Take me down to The Ringed City where the bosses are tough and the deaths are puppy (Thoughts? Possible Spoilers)

So I spent several hours digging into the new DLC. Some with a buddy and some without, but did down the first boss today. Man this damn thing is unforgiving as hell but I am really enjoy it so far. Right at the start of the DLC with those damn flying angels and that boss fight took me a ton of tries before I finally down the Demon Prince.

So what are your thoughts on this DLC so far? I think it is far superior to Ashes already and am ready to dig into it some more. Unfortunately I do have to sleep at some point.

The environments and enemies look amazing from the trailer I saw but unfortunately I haven't had time to play it yet. Really looking forward to it.

Could've sworn this was out in April, oh well. Almost as shocking as the fact that Dark Souls 3 exists. Will post my commentary eventually. Thanks for the reminder.

Random aside: This Let it Die video has more views than all of my Dark Souls 3 videos combined (~300), thanks 70% Japanese audience. Also no one gave a shit about DS3, I still kind of like it though.

I noticed Dark Souls 3 downloaded 8 gb the other day. Now if I could only find the time to get around to the first DLC...

Who's ready for Dark Souls 3: Scholar of the First Dumb Enemy Placements in like 5 months?

@sinusoidal: Yeah there's too much good stuff and not enough time to play it all!

@fredchuckdave: Oh man I wish I had invested more in Let It Die. I just fell off due to school related stuff and other games :(. In the DLC there is a goofy weapon you can find. I want to try it but haven't had time to.

@floydeo:Yeah it's a stark contrast to Ashes where I found the environments real drab. I'm loving the structures of where I've been so far and how I've gotten around.

Getting an infinite loading screen when I try to load in Ashes of Ariandel (the only way to access the DLC if you don't have an endgame save, which I do but on a different character I want to play later).

Apparently I have to reinstall the entire game and that may or may not work; after downloading the DLC + Patches for 2.5 hours I have to do that again. 10/10

@fredchuckdave: :( that's bs. I did randomly get a "not valid license" or whatever popup in the dlc and that sent me straight back to the menu but I was able to reload with no problems. That's been my only technical issue. Though, I do think I saw a few people on the steam forum complaining about some technical issues as well. I guess could try with your endgame character without progressing just to see if the DLC loads up correctly or if there is a problem getting to it just from the Ashes bonfire.

Man DS3 feels like it came and went in a way that other souls games never have for me. I really should go back to finish off this platinum but I'm tempted to just replay Demon's instead.

Just please tell me it's much better than Ashes

@frostyryan: I've only defeated one boss and I think it's already infinitely better than Ashes.

I finished it earlier - aesthetically at least, I think it's super good! Vanilla Dark Souls 3 kind of left me wishing its "end of the end of the world" premise showed itself a little bit more in its environments, and The Ringed City totally delivers on that. The music is fucking great, too, especially those violins in Darkeater Midir's theme.

As someone who's into these games for reasons other than their hardcore, crushing difficulty or whatever, I thought some parts of it were definitely frustrating - the angels in the beginning areas are some sadistic nonsense, and I don't think I ever really figured out the way the designers intended you to deal with the big dudes who summon a bunch of fiery silver knights at you. They at least have some pretty cool mechanics around them that I can appreciate though, and the last boss in particular was fun as hell.

I don't really know how I feel about this expansion being ostensibly the last bit of Dark Souls there will ever be, story-wise. Environmentally I think it's a perfect ending for the series, but I think there needs to be one other cutscene or something with the painter to tie things together a little bit more cohesively (even for Souls storytelling standards). Also, maybe I'm just missing something, but I feel like there are so many different statues and snake-related things in this DLC (and the rest of DS3, too) that Frampt or Kaathe had to make an appearance, and I was kind of bummed out when they didn't. Those guys are just too weird and big to not show up again in the series.

It's kind of weird that I really enjoyed all of these games (well maybe not so much Dark Souls 1) and by the end of them I'm always ready for more. Then when the DLC rolls around I never play them. I tried the Bloodborne DLC because I really liked that entry in the Souls series the most but sadly the scaling kind of fucks you over and I didn't feel like going through 3/4 of the game and leveling a brand new character again because it would be like the 5th time for me.

This sort of stuff just kind of reinforces this notion for me that I'd prefer Day 1 DLC to like Day 50 DLC. Like maybe developers could start working on something during cert? I know it's a hard nut to crack but from experience I know that if more than a few weeks pass from the time I finish a game it instantly lowers any chances for me trying out the post-game DLC by like 200%.

Glad to hear this is good. I want to buy this but there's so much stuff coming out. Probably gonna pick this up in the summer sale.

Also just wanted to pop in and say that this might be my favorite thread title I've ever seen.

Just skipped through LobosJr's playthrough to get eyes on the bosses. Again, it's looking like a self-contained thing but it looks like they've learned their lesson by giving us more stuff to fight. I still don't know if I want to bother.

@rickrockmann: Oh man those bastards from a distance are bastards. They really make you have to be aware of your environment even more so this time than anywhere I can think of in the base game. I was so happy when I found the thing I need to kill in the poison swamp to kill one of the angels.

@humanity:I can see where you are coming from. For DS1 it worked for me because I got the game several years after its release and so the DLC was already included so I could do it on the first playthrough. Now I have a group of buddies and we play through together on new characters to get through the game, which is kind of nice in its own ways because Souls socially means we can all share in the misery :p.

I'm still working my way through it, but here's my impressions:

EXCELLENT first boss! I groaned when I dropped down and there were two of them, but the were unexpectedly easy, and then when I think that's all there is, the fight continues, and the fight with the Demon Prince is absolutely fantastic. Felt challenging, but not too hard.

Great unexpected Dark Souls 2 callback. Earthen Peak was a garbage area, so it felt kind of great to see it all destroyed. The Angel enemies are very scary, but very easy to deal with once you know how it's supposed to be done. Very satisfying to kill them too.

The Ringed City itself is really hard. I'm not in any NG, and I am level 118, and some of the encounters here are kicking my ass. There are a LOT of places too when it throws more than one 'hard' enemy at you, which honestly feels really cheap. I had to pretty much resort to cheap tactics to deal with them, just backing up, doing a jump attack, and then rinse and repeat. Honestly, after I died for the fifth time, I started to skip everything and rush to the bonfire. Also, speaking strong enemies, the red phantoms are also hard hitting damage sponges and are no fun whatsoever to fight.

Midir would probably be an excellent boss, like Sinh, if the camera wasn't absolutely garbage during the encounter. Only lock on if you want to die. The problem is that he's too damn big, like seriously, he's cool, he's impressive, but fighting him in a massive pain. Since he is so big, he doesn't fit on my screen, so a lot of the times I can't see the tells for his attacks and dodge appropriately. Furthermore, I'm playing on my melee only character, and the damn dragon moves around so much that I can't land many hits on him, it just kind of drives me nuts fighting him.

The PvP boss is garbage. The worst boss in Dark Souls 3. There weren't any of these in any game since Demons Souls, and it was for a damn good reason, because they SUCK. I tried 5 times to beat a random player before I just disconnected and beat it offline. In addition to increasing their stats, and giving them the flying orbs that fire at you constantly, they decided to change this from the Old Monk boss fight by giving them NPC phantoms to assist during the fight as well. Offline the boss is a joke, but online it's nigh impossible. The only time I stood a chance was when the player stood by and allowed me to kill the NPCs without interfering, but even then he got this katana and then just mauled me to death. That being said, if you PvP a lot, then you'll absolutely freaking love this boss. If you're like me and play Dark Souls not for everything else, then don't waste your time and go offline to rush pass it.

So, uhm. Have I messed something up? I bought a season pass way back when, but none of the areas where I can access it(Kiln of the first flame, Sister Friede's place) actually have the bonfire I need. Do I have to wait some more hours because I'm in Europe or something? I looked in the purchase add-ons menu to see if I had to download something, but the item for Ringed City isn't even there yet.

Edit: Never miiind, I'm just an idiot. It was down in the "New on PS4" thing on my home page.

I just got passed the first boss and I'm really liking it. So far, it's answering a lot of questions I had about the story or at least I'm able to make some connections in my head that don't just sound like useless conjecture. I like the new mechanics and "instant death" areas because it feels like a neat puzzle to solve rather than "Here are a ton of enemies/a few strong enemies, have fun getting through this area." The new weapons I've found so far seem really interesting.

Too bad I can't use them right now. I'm currently using a glass cannon mage build that was the only character I had in NG. The first boss is really rough on that. I tried to not use summons and was able to kill the first form pretty easily with Estus to spare, but I was NOT prepared for the second phase, especially since it seemed to have high magic resistance. So far past the second area I've been fine, but I really have to rely on Hidden Body and the silent cat feet ring.

I think after I finish it, I'll respec into something more melee focused and help others out in problem areas, but I kinda want to make sure I can finish the story of my mage first.

Currently trying to kill the desert sorceress in the Earthen Peak Ruins, and boy is that a bad time. The woman kills me in like one combo. I tried going from the Dancer set to the Catarina set for defense and the difference is just minimal.

It's been ineresting, the little I've played of it, but honestly it's a bit of a bummer to go back to Dark Souls 3 after playing through Bloodborne these last couple of weeks. I feel like if I had my blades of mercy I could just dash around and defeat that Sorceress easily. I just feel slow.

@redhotchilimist: Oh man, I think I missed out on fighting her. I rolled away as her minions ran up to fight me and lost sight of her. A few minutes later I got a bunch of souls from something dying and later found her gear in the place where she'd spawn. She must've fallen off the edge of where I was fighting her straight into the poison swamp and slowly died.

@burncoat: She's immune to the poison, I think. I knocked her down into the swamp several times and she was just fine. Maybe she fell out of the world or one of the angels sniped her. Still, that's a nice way of doing it. I managed to beat her in the end, thanks to Power Within.

I've made it to the first boss now, and I'm not really feeling it. More of those gray demons, really? Between that and the Dark Souls 2 stuff this isn't my thing so far.

I appreciate that they made the desert sorceress set super easy to get, anyway. I remember getting like a +5 bonfire in Earthen peak farming for it.

Beat the final boss Slave Knight Gael and that was one hell of a fight. Took me try after try to final getting that bastard down. Music was fantastic, especially during the final phase of the fight. Jolly cooperation is fun helping out others because that boss is still one hell of a tough fight to me.

Now going for the optional boss Darkeater Midir.....what a god damn bastard that hellhole is :(

Is it just me or is the new area badly optimized getting a low frame rate compared to other zones and those summoning enemies are a pain to deal with. I alt F4'd at least once so i guess it's a good DLC ?

@soulcake: I haven't had any issues, but I have seen complaints about low FPS for people, which sucks. Not sure what would be causing it.

@soulcake: I've actually had some massive dips in framerate in some areas I never had before, so I wonder if there was something that went wrong with the last patch?

First area kind of sucks in general, though it is relatively short. First boss is solid but not very well tuned for NG+3 (shockingly enough), but the co-op NPC is ridiculous so that kind of solves the issue. Second area is good, not amazing or anything; Dragon mechanic is weird since you may or may not have enough strength to use the shield. Have to go watch E-League/eat lunch, will report again in a few days.

Much like the rest of Dark Souls 3 it seems like they just went down a checklist here, Gargoyle Boss? Check. Old Monk? Check. Dragon on a bridge? Check. Dragon boss in DLC? Check. Pretty lady? Check.

Friede is definitely still the best boss in the game and every good boss in this game would be much better if you could fight it in Bloodborne.

I've played through up until what I believe are the final bosses now and then went back with the wiki at my side to get all the stuff I missed along the way. I think it's an interesting DLC. The Ringed City itself is beautiful. It seems like it's based on some kinda old East Asian architecture, and it's even got lots of grass and flowers growing over the ruins. Some of the enemies are just great. I think HARALD knights(Harald is like, a name that's common for older Norwegian men, so it's a super silly name to me) are fun, with an interesting weakness to dropping attacks and powerful attacks that are incredibly easy to avoid. The locust men are eerie, but kinda cute, especially the tiny ones. I like how they're all supposed to seduce men to the abyss but only a few of them have the self-control to not just attack and eat you on sight. The monks who's turtle shell has evolved into an actual turtle shell are so weird and wonderful, it's like something straight out of Uzumaki. The NPC invasions are a bitch, I guess I've got to do Alva and the black knight with the big hammer before I beat the bosses, but I don't really want to. Playing this game after Bloodborne was a mistake. It's basically the same, with armor that hardly helps and enemies that rampage, but without abilities like the dashing and HP regain. And the enemy placements are just fucked up. There are spots here where someone just posted as many enemies as they could, who can kill you in two or three hits and are very combo happy. Some of the environment design here is cool, and there are several optional pathways I missed, but it still feels more Dark Souls 2 than anything as concentrated as Yharnam. There are parts of the Ariandel DLC where you're hounded(sometimes literally) by enemies, and my only solution was silencing my character's footsteps with and casting Hidden Body. I did that all the time here, and even then half the enemies cheat and know where you are anyway. Those angels, the dragon, and the giants who summon spirits to fight for them? They all know where I am immediately. So that's no fun. On a positive note, I've been using new weapons like the blue magic dagger/straightsword and the sword made of pure fire that you can make from Demon Prince's soul. They are kinda fun. But again, after the trick weapons of Bloodborne, it feels lacking. Man, I just gotta go get Nioh or something, that game seems to have dashes for days.

Lapp's sidequest is pretty fun. That's one that feels like a proper farewell. He even namedrops dark souls in his final line. Overall, the lore here is not that exciting to me. Like hey, it's a demon prince that's mentioned in Lorian's description, whoop-de-doo. He wasn't exactly a long-standing mystery of the series for me. I appreciate that they spell out that yeah, all those pilgrims actually do grow into trees, and become/control the butterflies. But I already knew that, or thought I did anyway. I got super excited when I got the banner after the demon prince fight and went down into what seemed like the original Firelink Shrine place, and the flying reveal with those winged demons is very impressive and beautiful. But the lore on the banner, that talked about Gwyn honoring the pygmies with a nation... I thought the pygmy was just Manus. And Gwyn's youngest daughter here has never been brought up before. I guess it's fine as retcons, but the point is I never wondered about any of this. I'm interested in Londor, the angelic order, the Serpents, the nature of the curse, the future of this world/ways to disrupt this endless bothersome cycle, the fate of characters like Ocelotte, Oceiros' wife and Gwynevere and the mysteries of the Deep(which turns out was just that church's cool word for the Abyss?). Maybe there will be some cool reveals once I beat the bosses, but so far I'm disappointed.

To try and sum up my feelings so far, I don't have a bad time while playing it. They do some crazy new stuff like the super long falls that freak me the hell out, and the environments are pretty cool(Though the abyssal swamp and ashen wastes feel like overkill in a game that's already so pale and bleak). The chase areas with the summoning giants/angels give those aread a pretty unique pace, and it's delicious to finally kill the fuckers(The giants should also stay dead). But it feels too familiar and talks too little about things I want to know to be interesting, and the number of enemies you're expected to fight is still nuts. I'm not sure if I actually enjoy the combat, because rather than feeling capable enough to take on the hordes, I end up just avoiding as many as possible. Maybe I just leveled bad, but my character can't take punches from any of these guys for shit, and I don't feel the dodges are good enough to deal with the onslaught.

Finally, I thought it was kinda funny when I picked up that new pirate-like shirt with all the cleavage. I feel like Dark Souls has one designer, just one, who has any interest at all in any sexy content. I have no idea what the actual situation is, but in my mind he was the dude who designed Gwynevere, got to make the pyromancers in DS2 sexy ladies instead of smelly outcasts, and now finally got to bring them back in Dark Souls 3 and sneak in a shirt with no buttons. I'm happy for him, the end of the world gets a lot lighter when you get to play as a sexy sorceress or a pirate. I wish there was a better pirate hat in here somewhere, I only found hand wraps and the shirt.

Got to the last boss last night but haven't beat him yet. I'm glad that the last boss is a dual type boss, they tend to be my favorites in the series. Also his move set is kind of reminiscent of a boss from DS 1 that I very much enjoyed. Some of the lore stuff has been pretty cool. I don't see myself fighting the abyss dragon though, I hit him once and did negligible damage so that fight would probably take like 15-20 minutes and he can one shot me. The environment itself is amazing I love the idea of the world collapsing in on itself. I was hesitant to buy the dlc but ate both of em up in a couple days so I think they're worth it.

Gael seems decent enough, would be fun on NG; way too much health on NG+3. First phase is pretty RNG heavy whether he decides to do punishable attacks or not but after that fight is fine/relatively fun. Not super scary or anything and not particularly cool like Friede, Demon Prince, and Nameless King.

I beat Midir last night after probably a couple hours of wrestling with him, that was very satisfying. I think Slave Knight Gael is probably one of my favorite Souls boss fights since Gehrman in Bloodborne. Visually the DLC is amazing, the Dreg Heap is a cool area expanding on some of the visuals of the final area of DS3 and the Ringed City itself is surprisingly unique in terms of architecture, which I guess makes sense. The angels and the big yelling monk guys add some interesting environmental traversal puzzle stuff and as frustrating as they could be I appreciate the addition of that variety. Lots of fun and tough new enemies to fight too, which is always fun.

I have a vague understanding of the lore of these games, and was able to appreciate that the DLC continues the theme of DS3 in re-introducing familiar areas and characters from the series. The conclusion of the quest with the NPC Lapp is especially satisfying for long-time Dark Souls fans.

Overall it was a tough-as-nails fight through some grand environments to see some new and familiar faces and I guess wrap up the story of Dark Souls forever. I'd agree with others in saying that it feels like the final conversation with the Painter should have had a cutscene with some more conclusive dialogue or something but the DLC was well worth it overall, definitely better than Ashes of Ariandel.

Also I got some dope new swords from some Boss souls.

Nioh put out some free stuff last week with patch 1.06, tried that out today; in that game when you press L1 the character actually blocks immediately and doesn't wait a half second for no reason; similarly when you dodge it happens immediately; that's probably why I'm not enjoying the Dark Souls 3 DLC; it was bookended by two vastly superior games on the control front in Bloodborne and Nioh.

As soon as I got that double greatsword weapon, I fully upgraded it and went to town on the last boss with it.....almost made it kind of a joke.

I'm level 150 though.

Ashes of Ariandel had more nooks and crannies to explore, so the expansive size of the Ringed City left me constantly wondering where I was 'supposed' to go at first. It wasn't until I slowed down that I began to enjoy the Ringed City. There is a specific chain of NPC interactions that give more or less story to the DLC and it certainly made me want to replay it on my second character to see the buttload of olde timey lore I missed. Granted, I'm level 285 on NG+7. The bosses are more clever and varied, and well... cheap... So, I really needed help with each boss and haven't beaten the optional one yet. Help me! The new weapons are great, there are enough to keep PvP interesting for a couple of months. It won't be able to reach Dark Souls 2 levels of crazy but PvP continues to be one of the most fun aspects of the series be it the arena, co-op or invasions.

It is kind of sad knowing that once I beat a boss, try out a covenant and a couple weapons I'll be done with this game after 300+ hours across 9 playthroughs.

The worst part is I've nearly platinumed Nioh in between DLCs. Need more Soulslike...

Darkeater Midir (optional boss) was an absolute pain in the ass to beat. Took me and two summons to take him down as we couldn't get anywhere close to his fucking head where he did the most damage. Seriously the pain in the ass just moves all over the god damn place and his health pool was huge. Beat him and then did a magic build to help a friend out using pestilent to take out huge chunks of his health. Thankfully the music was absolutely stellar.

In addition I do love the reward for beating the optional boss. The Spears of the Church makes up for having to deal with the boss. Getting the ability to be summoned as the boss in the church is so satisfying and let's me use my dual greatswords to tear up some poor saps.

Gael is probably my favorite boss in Dark Souls 3. I'm very thankful that rather than giving him three separate phases with their own health bars, they just went ahead and consolidated it all into one giant health bar. It's a weird boss where I thought the first phase was WAY harder than the second phase, but after playing it a few times, I got the timings on the first phase down to a science, plus it's more forgiving since he only does physical damage with no elemental stuff. Still, just an amazing fight all around. I loved the music, I liked how the environment really made you feel like this really is the end of the world, and I especially love the introduction to the boss arena.

Overall, the DLC is significantly better than the last one, and I think it's a great send off to a great series. I wish it answered a lot of the lingering questions from the base game, but I suppose this is good enough. Dark Souls has never really been very direct with its story telling anyway.

I just really hope that if From continues with games like these, their next series is not quite so bleak. I just feel sad when I go through the world of Dark Souls 3, you can tell the world is dying, and it especially hits home if you choose the link the fire ending, where there's only a tiny little flame, and you sort of just realize that you're only very briefly delaying the inevitable. This last DLC really, really makes the case though that this world is pretty much fucked no matter what is done. I can definitely see the appeal in Gael's desire to create a new world.

I beat Gael yesterday. He was a fun boss, I think the animation done on his first form especially just looks great, but also his cape that's filled with screaming faces. I love how massive the arena was, too.

Lorewise, I'm left kinda cold. Wasn't Manus the Pygmy after all, From Soft? I don't get why we're suddenly retconning it into being a whole nation, and I have no idea what Filianore and her weird egg has got to do with anything. I guess we'll see if VAATI can smooth it out for me. But personally, I'm so ready for them to do something new. I think they shine the first time out with a game. Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, even Dark Souls to a certain extent. Dark Souls 2 and 3 just doesn't give me the same thing, and Dark Souls 3 in particular feels underwhelming and dull to play now that I've played through Bloodborne.

Overall I think the DLC had way too much "environmental hazards" that weren't fun at all, like those Giants that summon archers and the return of dragon bridge. The dragon at least makes for some fun PVP areas. I invaded a guy, waited where you can beat on the dragon, they used a Seed and then we fought the dragon together. I landed the final blow and ran off the cliff after him.

I spent like 4 hours straight bashing my head against Gael before I remembered that this game has shields. Beat him handily on my first attempt after that. It was a pretty cool boss, but I didn't get the first DLC pack so I had no idea who he was, and obviously I don't get whatever lore you get for bringing the blood back to someone in the other DLC pack.

Also, that Lapp quest was really weird. The final scene with him felt like the true ending of Dark Souls.

Without spoiling anything, the last story boss is absolutely terrific. One of my favorite fights in the series, right up there with Artorias and the Fume Knight. The optional side boss can fuck right off. Very little about that fight feels at all fair.

I really need to get back to both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. I really hope that there is a span of 3-4 months where nothing happens.

I wish I could jump back into DS3, but I'm still trying to work my way back up to where I can play that bloodborne dlc. I hit new game plus like an idiot after I beat it and have regretted it ever since. Taught me a lesson at least; wait till the dlc comes out before starting a ng+. Anyway, from what I've seen this stuff looks great and I can't wait to get to it at some point in the (hopefully) near future. There's just so many games out right now it's hard to find the time.

Edit: And just like that, I incepted the desire in my mind to go back and play it. Finished the game and dlc a few days ago. Had a blast with the rest of it, but now I'm sad it's over. Can't wait to see what From does next.

While I like all of the DLC's bosses I think looking back now (doing a lot of coop) Demon Prince was my favourite of the bunch. While he's just as spongy as the rest of them, he encourages you to fight him aggressively. Gael and Midir are cool, but they're really just elaborate iterations of the old "dodge and punish"; Demon Prince, on the other hand, has traces of Bloodborne in him.

@redhotchilimist:They didn't retcon the pygmy. He had the Dark Soul, dispersed pieces of it to others like Gwyn did with his soul. We already knew previously that their were other humans besides the pygmy, the pygmy was just the first to have a Dark Soul.

@fredchuckdave: The first area is awesome. It's a big mess of architecture with some pretty terrifying encounters, as well as some awesome cameos. I don't know what "dragon mechanic" you're talking about since there's no point where you need a shield. You also seem to have missed that the whole concept of this DLC is that you are literally going through the history of Dark Souls, so you'd expect to run into familiar faces, enemies, and concepts. Demons are different than Gargoyles, and it's not like the "old monk" mechanic is repeated in every Souls game. It was in Demon's and a version of it was in DS2. Also, "pretty lady" is a very generic thing common to many games.

I was really hoping for some story closure. As far as I can figure out I didn't get that. Also having those serpent statues was an almost insulting tease. I liked this dlc, but I think comparisons that I've seen to Artorias of the Abyss and The Old Hunters dlcs are a bit much; it wasn't that good. I really get into the stories of these games, so I'm honestly left really bummed out thinking this is truly how they're going to leave this series.

Although, one could say they never wanted us to figure anything more out, what with lines akin to "the foolish man wanted to understand the Dark Soul, but the world was created without knowledge and that is how it will end."

I did love the nod to an infamous DS character. He straight up says "goodbye, enjoy your Dark Souls."