Poll: Most Hellish Dark Souls level

Recommended Videos

waj9876

New member
Jan 14, 2012
600
0
0
I played the console version, so Blight Town. I'm choosing it because I died a lot more times in unfair ways in Blight Town. It almost caused me to quit playing altogether.
 

Flippincrazy

New member
Jul 4, 2010
154
0
0
Tomb of the Giants.

Without a light source, every step is an uncertainty. Will I fall to my death in a random pit fall? Fall into four giant skeletons just waiting to cave my skull in? Or maybe get speared by an arrow from god-knows-where? And when you a pair of glowing eyes appears out of the dark, I have only so many bricks to shit. Honestly, the Nito fight at the end was a bit of anti-climax to those hours of gut-wrenching terror.
 

MatsVS

Tea & Grief
Nov 9, 2009
423
0
0
I went with Blight Town, tho I enjoy all the levels when replaying it these days.

Tomb of the Giants was really bad the first couple times through, but now I just get a Sunlight Maggot, and it's no worse than any other place.
 

EightGaugeHippo

New member
Apr 6, 2010
2,076
0
0
It's a tie between taking the regular long route down Blighttown, and Sen's Fortress. I never struggled on any other area anywhere near as much as those two.

I can't really choose because both areas have their pros and cons.

Blighttown was hideous because of all the poison, toxins, death ledges, multi-tier fuckery and the massive drop in frame rate caused by the area. However, 90% of the level can be skipped if desired which makes it bearable.

Sen's Fortress is just pure punishment, every corner, every room, every chest is suspect and wants to kill you.
The only way through is by sheer luck, or trial and error.
However, the level is short and after you've made it through once, you retain that knowledge and it poses less of a threat.


As a side note, the Tomb of the Giants wasn't so bad for me since I got the Skull lantern in the catacombs, those dog skeleton giant things are a pain but you can run past the majority of them during the last stretch and make it to Nito relatively unscathed.
 

teebeeohh

New member
Jun 17, 2009
2,896
0
0
Evilsanta said:
I am going with the Crystal Caverns.

Fuck that place and it's invisible bridges...

Well, Shooting arrows in front of you to see if you can walk there did make it easier but still. Fuck that place.

And trying to cut Seath tail of without the help of summon.

"STAY STILL AND LET ME CUT YOUR DAMN TAIL!"
i bought those things that are kinda like flares, mapped out all the paths and put the screens on my second monitor, because fuck invisible bridges. and fuck seath and his stupid curse breath, it doesn't make the fight harder but sometimes you die, the curse timer ticks up and you have to get uncursed, which is not hard but takes time

for me it was the new lando ruins, fucking invisible ghosts and shit, blighttown can be skipped and i usually have the sunlight maggot thing for the tomb of the giants but fuck those ghosts
 

Naeras

New member
Mar 1, 2011
989
0
0
Fuck Blighttown. Even though I liked the overall design of the area, the low framerate, buggy creature aggro and frustrating "fall-down-in-a-hole-you-didn't-see-because-of-the-camera"-deaths made it the only place I would voluntarily put down the controller and stop playing due to annoyances.

I mean, I've repeatedly instantly gotten souls from an enemy I didn't see because it fell down a pit and died, due to them they aggroing a mile away for no reason. I've also experienced when the enemies aggroed from a mile away for no reason but didn't fall down, bringing 12 friends with them and then visiting me.

Oh, and poison. Fuck poison. :(
 

Alarien

New member
Feb 9, 2010
441
0
0
Blighttown was only bad because of frame rate issues. The level design was pretty straightforward and it beat the holy hell out of it's Demon's Souls equivalent.

For me, it was a close race between Sen's Fortress and Lost Izalith. I went with Lost Izalith, particularly if you don't take the shortcut.
 

Easton Dark

New member
Jan 2, 2011
2,361
0
0
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.".
 

Lawnmooer

New member
Apr 15, 2009
826
0
0
Tomb of Giants is the worst place for me.

Everywhere else is no problem (Anor Londo is simple if you're careful, Ruins just requires a decent weapon and some luck with item drops, Blighttown can be sucky, but the Master Key can allow you to bypass the majority of it, Sens Fortress is usually only bad because it's when the difficulty starts to ramp up and Duke's Archives/Crystal Caverns aren't too bad though I don't particularly like the places)

But Tomb of Giants... There's a lot of steep drops, ladders and very little room to move making it very difficult to run around trying to avoid enemies (Especially if you've wandered into their and before you're strong enough to deal with the enemies you face) combined with the darkness, requiring the Lantern (Takes up a weapon slot, typically a shield), the Sunlight Maggot (Takes up helmet slot) or Cast Light spell (Takes up a spell slot, requires 14 Int) which can be very detrimental to various builds.

To be honest, the place wouldn't be so bad if the ways of getting light sources weren't as restrictive.

Though, these days I can run through without extra light, just as long as I can actually kill Nito when I reach him.
 

TheEvilCheese

Cheesey.
Dec 16, 2008
1,151
0
0
Coakle said:
Anor Londo easily. That long walk.

Die
walk to the elevator
wait for the elevator
take the elevator down
go down the stairs
run across half the map
go up the other staircase

This entire process takes around 1:20 minutes. Every time you die. In Dark Souls.

It was boring, at least Sen's Fortress had traps that the player could learn from.
There's another bonfire you can use at the bottom of the movable staircase. Shortens the run to the archers by a hell of a lot.

OT: My first time through blighttown was pretty bad. I couldn't find the way down. But the worst area for me was probably Lost Izalith. I'm not entirely sure why, but that place is hell so it's appropriate. Also worst boss in the game.
 

Alarien

New member
Feb 9, 2010
441
0
0
TheEvilCheese said:
Coakle said:
Anor Londo easily. That long walk.

Die
walk to the elevator
wait for the elevator
take the elevator down
go down the stairs
run across half the map
go up the other staircase

This entire process takes around 1:20 minutes. Every time you die. In Dark Souls.

It was boring, at least Sen's Fortress had traps that the player could learn from.
There's another bonfire you can use at the bottom of the movable staircase. Shortens the run to the archers by a hell of a lot.

OT: My first time through blighttown was pretty bad. I couldn't find the way down. But the worst area for me was probably Lost Izalith. I'm not entirely sure why, but that place is hell so it's appropriate. Also worst boss in the game.
Why is it that people hate Bed of Chaos so much? I can understand if the argument is "easy, not a boss fight, encounter" but a lot of people complain about it being difficult, which I don't understand. It just seems to force you two possible die once or twice to completely, but considering how close the Daughter of Chaos bonfire is and that you don't lose your progress in the fight by dying, it doesn't really strike me as a big deal.
 

TheEvilCheese

Cheesey.
Dec 16, 2008
1,151
0
0
Alarien said:
TheEvilCheese said:
Coakle said:
Anor Londo easily. That long walk.

Die
walk to the elevator
wait for the elevator
take the elevator down
go down the stairs
run across half the map
go up the other staircase

This entire process takes around 1:20 minutes. Every time you die. In Dark Souls.

It was boring, at least Sen's Fortress had traps that the player could learn from.
There's another bonfire you can use at the bottom of the movable staircase. Shortens the run to the archers by a hell of a lot.

OT: My first time through blighttown was pretty bad. I couldn't find the way down. But the worst area for me was probably Lost Izalith. I'm not entirely sure why, but that place is hell so it's appropriate. Also worst boss in the game.
Why is it that people hate Bed of Chaos so much? I can understand if the argument is "easy, not a boss fight, encounter" but a lot of people complain about it being difficult, which I don't understand. It just seems to force you two possible die once or twice to completely, but considering how close the Daughter of Chaos bonfire is and that you don't lose your progress in the fight by dying, it doesn't really strike me as a big deal.
That's exactly how I felt after I first finished the game. And it's certainly never been the hardest boss in my experience. But the daughter of Chaos bonfire isn't THAT close and it requires spending 30+ humanity and joining a covenant to access anyway. It also has the strongest titanite demon in the way on a narrow bridge.

My main problem with the bed of chaos is how random it feels. I can block a swipe one minute and the next the same swipe dead-angles me into a pit that just opened up. The first time I fought it I died once (did not expect the floor to fall), but the next time I got there I died at least 3 times. It just feels like it requires luck more than anything to me.

EDIT: I'm getting the shortcut confused with the bonfire again aren't I? It's been a while. Point is the run to the boss is annoying and compounded by the boss' ability to arbitrarily 1-shot you sometimes.
 

Church185

New member
Apr 15, 2009
609
0
0
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
 

Souplex

Souplex Killsplosion Awesomegasm
Jul 29, 2008
10,308
0
0
How the hell do you have the piss-easy (With the exception of walking along the strut with the silver knight archers) Anor Londo on the list, but you don't have Duke's Archives?
I'd probably go with Izalith, if only for the obnoxious Bed of Chaos fight.
 

Rylot

New member
May 14, 2010
1,817
0
0
Blight Town was really bad the first time I played it and the frame rate issue sucks but since I was stuck so damn long I had the place pretty well memorized for the next few play throughs, when I didn't just skip it. However Sen's fucks me up every time. I know which chests are mimics, I know where all the traps and enemies are, just for some reason I can't do it well. The swinging blades and lizardmen just trash me. If I can make it to the top level I'm usually pretty good but the bottom part usually kills me a good half dozen times.
 

Church185

New member
Apr 15, 2009
609
0
0
Rylot said:
Blight Town was really bad the first time I played it and the frame rate issue sucks but since I was stuck so damn long I had the place pretty well memorized for the next few play throughs, when I didn't just skip it. However Sen's fucks me up every time. I know which chests are mimics, I know where all the traps and enemies are, just for some reason I can't do it well. The swinging blades and lizardmen just trash me. If I can make it to the top level I'm usually pretty good but the bottom part usually kills me a good half dozen times.
Pro-Tip: You can run against the flat sides of swinging blades without taking damage. For the longer stretches with 4 blades at a time, this gives you most possible time to get through the blades safely. I haven't been hit a single time since I figured this out.

I don't know how to help you with the lizardmen though. They don't give me much trouble. *shrugs*
 

Aeonknight

New member
Apr 8, 2011
751
0
0
I went with tomb of the giants, with an honorable mention of the DLC area (can't remember it's name right now.) One of the only areas where the threat of being gravelorded truly scares me. See vid for reference.

 

King of Asgaard

Vae Victis, Woe to the Conquered
Oct 31, 2011
1,925
0
0
Lost.
Mother.
Fucking.
Izalith.

Because of this piece of shit.

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

The face I make when I see unguarded pie.
Legacy
Jan 9, 2011
1,859
560
118
BloatedGuppy said:
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

New member
Feb 3, 2010
9,569
0
0
EvilRoy said:
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.