Progress update: Beat Taurus Demon, circled back through and got the ladder for the Undead Burg bonfire.
I don't think I'm having fun with Dark Souls this playthrough. My build is a Priest who has been varying between one and two handing whatever weapon I pick up. I think I know what part of the problem is too. I want to talk this out, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind by the end.
The first issue is that I am higher levelled than I was in my initial playthrough. This will feed into a later issue, I can definitely tell that I am stronger than I was the first time through. I will agree that knowing more about this game makes it easier, but that doesn't make the game itself easy. Knowing where precisely to put your stat gains might be the single most powerful bit of information you can have though. Dumping most of my points into Strength and Vitality let me breeze through fodder enemies. I still feel nothing but tension facing them, as I know how bad things can get in the game, and I know that I'm a bad hitstun away from dying, but this tension is different than before. Now, I'm playing a game of rocket tag, where first strike usually wins. This is certainly a wild departure from what my first playthrough was.
This leads to the second thing: Playing one/two hand melee just doesn't have the range of options or approaches that I like. Basically, I have Heal as an extra estus flask, then I either circle strafe or charge in and cleave an enemy. This isn't fun gameplay for me. This is weird too, because in most RPGs, including tabletop ones, I love to mix it up in melee. I just end up having more to do outside of combat I suppose that supplements it.
I've taken a few breaks of a few days each, trying to figure out what I'm thinking about this. At first, I thought to compare this to Dungeons and Dragons spellcasters, which often are the Right choice for any situation. I had this whole thing planned out to talk at a tangent about the Quadratic Wizard/Linear Fighter dichotomy, but, the more I thought, the less accurate that felt. Melee is starting to feel like a very linear FOOS strategy. I wrote more about those here, but in short, a FOOS strategy is your Go-To that stays your strategy of choice until it stops working. I feel like I've found that strategy early with melee, in that I just take the biggest number and biggest stat bonus, equip it, and either run in two handed or play a little cautious with shield. This style of play isn't as engaging, to the point where I "wasted" a few points in Dexterity so I could use a bow. I need these mixups and options in this game, because the enemies are so varied and the feeling of mitigating some tension by having a good tool for the job is exciting.
I want to compare this strong FOOS strategy to my Sorcerer, who I did have a Go-To strategy with, but it wasn't the only one I could employ, and I was able to mix things up regularly. On my Sorcerer, I would frequently use Aural Decoy to distract some melee enemies. Depending on the type of enemy, I would then either try to approach with Melee, or attack from afar with Soul Arrow and it's ilk. This led to constant trade offs though. I only had a finite number of Aural Decoys and ranged damaged spells. Do I spend more than one Decoy on this enemy, if the first doesn't stick? How many arrows do I shoot before switching to my sword? Can I get a Heavy Soul Arrow off before they get in my face, or should I just hit them with a Greater Soul Arrow?
These types of thoughts made the moment to moment gameplay so much more engaging, and made the game so much better for me. I know I'm not going to capture that same magic in subsequent playthrough of a game, that's just not how things work. Experience and system mastery can help curb those things. And it's not like I'm disinterested in finishing the DLC, it's just that I can definitely tell that I'm not having as much fun right now. We'll see how long it is until I get a new weapon and try to spread out my stats into some weird gimmick. There is a benefit to having a strong FOOS in this case. It allows me to experiment on the fringes, while still being able to fall back on an extremely powerful option. The trick is actually taking time to experiment, instead of just falling into the "I'm going to just be the best I can be" trap. Only time will tell if I keep the experimentation up.
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