Nihilanth is just about the worst made boss of all time. This is just bad design.

[MerliN]

After about 40 attempts at Nihilanth and between the game crashes, save issues and unsurvivable pummeling he gives you, I absolutely hate this boss.

Most of the trouble seems to happen around the later phases of Nihilanth, I'm not sure which phase I'm in because I haven't finished it yet.

There is an issue with the game halting/locking-up if you quicksave then press escape again. Not sure if it's a pause or a game lock-up. In the later phases where there are fire waves, energy spheres which damage you and the rocks that come up out of the ground I hit a few spots where the game would crash to desktop. This was after a quicksave but I'm not sure if they're related. I had to go back to previous saves to continue.

Aside from the game stability issues I found Nihilanth ridiculously hard to the point of impossible. It's at the part where his head opens and brain is exposed. I'm trying to hit it with the RPG, haven't tried other weapons yet. Because of the way he turns around and the attacks I can't even look at him to time the rockets right or even get a fix on where he is facing. As soon as I look at him i can't dodge the fire waves. And the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ energy spheres which damage spawn on you a lot and you don't even know it because they're not visible, you're already getting damaged and have to move. Usually right into a fire wave.

At the point where the back of his head if exposed and I need to time the shot he seems to do this quick turn and my rocket just ends up hitting the outside of the head.
I have to get lucky to be able to see and time the shot right without getting ripped apart by the time three simultaneous attacks which is virtually unavoidable. Maybe 1 in 10 times, for unknown reason there is a bit of a random lull in the attacks and I can get a reasonable shot in. If I do hit the brain with an RPG I'm not sure it's doing anything.

This is not fun.

This is nothing but a lesson in how much the dev does not want you to finish this game.

This is Gonarch all over again but worse.

I haven't looked into the crash reports and whatnot that I'm supposed to submit. I'm just writing this after quitting out because how much of a massive piss off this level is.

I mean, these devs are like night and day with this game. There are parts of the design and gameplay which are outstandingly brilliant and there are parts which tell me that the devs need to go back to school to learn certain parts of game design because they are unbelievably bad.

I've gone from loving this game to hating it and just wanting some parts to be over with

[ComputerDude]

I loved Nihilanth, I thought it was a lot of fun and a tremendous improvement over the original. When his head is open just use the gluon gun or any of the other weapons. The key to this boss, as well as Gonarch's Lair, is just to keep moving. Constantly use the long-jump module and strafe out of harm's way.

[9seed]

you gotta use hitscan weapons for the killing blow, not rpg rockets. Use the revolver, gluon gun, tau cannon, mp5, etc, not the rockets.

[gru]

This fight is much easier than Gonarch.

[Cake]

I thought they were both easy

[AtomHeartDragon]

Originally posted by MerliN:

Nihilanth is just about the worst made boss of all time.

That doesn't seem to be the prevailing opinion.

Most players seem to have enjoyed this fight and for a lot of good reasons.
It's also much better overall than the same fight in the original (though it could use a few things it misses from the original).

There also seems to be a consensus that Nihilanth is easier than Gonarch.

[BroCode]

I did him 1st try and cannot understand your rant... git gud maybe?

[Muckelchen]

I also really like him how, hated the boss in the original game.

[NighT WolF]

Originally posted by MerliN:

There is an issue with the game halting/locking-up if you quicksave then press escape again.

That bug is a little bit annoying, but if you quicksaved, then you can just quickload and continue when it happens.

Originally posted by MerliN:

I'm trying to hit it with the RPG, haven't tried other weapons yet.

Well, try other weapons then? I still have to reach him, but if he is like in the original, then the RPG is probably the worst choice of weapons against him. (except grenades and snarks maybe)

[SaLaĐiN]

It took me 4 tries on Black mesa diff to learn his patterns and how to dodge, you are just bad.

[bad carbs]

The crashes and performance seems like a problem on your end, but for the fight itself I thought it was great. You should probably try using the gluon gun for the fight like I did. I don't think the rocket launcher is well suited for that fight

[MerliN]

Originally posted by SaLaDiN:

It took me 4 tries on Black mesa diff to learn his patterns and how to dodge, you are just bad.

Every time.

Every. Damn. Time.

Re-read my original post and pay attention to how I explained the difficulty.

[MerliN]

Originally posted by bad carbs:

The crashes and performance seems like a problem on your end, but for the fight itself I thought it was great. You should probably try using the gluon gun for the fight like I did. I don't think the rocket launcher is well suited for that fight

Yeah I'll go with different weapons as many have suggested. I assumed it would have to be RPG or nades because that was how to beat Nihilanth in the origina game. I stuck with that for long enough before getting fed up so it's time to take another tack.

[MerliN]

Yeah, after just a few attempts the gluon gun kills Nihilanth almost instantaneously once you hit the right area.

I think it would have helped if there was some indication that the RPG is the wrong way to go rather than finding out the hard way.

Now to see how Project Borealis is coming along.

[AtomHeartDragon]

Originally posted by MerliN:

I think it would have helped if there was some indication that the RPG is the wrong way to go rather than finding out the hard way.

Is RPG working poorly not a sufficient indication?

[Just Chill]

I really cannot support these issues.

First time I played it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1954292317

Second time I played it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2005232104


It's much, much easier than Gonarch.
As of you passing Gonarch, it's beyond me how you can struggle at this fight. oO