Does Dark Souls have rewarding exploration? Is it a game you

Exploration is the entire difficulty of the game, so yes, it does have rewarding exploration in both areas, items and mechanics.

yes. the world is also wonderfully interconnected, finding shortcuts across the map from different locations that initially took you hours to traverse is very rewarding

>>322794741
it has GOAT worldbuilding with the exception of lost izalith

also after the lord vessel most of the unique items that you find from exploring random nooks and crannies of the world are just souls rather than cool unique weapons which kind of sucks

Its linear in the fact that you have certain objectives to complete before you can explore all of the map.

But the game is vague about what you're doing and where to go, so in a sense you are always exploring and trying to figure out if you're going the right way or not.

Its probably the most gratifying exploration game I have played in years.

Are there any stats that are completely worthless? I'm more interested in playing a caster if that affects the result.

>>322796582
Each stat has a description so you decide.
It's worth mentioning that you'll still need to use a sword and shield for regular enemies even if you do a magic build.

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48KB, 712x670px

>>322796582

resistance

>>322796914
>It's worth mentioning that you'll still need to use a sword and shield for regular enemies even if you do a magic build.

that is just plain fucking wrong

>>322796582
>Are there any stats that are completely worthless?
Resistance.

In general it's better to only raise your stats far enough to meet the minimum requirements for a weapon you would like to use, and then enchant the weapon.
As a beginner, dumping any spare souls into HP and Endurance is a good idea.

>>322796382
I'm fond of a lack of direction. 75% of my time in Divinity:OS was spent figuring out where to go next and I find that that type of approach really encourages a sense of exploration that is its own reward.

>>322796914
Without getting involved in the number game, all I am really getting at is that certain things may under- or over-represent themselves underneath a veil of ambiguity. For example (of shit design/balance), in Guild Wars 2 in the early days, it seemed enticing to stack 400+ Healing Power because you of course want to heal yourself for more, right? Until enough theorycrafting and build testing was done for people to realize that all of the healing skills themselves had awful Healing Power coefficients values (eg: healing skill heals for [4000 + 0.25(healing power)], or 4100 if using the previously referenced Healing Power value) which when you realize the investment required (dedicating your armor's primary stat to maximize healing power gains), and comparative to your health pool of 14000+, it's very apparent why investing in that stat is literally retarded.

>>322794741
There aren't many straight-up alternate routes to get to the same endpoint, but you'll probably like the way the world loops back on itself with shortcuts.

Before I drop in, recommended mods? Besides DSFix and a bunch of texture fixes/enhancements.