Quote:YES, I FELL FOR THE DRAGON FIRE BREATH TRICK ON THE BRIDGE. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, BORO?
Why would I be? I didn't place the encounter. It's not my design philosophy. I didn't even play much of the first game, as I got into the second and third a lot more because for one the second has a much more ... bearable equipment curve for mages, and the third is rather straightforward.
The developers had a fetish for melee play. You can tell that from how the ugly duck of the series, the second, has the strongest spellcasters, which is the only one without Miyazaki at the helm.
As far as I can tell, the developers were heavily into PvP and PKing too, the kind of thing D1 had, except it even has covenants for it. It encourages invading and ruining other peoples' fun. No you can not password-protect your games to play with friends. You play with your humanity (ember in 3rd game) restored, or you play at all in dark souls 2, you can get invaded. Regarding covenants, I'm not sure about how they work in Dark souls 1. I know they are easy to switch in 2 and 3 at least.
For pyromancy, you want Laurentius in the Depths, after caprahircus. Also take note that if you tell him about something later by answering yes, he'll go away and get moldy and won't function as a merchant. "Questlines" (character stories) are like that in this game. This is why I almost always play these games by doing as much research as I have the patience for before embarking on a run that I expect to enjoy.
Regarding your perception of pyromancer being a melee character with backup spells, this is exactly what it is in the first game. It scales with not your stats, but the amount of humanity you have (the number on the UI. scales up to 10 humanity held). Therefore you can pay the minimum price for a few spell slots, and build an otherwise capable melee character out of it.
The second and third games scale it with the combination of int and faith, making it a more "balanced" spellcaster, that normally doesn't have the same power with miracles and sorceries as a dedicated cleric or sorcerer, but instead can still use their utilities while wielding fire, dark, and in the third game even spit out rocks.