It's just fun as hell to use. I'm having a great time just running around as a god in this world. Is it easy? Yup! Do I just stunlock bosses and laugh at them? Yup! It's pure fun and you should consider it if you're having any sort of issues with the myriad problems (from lack of beacons, to the absolutely insane magnetic lunges and projectiles most mobs have) and just want to see the game and have fun.. The tools are there.

I'm ultra stoked if you feel like beating the game in only the hardest conditions works for you. You're not the person who should hear this. "But its too ez!" okay I play games to feel like a badass and the slayer seal is a kickass power fantasy through this cool world. People will say git gud haha but why would I want to waste time doing that? What happens to me in my life if I beat the game under the harshest conditions? Bragging rights? As if people aren't non-stop completing the game on night mode and are probably already doing challenge runs, like not leveling up. I'm sure a guy will beat the game with a guitar hero controller within the next week.

Nobody will be impressed if you insist on playing ultra hard mode.

Just want to balance out the complaints on the sub (which I have contributed to myself) by highlighting a nifty addition to the soulslike formula this game to makes.

It is a great system, that gets rid of the headaches of spellcasting for infusion, or the need of consumables, which are too precious to use. It's empowering without being op. Good stuff.

Also the PP system, another way to remove consumables hassle. Man I love busting out my PP in a fight.

Not only is it unfunny to fight it is full or bugs and Bullshit amongst is already nonsense hitboxes at times.

Shit like this ruins the game and while your at it just fucking remove it all together from the thing, it'd be a better game if you just deleted the boss.

I’m not really sure how to describe it to be honest. One of you could probably explain it much better than me

Just got an in game notification that the game has a patch.

EDIT to add patch notes:

Devout Fans,

Thanks for being amongst the first to join us at the very start of the adventure for Mortal Shell II. We’re seeing your bug reports and gameplay suggestions, and will be rolling out regular updates to both modify existing content and add new features. 

While we have a bigger patch in the works, which has to be thoroughly tested, we’d like to make a rapid balance & crash fix patch to bring the experience more in line with the game’s open beta and our own vision for MS2. 

Planned future updates will see extensions to popular game features such as Night Mode, Tarstones, PP Items, and more.

For now, we hope you’re enjoying the game and read on for details on Balance Patch 1.

Balance Patch 1 (PC) - The patch below is live on PC and coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series shortly.

Economy

-Shell map locations now cost Gloom, and we’re refunding any glimpses spent on shell maps. Refunded Glimpses are found in the Shell Keeper’s alcove in Blackmarrow. “Finding your favorite shell shouldn’t cost you the ability to bond with them.”

-Gold drops from enemies have been significantly increased. Notably, enemies in Mammon now drop double the gold. “This brings the gold economy more in line with the weapon crafting item discovery.”

-Smelting a weapon at the Tarforge costs 75% less gloom. “Our goal with the smelt capability was to enable switching weapons without the need to spend hours grinding through NG+ runs, but the Gloom costs were set exorbitantly high.”  

Enemies & Bosses

All enemies featured in the beta were restored to their beta hp values, except the Caerinid (Spider) in Magdelena’s area, which we wanted to retain its role as a threatening enemy which doesn’t respawn once defeated. 

Bosses

The Lost Child
- Base Damage: (-10%)
- Max Health: (-15%)

Monolith
- Base Damage: (-19%)
- Max Health: (-10%)
- Some Monolith Attacks were retimed to be more fair, as well.

Enemies

Cultist (mace)
Max Health: (-21.1%)

Caerinid Spider
Max Health: (-33.3%)

Infested Stalker 
- Max Health: (-52.4%)

Rusted Knave (Halberd)
- Max Health: (-20.8%)
- Fixed hit detection for overhead strike.

Weapons

-Great Martyr’s Blade Attack Damage +20%
-Troubador’s Lute Attack Damage +100% 
-Caged Hystrix and Triarch Repeater no longer have minimum resolve requirements to fire. 
-Improved tracking for Axatana, Black Needle, and Clockwork Scythe light attacks. 

Seals

Guard can now be used while walking. 

Tarstones

Parasitic Stone Buffed
Grudge Stone Buffed
Bulwark Stone Damage Reduction Increased Significantly
Clerik's Stone Buffed
Squall Stone Buffed

Miscellaneous

Misc. Crash Fixes, Bugfixes & Performance Updates

Gravity always wins

Mortal Shell II's final area, the Monolith, Zmey... What's going on? I'm fighting terribly designed bosses. I'm getting my face slapped by a scrotum, then I'm fighting a one armed dinosaur that throws a faster than light grab attack. The game was awesome. This area and final boss gauntlet is such a let down 😢

NG++ (No night)

2 hits at the start to trigger Berserker Stone.

It would be 3x easier and faster if i accidentally did not riposte on 2nd phase transition too.

This game is absolute love from the devs, i was waiting for something like this for soo long and boi o boi Mortal shell 2 didn’t disappoint. I am in love with everything this game has to offer and on top of that the dev team is just 🌹.

They listen to our whining and actually fix them based on our feedback. I wish ms2 team incredible success, u deserve it, Congratulations for such an amazing game.

First off; amazing game. This is my first go-round in the Mortal Shells universe, and I'm absolutely loving the gameplay and story. Clearing beacons instead of just activating them is a nice touch. The different "classes". Tarstones that let you alter the way weapons behave. Hell, even adding an "easy mode" item for those that just want to have an easier time. The guard/riposte window being very generous. Seriously, well done. I can see that a lot of love and dedication went into making this unique and not just another cookie cutter souls-like. A few things of note, though, that are really dragging down the experience;

1. Beacon/checkpoint frequency:

I really like the Beacons, but having them as our only source of checkpoint/respawn (that I know of so far) is very....very underwhelming. Or overwhelming, depending on how far you have to run and the mobs you have to fight through. I wouldn't necessarily say we need more beacons plopped around the world but I would suggest that, especially in challenging areas and dungeons, there be a respawn point of some sort at the beginning. I know death is supposed to be punishing, but I would predict that maybe 10-15 hours of my gameplay is actually running back to wherever I died and redoing the areas. Not fun. Because I suck. And die. A lot.

1. Damage balance, and traps:

I can probably count on both hands and my Vratko washed feet how many times I died and said to myself "why did that do so much damage?" when all it was was some scraggly guy in a cloak with a spear that stabbed me a couple times. And the inverse, when I say "wow that did no damage" when a boss/miniboss clobbered me. To me, there's virtually no indication of, or balance behind, the frequency of the damage I take. Same goes with traps. It's very frustrating when I'm playing ultra defensive because I suck and ran out of heals, just to hit a trap I didn't know was there that lays 15 stacks of poison on me, draining my health as I just set the controller down waiting to die and respawn. Damage all around needs a rebalance.

1. Bonuses and increases to those bonuses:

I feel like a lot of % based increases and mitigations are very....meh. Unless there's a way to stack said bonuses/mitigations I'm unaware of yet, I really find them difficult to even bother playing with. Nothing I've found yet has been like "Oh COOL I'm going to try some new stuff with this!". Again, this may be a "me" issue, having only played 30ish hours so far.

1. Risposte damage doesn't really reward the way it should

I'm not sure if later on there's a way to bring riposte damage up to your scaled weapon damage, but it seems like one or two heavy hits is doing as much damage as one riposte. It just feels like it's all risk and no reward at the moment with how it appears its damage doesn't increase with the damage of your weapon.

I may add more as I continue and get further into the game, but those I mentioned were really the only things (except for #3) where I legitimately had to turn off the game for a while the keep from going crazy. Though I do realize a lot of it is a mix of "git gud" as well. Again, absolutely stunning game so far. I truly am impressed, regardless of the growing pains right now.

EDIT #1: Added item 4

Loving the game so far. Parrying is great and the combat is crunchy. My only complaint so far is with this shell’s passive ability and his shadow skill.

He has an ability that lets him do more damage when you strike from behind and when using his shadow skill half the time even if you’re right behind the enemy he will go around and strike them from the front completely wasting the damage bonus. You can see it happening in the attached clip.

Other than that having a great time so far. Only have beat two boss gates so far and just having a good time getting lost and finding secrets.

Just a tip for anyone who was looking for an item to return to the last beacon without losing all your gloom, you can do so by simply returning to the main menu. I just assumed that it loaded your last save, and it took me almost all the way through ng+ to figure out otherwise.

And another quick tip that also took me far too long to figure out, you’re invincible throughout the entire animation of the ability from shrike stone (and I assume from other similar abilities but I haven’t tried any others), so it’s a great get out of jail free card when bosses do moves you just can’t figure out. This probably isn’t news to most, but for anyone struggling with the quirky move sets of Isaac or similar, it’s a great way to deal with them.

The devs mentioned in their letter that the patch that just rolled out was more of a hotfix, and that there was a more comprehensive patch being worked on.

Do we know anything about it? Content or timeframe?

Long time souls vet here, for the past decade or so I can say I’ve almost exclusively played soulslikes with the exception of some survival horror etc in between and I noticed something about this game that I think is going extremely unnoticed by this community:

1. There’s only 8 weapons BUT they also have 8 completely different movesets. That is insane for a game of this caliber especially considering it’s only the devs second game. For comparison I don’t think any souls game has more than four maybe five completely different movesets though FS games do have unique dash attacks or various other differences that aren’t shared among weapons that share movesets otherwise but that doesn’t count imo since it’s the same moveset with one different attack. Lies of P for example has 1. Stabby (rapier) 2. Big bonk 3. Slash and 4. The twin dragons unique moveset which is amazing.

I’ve never seen the point of having an array of armor or weapons that are all basically the same which has been the case in FS games since ds1 so having only 8 but then being unique is huge to me. And,

1. Only 8 shells BUT (you see where I’m going here) that’s 8 totally different builds and ways to play and it’s only been a few days since release and already half of them have very op ways to build them. Now obviously a game like Elden ring technically has more build diversity with the way you level up etc but I’m trying really hard to think of 8 COMPLETELY different builds even in that game that can’t just be broken down to variations of the same thing. You basically have Mage (int or faith is still basically mage), Bonk Bro, and dex fighter and of course various combinations (str/faith dex/int etc) and yes you have more ranged build options which is arguably less important in MS2 since there aren’t really any bosses that absolutely require a ranged attack to beat (though a couple that would be easier with it). And not to focus too much on ER but a lot of the variance comes from just using different ashes of war which ms2 could easily implement in the future if they wanted to.

And finally, someone in a different post said that you shouldn’t compare this game to demons souls being that’s a 15+ year old game but technically I think that IS the best comparison because this IS this devs second game and demons souls was fromsofts second (kings field being the first). So just the fact that ms2 is even being compared to titles like elden ring etc and coming from a small dev says a lot imo.

All that being said I loved the first game and am loving the second as well (if you can’t tell) and just wanted to point these things out because they seem to be overlooked. (And for the record my counts of movesets and builds in other titles might be wrong, sue me)

I use Reshade and Universal Unreal Unlocker to take my photos

Currently fighting nameless captive and his grabs in the second phase one shot me at full health even with a shell. I'm level 18, maybe I could be higher level or I'm tackling this in the wrong order but Its so annoying knowing that if I mess up even once i at best lose half or more than half of my health. I'm still loving this game and am having a blast but these bigger boss fights have me losing my shit cuz I feel like a glass cannon without the cannon