BUG? Kill the Red Knight quest

[RodHull]

Spoilers ahead for people who don't want to know the mission.

So this is actually a few issues. First the quest itself states that enemy types are Brigand when in fact you will face unseelie and demons at the same time.

Second the demons have to be bugged I cant believe they are supposed to be that dangerous. They hit harder than fomorian bosses, a single demonic dark knight is more dangerous than any boss I have faced so far and they are just a standard mob.

Third at least one of the set piece fights you are forced into such close quarters and it messes up your formation with you starting in based contact with at least one demon soldier before you even get a chance to move.

The whole mission is horrible balance wise and just in how little information you are given. It says its lvl 18 and it felt more like 24, got it done but barely. Nothing since has been remotely as hard. The opposite mission (kill the white knight) is a cakewalk by comparison. Like literally faceroll easy.

EDIT: Also while its not related to this quest Taintpigs charge attack and basic melee attack ignores ice shield for no dsicernable reason (appears to be a bug)

[proba 1 2 3]

I would like to hear more players about their experience in this mission (Blackened Heart). If the general assessment is that this mission is way too hard I will have the designers check on it.

[RodHull]

The issue exists across any missions with the demon possessed in them. They do huge amounts of damage compared to anything else.

Dark Knights (standard elite possessed mobs) do more damage in those missions than the bosses themselves which can't be right.

[Ace490]

I assume we are talking about the final Red Knight mission. Honestly, that mission's difficulty was okay imo. Sure, the possessed are tough, but at this point you know how to deal with them (stun, freeze, repeat). The final encounter with the Red Knight was even a bit of a disappointment concerning how easy it was. Since the second campfire is bugged, having only one campfire to rest might be a bit of a challenge, but at this point you should have some equipment to restore armour or hp on your main chars so you don't have to rely on them too much. The first Red Knight mission was considerably more difficult due to the endless hordes of possessed. Barely made it through that one. But overall the whole questline was less challenging than the Morgana recruitment mission.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Ace490:

I assume we are talking about the final Red Knight mission. Honestly, that mission's difficulty was okay imo. Sure, the possessed are tough, but at this point you know how to deal with them (stun, freeze, repeat). The final encounter with the Red Knight was even a bit of a disappointment concerning how easy it was. Since the second campfire is bugged, having only one campfire to rest might be a bit of a challenge, but at this point you should have some equipment to restore armour or hp on your main chars so you don't have to rely on them too much. The first Red Knight mission was considerably more difficult due to the endless hordes of possessed. Barely made it through that one. But overall the whole questline was less challenging than the Morgana recruitment mission.

Oddly no and thats my fault it was the second mission of that chain I believe, the last one was mostly fine. Its the one where you go in planning to kill him, get him down to half health then he yeets out and you have to hunt him down again.

The difficulty was ridiculous, especially the side fights (that are optional) one you start off with over 12 possessed and unseelie all surrounding you with one of your guys in base contact at the start of the fight. Its just poorly done. It's doable but it absolutely requires you to cheese them in order to not die. Which imo is just poor design.

And the point is whether its doable or not doesn't change how poor the balance is. Every fight before and after that was utterly trivial by comparison. Even the act 4 boss was less challenging.

[Ace490]

Okay, then you are talking about the first one of the quest line (second one is the one with his son, you don't even encounter the Red Knight there). Yeah, the first one is a real challenge and I wouldn't have managed to win the final duel with him if it wasn't scripted for you to lose it. It definitely ranks among those which could be reviewed for some difficulty adjustment. However, having finished the main quest, I'd still say the difficulty for this one, the final morality chart recruitment missions and the final Sir Tewelyn mission are okay if the lvl suggestion is raised by one or two lvl.

[KnuckleHead]

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

I would like to hear more players about their experience in this mission (Blackened Heart). If the general assessment is that this mission is way too hard I will have the designers check on it.

I'm on this mission now...it's ridiculous. For context I'm playing on normal and overall the game has been pretty easy (fair and fun). There's a few mission difficulty spikes where I had to reload and try different tactics but nothing that with a different approach I wasn't able to overcome and I did enjoy those missions.

This mission is just flat out insane though. The Dark Knights are by far the most damaging/dangerous enemy up to this point including bosses. They do so much damage they can completely smash my tanks in one round.

Playing the last few missions as:

Mordred
Kay
Merlin
Ector

Been completely steamrolling missions up to this point. I can actually beat the mission but really want to clear the map and also defeat the Red Knight (which I can kill but lose the duel).

The other unbalanced fight (this one is the worst) is the fight in the top left for the treasure (there's a dialog before the fight). There's one Dark Knight Commander and two other Dark Knights. It's just too much with their damage output plus you start so damn close. I can DPS down the commander in one round but the other two will kill any character they touch on their turn. I think this fight would be okay, but still challenging, if one of the other Dark Knights are replaced with another enemy unit.

As far as the Red Knight himself the initial part isn't bad at all, but the dual is really difficult as he can kill my characters in one round including Mordred. I can actually DPS him down in one round but once he drinks the potion he kills me on his turn. To me it seems the only real way would be to use a vanguard and use traps and hide/run away/jump in and out/etc.

Even with Merlin whom I have decked out in relic gear and can DPS him down in one round to his 2nd phase and has tons of armor (I think like 14 shields) the second he drinks a potion he basically fly's to me and kills him in one round.

I've only tried this fight a couple times though so will def keep trying, that said I think the biggest unbalance is the other fight which is pretty nuts.

*edit*

Just noticed you were talking about the "Blackened Heart" sorry about that...my comments below are in regards to The Knight in Red quest.

*edit 2*

I was able to defeat the Red Knight in a duel with Merlin. I basically just have to keep teleporting around out of his range and hitting him with fire and eventually got him. Maybe he does a tad too much damage (shouldn't be able to kill a tank in one round) but it's doable I guess.

I still think the other fight is def out of whack balance wise. You start way too close and there's three knights, each of which can kill any of my characters in a single round. It's not that I don't have any crowd control, in fact I have a bunch. They're immune to stun though, walk through firewalls, and I even have multiple summons. But the initiative is as such that even if I kill the Commander, throw up 2 worms and 1 mage illusions, throw down firewalls, slow, etc the wizards/archers kill the summons and then the Dark Knights just waltz in and kill one of my characters immediately.

[Schnorble Schnacker]

it's definitely the hardest set of missions, that said I enjoyed the challenge but did feel that I was required to take a certain team in. I feel without a Vanguard and Merlin then I wouldn't have been able to complete the mission.

It does jump out of nowhere and can easily throw some heroes in the Crypt.

The other side missions unlocked at this time are nothing in comparison, tbh the rest of the game is nothing compared to this.

So yeah, when you complete Blackened Heart get ready for other missions of equal challenge

[Kodiak]

I agree with , op. I played this on hard rightful/ch and very hard old/rightful.The most I had to reload on any of the missions.After 20 reloads on very hard I started to notice they bypass more armor then usual and sometimes do a direct attack just on your hp while you still have a fair amount of armor left.

[Rieverre]

If we're talking about 'The Knight In Red' yeah ... Demonic Possession is kind of ridiculous. I'm doing it right now, on Hard, and the Dark Knights are kind of silly with how they can basically one-turn anyone. I'm going to skip the side area with three of them entirely.

Also, can anyone confirm that there's something screwy going on with the turn order in this mission? I had a few instances where the Dark Mages outright had two turns back to back.

[*TRF* Viceseer]

Funny thing when facing demon knights in the Black knight version is that demon knights deal tons of damage while the Black knight deals 12-13 points of damage per swing. Demon knights are not invincible but why are they obeying a wimp such as the Black knight

[tbradley3]

I reached The Knight in Red a couple days ago. Playing on normal which I have found pretty easy throughout but the encounter at the top left of the map is brutal. I have failed it quite a few times so far, will sort it out eventually but the Dark Knights can kill someone in a single turn if left unchecked. This fight in particular seems quite a bit over tuned.

[valcod_82]

Yes it is difficult but doable overall, but yeah, the optional battle everyone mentions with 2 Dark Knights, a Commander and a lot of archers is crazy. I had to skip it because i could not win it without one of my heroes dying. And the reward is not worth it at all it is just an ordinary piece of equipment, not even a relic.

[RodHull]

Tis a silly fight (the optional one)

I eventually did it with no deaths by approaching it like a weird puzzle. Its not helped by the insane setup where you start with zero room to retreat to and the whole pack right on top of you. You basically have to bums rush the main dude and retreat your soft targets immediately to the back field and just let them all funnel forward and abuse the slightly 1 dimensional AI and tight set up.

I got it done but it just felt gamey and immersion breaking.

[[OTG] Bonkers]

I just tried to play this as my knights are level 19, it started out not to hard and was manageable, till I hit a random group up near the flag for the Red Knight. All my knights have full armor, full health, my knights like run right into the thick of it practically surrounded. I try to pull people back, doesn't help having famorian's who yank your people right back into the thick of it, plus these brigands and demons completely annihilated my team without so much as a single ding off the armor. After seeing Mordred who I have item pieces on that reflect damage back at the enemy not get a scratch, but killed him on 3 hit's with zero armor loss, I quit shut the game down.

[madracc00n]

Dunno what u talking about game is joke easy after like lvl 12(act 2 ending),some missions are a bit harder others are a bit easier.Also it highly depends on ur party comp to be honest.This one is not that insane a bunch of people already done it and finished the game.