Just to be clear though, I'm not playing with other players (so no PvP for example), just by myself.

I tried to play this game legit, and got a fair distance into the game (beat three lords of cinder, and then had to beat the dancer boss to continue to the next portion). I'd already started thinking about cheating when defeating Aldrich just felt so tedious, and I began to realize that the novelty of beating everything with 'le skillz' was no longer doing anything for me.

It's not fun having to repeat a boss fight over and over and over again; also I got sick and tired of my character looking exactly the same the entire way because it's the best armor I have, and what's the point of collecting all these armors and weapons if I can have just one build and have to choose my armor and weapon accordingly? I've now given myself a gigantic boost in each of my stats and infinite health; I can wear whatever armor I want and experiment with every weapon to see which one is fun; also now I can use sorceries/pyromancy/miracles any time I want and just enjoy the game.

The novelty of beating bosses fair and square wore off several bosses ago, and I got bored of cycling through the same 2 weapons over and over again (both strength based, one fast and one powerful). I just want to enjoy myself for God's sake.

I can't believe I've spent hours and hours just repeatedly trying to beat the same bosses over and over again, or dying to some really annoying mobs like the Pontiff knights.

I just tested out some pyromancies this late into the game and you know what? They look cool; I withheld this from myself because my character was built for strength and pyromancies weren't part of the build.

This 'difficult for the sake of difficulty' thing really doesn't do anything for me. The very first boss I fought I actually enjoyed that I beat him fair and square, but then with every boss fight after the fun got less and less and the tedium set in. I play games for fun, not to be annoyed.