(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.

[Familiar]

Originally posted by 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.

I spent 3h, learned all the movesets and turned it onto story mode so she had the same difficulty as every other boss in the game. Beating her legit isnt worth dealing with her hidden hitboxes and grapple attacks that hit you 5 miles away. Damn good game.

[Jauder le Bonette]

The game overall has a giant issue with highlighting you took damage, the sheer amount you take, and the wombo combos you can easily end up in if you didn't notice you were knocked down. Internal damage just isn't a good system and the game is good only because of how INSANELY well the enemies themselves are designed, not the core systems. So often i end up dead in one hit after parrying a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ only to realize my healthbar was empty for some reason cause i guess some just didn't work

[SonicBoomNFA]

Originally posted by Jauder le Bonette:

The game overall has a giant issue with highlighting you took damage, the sheer amount you take, and the wombo combos you can easily end up in if you didn't notice you were knocked down. Internal damage just isn't a good system and the game is good only because of how INSANELY well the enemies themselves are designed, not the core systems. So often i end up dead in one hit after parrying a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ only to realize my healthbar was empty for some reason cause i guess some just didn't work

The game gives very clear indicators that your parry wasn't perfect: A) you don't get the bright clanging sound, the big visual effect, or the freeze frames you normally get when you successfully parry B) unsuccessful parries make a distinct thwacking sound (and also, you can just see with your eyes that your health bar has turned partially red). I see absolutely no issue with the current design—I actually think the whole internal damage system is great.

[Nortic]

We're getting dangerously close to 100 responses on that thread, what have I done...

Well if anything this proves how controversial this topic is

[Songbird]

Originally posted by Jauder le Bonette:

The game overall has a giant issue with highlighting you took damage, the sheer amount you take, and the wombo combos you can easily end up in if you didn't notice you were knocked down. Internal damage just isn't a good system and the game is good only because of how INSANELY well the enemies themselves are designed, not the core systems. So often i end up dead in one hit after parrying a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ only to realize my healthbar was empty for some reason cause i guess some just didn't work

The game plays a completely different sound for an imprecise vs a precise parry. There's no way to confuse the two. Either you're not listening to the game at all, or you're using Qi Swipe or Swift Blade. If you really struggle that much with just getting the correct timing, use the Breather jade (it's much stronger than any of the other recovery-related jades, outside of Reciprocation which is a little tricky to use).

[PozerWolf]

Originally posted by Nortic:

Well if anything this proves how controversial this topic is

It's not. It's just a handful of people going back and forth on the discussion, all while their critiques are getting de-bunked due to lack of knowledge from the game or just stating completely incorrect info. Majority will agree it's a well designed final battle.

Also, kind of funny seeing you ignoring criticism on your statements since you're guilty of being incorrect in your original post.

[Nortic]

Originally posted by PozerWolf:

Originally posted by Nortic:

Well if anything this proves how controversial this topic is

It's not. It's just a handful of people going back and forth on the discussion, all while their critiques are getting de-bunked due to lack of knowledge from the game or just stating completely incorrect info. Majority will agree it's a well designed final battle.

Also, kind of funny seeing you ignoring criticism on your statements since you're guilty of being incorrect in your original post.

What are you even talking about

[leo_gear]

Originally posted by Nortic:

Originally posted by PozerWolf:

It's not. It's just a handful of people going back and forth on the discussion, all while their critiques are getting de-bunked due to lack of knowledge from the game or just stating completely incorrect info. Majority will agree it's a well designed final battle.

Also, kind of funny seeing you ignoring criticism on your statements since you're guilty of being incorrect in your original post.

What are you even talking about

If I were to clarify that poster's insinuations: I also don't agree with a lot of the stuff you said in your first post. Things like saying "the difficulty was too high and it would be better to design it easier" or "people that are complaining aren't just arguing against a skill issue". The only thing I'd probably agree with the contrary of the game being fine is, they didn't highlight the Story Mode option as something that could be utilized if this fight was too hard. Maybe a message in the loading screen saying "You can adjust damage taken/dealt in the options menu using Story Mode" during the loads between attempts or even an added prompt upon reloading after an attempt that tells you to press the menu button to change the difficulty.

Outside of that, It feels hand-holdy to expect the devs to retroactively adjust the difficulty of their game unless it was egregiously unfair. Like asking the creators of the NES Ninja Gaiden to fix their ♥♥♥♥ difficulty of that game after the cart is on the shelf. You either adapt, cheat or give up. There really shouldn't be an inbetween for games. Even the aspect of cheating shouldn't be shunned for games that are single player because that is a literal meta-hinge that make games games. The prospect that a system exists and you can work within it or choose not to is the hallmark of meta-game logic that spans into all aspect of games like speedruns. It just so happens the Story Mode is a "cheat system" built into the game making it not even cheating to use. It's just an aspect of the system (I think loading another player's save is more a cheat and players are certainly more willing to do that).

That all said, do I think Eigon's difficulty is an unfair spike? Probably. But after beating her through hours of struggle and seeing others beat her with various handicaps, I've concluded she's hard but not unfair considering the tool you have at your disposal.

For funsies, here's a vid of a player beating her without using movement inputs...just standing still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7u3PKtdWlo&list=LL

[Nortic]

Originally posted by leo_gear:

Originally posted by Nortic:

What are you even talking about

If I were to clarify that poster's insinuations: I also don't agree with a lot of the stuff you said in your first post. Things like saying "the difficulty was too high and it would be better to design it easier" or "people that are complaining aren't just arguing against a skill issue". The only thing I'd probably agree with the contrary of the game being fine is, they didn't highlight the Story Mode option as something that could be utilized if this fight was too hard. Maybe a message in the loading screen saying "You can adjust damage taken/dealt in the options menu using Story Mode" during the loads between attempts or even an added prompt upon reloading after an attempt that tells you to press the menu button to change the difficulty.

Outside of that, It feels hand-holdy to expect the devs to retroactively adjust the difficulty of their game unless it was egregiously unfair. Like asking the creators of the NES Ninja Gaiden to fix their ♥♥♥♥ difficulty of that game after the cart is on the shelf. You either adapt, cheat or give up. There really shouldn't be an inbetween for games. Even the aspect of cheating shouldn't be shunned for games that are single player because that is a literal meta-hinge that make games games. The prospect that a system exists and you can work within it or choose not to is the hallmark of meta-game logic that spans into all aspect of games like speedruns. It just so happens the Story Mode is a "cheat system" built into the game making it not even cheating to use. It's just an aspect of the system (I think loading another player's save is more a cheat and players are certainly more willing to do that).

That all said, do I think Eigon's difficulty is an unfair spike? Probably. But after beating her through hours of struggle and seeing others beat her with various handicaps, I've concluded she's hard but not unfair considering the tool you have at your disposal.

For funsies, here's a vid of a player beating her without using movement inputs...just standing still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7u3PKtdWlo&list=LL

So like, I agree with you to some extent, but I think something that people missenderstood a lot about my original post (maybe because I'm not that great at writing?) is that this never was about the fight being too hard or poorly designed. It was about the fight being too difficult relative to the rest of the game. The converation was meant to be about weather the difficulty of the fight was detrimental to the overarching experience of the average player that went that far.

It's not wrong for a game to be too hard for some people, art doesn't necessarly have to be accessible. But I felt that such a sudden difficulty spike would inevitably alienate or frustrate players. Sometimes players that could very much stomach the difficulty so far but got the rug pulled under their feet with the sudden difficulty spike. Which is an experience I've seen a lot of people talk about.

I want to stress that I'm not arguing that making the Eigong fight easier would make the fight itself better. It's about the context it exists in. And weather or not an easier fight would have been better for the game as a whole.

[Nortic]

Also about the Story mode stuff, I've explained why I don't think it's a perfect solution in the original post.

[SonicBoomNFA]

Originally posted by leo_gear:

For funsies, here's a vid of a player beating her without using movement inputs...just standing still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7u3PKtdWlo&list=LL

How do people even come up with this stuff, bruh

[SonicBoomNFA]

Originally posted by Nortic:

So like, I agree with you to some extent, but I think something that people missenderstood a lot about my original post (maybe because I'm not that great at writing?) is that this never was about the fight being too hard or poorly designed. It was about the fight being too difficult relative to the rest of the game. The converation was meant to be about weather the difficulty of the fight was detrimental to the overarching experience of the average player that went that far.

It's not wrong for a game to be too hard for some people, art doesn't necessarly have to be accessible. But I felt that such a sudden difficulty spike would inevitably alienate or frustrate players. Sometimes players that could very much stomach the difficulty so far but got the rug pulled under their feet with the sudden difficulty spike. Which is an experience I've seen a lot of people talk about.

I want to stress that I'm not arguing that making the Eigong fight easier would make the fight itself better. It's about the context it exists in. And weather or not an easier fight would have been better for the game as a whole.

You're presupposing that this "sudden difficulty spike" truly exists in the first place. It doesn't—it's totally subjective. Your original post is essentially claiming "Alright guys, so we all know that this boss is too hard compared to the other stuff. Now let's talk about it." Like, no, lol—I don't necessarily agree with that. The real problem is that the people complaining about Eigong (at least the ones I see) are unfairly using their own shortcomings as objective proof that Eigong is poorly designed or overly difficult. Like, for goodness' sake, the first reply I saw when I came to this thread (I skipped to the very last page and looked at the last message) was someone who couldn't even tell the difference between perfect parries and partial parries, and you expect me to believe that their idea of a well-designed boss is worth anything? Games shouldn't be watered down at their own expense to accommodate people who fail to learn the skills/ideas that the game is trying to teach them. If you learn what Nine Sols teaches you, then your progression is mostly smooth. If you don't learn what Nine Sols tries to teach you, then you hit a wall until you figure out what you're doing wrong. That holds true for literally any game. In this case, a bunch of people were unlucky enough to hit their wall at Eigong, who encourages you to use every skill you learned.

I don't think this is a designer-side issue. The game gives us so many tools (jades, different arrows, movement tech, blocking methods, etc.) to work with, and we're not forced to fight Eigong in any particular manner (anyone who claims so is objectively incorrect). I know it's possible for a game to have unexpected or disproportionate changes in difficulty, but there's a huge difference between an actual flawed design and just a player being incompetent. And no, I don't think that just because a lot of people are complaining about it means that their sentiments have more weight. In this case, it just means that a lot of people are just wrong (not wrong for perceiving a greater jump in difficulty—again, that's subjective. I mean wrong for blaming it on poor game design rather than personal skill). It's more than possible for a great number of people to be incompetent.

Also, this part:

Originally posted by Nortic:

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.

I agree that Eigong is harder than everything else in the entire game (because she's the final boss, obviously), but she does not have "unintuitive timings" or "unpredictable patterns", and the fact that her talisman grab can't be blocked with unbounded counter isn't that crazy, especially considering you don't even have unbounded counter for a large portion of the game.

[KingDragoon]

tldr: skill issue cixing was arder than eigong and that was a sideboss.

[KGUMASTER]

Sorry, but it really is just a matter of skill issue. I beat her in less than 3 hours while SLEEP DEPRIVED. You don't need inhuman reactions or anything, just look at what she's doing, learn to recognize the patterns and act accordingly. Everything is telegraphed and counterable