What is the Dark Souls 'intended' path through the game?

I ask this because I normally don't tackle the catacombs until much later on, but people say you're supposed to fight pinwheel around lvl 20..? You need to tackle the moonlight butterfly before this normally to get a divine weapon.

The rest of the level seems pretty darn tough for a lvl 20.

So that in mind, I am going to do a no-grind, as intended playthrough (no master key).

So what do you people think is the intended area playthrough?

Burg
Parish
Lower Burg
Depths
Blighttown
Forest (moonlight butterfly) optionally hydra
Catacombs
Sen's
Anor Londo
Forest/Sif

Archives
4 kings
Lost Izaleth
TotG

Kiln

Did I miss anything? Is that right?

I would go like this:
Burg
Parish
Lower Burg
Depths
Btown

Then you could tackle the first part of the forest to get the divine ember and go to the catacombs since if you talked with Domhall he tells you about using divine weapons against the skellies and you could already have green shards to ascend a longsword to divine.

Afterwards
Sen's
Anor Londo

After Anor Londo I think is your choice since all the next areas are going to be kind of difficult.
But I would go like this:

Back to the asylum and kill bigbutt stray
Then PWOA
Dukes Archives
Forest (Sif)
New Londo
Demon Ruins
Lost Izalith (If you didn't get a skull lantern then here you get the SL Maggot.)
ToG

Then kill and destroy everything and everyone

Then the Kiln

Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment.

Short of a strategy guide, most newbies DO hit brick walls on their first playthrough.
Explore past quelagg and you see a new path,a good majority of newbies i see on their first playthrough run down here, kill the Discharge, and explore till the golden gate forces them to turn around.

Then they go uptop and they fight through sens fortress. They were likely at this point headed to the catacombs, but the giant serpent turns them around with it's dialog.

I see no reason to assume FROM expected us to go to the catacombs that early. Pinwheel is some kind of *** up folly on their part, but it wasn't from anticipating us going there early.

Pinwheel has less HP then the Taurus Demon.

Despite the placement/usage of embers and such I don't think there's an intended order with the Lord Soul bosses, personally.

The only area that seems up-in-the-air to me, regarding From's intentions, is Darkroot (whether you go there before or after Sen's/Anor Londo).

I think The Catacombs are put where they are to torture new players and reward repeat players. Or maybe the reason they made Pinwheel so easy -- despite the fact that he drops the 2nd most important item in the game -- is so the rare noob who has the patience, skill, and intellegence to run The Catacombs early is rewarded appropriately. I kinda doubt that though, as you'd have no way of knowing about the need for a divine weapon yet, and unless you got REALLY lucky and made your way to the first necromancer you wouldn't know about that aspect of it. Actually, I suppose Demon's Souls vets could figure that part of it out, I guess.

1. Burg
   
2. Parish
   
3. Darkroot Garden
   
4. Lower Burg
   
5. The Depths
   
6. Blighttown
   
7. Ceaseless Discharge
   
8. Catacombs
   
9. New Londo (until water is drained)
   
10. Sen's Fortress
    
11. Anor Londo
    
12. Darkroot Forest
    
13. New Londo
    
14. Duke's Archives/Crystal Caves
    
15. Demon Ruins
    
16. Lost Izalith
    
17. Tomb of Giants
    
18. Kiln of the First Flame
    

Prepare To Die Edition:

Spoiler:

Darkroot is quite a bit higher than I expected in that list Chiz; with a +5 weapon, those Ents are dangerous.

I dont think there is an intended path. As soon as you bring covenants into the equation all the "set paths" go to ****. You have to hit up sif and new londo before any of the other lord areas if you wish to DW. You have to add the great hollow in at some point to be Dragon. Also depending on what items/spells you want things can change.

And the forest/catacombs can be beaten at any point so they're hard to pin down.

ChizFreak wrote:

Spoiler:

You do the Kings before the new content it means you miss out on a pretty amazing feature.

callipygias wrote:

ChizFreak wrote:

Spoiler:

You do the Kings before the new content it means you miss out on a pretty amazing feature.

That "event" it's not worth it. Also it's kind of hidden. I'm talking about a "standard" procedure.

IV_Mark_VI wrote:Darkroot is quite a bit higher than I expected in that list Chiz; with a +5 weapon, those Ents are dangerous.

Ents are easy as hell to kill. Keep in mind I'm talking about Darkroot Garden, not Forest. The Butterfly area. Ents are very easy, and Stone Guardians are slow as hell. One can easily kill them one on one.

I think most of our experience is doing the talking... I remember when I first stood in the Darkroot Garden, those stone guardians beat the hell out of me. I got my *** handed to me several times.
So a + 5 weapon is not that great. And what about the Hydra and crystal golems, they do massive damage to low level characters.

So I do agree, there might not be intended path, but you can somehow discover it by meassuring the damage input of the enemies.

Ceasesless discharge is only easy in the cheesy way, but you won't know that in your first playthrough... That bastard is going to make you cry if you try it your first time in a low level toon.

-Burg
-Darkroot Basin (with Master Key)
-Go to Andrei through Darkroot Basin and buy crest of artorias
-Forest (kill Sif)
-Kill Moonlight Butterfly
-New Londo (to kill the four kings)
-Parish (to kill Gargoyles)
-Low Burg
-Depths
-Blighttown
-Queelag
-Undead Asylum revisited
- Sen Fortress
-Anor Londo (get lord vessel)
-Painted World
-Catacombs/Tomb of Giants (to kill Nito)
-Lost Izalith
-Duke's Archives
-Kiln of the First Flame

But that one is a little tricky in the beggining, so I recommend only if already beaten the game once to go a fast playthrough.

So that's your opinion of the Dark Souls Intended path?

Interesting... and... do not agree... if you don't take the master key, then you can't do that route. Therefore, I have to disagree that what you describe is an intended path...

I haven't seen anyone mention Ash Lake yet.

I was seeing a lot of red little messages in the burg that said something akin to Beware of Chests. Well, they got me hella paranoid (I already was), so I started crossbowing, fire bombing, and meleeing every chest I came across. So after Blighttown and even before I found Quelaag, I was "lucky" enough to happen across the way down to Ash Lake. Yeah, that was really fun thing to do.

Couple of my friends did the same. One was stuck for a very long time at the bottom until he found out the clams dropped items to uncurse you. So, speaking for me and the few of my friends who played Dark Souls and stuck it out that far:

<
Blighttown
Ash Lake
<

IV_Mark_VI wrote:So that's your opinion of the Dark Souls Intended path?

Interesting... and... do not agree... if you don't take the master key, then you can't do that route. Therefore, I have to disagree that what you describe is an intended path...

That's MY inteded path... After the first playthrough, I always take that path.

FellipeMariano wrote:

IV_Mark_VI wrote:So that's your opinion of the Dark Souls Intended path?

Interesting... and... do not agree... if you don't take the master key, then you can't do that route. Therefore, I have to disagree that what you describe is an intended path...

That's MY inteded path... After the first playthrough, I always take that path.

I think you missed the point of this thread..