@mirado: You been back to Demons recently? Because I took a jaunt not too long ago and man are the Mind Flayers are not even remotely scary. The Jailers have a presence regardless of familiarity, the Flayers pretty much fail to do anything to you once you know what they do. The only one that's a dick are those Red Phantom ones simply because they have a lot more health.

@baronsamedi: I don't think you can ever quite recapture the dread of your first Souls game, so I have no doubt that my own flailing made up a large part of my perception of them. With that being said, I found the Jailers in this game to be largely harmless; yeah, they'll drain your health to down to 1 if you let them, but if you plunk at them from a distance, they're little more than free souls, with no ranged attack to speak of.

The Flayers at least had a tendency to blast me through walls, which automatically makes them assholes.

Only really raged once, and that was with Prince Lothric. I got him down to a sliver go health and died, I woke up my poor dog with my yelling. I refused to summon though and it felt really satisfying when I finally killed him. I summoned for the final boss because it was late and I just wanted to beat the game and go to bed, but now I kind of regret doing it since it trivialised the boss for me.

I didn't get frustrated at all. The game was really easy for me and I enjoyed it a lot. I don't think any boss took more than four attempts and I ended up beating most on my first try.

@mirado: You make a good point, as I have not even bothered with anything ranged in my 2 playthroughs so far.

I should give full dex a go.

I felt some frustration in Farron Keep, but just a tiny amount. The tall satyrs who jump on top of you and shove their crotches in your face are easily up there among the most annoying enemies From has ever designed. They wouldn't be nearly as terrible if they couldn't actually chain-grab you. Other than that I found that area to be pretty OK, as far as poison swamps go. It's not nearly as annoying as Valley of Defilement, Blighttown or Nightmare Frontier.

Can't say the same for the Catacombs though. High Lord Wolnir is an awful, AWFUL boss. Took me around 20 tries to get that fucker. Probably wouldn't have taken as many if I could actually summon someone. I spent so much time clicking on Summon Signs only to get "Unable to summon phantom" over and over. Can't tell if the signs were just taken or if it's a network issue. Around midnight yesterday it finally clicked and I had two players who knew exactly what to do at my side. Thanks, folks!

Not at all actually. Unlike Blood Borne it allows you to dick around and explore without the worry of running out of blood echos. I die a lot but I just keep going and pick a different approach.

I usually just boot up Spotify on the background and cruise around with some tunes in the background. I'm at the third boss at the moment.

@svenzon: I could be wrong about this, but I believe that your hollowing level can impact the success rate of calling Phantoms. At least, when mine is high and I try I get unable to connect constantly, and when it is either zero or something like 5, it seems like it is never an issue.

With the way thsee games can be weird network-wise though, I wouldn't be surprised if I am completely wrong and it is just the game being wonky!

Can't really say if Hollowing affects it, but my character is not Hollow at all. It might just be that other people pick up the signs before me. I managed to summon a few times, but only if I clicked the sign the moment it showed up.

Well crap...I was hoping for your sake that I was correct!

I have noticed what you have said though, regarding the summoning symbols failing if you don't snag them right away. I guess the best I can suggest is keep trying. As for Wolnir, he kicked my butt the first two times I tried him, and on the third I focused on the left arm first, since it seems to be the finicky one. Once I had that one gone, the right was much easier as it seems to almost always be within striking distance. Still, he seems to be one of those bosses that are all over the map, given the poison crap and the massive number of mobs running around. Best of luck!

Felt some frustration of a different kind today. (I'm assuming this is getting to late-game spoilers now) Talking about the Yhorm fight. Just such a boring, "only one way to do this" fight, when it should have been inventive and engaging like the other two Lords of Cinder fights were. This is honestly up there with Bed of Chaos for me.

I got him last night, but thanks! And you're right about the left (or his right) arm. He rarely keeps on the ground for very long and it has a nasty habit of clipping through it. If he's moved too far forward you can't hit the bracelet when it does. It gets even worse if you break the other two first. Luckily, the two phantoms I had helping me noticed that I was going for that one, so one of them helped me while the other hacked away on the right side. Such a relief when he finally went down! Just as I activated the Rejoice gesture a Bonewheel came rolling into me. Good thing they nerfed those bastards. :)

Pontiff Suhllyvan. One of my favorite boss fights in the game but also fuck that guy.

Every time I die a dumb death I'll make a swear.

That's my secret cap, I'm always frustrated.

Nah, its fine. I only play in natural hour stretches, which is to say I'll play for as long as Imfeel like which has been about an hour every time, strangely.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Nameless King. He was the boss I spent the most time on and I would argue him to be the hardest in the game.

I just got to the catacombs last night, bad time to read this thread.

*deep breath*

@sarcasticmudcrab: Hot tip: drop the shield for the ninja assholes.

I've discovered the secret true answer to this question, anyway. The longer I play, the worse I become, until I get stuck.

@teddie: I think that fight is better than Bed of Chaos, if only because once you know the trick it's mostly a non-issue. BoC I will still accidentally fall off or get hit by a stray swipe occassionally. Fuck that fight.

Also you can technically fight him normally. It just takes foreveeeeeeeeeeer. I got him down to half once, and I didn't time it. But I would definitely say around 20min or so lol.

I adored that fight, pure Demon's Souls fanservice boss. That boss made me way to giddy when I saw how to beat him.

I only got annoyed/frustrated at one boss, actually, and that was Champ. I consider him as being the first boss in any of the games to beat me, only missed three bosses in the game too apparently (him, the one after, and another one in a hard to find area).

I felt pretty rusty starting out and Irithyll was definitely a big wakeup call in terms of getting my rolling right again. In retrospect, it was like a primer for things to come because enemies in the second half start hitting real hard and draining a lot of stamina on block.

So I struggled with Sulyvahn, easily the most deaths of my playthrough, but it never quite reached the point of frustration because all his attacks have varying amounts of windup. The clone mirroring movement instead of acting independently I thought struck a nice balance (one of many!) I must've got my groove back though because the rest of the game was smooth sailing.

I'm actually very curious to try multiple playthroughs with different playstyles like greatshields, magic, or simply more parrying, which kind of surprises me since I wasn't expecting this entry to grab me at all due to fatigue. As someone who's been on the ride since Demon's, Iudex Gundyr left a great impression that stayed with me through most of the game. I'm looking forward to not completely bombing the NPC quests and doing dumb shit like challenging the Dancer early.

Nothing made me particularly frustrated. I found the challenges in this game to be far less obnoxious than certain areas from the rest of the series. Still really effective at kicking my ass but not infuriatingly so.

If there is anything it would be because I was playing the Xbox 1.0 version and the framerate of one later area dropped to sub 20 a whole lot and that was kind of maddening.

Yeah Farron Keep was where I first felt it. I'm feeling it quite hard now in Irithyll Dungeon as well. They introduce a new type of mimic here and he can attack behind him easily, which as everyone probably knows its easy as hell to dodge normal mimics by staying behind them.

Actually I take it back. Irythyll Dungeon has those assholes that reduce your maximum health and I had basically no way to counter it without just blitzing them. That got really frustrating really quick.

@teddie: yeah I agree. Such a lame fight and really just a complete waste of my time. Only boss that I've encountered yet that I think is actively dreadful design. Gimmick bosses are bad enough but to have him be a lord of cinder and to give him the exact same stupid gimmick as a demons souls boss? He requires literally no skill to beat and literally anyone who has played demons souls will know the gimmick immediately so what, exactly is the point? Zzzzzz

I mean, the swamp in Farron Keep is just awful. I think it's worse than Blighttown, frankly. It wasn't that difficult, however; personally, I started getting salty around Pontiff Sulyvahn. I HATE that kind of boss. In the end I gave up and summoned some help. None of the other bosses or areas have been anywhere near as frustrating for me as the time spent on that fight.

I'm with this. I'm at 35 hours and close to finished, just re-exploring areas for hidden secrets right now. Still no frustration - but then I'm rarely one to get frustrated, so that's not especially shocking. I did actually like the poison area in this one though; partly because I think they did a good job of letting you avoid it fairly well if you want to be cautious about it.

Perhaps it is not so much frustration, but I think I just have less patience now then I did in 2011 with DS 1. I have found myself thinking "thank god I never have to do that section again" but I guess I also felt that in the temple of Armana and in Blight Town.

Not until the Old Demon King fight. The fucking camera and lock on. Would. Not. Behave.

Game was all like "Oh, you want to roll behind it? Sorry, we're gonna cancel your lock so you can't block the follow up. And you moved behind a corpse pile? Ha ha. Sorry. We're gonna pan the camera into the ground so you can't see anything. Fuck you!"

The poison area in this game was a cake walk compared to past ones. Not very long with not many difficult enemies.

After the catacombs though... that new palace area with the big tall hollow looking enemies. I hate them. First time in this game I've sprinted past enemies just so I could hope to happen upon a bonfire (which I did). Some of the enemies seem to have endless stamina and can just spam you until you can no longer block or roll and then destroy you. I hate that.

I wasn't a big fan of the Smouldering Lake. First area I actually lost a decent amount of souls in.

Nameless king. Specifically the first phase. I'm not going to say I made it through the game without any trouble, but that is the only time I really felt frustrated. Specifically just with his first phase, because the camera kept doing really weird stuff and it was occasionally super hard to see what he was doing, given he was above you the whole time. The first phase was incredibly easy, but I would occasionally die thanks to just not being able to see what he was doing, and that irritated me because it just kept me momentarily from getting back to the real fight that was phase 2. I think it's a really cool fight, but just that camera...

I'm now at Old Demon King and Ithirill thingyland. I need a sit down. How can they swing so often? WHAT BUILD ARE YOU DANCERS!?

I said virtually the same thing. It felt like a dramatic difficulty spike to me, especially once you get those freaking dudes that can fling flames through walls mixed into the whole cocktail. I got used to it, and now they feel trivial to me (in the true Souls fashion) but when I first got there the adjustment took longer than usual and I felt genuinely frustrated and had to take a break. Wait till you get to the boss, if you want to see some endless swinging!

I didn't really get frustrated at anything, just a bit irritated at Irithyll Dungeon..... fuck that place and it's jump scare screams and jailer mobs that drain your hp.

The thing about those enemies is that they have like 0 poise and pretty much any attack interrupts them, with a fast weapon (like rapier) you can stunlock them a 100-0, same for casters and that area becomes kinda a joke.

There are really quite a lot of enemies and bosses in DS3 that are just hell for certain playstyles while being very weak against others. Like I had trouble with those enemies you mention with my semi tanky, kinda quality, medium speed build, but when it got time to bosses just destroyed both of the ones in that area. Yet for a streamer I watched later it was the complete opposite experience, easy regular enemies hard bosses.

I beat the Old Demon King on my first try, felt good.

The goddamned Nameless King tho took me about 15 tries, the camera is absolutely atrocious when fighting him during the first form.

Also, something that annoys me to no end is bosses who pop right back up with a full health bar after you beat their first form. This game has a bunch of those.

@atomicoldman: The Zodiac Killer strikes from the shadows.

I haven't been too frustrated by much yet. I actually thought Farron Keep was one of the best, most focused poisoned areas in the series with the emphasis on occult. It actually felt appropriate for once as a bog setting. I think Irythill Dungeon (I think I spell this wrong everytime I type it) was the most annoying.

I thought Farron Keep was pretty great too, honestly. I really liked the 3 torches gimmick. I had no idea what to look for until I took the elevator up to where the Ash Demon was, and looked down and saw the three pillars sticking up out of the swamp. That was a super cool moment for me honestly, and helped give me some much needed direction.

That said, fuck those big bone shaman tree swinging guys. I had a helluva time even fighting them one on one, and then I get to the group of 3...fuck that. I bow and arrowed the fuck out of them. Didn't even feel a little bad.

For me, there were various areas of frustration: That fucking swamp where Farron Keep is located, that fucking bridge with that alligator-wolf thing, that fucking lower area of Anor Londo where two of those alligator-wolf things are located, the catacombs where those skeletons are throwing homing skulls grenades, panic rolling into pots that spawn those homing skulls, Profane Capitol because I have no idea where I need to actually go in order to reach the boss of the zone, and all I keep doing is accidentally circling back to the dungeon. Then there is the Dancer of the Boreal Valley boss fight. Lots of scream fits from that one!

Those skele man jerks in the Boreal Valley gave me some trouble, but this was generally a pretty frustration free game for me. The only real rage came from my PVP invasion attempts where I ended up 4v1 on a pretty regular basis. Eventually just started to play real dirty and abuse the mobs to section them off one by one and murder them. I do actually love the asymmetry in the PVP though, simple dueling is pretty boring. My favorite thing has been putting out my summon sign/invading as a mound maker and finding a way to communicate to the host that I just want to kill invaders and lulling said invaders into thinking I'm on their side.

I didn't start feeling the salt until Pontiff, because he reminded me of my least favorite bosses in Bloodborne that are super aggro with wide sweeps that do a ton of damage, then they add in the doppleganger to rub it in. But the rage boiled over during The Nameless King, not because it was hard, which it is, but because of that first phase and getting sucker punched because the camera isn't reliable to read animations.

Just met the Pontiff, game was totally manageable and all the other bosses took at most 4 tries. I have died easily a dozen times already and at best have landed one hit before dying.

@rubberbabybuggybumpers: the part about the dual alligator wolf dudes really bummed me out because those fuckers suck and I am knocking on the proverbial door to that area and I am worried a double helping of that asshole is really going to put a damper on my day off tomorrow.

@sethmode: Once I saw there were two of those things down there, I said, "fuck this!" I went back up the ladder without looking back. It doesn't help since From nerfed the Fume Ultra Greatsword. I didn't kill the bastard on the bridge. While running around in the water, I heard a loud splash, looked behind me, and panic rolled like a motherfucker to the manor.

Lot of hang ups on the Pontiff. Does he do something I missed? I only remember rad elemental swords that I wish were more useful.

You can use a bow to aggro the one on the left without alerting the other one. As long as you fight him in the area near the ladder, the other guy won't aggro and you can fight them one at a time.

Dragon aerie 2.0 gave me alot of trouble

The only time the frustration set in for me was when it was around 1am, I had been playing for hours, and I was searching for a boss in the Demon Ruins area of the Smoldering Lake. It was really dumb of me to assume that.

I got through everything else in the game relatively hassle-free.

When I got to the third bonfire of Irithyll and kept getting killed by either the dogs paired with ghost mages or the dudes with scythes and bleeding swords. I started getting frustrated.