The Radiance is Complete Trash

[Necrofitz]

Honestly, ♥♥♥♥ this game. Half the time it's fair and well made, and the rest of the time it's an RNG fest with a bad set up creating the epitome of artificial difficulty.

I'm done with it. The final boss being AoE move spam in a small arena just proves that the developers have no idea how to make genuine difficulty and would rather rely on BS mechanics that basically just make someone sigh with relief knowing they'll never have to do it again once they finally make it through the completely false challenge.

This game isn't worth beating, and I can safely say I will never boot it again and won't be buying the sequel.

Congrats on losing a sale by not knowing how to balance your game, Team Cherry.

Edit:

Preserving the original post because hey, I said it, I own it. Beat the game though. Like the rest of it enough I'll still buy Silksong. I still don't think the Radiance is a very good boss, but I can at least beat it to death now.

[Xerkie]

Do you mean the Absolute Radiance or just...The Radiance?

[Necrofitz]

Is there really a difference other than Absolute Radiance probably being even more of an RNG ridden hellscape?

[Yharim]

Normal radiance is easy, no idea why you think its rng.
Absolute radiance just requires you knowing the patterns of all her attacks thoroughly.

[Necrofitz]

It's RNG because half the time attacks converge or spawn in just the right way that you have to take damage. Try to play defensively and odds are you won't do enough damage to even get past phase 1. Play offensively and you'll likely make it just far enough for the fight to fall to pieces when the void appears at the bottom. If the final boss of the game literally comes down to "fight it over and over again until you maybe won't get hurt so much", that is bad game design. Good design would be a culmination of all the skills you gained in previous bosses. This is just a chore that indicates the devs wanted a big final boss, but had no idea what to actually do so we got this mess instead.

The Radiance is basically a textbook for bad boss design in general. It's incredibly lazy and garbage all around.

[Yharim]

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

It's RNG because half the time attacks converge or spawn in just the right way that you have to take damage.

You must be really bad a thinking ahead.

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

Try to play defensively and odds are you won't do enough damage to even get past phase 1. Play offensively and you'll likely make it just far enough for the fight to fall to pieces when the void appears at the bottom.

You're right. Go too far either way and you get destroyed, keep a balance of both.

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

the final boss of the game literally comes down to "fight it over and over again until you maybe won't get hurt so much"

No it doesn't. You clearly lack the ability to learn from what you did wrong in the last attempt. Watch how the spikes fly and learn how to time your jumps. The beams are really slow and can easily be dodged. Direct the orbs into the platforms rather than gathering a bunch above you and getting rained on. Get caught in an awkward position? Descending dark saves lives.

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

that is bad game design. Good design would be a culmination of all the skills you gained in previous bosses. This is just a chore that indicates the devs wanted a big final boss, but had no idea what to actually do so we got this mess instead.

Isn't that what this boss is? The rest taught you how to dodge rapid projectiles, homing attacks and when to strike. That is exactly how you beat this boss.
Here's someone doing Absolute radiance without getting hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rg8UBKtt1o

[Xerkie]

Radiance herself is actually a rather easy bossfight, consisting of somewhat slow, well - telegraphed attacks ( Albeit they do overlap sometimes ), vivid sound queues, and ample time inbetween to heal and defend yourself.

It's the Absolute Radiance that takes it to the next level of bullcrap unfairness and makes it completely unfun to play. The Radiance is a balanced bossfight in that she only ever attacks one at a time, like most other bosses, but the attacks come relentlessly and quickly, letting you learn the patterns gradually ; Bosses far more difficult than the Radiance, like the Pure Vessel and Nightmare King Grimm, have been professed to be some of the most fair bosses in the entire game. I think you're just angry and don't want to nail the patterns or learn specifically what to do.

It took me over 13 hours my first time to beat Nightmare King Grimm, and 3 days to beat the Pure Vessel on Ascended Mode Difficulty, both of which on normal difficulty make the Radiance look merciful and slow - motion in comparison. I'm rather terrible at the game, but because I play it so much, manage to adapt to it and even git gud at it. I think you should do the same.

[Hedrack]

A few things that can help:

1) With the set of three lasers, the next laser will never target the same area that was just fired on so you can move to where the previous laser was and you'll be safe (so moving to the second laser leaves you safe until Radiance finishes and starts a new attack). This allows you to heal or attack (especially good for using abyss shriek). The laser attack is probably your safest opportunity to heal if you are safely positioned quickly.

2) Shade dash through laser pillar as early as possible to avoid double attacks. If your shade dash is on cooldown remember you can desolate dive/descending dark for iframes to avoid attacks (applies to all the other attacks).

3) Taking damage from the spikes that cover half the platform in the initial phase (or using descending dark on them) removes them temporarily if you need more space. It can also be convenient for avoiding a bad attack if necessary since they only do one damage.

4) Side javelins have an audio cue (lowering music volume can help for hearing it) to know it's coming if you don't see Radiance using radial javelins. Shade dash can avoid the first/third set or the second set. You can jump through them but I find dashing through the openings safest.

5) After beating the first part (before Radiance disappears and the platform phase begins) you have time to heal up to six masks if you have the soul for it.

Also, a spell build destroys Radiance pretty quickly. Shaman Stone + Spell Twister and using Abyss Shriek when Radiance finishes an attack will beat her pretty quickly. A nail build works well too.

There a good bit to take in for the fight and like any boss it's just practicing until everything "clicks". Good luck!

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Personally, I kinda thought both Watcher Knights without the shade cloak and (post lifeblood) Traitor Lord where much more BS.

Radiance is really more of a platforming precision test turned into a boss fight.

[Syndiciate]

Sounds to me like you're complete trash at fighting the Radiance.

[Necrofitz]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

Personally, I kinda thought both Watcher Knights without the shade cloak and (post lifeblood) Traitor Lord where much more BS.

Radiance is really more of a platforming precision test turned into a boss fight.

Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, I hated both of those bosses. Watcher Knights may hold the mantle for worst boss in the game, even with how much I hate The Radiance. Traitor Lord was awful for the whole small arena huge boss thing with contact damage to boot, but with the Pure Nail and Sharp Shadow, you could basically tank it since the Traitor Lord doesn't have a ton of HP.

For those offering advice by the way, I do appreciate your input. My post clearly came from a place of frustration, and although I still think The Radiance is a really phoned in final boss layered from top to bottom with artificial challenge, I'll check out the advice and consider throwing some more corpses at the thing. It's just, especially with the fun Hollow Knight fight that leads into it (which I admit is pretty easy with a fully buffed Knight with good badges, not to mention just in general), it's disappointing to go from something you conquer with pure skill and mastery of timing dashes and attacks to something where you have to try to watch the entire screen at once to figure out what attack is coming next and will likely die many, many times before victory.

[Boksha]

Threads like this always make me sad. You can design an absolutely brilliant boss that requires the player to actually think about what they're doing and is actually quite easy to a player that pays even a little bit of attention, and someone will come in and complain about how it's complete trash, RNG, artificial difficulty, proof the developers had no idea what they were doing and what not.

[Aval4nche]

Before Team Cherry released the sequel announcement, people just said they won't play the game anymore, now they also say they won't buy the sequel. Seems like the new upcoming game is just an excuse used by some players for more complaining on the difficulty of the game.

And something I want to add: one of the game tags of this game litterally says this game is hard.

[Stret]

The Radiance is not RNG because her stuff is pretty slow

Originally posted by Boksha:

Threads like this always make me sad. You can design an absolutely brilliant boss that requires the player to actually think about what they're doing and is actually quite easy to a player that pays even a little bit of attention, and someone will come in and complain about how it's complete trash, RNG, artificial difficulty, proof the developers had no idea what they were doing and what not.

this.

If he was complaining about Absolute Radiance, which indeed can screw you up i'd be ok with it but bro, regular radiance? y'know the one with slowass attacks?

Originally posted by Hedrack:

A few things that can help:

1) With the set of three lasers, the next laser will never target the same area that was just fired on so you can move to where the previous laser was and you'll be safe (so moving to the second laser leaves you safe until Radiance finishes and starts a new attack). This allows you to heal or attack (especially good for using abyss shriek). The laser attack is probably your safest opportunity to heal if you are safely positioned quickly.

2) Shade dash through laser pillar as early as possible to avoid double attacks. If your shade dash is on cooldown remember you can desolate dive/descending dark for iframes to avoid attacks (applies to all the other attacks).

3) Taking damage from the spikes that cover half the platform in the initial phase (or using descending dark on them) removes them temporarily if you need more space. It can also be convenient for avoiding a bad attack if necessary since they only do one damage.

4) Side javelins have an audio cue (lowering music volume can help for hearing it) to know it's coming if you don't see Radiance using radial javelins. Shade dash can avoid the first/third set or the second set. You can jump through them but I find dashing through the openings safest.

5) After beating the first part (before Radiance disappears and the platform phase begins) you have time to heal up to six masks if you have the soul for it.

Also, a spell build destroys Radiance pretty quickly. Shaman Stone + Spell Twister and using Abyss Shriek when Radiance finishes an attack will beat her pretty quickly. A nail build works well too.

There a good bit to take in for the fight and like any boss it's just practicing until everything "clicks". Good luck!

Those will help you. Also another build of mine that is less focused on spells is Strenght, Quick Nail, Fragile Health and Quick Focus. Quick focus lets you heal pretty much anywhere, even on absrad phases 1, 2 and 4 . It sacrifices Shaman Stone, howhever i much preffer the strenght on my nail because not like abyss shriek lets you constantly hit and pogo The Radiance during her orb barrages and in beetwen some tight attacks. I've been getting pretty consistent with this build, i even got it hitless once, unfortunately not on radiant difficulty

[Stret]

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

Is there really a difference other than Absolute Radiance probably being even more of an RNG ridden hellscape?

yes

the difference is it barely has RNG

regular radiance has no RNG

[Stret]

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

It's RNG because half the time attacks converge or spawn in just the right way that you have to take damage. Try to play defensively and odds are you won't do enough damage to even get past phase 1. Play offensively and you'll likely make it just far enough for the fight to fall to pieces when the void appears at the bottom. If the final boss of the game literally comes down to "fight it over and over again until you maybe won't get hurt so much", that is bad game design. Good design would be a culmination of all the skills you gained in previous bosses. This is just a chore that indicates the devs wanted a big final boss, but had no idea what to actually do so we got this mess instead.

The Radiance is basically a textbook for bad boss design in general. It's incredibly lazy and garbage all around.

walking in the other direction exists

shade cloak exists

she doesnt have that much hp

>the literal final boss of the game boils down to. not getting hit
just like all other bosses lol