Family trials too unfair?

[Schizophriend]

Me and a friend have been playing this game for over 2 years now. The story mode was relatively simple.

But once we were done with that, we started trying out the family trials. It took us like 20 attempts to just beat it on the normal difficulty. The gamemode seems really fun theoretically but the odds quickly turn against you.
Now we've been stuck on hardmode for almost 2 years. It just feels impossible to win, especially with some certain characters.

I really don't know what we're doing wrong. Some bosses and challenges, especially the one where you have to destroy the purple pillars, feel particularly unfair. It feels impossible to fight the enemies because you're forced to run away 99% of the time, with melee characters you can barely get any hits in without losing half your HP.
Most of our runs go like this: They start out fairly good, we get some nice talents, some really good items, it feels like we're gonna have a great time... and then one BS part comes and everything goes to crap.

And to think there's an even harder difficulty...

What are your experiences with it?

[Wilfrid Wong]

Similar experience. Family Trials also seems to be really hard for solo players. They should at least make all the unlocked perks stackable as an option to get over the hurdle. Normal difficulty should be tuned to cater for most players. If I can complete the story and get all characters to level 20, I should be able to do okay in Family Trials. Also, for the harder missions, perhaps need to spawn more health globes for lower difficulty.

Anyhow, that’s my thought. I think Family Trial is a missed opportunity. I would take it one step further to incorporate a version of Family Trials into the main story. I like the mechanism and randomness of Family Trials. On paper it beats grinding the same old dungeons on the main story any time.

[Void_Arsonist]

Just completed hard difficulty solo with Marc. I have about 40 hours played and it was like 3-4 attempt at hard difficulty. I think I was lucky to make imba build. The key item is grace 'lifelong pal' which looks like red dot. It gives you health and shield when damaging enemies

Also I think lightning multihit is important. Not sure if it counts for healing, But its good as aoe attack. Actually any spam aoe attack is a must.

Never relied on secondary attacks, only primary

Of course, dodge/crit hit are also needed. I finished boss fight with full hp and shield, so health seems not so important although I invested in it a lot

I think key is to have something that could generate shield fast or any source that could allow you avoid enemy attacks.

All in all, I played almost only Lucy and Mark, two best characters. Not sure if family trials beatable with other characters considering what you get at late stages

[Void_Arsonist]

Regarding purple pillars, do it a little smarter. Don't destroy them 1 by 1, first damage them to like 1%. Then simply return to each of them and make a final blow :) ez

[Kyo Dyhos]

In my opinion it is possible to pass Family trials on the last difficulty (I only play that one) with any character.

If you play co-op the best solution is always a character that can hold a lot and a character that does a lot of damage. Linda and John for me are the best option. One character should be able to take the hits while the other one destroys him.

When playing coop you have to know how to distribute the items and gems at 50%. It's no good for one player to take all the gems and good items. For example, one of the 2 characters should collect all the bad divine graces and thus be able to re roll to try to get some good ones.
You also have to be optimal with the upgrades with gems, the familiars at high levels no longer do damage, only the one that paralyzes is worth and not all relics or graces are worth to go to the maximum.

The luck also influences to get a good relic or grace at the beginning helps a lot. And even more influences the bosses that come out, having to deal with the scorpion, the twins or the assassin can be a big problem and even more the second time with 2 mutations.

Normally a full run of Family Trials is about an hour.

[azure.symmetry]

You need to get really good Artefacts, some special Re-usable healing Potion, and something to Stun the enemies. You also need the RNG to pick bosses that won't destroy you in one-shot. I think I spend 40 hours just trying to beat the HARD mode of Family Trials. I never beat it actually.