Can we just give Reincarnation 9 bosses like, 100x more health?

[Z3Sleeper]

As funny as it was to delete them in 0.2s the first few times, I kinda wanna fight a boss that doesn't instadie now lol.

Not including first bosses though, those are fine as is. Maybe like, double health but nothing crazy, it's just the later bosses that are made of glass.

[931numbers]

Would either not solve any problems, add new problems, or both.

You can already deal enough damage to do at least 10 times an enemy's health instantly (as seen whenever people mow through enemies in the Back to Origin challenge event). No idea how much higher that number actually is, but if the damage is ridiculous enough it would make the bosses die in 1s instead of 0.2s, or something equally negligible.

And on the other side we've got the builds that can't atomize enemies the moment you look at them and actually need to fight properly. Now all the later boss battles are going to take 100 times as long, turning it into an incredibly slow and boring slogfest.

The problem isn't that later enemies and bosses are weak. The problem is players scale way too fast, even on Reincarnation 9, and significantly outscale the enemies.

[Platapoop]

I think most scrolls should get nerfed and honestly, there shouldn't be the reincarnation ascensions. Not gonna happen though. I think it's too late to have a more balanced game.

[Rogue]

The game has plenty of opportunity to self-impose restrictions that increase difficulty. Your suggested fix would be very poor game design and, contrary to popular belief, good balance is extremely overrated and often in direct competition with fun.

Don't run the strongest builds for each character.
Don't run the Bizarre Dreams modifiers.
Especially don't run Lone Wolf, even without a bonus spiritual blessing.

If the game were to implement some kind of difficulty adjustment to accommodate the OP stuff it should be through a custom difficulty setting where you get to adjust various game stats like Player/Enemy(separate entries for elites/bosses) Damage, Health, Buff/Debuff duration, Move Speed, Drop Rates, etc and let people pick a value between 0.1% and 1000000%. These are really the ultimate balancing tools and they seem to be getting more popular, so one can hope.

[931numbers]

Originally posted by Lesbian Thespian:

contrary to popular belief, good balance is extremely overrated and often in direct competition with fun.

Don't run the strongest builds for each character.
Don't run the Bizarre Dreams modifiers.
Especially don't run Lone Wolf, even without a bonus spiritual blessing.

You think good balance is in competition with fun, yet you're saying that on a topic where the OP is literally not having fun because there is no good balance with bosses.

Also, wouldn't avoiding the strong, amazing stuff, the optional cool extras and all the free powerful bonuses also be in direct competition with fun (as you so put it), because it's a self-imposed attempt to have good balance with players vs enemies instead of it being stacked heavily in the player's favour? You're defying your own words with this suggestion.

[Rogue]

Originally posted by 931numbers:

You think good balance is in competition with fun

No, I said that it often is. But yes, I am saying it in a thread where someone wishes it was harder. The problem with set difficulty settings is that they can never account for all the different levels of skill and game knowledge people are at. It is a design problem that is impossible to solve. If you adjust R9 to account for the people who think it is no challenge you will instead make it unfun for a much larger amount of people; balance is not the type of thing where you can look at one person and decide if a change is a good idea or not. You also can't just endlessly scale things because all it does it knock more and more builds out of viability and increases the reliance on rng for success.

The best games can do is provide the tools for people to create their own challenge, if challenge is what they look for.

Originally posted by 931numbers:

Also, wouldn't avoiding the strong, amazing stuff, the optional cool extras and all the free powerful bonuses also be in direct competition with fun (as you so put it), because it's a self-imposed attempt to have good balance with players vs enemies instead of it being stacked heavily in the player's favour?

Creating an individualized challenge and the game being balanced are two completely different things. It's like doing naked runs in Souls games; it may be a good and fun challenge for one person but if that was the way the game was balanced to be run it would be a terrible experience on a large scale.

They aren't balance sliders, they are "I have solved the game and want to see how far it can take me"-sliders. Or, alternatively, "The game is too hard for me but I want to experience the mechanics of higher difficulties"-sliders.

Originally posted by 931numbers:

You're defying your own words with this suggestion.

No

[931numbers]

Originally posted by Lesbian Thespian:

No, I said that it often is. But yes, I am saying it in a thread where someone wishes it was harder. The problem with set difficulty settings is that they can never account for all the different levels of skill and game knowledge people are at. It is a design problem that is impossible to solve. If you adjust R9 to account for the people who think it is no challenge you will instead make it unfun for a much larger amount of people; balance is not the type of thing where you can look at one person and decide if a change is a good idea or not. You also can't just endlessly scale things because all it does it knock more and more builds out of viability and increases the reliance on rng for success.

Now this right here is amazing how baffling it is, so much so that I'm only going to focus on this now. Why is it that everyone I talk to who thinks about game balance, difficulty and "fun" in this way always seems to completely miss the most obvious solution to the problem of the game being too hard?

I'll spell it out for you. "If you find the hardest difficulty in the game too hard and no longer fun, lower the difficulty."

If R9 is adjusted to account for people who think the game is no challenge which makes it unfun for a much larger amount of people, guess what? That's the entire point of high difficulties in the first place! You're not meant to have every single player go through the hardest difficulty like it's nothing.

And if said much larger amount of people are upset by the hardest difficulty being hard, guess what? There are 11 other difficulties below R9 that they can move to, 8 of which offer the exact same amount of content for giving them big numbers and fancy effects to love and enjoy. The game becomes easier if everyone goes to any of them, letting all those players have fun again. Dare I say, each difficulty "accounts for all the different levels of skill and game knowledge people are at."

You're literally arguing that all 12 difficulties in the game should be easy and should go against good balance to allow everyone to beat it, 8 of which only exist TO BE hard, while ruining the fun for anyone who actually wants them to be hard despite not ruining the fun for everyone else because they have lower difficulties. Sorry, but that's complete nonsense.

[Rogue]

Originally posted by 931numbers:

You're literally arguing that all 12 difficulties in the game should be easy and should go against good balance to allow everyone to beat it, 8 of which only exist TO BE hard, while ruining the fun for anyone who actually wants them to be hard despite not ruining the fun for everyone else because they have lower difficulties. Sorry, but that's complete nonsense.

Nope, I did none of that. Are you communicating exclusively through Google Translate or something? I can't have a conversation about a complicated topic when the nuances of language are lost to you. It's pointless if you can't understand words as written so writing out a reply to further explain is obviously a waste of time at this point.

Also, R9 offers unique mechanics that the other reincarnation difficulties do not have.

[enge]

Originally posted by Lesbian Thespian:

Originally posted by 931numbers:

You're literally arguing that all 12 difficulties in the game should be easy and should go against good balance to allow everyone to beat it, 8 of which only exist TO BE hard, while ruining the fun for anyone who actually wants them to be hard despite not ruining the fun for everyone else because they have lower difficulties. Sorry, but that's complete nonsense.

Nope, I did none of that. Are you communicating exclusively through Google Translate or something? I can't have a conversation about a complicated topic when the nuances of language are lost to you. It's pointless if you can't understand words as written so writing out a reply to further explain is obviously a waste of time at this point.

Also, R9 offers unique mechanics that the other reincarnation difficulties do not have.

Just so you know, you're arguing with the game's insufferable wiki editor and discord mod, who automatically takes offence with any opinion that isn't his own.

[Paradox Edge]

Originally posted by Hnnngh:

Originally posted by Lesbian Thespian:

Nope, I did none of that. Are you communicating exclusively through Google Translate or something? I can't have a conversation about a complicated topic when the nuances of language are lost to you. It's pointless if you can't understand words as written so writing out a reply to further explain is obviously a waste of time at this point.

Also, R9 offers unique mechanics that the other reincarnation difficulties do not have.

Just so you know, you're arguing with the game's insufferable wiki editor and discord mod, who automatically takes offence with any opinion that isn't his own.

That explains many things.

[Pretentieux]

Be careful what you wish for. Last Epoch has something known as Damage Resistance where a boss will dynamically increase or decrease in effective HP/armor in order to make it so that you can't beat them without going through all of their mechanic loops.

It destroys the game because it takes away the reward for minmaxing and buildcrafting.

[Z3Sleeper]

Originally posted by 931numbers:

Originally posted by Lesbian Thespian:

contrary to popular belief, good balance is extremely overrated and often in direct competition with fun.

Don't run the strongest builds for each character.
Don't run the Bizarre Dreams modifiers.
Especially don't run Lone Wolf, even without a bonus spiritual blessing.

You think good balance is in competition with fun, yet you're saying that on a topic where the OP is literally not having fun because there is no good balance with bosses.

Also, wouldn't avoiding the strong, amazing stuff, the optional cool extras and all the free powerful bonuses also be in direct competition with fun (as you so put it), because it's a self-imposed attempt to have good balance with players vs enemies instead of it being stacked heavily in the player's favour? You're defying your own words with this suggestion.

Super late to reply but yeah basically this is my opinion as well.

I WANT to use the tools given to me, it's fun. I don't want to restrict myself. I love all the unique effects and how they interact with each other especially in tandem with seasonal mechanics but I also want enemies that can contest those builds.

I'm surely not the only one who finds the "hardest" difficulty too easy. There's so little risk of dying past stage 1.

The final difficulty should NOT have anywhere NEAR a 100% clear rate. It's a roguelite and I fully expect to have low-roll runs in roguelites. But when I "low-roll" in this game, it's the difference between clearing stages in 2 seconds vs 1 second.


To the other guy:

Saying it's "too hard to implement" is a cop out answer. Roboquest does it well. Hades too. Rogue Legacy also. Slay the Spire. Oblivion Override, Blazblue Entropty Effect, Deadcells, Vampire Survivors and its million clones, etc. So why can't Gunfire?

I'm not playing for the story, I don't need game journalist difficulty. I want the same level of pain and suffering as in those other games because you can't experience highs without lows.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by 931numbers:

And on the other side we've got the builds that can't atomize enemies the moment you look at them and actually need to fight properly. Now all the later boss battles are going to take 100 times as long, turning it into an incredibly slow and boring slogfest.

This is exactly why I'm opposed to OP's suggestion. As it currently stands in the game, niche and off-meta builds are viable. Multiplying boss HP and generally making the game harder will make them next to useless and force players into a more narrow selection of whatever is considered meta.

I come from Path of Exile, a game where people like to claim it has massive build diversity, but the constantly rolling balance updates narrows it to a handful of meta options which shuffles every season. I don't want more games going that route.

[Z3Sleeper]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

Originally posted by 931numbers:

And on the other side we've got the builds that can't atomize enemies the moment you look at them and actually need to fight properly. Now all the later boss battles are going to take 100 times as long, turning it into an incredibly slow and boring slogfest.

This is exactly why I'm opposed to OP's suggestion. As it currently stands in the game, niche and off-meta builds are viable. Multiplying boss HP and generally making the game harder will make them next to useless and force players into a more narrow selection of whatever is considered meta.

I come from Path of Exile, a game where people like to claim it has massive build diversity, but the constantly rolling balance updates narrows it to a handful of meta options which shuffles every season. I don't want more games going that route.

You people keep referencing "niche and off-meta builds" but what are you specifically even talking about? As long as you take ascensions that synergize you're basically guaranteed to oneshot stage 3 and 4 bosses (stage 2 depends if you hit yet or not).

I just play whatever I hit and run with it and instaclear this stuff. I'm not out here googling the best builds for each character, I'm just going "I'll try this build this game" and no matter what I chose it's a steamroll, just in different flavors.

What are these mythical low-performance masochist builds you speak of?