Thorned Capital boss feels pretty unfair.

[Skalue]

I was enjoying the demo a lot until this thing. If "tough but fair" was what you were going for, you're missing the mark here and it puts you firmly into the camp of "hard for the sake of being hard" which is not enjoyable. I am well acquainted with these kind of games and love a good challenge...when it's fair to the player.

I enjoyed this fight up to a certain point, but the fight has far too many overlapping attacks that make it impossible to dodge, depending on RNG, especially considering speed of which its attacks come out as he gets closer to death. The boss can summon adds while rocks are falling and start spinning, flipping (and the impact causes more rocks to fall), or slamming the ground repeatedly which causes more rocks to shoot out. The adds themselves when they come out are tricky enough to dodge among everything else, but then they will randomly attack you while you're dodging the million other things going on, catching you out of your roll or Down+Y/descending dark move which don't have enough iframes to compensate. It's great that you actually designed the adds to be killed by the boss but you don't have time to wait for that to happen because they attack too frequently to make dodging impossible combined with the boss' other attacks and speed.

I don't know what powers are planned for later, maybe in the final game we'll have a way to make us invincible for a short time, abyssal shriek like ability for the adds, or we'll simply be able to kill it much faster, but for this demo it feels extremely unfair like we are undergeared/underpowered, which fireb0rn also mentioned on his stream.

Falling rocks, instantly spitting adds and then instantly spinning at you. Depending on how the ceiling rocks are falling, you may need to move a certain way, but that would put you into the path of either the boss or a charging add depending on how the dice rolls. Down+Y offers no lingering iframes like it does in HK so you can't use that, and as its health gets lower, attacks will come out instantly without any tell. Maybe audio cues should be added to indicate certain attacks? Much like the mosquito-looking enemies that shoot needles at you. That would go a long way in helping you react to a million overlapping attacks when you only have one pair of eyes.

On the whole I enjoyed this demo a lot and look forward to the final game. The combat feels solid and the controls are responsive, but I hope the fights end up being more 'tough but fair' in the end.

[Calvinball8]

I agree, this fight is very badly balanced, however fixing it really wouldn't be too hard. Either just have the player acquire some form of aoe spell akin to howling wraiths or vengeful spirit first, or give the player an air dash. Preferably both.

Also i discovered as counter-intuitive as it may sound, being more aggressive actually helps. any chance you get, just wail on the boss. Since its such a large target that can be rapidly attacked, it refills your heal fairly quick.

[Avve]

I don't know if I agree. I beat the boss pretty easily. Only took me a couple of tries.

[AoiRob]

i'm certain it's just from being undergeared. just having the guns or the laser spell or higher scythe damage would make taking out the adds 200% easier. all its other attacks are easy enough the learn and avoid when the adds aren't there

[kkhandy]

I honestly agree with you a lot on this. I struggled for hours to beat it until I gave up and looked for more secrets/upgrades. When you do actually find some good upgrades to your gear, not going to say how though ;) I feel that the fight becomes a lot easier.

PS. what might also help is using the corivan slam (the ground pound) when the boss is spinning on the floor. It allows you to not get hit, because the boss moves away fast enough so you have enough I-frames to get out (mostly) scott free.

PSS. The devs did establish that the difficulty curve goes through the roof at the end of the game, which was made true by the 3 headed creature form hell. So I understand the frustration, but then again, it's easy to say that the full game will not be this hard this fast. It will allow you to improve on your mechanics with the game, as well as provide you with upgrades before such a difficult boss is presented.

[Golden Yak]

I felt it was very difficult too, however after completing the demo I looked into stuff I had missed, and I want to try it again with more upgrades. Upgraded damage and extra flask might make things more reasonable.

[Wernershnitzl]

Yeah man I'm with you there--even got enough ichor to get the grafts that increases your range and airborne damage stacks. Deflecting stuff works and I can roll through some things but guess I can't git gud

[kkhandy]

Originally posted by ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD:

Yeah man I'm with you there--even got enough ichor to get the grafts that increases your range and airborne damage stacks. Deflecting stuff works and I can roll through some things but guess I can't git gud

Ichor???

[CapStee]

All bosses should be fair with the minimum amount of gear you can reach them with. I think this boss and its adds need to give more warning before attacking. Telegraphs aren't telegraphs unless they're long enough to read in time.

Bosses also should not be designed with the impression that you'll abuse the I-frames on Not Descending Dark, ever. I don't want to see this perfectly capable game reach the typical Hollow Knight mod's level of BS.

[DemonChiefEmil]

Yeah I gotta agree. Was loving the demo, but this boss really started to get annoying fast. I can't dodge an already erratic boss, 4 individual ads, and random falling rocks

[Golden Yak]

If hitting the spawned adds made them stop flying fast, that would go a long way.

[David J Prokopetz]

I think gear is the main sticking point here. With two flasks and a sharpened scythe, you barely even need to dodge – you can mostly just damage-rush the stupid thing. The real problem is that the smith is weirdly well-hidden for being the gateway to a core mechanic, so it's completely possible to reach the Thorned Capital boss without even realising that it's possible to upgrade your scythe or flasks in the demo.

(As an aside, another map-related quibble is that the world doesn't feel densely interconnected enough for the amount of backtracking the demo expects you to do. It feels like there should be a passage between the two halves of the Thorned Capital, at the very least, presumably one that can only be opened from the far side.)

[kkhandy]

Originally posted by David J Prokopetz:

I think gear is the main sticking point here. With two flasks and a sharpened scythe, you barely even need to dodge – you can mostly just damage-rush the stupid thing. The real problem is that the smith is weirdly well-hidden for being the gateway to a core mechanic, so it's completely possible to reach the Thorned Capital boss without even realising that it's possible to upgrade your scythe or flasks in the demo.

(As an aside, another map-related quibble is that the world doesn't feel densely interconnected enough for the amount of backtracking the demo expects you to do. It feels like there should be a passage between the two halves of the Thorned Capital, at the very least, presumably one that can only be opened from the far side.)

with the map layout and backtracking I agree with you. Even if they added some sort of fast travel with the Keeper, that would go a long way

[McAinslay]

Which boss from hollow knight does this one correspond to in terms of difficulty?

[CapStee]

Originally posted by McAinslay:

Which boss from hollow knight does this one correspond to in terms of difficulty?

Ascended Collector All Bindings

[Azure]

I feel like the bosses intended strategy for defeating them is based solely in memorizing their attack pattern rather than the player reacting and learning their combat style. They start any with little to none anticipation. For my personal taste I feel more rewarding understanding and reacting to the boss rather than knowing exactly what is coming.