Higher DMs aren't that great imo

[Robin]

The ridiculous HP sponges that are Dark Enemies (takes longer to kill a single small minion than am early boss sometimes), the ridiculous amount of enemies that make it impossible to even see what's going on (compounded by dark enemies which are harder to see already and 5 different abilites that go on all at once that you need to somehow dodge seperately and in different ways) and the last hero's moveset that is just pure non-sense in terms of creating a good experience, since a lot of move you simply will take damage no matter what you do (maybe not if you play shield or dash skulls, idk). Like I really enjoy the game and I do like new additions, but it feels like the devs don't test or play their own game at all and just randomly throw "difficult" stuff at us atm and hope something works out

[DDReave]

i think they truly don´t even bother testing their game, till now i manage to get to DM 5 and ONLY because i got lucky and got reaper skull in the first maps and with the 2 skills that give invulnerability and now on DM5 is just unbalanced as hell, I rather play HADES or Dead cells, even elden ring has a balanced challenge

[Managedant]

as someone who was pretty bad at the game before the dm update and have cleared up up to dm 10 i gotta say i disagree, for the most part. tiers could be condensed i guess.

[ZexxCrine]

its not luck at all. I climbed all the way up on a win streak. could I have had a lucky run? yeah. could I have had 10 lucky runs in a row? yeah I guess. not likely tho. I had a bunch of practice during the beta and it released harder than the beta in a lot of ways. its still perfectly doable and skill based. there are very few things in the game that I believe are undodgable and the dark first hero has all of em, but he still doesn't use them enough that they should eat through two health bars or even one. dodge the stuff you can and mitigate the stuff you can't but you should be able to acheive close to 100% win constancy especially if you are willing to play meta. I didnt play meta on my climb up I just played whatever I felt like from the skull selector at the beginning, but you could take ghoul, shield, gravedigger, ent, or werewolf etc on every run. I don't find anything the game asks you to do to be unbelievably difficult.

[Managedant]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

its not luck at all. I climbed all the way up on a win streak. could I have had a lucky run? yeah. could I have had 10 lucky runs in a row? yeah I guess. not likely tho. I had a bunch of practice during the beta and it released harder than the beta in a lot of ways. its still perfectly doable and skill based. there are very few things in the game that I believe are undodgable and the dark first hero has all of em, but he still doesn't use them enough that they should eat through two health bars or even one. dodge the stuff you can and mitigate the stuff you can't but you should be able to acheive close to 100% win constancy especially if you are willing to play meta. I didnt play meta on my climb up I just played whatever I felt like from the skull selector at the beginning, but you could take ghoul, shield, gravedigger, ent, or werewolf etc on every run. I don't find anything the game asks you to do to be unbelievably difficult.

There are things the dark hero does that need ti be manipulated to be used a certain way rather than just trying to dodge them but i did a double omen a fully juiced and amped DM10 without too much trouble and my only damage was from a point blank grab i shouldnt have even been close to to begin with

[Robin]

Originally posted by DDReave:

i think they truly don´t even bother testing their game

Yeah the fact that dark golem still hides inside walls and behind terrain seems to proof they don't even play their game for some reason.

[Robin]

Also I'd agree that no single ability seems undodgable from basic enemies. However when they all do their moves at the same time and depending on the room you literally can't dodge. Worse when you play a Power skull (which still suck for that very reason). Like 3 rockets from the new mecha golem combined with mewtwo's homing laser or barrage, combined with the two purple flasks and two slimes jumping around in a low ceiling room or one where there's a corridor at times. You gonna get hit even if you do see all the moves coming and know how to dodge every single one of them. That's assuming you can even see what the heck is going on at that point, which is still a huge issue. Same with the (now) 4 adventurer fight. I mean 3 were cutting it close at times, especially if they all stacked on top of each other, but now there's also a 4th one coming in from nowhere on top. Again, every single one is dodgeable, but you can't dodge what you can't see and all moves/sprites just stack on top of each other making it impossible to see at times.

The hero RNG moves are a pain at times, the quick cuts that leave a line covering the whole screen, sometimes you can dodge, sometimes you get boxed in, depending on how exactly the cut goes. Again, really not sure how that's meant to be evaded. Similar with the faster cuts that just cover the whole screen safe for a bit on top in the middle. like 80% of the time being in that upper middle spot works, but then sometimes that's partially covered too and you take damage. Or when the bulb thing does it's circle move depending on the timing of other hero moves it creates situations where you're gonna take damage from one or the other.

And that's not even taking into account the skuls' screen bloat. Depending on which skulls you end up playing those harm more than the enemies stacking, sp basically never play certain builds unless you want to die randomly to stuff your own build hides with it's special effects.

I mean I'd say the base game is in a good state, but I think a lot of that also comes down to the player power being about in the right spot relative to all the issues it had since forever. You got enough damage when building well that those issues weren't a big deal basically, since part could be avoided by killing specific enemies fast enough it wouldn't create visual issues. But now in higher DMs it feels the game feel comes down crashing because you can't do that anymore and all the problems the game always had compund

[Ren O'the Blade]

I agree that higher DM levels need to be toned done a bit. The few of you that are able to get through without a meta build are overlooking a simple fact. You spent hours upon hours honing those skills and you are the VAST minority of players. I just recently finished DM7 and DM8 is straight hot garbage hard in comparison it is SO much worse. I have to save scum my way through levels. The Devs decided to make a game that less than 1% of their player base can even finish to it's conclusion. I have NEVER played a game so hard I could not finish it(without it being broken or on the NES. However this one is cutting it very, very close. I personally do not have a problem power gaming. If hiding in a corner and crouching is what it takes to beat Dark Link, guess who crouched. However that does not make it good game design and I should not have to have a PHD in a game to finish said game, that I paid for and have been playing off and on since beta(early access)

What's more, rookie mode is turned off in DM, and unlike the base game where you could get incrementally more powerful with new artifact, skull unlocks and upgrading base stats. DM pretty much requires you to finish a run to get a new shiny upgrade, most of which just lessen the RNG a tad.

[Noctreax]

I think the real issue is the dash's cooldown.
On dm before dm8, u can manage to dodge or take damage, because you deal enough damage to stack HP bone shrine while being able to kill everything.
But since dm 8, i feel like i'm forced to take pursuit on every run because without it, i can't dodge all attacks in crowded rooms like in world 3 when u encounter a freezer with a golem and a mecha and they hit so hard that i lost half my HP bar.
If the dash's cooldown was shorter, everything could be dodgeable and it'll be just a skill issue.

[WillSP]

The actual difficulty of the enemies and Bosses are fairly reasonable, the real problem is that the game will sometimes throw stuff at you that you just can't deal with and you just have to tank the hit.

Dark Cyborg Ent in a enclosed space with the Disaster Ability? just dont get hit lmao.

a teleporting enemy such as the Demon Hunter or the Super Assassins in act one got the quarantine ability? That's on me I guess.

Those lantern enemies from act 4 that dodge away While TURNING TO FACE YOU every time you hit them got the PROTECTION ability? seems like a skill issue.

Trancendent teleports over the top of a Super Golem Summoner while you have a projectile based character and decides to deflect all your attacks and now you gotta deal with both a Transcendent and a Super Golem at the same time? guess that was my fault, Should have chosen a different skull I guess.

Trumpet enemy decide to snipe you from offscreen and push you in front of a Gatling gun shredding your health bar down to a pixel? whoops shoulda heard the trumpet over the sound of a machine gun.

Lightning mage in act 1 in a spot that's already awkward to reach gets the cannoneer ability so you gotta deal with lightning blocking your path, cannons building up over time, all to land like 1 or 2 basic attacks on the guy every 5 seconds because nothing in your arsonal can deal with flying enemies? oh well better luck next time I guess.

Carleon Sisters Boss decides to do that full screen phase 2 attack in such a way that the only possible way to dodge it is a small area on the top right of the screen in the air that you probably didn't even notice because you were to busy checking the ground only to realise that you cant even stay in the air long enough to avoid the attack completely because your using a power skull? whoops that's on ME I guess.

and that's all without bringing up the Dark First Hero.

[Tisel]

I don't think DM levels are too bad. Some of the enemies are definitely annoying. The only fight I have a real problem with is First Hero. He has a pretty massive moveset and throws them out without any real rhyme or reason. Sometimes I get a fight where he's somewhat passive and other times I get a fight where he does the pull 3 times back to back, juggles me and nukes my health bar (Yes this has happened).

[WillSP]

Originally posted by Ren O'the Blade:

I agree that higher DM levels need to be toned done a bit. The few of you that are able to get through without a meta build are overlooking a simple fact. You spent hours upon hours honing those skills and you are the VAST minority of players. I just recently finished DM7 and DM8 is straight hot garbage hard in comparison it is SO much worse. I have to save scum my way through levels. The Devs decided to make a game that less than 1% of their player base can even finish to it's conclusion. I have NEVER played a game so hard I could not finish it(without it being broken or on the NES. However this one is cutting it very, very close. I personally do not have a problem power gaming. If hiding in a corner and crouching is what it takes to beat Dark Link, guess who crouched. However that does not make it good game design and I should not have to have a PHD in a game to finish said game, that I paid for and have been playing off and on since beta(early access)

What's more, rookie mode is turned off in DM, and unlike the base game where you could get incrementally more powerful with new artifact, skull unlocks and upgrading base stats. DM pretty much requires you to finish a run to get a new shiny upgrade, most of which just lessen the RNG a tad.

As someone who has beaten DM10 in this game and 5BC in Dead Cells I 100% agree that making your game ludicrously hard to the point of inaccessibility is not the way to go. A far better way would be to lean further into Omen items and Cursed Dark Abilities so players can CHOOSE to go for a more difficult experience in exchange for more power.

[No]

Finished DM10 just now. HP should be cut down by 10-20% idk. Had a run with 1100% physical dmg, with 3 full bone pillars at Arachne, TWO Cursed legendary swords (the ones that evolve with 300 kills), and even with Genie, fight with DM10 Dark Hero took ~3 minutes, even so i was dealing ~1000-1500 damage PER second while dodging stuff in I-frames. Idk... dmg you take from enemies/bosses is fair, it should be that way on DM10. The amount of HP on bosses is over the top. To think of it, it is AFTER they nerfed it, right? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i dont even want to know what were the HP amounts BEFORE nerf.

[Ren O'the Blade]

Yeah I saw the patch notes about nerfing health in DM and thought exactly the same thing. I overall have enjoyed my experience and am only a few achieves away from 100%.

However I remain steadfast about the constant and forgive me if this offends anyone, but lazy difficulty inflation in games. How do I make my game harder? Lets give the enemies more health and have them hit harder.... I appreciate the new enemies and bosses having new attacks in DM, as well as harder enemy density and type, both good examples of challenge done well.

If they felt the need to artificially make every high DM boss a damage sponge, that is due to broken gear/skull combos. Would have worked better to tone the damage done on some, increase the damage or utility on others and leave the game more skill based, rather than, you die in 5 hits and will spend 5 mins chewing the bosses health down while dodging screen filling attacks. All because you didn't run bomber/frost(which not only made it possible to finish the game, DM10 was by far easier than getting there once I got the build off the ground).