Addressing Solo Difficulty


Thank you for giving the new demo a try. I am seeing a lot of complaints regarding the difficulty of the demo, and I'm hearing you and I apologize for it. I will be doing what I can to make things easier for the solo experience and release an update as soon as I can.

  • Sally will sell stronger equipment + updated shop window system.
  • Parrying an enemy that is within your level range will not cost stamina.
  • The quest to fight the boss in the catacombs will be raised in it's minimum level requirement and you will need to attune to this quest to be able to fight the boss .
  • There will be a quest to attune to hard mode.

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Please address more.

Playing mage at level 18, vs Boomboars and Rageboars, some with modifiers, is a spamfest of death.

I haven't tried fighter or bandit, but as mage, each hit is 1/3 of my hp at around 200 health. I've tried my best to enchant and re-roll armor but the defense for a melee-oriented mage class is a joke.

I'm desperately trying to parry 4-5 mobs that sequentially attack, which always happens since they're so big they need to go around each-other to line up (meaning it takes time and they go in sequence rather than all at once).

This leaves absolutely no room for damage dealing other than stun+aoe+aoe combos once every minute due to mana regen and having to run away and not die.

The difficulty (read damage dealt and spongy mob health) is completely overtuned and not fun at these high levels. It takes me a full minute to kill one boar, let alone 5 without dying.

(+1)

I just started playing the game today and I'm not sure if I'm doing something horribly wrong but I went to the first dungeon for levels 1-6 with my ranged magic character and a couple rooms into the dungeon I get put into a ridiculous situation where I get put in a small space with about 8 tar monsters and I have to juggle between spamming left click to kill them and spamming right click to try not to die instantly. I tried beating that room about 5 times, each time dying in seconds, before getting frustrated and quitting without killing a single one of them. Was I supposed to level up more and get better stuff before this dungeon or is it really just a skill issue?

(+1)

As someone who's played both mage and fighter singleplayer, mage might as well be hard mode, and that's what i started with lmao.  I recommend using  the bell if you don't already, because it does additional damage and its way easier to hit targets with. My strategy with rooms is to keep backing up while you attack, and paying CLOSE attention to the monster animations, because they'll broadcast when they're about to hit you. Also, make sure you put at least some skill points toward dexterity, because you'll be able to hit from further away. Some of the dungeon waves are just straight up unfair, but still doable if you really pay attention

(+1)

Important questions first- Is there a head piece to the hostbun "Set" or am I wasting my time.

Dose sitting do anything?

Now on to my impressions - The hard catacomb gives off a much more dungeon feel then anything else with it's spinning traps but the miasma's have far to much health in relation to anything else in the dungeon while everything else has far to much stretch range for their attacks. 

I find that everything in the dungeon moves towards the player at a speed just above a fair level.

The thing that hurts the most is whenever the boss chest drop's something the player can't actually use.

Suggestions- Weigh the boss loot in the favor of the player's class.

A way to directly fight the boss after beating it 1 - 5 times per difficultly level.

A way to add small upgrades to item stats for a growing crown cost.

A few area's with scaling enemies so players can grind into oblivion.

An intrusive thought you can and should ignore- A weight system where over using consumables causes the player to become overweight making movement itself drain stamina resulting in the player having to sit still until stamina fully charges if they drain it completely as well as the possibility of the player being forced to sit for a full minute if they just don't stop abusing the items, weight would be lost through movement.

Again you can and should ignore that last thought.

I know I'm late to reply, but the chest in the shop transfers between characters. If you get an epic drop for a different class, you can put it there, make a character of that class, and when you get to a high enough level it'll be there waiting for you.

As the game progresses, higher level enemies will be added, it's just natural. As-is there's no real reason to grind to level 20+ or whatever

Item abuse is already handled by potions having a cooldown. I get that you have a weightgain/fat fetish but jesus that would be an unbelievably unfun mechanic

I'd say something about the hard difficulty dungeon, but the changes pretty much solve the main issue while still keeping the challenge imo, though I have a few random suggestions that I feel would improve quality of life 

  • Let some of the equipment found in the hard dungeon have a small, but not too unreasonable chance to appear in the medium dungeon. I think this should be alright considering the level requirement for them being the same. [Though with the new changes this is probably not necessary...]
  • Some kind of way to see the drops & drop rates from enemies you've at least killed once, or chests in specific areas. Might just be a me thing, but I'm always paranoid if I'm missing a piece of armor or if some armor pieces don't have a set?
  •  Alternate storage space for individual characters separate from the main storage, Probably another me issue, but my storage is full of armor sets I've saved for cosmetics

Just wanna say though, I love how the game feels so far, and I'm really looking forward to future content!! :D 

The only other thing I'd suggest is more cosmetic options, but its alright cuz the current armor in the game can be used instead

(+4)

Honestly I think the sanctum catacombs are way too long after dying especially if your lower leveled there should be a shortcut in the mid point. and toxins are way too tanky for what they are like maybe have them turn power down when you parry them.

and i feel like there's way too many enemies to deal with in a short time where they just pile up on you and the models start to inter lap with each other making it downright impossible to interpret the enemies attacks maybe by having a system where they take "turns" like having two enemies watch in the back and replace one another Or just ultimately  spawn less enemies.

which might have players to gain a bad habit of grinder lower enemies for hours maybe 

And cosmetics items I feel like should not take up slots in the dungeon chest especially for player progression maybe hide cosmetics in weird spots if you can or make them purchasable.

I hope this helps

I'm honestly hoping to start making games myself.

(+2)

The game is, indeed, rather difficult, especially if you want to use a melee build. The hitstun isn't long enough, and healing is hard to come by. Of course, I may just be a scrub :P I was a bit sad that I had to go full ranged for the catacombs boss, because I love the heavy melee. But the boss is simply not made for melee builds, and guarding is almost pointless because you can't do it for very long, and getting hit makes you able to guard for even less time. I do like the parry system, however, just wish it stunned for longer.

The catacombs boss itself is also a biiiit unreasonable with the adds. Half the time I was focusing on them and praying the boss didn't get to me. I earnestly believe that the adds should either be their own separate phases (the boss waits to return until the adds are dead), and/or there are no more than two adds with the boss at a time.

Other than that, the difficulty is GREATLY subdued by the fact that death doesn't make you lose a thing and that it's both quick to return from and gets you back to full health. This is very generous, and I really appreciate it! The only problem is that this means enemies' health resets, which IS standard. This is especially painful for the catacombs boss; maybe consider having a mechanic where enemy health restores at a decent rate, but not immediately, so that if you get back fast enough, they haven't healed all the way? This does punish players who take the time to reconsider loadouts, though....

(Only other thing I'd like to see apart from even bigger belly max size is the ability to get as tall as the NPCs. Unless we're already "normal" heights and they're just freakin' giants because of what they are XD)

(+1)(-2)

The game is very very difficult at the start and this might be a consequence of how stat scaling works. If everybody is close to 0, then a difference of 1 is a massive difference. It gets much easier as soon as you reach Lv. 10 and class change

The catacombs boss is so hard because, kind of like Dark Souls, combat in this game is a nightmare against more than 1 enemy. It would be one thing if he waited for you to kill the adds before returning, but he doesn't, and he spawns new ones as soon as the previous are gone.

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(-13)

why are you guys so mean?
Why dont you try to make a game hmm?

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(-2)

People are being aggressive

(+1)

I think he's talking about the dislikes on the earlier posts, which makes since considering they seem pretty unwarranted given what was said... 
:shrug:

(+10)

Melee in general just gets screwed, even if you build to be a tank, you get shredded too quick, and if you try to be a melee DPS, you don't wipe them quick enough to not get one-shot.

Ranged/magic is fine because they can just kite all they want and too few enemies in the game have ranged attacks to counter them, but melee gets hit by 100% of everything no matter what and get blended into a fine paste.

If it were me, one little bandaid fix I'd do is to lightly weigh drop rates of equipment a bit to lean in the direction of your build, probably using your manually-increased stats to do the math, so if a novice who only dumps points into STR gets an equipment drop, it's like 10% more likely that it'll be a melee weapon, or 20%, IDK.
Either this, or some kind of salvage+craft system that lets you recycle equipment into other equipment so we have a use for all the equipment we'll never use.

Like for real, the fact nearly half my level 12 character's equipment is stuff I got before even entering the catacombs because I can't find anything better is a bit BS, especially when trying to play a tank, probably the most equipment-dependent build of them all. Definitely looking forward to the better shop, anything to get me out of this lv2 equipment hell.

(+5)(-1)

Personally I think the difficulty could be balanced with more hitstun, faster wind up. Using heavy melee for example, the jump attack applies pushback and hitstun more than any other move and you can spam it into a combo kill.

(+2)(-2)

So, not sure if its intended, but jump, attack, block cancel, dash, repeat with the arm knifes basically kills any enemy i have encountered so far lol wasnt sure if that was intended or a bug.

(+6)(-1)

Worth noting that some of the climbable ropes dont properly launch you upward, making them ineffective

(1 edit) (+5)(-4)

The difficulty is definitely strong, but I personally don't mind it. If only because it's completely consequence-free to fall in battle. Still, even with the difficulty, I'm having a blast with the demo in single player. Sometimes, I get knocked down a few times in the normal-difficulty dungeons going solo, but I'm okay with it personally. That being said, I know I'm not exactly a good defacto for the general consensus. If tuning the difficulty is something you think is a good suggestion, don't sweat it. Take your time and review what feels right for the game you're making. The amount of content you've been putting together in recent weeks has been nothing short of extraordinary.

My only struggle has been getting used to the controls. This game's definitely meant to be high-speed, very kinetic. But the control scheme feels more tuned for a traditional MMO, where you can stand still and not really need to worry about running around, constantly evading or real-time guarding against attacks. While gamepads are supported, the hotbar system in place makes no attempt to really play friendly at all with the layout of most controllers. If there's any features I feel this game needs re-evaluated, it might be the controls.

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(+5)(-4)

as a soul like player i couldn't tell XD. but good demo overall. would like to see the full release on steam so me and my friands can go ham

(+4)(-4)

Don't feel pressured to change the game in a way that's not your image. I just personally found the difficulty with some enemies off putting, but in all honesty, I could just be underleveled or just bad at handling them. 

Super excited for this game. Keep up the good work!

(+1)(-17)

demo not even out 24hrs and already getting casualized, smh

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(+7)(-6)

I don't mind the difficulty really. If I had to change anything, it'd be the shop. Rather than have the shop sell stronger equipment, why not take advantage of the Quest system. Sally offers you a quest to find some supplies for her, you do it and turn in the quest. Lo and behold, the shop is upgraded to sell better equipment. A compromising fix. Beyond that, the game is fantastic.

(+4)(-7)

I'm so sorry you're being pressured to make it easier, I was having a blast with the difficulty being the way it was. I hope people will back off and let you make the game how you want it to be, I love what you've done in this latest update, and I'm super excited to see what else is to come! <3

(+4)(-4)

Don't worrie about it, take your time!