Atta

@superjoe: so I finally managed to get to TB and had my breakfast there. The food was alright, will need to eat there more often to form an opinion tho.

@jaalmo: you were right. The menu is very different to what was written here, but it was also completely translated into Romanian, so I couldn't even find most of the stuff suggested here.

That said I am very full considering I barely paid anything for the entire meal + a couple of churros

@superjoe: hey Joe. Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try those. I live in a small town Germany, but am currently visiting my home town of Timisoara in Romania.

Hey Duders

Today I noticed that a taco bell recently opened in my home town and because Dan is such a fan I'm gonna try it out tomorrow.

Of course I would want to order his recommended meals and remember him talking in great detail on the beastcast about it. Does anyone know his recommendation is?

Googling only led me to a bunch of articles about his wedding ?

Thanks!

Hello!

don't usually post, but this topic warrants an answer, because I totally feel you. Everything you wrote is exactly what I was fighting through, right down to the weird disbelief you get from the family.

I was never that interested in cars or driving so I honestly only did it for my CV at the age of 21-22 and had the road test at least 3 times, probably 4. And with every time I tried I made dumber and dumber mistakes. I aced almost every theory test I had to do, except for the last one which I just barely got right.

Needles to say all these failures and judgemental stares I got from everyone did not help. I was so insanely nervous the last time I did the road test the first thing I did is almost run into a bus. So how did I still make it ? The cop testing me was bribed, because that was possible in my country at the time. When I found that out I did not want to drive at all anymore. I've asked my dad 1-2 times if he'd let me drive the car in some backwoods town on Sundays at 7 AM. We never got to that.

I'm not proud of what happened and am certainly not telling you to try and bribe anyone, but at some point in my life I just needed to start driving. My girlfriend at the time had a son and we wanted to be able to go places without relying on trains. So I got some more driving lessons (2 to be exact) when I moved to Germany and the instructor said I'm doing ok, but that I am way too nervous. After that I rented a few cars, drove around places, bought myself a cheap one at some point too. I scraped the thing on all sorts of places and have - to this day - problems parking sideways. That said, it's fine and I am getting better and better. Got 2 long 5-8 hour trips under my belt and more than 20.000 km driven. Never had an accident.

What I'm trying to say is that some people have serious problems when trying to pay attention to the road, to other cars, pedestrians, traffic signs, shifting, braking etc. It's a lot. Just try not to give up and keep at it.

Some actual practical advice I can give you:

- try riding a bike on roads whenever you can. Then upgrade to a scooter or something that is motorized but does not need a license (depends on what country you live in). when doing so try to behave as you would in a car. check your corners, look behind, look at signs, etc.

- get a different instructor. even if you just go for 1-2 drives with him/her. for one, yours is not a good one judging by what he told you. mine was bad, but at least he always said "you can do this". I have tried a different one when I failed multiple times as well. For one, he may be able to see some flaws you may have that your current instructor just can't seem to recognize. At the very least he can definitely tell you how you are doing overall. Also a different instructor may have a different car. I had the problem that I could not clutch properly, because the car was an old rust bucket. The other instructor had a new car and that went WAY better for me.

- if all else fails try to switch from a manual transmission car to an automatic. that would take a load of thinking off your brain immediately. Depending in what country you are in you may not be allowed to do the test with automatics or even switch cars without redoing a bunch of hours in the new car, but at least you will gain some experience.

- this one is worth gold: find a friend or family member you trust, who can explain calmly and has access to a car. drive out to some boondocks with this person's car and try driving around a bit. Now this is illegal and possibly even dangerous so make sure to pick the right spot. But with this you can gain a bunch of experience without needing to cough up a bunch of cash for more driving lessons

- in the end it all comes down to being confident in what you are doing and you can only achieve that by driving more and more

Good luck!

I sometimes have huge problems playing back video on GB. It constantly stutters to the point of being unwatchable, yet the audio continues normally. it's gotten so bad that I started watching all videos on youtube and needing to download most premium videos to be able to watch. sometimes, when going to the video download part I can actually stream allright from there, since it buffers a bit.

using the latest firefox on win 10 and live in germany. if anyone has tips for me on how to counteract the problem, do share. hopefully the new video player will help out with that.

thanks a lot guys! the single most important thing I have gathered from your comments is that I should just go and try stuff out. if something doesn't work, deduce why that is and change my approach accordingly.

for now, I'll continue to run around darkroot garden trying out different weapons and armor and seeing what I like best. gonna focus on vit, end, dex and str. pick some weapons that scale well,try out the longsword too, @tobbrobb

once comfortable, I'll poke at Syf a bit more to relearn rolling and then try out the tomb of giants or run around anor londo some more

@inevpatoria: well... dang. thanks for your wall of text! I apparently knew the jist of scaling, but the actual implementation into a solid build was way off on my part.

@poobumbutt: yeah... no. I said with the help of a friend, but what actually happened is he rolled in with his Astora gear and destroyed both of them. If I remember right, I played an insignificant part in that fight :D also the gargoyles... well I got the Axe from the first ones tail, but solaire was a real trooper during the fight..

EDIT: praise the sun!

thank you all for the very helpful comments. I admit, "boned" may be too strong a word. seeing how incredibly slow leveling has become I somewhat thought that stat-wise I am locked in for the duration of this playthrough. that I am at an "endgame" when it comes to stats. apparently not. I'll keep on trucking then and see if souls come easier in later stages.

for full disclosure: I am not interested in pvp or some weird builds. just want to finish this game.

@inevpatoria: @baronsamedi:you helped me realize something. let ask to be sure: if a weapon scales with 3 different stats, do I need to have all three at high levels to be effective ? I thought I should concentrate on dex (B scaling) and any point in faith or str would be a welcome bonus. is the low faith stat actually making the dragon slayer weaker ?

@tobbrobb: I've just tried out the zweihänder, which I always found interesting, conceptually at least. that said, the damage output is about half as much as the dragon slayer, with way slower attacks. when you say longsword, do you mean a specific one or just any old longsword would do (for now) ?

some random questions, if someone cares to answer them:

- I have been hoarding most loot I have come across (one of each type). is it worth selling the stuff or is the amount of souls you get negligible ?

- should I use that stat boosting ring, which gets destroyed if you take it off ? currently I am pretty much constantly using havel's and swapping out the second ring depending on what I need boosted in the moment

- I have recently upgraded from elite knight's armor (I think that was the name) to the black iron. the idea I had back then is that it pretty much was the heaviest armor I was willing to use end-game wise and it was nearly usable with my current stats (I use the ninja helmet to avoid the fat roll). should I downgrade to a silver knight armor set until I get my stats up a bit or is it preferable to walk around with full iron without a helmet ?

- my next big dungeon is the tomb of giants and I was thinking of investing into INT to use cast light. seeing as that would need 5 whole levels, I think that would be insane, but the skull lantern leaves me without a shield/doll and the sunlight maggot is out of my reach for now?

Hello!

I've been thinking of playing dark souls again for a while now, and since DS3 recently came out, I think now would be a great time to do so. That said I haven't played in a while and the reason I stopped playing way back when was because I thought I specked my character wrong.

Thing is, I kinda decided to go for spears and have gone through wikis to find the perfect one for my point in the game. With the help of a friend I managed to beat Ornstein and Smough to get Ornstein's soul and create the dragonslayer spear (currently +2). Thing is I have a feeling I am not doing as great as with my +5 spear I used up until now. Not sure if it's subjective or I am simply thrown off because of the different styles or whatever.

Here are my current stats:

Originally I went for END and VIT as suggested by Rorie in the QL. Then I tried some strength stuff and got faith up enough to use a heal spell. Now I am going for DEX to boost my spear damage and am thinking of going for DEX swords.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Now I'll check out the Beginner's Guide in the forums and will prepare to die... ;)

EDIT:

the armors I am currently using: black iron for heavy fighting and the ninja armor for more agile stuff

1. Thomas Bock (australian artist)

2. Birmingham

3. Chicago (was hoping for Dave Lang or Patrick)

4.Transformers: Age of Extinction

5 .Activision

6. Neversoft

7. Giant Bomb

finally a topic I can contribute to!

yes continue playing. if you liked everything up to rex, then you can surely find more enjoyment out of the rest of the series. beware though: gameplay is NOT the main draw here.

for what it's worth, I found the boss battles in mgs to be the hardest in the series (excluding raven), particularly the last ones. I just wanted them to END. in mgs 2 they get way simpler and in 3 they become fun (and very easy) !

one more thing though: consider mgs2 a gameplay update to mgs and then immediately forget everything and go into 3 as if it were a different game. hated it at the start, now it's my favorite (playing 4 currently)