From Software Dark Souls 3

[Russia is over. The end.]

VaatiVidya looks as good as he sounds, surprisingly.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Mastering (or getting close to mastering) Fume Knight rendered at least the first part of the fight against him rather boring actually whereas Artorias is always an intense fight. The second half of the Fume Knight stays somewhat intense but it has a much slower pace than Artorias.

From personal experience, Fume Knight's unpredictability, even in his first phase, makes him a lot more difficult to "solve" than Artorias, who doesn't have much in the way of surprises to a veteran player. The one-armed knight is still fun for a lot of "squishy" reasons that don't stand up under harsh, mechanistic scrutiny, but I can't agree with the idea that he's more intense. Anecdotal experience co-oping Fume Knight/Artorias and the compiled online stats (that give Fume over a 90% win rate) would tend to agree with me.

The ability to mix up moves and combos really works like a charm.

I'd say Sir Alonne is possibly the closest boss to actually needing fast reaction time and the fight is intense but the guy does not have a moveset as deep as Artorias.

Much of Artorias' moveset is redundant, though, with multiple move animations all serving the same general role. For instance:

-Lunging stab
-Lunging slash
-Jumping downward stab

...are all basically melee techniques that are used from a distance and are all solved in the same manner; blocking with sufficient stamina/stability or a lateral dodge.

-Normal slash (maybe can combo?)
-Overhead slam
-Sludge throw
-Whirl, backdash whirl, jumping backdash whirl (though maybe the latter two do not count as their own moves)

And these are all close-range attacks negotiated in a similar manner.

-Flip 'n slam (1x-3x)

And here's something that will surprise a player once or twice, but then they'll always account for it.

And he also has the power-up though I wouldn't count it since nothing reallly changes aside from more damage.

To be fair to Artorias, the "Devil Trigger" effect is accompanied by increased poise and an initializing explosion that deals heavy damage to player characters caught in the blast.

No matter what Sir Alonne seems to have a far more simple moveset though getting the timing properly may just be more difficult.

It doesn't really look like that when you break it down by move function rather than raw animations, which is the real trick.

Artorias
-Close Range Attacks
-Long Rang Melee Traversal Techs
-"Surprise" Combo
-Power Up (plus explosion)

Alonne
-Close Range Attacks
-Long Range Melee Traversal Tech
-Projectile
-Grab (plus Power Up)
-"Surprise" Parry Stance

They're pretty much about the same in terms of moveset depth when defined in terms of function rather than animation. And Alonne goes completely over Artorias with the ability to do less predictable attack sequences, throwing in a close-range or long-range attack right out of another animation or after a slight delay/pause.

I know, I know, some hardcore spergery, but that's what the site is all about, right?

Why do you think Manus is trash?

In short, he's simply not fun or interesting. He seems like a boss designed entirely around being difficult in the cheapest way possible.

His first phase, from 100% to ~50% health is pathetic. His swipes are not hard to dodge, aside from the hand slam that will only fool players once. Similarly, his auto-combo will rarely catch someone a second time, but will serve to be a massive time-waste to folks playing melee characters. But, on the other hand, those frames are "free" damage to ranged builds, all the while the goofy monkeyman flails about helplessly, eating Soul Spears or Dark Beads. This phase is a gigantic waste of player time.

Once he hits <50% health and decides to get "serious", things become worse. He starts deploying his Dark Magic attacks, which are incredibly blunt instruments of difficulty increase. They do enormous amounts of damage (often one-shotting characters that aren't heavily armored or VIT-gouging) and aren't intuitively dodged. Most players aren't going to instinctively roll through the Dark Magic, nor metagame like crazy and have a Artorias/Cleansing Greatshield ready to block. But once you know how to negotiate these attacks, they become relative non-issues, save for any sort of shenanigans from framerate drops (on consoles) or lag when co-oping. You're only going to be "fooled" a limited amount of times before they become non-issues. Manus killed me four times in my first run and a couple of times when Sunbroing due to lag. I've never lost to him since.

As an aside, The Silver Pendant is a poorly implemented gimmick. Using it to negate Dark Magic is, in many ways, much more difficult than simply rolling/blocking. Not to mention, it's a trap option against Manus' "rain" magic, and will most often result in the player taking a hit. Unless one was hellbent for mid/fat-roll (with no sufficient shielding), I can't see why anyone would use this PoS trinket. It offers little in the way of tactical advantages, be it positional of stamina-rooted (DkS1 stamina regen is too fast for the small amount one spends on a roll to matter), to offset the difficulty in learning to use it.

Basically, he's a boss for a prominent psychographic in the Souls playerbase: the Difficulty Junkie, players who rate bosses not by looking at clever design, novel concepts, fun gameplay, replayability, but by the number of retries it took to conquer for the first time.

He's definitely the most difficult boss in Dark Souls 1, and I'd argue, also the best.

Most difficult? Yeah, probably, but nowhere near the best. He's just a cheap piece of junk with nothing interesting going on besides "evade or die". Quelaag is a lot more interesting with the way she zones players with her Chaos Magic, but she's an early boss and thus 2EZ4ME and total shit to the majority of the Souls fanbase, only interested in punishment. Gwyn is an outstanding boss that mixes atmosphere with solid gameplay (unlike, say, Maiden Overrated), but tryhards can parry-cheese him so, welp, he's shit. Artorias is straight up fun, but again, 2EZ lolololol #giantdad #MLGPRO.

Sorry brother...just salty about the Souls fanbase, not so much anyone here.

Certainly better than anything in Dark Souls 2 DLCs 1 and 3.

Elena is a legitimately interesting boss due to her summon ability. Even if it can be extremely random (and unbalanced on higher Bonfire Intensity numbers), it often forces interesting scenarios. The player has to make a choice of what to do when Elena shows a summon of any sort. If it's Skeletons, then does the player prep an AoE spell (Firestorm, Soul Greatsword, Wrath) to kill them all or hit Elena for a ton of counter damage then hope to deal with the increased pressure? If Big V is coming to town, do you buff up and try to take him down quick, get in lots of counter hits on Elena, heal up, or try another line of play? And when summons are active, the player can run some hit&run game by playing smart and baiting out the right attacks to create openings, even when highly outnumbered. It's a nifty little bout.

Sinh is all about stamina and resource management. Players have to budget enough stamina to chase him down, attack, and be ready to run again. Attacking the right areas is key; Sinh often opens up certain parts of his body to attack (e.g. when he apes Kalameet and stands on his hind legs before unleashing a torrent of flame), but those parts take significantly less damage than other parts while causing much higher durability loss on weapons. His weak points are generally the most dangerous areas to strike, in range of many of his tricky attacks. Moreover, it's pretty cute that he "develops" certain attacks as his health goes down that directly punish attacking his weakpoints too carelessly. And his Toxic Bombs can clog up the arena and complicate running routes. Finally, he's reasonably robust against co-op. Where most bosses flounder against multiple players, Sinh stands some chance because of the way he's constantly mobile, negating a tank and spank sort of strategy, wherein one player distracts the boss while everyone else pummels on it with impunity (i.e. every co-op Kalameet tail cut ever).

Ivory King himself isn't spectacular, even if he does have some neat delayed timing shenanigans, but I really like what they did integrating the exploration of Eleum Loyce into the fight; find three knights and the "pre-fight" becomes far more manageable as does the fight against the Burnt Ivory King proper. And the "pre-fight" itself is kinda nifty too; killing the Charred Knights too quickly might actually result in the boss spawning before the desired amount of enemy-generating portals are closed. But if you're too passive, an allied Loyce Knight can, albeit very rarely, die before triggering the portal-sealing animation, forcing you to face the Ivory King with backup. It's kind of interesting, and that's before getting into the speedrun/challenge goofiness that Ivory King is great for (i.e. going in straight after killing Aava, no additional Loyce Knights recruited).

They all seem a lot more interesting to me than a paragon of kludgy difficulty that tests little but twitch reflexes and muscle memory in a (relatively) slow game. Manus just doesn't have much interesting going on, is conceptually boring, and Souls games just aren't fast enough to make up the difference; he's not going to be a Devil Hand Gene, Father Rodin, or any Giants of the Underworld mission, all of which are conceptually simple but benefit from the fast pace of the games they are in.

 

[toroid]

Edward R Murrow confirmed for biggest DS2 fanboy.

 

[Ivan]

replaying DaS2 and minor thing that annoys me is that you can't pick up multiple items like in DaS1, you have to pick them up individually -_-

 

[Makabb]

Borne Souls confirmed

Dark Souls 3's combat is faster and more fluid than is predecessors, changes that puts squarely in the context of a game released after developer From Software's not-quite-Souls-title Bloodborne

http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/20/9002955/dark-souls-3-bloodborne-combat-influences

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Some hype.

Edit: Forum post:

I don't like any of these cunts.

 

[Perkel]

DS is back. Looks like Miyazaki directing:

 

[skacky]

Definitely Miyazaki.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Holy shit @ 1:20

Spoiler

 

[paintinggrey]

The bosses look great and quite varied, so far so good. I am not too sure how i feel about the speed though.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

That armored skeleman with a mace moves almost exactly like camera beast paarl....

 

[Infinitron]

Hi-res official trailer:

 

[Machocruz]

Got DS1 feel from that I didn't get from the DkS2 previews. MuhSoggy indeed

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

He only uses shield once in the whole trailer. He switches between sword and bow VERY fast. It'll be almost like bloodborne.

 

[Morgoth]

High-bitrate trailer as download:
http://www.gamersyde.com/download_dark_souls_iii_gc_gameplay_reveal-35231_en.html

 

[Ivan]

The Cathedral and Clergy looks like Fool's Idol

the lady with lantern and branding iron (check out the little creepy crawly in the cell) looks so Latria

The Abyss Skull, I have no words
better audio:

 

[Jaedar]

Sorta looks like the knight creates a bonfire at one point.

Could be a cool mechanic.

 

[Talby]

Bring it the fuck on. Dark Souls II was a huge disappointment but Bloodborne is awesome.

 

[Elwro]

Maybe it's just the new way of lighting a potential bonfire?

 

[Ivan]

Maybe it's just the new way of lighting a potential bonfire?

my thought exactly. if the flame is dwindling, it would follow that you need a tool to make new ones (???)

 

[LizardWizard]

Dark Borne III: Will make you forget DS2 ever happened

 

[Talby]

IIRC it was confirmed a while back that one of the new mechanics is being able to create new bonfires, but it's still unclear how it will work exactly. I doubt you'll be able to just create them wherever you like.

 

[Ivan]

What's going on @ 1:22?

looks like BB's roar ability

it's not a parry since he doesn't move his sword. hm

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Looks like Force with a faster cast? Beast Roar is nearly the same thing anyway.

Fresh memes for everybody

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

He starts burning after using this ability at 1:22. It's something lore-related.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I AM SO FUCKING HYPE RIGHT NOW HOLY SHIT
might actually go to the game conference this year and check this shit for myself...

(like I did with DS2 and it was very different to the final product )