defense and armour

I've noticed that in SL1 playthroughs and speedruns people with low levels and little armor (or running naked) don't die as quickly as you'd think in comparison to a high level tank. How does this game scale stats? Or how does that work? I do notice a difference (armor helps some), but it's mainly with offense. Am I the only one that finds this a little frustrating? I mean, what's the point of leveling up or getting better armor if the game's difficulty adjusts?

For instance, watch the Smough and Ornstein fight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyv2bcbxRA0

Any one of those hits ought to kill him instantly (and some come close), but keep in mind he's naked and SL1 and your lifebar goes down about that much if you're level 65 and in stone armor.

Or watch this... https://youtu.be/PUHJ90zZETA?t=7m14s
The last boss fight. He probably isn't that high of level.

Also the fact you can run past most enemies in the game seems problematic to me (although an issue with many action-rpgs).

Its all about perspective. I think that the size of the health bar is a bit deceiving. Also you level doesn't determine your health. It all depends on how you level up.


A sl 1 pyromancer has 572 health.

A sl 65, lets assume.... 25 vit? halfway through a pvp build, halfway to target vit has only 938. It's really not that much more considering O$S are doing what looks to be about 400 per hit on average.

As far as the stone armor inquiry goes I can't really help you much there. I've noticed that when wearing heavy armor my defense really doesn't seem to increase all that much, but poise is the real reason to wear heavy armor in my opinion.

Lastly I hate that too. Thats why you play like a real gamer and fight EVERYTHING!

To my knowledge (about 500 hours of gameplay) the game doesn't adjust to your level. Only time the difficulty changes is when you go to NG+, and subsequent +s.

In the first video, he didn't take any major hits. Any hit from Super Orny would have OHKd him, I'm sure.

And I've seen the second video, didn't watch it all again right now to make sure, but after obtaining the Lordvessel, in a speed run, you can easily be over SL40 or 50, which isn't very low anymore!

Running past enemies isn't an issue. How else would you speed run?! You need to know the game inside and out to be able to run past all enemies anyways. Try it on your first run and see how far you get!

Normally in an RPG leveling up really affects things. I've played some where old enemies will only do 1 hp of damage when you are high level, or if you somehow approach hard enemies early on without leveling up they one shot you. It seems like there is some hidden adjustment at work in this game, or armor really doesn't matter much. (Which is deceiving)

I mean, think about it: why do the early Undead Burg enemies still do a lot of damage if you're soul level 80+? I know about NG+, but regardless the enemy damage doesn't correspond to your defense.

Actually, at SL80, I seem pretty much immune to the enemies in the undead burg. In my own low level runs, I found that I was constantly OHKO'd. In the O&S video you cited, it looks like the guy may have been hit indirectly. When I took a direct head on hit from Smough, I would die.

I think this game provides a rare example of non-level-scaling enemies.

Only because of diminishing returns.

In Demon's Souls, the returns were more linear. So you could be overpowered and go back to 1-1 and stand there for a good 5 minutes getting wailed on by mobs and they'd barely dent your health (even better if you're wearing the regenerator ring, Adjudicator Shield +5, and a Faith +5 weapon, lol--you regain more health than they can take away!).

But I'm sure From learned from that. They didn't want people to simply be able to grind out levels then steamroll their game. So they introduced diminishing returns, making it harder in Dark Souls to be overpowered. The mobs don't adjust to your level, only your level won't make you invincible. From wanted skill to be > level, that's all.

That's the reason you can beat Dark Souls at SL1 or, if you were bad enough (not talking about you, just saying in general!) you could be unable to beat the Undead Burg at SL100.

hmm, maybe so.

Yeah, I went back and played DS for a while and they clearly altered DkS so that every foe still has some danger even at high sl, which is definitely not true in DS. The flipside here is that you need huge Vit to really notice a difference. I have a sl 35 and a sl 15 both in Blighttown; one has a bit more hp than the other but both take almost the same amount of dmg from a hit when using similar equip.

What does make a difference is carrying a lot of humanity. 99 humanity plus good equip is the closest I've found to a DS level of relative invulnerability without also using spells.

Heres a quick test i did to show how it works.

2 toons both on ng, both at first hollow in firelink. I let the hollow hit each toon once with their dbl handed attack.

Sl 4 toon with no armor, 21 def. Damage 141.
Sl 65 toon with no armor, 126 def. Damage 77.
Same sl65 with full havels, 362 def. Damage 21.

As it is clear to see defence and armor both help, so does sl as each lvl up ads to your def.

Slightly off topic here, and I don't know if it matters or anything but judging from my own experience falling from a high takes a percentage not a set amount, as before with lower vit I could jump from the ledge in the Princes Chamber and heal with one Estusk, now that my Vit is higher one Estusk doesn't fully heal my hp.

Maneater_Mildred wrote:Heres a quick test i did to show how it works.

2 toons both on ng, both at first hollow in firelink. I let the hollow hit each toon once with their dbl handed attack.

Sl 4 toon with no armor, 21 def. Damage 141.
Sl 65 toon with no armor, 126 def. Damage 77.
Same sl65 with full havels, 362 def. Damage 21.

As it is clear to see defence and armor both help, so does sl as each lvl up ads to your def.

Thanks for the test. I guess I was wrong!

deathsdragon wrote:Slightly off topic here, and I don't know if it matters or anything but judging from my own experience falling from a high takes a percentage not a set amount, as before with lower vit I could jump from the ledge in the Princes Chamber and heal with one Estusk, now that my Vit is higher one Estusk doesn't fully heal my hp.

Do you have heavyer armor on, weight ads to the damage you take from falls.... I think. Hold on will go test falls with armor and such with these same 2 toons.

Maneater_Mildred wrote:

deathsdragon wrote:Slightly off topic here, and I don't know if it matters or anything but judging from my own experience falling from a high takes a percentage not a set amount, as before with lower vit I could jump from the ledge in the Princes Chamber and heal with one Estusk, now that my Vit is higher one Estusk doesn't fully heal my hp.

Do you have heavyer armor on, weight ads to the damage you take from falls.... I think. Hold on will go test falls with armor and such with these same 2 toons.

Yes, it does. there's some parts where I take off my armor in order to fall

Maneater_Mildred wrote:

deathsdragon wrote:Slightly off topic here, and I don't know if it matters or anything but judging from my own experience falling from a high takes a percentage not a set amount, as before with lower vit I could jump from the ledge in the Princes Chamber and heal with one Estusk, now that my Vit is higher one Estusk doesn't fully heal my hp.

Do you have heavyer armor on, weight ads to the damage you take from falls.... I think. Hold on will go test falls with armor and such with these same 2 toons.

Probably so, I used to run around in Gold Hemmed forever, then switch to Paladin, that might be the difference.

deathsdragon wrote:Slightly off topic here, and I don't know if it matters or anything but judging from my own experience falling from a high takes a percentage not a set amount, as before with lower vit I could jump from the ledge in the Princes Chamber and heal with one Estusk, now that my Vit is higher one Estusk doesn't fully heal my hp.

Actually that's a tricky question, because there are 3 factors at play:

- Your Vit
- Your Weight
- Fall Height

It's not just a percentage of your health determined by weight and height, because there are some places I've seen people fall and survive, yet I've fallen from there naked with low Vit and died.

It'll be interesting to see what Mildred comes up with.

@Mildred:

If you could test the fall in Darkroot Gardens, at different Vit levels and equip weight, I'd appreciate it! It's the narrow path coming from the Parish going to the Forest, with a drop on the left. You fall down to the area with the Stone Giants (not sure which--the one to the Butterfly, or the one to the Wolf's Ring).

@ blaine, i will try there next if you want.

Just did quick test fromwhere the firebomb hollow stands in the firelink down to where the hollow soilder stands below.

Sl 4 with 0% weight lost 80 out of 594 health.
Sl 4 over 50% lost 109 out of 594 health.

Sl 65 with 0% weight lost 182 out of 1201 health.
Sl 65 over 50% lost 241 out of 1201 health.

seems like it scales with weight and health. Anyone good with numbers wanna see what % of health it is for each 1 please.

at 594 health 0% weight you lost around 13.4% health.

at 1201 health 0% weight you lost around you lost around 15.1% health

a Difference of 1.7% health around 0.1% more damage every 40 health or so.

The difference in Armor being 18.3% damage at 594 Health and 20% damage at 1201, seems to indicate the scaling is based off of health purely and Armor weight adds a static ammount.

Same difference for >50% weight: 18.3% for SL4 vs 20% for SL65.

Ok im gonna go back in for more testing, going to use sl 4, 65, and 124 this time.

I'll do my own testing, but I'm 98% sure the game doesn't scale anything up with your soul level. Unless your talking about fall damage or something.

Edit=never mind the thread went off topic and I missed it.