(SPOILER) Trying to settle the Eigong too hard debate

[Nortic]

I think the Eigong fight is the most controversial topic on this forum. Mainly because any debate on game difficulty will inevitably become toxic at some point but I think there is something genuinely interesting to discuss this time.

So on one hand people are arguing that the Eigong fight is way too hard and that it ruins the game for them.
On the other hand people are arguing that the fight is fine as it is and that people who are complaining just aren’t the people the game is targeted at or should just persevere more.
I tend to lean more toward the first category but I don’t think that the people that think the battle is fine as it is are entirely wrong for thinking that way.

First of all, just so we are on the same page, the Eigong fight is demonstrably harder than everything else in the entire game. It has intentionally unintuitive timings, unpredictable patterns and one of the only attacks that can’t be parried with an unbound parry in the entire game.

However people usually don’t realize that you can think a fight is too difficult while still thinking it is well designed. The Eigong fight itself isn’t the problem, it’s how it relates to the game as a whole and its impact on the experience.

This is why I believe that while the Eigong fight is a fun challenge, it’s way too aggressive and ends up hurting the pacing of the game. I think that it would make the game better overall to tone this fight down. And again I’m not saying that this change would make the Eigong fight itself better but that it would reduce the negative impact it has on the game.

I also want to go through a few counter arguments:

This is just a skill issue

No, if a game ends up being a less engaging experience to a lot of people because of a difficulty spike it can be a genuine design flaw. I’m not saying that frustrating design can’t be good design but that in this specific instance the game would be better with an easier fight.
Remember kids, being good at video games doesn’t make you more valuable as a person and telling people who genuinely think a challenge is overtuned to just suck it up isn’t helping anyone.

You could just switch to story mode

Ok this is a fair argument. If you are struggling with a hard part of the game there is absolutely no shame in using this kind of accessibility feature. That’s what they are for and their use should be normalized. However this still feels kind of cheap. I don’t think it’s a perfect solution to leave the task of managing the difficulty curve in the hands of the player. Also personally, I completely forgot story mode was a thing by the time I reached the Eigong fight.

What about people who enjoy being challenged in video games, isn’t their experience valid too ?

Yeah, completely. If you think the difficulty of the Eigong fight on its own is perfect for you this is great. The problem is that it doesn’t live up to the standard that was set up by the rest of the game. If the entire game was harder it wouldn’t be a problem it would just be a game for a different target audience.

In conclusion,

I am writing this post because I want people to stop seeing people that argue that the Eigong fight is too hard as people who are merely complaining that the game is too hard for them and that it hurts their ego. (Though I’m not saying that some people aren’t doing that)
I want people to genuinely question what the difficulty in Nine Sols is for and to have meaningful conversation about it.

Anyway I would love to hear what other people’s experiences with this boss fight are and if they have different opinions on if the difficulty should be adjusted in the end.

[phantom2450]

After having just entered Hour 4 of attempts and still not even clearing the first phase, I think I can safely declare this the worst Souls boss I’ve ever fought (including Sekiro and DS1).

Before I get hit with the “git gud” and “skill issue” feedback: I 100%ed Sekiro and got thru everything in Nine Sols until Eigong w/ little issue. I have nothing to prove. I can do hard. Eigong is not hard — she is imbalanced and tedious.

I expect most players will do the Grotto before the pleasure quarters, but for those who don’t they’ll be going from Ji to Eigong. Ji — who literally has infinite healing windows and restores your ammo — to Ms. Nonstop Two Dozen Different Attacks at Irregular Pacing with Massive Hitboxes. Lady E is the only other boss that poses a similar relative difficulty spike, but she’s a cakewalk when her pace is so much slower and her later phases reincorporate attacks you’ve learned (save the Spirit Bomb, which can be consistently countered). NOTHING in Eigong’s first two phases will prep you for the screenwide instakill nonsense.

I genuinely think Eigong is worse than Isshin. At least with Isshin you can space yourself to influence the pace of battle. Spacing is barely a valid tactic in Nine Sols given the limited 2D field of battle, and it’s a non-starter against Eigong’s telefragging. You’re forced to go at her pace the whole time — no cheese here. Eigong’s tells are clearer than Isshin’s (as is true of most enemies in Nine Sols vs. Sekiro) but this is the first battle in which my parrying feels as much of a gamble as it did in Sekiro. I can only chalk it up to the nonstop pace. It’s basically impossible to reset the flow mid-combo when a few hits kill you at max health.

Story Mode exists, and I’ll credit Red Candle more than FromSoft for including basic difficulty selection in their Soulslike, but compromising my run for one fight at the very end feels unearned. Moreover, that’s tacitly admitting that Eigong is “normal” as it stands, and I say that’s bull. Current Eigong should be the final boss of a Hard Mode. That would satisfy all the tryhards acting like she’s nothing special and any fine-tuning of her is sacrilege. Give us something more readable with clearer hitboxes to actually finish this otherwise solid game and experience its excellent story.

[Wondercrab]

The issue is just the spike in difficulty compared to the rest of the game. There's no such thing as "too hard" if the entire point of the game is to kick your butt for hours on end, but if 95% of the experience is a 6/10 on the difficulty scale and then at one point it shoots up to 11, that's an issue. It's like if you put a vert ramp in the middle of a woodland cycling trail or turned on a wave machine while someone was trying to swim lengths - nothing wrong with them in and of themselves, but probably not what most people doing that activity wanted or expected.

If every boss in the game was closer to Eigong's difficulty and ramped up to it more smoothly, she'd be completely fine as is.

[Mellowpocalypse]

Just 100%'d the game last night, Eigong's third phase fight isn't too bad at all. It's easy to get combo attacked to death, but to make up for that she has a lot less HP. After about 4 or 5 Full Control Qi blasts will kill her. It took about an hour to learn it (I was also watching Fuwamoco debut too, so I was a little distracted).

For full context it was my second play through, but it was my first time seeing the third phase.

[MontuSan]

I genuinely think Eigong fight needs no modification. It takes time to learn her movesets but I think its fully acceptable for the final boss of the game. Eigong is one of the bosses in the game (other being Fuxi, Jiequan, LadyEthereal, etc) which forces you to learn your opponent's moves and in addition it is a good benchmark to test your parry game throughout this journey, or even polish it even more. At this point of the game, I assume you should have enough upgrades, have a good set of jades to assist in the fight. Each of her attacks are like 4-5 hit combos. If you parry properly (as rather expected by this point of the game), you can very easily fill your 4 to 5 Qi charges to land a powerful Qi blast. Only trouble is, which is what you have to learn, is to time your talisman attack.

It took me like maybe an hour to manage to go to phase 2, another hour to learn the moves of phase 2 to eventually go to phase 3. Phase 3 (optional) is relatively much easier compared to phase 2, because her moves are more repetitive and her hp is also smaller. So properly timed talisman attacks worked like a charm, and I managed to beat her once I learnt how to dodge her slash attacks in phase 3.

All in all, NO, Eigong doesn't need to have a tone down in her fight. If people are struggling and simply dont want to learn how to beat her, then switch to story mode and beat her on easier difficulty. No need to specifically reduce her difficulty in standard mode when there is an option to reduce difficulty (unless it starts hurting your egos for switching mode, that is a different issue then).

[Madman Asunder]

I finally got to play this masterpiece. I didn't do everything so I only did 2 phases so can't comment on phase 3 but this fight only took me 2 hours to beat. The Feng twins took me like 5 hours. (that's not me bragging haha! Obviously I found both of these very challenging)

not counting phase 3, I felt this was a culmination of everything learned and didn't feel like a sharp difficulty spike.

I should add. I was really struggling to get any damage in until I switched to water style. That was the key for me. After that it felt like a perfectly rhythmic fight that I got to show the mastery of all the skills I learned up until that point.

[FR]

i don't think eigong should be made easier, i think the rest of the game should be made harder, but I think I'm biased cuz Eigong is geniunely growing to be in my top 10 bosses of all time, and Sekiro already prepared me to get dogwalked by bosses after I thought I was getting good at the game.

[nashtymouse]

I'm just seeing this thread now as I'm playing on PS5, but I was ready to tout this game as the best game I have ever played up until the final boss fight. I've spent almost 7 hours on it and can't even put a dent into the second phase. I can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ believe there is a third phase. I loved the journey but I might just drop this game, which is something I NEVER do. This ♥♥♥♥ is 100x harder than anything in Sekiro.

[Barely Average@sptfy/yt/sc]

So I forgot i wrote on this post.
I beat eigong months ago so who knows if they buffed or nerfed her.
At the end it took me longer to beat her than the game.
There is nothing as complicated compared to her in the game and the fight is very unforgiving.
this is for the complete ending not the normal ending (which i find kind of dumb you cant switch once you pick one)
the normal ending is doable and i wouldve finished it in my second tryish? (sure maybe out of luck but still wouldnt have spent as many hours as i did)
Nothing has pissed me off as much as eigong did.
should she be nerfed idk... i dont think so but i do feel like everything leading up to her was way easier

[The-Nub]

Fix the Talisman hitbox and remove the slow camera pan at the start. (There are a few bosses who could use the removal of their intro, but Eigong is the worst offender)

[jaderpansen]

stuck at phase 2 atm so yeah, she's certainly hard but absolutely fair imho, there's an answer to everytning, if you got the timing and reaction times down...

WITH ON EXCEPTION: sometimes her own talisman / dash move still catches you after dodging through it. it seems the hurtbox extends too far behind her back or the active frames are too long. or both. that's kinds infuriating, but apart from that i'm having a good time. :)

[Orange Juice]

Originally posted by jaderpansen:

WITH ON EXCEPTION: sometimes her own talisman / dash move still catches you after dodging through it. it seems the hurtbox extends too far behind her back or the active frames are too long. or both. that's kinds infuriating, but apart from that i'm having a good time. :)

Don't dodge through that, use a Tai Chi Kick. No risk and you stagger her massively

[vitality2000]

My opinion is that if the game added a hard mode as some nice DLC or just base game content I would look at eigong and go "This will suck... But I wanna do it."
Eigong is not easy but it is NOT unfair, all 3 phases are learnable and they teach parts of the next one. It's about being able to keep up and stay patient, kind of abandoning some habits you may have picked up as you play.

[vitality2000]

BUT, some other people say that the difficulty spike was too big, and I think the problem is that game didn't give any eigong styled bosses before-hand, the gank fight with the Feng twins(I think?) was super difficult but it didn't pose the same gameplay as Eigong did.
I think the difficulty is more because you had to adapt to basically a whole new type of fight as you fought her, not her natural difficulty.

[vitality2000]

Maybe Jiequen was like Eigong but if you were like me and you found the gene eradicator then you wouldn't of had to learn the fight as much as if you didn't use it.

Anyway yeah.

[rollin340]

I personally found it a good difficulty. It's definitely a steeper curve in terms of difficulty when compared to any other boss, but it is literally the FINAL boss. It has you use everything in your arsenal, which is good.

As for the difficulty spike, it isn't the only one. I found the first boss, Yingzhao, quite difficult since I hadn't gotten used to the combat just yet, and Lady Ethereal really upped the ante by requiring quick consecutive reactions. By the end of those fights, I was really happy with it, and the victories were much sweeter.

As for Eigong, has the most movesets of any boss in the game, but they are all quite clearly telegraphed. The only exception would be phase 3's 3-slash across the screen. It isn't instant, but the window here is very tight.

Once you know learn what move she is about to do by the stance she takes, you know exactly how to counter it. The real difficulty is how she chains them; your need to be quick to adapt. That said, what she can chain is actually limited as well. For example, after her screen-wide slashes, she can only do 3 things; it's not her entire moveset that is available at all times.

After many attempts, the challenge is actually to get through it. When to parry, when to jump parry, when to charge parry, when to dash, when it'd be safe to heal or use your talisman, when to use your bow to stun her out of an annoying attack you don't like, when you can take swings at her; it all comes down to stringing everything together.

It's a hard fight, but it's genuinely fair, since there is an answer for every move she throws at you. I was really annoyed at the suddenly difficulty spike, but when I hunkered down and studied it just like I did with the other bosses, after a while, I thoroughly started to enjoyed the fight. Any time I died, I knew it was my mistake, and not some bs the game threw at me.

If you are ever having trouble with understanding her movesets and how to best counter them, you can always check out a YT video or something since it's easier to digest when you can see it. But if you want the pointers in written form instead, feel free to ask.

As a sidenote, here is an actual bs "boss" for you. Once you can use the charged counter, you can go left from the base to fight an unnamed enemy that wields 2 axes and has 2 of the crimson turrets at the top of the arena. That fight is genuinely bs because of how the boss can not only fly across the arena to hit you, but it can change directions quite instantly. You think his hit will miss because you managed to dash through, but nope, he just suddenly turns and smacks you anyway. Now raging on that "boss" I totally understand. lol