I recently heard it was a brutal experience and have been thinking of trying it as a challenge.
Here is a list of the changes that were made in one of the balancing updates: https://pastebin.com/HxMjdaBx
Some of the notable changes were:
- Upgrade scaling buffed 5-20%
- Overall increase in souls gained (~2-2.5 times more)
- Damage reduced on some mobs?
- HP lowered on some mobs?
- Reduced acquisition range on normal enemies.
- Supposedly reduced poise on some enemies.
- Bosses drop Humanity and Homeward Bones
- Ghosts and Skeletons give souls now.
- Twinkling Titanite drop rate improved.
- Pyromancers in Catacombs drop Skull Lanterns.
- Darkwraiths in New Londo drop Dark Hand.
- Male Undead Merchant: Also sells bottomless box
- Female Undead Merchant: Sells Arrows / Crossbolts
- Andrei: Sells Arrows / Crossbolts
- Domnhal of Xena: Sells Arrows / Crossbolts, Master Key (5000)
- Giant Blacksmith: Sells Arrows / Crossbolts, Small Titanite Shards, Large Tit Shards, Twinkling (8000 per, inf amount), Green Shards, Repair box, upgrade boxes
- Vamos: Arrows / Crossbolts, Small Tit, Large tit, Repair box / upgrade boxes
- Inglwood: Sells Transient Curses
I’ve got a 1.0 version ready to go for the next time I feel the itch to play Dark Souls, but haven’t given it a try yet. I’ve even gone so far as to build a character for when I decide to.
A few other changes - infused weapons like fire and lightning did much more damage, famously, the Ring Shield’s attack was based on your weapon in the other hand, and could do BONKERS damage, DWGR activated at 50% load instead of 25, so flipping havel moms was a thing, and aggro range for most enemies was toned waaay down. Also, boss drops that are automatically put in your inventory like the Leo Ring were actual drops that were missable. It was a crazy time.