Poll: Most Hellish Dark Souls level

[King of Asgaard]

Lost.
Mother.
Fucking.
Izalith.

Because of this piece of shit.

Spoiler

Also, because the only short cut comes at a high premium of 30 humanity.
Honestly, of late, I'll get to right before Izalith before calling my build a success, simply because I cannot be arsed to go any further.

Aside from that, though, I usually just blitz through most areas.
Anor Londo is long, but the most hectic part is the double archers, which can be cheesed given enough time, or rushed given enough skill.
Tomb of the Giants is only a pain the first couple of times you do it, before you've memorized the layout. After that, you can breeze through it without a light source.
Blighttown can be skipped for the most part, and lower Blighttown is short.
New Londo is a weird one, in that it varies. Sometimes, it's piss easy. Other times, it's nail bitingly difficult. Four Kings is an awesome fight though, and it's not that long of an area, so it's forgiven its trespasses.

Of course, I rock at PvE, so my POV doesn't represent the community.
And I suck at PvP, thanks to the latency, twinkers, hackers and gankers, which adds a layer of unpredictable difficulty to most areas. Honestly, I used to have reservations towards using the Hornet ring in PvP, but not any more, because invaders are mostly just nuisances.

 

[EvilRoy]

Tomb of the Giants.

I imagine if I'd played on console and suffered the crippling FPS issues, I would have said Blight Town though.

Of course those are also two of my favorite areas in the game. Excellent atmosphere.

Hmm I marked Blighttown as the worst due to a combination of bad footing and fps drops when crossing bridges, although I haven't progressed far enough in the game to have played most of the areas mentioned.

Thing is though, I'm using a PC as well, with DSfix installed. I was wondering, do you have any suggestions to improve performance? I think I've already got the various setting scaled back, my problem is basically that I can't figure out what in my machine is topping out. The processor isn't heating up according to coreTemp, and my graphics card blasts plasma when it gets stressed and that hasn't happened yet either.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Hmm I marked Blighttown as the worst due to a combination of bad footing and fps drops when crossing bridges, although I haven't progressed far enough in the game to have played most of the areas mentioned.

Thing is though, I'm using a PC as well, with DSfix installed. I was wondering, do you have any suggestions to improve performance? I think I've already got the various setting scaled back, my problem is basically that I can't figure out what in my machine is topping out. The processor isn't heating up according to coreTemp, and my graphics card blasts plasma when it gets stressed and that hasn't happened yet either.

Not a clue. I never suffered from the notorious frame rate drops in Blight Town, but then Dark Souls isn't a particularly demanding game, system wise. PC bottlenecks and slow downs can occur for all kinds of zany reasons. If you've already considered and discarded the obvious ones (low RAM, bad CPU, weak video card), it's hard to know what the cause may be.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I actually didn't hate Tomb of the Giants or Blight Town.

Personally, I say Anor Londo solely because of those two skeletons with the crossbows at theone ledge. You probably know which ones I'm talking about.

They're wielding Greatbows, not crossbows. All you have to do is run. With a fast sprint or a mid sprint, you can still outrun all of their arrows. When you get onto the same ledge, simply dodge toward them when their arrow gets near you. They'll draw their sword and you can parry them with ease. Or if you're a Greatshield user, they'll bounce off the shield enough times to slip and fall. Really, they look more intimidating than they actually are.

Edit: Wait, skeletons? I read that again and now I'm confused. I don't recall seeing any skeletons in Anor Londo with crossbows.

I don't personally hate any one area. But I'm going to say Blighttown, simply because it has the most obnoxious enemies anywhere in the game. Infinitely spawning mosquitos and toxic dart spitters. I greatly dislike both of them simply because they're annoying as crap.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Anor Londo was fine except for the damn ledge archers. Normally Dark Souls does difficulty fairly well, (Sens Fortress is among my top examples of how to do it right in gaming) but introducing the BK Archers in such a dickish way is just plain dickish.

The Great Hollow is a pain in the arse if you want to collect all the things, and sucks when you have to walk back up it (hence why I don't use the bonfires in Ash Lake if I can help it).

Tomb of Giants is rather simple when you learn where the ledges are, and most of the enemies are not too dickish. Nito is one of the easier bosses if you have a good divine weapon to take out his skeleton goons.

Most of the Dragon Legs in Lost Izalith are easily avoidable, and since they damage each other you can take them out a lot quicker. They also give a lot of souls and don't respawn. The Bed of Chaos is the WORST Dark Souls boss by a longshot, the Centipede Demon is kind of a prick due to his arena, and the Demon Firesage is a cheating bastard with his AOE thing that always seems to hit me no matter what I do. It was a top contender for most annoying area.

But Blighttown is the worst. Valley of Defilement 2.0 expands the randombuttfuckery of its predecessor. It sports a very confusing layout, dickish enemies (the Large Lizardmen from VoD are more dickish than the Barabrians from BT, but the regular lizardmen are no match for the BT goons), bullshit Blowgun fuckers that snipe you from beyond draw distance and give you a status ailment that requires a very rare drop, return of the poison swamp, infinitely respawning mosquitos, a clumsy elevator, backtracking through the swamp, the trigger for the Lautrec killing of the firekeeper, and just happens to have some really handy loot plonked all over in its more dickish ledges. It can be mostly skipped thankfully, and the Rusted Iron Ring helps with the swamp. It also is the best area for grinding Green Titanite and Large Titanite Shards. That doesn't balance out the buttfuckery

 

[EvilRoy]

Hmm I marked Blighttown as the worst due to a combination of bad footing and fps drops when crossing bridges, although I haven't progressed far enough in the game to have played most of the areas mentioned.

Thing is though, I'm using a PC as well, with DSfix installed. I was wondering, do you have any suggestions to improve performance? I think I've already got the various setting scaled back, my problem is basically that I can't figure out what in my machine is topping out. The processor isn't heating up according to coreTemp, and my graphics card blasts plasma when it gets stressed and that hasn't happened yet either.

Not a clue. I never suffered from the notorious frame rate drops in Blight Town, but then Dark Souls isn't a particularly demanding game, system wise. PC bottlenecks and slow downs can occur for all kinds of zany reasons. If you've already considered and discarded the obvious ones (low RAM, bad CPU, weak video card), it's hard to know what the cause may be.

Ah well, thanks anyway. I'm just going to kill all my processes and overclock the graphics card to see what happens there. Its not critical for my enjoyment, just a bit of a shame. As much of an ass-pain as blighttown is, I think its a damn fine level and I'm a little regretful that exploring it is such a chore.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Anor Londo was fine except for the damn ledge archers. Normally Dark Souls does difficulty fairly well, (Sens Fortress is among my top examples of how to do it right in gaming) but introducing the BK Archers in such a dickish way is just plain dickish.

Those are Silver Knights. Not as powerful as Black Knights. Really, they're designed to look more intimidating than they actually are.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I actually didn't hate Tomb of the Giants or Blight Town.

Personally, I say Anor Londo solely because of those two skeletons with the crossbows at theone ledge. You probably know which ones I'm talking about.

They're wielding Greatbows, not crossbows. All you have to do is run. With a fast sprint or a mid sprint, you can still outrun all of their arrows. When you get onto the same ledge, simply dodge toward them when their arrow gets near you. They'll draw their sword and you can parry them with ease. Or if you're a Greatshield user, they'll bounce off the shield enough times to slip and fall. Really, they look more intimidating than they actually are.

I know thats all you "have to do", but its really difficult when playing on console with a controller - controllers which have analog sticks, which are well-documented to have very short periods of optimal play. Not that the developer should have to keep shitty, old, worn-down controllers that have been used for a whole one year (oh the terror) without replacing in mind when creating their games, but it certainly does impact the experience of the game.

I've been using the same controller for 2 and a half years and it works perfectly. I even play on my PS3 quite regularly. Which is to say, nearly every day. This sounds like a personal problem, to me. If someone's controller is being worn down to degraded functionality in as little as a year, they should take better care of their equipment.

 

[Mikejames]

I hated the final drudge through Lost Izalith, but Blighttown's platforming was straight up cringe-worthy.

 

[scorptatious]

Anor Londo was where I stopped because of that one bridge with two archers. I died to them twice and decided it wasn't worth the time to cross. Everything else was a wisp of wind to the smack to the face that was "I can only block one of the archers' shots at a time. Fuck.".

From my experience, all you needed to do for that part was to just sprint straight forward and not stopping. It's the last bit where you have to take care of the archer in your path to the next part of the area that was kinda tricky for me as it was easy to fall off.

OT: The Catacombs was among the group of areas that gave me trouble. Mainly because I wasn't aware of the solution to the gimmick in that area at the time.

Same issue with New Londo Ruins. Plus there were The Four Doucheba- I mean Kings.

Blight Town was also kind of annoying due to it being on of the few areas in the game where the frame rate drops a bit.

 

[grey_space]

I actually didn't hate Tomb of the Giants or Blight Town.

Personally, I say Anor Londo solely because of those two skeletons with the crossbows at theone ledge. You probably know which ones I'm talking about.

Yup. Seconded. Also it has the worst boss fight ever.

I hate those two guys.

I actually liked blighttown and the catacombs.

Very atmospheric and in my view they both have some great farming opportunities.

 

[Pieturli]

Blighttown was slightly less fun than having your brain damaged in a way that left you blind, deaf and paralyzed, with only the ability to eternally smell horrible, eldritch taco bell farts for the rest of eternity.


Blighttown.

 

[Denamic]

Blighttown is a special form of hell, but the true torment to a new player on his or her first playthrough is Tomb of the Giants. Sure, it's caketown once you know it like the back of your hand (and got a sunlight maggot or the light sorcery), but it's pure nightmare fuel when you're literally stumbling around in the dark for the first time. You can hear there's motherfuckers lying in ambush, but can't see them until they're all up in your face with murder. That place will fucking traumatize you.

Lost Izalith looks the most hellish, but it's strangely one of the least scary places in the game.

 

[MrDumpkins]

Blight town, I remember opening to door after beating the depths and feeling great, then walking out and seeing a giant dark manhole and a tiny ladder made me feel weak again. As I descended down the ladder it turned from metal to wood and the air suddenly got puke green. I remember seeing the raggedy route ahead of me and I was like... nope, not going there. The terrible scary sewer level is done game, I already did it. I was able to play it on PC though so I didn't have framerate issues, but man enemies were fast, everywhere, and those damn poison archers. Still had a ton of fun. Dark Souls had such a great atmosphere everywhere.

 

[Depulcator]

I don't even have to read pasts posts, as a consle user Blight town...and those FUCKING DARTS!

 

[Grimh]

They sort of blend together in various kinds of hellishness.
It's been a while too.
But Sen's Fortress was the first ond that popped into my mind so I'm gonna go with that one.

 

[Azure23]

I'd say new londo ruins, if only because it's the only area that can consistently surprise me anymore. The unknowable aggro range of the ghosts, the uncertainty about their numbers, and their ability to phase through walls all combine to form a deadly trap that inexorably closes in on you if you fail to go slowly and kill every one you encounter. I like being a darkwraith so I usually spend quite a bit of time in the ruins during the early game, and because at that point fighting your way through the various ambushes is rather tough, I usually just run through to kill Ingward. This results in me pulling around twenty ghosts by the time i've stopped to catch my breath at the entrance to the seal, and that is one intimidating sight let me tell you, turning around and seeing twenty ghosts drifting towards you.

I've never had a problem with the tomb of giants, by the time I visit their I can usually murder the feral giants with one jump attack, and their aggro range is pitiful so I always just walk right up to them and do my jump attack, killing them. Of course this isn't possible in NG+ unless you're using buffs, but at NG+ and beyond Dark Souls is a much different game. Bed of Chaos is likewise a cakewalk for me, I know where the safe spots to shoot arrows at the orbs are, and I know exactly when to roll, not jump, onto the root. Bed of Chaos is unfortunately just one of those bosses that you have to learn by rote, there are a couple of effective if cheap strategies to minimize death and frustraton, and if you're too proud to use them then you have no right to complain. And for everyone complaining about Blighttown? They obviously never cleared the Valley of Defilement, now that was a true cesspit of misery.

 

[Azure23]

Tomb of the Giants is usually right around the time I'll quit playing a new build. I hate everything about it. Right now I'm playing a DEX character that will end up being a cosplay build for Lord's Blade Ciaran, and I'm just not looking forward to doing Tomb of the Giants with a shield or a Divine weapon.

Bleh

I make lots of cosplay characters (Shiva is by far the most fun) because it's a handy way of making the game fresh again and forcing yourself to play with unfamiliar weapons or tactics. I have four slots dedicated to the knights and let me tell you something: You willl learn to fear Dark Souls again, out of the four knights Ciaran is the hardest to play PvE with. I haven't lost a fight to an invader with her yet (although it's not a true cosplay, as I've put a parrying dagger in her left off hand, seems like a waste to only use the most effective crit weapon for backstabs) but Tomb of Giants has been stomping all over me.

Incidentally the Darkmoon Knightess is another character who's a blast to cosplay as, her sick armor, elegant weapons, and just generally the lore surrounding her all make her really fun to rp in Dark Souls.

 

[Sarge034]

I actually didn't hate Tomb of the Giants or Blight Town.

Personally, I say Anor Londo solely because of those two skeletons with the crossbows at theone ledge. You probably know which ones I'm talking about.

OH GOD. I had blocked the memories, you monster! *cries*

Mine would have to be the Bed of Chaos. Just... that fight was pure "fuck you, lol". Insta kills from falling through the ever diminishing floor and stuns for days. Sigh.