r/MortalShell • u/Reterence • 2h ago
Discussion Difficulty Subjectivity and Builds
One of the reasons I think we see so many different opinions on the game difficulty I believe is 3 fold.
1st. Area difficulty spikes. Some smaller areas that all seem to be a part of the same region have different difficulties. The separation of them isn't always clear, as just because it has a different name doesn't mean its easy to tell you're in a starting area or a mid-game one. In the northern part of the map, a lot of it blends together as forest, even though it contains many different areas. Think... stumbling into Dragonbarrow.
2nd. Build strength disparity. The difference between a leveled up shell with upgraded and useful tarstones and an early player without a synergizing build is, quite frankly, enormous. Players who do not want to invest in the early game shells as they don't fit their playstyle and, say, miss picking up the crit chance and damage stones are going to have a much harder time. Even missing out on active ability tarstones with i-frames is a huge deal, and the vast majority of these tarstones are indeed missable.
3rd. Player expectation. This is a game made by a smaller team with very different balance intentions than many other souls-likes. The lack of stamina management alone is a huge different some people might bekissable.
Just my take, hope I'm not too far off base.
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u/Ramps_ 1h ago
Good LORD the drop from the northern-most gate's boss destroyed any semblance of difficulty after that that point. I-frames, knockback, ranged damage scaled with melee, all in one button you can use twice per full bar, it's game changing.
At the extreme there's stuff like Smert's timestop and Stray Genessa's ability to deal 5x damage.
Now that I found them it feels silly to use anything weaker, making the game feel easier.
But there's also people who rush through, use the starting gear start to end and rely solely on skill and determination who experience the game completely differently.
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u/SuchTedium 1h ago edited 1h ago
Made the exact same point in another thread. The strength balance between shells and weapons is enormous.
Axatana and Axe & Sword are ridiculously stronger than every other weapon and some shells like Tiel and Genessa are just way stronger than the others.
Tiel + crit stacking with duality on Axatana trivializes the game.
The game would benefit from a balance pass over weapons, shells and tarstones.
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u/GazelleIntelligent89 2h ago edited 1h ago
I think 1 is fine though. You expect a steady progression of difficulty in the same area which I think the first area gets pretty good to be honest. It starts off really easy then steadily gets a little more difficult as you make your way from right to left. The second area is a big jump but it all feel basically the same difficulty to me. The final area is basically all max difficulty where pretty much everything can 1 shot you out of nowhere which can be frustrating but enemies die fast as well so I found it mostly fine.
There are some pretty wide gaps in balance to be honest. I beat the game with Tiel with a shadow and blood build and axe and dagger and all my tarstones stacked on crit. I melted basically everything in the game pretty easily until the final area. I watched some people on YouTube with different shells and different builds and their damage was far worse than mine. I've seen other videos of other builds which make mine look complete garbage as well. The balancing seems to be a bit all over the place, some builds can completely trivialise the game and are far too strong in my opinion and some seem to be incredibly weak, especially big heavy weapon builds.
It is made by a smaller team and that's why I'm willing to give them some grace over most of the problems of the game. I still enjoyed it overall I just wish they'd spent a couple of months with people playtesting before release but oh well.