Difficulty?

[Maid Leila]

I've heard a lot of people claim that this game is challenging but I'm just not seeing it. I'm playing on nightmare mode and after 10 hours I have yet to come across any encounter, mook or boss, that has been remotely challenging. I even managed to one shot the first boss of the 2nd dungeon when my mad raptor got a critical gore for 3000 damage. That really came as a shock.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I want some challenge to look forward to. Have I been getting lucky? Have I not reached the challenging part yet? Or has the difficulty of this game been exaggerated?

P.S. I tried fighting the boss at the northeast corner of the 3rd floor of the first dungeon but got wrecked hard. I assume I'm not supposed to fight them yet because I seem to be able to progress without fighting them.

[Grandork]

Nightmare doesn't really do much.

First real hard boss you will face will be the Troll Shaman (optional).

Then all of the Secret Bosses, but mostly just Overlord Furfur.

The last boss is also a pain in the ass if you don't have the pact that makes her a cake walk.

The Continuation Bosses, especially the first one and the last one, are quite hard also.

[Maid Leila]

So the game won't get challenging until I get to the optional and endgame/postgame content? Fair enough, I'll just hold out until then.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Kain Yusanagi]

The game will be difficult if you deliberately gimp yourself, or don't learn lessons from the game as you play, trying to make things work any old way, instead of optimizing. But if you do optimize even a little, really, you'll blow any threat out of the water. There's some Secret Bosses, like Grandork mentions, but I killed one of them with two casts of a Flame Donum and no other attacks, because I've optimized my team that much.

[zachillios]

Keep in mind this is made by the people who make Disgaea, and Disgaea does the same sort of thing where the main story is relatively easy, and then you experience an almost shocking difficulty spike in the post game. This game is much of the same, but you'll see the difficulty ramp up later in the game, as new mechanics and unlocks slowly roll out.

[Maid Leila]

I had thought about deliberately gimping myself for a little more challenge but decided on not depriving myself of learning the game's mechanics. I could always learn to treat finding the optimal setup as the real challenge of the game and judge my success by how well I destroy each boss. I was just hoping that nightmare mode would be "still difficult even if you optimize" mode, haha.

I haven't played much Disgaea. I probably should. But that is reassuring. I'm looking forward to that spike.

Thanks for the feedback.

[KLightningflik]

You're only 10 hours in. Let us know once you hit an actual hard boss like the Shaman and many of the bosses after that.

[KLightningflik]

Originally posted by Grandork:

Nightmare doesn't really do much.

First real hard boss you will face will be the Troll Shaman (optional).

Shaman ain't optional, I had to beat it to advance the story. Sure you can continue to the next dungeon but you still have to fight it.

[Unfulfilled Desires]

Personally i found the game to be stupid easy, but i play a lot of dungeon crawlers so i know what im doing when it comes to what to build, stats to buff, etc, 99% of the time im just mashing auto attack.

i didnt find any difficulty till i got to level 70 and decided to reincarnate the dolls and start over from level 1 again

[Lapinoire]

The game's easy for most Dungeon Crawler vets. I think the only dungeon crawler i've truly struggled with in recent years is Dungeon Travelers 2, 'cause that game is wholly unforgiving even if you come prepared.

Labyrinth of Refrain isn't very challenging, even on nightmare. With the proper team composition, nothing can really kill you, though that goes without saying when it comes to every dungeon crawler.

[KLightningflik]

The dungeons and normal enemies ain't hard, it's the bosses that are hard for me. I think they are extremely unbalanced. You can wipe the area clean of monsters with ease then get crushed by the boss in one or two turns.

[Maid Leila]

I find myself using auto-battle a lot too. I don't know if I would consider myself a dungeon crawler veteran, but I have played through the post game of Dungeon Travelers 2 (amazing game, btw), but I never did manage to beat Maid-Sensei . I was too lazy to crown my characters, haha. I beat all the other post game super bosses, though. Does reincarnation in this game work sort of like crowning in Dungeon Travelers 2?

It's the difficult boss fights that are the main appeal to RPGs for me. The stratum bosses in the Etrian Odyssey games are the reasons why I play Etrian Odyssey, for example. If a boss wrecks me a good number of times before I beat it, I consider it a fulfilling exprience.

[Lapinoire]

Crowning in DunTra2 works differently than transferring souls.

DunTra2's crownin system did not increases status gains per level, however, you gained permanent status gains(+1~+5 stats depending on how many levels were lost on a reset).

Refrain's Soul Transfer resets stats, but increases Soul Clarity. Soul Clarity affects your status gain per level. Simple as that.

[Jinhong91]

I tried normal and the nightmare mode and can't see the difference between the two. The enemies don't feel stronger, although I think I get a bit more mana. I've played until I reached the Troll hallway and didn't find it to be too difficult. Maybe that will change with later bosses.