Hercules, Nemesis and assissted fights

[Noahrtist]

Alright,

so I got about 90h in Hades2 by now (and about 300 in Hades) and I thought maybe it's just a matter of getting used to the new assisted fights, but they still feel mostly bad.
In Hades, when Thanatos came, it was a fun speed challenge to try and beat him (or let him completely take over if you were very low on health).

In Hades 2 we have now various people to come and compete or assist us and they all have big issues.
I would say, game play wise, Hercules feels the worst. The whole screen shakes, my controler shakes, the is a millian effects going on that are hard to read, he knocks enemies into me and more often than not I loose at least 1 whole health bar/Life when he is present.
On top of all that he also basically steals my money.
So I'm usually leaving his encoutners extremly discruntled because he cost me 1 to 2 lives, money and his chambers almost never have extra doors. There isn't even anything else I might get from him by beating him. it's just overall a feels bad encounter.

Onwards to Nemesis:
I very much prefer her little bargains over her actually fighting alongside me.
Unlike Thanatos, it feels like her Ai is very much programmed to target the enemy I am attacking already and she is basically a massive kill stealer (and since she one shots everything like hercules, there's nothing I can do. Thanatos had a 'heads up' mechanic with his big circles and the gong noise).
so yet again I have smn who is more hinderous than helpful and AGAIN steals my money.
another feels bad encounter.

Now lets come to the ones who actually wanna help you: Artemis and Icarus.
Artemis' help felt much better over time and less cluttered, but Icarus on those tiny ships that are already full of fire and flames and explosions is such a visual overload, it's not great. I got more used to it by now, but as I said, I am 90h into this game. No helpful encounter should take hours and hours to be actual helpful n not kill you by information overload and not being able to read what's going on.

I really hope especially Hercules and Nemesis get a look over and some sort of improvement, to make these fights feel less bad (or literally kill you in hercules case), and also maybe try to make the icarus help visually more clear and less cluttered on those already overly filled boats.


Keep up all the good work!
The first patch was alread a great quality of life improvement :)

[Silyon]

I too am not a fan of Herc, but in my case it stems from the fact that his wide swings knock you back and stun you. Even if he doesn't do direct damage, there's enough flaming puddles and bullets flying around Ephyra that being knocked around like that can be extremely dangerous. Given the rewards for his encounter are roughly equivalent to two golden pots at best, I just don't even bother competing half the time and take his advice in staying well out of the way.

Nem is a build check that I feel tends to come way too early in the run to be a fair check. It's fully possible you simply haven't gotten a boon to build around before running into her and needing to out-pace her damage. For instance, Selune showing up as your starting boon and then RNG deciding tonight will be a night to farm Bones and Psych instead of getting anything actually useful. Happened to me three times in my 40-ish runs, so not even terribly uncommon unless I'm particularly unlucky.

Sometimes you just lose. Shrug and move on, it's just money. Only one that cares about it is Charon.

[paincanbefun]

yeah, I liked seeing Thanatos and I hate seeing either Nemesis or Hercules

Nemesis bothers me because her resentment and doubt of Melinoe make sense but only until Melinoe develops the relationship and succeeds at killing Chronos, at which point, Nem should do a 180 and treat her with respect. Nemesis is not selfish, she's just super task-oriented and black and white, but once Melinoe develops and Nemesis doesn't, she just seems like a bully

Hercules actually does change and respect you, so I kind of like him now. I guess I care more about the relationships than the game play

In terms of gameplay, both of them are absolute ass most of the time. you can beat Nem to the door, but you may not be able to rush an entire shop if you need to pick your boons. it really bothers me to expect a boost from the shop in Ephyra only to run into his dumb ass

[Nokturnal]

With Nem, I just killsteal her instead which leads to a more passive/boring playstyle. (Wait for her to attack, steal her kill or just avoid attacking whatever she's near entirely)

Her DPS challenge is just dumb as it can happen before your build has developed or you're using a weapon with terrible starting DPS. (Torches and Skull) On top of it completely making AoE DPS builds worse to overcome the challenge than single target focused ones.

Her stealing a Door/Charon Item from you just adds to her being a complete nuisance.

With Herc they definitely need to tone down the screen shake and knockbacks. It just feels like a clusterfu-

Also If you haven't noticed, overall the battle maps are also a lot smaller than they were in Hades 1, which I find a bad/lazy way to try to create challenge and having Herc shaking the screen and pushing enemies around constantly especially in a small map is really annoying.

Artemis, while yea it's nice to not really have to compete with her as she's just helpful in contrast to Nem and Herc, but that also feels worse than it did with Than. Than helped you, but there was still a spirit of competition, with Art, there really is no competition, she's just helping you which feels like it's the devs just throwing the player a bone to compensate for Herc and Nem being obnoxious.

[jimmyliou1990]

I dislike Hercules a lot more than Nemesis. Nemesis is a lot easier to outcompete, and at high fear I let her do all the work (especially in mourning field) with a cost of $100 so I don't take damage LOL. But Hercules? You can earn a few dozens of coin at the cost of more tougher surface enemies spawning in a usually small arena when your build isn't complete. It's just not worth it.

[Mister Marcus]

I literally paused my game after another RNG failed Nemesis fight in order to write about this - and see there is a topic.

I have like 800+ hours in Hades I (Steam + Switch combined) and Thanatos fights were always a fun speedrun. I even managed to sometimes get 100% of the kills.

Nemesis on the other hand is utterly impossible - unless I use the Axe with Aphrodite Attack boon. All the other weapons so far just have no damage... Her AI is just super-aggressive and she deals like 500 damage a pop...
With the Axe, I can kinda match that, but every other weapon, even with boons is like small ticks of 40 now and then... Charged attacks require too much time to outpace her.

It's not even a build check... she outright steals 100 coins from me - especially in stage 3.
It's frustrating - and feels like a complete oversight. Makes me want to call the Devs mean words...
---------
It honestly just feels like the weapons are just absurdly overnerfed, that's all.
I manage to keep up with the Axe + Aphrodite Boon, but any other weapon and literally any other boon combo is just 100% instant loss, no matter what I do if I meet her on Stage 3.

This will probably be alleviated if they overhaul the weapons.
The Axe so far is the only correctly balanced weapon (attacks and charges deal correct damage for how long they take - and you need to plan your build, but you can get strong enough to fight). Everything else is just extremely weak...

And I am stating so - because once I learned the enemy patterns, the fights are easy already just take incredbly long with any weapon but the Axe.
And with the Axe - the fights are already long... but with other weapons it's just absurd.

This might be the contributing factor to the Nemesis fight - she's probably technically correct, but every weapon except the Axe is just mathematically too weak to compete.

[Knavenformed]

Didn't know Heracles and Hercules were the same character, cool

[tom tomorrow]

Originally posted by Knavenformed:

Didn't know Heracles and Hercules were the same character, cool

Kind of. Heracles to the Greeks. Hercules to the Romans.

[Knavenformed]

Originally posted by mf tom:

Originally posted by Knavenformed:

Didn't know Heracles and Hercules were the same character, cool

Kind of. Heracles to the Greeks. Hercules to the Romans.

Yeah I found it weird how 5 people here called him Hercules, but as it's pretty much interchangeable for a modern audience it is what it is
Could be minor dyslexia too who knows

[Nokturnal]

Originally posted by Knavenformed:

Originally posted by mf tom:

Kind of. Heracles to the Greeks. Hercules to the Romans.

Yeah I found it weird how 5 people here called him Hercules, but as it's pretty much interchangeable for a modern audience it is what it is
Could be minor dyslexia too who knows

People also call Selune, Selene, is that like a localization issue?

*Edit* Oh even I'm getting that one mixed up. It actually is supposed to be Selene, Selune is the D&D Goddess of the Moon, thought "Lune" would be the appropriate one since "Luna" meaning "Moon" and all.

[Neo NiGHTS ®]

There's been few topics on Nemesis and Heracles already, so I won't dwell on HOW MUCH I HATE THEM 🤣

I'll comment on a couple of other things:

1 - In first Hades you just had Thanatos to dispute/help you.
Now you have FOUR interactions. It's just too much interrupting!;

2 - Even Arthemis and Icarus don't make me thrilled either. Even though they are helping me, their runs take longer to beat and you are open to take more damage (and die) than your average run.
Not to mention that that breaks completely the game's rhythm.

Icarus is even worse, at least the first couple of times you meet him, because you are not sure whether his bombs hurt you or not (they don't), so you may very well die trying to avoid them and getting hurt by enemies and/or stage hazards.

Of course it has no sense removing them (all four) at this stage of development, but I will always have the feeling that the devs dropped the ball with these ones.

[Knavenformed]

Originally posted by Neo NiGHTS ®:

2 - Even Arthemis and Deadalus

Deadalus is even worse, at least the first couple of times you meet him, because you are not sure whether his bombs hurt you or not (they don't)

Do you mean Icarus by any chance?

[Neo NiGHTS ®]

Originally posted by Knavenformed:

Originally posted by Neo NiGHTS ®:

2 - Even Arthemis and Deadalus

Deadalus is even worse, at least the first couple of times you meet him, because you are not sure whether his bombs hurt you or not (they don't)

Do you mean Icarus by any chance?

YES!!!

Mistook the son and the father LOL

I'll edit my message.

[Knavenformed]

This thread is all kinds of whack

[Monika]

I actually really like all encounters lol

I'm 60h in and pretty much did everything the game had for me, including the 32 fear runs.

I think the tiny space with a lot of ♥♥♥♥ going on is 90% of the difficulty in ship battles, and I like them better for it. Icaros bombs are awesome! Along with other unique ship mechanics, they make me pay more attention to where I'm positioning the enemies. They also pretty much instakill everything. I can't see how that could ever be a bad thing lol

Herc is a real freaking ahole in his dialogue, so the fact that he can actually "hurt" me in his encounter is also something I see as positive. As with Ic, the point here is that I actually have to pay attention to my positioning.

[Creepy Havel]

With regards to the 4 interactions heres my take now working on Fear 8+

Nemesis: I like the trade offers (HP or Hold or Boon for items ect) it's a good mix-up shop style thing. She's obviously filling the Thanatos role from Hades 1 except she's terrible at it.
- Beat Me Up: I often get this in Erebus when it's completely impossible to do that much damage early on without luck on the daggers or axe. This event should be hard-scripted to not be available in Erebus, reroll the encounter value if it gets selected when she triggers.
Kill More than I Do: Her AI is scripted to attack whatever you are attacking. She's scripted to kill steal making it less a competition and more about 'outsmarting' her which means just waiting for her to strike first often leading to boring gameplay. Thanatos had interactability with his mark / gong. As it stands, I audibly sigh or 'ugh' when Nem shows up.

Heracles: Similar vein as Nem except he's more just 'do a room with more visual noise and gain money' I would prefer him to give us maybe something for coming out on top maybe an HP Recovery or Centaur Heart to accommodate for often causing us to take more damage. His rooms should have more side-rooms or rewards to them for coming out on top, maybe lock them up if you don't. As he is, he's very passive and just noisy.

Artemis/Icarus: I'm lumping them together because they serve the same function as an event-based boon. I like both of them but I wish they would start at the START of the encounter/room because they currently use up more time that wouldn't normally be used making the Time Limit requirement of the Vows less appealing as a challenge. Artemis NEEDs a way to upgrade her Boons or influence them. I'm thinking the re-rolls might be needed because so many of her boons are weak sauce. Extra crit for the 1st 20% of HP/Armor is just barely applicable. Most of her effects outside of Supporting Fire and Pressure Points feel too situational and have zero intractability with other Boons.

TLDR:
- Nem/Herc need better rewards or retuning of their AI's to not target what the player is targeting. Nobody likes a kill stealer.
- Artemis/Icarus need to begin when the encounter starts, not at the end, not halfway through, at the start. Their rewards need scaling/interactability. I feel Icarus has a huge leg up on Artemis for rewards.