Quality drop in Levels/Ennemies after Lower Stratum ?

[ᏫᏋᏒᎽ]

Am I the only person that think that the level / ennemies design are insane AFTER the lower stratum.
So many ennemies, so many projectiles, so many AOEs. Every platform has 1 ennemy waiting on it and 2 ennemies that will aggro once you're there. Sure, let me just outrange ennemies and shoot them 1 by 1, it will just take 50 minutes to explore 3 rooms.
Like yup, I'm going to keep my difficulty settings for bosses only.

EDIT: It gets better after the Central Stratum, it's just that one area which is really annoying to go through, the deposit was horrible too. But there are way better areas after. Removing the double ennemy hp modifier also helped.

[Zosonte]

I don't have issues with enemy placement but I do think enemies start hitting too hard at 1x, like you should just have three hearts instead of a health bar at that point

[Taruwolf]

I see a lot of people only giving positive feedback, but I'm struggling to maintain interest the more I play. After lower stratum, everything feels like it's more about memorization instead of reaction. So many of the rooms and bosses feel like banging your head against the wall until you memorize away all the challenge.

[toughnails]

I'm almost done and it's not that hard. The devs even added difficulty sliders for you this time, and yet you still complain.

You have a lot of high damage abilities, use them. You can open up with Lito's fist to insta-stun multiple enemies, follow up with No. 7's teleporting slash, and so on. If you see a big group, use an attuner ability to wipe them all out. Parry all projectiles, one of the carapaces sends out homing bolts literally every time you parry, so it's ez mode.

[ᏫᏋᏒᎽ]

Originally posted by toughnails:

I'm almost done and it's not that hard. The devs even added difficulty sliders for you this time, and yet you still complain.

You have a lot of high damage abilities, use them. You can open up with Lito's fist to insta-stun multiple enemies, follow up with No. 7's teleporting slash, and so on. If you see a big group, use an attuner ability to wipe them all out. Parry all projectiles, one of the carapaces sends out homing bolts literally every time you parry, so it's ez mode.

This was expected, if it wasn't clear enough for you small head, I was talking about ennemy design. If I wanted to one shot everything and cheese through the whole game, I would put the sliders to the minimum. I want my fights to be LONG, I want to need to LEARN, not stop every ennemy from playing the game.
And yet, I've never said it was hard, the word would be annoying. The whole center stratum is ANNOYING. So yeah keep talking about your ez mode and let us complain about ennemy design.

[Renzokuken]

I've been clearing out everything possible as I've gone through each area, I have as much health as I can have going into the biological research facility, and I've been prioritising defence on armour.

At one point there's a room you reach by using a rocket jump from a moving platform. I jumped up and four laser enemies fried me instantly from full health before my feet even touched the floor, and I'm playing on base difficulty.

Had to put the steam deck down at that point before I broke something. Kinda sucks focusing on survival so much and still being a 3 hit kill for most normal enemies.

[Cheeky]

I literally got one shot by the boss in the Factory. He hits me 3 times and i'm dead. Bruh this ♥♥♥♥ sucks

[TokTheGod]

Nope, game is perfectly fine. Just 100% it on hard. Thought the last area was much easier than Ender Lilies even.

[ᏫᏋᏒᎽ]

Originally posted by TokTheGod:

Nope, game is perfectly fine. Just 100% it on hard. Thought the last area was much easier than Ender Lilies even.

Yeah game is perfectly fine, that's why they nerfed the rats.
I'm playing on hard with 2x HP. Central Stratum was not fun.

[Lumina]

Truly i heard the game was easy and i tought so at first never had trouble but once i pass Gilroy i started getting annihilated litteraly need 10 or more try every boss even on normal, i mean im not ignorant of hard game i beat elden ring cuphead hollow knight and im on my playtrough of DS1 rn but is this really the idea of easy??

[Lumina]

Originally posted by Cheeky:

I literally got one shot by the boss in the Factory. He hits me 3 times and i'm dead. Bruh this ♥♥♥♥ sucks

Yes same, try to change to the mace instead of the scythe as it leave you open after a combo.

[Al Gore]

thought so too! After the lower stratum everything hurt so much i just avoided everything lol. I beat the game and have all achievements except max attunements, the game has a tankyness and enemy balance issue tbh

[VonFirflirch]

Originally posted by ᏫᏋᏒᎽ:

Yeah game is perfectly fine, that's why they nerfed the rats.

I feel like the Rat nerf is unwarranted (even if I died to them a fair bit), given how you can outrange them... like a lot of other enemies, unfortunately (poor shocking mines).


Do you have an area in mind, specifically?
The Academy was just fine to me, for example, and that's Central Stratum.
Some enemies had some synergy going, with mages using homing projectiles and playing keep away, while robots would be trying to zap you at close range. I think that was fair enough.
...Then again, I also wasn't on 2x HP and I was taking advantage of what Toughnails was talking about, even if I did have the other sliders high enough for 2.5 fragments. My enemies weren't sponges, they were glass cannons. Or nukes, sometimes. x)

If anything, maybe the difficulty sliders are the real culprit? I don't really like the idea behind them: "Balance the game yourself~!", I'd rather have dedicated modes everyone is stuck with. As it is, you can't talk about certain aspects of the game without saying "by the way, I had enemy self-esteem set to 5x~", it's a bit annoying.


Oh, by the way, watch out, "enemy" only has one "n" in English. Random letters being added/removed from one language to the next drive me up a wall x)

[Ruka]

I think it's mostly because you're supposed to take advantage of the fact there's no contact damage. Running past them/dodging their attacks and coming back later is generally always an option, there are very few battle corridor fight the enemies-style encounters where you're totally locked in, and unlike EL i don't think any of them block you from progression.

That said it can definitely feel "aw man" when you get beaten up by an enemy you didn't see coming. I don't think you're going to enjoy the game a lot if you don't go into it treating rooms as puzzles to some degree though, since you get a lot of abilities and a lot of characters to sort through and you may need to adjust your approach for exploration.

[Little Diddlo]

The best tip I can give is get used to using your environment. Wall climbing to do a ground pound is really strong. any and all knockback is strong.

[fwhite0782]

Originally posted by Taruwolf:

I see a lot of people only giving positive feedback, but I'm struggling to maintain interest the more I play. After lower stratum, everything feels like it's more about memorization instead of reaction. So many of the rooms and bosses feel like banging your head against the wall until you memorize away all the challenge.

Please name me the game where that isn't how you progress. If people were destroying every boss on first try the howls would be "gAMe Too EZ".