The main game is kinda easy. Try the dlc areas though because they can be very hard.

@golguin: How do you define what's the appropriate level for a boss in a Souls game ? I mean, the big difference will always be your gear, +/-10 levels doesn't really matter much except in the very beginning. Sure, if you drastically hold back on levelling up bosses will get harder, but how does that mean you overlevel if you don't ?

I've never thought of the souls series as a hard series but more of a challenging series that doesn't want you to take it lightly. If you want to make DS2 more challenging, then I suggest playing the pc version on 60 fps unless they've released a fix.

@golguin: well, to be honest this is the game's problem not the player. I really don't want to waste my hard-earned souls just because the game gave me more than I need. If I follow the method you are suggesting then I will lose the sense of reward.

+/-10 levels can make a huge difference depending on what game we're talking about. If we're talking Bloodborne those 10 levels in Vitality make a HUGE difference. 10 Vitality points in DS1 don't really amount to anything.

It's a combination of your level and gear. You shouldn't be able to survive 5 consecutive attacks from any given boss without healing or regaining health in some way. You should attack a boss 20-30 times before they die, but that changes with the game where Bloodborne requires more hits due to the faster pace. It's something I saw when Vinny fought Artorias and he was able to kill him in 8 attacks (over leveled) while I had to hit Artorias 45 times at a low level to kill him (under leveled).

One of the ways I get around the over-leveling issue when I replay souls games is to just invest a bunch into upgrading weapons or armor every so often and using diff stuff. These games give you so many different options for equipment it's kind of a shame to stick to the same stuff and sometimes it's nice to have multiple armor sets or weapons around anyway. It doesn't even really make it much easier. Once I get where I want with my stats in the beginning I pretty much just don't level up unless I need to for pre-reqs or spells or whatever and then start leveling again when the areas get too hard. Probably won't make any of the bosses much harder till you get to the end but it did make a lot of the areas feel less like cakewalks.

If you find the game too easy activate the Company of Champions Covenant, it's right in Majula and makes the game harder.

@golguin: Sounds like a lot of arbitrary numbers to me. Where does the game say you should only be able to survive X amount of hits ? Doesn't it completely depend on what kinda build you're doing ? With the way levelling works in this game a swing of 10 points in any stat can't really have too much of an impact as it would make the difficulty swing all over the place based on your levelling progression. Sure, 10 vitality can have a lot of impact, but really only if you're lagging behind on levelling it.

I get that the game gets more forgiving the more levels you have, but I don't really buy the notion that they deliberately make people overlevel to the point of making the challenge overly diminished. If you like to make the game more challenging for yourself, good for you, but that doesn't mean everyone else is making the game "unnaturally" easy by not following some random arbitrary restrictions.

While the games certainly have a tendency to be more challenging early on, it's not really because you end up more and more overlevelled the further you go along, it's because you are much more restricted early on. And as you get further into the game more options open up and you're able to compensate for the challenges the way you see fit.

The hardest part of DS 2 is the DLC and thats not all too hard either. Then again I don't think DS 1 is that hard either. Demons souls is the only one I've had a serious problem with and I played it third. Just depends on what you personally find hard though.

I still love each of the games though. Dark souls 2 is the one Ive played most though just because it works so well on PC and with the update it feels like a new experience.

Those aren't arbitrary numbers. Reversing the numbers and saying that you should be able to kill a boss in 5 attacks and survive 20 consecutive attacks would be arbitrary. We can consider the, "You shouldn't be able to survive 5 consecutive attacks from any given boss without healing or regaining health in some way" comment I made and see if it makes any kind of sense.

We can start with a single attack. Should a boss be able to kill you in a single hit? Should every attack from a boss kill you in a single hit? Most people would say that a boss shouldn't be so powerful that any hit would one shot you, but they might agree that a move with a slow windup and obvious tell can have the ability to kill you in a single hit. How about 2 hits to kill? Maybe if they were slow as well, but a 2 hit combo with little to no windup would not be acceptable as it would essentially be a one shot as well. How about 3 hits? It wouldn't work as an inescapable combo with little to no windup, but what if it didn't stun lock and you could escape after the 1st or 2nd hit? That would work. The same could be done with a 4 hit combo and you could mix in 4 consecutive hits as groups of (1, 1, 1,1), (1,1,2), (1,3), or (4). I think that's pretty fair and balanced.

Would surviving 5 consecutive hits be fair and balanced? Maybe you gave up on damage output for survivability and put most of your point into Vitality and all your upgrade materials into your armor. I think under those conditions it would be fair to say that your build should be more tanky than balanced builds. How long would it take for a boss to hit you 5 times? I just tested that on a random Pursuer video on youtube since Pursuer is relatively quick compared to other bosses and the average was 10-15 seconds. That involved me jumping around in the video and starting the count and timer at 1 whenever it did an attack and stopping the timer and count on the 5th attack. This included moments when it did its 3 hit combo. Imagine standing still for 10-15 seconds during a boss fight and not dying. That's a pretty long time. Now imagine that being the case, but you also had the damage output of a glass canon and made quick work of the boss. Most people would classify that as being over power/over leveled/over geared/etc.

This is something I've thought about since DS1 and I feel my numbers are pretty fair, but even I still create situations for myself where bosses regularly have the ability to 1-2 shot me while I have to hit them a whole lot of times to bring them down. I know that's not how boss fight should go for first time players, but it's a thing I impose on myself to keep the games challenging since the games can only become easier as we gain experiencing playing these things.

@ares42: It's not just 10 points in any one stat that makes a diff, it's passive resistances and defenses going up with every level no matter what stat you put points in in addition to the spell slots, damage, hp, whatever you get from the points. In DS2 HP even goes up without putting points in vitality. Now, those extra stats per level change depending on where you're putting your points and what level you are but it seems like the mid levels you actually gain MORE of these secondary stats per level.

Only a few points really can matter too, depending on your build; from 0-20 some abilities like vitality and endurance make your stats go up A LOT (like 30 hp per point in vitality vs later levels that give like 5) so just a point here or there can make a massive difference, again depending on your build.

I don't think that From deliberately makes people over-level, but I do think they assume people are going to be losing more souls than they actually end up losing either through death or through item purchases. They definitely want people to be higher level for DS2 though, likely for NG+ playthroughs where later game bosses get way harder to deal with.

How is this not a hypothetical ruleset that doesn't really apply to the game ? I'm not saying it's wrong per se, but I'm having a hard time seeing how this compares with boss behaviour in these games.

I dunno.. I feel like we're probably just approaching the point where we just talk past each other.

With all due respect, OP, this thread seems more intended as a vehicle for you to pat yourself on the back than anything. Since this is apparently your fourth Souls game, you probably ought to be pretty good with the mechanics by now, which likely greatly affects your experience. As several have mentioned, there are many ways to make the game more difficult if that's what you want. You can stay underleveled, you can join the Company of Champions, use bonfire ascetics, you can choose difficult paths, etc. If you really find it too easy, restart with a new character, join the CoC, head straight for Heide's Tower of Flame and try to make it to the Old Dragonslayer. If you can blaze through all the Tower Knights, Heide Knights, Dragon, and then the Old Dragonslayer with ease, then kudos to you. SotFS is my first Souls game, and I happened to do the Tower of Flame before the Forest of Fallen Giants because I simply didn't know where I was going. I got wrecked in the Tower of Flame and had to really push through that. By the time I'd done that, the Forest of Fallen Giants was mostly a cakewalk.

Now, I admittedly haven't played Demon's or Dark Souls, but based on the GB playthroughs of them, the "difficult" parts you're praising are more in line what what I consider the game simply screwing you over. Tomb of the Giants is only "difficult" because you can't fucking see anything (and honestly, if you want that, don't light torches in No Man's Wharf), and Blight Town is that plus a bunch of annoying ailments. I guess I can get why Tomb of the Giants can be exciting because you constantly have to watch your step and giant skeletons can basically just appear in front of you, but Blight Town is largely hated by most and considered one of the worst areas in the series, for what looks to be good reason. Maybe my perspective on difficulty is just different. I don't think excessive darkness and arbitrary health/stamina drains are particularly good design. I much prefer strong enemies that can be beaten with superior strategy/technique. Then again, I doubt I have the timing "down" as much as you do after playing all the other Souls games, so it's likely I appreciate that challenge and learning process more. I don't think you'd be making this complaint if SotFS were your first Souls game. It just happens to be your fourth.

Personally, I've found SotFS tough, but fair. Perhaps that fairness is your issue with it. I imagine if I were more experienced with the mechanics, the random, unfair bullshit would probably be more appealing to spice things up. Honestly, though, it's still there in SotFS and I enjoy it when it comes. Stabby chests, enemies constantly dropping from the skies or swarming you from hiding places, enemies hanging on ceilings/cliffsides waiting to ambush you, enemies shooting fire arrows at explosive barrels next to you, etc. It's just slightly less of that kind of stuff than what I gathered from Dark/Demon's Souls. Even still, I'm going through the Lost Bastille and the motherfucking Pursuer keeps showing up in increasingly unforgiving locations. Oh, this time he's buffed and you have to fight him in a small area with random holes in the ground you can fall to your death through. Now fight him next to a bunch of barrels of gunpowder. Etc., etc. After spending what's surely hundreds of hours by now on this series, the combat by itself inherently won't be as challenging/appealing to you now as it may be to others with less experience, but that doesn't mean it's "easy" or "bad". It may well be that you simply have different priorities in what you want from a Souls game at this point after playing three other games in the series.

I guess I just don't really see your complaint. Arguably the best thing about SotFS is that it can be as tough or as easy as you want it to be, but you seem to be making choices that keep it easier and then complaining that it's easy. That rings a bit "hollow". You can challenge yourself a hundred different ways in SotFS. If you take issue with typical veteran playstyles available to you like staying low level or making the enemies tougher, then just wear weak armor, use crappy, unwieldy weapons, and/or intentionally overencumber yourself so your movements are less responsive. You may not like that the game is structured to be mildly accessible, but if it were much tougher, the series would struggle to grab new fans like myself. Imagine if the first Souls game you played was structured to cater specifically to Souls veterans (which SotFS actually kind of is), you found it an unforgiving beating, and gave up on the series entirely before you grew to love it. That's basically what you're asking SotFS to be since you're now experienced with the series. I think you should either begin taking steps to make things harder on yourself, or push through to DLC and all the way to the latter half of NG+, both of which are reputed to be very difficult. In the simplest terms, if you don't like the game the way you're playing it, try changing the way you play it.

"The game is too X"

"The game lets you do X to combat that"

"Where does the game say I can do X??? Why should I know that?"

"I beat it a billion times and I never died and I have no problems with the game."

- every self-serious conversation about Souls games that has ever happened on the internet

Funny you mention those two areas specifically because they were the absolute most miserable experiences with the Souls series for me. I thought they were genuinely terrible and not fun in the slightest so you're not alone despite only playing DSII.

Oh and I should note I wasn't exactly complaining, just super confused. And you'll all be happy to know I did indeed eat my own words because I went through Iron Keep last night and it was the most challenging place in the game by far for me. Smelter and Iron king killed me 2 or 3 times each.....So there ya go. Spoke too soon, I suppose? Currently in the middle of a DLC area and that too is difficult so ar.

Dark souls 2 is not fun unless you are duel wielding. Shields make that game a strafe-a-thon. You have to kind of cheat yourself into making that game harder. Also joining that covenant at the top of the hill in the hub area makes it more fun. Dual wielding while naked is really the only 'hard' way to play that game (which, of course, speaks to how sub par it is).

I mostly agree with what you are saying. But I can't agree with the statement that Bloodborne is anywhere near the hardest in the series. The windows for dodging, parrying are much more forgiving. Then we have the regaining health mechanic. It is certainly a great game, but not nearly as good, nor as challenging as Dark Souls was/is.