That one was way too difficult for me when I downloaded it on PSN+ back when you could get it for free. I think it is the only one which actively punishes you for dying with its world tendency mechanics. The game was dripping with atmoshphere, I'll give it that: the tower of Latria must be the most uneasing place of all souls games.Originally Posted by MrDuck
Edit: Hey any of you who finished the DLC2 who also have finished DLC1, did any of you take you-know-what to you-know-who? What happened?
Last edited by MorbusG; 4th Apr 2017 at 13:34.
When I read about the new DS3 expansion, I am wondering if I will be able to beat even a single boss...
I haven't had time to play any games during the last 2 weeks. And maybe not during the next 2 weeks. Maybe that's good.I'll probably go finish the DLC for DS2 SotFS first (if I can kill any of the remaining bosses there). And then maybe go play DS3 again. The GOTY edition should be out by then, maybe I'll buy that.
If you managed to beat all the bosses in Dark Souls 3, including the optional bosses like Nameless King and Champion Gundyr, then you should be (mostly) fine. Hell, if you managed to beat Sister Friede in Ashes of Ariandel you really don't have -too- much to worry about. The bosses are challenging, for sure, but they aren't a cut above those three I mentioned. At least not in my experience.
Soooo....no one else wants to share their Ringed City experiences?
I can't tell you anything, because I haven't played yet.
About the bosses in DS3. When I started DS3, I decided to play a dual-wielding mercenary. When I got to Iudex Gundyr, it turned out I couldn't beat him.Even after 30 tries, I wasn't able to finish the 2nd phase. That was a bit disappointing, after I had finished DS1. I then created a new character, a knight. And beat him on my 2nd attempt. I just need a shield to be able to survive the mistakes I make. (And I make a lot of them).
Needless to say that Champion Gundyr seemed impossible to me. After 2 or 3 tries, I summoned the sword-master. Again, Champion Gundyr went down on the 2nd try.
Twin Princes. They seemed impossible. Even with a shield. After 20 failed attempts I decided to go farm souls, and buy all spells from Orbeck of Vinheim. I could then summon him to help me. Even with Orbeck's help, I still needed 10+ tries to kill the Twin Princess.
Soul of Cinder ? Couldn't beat him. I just couldn't. If I was too careful, I'd run out of Estus. If I was a bit more aggressive, he's always get me in the 2nd phase. His moves are just too unpredictable. He starts his swing, and then sometimes immediately hit me, and sometimes wait a second to hit me. And sometimes he waited 2 seconds. I just can't deal with that, it seems. In my 2nd play-through (which went a lot more smooth) I did Yuria's questline (reading the wiki to make sure I didn't miss anything). So I could summon Yuria for Soul of Cinder. It then took me less than 10 tries to beat him. I think even after all the experience of 2 play-throughs, I still would not be able to beat him without the help of an NPC.
Nameless King ? After 30 tries or so, I still had problems with phase 1. The camera of course. But I did reach phase 2 most of my attempts then. I went back, and got myself a shield with 100% lightning absorption (the Dragonslayer Greatshield). Fully upgraded. Then it took me another 20 attempts to beat him.
Aldritch was another boss I had trouble beating. Because I couldn't summon an NPC. I think in my first play-through I got myself a Washing Pole+10, and then finally beat him. Forgot how many tries I needed, somewhere between 30 and 40 maybe. It's sad.
That is how I play and beat RPGs (and MMORPGs). I don't depend on twitch reflexes. I don't depend on my own skills (which are sub-average). I depend on preparation. I get my character's skill high, not my own. I pick the proper gear. Proper strategies. Get a full set of resistance gear. Things like that. That's how I can beat hard content.
The Dark Souls games have slowly moved away from that, and made boss-fights harder and harder. And success depends on the skills of the player, and less on the RPG-skills, stats and gear of the character. I understand why (because the average player is getting better at games). But I don't enjoy it much. The attraction of the DS games is not their difficulty. Rather the opposite. (The attraction for me is the world, the atmosphere, the graphics, the fantasy, maybe even the lore. Doing a journey through a dangerous world, alone, without actually knowing what you're doing. (Come to think of it, that's very similar to my day-time job. Writing features and fixing bugs in a code-base that nobody knows what it's doing exactly.
From what I read last week about The Ringed City, I got the impression that TRC tests the player. Not the player's character. It's gonna be hard for me.
Last edited by Gryzemuis; 8th Apr 2017 at 07:57.
I haven't played much since I've been down with the flu for most of the week. I still am to some extent but it's getting better so I've been playing a little more of the Ringed City DLC the last couple of days and I'm now at the point where I'm fighting the dragon boss.
After several attempts I'm at the point where I can handle his first phase reasonably well but his second phase still causes me quite a bit of trouble. The best I've managed so far is to get his health down to about 30% before dying.
Welcome to hell, buddy. I was there about 3 weeks ago. It sucked so much.
The fact I hadn't been sick in the last 5 years (besides one case of a 24-hour gut bomb) didn't help matters none. All it did was make me forget how to handle being sick, so the flu just kicked my ass twice as hard as usual.
Darkeater Midir just bit the dust:
After defeating Midir and getting the rewards from doing that I went back and got some new dialogue from the girl in the last DLC (the fire had spread further) and from the stone-humped hag at the dreg heap.
Grats !
Well, that is obvious: no shield is gonna help me in that fight. And the fight lasts long. Seven minutes of rolling, and making no mistakes. I'll surprise myself if I'll be able to pull that off.
Gryz - You would probably suffer, a lot, in Bloodborne then. No shield and v. fast combat
For those of you that have finished the game, did you go back to her after breaking the illusion (i.e. which occurs after cracking the egg) and notice the butterfly angel that spawned in the area in front of her corpse? Do you think that these pilgrims become angels after they die or that she was killed by it after it appeared there? She mentions that she is hoping to see one but I didn't see anything else in the game that tried to explain the lore behind them.
I've been meaning to after defeating the final boss last Thursday but as this is the final DLC in the entire series it seems difficult to write about the Ringed City without providing a summary overview of the series as a whole. Given that I'm working such long hours on a project at work at the moment, it's been difficult to find time to play let alone write about itSoooo....no one else wants to share their Ringed City experiences?
Pros
- Dripping with atmosphere. It really felt like I was descending into a forbidden part of a world -- hidden for eons -- that had finally reached its end.
- Incredible level design
- As I mentioned previously in this thread, FS have delivered another class-leading execution of an incredible artistic vision.
- Interesting boss fights.
- Varied locations with tonnes of surprises and a few interesting enemies.
Cons
- Slave Gael provided a reasonable (if slightly unconvincing) link to the Ashes of Ariendel DLC, but was a disappointing choice as a final boss as it didn't help explain any of the game's central lore (unless I'm missing something?). The DLC appeared to be leading the player towards an understanding of the origins of the Dark Soul, so it felt like somewhat of an anti-climax. I went back to the Painted World after that and got a world named after me but not sure what to make of that just yet.
- Too many fatties. The first couple were ok but throwing a whole mob against the player later on was a tad uninspired.
- The butterfly angel and and poison water section was a real pain in the arse. DS has always been about about studying your environment and making your way through it in a methodological manner and this part felt more like exploring as a result of cheap deaths.
Other
- Where were the damn pygmies?
- Something that I've always wondered about the series... were any of the NPCs that we encountered from DS1 through to the end still human, or were they all undead to some extent?
In summary, while I thoroughly enjoyed the Ringed City and found it to be a much better DLC than Ashes of Ariendel (which was still quite good) and on par with some of the other DLCs in the series, I was expecting to experience a deeper exposition of the narrative than what I was able to uncover. While I wasn't expecting to see a clear conclusion of the series as the process of speculating on its lore is one of the great appeals of the game, I do feel that there was somewhat of a missed opportunity to create an ending that would leave people talking about it for years. To date, most of the posts that I have read here and elsewhere are predominantly focused on the difficulty of the boss fights and some sections of the DLC.
Gryz: it's the same for me, I think I summoned for almost every boss. Not only that, but the normal PVE is perhaps even more difficult for me. I'm glad there's the easy-mode aka hidden body spell. Just to illustrate the struggles I've had: that Pontiff's eye on the bridge to Irithyll? Apart for two of my characters, I haven't been able to take him out on the bridge (without help), so I've just applied cheese by running down the distant manor bonfire and shooting arrows at the buggar. It took ages to run out until the middle of the water so it spaws, then running back to the bonfire and being able to take a few shots at it at a time. God I hate those creatures.
But then there are times when I can get into "the zone". It's this state of mind where everything feels effortless. In that state I've been able to take down Dragonslayer Armor with 14VIG and a skimitar. It's a state where I've destroyed a fight club from the beginning to the end. Problem is, I don't know *how* to get into the "zone".
Now I made a pure(ish) faith character with the idea of providing healing for those fighting Midir. I can't get through the Demon Prince. I ran out of embers and needed to go get summoned 30-something times for Oceiros just to have more embers. But I'm not getting anywhere. There are barely any human summons available, and the concept of a healer is completely lost for the dolt NPC summons. I'm most annoyed about the high damage resistances the bosses have in this DLC. Sacred-oathed, lightning-covered Saint bident ought to do *something*, but no.
Thing is, none of my other characters had this much trouble with him (/them). If this was my only character, I wouldn't be able to even see over half of the DLC I'd bought.
Last edited by MorbusG; 10th Apr 2017 at 17:48.
They absolutely help. I could never have killed Midir without a shield (or without Pestilent Mercury, but that's another story). Even on my sorcerer character I upgraded a Black Knight Shield just for this fight, so there's something to save me in certain situations.
Also what you wrote about DS3 testing the player, not the character - largely true, but you can still help yourself with a good setup. Greatshields help a lot, bleed weapons make many bossfights faster, magic can also make them easier, Hidden Body can make pve sections easier, etc.
EDIT: MorbusG, sullyvan beasts are super weak to bleed, they die to like 4 hits with a bleed weapon. Also, they say the demon prince is weak to bleed as well - try using gnawing miracle on your faith build.
Last edited by Malleus; 10th Apr 2017 at 19:54.
^thanks Malleus for the hints! That would explain how I got him first try with my Yoshimitsu cosplay character (using Bloodlust, naturally). At last I got him down with my faith character, and damn was it a close one. All of the other phantoms dead, and no estus left. Embers running very low again. Man, my hands are still shaking.
I just rolledd around and hacked away, and ocassionally raised my shield. Fun times!
I can certainly see how the final boss and the lore implications may be polarizing, but, I dunno...it works for me.
Also, is it really a powerful illusion spell that we break when we wake the princess? Felt more like travelling into the far, far future and seeing the -whole- world in ruins.
What makes you think that it is the future? And if so, how does Gael get there?
As far as the lore is concerned, what is your theory behind Gael providing closure for the overall narrative rather than just the 2 DLCs?
At the close of the Age of Fire, as the world ends and all lands converge upon themselves, a lone adventurer descends into the madness of the earth and uncovers the secrets of the past.
Whelp, to be fair, the BIG FLASH OF LIGHT does leave it a bit ambiguous as to what exactly did the princess do, though seeing the endless (apparent) scope of EVERYWHERE being dust and ruins that far stretched beyond the Ringed City just makes me think that it would have been an insane amount of power that, so far, none of Gwyn's children had demonstrated before (this is, of course, conjecture of mine). Also, unlike with Anor Londo in DS 1, you can go back to the Ringed City (sans Filionore) and it seems to be intact, while after you dispelled Gwyndolin's illusion, dark Anor Londo was there to stay. And as for dark Anor Londo, it changed night to day and a few other bits and pieces. Here, the entire world is....destroyed, not just some city.
But then again, maybe you already traveled to the future when you teleport to the DLC from the bonfire in Ariandel or in the Kiln of the First Flame, hmmm?
As for Gael, well, this one's weak, but maybe, like a good undead, just managed to not go fully hollow and spent countless centuries searching for the pygmie lords? (Such a shitty seeker). I found it thematically appropiate as I had read somewhere that Gael is a reflection of the player, a nobody, on a quest...like everyone else (well, his was a bit different than ours), an undead. And there you find yourselves fighting over the dark soul (or its blood) at the end of the world and time, where everything else is dead, or at the verge of dying, and when you finally acquire the blood and give it to the painter, she uses it to craft a new world. A new hope that will, hopefully, continue past the decay of this world and the ending of the Age of Fire and everything else.
I dunno how much sense I'm making as I am quite tired, but I do agree that it would have been nice to get a bit more playtime with Gael, like we did with the guy, I forget his name, in Demon's Souls, who is King Allant's son. Good times, good times.
EDIT: It does seem the big wiki sites are treating it like an illusion, which is fair, but I still feel that you went through time and maybe the Ringed City was the last "haven" or somesuch? :3
Interesting lore theories. There's so much left to interpretation. Have you guys seen this video about the deep?
I forgot to share some of my experiences. Did any of you follow the one king who's still alive all the way up? I did, and cheered him all the way. I flinched at the end.
One time I was summoned to help the Demon Prince, and while bored of waiting for the host to summon more help, I started backstepping around.
The host started to do the same, only, he was right at the edge and so dropped down to his death.
One other time I got summoned as a blue into the abyssal swamp where there were two players both wielding the double doors doing the stretch out gesture so they were hidden inside the swamp, occasionally getting up to yell the call out gesture for the reds invading them.
It's bizarre how many times I've witnessed hosts falling down to their death at the ladder down to Midir, so I left a message at the corner saying: "Ahh, it will happen to you, too!"The area is filled with blood puddles, I don't get it.
Re: the hag – I think what triggers her death is the fiddling of Filianore's ball (/The Dark Soul?).
Re: the city – did you notice, looking from above, that the whole city is drowning into the abyssal swamp? Also, there are no humans there, yet if you chameleon, you turn into humanity sprite. And the locusts speak about letting the feast begin. Did they eat the whole city of pygmies aka humans and it turned into this abyssal swamp?
Last edited by MorbusG; 12th Apr 2017 at 05:51.
It never happened to me, but I did come very close to making that mistake several times when making the run back to the boss fight only realising at the last second that there's a ladder for the first drop.It's bizarre how many times I've witnessed hosts falling down to their death at the ladder down to Midir, so I left a message at the corner saying: "Ahh, it will happen to you, too!"
Slave Knight Gael was much tougher than Midir even but he fell to my sword in the end.
Inspired by Salass00, and to encourage Gryz (as I made a million mistakes), I uploaded my first solo success on Midir, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr2Im9Oaf1U
I'd like to remind, though, that I had been trying to beat him for three days at that point (although, the first day was split between the Spear fights, and I was, for the large majority, doing it as a summon).
Never before been Pestilent Mercury this useful.
It's kind of cool to think that Midir and Gael seem to be callbacks to themes/characters from previous DS. With Midir you fought another creature that had been consumed (heh) by the Abyss like Artorias, though seemed to me more an embodiment of it, like Manus was. While Gael was the doomed fool on a quest that would ultimately be his undoing, which deep-down he knew. I read a comment in YouTube (of all places, eh?) that thought really summed it up quite nicely on the Gael fight. Feel free to disagree, of course:
"The last boss of the game HAD to be a nobody. This is sad, pathetic. Two slaves fighting for nothing at the end of the world. They are only two left, and guess what ? They are fighting. This is humanity in all its splendor. It's filthy. And it's fuckin' BEAUTIFUL."
While I wouldn't say it was for nothing at all (the blood of the Dark Soul did allow the Painter to make a new world to, hopefully, escape the decaying one), there is a certain surrender at the end of all things that makes it almost poignant.
The Spear of the Church boss, while a cool name and a callback to the Old Monk fight, wasn't too intriguing for my taste, tbh. But that aside, I loved how the other bosses in this expansion felt like a closing, not just of the game series as a whole, but also of the game world: the Demon Prince, with its death came the extinction of their race, the Chaos Flame finally snuffed out; Darkeater Midir, the (most likely) last everlasting dragon (or their descendant) gone, the last vestige of the ancient world finally gone; Gael, the ruined man who claimed and became the vessel for the Dark Soul, the (I assume) last of the Great Souls found at the Disparity of Fire.
Good times, FROM.
<3
I think your "fighting for nothing" insight fits in well with treacherous Lapp's final comment after kicking you off the ledge:
"Every age, it seems, is tainted by the greed of men.
Rubbish, to one such as I, devoid of all worldly wants! Hmmm, I dunno, maybe it's just the way we are.
I'll stick you in my prayers. A fine dark soul, to you."
I just kind of find it amusing that the final boss of the series is an old hobo wearing a santa hat and assless chaps.
In other news, I will never forget From for stuffing DS3 full of fanservice and leaving THIS out, of all things, even though it's already in the game files...
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