Fire boss, ruined the game

[Dark Messiah]

So after trying for about 2 and half hours, I gave up. This must be most stupidly random boss fight I| have ever seen in any game:
-That damn sword attack, it just cant make up its mind. Sometime it feels like it is attacking last place I was, sometimes it lands no where near me, sometimes at actually tracks my movement and sometime it actually hits where I am running towards. My movement is not fast enough for a dodge at the last second.
-It lasts way too long.
-Why does it push me away when going to stun mode, towards the incoming fireballs? I have no idea when he is going to that so sometimes I just end up in the middle of a fireball after attacking him.

I have played both Dark Souls games, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, Ninja Gainden 1 and 2 and no where in those games I got stuck on a boss fight like this. Random and drawn out boss fight is never a good design.
It also clashes with the rest of the game I have played so far. All of the other bosses had a reason and rhythm to them, everytime I died I learned something and I did a little better until I was able to win. I did not feel frustrated since I was learning with each new death but this fire boss? Yeah I know if I try and try, I will be able to defeat the boss but frankly I hate random elements in games, this is it for me, the extent I will spend time on this game.

[ClockworkXI]

Hi dark messiah,

thank you for the feedback. This boss is meant to be fought last so we did make him a bit harder than the previous ones. We did not intend to make him this frustrating. I can give you some pointer that will hopefully help you beat him.

- If you haven't completed the other 4 regions, I suggest you do it first.
- The sword attack isn't random, but sometime it may look like it. The way it works is that at the beginning of his animation he tries to lead your movement and select the closest ending animation to it. So it will seem more random if you change direction after he started the sword attack anticipation.
- The stun cannot happen when he is recovering from a sword attack. It will be postponed to the next attack he recieve. This make it so he is most often stunned when landing from a jump.
- Like every other boss, he is weak to a Thor/Speed combo.
- In the second phase, when there is a lot of meteor around, it is good to have the shield power ready in case you get knocked in the lava.
- Keep the spear power to burst down the final 20%.

I do not know if you'll try to defeat him again, but I hope this helps you if you do try again.

[Fenrir]

i finished him the first i try but i had to try 10 times to beat the second giant (FE)
i think each player has his weaknesses ^^

[Aleonymous]

I'm having difficulties with Fire boss as well. All the rest seemed like there was a pattern or weak-spot to them, and you just had to execute an appropriate plan correctly. This guy is kinda OP, especially in the last phase with fireballs everywhere and him jumping around and thrashing!

• Jera -- Nature Jotun (1st I fought) was pretty easy.
  
• Fe -- Cave Jotun (2nd I fought) was quite hard. Had to go look for powers and come back.
  
• Isa -- Winter Jotun (3rd I fought) wasn't as hard as the previous one.
  
• Hagalaz -- Storm Jotun (4th I fought) was a bit tricky, but once I formed a plan, my 3rd attempt paid off.
  
• Kaunan -- Fire Jotun (last one) has beaten me about 10 times so far. Closest I got hit was at ~30%.

EDIT -- So, I went up and watched a couple of youtube videos and finally figured the way to beat Kaunan. What I hadn't figured out was that when he drops face-down, you can take your time and go for a power-shot at him. Watching the videos, I also had time to count his movement patterns, which wasn't as easy when in-game... Now on for Odin!

[Kain]

I strongly disagree. Fight felt fluid and it took me maybe 5 attempts in total to beat him. At that time I only killed Jera and Fe and I can safely say that Fe gave me more trouble. His patterns are very simple. Sword strike, ground cracks, leap and fireballs. All were very easy to avoid, especially with sprint and shield.

The only thing I can agree on is when you stun him from certain side his sword will push you away and since most of the time I got to stun him during fireballs I would get pushed into the fire. I found it is best to stay on his front and really lay into him after he leaps. That way you save yourself from getting pushed and you end up right next to his head, adjusting your position if you're half way through the fight and the leap causes fire cracks.

Avoiding sword is the easiest part, if nothing else happens i just stand in one place and watch the shadow and roll away, don't think I got hit by it even once. Not much to say.

Ground cracks are maybe even easier even in empowered state. I just stand in one place, wait for cracks to appear near me and adjust myself to stand between them when fire erupts.

It's really a fast reaction, positioning and patience fight.

Was very reminiscent of Dark Souls bosses really.

Also, amazing game Devs, art style in particular. Whoever is your artist, give that man a cup of ale!

[ClockworkXI]

Thanks for the kind words Kain! The pushback when he fall is an unfortunate necessity to avoid the character getting stuck in the boss as the collision change pretty abruptly.

[Lhunfaen]

I strongly desagree, it's my favorite Jotun "LavaBeard" ^^ this fight reminds me of demon souls bosses (agree with you kain ^^) really intense.
And like FENRIR, Fe kicked my ass a lot of time ^^"

[Fenrir]

yeah damn Fe

[Ovici]

this is my favorite boss
his patern is surprising the first time; that make him so fun :)
obligation to die and try again!

[El Botijo]

Count me in as another one having trouble with this Jotun, played as the third one to beat. The problem I see is the last 20% of the fight. Damage from anything at that stage is brutal - like 80% of the life bar.
I concede - some deaths are due to my own doing. I understand the difficulty needs to ramp up with almost no safe area left with all the fireballs, the jumps and the cracks. However, I do not like being pushed over a hot area with no telegraphed movement. And that is the reason why this fight is leaving me a bad after taste.

[ClockworkXI]

Fair enough, the knockback when he fall down was a bad decision on our part. However he is intended to be beaten last, so if you tackle him third you might have a hard time.

[El Botijo]

Fair enough. I better go and play the game then.

[PFC-Cowboy]

Well I have to voice my displeasure with this boss too. I beat all other bosses easily, most on the first try. The storm jotun took me a dozen tries till I got my strategy down but I could live with that.

The fire jotun is making me break my gamepad in half. I tried more than 50 times already and always get hit by attacks that shouldn't hit me - this is insanely frustrating. The gamepad input and hitboxes are not precise enough for the difficulty. I will give up and watch the rest on youtube.

Sorry to say, but that boss is totally unenjoyable. I like a good challenge but this is cheap and frustrating. Especially when the rest of the game up to this point is very easy and enjoyable ride this insane spike in difficulty breaks the game for me.

[ClockworkXI]

Sorry you found him to be too hard. Like I mentioned in this thread he is meant to be harder, but not the margin you are mentioning. We tried to be careful with the hitboxes and make them smaller than their visual. I'd like to know which one you felt were unfair as I'd make sure to double check them.

As for the the gamepad input, there is no delay or restriction in angle. We are limited in the amount on angle we could draw but the movement itself is free to go in any direction.

[PFC-Cowboy]

The thing is that his sword attack is sometimes hitting me when it should not. I tend to stay rather close so I can get a hit or two in. If you're too far away you can't reach him in time. I take the shadow of the sword as the indicator. Sometimes though I get hit when I'm about as far away from the shadow as my own size. And that seems downright wrong. Not sure if that is a gltich regarding my resolution or something but I never had such a thing happen on the other bosses. It doesn't happen often or reproduceable that's why I'm wondering.

Furthermore, later in the fight it's possible to get trapped from lave of his meteors. The lave takes a time to go away and I've suffered through multiple occasions where the lave spots are placed in a way around you that makes it impossible to evade his multi-jump-attack he performs later on.

And then you can often simply not reach his head when he is unconsious because his sword or lava is blocking the way.

I've had good runs where I got him down to like 5-10% of his life remaining and failed because of stupid stuff like this happening. And then I had runs that already started of bad and went downhill fast.

The game is great. I was really really enjoying it so far - the art style, the gameplay and such. But the jump in difficulty is quite jarring. Maybe I'm not good enough for that. But when the game up to this point is an enjoyable jog in the park and then suddenly turns into a sprint again Usain Bold something is wrong.

[ClockworkXI]

The sword hit seems odd. You are right that the shadow is supposed to be the indicator. We had to put a lot of hitboxes on each frame, so it's possible we made a mistake somewhere. I'll make sure to check it. Do you know if it was in the first or second stage? The collisions are different when his sword is on fire

You mentioned getting him to 5-10%, I'd suggest keeping the spear power for the end as it's when he is most dangerous. Same thing with the shield as it will allow you to go around him when lava block the way to the head.

For the triple jump, if you stay close to the first landing spot you shouldn't end up in a situation where you lava will prevent you from dodging it. Decoy is also very good at this point as it last for the whole 3 jumps and counter the move completely.