I only played ds1.


Currently stuck at the dlc Boss Manus http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Manus%2C+Father+of+the+Abyss

I think he's difficult on purpose, but there's a bit too much:
- will kill you in ~3 hits, sometimes two.
- you have to learn when it's possible to heal
- has three attacks that, while they're readable okish, require you to jump in different directions (I think...), without any perceivable reason for that in the game world
- you need to use an item to deflect one of his attacks, but there's no real way to know that
- on the way to him, there's one ranged mob that I have no idea how to avoid; it can push you down a ledge into your death ~5-10% of the runs
- there's loads of respawning humanity, but at this time, no coop play because nobody is ever available there
- this is the only boss, where the summon sign for a npc is inside the boss area
- the npc that is summoned is almost useless, as it does almost zero damage and the boss switches focus to you for quite a while when you approach him
- the level before was kind of easy

In general I think:
- the bosses are important; the levels often feel like a built-up, which is a good thing.
- however, you WILL die on your first try, because you have no idea what's coming and the bosses do not pick up level themes at all.
- difficulty spike on some of them is a bit too much, but i think that's due to design issues
- bosses show most obviously where there's a disconnect between the graphics and the entity system, and for me, this is often a problem. Examples: I have problems if the timing is a matter of learning when to jump in relation to his animation" rather than "jump when you would jump in reallife". Legs are attackable? Yes, but in reality you would always receive damage. These things make the bosses so hard, because it turns into a guess-game what to do. Can I block these two giant swords? Probably not, in comparison that I have problems blocking other stuff sometimes. However, with this one boss, it's entirely possible.
- glitchy camera/controls: the sheer size of them combined with having to approach them close quarters sometimes blatantly shows the problems with the controls
- difficult bosses work much better if there are multiple routes available, because you can just choose another route and return later to it. Only works if the level design supports it, though. It doesn't work if there's a 30 min trip between them. 

Git. Gud. 

And translates to "I know I'm wrong and deluded, so I'm going to bring in cringy pseudo-macho boasting to try to desperately prove I'm superior". God I'd hate myself if I had to resort to that. 

I made a mistake in my "Dark Souls/King's Quest". King's Quest was an adventure game series not made by From. When I accidentally used the term "King's Quest", I was trying to mean "King's Field". So King's Field was an old 1990s RPG series made by From. 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/89347071776219150/A2CE865CC46CBDB30CE6B05A257000F4C9B838E0/ 

I am not seeing anything obvious here. 

Yeah I did restart, no luck. The only "warning" message in game is when I try to click okay, it says I need to select at least one attribute to level up....NO SHIT DS3!!

Anyway, I sacked it off, tried to spend my 86k souls so I don't keep losing them, got rid of 40k then tried the boss and lololol okay whatever homz. 

<Shambler> HOW MANY MOTHERFUCKING SHITCUNTING WANKFUCKING TIMES AM I GOING TO GET KNOCKED OFF THE FUCKING TREE ROOTS BY THOSE FUCKING CUNTS SHOOTING THE CUNTING FUCKING JAVELINS AT ME THAT YOU CAN'T CUNTING DODGE BECAUSE YOU'RE BALANCING ON A FUCKING TREE ROOT ABOVE INSTANT DEATH THE FUCKING CUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* Shambler FOR FUCK'S CUNTING FUCKSAKE
<onetruepurple> Shambler: are you frustrated?
<Shambler> nope

I made it down eventually. The ice is cool, the crabs are cool, the Milwood cunts are still cunts. I tried the optional boss once but there were no summons so I sacked it off. Did the main boss coop though. Actually well balanced for coop. Must be an extremely miserable experience solo. Playing through this DLC overall (lovely scenery, good exploration, cool designs, really weird and cool enemies) and then having the discussion about bosses and seeing the other points of view in their favour....only made me realise how utterly wrong those points of view are and how chronically, jarringly out of place boss arenas are combat-wise. Definitely something only to be tolerated / got-out-of-the-way, not enjoyed.

Maybe there should be a separate DS3 boss arena mini-game for the freaks and perverts??

P.S. Obvz get the DLC if you haven't already. 

the ice arena boss was fucking amazing and you are an actual physical shit for thinking otherwise :D

ps love you 

Haven't played any Souls game in a while so I'm playing this again, with a regular knight, melee only character. I'm at the catacombs of Carthus right now. I still stand by what I said: the levels are far more difficult and challenging than the bosses.

Cathedral of the Deep in particular is a really nasty place and I died a lot there. The huge knights with their broadswords are really tough and some of the ambushes are pretty damn dangerous. The giants are pretty easy to beat though. I found Farron Keep to be a breeze this time around, I downed the Stray Demon and even invaded someone through the Farron covenant. The bosses are really easy compared to the levels, though.

Iudex Gundyr: This one is pretty tough, gotta admit, but once you get his patterns right he's not that hard.
Vordt: Just stay close to his legs and he won't hit you, though you gotta be careful of the frostbite aura after a while (I found the Irithyll knight just after Siegward far more difficult than Vordt)
Curse-rotten Greatwood: Piss easy.
Crystal Sage: Just dodge his projectiles and don't tarry. I killed him pretty fast. If anything the mobs between the bonfire and his arena are far more dangerous than him.
Deacons of the Deep: Really easy as well, beat the on my first try. You just have to be careful not to get overwhelmed. Like Crystal Sage, the monsters between the nearest bonfire and the boss are far more dangerous.
Abyss Watchers: Was a bit cocky and got slaughtered the first time, but I beat them rather easily on my second. It's important to roll at the right time to avoid getting hit constantly. The flaming sword looks threatening but it's not too difficult to predict where it will land and what type of attack it'll do.

Comparatively I found the black knight near the Farron crystal lizard very difficult, the Irithyll knight just before Path of Sacrifice took me a few tries like I said, the two assholes just before the entrance to Farron Keep also almost killed me at Ember + 7 Estus + for some reason. Keep in mind that I almost never use parry because I'm shit at timing this ability. 

I would agree that the levels are harder than the bosses. I can't even really decide who the most difficult boss was...perhaps the final one just due to how long it takes. Nameless King perhaps as well.

The hardest spot I encountered was starting Irithyll city with those frost ghost knights. I had to come back after exploring and upgrading to actually handle them.

I also found the Farron guards to be surprisingly difficult! Cathedral of the Deep is probably the first really meaty and menacing section of the game...and one of my favorites. 

the levels are far more difficult and challenging than the bosses.

Git gud.

The huge knights with their broadswords are really tough and some of the ambushes are pretty damn dangerous.

Git gud.

Cathedral of the Deep in particular is a really nasty place and I died a lot there.

Git gud.

(I found the Irithyll knight just after Siegward far more difficult than Vordt)

Git gud.

the mobs between the bonfire and his arena are far more dangerous

Git gud.

monsters between the nearest bonfire and the boss are far more dangerous

Git gud.

Comparatively I found the black knight near the Farron crystal lizard very difficult

Git gud.

Honestly Skacky, you are DEMENTED if you find the bosses easier than the run-of-the-mill easy mobs. Are you sure you're playing the right game?? Maybe you should be on some nightmare mode beat-em-up, or QuakeLive Rocket Arena against some pro-players?? 

...that post #167 was sponsored and/or ghost-written by Baker. 

I also found them to be easier than some of the normal mobs. It's not as bad as Dark Souls 2 though where I killed about 90% of the bosses on my first attempt but got stuck for a long time fighting normal mobs. 

Level design actively works against you with regular mobs whereas the boss arenas usually give you plenty of room to move around the bosses. Only exception would be High Lord Wolnir because you die if you get to the Abyss, but even then you have tons of room to move around.

I mean, don't tell me you found the Cathedral Knights on the rafters in the Cathedral of the Deep easier than, say Deacons of the Deep or the Curse-rotted Greatwood. These assfuckers are really hard because the space is really small and they face you by default, so you can't sneakily backstab them. Plus they seem to have magnetic boots because they rarely fall. Even the crossbow + undead doggos gauntlet at the start of Cathedral of the Deep before the Chapel of Cleansing is harder than the Crystal Sage boss that was just before it. 

the game became practically unplayable in terms of difficulty after the Dancer. The Knights after that are fought with as multiples and theres the assholes that heal them. I had to do a suicide run to the next bonfire (I had quit the game for about a month due to the difficulty spike) 

Yeah Lothric Castle is really difficult. The Dancer of the Boreal Valley is a very tough boss with very hard-to-read patterns. Then you have the whole castle chock full of hard enemies and then you have the fucking Dragonslayer Armour which packs a punch and was one of the hardest bosses on my first playthrough, just because it's so aggressive. And that's not counting the upper levels with the archives and all. 

Also another thing to consider regarding my 'success ratio' with bosses is that I usually fare much better against beasts and demons than humanoids, mostly because I'm awful at timing parries. Since most enemies you face in the game as humanoids, I tend to not be extremely good against them, while areas populated by beasts are far easier by comparison. The bosses I found the hardest in DS3 were Pontiff Sullyvahn, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Dragonslayer Armour, Nameless King, Champion Gundyr and Soul of Cinder. They're all humanoid. 

You're wrong, but this time you're wrong in a non-macho, non-bullshit, and discussion-worthy way...

Level design actively works against you with regular mobs whereas the boss arenas usually give you plenty of room to move around the bosses.

Level design actively works FOR you with the regular mobs as you have a lot more of the actual level to use, and you can use the scenery against the mobs. It works AGAINST you with the bosses because you're locked into a flat arena with little cover, no elevation changes and no escape.

AND WITH MOBS YOU CAN ALWAYS RUN BACK TO THE FUCKING BONFIRE.

I mean, don't tell me you found the Cathedral Knights on the rafters in the Cathedral of the Deep easier than, say Deacons of the Deep or the Curse-rotted Greatwood.

That's an unsuitable comparison because you're trying to compare one of the tougher mobs in the game to the absolute very easiest bosses.

FWIW those knights were a bit tricky because of the rafters but I got them to fall off more than I fell off.

Even the crossbow + undead doggos gauntlet at the start of Cathedral of the Deep before the Chapel of Cleansing is harder than the Crystal Sage boss that was just before it.

I can't even remember them. Crystal Sage was quite well balanced though.


For Me the game became practically unplayable in terms of difficulty after the Dancer.

For me, Dancer was almost unplayable, as was Dragonslayer, Pontiff was close, Champion Gundyr was unplayable (I did him solo after 60 attempts, that is not gameplay that is stubborn stupidity), Dragon and Butt Of Fire too.

The Knights after that are fought with as multiples and theres the assholes that heal them. I had to do a suicide run to the next bonfire (I had quit the game for about a month due to the difficulty spike)

Yeah Lothric Castle is really difficult. The Dancer of the Boreal Valley is a very tough boss with very hard-to-read patterns. Then you have the whole castle chock full of hard enemies and then you have the fucking Dragonslayer Armour which packs a punch and was one of the hardest bosses on my first playthrough, just because it's so aggressive. And that's not counting the upper levels with the archives and all.

You guys are kidding right?? By "multiples" you mean two at once, assuming you take down the weak healer ASAP. Again almost all of these areas you have a lot of space to run away or scenery to use.

Yeah a lot of these are tricky. The Lothric Knights, the Black Knights after Pontiff, the Fat Angel Knights. But I can't recall a single section of those that took me near 10 attempts, let alone 10+ that the tougher bosses took.

On the occasions they took lots of attempts, it's because I wasn't taking them serious "only a mob, I'll be casual", which is obviously shoddy playing. Whenever I focused on mobs, they were playable. Whenever I focused on a boss....time after fucking time....they were IMBA hard.

Also another thing to consider regarding my 'success ratio' with bosses is that I usually fare much better against beasts and demons than humanoids, mostly because I'm awful at timing parries.

I never parried, I guess the lack of parrying can't make the mobs that much harder?

The bosses I found the hardest in DS3 were Pontiff Sullyvahn, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Dragonslayer Armour, Nameless King, Champion Gundyr and Soul of Cinder. They're all humanoid.

Also, they are the fucking hardest ones in DS3, which is why they're hard. Tough, huge attack ranges, deadly attacks, sometimes impossible-to-predict "patterns", and a lot of fucking graphics shit getting in the way. And all in completely unfavourable arenas. 

Installed, spawned in the first area, (accessible from Sister thingy in the Painted World DLC), looks cool and bonkers so far. Seems to continue direct after the end game, sort of?? Then some giant smoke penis ghost slug dildo monster killed me.... 

Surprisingly large, many areas to explore, cool shortcuts, good style, at least in the actual Ringed City bits. Properly infuriatingly hard in parts. Four bosses in total, plus a bunch of what could be called mini-bosses/encounters. First two are fine; optional one only tried briefly, possibly annoying; final one seems like a real dick. Some nice armors; not sure about the weapons. Cool enemies, fun to fight individually, but tricky in hordes (only one location where this gets a bit over the top, though). 

Haven't killed the demon brothas yet tho :( 

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/89352276835615002/43DBA069ADA5D3AF828D5B14212E2199C7587242/ 

Surprisingly large, many areas to explore, cool shortcuts, good style, at least in the actual Ringed City bits. Properly infuriatingly hard in parts. Four bosses in total, plus a bunch of what could be called mini-bosses/encounters. First two are fine; optional one only tried briefly, possibly annoying; final one seems like a real dick. Some nice armors; not sure about the weapons. Cool enemies, fun to fight individually, but tricky in hordes (only one location where this gets a bit over the top, though).

Spot on! Although I'd say the art style in the Dreg Heap is pretty damn cool too. And the first boss is hard, second is - randomly - very easy Embered, last is hard again. Some of the NPCs are hard too. Didn't try the dragon because dragon reasons.

Very impressed with this DLC. First one was good, this one is great. Worth twice the price. 

....that you don't get to go in the seperate tower in the Ringed City though. A spiral around up to that would have been ace.