areas didn't aggravate me as much.
 
It also meant I could finally ditch Havel's Ring so I didn't move like a sloth in The Abyss and Lost Izalith.  I never invade, so I don't feel like I'm dicking other people over.

Whatever floats your boat since it doesnt really affect too many people in a negative way. I'm with Talicia though, in that I like "working" for it. Especially in a game like this. It'll be a moot point anyway whenever the patch comes out to fix certain glitches and balancing.

I was about halfway through my NG+ when I realized the game was kind of a push over after all the work I put in the first time, and I also realized I'd seen and done basically everything Dark Souls was going to offer me, so I decided to do the exploit and see what the game would be like with a billion hours of work put into a character.

The result? Not much different. There are serious diminishing returns for all of the stats and by the end of it all you aren't really that much more powerful than you were before, which was kind of a bummer.

Maybe someday I'll start a new character, but the 60+ hours I spent with Dark Souls were more than enough for now.

Having only played Demon's Souls exploiting the game seems to be the point to it.

@SethPhotopoulos: 'hold a button for unlimited free XP' is not an exploit in the way that getting a dragon stuck on level geometry is.

I don't really see the point. All you do is level yourself out of PVP and coop. I keep my SL low and only increase it when I feel that the area I'm in requires a higher level to find people to coop with. My SL is currently 58 in the demon ruins and it's only that high because my old SL of 52 wasn't getting me any action in the areas after the lord vessel.

@Spoonman671: I went the same route as you, I just wanted a decent boost ya know. I didn't go crazy.

Well, it is gamebreaking, and it isn't. 
 
If you get like 1,000,000 souls and level up 50 times, you are going to be playing against people of higher level from then on, so its not hurting anybody. You could use the souls to level up your gear, but that has a maximum and is very easy to reach without cheating, so there isn't any issue there either.
 
I guess the real issue is that it sucks some people are cheating and making the game easier for themselves while other people have to do it slowly. At the end of the day though, people will always use exploits when they find them, and it really doesn't matter if other people are using them if they don't affect your game. So just play the game and have fun. 
 
Besides, I'm sure most of you used the forest soul farming exploit.

I think the best thing is when I get invaded by people who have "cheated". They aren't any better than they were, just higher level. So they come at you and basically keel over the second you attack. Pretty fun.

Eh, I don't really care if others do that with their non online characters, but I'd never do it. I mean, most of the fun I get from Dark Souls is watching my character grow after beating a hard area. Duping souls like that would kill all the appeal of the game for me.