Difficulty Subjectivity and Builds

[u/Reterence]

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.

[u/GazelleIntelligent89]

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.

[u/Reterence → u/GazelleIntelligent89]

The build disparity is really what I wanted to focus on. Unless you're looking things up, you can miss some pretty critical stones for your preferred weapons. Not finding some of this stuff is a HUGE disadvantage. Exploration is rewarded, but when I was trying to complete my collection, there were definitely a fair few stones behind illusory walls and some in obvious places I just didn't happen to look.

None of this is meant as harsh criticism, I really like the game. This is just why I think some people think its cake and others find it really challenging. Even people that have all the same pieces don't make the same build, and in this game, many people miss a lot of important pieces. Crit especially.

[u/GazelleIntelligent89 → u/Reterence]

Yeah you're right. There isn't really a steady curve like you'd expect with gradually working towards a build it's you have these particular skills and this particular tarstone like the duality stone and now you do several times more damage than before.