Hades - Extreme Measures 4

[Hoot]

What an absolutely terrible design decision for Hades "final boss" mode. Phase 3 of the fight is basically the designer going :-

"Oh you think you're tough? But what if...YOU CAN'T SEE! HAHA!"

Like, seriously. The final obstacle is that you just make the screen dark so I can't actually see what's coming? Just. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Wow.

I would have fired that guy on the spot if I was lead dev and he brought that to me. Absolutely ruins the game. I don't even wanna finish it anymore because of this ♥♥♥♥. It's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke.

[Kratos]

i hated the tanky mini bosses more as well, because like i mentioned, it makes a lot of builds less viable with how tanky they are and how many adds they can summon. I used to love the aspect of hestia for example, you try to use that in EM4, its a nightmare.

[Alzakiel]

Just for that guitar on phase 3 ... EM4 is 100% worth it , no matter the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they throw.

[Lorska]

I guess you jumped the gun there...
Your complaint being irrelevant doesn't make everything you said in relation to that irrelevant.
You simply lost the main reason for it mattering at all cause as others have stated... NOBODY is forcing you to use EM4. That's completely on you.
It's like barging into an Italian restaurant to eat pizza and then complaining they have a big bucket of parmesan on every table that you can use for free if you want to.
This isn't 'lootbox optional', this is actually optional...

[Kratos]

I didn't say anyone forced me to use anything little boy, I just said it made climbing past 32 heat not fun so it made me stop playing. I already beat everything and like i said, i one shotted it, it just made a lot of builds unviable at HIGH HEAT. noone cares about 32 heat or less because anything is viable.

[Darth Bokeh]

I've done all weapons to heat 20 for the bounties and a single heat 32 run for the Skelly statue without ever using EM4. It's a trade-off in where you want to experience the difficulty - the end boss or elsewhere. I chose elsewhere and don't regret it.

The point is, it isn't so tight at the heat levels the game asks you to play at (heat 20 and 32) that you NEED to select a condition you don't enjoy. Perhaps it's different if you're playing Hell Mode, but that's a choice you make too.

Maybe one day I'll work on EM4 until I can beat it consistently, maybe not. True, it's content that exists that I could experience, but so is 50 heat and all the Resource Director ranks. Just because it exists doesn't mean I want to do all of it (though I might try the director ranks if the game holds my interest long enough).

[Darth Bokeh]

引用自 Spartacus：

I didn't say anyone forced me to use anything little boy, I just said it made climbing past 32 heat not fun so it made me stop playing. I already beat everything and like i said, i one shotted it, it just made a lot of builds unviable at HIGH HEAT. noone cares about 32 heat or less because anything is viable.

I don't think Lorska was addressing you.

The devs don't really expect people to play past 32 heat either:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/2841165820084105169/#c2841165820084191302

It's a spectrum of difficulty and each player chooses to play at a level they find enjoyable. Just because 50 heat mathematically exists due to the nature of the heat system doesn't mean they expect players to aim for it. Sooner or later, you're going to hit a wall. It's not surprising that some builds stop being viable. If the game is balanced for play up to 32 heat with all weapons, then that's going to happen past that point.

There's nothing wrong with you deciding to stop playing. Nobody plays any game forever. It sounds like you've done all that you've wanted and played to the limit of your enjoyment, so that's a great reason to stop.

[Lorska]

引用自 Spartacus：

I didn't say anyone forced me to use anything little boy, I just said it made climbing past 32 heat not fun so it made me stop playing. I already beat everything and like i said, i one shotted it, it just made a lot of builds unviable at HIGH HEAT. noone cares about 32 heat or less because anything is viable.

Nobody was talking to you.
How did you even assume this was about you considering it referenced things you didn't say at all?

[Kratos]

oh woops my apologies then, i still think EM4 sucks with 75% of the aspects, it bothers me how shield gets preference in every new encounter they add every update.

[Morphic]

引用自 Spartacus：

oh woops my apologies then, i still think EM4 sucks with 75% of the aspects, it bothers me how shield gets preference in every new encounter they add every update.

I wouldn't go that far. However, I would agree that Ranged is incredibly strong due to it's versatility in Boons and Safety compared to Melee. E.g. Charon Aspect for Bow is a major help against EM4 Hades due to homing special. Same goes for Crystal Cast Build.

If you are good/decent with Spear, it can be helpful too; depending on your Build. E.g. I was able to do a Spin Build and got larger AoE upgrade. Was able to bust multiple soul jars/pots at once with one spin, which really helps since I didn't quite have the DPS to burst through Hades's healing.

Sidenote: Shout out to Lorska! Funny seeing you here as opposed to the Theia Forums. Small Steam World I guess.

[Return_2_Monke]

Hades without EM4 just bores me now. I consistently played with it on once I unlocked EM4 until I got used to it. The loss of vision never bothered me and I have to agree with those that said the 1st & 2nd phases summons make the fight harder(especially when there's 2 sneaks and doomstones).

The only thing I call BS on this game is how Hightened Security is only 1 heat when traps like the pots in the hades fight deal 150 damage without sure footing.

Getting used to High Heat is hard but only takes a lot of practice. The beauty of this game is that you can tweak/mix&match difficulty as desired so turning off EM4 is perfectly fine.

[Lorska]

@Morphic
Haha yeah it's always funny seeing people from other forums. Power of indie I guess :D

[begulinggg]

Well, the theme of the House of Hades itself is "Blood and Darkness". So, it is really exciting for me to see Lord Hades stays true to his core while the other encounters you get are dominantly lighthearted.

[Tyler]

引用自 Hoot：

引用自 Donathan Cheadledge：

It's kind of the point I think - Hades was a very well balanced encounter in its normal state, extreme measures 4 Hades is designed to be artificial difficulty for when you're used to Hades' normal nonsense.

It is also, however, completely not needed for any game story progress at all. Like, literally, you can straight up ignore extreme measures 4 like it never happened.

It can be ignored, but not if you're trying to 100% as an achievement is tied to it.

Yes, the "normal" Hades fight was fun and balanced but there are ways to increase the difficulty without reducing player agency. At EM4 he already gains a spear attack, a heal, a summon, increased add mob difficulty...all fine...but taking away the players vision? That's garbage.

I can think of 10 different abilities they could have given him to increase the fight difficulty without doing something so cheap.

A targeted AOE similar to EM3 Theseus. A dodge-able damage over time effect. A zoning spell. Etc. The list goes on.

The bottom line is that there is no excuse for the "Now you can't see. Good luck!" approach the developers took with his 3rd phase. None at all.

It's also a huge slap in the face to people who have an actual vision impairment to such things. I've tried twice and when the screen darkens, they might as well have tuned off my monitor.

Edit: I got it on my third attempt. If only because I got an almost broken build with a bunch of Zeus boons and pretty much nuked REDACTED before the screen got too dark to track him. Also helped that I didn't get Sneak as the mini-boss summons.

[^DreeMax^]

引用自 Alzakiel：

Just for that guitar on phase 3 ... EM4 is 100% worth it , no matter the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they throw.

Exactly! Back at time I was thinking it's impossible to pass EM4 Hades, without taking damage on heat 32+. Later I was able to do it myself with this set up (and was pretty close with fists multiple times) :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn-0wzSK4vc

[Master_Xanthan]

Honestly my problem isn't with the lack of vision, but the healing. I seems like no matter how hard I try, I can't find all the green vases that restore Hades' health. Also if you get a build that doesn't have a high damage output, you can't win because he just heals it all back. Although the lack of vision is part of the reason that it's hard to find the green vases. I beat Extreme Measures 4 Hades twice but only because I got lucky and had extremely powerful builds.