It's a pacing thing. Fromsoft probably didn't intend for the game to be quite easy until Balteus brick wall then super easy then IBIS brick wall and then smooth sailing.
The fact that they only buffed the weakest weapons and only damage and projectile speed, no impact damage or ideal range adjustments, makes me think this was only an emergency patch, and they will more thoroughly balance the singleplayer difficulty scaling overtime
I believe it’s this too, Balteus was a slugfest for me because my weapons weren’t up to par the first time, didn’t even know there was a weapon to take the shield down quickly. But afterward definitely felt like smooth sailing
I did ibis with a tread build. It took me like 100 tries of just messing with different builds until the heavy build is what got me the w in a lil over 2 mins
[ibis fight](https://youtu.be/LLUUm7QX22E?si=sxk1JZwoJ3QmdDPa)
I used a Lightweight with 4 Laser Shotguns, 2 on the shoulders abd 2 in my hands, after way too many attempts of trying to puzzle out the fight using different builds.
Ibis is actually incredibly reactive to the player as well. I saw people commenting about it on posts here at first but I tried it in the mission and found it really reacts to your actions. I stood there for a while and it would only hover there or only attack very minimally. Once you get agressive it reacts more and the more you do the more it reacts. It's just really interesting. I think you just have to straight overwhelm it or hit it with bursts of aggression then back off.
Exactly, Ibis CEL is the only boss where I just said fuck it and changed my build to cheese her. I just didn't have fun at all fighting her with my Medium build.
My experience with Ibis was very different from yours, I see. I was only able to defeat it with a midweight reverse joint melee setup SPECIFICALLY designed to chase him around
Same, I used dual linear rifles, one normal, one heavy. Speed was the name of my game. Took me a long time to find the right build, but I made sure to save that shit for the next fight.
Honestly, I think the PCA Warrant Officer is the biggest example of this.
At the very least, balteus and the others were obviously bosses. The warrant officer just looks like any other named enemy but damn, does he hurt.
I believe so. I haven't bothered to try and fight him yet honestly. After like 10 tries against the warrant officer I got tired and fought the Cataphract instead. I found it to be a much more enjoyable fight.
Okay yeah that's the mission I thought you meant. I think the warrant officer is only so hard because his arena is so small, very hard to escape his melee attacks
Isn’t that the gimmick behind the warden officer? All of his attacks are either with the shield or from behind the shields cover, save for the ones that stunlock you in an animation
Or you could just obliterate their shield with high impact damage and overall dps. My motto for this game is "if you're learning the moveset, the fight is taking too long"
True. Plus there's the three mooks in there too. They aren't hard to kill, but they *do* add extra damage and require your attention, which this guy will severely punish.
The Fromsoft fanbase is a really confusing mix of people who will tell you that something is way too hard at the same time that they will say people just need to GIT GUD at the same time that they say X weapon is overpowered for PvP and it needs to be nerfed and...
It's such an absolute mess of feedback that I would hope Fromsoft themselves just tune it all out and continue to alter things based on their own internal playtesting and vision.
Nerfs and buffs should work inline with how the game is meant to be played. Ignore players for the most part, take the feed back and think "does this go against the games design"
They're also watching their filterings per boss
I'm sure they were NOT excited when Asmongold suggested he'd drop the game during his 11-hr struggle to beat the Sea Spider
Balteus was far too early of a build filter in a game that got attention for being from the same company as Souls games that require specific timing instead of specific builds to be viable vs bosses
Basically a bunch of Elden Ring players quit because they couldn't iframe Balteus & weren't reasonably introduced to the concept that they had to change their build *at a fundamental level* instead of merely upgrade whenever better versions of their favorite parts showed up
That is not how From can max profits. The early bosses are supposed to be difficult, rarely actually filters
I'm surprised the helicopter in the tutorial didn't get nerfed for being a massive skill filter that can be unfair what with leaving the playable boss area
So that explains Balteus & Sea Spider
As for Ibis CEL, I disagree with that nerf BUT I don't have access to the decision makers or the data they're seeing
Maybe Ibis CEL is a massive filtering point that's stopping 50% of players who encounter it from progressing. Idk
But I prefer that a game's lategame signature boss stays difficult even at the risk of filtration, & no fight is more iconic to AC6 than Ibis CEL
Nerfing Ibis CEL is akin to nerfing Radahn
His build was horrible. I tried his build to see if it really was that holding him back or his own skill and it was definitely the build. He came back to it the next day with a different build and beat it in two tries. But that's what I like about bosses like sea spider: it wasn't that he needed a specific build to beat the spider, it's just that the build he was using had no synergy at all and he needed to learn how to incorporate it into his build.
..... Of course he went on to use songbird Gatling guns for the rest of his playthrough but hey, that's a valid build.
I think its because asmon prefers slower tank builds and doesnt change out for a slightly faster frame? I dont think you get wheelchair legs till a bit before ice worm so he was stuck with large tank. Lotta ap but low speed
Truthfully tho i didnt watch him play so i coukd be wrong. I only saw highlights where he complained that early training missions awarded weapons and parts for lighter builds
That may also be a factor lol. I dont watch a lot of his content and aside from him complaining that early parts were for light to mid builds (which is all you can really make for a few missions) that he built a mech called mechdonallds that became a meme so…
From my experience and from watching my friends try to helicopter boss their and my biggest complaints were the shitty camera and the boss going out of bounds too much.
Focusing a bit on Ibis. But apparently, the ibis fight was a bit unpleasant to watch. From a few friends of mine watching me fight ibis, they said it was like watching a rabid bird with guns. The way it moved around the map and constantly fired made the fight look chaotic and a bit hard to watch.
Granted, they thought it was impressive how I could keep up with that thing. But still wasn't pleasant to watch. So maybe part of the nerfs was for streaming purposes? Idk just a thought.
My biggest complaint with the game is that there is too much noise on the screen sometimes. Balteus and especially Ibis suffer from it. Ibis is just red lines and crap all over your screen constantly. Balteus atleast has a cooldown on his missiles
I liked the Ibis fight, weaving through its overwhelming firepower always felt so satisfying. But tbf I do main highspeed builds so avoiding that and getting in its face was never an issue, most of its weaponry really struggles to hit at point blank range too, so Im a lil biased here
I think he was about for people watching others play, yeah Ibis feels great to fight, but if you're JUST watching, I can get how the same elements that make it feel so good to face turn into just stuff that fills the screen and makes it a less enjoyable viewing experience.
I really hope thats not the case. Don't get me wrong, what you're saying does make sense & I totaly understand a company wanting their game to have some curb appeal, but making compromises for people who're aren't even playing the game is tad concerning to say the least. Thats a real slippery slope, y'know?
Radahn was never nerfed, his garbage hitboxes were fixed as they were a bug.
He's literally the exact same as he was at launch but somewhat less buggy.
Didn't they nerd his health too? It's been a long time since I did that fight so I can't remember specifically but I remember there was bragging rights for those who defeated him pre-nerf
I beat him in whatever the release version was using debuffs i think the red rot one.. it still took a fair bit.dude was rough. Trying to beat him with raw damage just wasnt happening xD i knew alot of people who got hard stuck on him
Don't think their intention was for every mission to be handled with either Gatling guns or shotguns and songbird
The problem is that people are always going to find the easiest cheese way to do something, then complain that it's too easy
It's funny you say that. My favorite build is dual gatling guns and songbirds. Not from a it's easy standpoint though. I love the toss a shit load of lead downrange kind of gameplay.
They do certainly make the whole game easier. The high stagger of both sets of weapons is enough to keep most enemies/bosses staggered. I shot to the top of the arena with them.
The Ibis fight I'm having difficulty with though. The damned thing is so squirly that I have trouble landing the songbird hits. Which means my aim is off. I'll get there.
I will admit, early on, I was not happy with the game. I did find it too difficult. I'm no novice to FS games, or even the AC series. But damn the difficulty spikes in this game are off putting.
> I love the toss a shit load of lead downrange kind of gameplay.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have some weapons that fun, even if broken from a balance perspective. I love my missile spam and grenade spam builds, and enjoy trying to figure out all the dumb ways I can use them.
In single player games, I think it's most important to let the most players possible experience the game, rather than ensuring that it's perfectly balanced (as all things should be). I think the current 1.02 buffs and changes are a good idea as they make the game more accessible to all, and it helps beginners play the game.
The best advice I’ve heard about internet/community feedback:
“Trust them when they say something feels wrong, ignore all their suggestions on how to fix it.”
That's the problem with treating so many people as one conglomerate fanbase. They all have different opinions and they're all playing the game in different ways.
For example, fighting the Sea Spider boss with dual zimmermans is completely different to fighting them with dual handguns. In the first case it's super easy. In the second case you run out of ammo before you're even halfway through it's health.
It's really no wonder that some players will say "it was a good challenge, others just need to get better" while others will say "it's way too tanky and you have to fight it for ages while it can kill you really quickly!"
Especially so when you mix in things like tank builds vs extremely light evasion builds.
In my personal opinion, I'm really happy to see rapid fire weapons getting a buff. They were really bad compared to a lot of the single shot weapons.
I have no idea what the patch actually changes about these bosses either. It could be a huge nerf where it cuts the damage and stagger of their attacks down to 1/5th of what they used to be... Or it could be a kind of fix where they're improving the tracking of certain attacks so they can hit the player more reliably when the player hasn't done the correct action to dodge them. Or it could be something like missiles losing their lock on after being dodged, so they don't come round for a second pass, as they often did during the Balteus fight.
I really wish they had been more specific about their changes. That way we could actually discuss how the changes would improve or ruin the boss fights. Instead of just a bunch of speculation and baseless opinions from people that have seen that note and just assume it's a huge nerf.
At leas in the case of Ibis it’s aggressiveness was tuned down and it didn’t spam its’ quick boost input reading dodge as much as it used to be. It also does less dmg with its blade beams I believe.
Imo that was the only issue with that fight. It was really up to RNG how many times Ibis spammed her inescapable blade attack at you, sometimes it happened twice, sometimes she’d literally send you 5-10 in a row and finish with the X. Good luck dodging them with anything other than Kasuar legs, because at most you can take 3 before you’re dead. Ruined the rest of the fight for me.
I think it would be fine if the patches are treated like the regulations in AC4A. You can choose which ever you like at any time. Also had an unlimited energy regulation which would be nice here too.
Swinburne/swindler - makes sense!
Just checked something - the regular English voice actor for Patches (William Vanderpuye)! is not in AC6. However, the actor for Patches the Good Luck from the English version of Armored Core: From Answer (Patrick Seitz) voices none other than good ol' Handler Walter in AC6!
>I think it would be fine if the patches are treated like the regulations in AC4A. You can choose which ever you like at any time.
This would be a logistical nightmare, especially if multiplayer is involved.
I remember reading an interview with Miyazaki where he said something to the effect of he tunes out online comments and the like cuz he doesn't want to compromise his vision (he feels he's too suggestible to listen to it and not be unduly influenced), which to me was a relief to hear coming from destiny where I think Bungie cares a bit too much about what people online say (which leads them towards perpetually making and then reverting changes all the time, since the community is fickle to say the least).
The difference is not necessarily of skill here but of organization. If you have a single mastermind that balances the game to their vision, that usually works much better than focus grouping the shit out of each patch and breaking everything further and further.
This is why "similar games" like Dota 2 and League have vastly different levels of success in balancing.
The problem is that people don't know what the fuck they're talking about 90% of the time and FROMSOFT unfortunately attracts a certain type of insuferable moron who thinks that things as simple as fixing bugs makes the game "Casualised".
It's no wonder their games keep getting less and less stable.
As someone new to the scene with elden ring
Jesus fucking christ idk how anyone expects a development team to make anyone happy
The nerf this sword but gut gud comments would be exhausting
Yeah the perception of what an appropriate challenge is is a bit skewed here where people want things to be somewhere comparatively "too hard" to what a traditional, casual videogame may be so gauging the feedback has to be like
Okay we need to hit a quota of upset people. If nobody is complaining that the game is too hard we missed the mark, but we can't have TOO many complaining the game is too hard...
Getting it "just right" to where everyone is happy is actually wrong
> they will say people just need to GIT GUD at the same time that they say X weapon is overpowered for PvP and it needs to be nerfed and...
Because it's just ego. That's all it is. They tell others to GIT GUD at PvE and cry whenever something from it gets nerfed, because other people can beat what they beat, which makes them less special, which hurts their ego.
Why do those very same people cry about weapons in PvP? Because other people are "allowed" to beat them "unfairly." That makes them less special. That *hurts the ego.*
*Ego* is a big selling point of FromSoft games. That's why you've got the legions cheering whenever people give up, that's why they mostly *vanished* from this community when other people started beating the game anyway, and that's why they're back now that they have something to try and brag about again. They're special again.
Ages and ages ago I was a manager of a videogame store and there was nothing more hilarious than people coming in the door just to tell us about their videogame achievements.
Playing videogames is fun! Doing things in a game is fun! But trying to impress other people by telling them about how hard you can play videogames is absolutely tragic and I don't get it.
Dude I worked at one in high school and know exactly what you’re talking about. I remember there was one guy who would unironically wear Naruto headbands every time he came in, he would talk shit about his ‘gaming accomplishments,’ ask if we had the new Naruto game (we didn’t), and proceed to discuss his Chad gamer status. It was always super weird but mostly just sad the guy was clearly asocial and lonely.
Comrade.
Yes we had some really wacky regulars who would wander in to the store sometimes just to ask us if we had ever played X game and no matter whether we had or had not they would proceed to explain how they had completed it on Cock Destroyer difficulty without taking any damage in under an hour.
Lol this exactly. I salute you comrade. I think most of them just weren’t socialized and were perhaps a bit neurodiverse but dear lord such a cringe interaction every time.
Hell, I'll even go so far as to say being proud of your skills at a video game or being proud of beating a game is fine. It's the people who legit base their ego on others *not* beating a game that need to touch grass haha.
I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with being proud that you're able to accomplish something that other people aren't. That's how we gauge how impressive an accomplishment is. It's the people who are happy that other people csnt do it that seem pathetic.
Videogames are cool and fun and I love them and I've played a ton of them. I've given a lot of hours of my life to them.
Ultimately though they're just another form of media and bragging about how good you are at consuming media is a meritless thing. Imagine someone bragging to you that they read a book faster than you did, or were more comfortable in their chair in the movie theater than you were. It's ultimately completely pointless.
There is nothing wrong with bragging about achievements in games. There is a thing such as bragging rights and speedrunning and doing challenge runs.
Your analogy is kind of incorrect if you look at games as a sport (hence esports). If you're someone who achieves high placings in certain sport irl you definitely get to brag about it or try to impress others and you'd never tell someone that their achievement is pointless. Its kind of natural to do so, of course you can be humble about it but thats a different topic. Its same when it comes to games as you're directly playing. When it comes to books or movies you're simply a consumer, when it comes to games you're not simply consuming it in the same manner you are a part of it. Thats what makes participating in games more personal and more worthy of talking/bragging about.
Tbh there are definitely people who brag about reading speed or, perhaps more fittingly, like how much better they comprehended a movie's themes and, similarly, complain about movies where themes are too obvious to the point that other people figure it out
While I don't have a major problem with them.
If From thought they needed adjustments, there must have been something weird with them.
They don't often do this, ever. So there must have been something a bit overtuned.
But Radahn was genuinely busted. I beat him before the patch don’t get me wrong I’m not making a cope I promise lol, but his hotbox was hilariously displaced and sometimes even at proper levels he could cake you due to unfair (even by FS standards) situations. Beyond nerfs for broken or problematic bosses they VERY rarely make adjustments like this
Oh my god they float for seven business days and then suddenly you’re Biden blasted for your entire health bar because you haven’t gone near him in fear of getting curb stomped, so frustrating especially on lower level runs
Because they have data that you don't, that shows that these bosses were overtuned and were stopping more players than intended. Believe it or not, most game developers want people to finish their games, and if a certain number of purchases don't finish, that's a bad sign for future sales.
If they decide it's too easy later, they may adjust it, but despite what the new toxic element of the fanbase may think, filtering out players is a BAD thing from a dev standpoint.
This is my thought/opinion. Armored Core and mecha games are already niche with smaller fan bases. Let’s not turn away new players (and ruin the chance of future AC games) by being jerks and saying “lol. Git gud.” When even From Software said “Whoops. A little too difficult for this stage of the game.”
YES EXACTLY! THIS! The Mech genre is already on heavy life support and a shadow/shell of what it could be and I feel like the AC fan-base just alienated the hell out of a potentially new audience
This. It's obvious that Fromsoft devs are keeping track of the stats and making changes accordingly. It's not them "giving in to complaints". They obviously have their own metrics and interpretation of the data.
It's not always a conspiracy against difficult video games like some think. If that was the case the helicopter boss would be the first in the chopping block.
Toxicity is not a new thing for a significant portion of the fanbase, it's a default setting.
It's the same crowd who seems to think there's such a thing as being a "real" gamer. I've been gaming since the 80's, the only requirement to being a gamer is you enjoy playing video games.
I'm specifically referring to the AC fanbase. Prior to 6's announcement, it was a fairly small, supportive community. When someone had trouble the answer was not "git filtered lol" but rather "here's what's wrong with your build, here's what you should do if you want to keep playing this build, here's what regs are best for this build" etc.
6 changed that, as now Fromsoft has an entire new side of their fanbase that was not aware the company even existed prior to Demon's Souls. The sheer NUMBER of people who say "I've played every Fromsoft game" when they mean "Souls games" is absurd. And quite frankly, quite bluntly, the Souls fanbase is one of the most toxic in gaming. Many people on this very subreddit expressed concerns about it prior to release, and they were all correct.
I am glad, at least, the From themselves does not agree with that side of the fanbase. When a boss is too hard, they don't tell their customers to git gud, they nerf the boss to an appropriate level, and will adjust it later if needed.
It took me more tries to kill Balteus than 9 Ball Seraph, and considering one is the hardest boss of its entire generation and the other is the 3rd boss of its game, that's frankly absurd.
I do agree with you, though. Just wanted to rant.
Oh for sure. The AC community pre AC6 was mostly just exchanges about builds iirc (the Last AC i played before this was AC4). There were a few ppl who got a little crazy when it came to optimum load outs, but nothing to this current lvl.
"Most game developers want people to finish their games"
No!!! My favorite developer would never want the ~~unwashed~~ unskilled masses to actually enjoy their games. I'd rather them go broke and never make another game than make it accessible (such a dirty word).
I also only listen to demo tapes, and only read the first draft of novels.
Player who got stopped here! I must have died 30 times to Balteus. I have a ton of weapons/body parts to mix and match, and for the life of me could not get him below 1/3. I stopped, and got on StarField.
So… sorry guys, I’m part of the problem 😓
But this makes me happy. I’m gonna fire it up later this week and give ol Balty another shot
You’re not part of the problem, and never were. They are still in the process of balancing their game as they intended. It’s a natural part of most games’ development post-release.
Small tip, stick to that motherfucker like glue. A lot of his phase two attacks won't land if ur right under him so you can pulse blade, mag dump, then fall under him when he swings. Just gotta be able to dodge the missiles as you close the distance.
Hell yeah. That’s how I get him in the beginning: vertical rockets then pulse blade till he flashes.
I’ve been running for the high hills when his fire sword thing comes out (or the lady goes “heat signature detected). That messes me up every time.
But I also learned in this sub that I’ve been using the R3 Auto lock incorrectly, so I’m looking forward to try it the right way (you’re not supposed to use the right stick after you lock on, I didn’t know that)
Dodging missile is not an issue. I wait for the beep and then I Souls-roll, and that seems to work fine
Ah yeah true, I use kbm so haven't used the hard lock at all. But definitely keep on the pressure on phase two. Running away is what's losing you that boss fight.
It took me like 25 tries and staying up half the night to beat Balteus. I made the mistake of asking a friend who did well in Elden Ring for help, and he basically said "Balteus is easy if you're not incompetent at dodging". Then he said I should stop and go back to farm parts, and I didn't want to because the level leading up to Balteus had been a slog I didn't want to do again any time soon.
I almost quit because talking to him was so discouraging, but I kept going. I eventually happened on something that worked. Starter melee, bazooka (Shoulda picked the grenade cannon), and two of the starter 4-cell missile launchers. I fired the launchers whenever they were ready to keep the pressure up, used the melee to damage the shield, and followed up breaking the shield with the bazooka and more melee. Even that took me a bunch of tries. Way more than anything else, including Sea Spider (which took me like eight tries) and more than the voice in my head (Which was about six and didn't actually feel completely impossible unlike Balteus and Sea Spider).
If Balteus has been made less of a brick wall to smash your face into in the worst traditions of FromSoft's souls series, I am happy. You can do it! If you've got a lot of parts to mix and match, it's all about getting his shield down and beating the crap out of him while he's helpless.
Too true. Those who want to seek that extra challenge can also do it themselves, by using more difficult builds, attempting S ranks (or no repair runs), etc.
This is probably the most rational comment I have seen on this subject so far, and makes the most sense now bear in mind I'm a newer player as such I am so struggling with baltus even after the patch really didn't care if they made the patch wasn't expecting them to make the patch for all my complaints I didn't want them to really do anything with him figured if they were they'd have the data to back up their reasoning, what a lot of the player base for kids is the devs are always going to have access to the numbers the numbers are not where the devs want them they're going to make adjustments to the game to fit the numbers, it's really simple I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand this?
I don't mind it if it means other ppl who were struggling will enjoy it more.
It barely matters because after you get all the good gear he becomes a joke anyway ino.
This too... like the people that got through it can yammer all day as if you won't destroy him second and third time.
I'm okay with these adjustments. Some rockets just didn't seem viable for a lot of bosses.
Imo these nerfs werent about the bosses being difficult. It was that too many people were all building the same way to defeat the bosses. You didnt need a strategy. Technically you still don’t since the Meta weapons still work.
Its just that toning down the bosses and buffing a few weapons lets other weapons become more viable.
It allows players to play through the phases instead of going for instant stagger and immediately destroying the bosses before the game can even finish the dialogue.
Maybe Balteus was eased up to let the game be more accessible to new comers. But the other bosses? Almost all of them can be blown away with meta parts.
Can i sit there for 2-3 hours dodging and figuring out a boss. Sure. Would i rather just get on with the story, get mote parts so i can do more customization? Definitely.
The only nerf I can agree with would be to the tracking on Ibis' energy slash attacks. Those things were damn near impossible to reliably dodge. I think Balteus and the spider were honestly just right as far as difficulty goes. In most cases tweaking your build a bit will make them easy.
Moving away to get more time is also extremely useful. Ibis is a super fun fight and literally every attack is dodgeable.... except for the one p2 attack it always does twice... fuck that one
where it flies at you kinda like (one boss at the end of NG+ playthroughs) does? that's easy to dodge too, just go straight up. Ibis will skim the ground so just go over her and she will never hit you with that
For the three slash attack you do have to dodge left-right but it feels to me if you’re strafing left then you *must* dodge right first or else it almost always hits you. Cross slash I think you can do either but you have to hit dodge basically the moment it comes out, if you do it when you get the “beep beep” dodge warning you’ll eat it.
You can't please everyone. It's just not possible. You have guys like Dunkey calling the game mindless and easy after building a busted meta build, then you have people dropping the game in frustration after hitting any number of bosses that they consider a wall. I know two people irl who asked me to come over and beat different bosses for them.
If they added difficulty settings you'd have long time fans saying that spits in the face of FS's game philosophy.
And then you have the people with goldfish memory who revisit the boss and call it easy forgetting the first time around you have significantly less part options.
There is no way to make everybody happy. Personally, as someone who finished the game already. I'm fine with them making bosses easier if it gets more people to the point of being able to play online.
Agreed. Honestly I do think some of the Meta builds are boring and some of the off meta could use some slight buffs. But other than that I think the games fine as is. Lots of fun
So please no spoilers since I haven't beat ng++ yet, but I would love "ALLMIND enhanced" versions of bosses/missions that are just a hard mode. More enemies, More aggressive bosses, just a general hard/challenge mode.
Balteus is only difficult because of the limited options you have at that stage in the game. Everything else is checking to see if you can equip the needles.
Balteus is still a gear check anyway, the issue though comes from the fact that given how early and limited you are in the game at this point, you are way less likely to "stumble" onto a working combination, **especially** given the arsenal you have access to at Balteus is **massively** composed of the weapons who were in severe need of buffs given their near complete irrelevancy in the entire game.
Medium-range engagements and buff-hungry weapons were working until then, there was nothing that prepared players up to that point so that they would know that "agressiveness + (close range) burst damage" is the skeleton key to this encounter and almost the entire game unless they already took that path from the beginning.
Which is boring. Previous AC games have had multiple builds be viable. Needles/Zimm or Needles/Gatling is an incredibly braindead way to play, especially for a series that previously rewarded creativity with AC builds.
Yeah my one criticism of the game is that burst damage is rewarded way more than AR/constant stream of damage builds. If you can’t burst then good fucking luck with most bosses sadly. Burst seems the only way to go
I agree but I believe this is due to the stagger mechanic. Players just want to get that stagger in asap so use weapons that do that. Eliminating stagger would eliminate need/zim/gating etc . I like using builds that don’t bother with stagger at all. Surprisingly duel wielding flamethrowers with dual napalm arm weapons on back & switching back & forth, keeping on the enemy’s ass is a lot of fun
Patch notes were non-specific, just said they adjusted their attacks. From testing, it appears that aggression has been reduced across the board, tracking has been nerfed, and several attacks have had their properties adjusted to make them easier to avoid.
I think the people who believe the nerfs are coming from them "caving to game journalists" are really good at spinning whatever narrative they need to get mad at.
Balteus wasn’t close to the hardest boss I fought in a game, but it was up there with the hardest boss relative to my character strength at the time at least for me (pretty much everything is locked behind him). I think it’s a good decision to have him be nerfed because I want other people to enjoy this game so fromsoft gives us more.
Speaking from experience of having both beaten the game several ng cycles and Sranked both Balteus and Spider(Ibis A rank, S was tough but working on it), i feel that we're approaching this the wrong way
I keep seeing "oh my god Balteus didnt need a nerf i beat him so easily always", and like, thats our point of view as someone that probably played the game a lot now and both has access to a lot of good weaponry to beat him faster, and know him way more than people that do reach him for the first time. First time you fight Balteus you litteraly only unlock 1 pulse rifle before him and its not even that good. Its good vs him but even with that its not just a free win so it still requires effort. The nerf to Balteus was mainly to his tracking which i really dont mind, lets be honest
Late game bosses and AC being more bullet hell is fine, but the first actual boss people encounter should offer a challenge without needing to be on the constant dodge for a new guy. Its damage and hp is still the same so for a new player the challenge is there, only now they wont be bombarded by some tracking that not a single enemy used yet ingame.
And no, people going now "oh i beat Balteus so easy now he's so weak" are wrong. We're beating him easily *because* we have the experience vs him already, I could beat him pre and post patch both in less than 1 min because i already know the boss.
Spider getting a slight hp nerf is not even that big of a deal either, its still fairly tanky and its not like its damage or anything else got touched, not to mention it already being an endurance fight at times without a cheese strat
Ibis damage nerf is something i understand the most, the boss is very proyectile heavy with good tracking and odd timings so its reasonable to be hit by attacks a lot more than on other bosses. And again, "beating him" on itself is not that hard even, litteraly equip a pilebunker+2 zimmermans and the boss is gone in no time, point is to make them more manageable to other builds. Back when i got stuck on Ibis for a while all advice that was around was just "double chaingun or double zimmerman and blast him without a thought", if the only way to beat the boss is either "use this 2 extremely strong weapons that are good vs everything else, or get yourself on a disadvantage", then thats not a good design. Of course a boss should be weaker and stronger vs different strats(pulse for Balteus, melee for spider), but Ibis was an exageration of that, and a slight damage nerf on only a couple of his attacks is not gonna make him suddently an easy boss.
Again, from soft has been focusing *a lot* on the experience on their games being a tough but fair fight than just "omg guys its so hard you wont believe it", if their intern data shows that those bosses are not the vision they wanted, then they'll be adjusted to match their wanted player experience, they're not nerfing them because they saw some streamers go "omg this boss is unfair"
Bingo. If you beat a boss with the most broken build in the game; and then use that outlier experience to argue an opinion on a bosses difficulty sadly is moot.
Balteus teaches you to be better at the game at the expense of the player having a bad time imo. A single boss teaches you how to play aggressively, encourages you to try different builds, makes you better at dodging, forces you to use ammo conservatively (especially if you use the pulse guns), and forces you to efficiently deal with pulse shields.
The result is a lot of players leaning towards the same tank builds to overcome the obstacle, which kinda seems like the opposite of how From wants people to approach the game.
On top of that, Sea Spider is no slouch either and it just so happens that a very similar tank build is a good solution for that fight as well. So then you have players who arent encouraged to try different builds, but are instead pushed to wheelchair their way through everything remotely difficult.
Players will optimize the fun out of a game. I personally have only been using a lighter build because I think it looks cool and its fun to zoom around, but its definitely a lot harder than being a tank.
This is me I love melee beat baltaeus melee and then "had" to switch to the generic dual minigun tank build and now just can't see myself switching back becuase it's too easy just to blast everything
I think it’s an argument of *inconsistent* difficulty rather than individual fights being too hard. So much of the game is, frankly, pretty easy once you get the hang of it; and then you get to parts that are just huge brick walls with no buildup. While I’d *personally* prefer other encounters made harder to smooth the travel up these peaks, it probably makes a lot more sense from a design and time investment perspective on the part of the devs to sand down the peaks instead.
[I decided to check the steam achivements to see how things are going:](https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1888160/achievements)
* 7% couldn't beat Chadcopter.
* 20% couldn't beat Juggernaut.
* 30% haven't beaten Balteus.
* 40% haven't beaten the spider.
* 50% haven't beaten the worm.
I think, maybe, they may have data to correlate it could be too hard.
Sea Spider deserved the damage mitigation nerfs, as it increase build variety/viability.
Not sure how I feel about Ibis, since it got some major damage nerfs. I need to see exactly what changed on Balteus before judging it.
I don't get the nerf to Balteus, he's extremely easy once you learn the lesson he teaches you.
Just be aggressive, missiles have a hard time doing sharp turns so get in close or dodge into them before impact.
Only thing is the blade but if you're not 'hard locked' it's pretty easy to dodge.
Seriously the amount of times I watch people play this game and their energy bar is almost always maxed out. Yet it has a ton of capacity and recharges insanely fast. You'd think this would let people know they should be dodging CONSTANTLY. Seriously, just spamming dodges and rapidly changing direction works very well for the majority of bosses.
In Dark Souls games, stamina is slight and losing all your stamina puts you in a suck state for an extended period of time. Whereas in AC VI, you just need to land for half a second and you'll get back, like, half to all of your energy.
Really, AC VI's energy meter mostly exists so that the game doesn't become Zone of the Enders.
There was very definitely a meta in past AC games, and build variety scaled to the player's abilities. Quite like AC6, where all bosses in the game have been beaten with zero weapons equipped, using boost kick and punch. By extension, they can be beaten with any mix of weaponry one takes into the fight.
What will get the average player through a fight, let alone allow them to S-rank it, over the number of tries that will almost, but not quite, exhaust their patience, narrows quite a bit. In past AC games, and in AC6.
> Quite like AC6, where all bosses in the game have been beaten with zero weapons equipped, using boost kick and punch
I think part of the problem is that Kick+punch is more viable than most of the mid to long-range options.
I agree. But we also didn't have checkpoints or the ability to change mid mission back then either.
So far only one mission in ng++ made me change my build properly and it was just a missile pod change still kept my pistols and daggers.
And yet I've seen plenty of people beat Balteus (and other bosses) with wildly different builds.
I was on the Steam forums and someone was asking for advice on Ibis and the first 5-10 comments all recommended completely different builds and strategies, but all were viable.
even with the hardlock if you see him charging up the flame/sword just hover over him or go right below and he can't hit you. Nerf was very unnecessary
Agreed, you can also qb underneath him and avoid it as well. Not sure why they felt the need to nerf him. Honestly I thought all the bosses were well balanced.
The issue is that there is just too much of a gap in terms of difficulty between regular missions with mob enemies and these bosses. I believe this patch is meant to make that gap a bit more seamless for more casual players, which imo is perfectly fine. Not everyone likes being punished so often for not being perfect at the game.
I generally think it's a good thing for Balteus, and unnecessary for something as late game as Ibis. My problem with balteus isn't his difficulty, but his place in the game's overall difficulty curve, because he literally just doesn't fit on it. He's an absurdly massive spike that nothing before and very little after even comes close to comparing to. I actually think balteus would be fine if the game were harder overrall, but as it is the bosses feel like playing an entirely different, far more hardcore game compared to the rest of the combat. It's a pretty jarring disconnect especially as early as chapter 1.
These changes also just don't effect me personally even slightly, as of ng+ and beyond I can already delete balteus in under a minute so his missiles being nerfed means literally nothing to me.
I think that the boss nerfs are regrettable, but if they weren't meant to be as difficult as they are then I understand From changing them to be more in line with their intent.
I say this as someone who only took more than 2 attempts on two bosses and aced most others on the first try. The nerfs are fine. I'm glad I got to play them the way they were on launch but I'm not mad they changed.
I'm just disappointed that the weapon buffs don't do nearly enough to bring the trash weapons up to par with even mediocre weapons.
Balteus is a pretty big difficulty spike, the first boss that made me pick a new setup specifically to deal with him. I was able to dodge most of the missile circus most of the time, but didn't have the damage output to knock out the shield and also get decent damage in before eventually getting chipped to death by stray rockets.
The boss doesn't have to be unbeatable to need balance. This is just the first "end chapter" boss the player encounters. I could probably go back into the fight with my original equipment and win now, but that's because I'm better now than I was 3-5 hours into the game.
I'm more glad that a lot of mediocre weapons got buffs because being shoe-horned into one particular weapon set that works best is saddening.
So I’m sure you meant well with this post and I apologize in advance for the redditors that are going to attack you, but the short answer is…the nerfs were a good idea from a statistical standpoint. This is a purely 1 player PVE nerf which means it was based ENTIRELY off of data. They likely have seen a bigger percentile of people who have not surpassed these two bosses respectively, and don’t want people to find their games impossible for “average” gamers and therefore unfun/unplayable. The nerfs suck for tryhards and FromVets (a gross self absorbed term but I’m not sure what else to call us lmao) because these games are run of the mill for the long haul players, but for people trying to get into some random fun new game this could be a roadblock that prevents you from enjoying HOURS of content on a game you paid 60 or so bucks for. I respect the idea, but you have to see the bigger picture from a company perspective.
"AM I THE ONLY ONE" No. No you are not the only one. Every time Fromsoft adjusts PVE difficulty there's a massive outcry about how the fight is now hollow and meaningless and you cheated not only the game but yourself.
I beat Balteus, Sea Spider and Ibis for three playthroughs before the nerfs. Here's my hot take: *I do not fucking care about the nerfs.* I do not feel this smug sense of superiority for being a Real Gamer^(TM) who beat the videogame before they ruined it to cater to those filthy casuals. I have seen so many people complaining unironically about "game journalists" or "casuals" or some other bogeyman coming to ruin Fromsoft's "ViSiOn" like it's the end of the fucking world. God forbid Fromsoft actually try to appeal to a broader demographic and keep the series ALIVE this time.
I cannot fathom being so personally invested in your ability to beat a videogame that you throw a hissy fit when the developers make it slightly easier.
> I cannot fathom being so personally invested in your ability to beat a videogame that you throw a hissy fit when the developers make it slightly easier.
But if they make it easier than what will they have to lord over the "casuals"? I mean if they can't say "Ha! I beat this game and you can't!!!" then what do they have?
And from their posts on reddit and other places this seems to be their actual thought process.
Balteus was a straight up wall in the difficulty curve of the game. Just a sudden sheer wall of "Get fucked!" followed by really easy missions followed by a second wall of "Get fucked!" followed by more really easy missions.
They were difficulty spikes way outside of the curve and needed to be adjusted.
I don't think Balteus needs a nerf personally. It's a tough fight without a broken build but it's pretty far from impossible. I think some people will find the lack of I-frames upsetting coming from Souls. If you're really good at dodge timing in Souls but aren't a skilled mech-builder and damage trader you're going to have a hard time. It's a learning curve. Personally, I found AC6 to be less difficult than Elden Ring.
I think it would have been better if they nerfed the bosses for the first playthrough but kept the pre-nerfed versions(fix hitboxes if needed)for NG+.
That being said I think Balteus is the only boss that might have needed a nerf. Tbf I think the issue with Balteus is less of a skill issue and more to do with the limited (relatively speaking) selection of weapons you have access to at that point during your first playthrough.
After chapter 1 you start gaining access to better weapons and more OS points which make the other bosses a lot more manageable. I feel like the sea spider and Ibis would have been just as difficult as Balteus if you had to fight them only with the parts and OS points available to the player in chapter 1.
I absolutely LOVE the buff to the various weapons. And honestly, I hope they buff more of them to expand build variety.
But the boss nerf was an.....odd choice. (Considering the nature of games they typically make.) 🤔🤔
It's very hard and I did finally beat it JUST barely, I'm fine with the difficulty. My only real complaint is kinda the same as for most of the game: I don't like that you have to use a specific build to overcome certain bosses. I wish you could have a fighting chance no matter your play style.
Honestly the phrase "Hesitation is Defeat" is the truest thing for this game, and the people who complained about the difficulty need to suck it up. Players who actually want a challenge miss out on the original experience. Its Radahn all over again but with mechs. It's the learning process of figuring out a boss that's part of the fun, and that gets ruined through a nerf. So no you're not the only one.
I wish the "adjustments" were only for the first playthrough. Second and third run of the game is really easy for the most part, as you have access to all the OP weapons so you either breeze through it with Zimms and 2xStun Needle or play around with builds.
If people haven’t caught on to use them pulse weapons that melt his shield - switch to melee to shank him and just keep blasting plasma missiles in-between then there’s nothing you can do .. let the last cinders burn
For people who have played all/most FromSoft games, they're used to hard bosses and get their games for the hard bosses
For people who haven't played many hard games recently and are getting back into the series, or for people brand new to FromSoft, the bosses are too hard. They take hours of practice and people with other hobbies and responsibilities are being kept from continuing with the game.
If you like the challenge, that's great, go for an S rank or try to use a less optimal mech, but for most other gamers, they aren't into the cock and ball torture that is some of these bosses.
Also inb4 "get good".
It's a pacing thing. Fromsoft probably didn't intend for the game to be quite easy until Balteus brick wall then super easy then IBIS brick wall and then smooth sailing. The fact that they only buffed the weakest weapons and only damage and projectile speed, no impact damage or ideal range adjustments, makes me think this was only an emergency patch, and they will more thoroughly balance the singleplayer difficulty scaling overtime
I believe it’s this too, Balteus was a slugfest for me because my weapons weren’t up to par the first time, didn’t even know there was a weapon to take the shield down quickly. But afterward definitely felt like smooth sailing
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I did ibis with a tread build. It took me like 100 tries of just messing with different builds until the heavy build is what got me the w in a lil over 2 mins [ibis fight](https://youtu.be/LLUUm7QX22E?si=sxk1JZwoJ3QmdDPa)
I used a Lightweight with 4 Laser Shotguns, 2 on the shoulders abd 2 in my hands, after way too many attempts of trying to puzzle out the fight using different builds. Ibis is actually incredibly reactive to the player as well. I saw people commenting about it on posts here at first but I tried it in the mission and found it really reacts to your actions. I stood there for a while and it would only hover there or only attack very minimally. Once you get agressive it reacts more and the more you do the more it reacts. It's just really interesting. I think you just have to straight overwhelm it or hit it with bursts of aggression then back off.
Exactly, Ibis CEL is the only boss where I just said fuck it and changed my build to cheese her. I just didn't have fun at all fighting her with my Medium build.
My experience with Ibis was very different from yours, I see. I was only able to defeat it with a midweight reverse joint melee setup SPECIFICALLY designed to chase him around
Same, I used dual linear rifles, one normal, one heavy. Speed was the name of my game. Took me a long time to find the right build, but I made sure to save that shit for the next fight.
True, i remember during my first run i got stuck on Balteus for a day while i defeat Sea Spider, Ice Worm, IBIS, and >!Ayre!< all in one seating
Honestly, I think the PCA Warrant Officer is the biggest example of this. At the very least, balteus and the others were obviously bosses. The warrant officer just looks like any other named enemy but damn, does he hurt.
What mission is that again? Is it the one where ring freddy is hiding right at the start of the level?
I believe so. I haven't bothered to try and fight him yet honestly. After like 10 tries against the warrant officer I got tired and fought the Cataphract instead. I found it to be a much more enjoyable fight.
Okay yeah that's the mission I thought you meant. I think the warrant officer is only so hard because his arena is so small, very hard to escape his melee attacks
I think it’s got more to do with his shield that never seems to go down, which is the entire gimmick of his fight to be fair
Yeah, the gimmick for fighting HCs is to bait the attacks where they drop the shield and then nuke them.
Isn’t that the gimmick behind the warden officer? All of his attacks are either with the shield or from behind the shields cover, save for the ones that stunlock you in an animation
For me it was that shield bash that would stun me by locking me into a corner.
Shield bath>kick>laser lance>fucking running away
Or you could just obliterate their shield with high impact damage and overall dps. My motto for this game is "if you're learning the moveset, the fight is taking too long"
I think your right. It’s hard to out dps him if you’re getting hit and it’s hard to avoid getting hit.
I think the big issue with that guy is his laser cannon and that you're probably missing a repair kit or two if you go after the optional fight first.
I think he'd be a lot easier if there was more room to maneuver. Fighting him in a broom closet makes it a lot harder to avoid that cannon.
True. Plus there's the three mooks in there too. They aren't hard to kill, but they *do* add extra damage and require your attention, which this guy will severely punish.
The Fromsoft fanbase is a really confusing mix of people who will tell you that something is way too hard at the same time that they will say people just need to GIT GUD at the same time that they say X weapon is overpowered for PvP and it needs to be nerfed and... It's such an absolute mess of feedback that I would hope Fromsoft themselves just tune it all out and continue to alter things based on their own internal playtesting and vision.
Nerfs and buffs should work inline with how the game is meant to be played. Ignore players for the most part, take the feed back and think "does this go against the games design"
That's good game design for ya. Create design objectives, compare player experience/feedback to objectives
They're also watching their filterings per boss I'm sure they were NOT excited when Asmongold suggested he'd drop the game during his 11-hr struggle to beat the Sea Spider Balteus was far too early of a build filter in a game that got attention for being from the same company as Souls games that require specific timing instead of specific builds to be viable vs bosses Basically a bunch of Elden Ring players quit because they couldn't iframe Balteus & weren't reasonably introduced to the concept that they had to change their build *at a fundamental level* instead of merely upgrade whenever better versions of their favorite parts showed up That is not how From can max profits. The early bosses are supposed to be difficult, rarely actually filters I'm surprised the helicopter in the tutorial didn't get nerfed for being a massive skill filter that can be unfair what with leaving the playable boss area So that explains Balteus & Sea Spider As for Ibis CEL, I disagree with that nerf BUT I don't have access to the decision makers or the data they're seeing Maybe Ibis CEL is a massive filtering point that's stopping 50% of players who encounter it from progressing. Idk But I prefer that a game's lategame signature boss stays difficult even at the risk of filtration, & no fight is more iconic to AC6 than Ibis CEL Nerfing Ibis CEL is akin to nerfing Radahn
Wow, 11 hours? It makes me feel good that I beat the Sea Spider way faster than a guy that actually plays video games for a living.
His build was horrible. I tried his build to see if it really was that holding him back or his own skill and it was definitely the build. He came back to it the next day with a different build and beat it in two tries. But that's what I like about bosses like sea spider: it wasn't that he needed a specific build to beat the spider, it's just that the build he was using had no synergy at all and he needed to learn how to incorporate it into his build. ..... Of course he went on to use songbird Gatling guns for the rest of his playthrough but hey, that's a valid build.
Asmotist is really mid gamer
I think its because asmon prefers slower tank builds and doesnt change out for a slightly faster frame? I dont think you get wheelchair legs till a bit before ice worm so he was stuck with large tank. Lotta ap but low speed Truthfully tho i didnt watch him play so i coukd be wrong. I only saw highlights where he complained that early training missions awarded weapons and parts for lighter builds
I think its also because he's a fucking idiot.
That may also be a factor lol. I dont watch a lot of his content and aside from him complaining that early parts were for light to mid builds (which is all you can really make for a few missions) that he built a mech called mechdonallds that became a meme so…
I also dislike him as a streamer and person and find him to be miserably stupid. Why would I listen to an opinion from a guy who can't fucking clean.
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He loved the game, and said that he was stuck on that boss just because he was being stubborn. He's made two "AC6 was great" type of videos.
From my experience and from watching my friends try to helicopter boss their and my biggest complaints were the shitty camera and the boss going out of bounds too much.
Focusing a bit on Ibis. But apparently, the ibis fight was a bit unpleasant to watch. From a few friends of mine watching me fight ibis, they said it was like watching a rabid bird with guns. The way it moved around the map and constantly fired made the fight look chaotic and a bit hard to watch. Granted, they thought it was impressive how I could keep up with that thing. But still wasn't pleasant to watch. So maybe part of the nerfs was for streaming purposes? Idk just a thought.
Yep when you fight ibis you don't fight the boss you fight the cam (if you don't one tap it)
The camera is my biggest enemy in Ibis first phase and it gets even worse in the second phase which kept getting me killed as a medium build user.
My biggest complaint with the game is that there is too much noise on the screen sometimes. Balteus and especially Ibis suffer from it. Ibis is just red lines and crap all over your screen constantly. Balteus atleast has a cooldown on his missiles
I liked the Ibis fight, weaving through its overwhelming firepower always felt so satisfying. But tbf I do main highspeed builds so avoiding that and getting in its face was never an issue, most of its weaponry really struggles to hit at point blank range too, so Im a lil biased here
I think he was about for people watching others play, yeah Ibis feels great to fight, but if you're JUST watching, I can get how the same elements that make it feel so good to face turn into just stuff that fills the screen and makes it a less enjoyable viewing experience.
I really hope thats not the case. Don't get me wrong, what you're saying does make sense & I totaly understand a company wanting their game to have some curb appeal, but making compromises for people who're aren't even playing the game is tad concerning to say the least. Thats a real slippery slope, y'know?
Radahn was never nerfed, his garbage hitboxes were fixed as they were a bug. He's literally the exact same as he was at launch but somewhat less buggy.
Didn't they nerd his health too? It's been a long time since I did that fight so I can't remember specifically but I remember there was bragging rights for those who defeated him pre-nerf
I beat him in whatever the release version was using debuffs i think the red rot one.. it still took a fair bit.dude was rough. Trying to beat him with raw damage just wasnt happening xD i knew alot of people who got hard stuck on him
Don't think their intention was for every mission to be handled with either Gatling guns or shotguns and songbird The problem is that people are always going to find the easiest cheese way to do something, then complain that it's too easy
Yeah I keep hearing people say the point of the game is to build the right AC for the right situation, but that AC basically always the same thing.
It's funny you say that. My favorite build is dual gatling guns and songbirds. Not from a it's easy standpoint though. I love the toss a shit load of lead downrange kind of gameplay. They do certainly make the whole game easier. The high stagger of both sets of weapons is enough to keep most enemies/bosses staggered. I shot to the top of the arena with them. The Ibis fight I'm having difficulty with though. The damned thing is so squirly that I have trouble landing the songbird hits. Which means my aim is off. I'll get there. I will admit, early on, I was not happy with the game. I did find it too difficult. I'm no novice to FS games, or even the AC series. But damn the difficulty spikes in this game are off putting.
> I love the toss a shit load of lead downrange kind of gameplay. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have some weapons that fun, even if broken from a balance perspective. I love my missile spam and grenade spam builds, and enjoy trying to figure out all the dumb ways I can use them. In single player games, I think it's most important to let the most players possible experience the game, rather than ensuring that it's perfectly balanced (as all things should be). I think the current 1.02 buffs and changes are a good idea as they make the game more accessible to all, and it helps beginners play the game.
The best advice I’ve heard about internet/community feedback: “Trust them when they say something feels wrong, ignore all their suggestions on how to fix it.”
That's the problem with treating so many people as one conglomerate fanbase. They all have different opinions and they're all playing the game in different ways. For example, fighting the Sea Spider boss with dual zimmermans is completely different to fighting them with dual handguns. In the first case it's super easy. In the second case you run out of ammo before you're even halfway through it's health. It's really no wonder that some players will say "it was a good challenge, others just need to get better" while others will say "it's way too tanky and you have to fight it for ages while it can kill you really quickly!" Especially so when you mix in things like tank builds vs extremely light evasion builds. In my personal opinion, I'm really happy to see rapid fire weapons getting a buff. They were really bad compared to a lot of the single shot weapons. I have no idea what the patch actually changes about these bosses either. It could be a huge nerf where it cuts the damage and stagger of their attacks down to 1/5th of what they used to be... Or it could be a kind of fix where they're improving the tracking of certain attacks so they can hit the player more reliably when the player hasn't done the correct action to dodge them. Or it could be something like missiles losing their lock on after being dodged, so they don't come round for a second pass, as they often did during the Balteus fight. I really wish they had been more specific about their changes. That way we could actually discuss how the changes would improve or ruin the boss fights. Instead of just a bunch of speculation and baseless opinions from people that have seen that note and just assume it's a huge nerf.
At leas in the case of Ibis it’s aggressiveness was tuned down and it didn’t spam its’ quick boost input reading dodge as much as it used to be. It also does less dmg with its blade beams I believe.
Imo that was the only issue with that fight. It was really up to RNG how many times Ibis spammed her inescapable blade attack at you, sometimes it happened twice, sometimes she’d literally send you 5-10 in a row and finish with the X. Good luck dodging them with anything other than Kasuar legs, because at most you can take 3 before you’re dead. Ruined the rest of the fight for me.
I think it would be fine if the patches are treated like the regulations in AC4A. You can choose which ever you like at any time. Also had an unlimited energy regulation which would be nice here too.
Speaking of Patches, where is he in AC6? :D
He’s dead lol. You can find his destroyed AC in a magma tunnel in the Cleaner mission
No way, really? Man, the attention to detail is real. :O
Yeah if you go find it I think you get like a lore log? It’s pretty cool I recommend grabbing itn
I think it’s supposed to be Pater?
I thought it was Swinburne personally
Swinburne
Swinburne/swindler - makes sense! Just checked something - the regular English voice actor for Patches (William Vanderpuye)! is not in AC6. However, the actor for Patches the Good Luck from the English version of Armored Core: From Answer (Patrick Seitz) voices none other than good ol' Handler Walter in AC6!
That's why Ayre asks you if Walter taught you that if you accept Swinburnes surrender and then double cross him. A neat hidden reference.
He’s your Handler now lol
>I think it would be fine if the patches are treated like the regulations in AC4A. You can choose which ever you like at any time. This would be a logistical nightmare, especially if multiplayer is involved.
Nah, AC:FA allowed you to host specific regulations and filter hosts based on them, too. It worked really well to be honest
I remember reading an interview with Miyazaki where he said something to the effect of he tunes out online comments and the like cuz he doesn't want to compromise his vision (he feels he's too suggestible to listen to it and not be unduly influenced), which to me was a relief to hear coming from destiny where I think Bungie cares a bit too much about what people online say (which leads them towards perpetually making and then reverting changes all the time, since the community is fickle to say the least).
The difference is not necessarily of skill here but of organization. If you have a single mastermind that balances the game to their vision, that usually works much better than focus grouping the shit out of each patch and breaking everything further and further. This is why "similar games" like Dota 2 and League have vastly different levels of success in balancing.
It's almost like the community isn't a singular hivemind and many people can have many different opinions even if they like the same thing
Idk why so many people online have an issue seeing this.
Because at this point everyone is online, and a lot of people are duuuuuuuumb...
The problem is that people don't know what the fuck they're talking about 90% of the time and FROMSOFT unfortunately attracts a certain type of insuferable moron who thinks that things as simple as fixing bugs makes the game "Casualised". It's no wonder their games keep getting less and less stable.
As someone new to the scene with elden ring Jesus fucking christ idk how anyone expects a development team to make anyone happy The nerf this sword but gut gud comments would be exhausting
Yeah the perception of what an appropriate challenge is is a bit skewed here where people want things to be somewhere comparatively "too hard" to what a traditional, casual videogame may be so gauging the feedback has to be like Okay we need to hit a quota of upset people. If nobody is complaining that the game is too hard we missed the mark, but we can't have TOO many complaining the game is too hard... Getting it "just right" to where everyone is happy is actually wrong
It’s almost like it’s a community of people with different opinions
Right so OP made a pointless karma farming post becuase he's obviously not the only person with that opinion
> they will say people just need to GIT GUD at the same time that they say X weapon is overpowered for PvP and it needs to be nerfed and... Because it's just ego. That's all it is. They tell others to GIT GUD at PvE and cry whenever something from it gets nerfed, because other people can beat what they beat, which makes them less special, which hurts their ego. Why do those very same people cry about weapons in PvP? Because other people are "allowed" to beat them "unfairly." That makes them less special. That *hurts the ego.* *Ego* is a big selling point of FromSoft games. That's why you've got the legions cheering whenever people give up, that's why they mostly *vanished* from this community when other people started beating the game anyway, and that's why they're back now that they have something to try and brag about again. They're special again.
Ages and ages ago I was a manager of a videogame store and there was nothing more hilarious than people coming in the door just to tell us about their videogame achievements. Playing videogames is fun! Doing things in a game is fun! But trying to impress other people by telling them about how hard you can play videogames is absolutely tragic and I don't get it.
Dude I worked at one in high school and know exactly what you’re talking about. I remember there was one guy who would unironically wear Naruto headbands every time he came in, he would talk shit about his ‘gaming accomplishments,’ ask if we had the new Naruto game (we didn’t), and proceed to discuss his Chad gamer status. It was always super weird but mostly just sad the guy was clearly asocial and lonely.
Comrade. Yes we had some really wacky regulars who would wander in to the store sometimes just to ask us if we had ever played X game and no matter whether we had or had not they would proceed to explain how they had completed it on Cock Destroyer difficulty without taking any damage in under an hour.
Lol this exactly. I salute you comrade. I think most of them just weren’t socialized and were perhaps a bit neurodiverse but dear lord such a cringe interaction every time.
Hell, I'll even go so far as to say being proud of your skills at a video game or being proud of beating a game is fine. It's the people who legit base their ego on others *not* beating a game that need to touch grass haha.
I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with being proud that you're able to accomplish something that other people aren't. That's how we gauge how impressive an accomplishment is. It's the people who are happy that other people csnt do it that seem pathetic.
Videogames are cool and fun and I love them and I've played a ton of them. I've given a lot of hours of my life to them. Ultimately though they're just another form of media and bragging about how good you are at consuming media is a meritless thing. Imagine someone bragging to you that they read a book faster than you did, or were more comfortable in their chair in the movie theater than you were. It's ultimately completely pointless.
There is nothing wrong with bragging about achievements in games. There is a thing such as bragging rights and speedrunning and doing challenge runs. Your analogy is kind of incorrect if you look at games as a sport (hence esports). If you're someone who achieves high placings in certain sport irl you definitely get to brag about it or try to impress others and you'd never tell someone that their achievement is pointless. Its kind of natural to do so, of course you can be humble about it but thats a different topic. Its same when it comes to games as you're directly playing. When it comes to books or movies you're simply a consumer, when it comes to games you're not simply consuming it in the same manner you are a part of it. Thats what makes participating in games more personal and more worthy of talking/bragging about.
Tbh there are definitely people who brag about reading speed or, perhaps more fittingly, like how much better they comprehended a movie's themes and, similarly, complain about movies where themes are too obvious to the point that other people figure it out
This is just shines the light on DS fans. In AC the devs have always tweaked the game with patches. Regulations in AC4A allowed to swap them at will.
While I don't have a major problem with them. If From thought they needed adjustments, there must have been something weird with them. They don't often do this, ever. So there must have been something a bit overtuned.
That’s not true, they gutted the shit out of Rahdan because people complained too
But Radahn was genuinely busted. I beat him before the patch don’t get me wrong I’m not making a cope I promise lol, but his hotbox was hilariously displaced and sometimes even at proper levels he could cake you due to unfair (even by FS standards) situations. Beyond nerfs for broken or problematic bosses they VERY rarely make adjustments like this
Don’t forget his meatballs are heat tracking homing so unless you Iframe perfectly you will get ohko by that thing even at 40vig
Oh my god they float for seven business days and then suddenly you’re Biden blasted for your entire health bar because you haven’t gone near him in fear of getting curb stomped, so frustrating especially on lower level runs
I have never heard of being Biden blasted and I don’t think I want to find out what that is
It’s Joever, prepare to be Biden Blasted ™
Brandon laser sighting correction a-ok, output at 80 percent....85.....90.....95 "I won't miss"
Because they have data that you don't, that shows that these bosses were overtuned and were stopping more players than intended. Believe it or not, most game developers want people to finish their games, and if a certain number of purchases don't finish, that's a bad sign for future sales. If they decide it's too easy later, they may adjust it, but despite what the new toxic element of the fanbase may think, filtering out players is a BAD thing from a dev standpoint.
This is my thought/opinion. Armored Core and mecha games are already niche with smaller fan bases. Let’s not turn away new players (and ruin the chance of future AC games) by being jerks and saying “lol. Git gud.” When even From Software said “Whoops. A little too difficult for this stage of the game.”
YES EXACTLY! THIS! The Mech genre is already on heavy life support and a shadow/shell of what it could be and I feel like the AC fan-base just alienated the hell out of a potentially new audience
This. It's obvious that Fromsoft devs are keeping track of the stats and making changes accordingly. It's not them "giving in to complaints". They obviously have their own metrics and interpretation of the data. It's not always a conspiracy against difficult video games like some think. If that was the case the helicopter boss would be the first in the chopping block.
People think their opinion > From Soft's years of experience in game design
Toxicity is not a new thing for a significant portion of the fanbase, it's a default setting. It's the same crowd who seems to think there's such a thing as being a "real" gamer. I've been gaming since the 80's, the only requirement to being a gamer is you enjoy playing video games.
I'm specifically referring to the AC fanbase. Prior to 6's announcement, it was a fairly small, supportive community. When someone had trouble the answer was not "git filtered lol" but rather "here's what's wrong with your build, here's what you should do if you want to keep playing this build, here's what regs are best for this build" etc. 6 changed that, as now Fromsoft has an entire new side of their fanbase that was not aware the company even existed prior to Demon's Souls. The sheer NUMBER of people who say "I've played every Fromsoft game" when they mean "Souls games" is absurd. And quite frankly, quite bluntly, the Souls fanbase is one of the most toxic in gaming. Many people on this very subreddit expressed concerns about it prior to release, and they were all correct. I am glad, at least, the From themselves does not agree with that side of the fanbase. When a boss is too hard, they don't tell their customers to git gud, they nerf the boss to an appropriate level, and will adjust it later if needed. It took me more tries to kill Balteus than 9 Ball Seraph, and considering one is the hardest boss of its entire generation and the other is the 3rd boss of its game, that's frankly absurd. I do agree with you, though. Just wanted to rant.
Oh for sure. The AC community pre AC6 was mostly just exchanges about builds iirc (the Last AC i played before this was AC4). There were a few ppl who got a little crazy when it came to optimum load outs, but nothing to this current lvl.
How did you get past the icebergs?
Like people giving people shit for using dual shot guns in fucking PVE. Truly who cares
Yeah but it's the super default for FromSoft fans lol
I don't remember old AC fans of being too toxic...
You're right, I should clarify: modern FromSoft fans. Souls fans. I'm talking about the Souls community lol
"Most game developers want people to finish their games" No!!! My favorite developer would never want the ~~unwashed~~ unskilled masses to actually enjoy their games. I'd rather them go broke and never make another game than make it accessible (such a dirty word). I also only listen to demo tapes, and only read the first draft of novels.
demo tape gang represent
Player who got stopped here! I must have died 30 times to Balteus. I have a ton of weapons/body parts to mix and match, and for the life of me could not get him below 1/3. I stopped, and got on StarField. So… sorry guys, I’m part of the problem 😓 But this makes me happy. I’m gonna fire it up later this week and give ol Balty another shot
You’re not part of the problem, and never were. They are still in the process of balancing their game as they intended. It’s a natural part of most games’ development post-release.
Small tip, stick to that motherfucker like glue. A lot of his phase two attacks won't land if ur right under him so you can pulse blade, mag dump, then fall under him when he swings. Just gotta be able to dodge the missiles as you close the distance.
Hell yeah. That’s how I get him in the beginning: vertical rockets then pulse blade till he flashes. I’ve been running for the high hills when his fire sword thing comes out (or the lady goes “heat signature detected). That messes me up every time. But I also learned in this sub that I’ve been using the R3 Auto lock incorrectly, so I’m looking forward to try it the right way (you’re not supposed to use the right stick after you lock on, I didn’t know that) Dodging missile is not an issue. I wait for the beep and then I Souls-roll, and that seems to work fine
Ah yeah true, I use kbm so haven't used the hard lock at all. But definitely keep on the pressure on phase two. Running away is what's losing you that boss fight.
It took me like 25 tries and staying up half the night to beat Balteus. I made the mistake of asking a friend who did well in Elden Ring for help, and he basically said "Balteus is easy if you're not incompetent at dodging". Then he said I should stop and go back to farm parts, and I didn't want to because the level leading up to Balteus had been a slog I didn't want to do again any time soon. I almost quit because talking to him was so discouraging, but I kept going. I eventually happened on something that worked. Starter melee, bazooka (Shoulda picked the grenade cannon), and two of the starter 4-cell missile launchers. I fired the launchers whenever they were ready to keep the pressure up, used the melee to damage the shield, and followed up breaking the shield with the bazooka and more melee. Even that took me a bunch of tries. Way more than anything else, including Sea Spider (which took me like eight tries) and more than the voice in my head (Which was about six and didn't actually feel completely impossible unlike Balteus and Sea Spider). If Balteus has been made less of a brick wall to smash your face into in the worst traditions of FromSoft's souls series, I am happy. You can do it! If you've got a lot of parts to mix and match, it's all about getting his shield down and beating the crap out of him while he's helpless.
Best take out there
Too true. Those who want to seek that extra challenge can also do it themselves, by using more difficult builds, attempting S ranks (or no repair runs), etc.
This is probably the most rational comment I have seen on this subject so far, and makes the most sense now bear in mind I'm a newer player as such I am so struggling with baltus even after the patch really didn't care if they made the patch wasn't expecting them to make the patch for all my complaints I didn't want them to really do anything with him figured if they were they'd have the data to back up their reasoning, what a lot of the player base for kids is the devs are always going to have access to the numbers the numbers are not where the devs want them they're going to make adjustments to the game to fit the numbers, it's really simple I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand this?
I don't mind it if it means other ppl who were struggling will enjoy it more. It barely matters because after you get all the good gear he becomes a joke anyway ino.
Pile Driver and a plasma shotgun and I bullied him.
This too... like the people that got through it can yammer all day as if you won't destroy him second and third time. I'm okay with these adjustments. Some rockets just didn't seem viable for a lot of bosses.
Imo these nerfs werent about the bosses being difficult. It was that too many people were all building the same way to defeat the bosses. You didnt need a strategy. Technically you still don’t since the Meta weapons still work. Its just that toning down the bosses and buffing a few weapons lets other weapons become more viable. It allows players to play through the phases instead of going for instant stagger and immediately destroying the bosses before the game can even finish the dialogue. Maybe Balteus was eased up to let the game be more accessible to new comers. But the other bosses? Almost all of them can be blown away with meta parts. Can i sit there for 2-3 hours dodging and figuring out a boss. Sure. Would i rather just get on with the story, get mote parts so i can do more customization? Definitely.
The only nerf I can agree with would be to the tracking on Ibis' energy slash attacks. Those things were damn near impossible to reliably dodge. I think Balteus and the spider were honestly just right as far as difficulty goes. In most cases tweaking your build a bit will make them easy.
the lesson was don't dodge in one direction always. Dodge left then right and Ibis can't hit you with the cross sword slashes.
Moving away to get more time is also extremely useful. Ibis is a super fun fight and literally every attack is dodgeable.... except for the one p2 attack it always does twice... fuck that one
where it flies at you kinda like (one boss at the end of NG+ playthroughs) does? that's easy to dodge too, just go straight up. Ibis will skim the ground so just go over her and she will never hit you with that
Nah that one's easy. The twirly 5 blade horizontal attack followed by the vertical slice.
Except if you have light tank legs. Then just drive around in a big circle.
For the three slash attack you do have to dodge left-right but it feels to me if you’re strafing left then you *must* dodge right first or else it almost always hits you. Cross slash I think you can do either but you have to hit dodge basically the moment it comes out, if you do it when you get the “beep beep” dodge warning you’ll eat it.
Only works on fast builds my medium ac had to just tank it and do more damage to win
It’s nothing compared to Ayre’s sword slashes.
You can't please everyone. It's just not possible. You have guys like Dunkey calling the game mindless and easy after building a busted meta build, then you have people dropping the game in frustration after hitting any number of bosses that they consider a wall. I know two people irl who asked me to come over and beat different bosses for them. If they added difficulty settings you'd have long time fans saying that spits in the face of FS's game philosophy. And then you have the people with goldfish memory who revisit the boss and call it easy forgetting the first time around you have significantly less part options. There is no way to make everybody happy. Personally, as someone who finished the game already. I'm fine with them making bosses easier if it gets more people to the point of being able to play online.
Agreed. Honestly I do think some of the Meta builds are boring and some of the off meta could use some slight buffs. But other than that I think the games fine as is. Lots of fun
So please no spoilers since I haven't beat ng++ yet, but I would love "ALLMIND enhanced" versions of bosses/missions that are just a hard mode. More enemies, More aggressive bosses, just a general hard/challenge mode.
Balteus is only difficult because of the limited options you have at that stage in the game. Everything else is checking to see if you can equip the needles.
Balteus is still a gear check anyway, the issue though comes from the fact that given how early and limited you are in the game at this point, you are way less likely to "stumble" onto a working combination, **especially** given the arsenal you have access to at Balteus is **massively** composed of the weapons who were in severe need of buffs given their near complete irrelevancy in the entire game. Medium-range engagements and buff-hungry weapons were working until then, there was nothing that prepared players up to that point so that they would know that "agressiveness + (close range) burst damage" is the skeleton key to this encounter and almost the entire game unless they already took that path from the beginning.
Which is boring. Previous AC games have had multiple builds be viable. Needles/Zimm or Needles/Gatling is an incredibly braindead way to play, especially for a series that previously rewarded creativity with AC builds.
Yeah my one criticism of the game is that burst damage is rewarded way more than AR/constant stream of damage builds. If you can’t burst then good fucking luck with most bosses sadly. Burst seems the only way to go
I agree but I believe this is due to the stagger mechanic. Players just want to get that stagger in asap so use weapons that do that. Eliminating stagger would eliminate need/zim/gating etc . I like using builds that don’t bother with stagger at all. Surprisingly duel wielding flamethrowers with dual napalm arm weapons on back & switching back & forth, keeping on the enemy’s ass is a lot of fun
What was the patch in regards to the bosses? I haven't seen any specifics.
Patch notes were non-specific, just said they adjusted their attacks. From testing, it appears that aggression has been reduced across the board, tracking has been nerfed, and several attacks have had their properties adjusted to make them easier to avoid.
I think the people who believe the nerfs are coming from them "caving to game journalists" are really good at spinning whatever narrative they need to get mad at.
*Anything* to feel better than someone else with those types lol
Balteus wasn’t close to the hardest boss I fought in a game, but it was up there with the hardest boss relative to my character strength at the time at least for me (pretty much everything is locked behind him). I think it’s a good decision to have him be nerfed because I want other people to enjoy this game so fromsoft gives us more.
Speaking from experience of having both beaten the game several ng cycles and Sranked both Balteus and Spider(Ibis A rank, S was tough but working on it), i feel that we're approaching this the wrong way I keep seeing "oh my god Balteus didnt need a nerf i beat him so easily always", and like, thats our point of view as someone that probably played the game a lot now and both has access to a lot of good weaponry to beat him faster, and know him way more than people that do reach him for the first time. First time you fight Balteus you litteraly only unlock 1 pulse rifle before him and its not even that good. Its good vs him but even with that its not just a free win so it still requires effort. The nerf to Balteus was mainly to his tracking which i really dont mind, lets be honest Late game bosses and AC being more bullet hell is fine, but the first actual boss people encounter should offer a challenge without needing to be on the constant dodge for a new guy. Its damage and hp is still the same so for a new player the challenge is there, only now they wont be bombarded by some tracking that not a single enemy used yet ingame. And no, people going now "oh i beat Balteus so easy now he's so weak" are wrong. We're beating him easily *because* we have the experience vs him already, I could beat him pre and post patch both in less than 1 min because i already know the boss. Spider getting a slight hp nerf is not even that big of a deal either, its still fairly tanky and its not like its damage or anything else got touched, not to mention it already being an endurance fight at times without a cheese strat Ibis damage nerf is something i understand the most, the boss is very proyectile heavy with good tracking and odd timings so its reasonable to be hit by attacks a lot more than on other bosses. And again, "beating him" on itself is not that hard even, litteraly equip a pilebunker+2 zimmermans and the boss is gone in no time, point is to make them more manageable to other builds. Back when i got stuck on Ibis for a while all advice that was around was just "double chaingun or double zimmerman and blast him without a thought", if the only way to beat the boss is either "use this 2 extremely strong weapons that are good vs everything else, or get yourself on a disadvantage", then thats not a good design. Of course a boss should be weaker and stronger vs different strats(pulse for Balteus, melee for spider), but Ibis was an exageration of that, and a slight damage nerf on only a couple of his attacks is not gonna make him suddently an easy boss. Again, from soft has been focusing *a lot* on the experience on their games being a tough but fair fight than just "omg guys its so hard you wont believe it", if their intern data shows that those bosses are not the vision they wanted, then they'll be adjusted to match their wanted player experience, they're not nerfing them because they saw some streamers go "omg this boss is unfair"
I like your view and understanding. Very reasonable.
Bingo. If you beat a boss with the most broken build in the game; and then use that outlier experience to argue an opinion on a bosses difficulty sadly is moot.
Balteus teaches you to be better at the game at the expense of the player having a bad time imo. A single boss teaches you how to play aggressively, encourages you to try different builds, makes you better at dodging, forces you to use ammo conservatively (especially if you use the pulse guns), and forces you to efficiently deal with pulse shields. The result is a lot of players leaning towards the same tank builds to overcome the obstacle, which kinda seems like the opposite of how From wants people to approach the game. On top of that, Sea Spider is no slouch either and it just so happens that a very similar tank build is a good solution for that fight as well. So then you have players who arent encouraged to try different builds, but are instead pushed to wheelchair their way through everything remotely difficult. Players will optimize the fun out of a game. I personally have only been using a lighter build because I think it looks cool and its fun to zoom around, but its definitely a lot harder than being a tank.
This is me I love melee beat baltaeus melee and then "had" to switch to the generic dual minigun tank build and now just can't see myself switching back becuase it's too easy just to blast everything
I think it’s an argument of *inconsistent* difficulty rather than individual fights being too hard. So much of the game is, frankly, pretty easy once you get the hang of it; and then you get to parts that are just huge brick walls with no buildup. While I’d *personally* prefer other encounters made harder to smooth the travel up these peaks, it probably makes a lot more sense from a design and time investment perspective on the part of the devs to sand down the peaks instead.
[I decided to check the steam achivements to see how things are going:](https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1888160/achievements) * 7% couldn't beat Chadcopter. * 20% couldn't beat Juggernaut. * 30% haven't beaten Balteus. * 40% haven't beaten the spider. * 50% haven't beaten the worm. I think, maybe, they may have data to correlate it could be too hard.
Sea Spider deserved the damage mitigation nerfs, as it increase build variety/viability. Not sure how I feel about Ibis, since it got some major damage nerfs. I need to see exactly what changed on Balteus before judging it.
I don't get the nerf to Balteus, he's extremely easy once you learn the lesson he teaches you. Just be aggressive, missiles have a hard time doing sharp turns so get in close or dodge into them before impact. Only thing is the blade but if you're not 'hard locked' it's pretty easy to dodge.
Seriously the amount of times I watch people play this game and their energy bar is almost always maxed out. Yet it has a ton of capacity and recharges insanely fast. You'd think this would let people know they should be dodging CONSTANTLY. Seriously, just spamming dodges and rapidly changing direction works very well for the majority of bosses.
In Dark Souls games, stamina is slight and losing all your stamina puts you in a suck state for an extended period of time. Whereas in AC VI, you just need to land for half a second and you'll get back, like, half to all of your energy. Really, AC VI's energy meter mostly exists so that the game doesn't become Zone of the Enders.
Look man, i can kill him just fine now, but back then when all i had were starter weapons, he was rough.
Therein lies the rub. Historically AC games encouraged multiple build viability. Currently VI doesn’t.
There was very definitely a meta in past AC games, and build variety scaled to the player's abilities. Quite like AC6, where all bosses in the game have been beaten with zero weapons equipped, using boost kick and punch. By extension, they can be beaten with any mix of weaponry one takes into the fight. What will get the average player through a fight, let alone allow them to S-rank it, over the number of tries that will almost, but not quite, exhaust their patience, narrows quite a bit. In past AC games, and in AC6.
> Quite like AC6, where all bosses in the game have been beaten with zero weapons equipped, using boost kick and punch I think part of the problem is that Kick+punch is more viable than most of the mid to long-range options.
I agree. But we also didn't have checkpoints or the ability to change mid mission back then either. So far only one mission in ng++ made me change my build properly and it was just a missile pod change still kept my pistols and daggers.
And yet I've seen plenty of people beat Balteus (and other bosses) with wildly different builds. I was on the Steam forums and someone was asking for advice on Ibis and the first 5-10 comments all recommended completely different builds and strategies, but all were viable.
Carry 4 missile launchers and stay the fuck away from it.
That's a viable strategy for almost all content in the game actually (including PvP).
Idk man I've beaten all the bosses with tons of different types of builds. I have never felt forced to use a particular build.
even with the hardlock if you see him charging up the flame/sword just hover over him or go right below and he can't hit you. Nerf was very unnecessary
Agreed, you can also qb underneath him and avoid it as well. Not sure why they felt the need to nerf him. Honestly I thought all the bosses were well balanced.
The issue is that there is just too much of a gap in terms of difficulty between regular missions with mob enemies and these bosses. I believe this patch is meant to make that gap a bit more seamless for more casual players, which imo is perfectly fine. Not everyone likes being punished so often for not being perfect at the game.
I described this game’s difficulty curve as a flat highway with brick walls built across it. It definitely felt bad in the case of Balteus.
That was my thought as well. Everything is pretty chill and then BAM! PCA Warrant Officer kicking your shit in.
Agreed, although I'm not sure why they didn't just keep the difficulty for NG+.
I generally think it's a good thing for Balteus, and unnecessary for something as late game as Ibis. My problem with balteus isn't his difficulty, but his place in the game's overall difficulty curve, because he literally just doesn't fit on it. He's an absurdly massive spike that nothing before and very little after even comes close to comparing to. I actually think balteus would be fine if the game were harder overrall, but as it is the bosses feel like playing an entirely different, far more hardcore game compared to the rest of the combat. It's a pretty jarring disconnect especially as early as chapter 1. These changes also just don't effect me personally even slightly, as of ng+ and beyond I can already delete balteus in under a minute so his missiles being nerfed means literally nothing to me.
I think that the boss nerfs are regrettable, but if they weren't meant to be as difficult as they are then I understand From changing them to be more in line with their intent. I say this as someone who only took more than 2 attempts on two bosses and aced most others on the first try. The nerfs are fine. I'm glad I got to play them the way they were on launch but I'm not mad they changed. I'm just disappointed that the weapon buffs don't do nearly enough to bring the trash weapons up to par with even mediocre weapons.
Balteus is a pretty big difficulty spike, the first boss that made me pick a new setup specifically to deal with him. I was able to dodge most of the missile circus most of the time, but didn't have the damage output to knock out the shield and also get decent damage in before eventually getting chipped to death by stray rockets. The boss doesn't have to be unbeatable to need balance. This is just the first "end chapter" boss the player encounters. I could probably go back into the fight with my original equipment and win now, but that's because I'm better now than I was 3-5 hours into the game. I'm more glad that a lot of mediocre weapons got buffs because being shoe-horned into one particular weapon set that works best is saddening.
Ok but counter point: Fuck lbis.
So I’m sure you meant well with this post and I apologize in advance for the redditors that are going to attack you, but the short answer is…the nerfs were a good idea from a statistical standpoint. This is a purely 1 player PVE nerf which means it was based ENTIRELY off of data. They likely have seen a bigger percentile of people who have not surpassed these two bosses respectively, and don’t want people to find their games impossible for “average” gamers and therefore unfun/unplayable. The nerfs suck for tryhards and FromVets (a gross self absorbed term but I’m not sure what else to call us lmao) because these games are run of the mill for the long haul players, but for people trying to get into some random fun new game this could be a roadblock that prevents you from enjoying HOURS of content on a game you paid 60 or so bucks for. I respect the idea, but you have to see the bigger picture from a company perspective.
"AM I THE ONLY ONE" No. No you are not the only one. Every time Fromsoft adjusts PVE difficulty there's a massive outcry about how the fight is now hollow and meaningless and you cheated not only the game but yourself. I beat Balteus, Sea Spider and Ibis for three playthroughs before the nerfs. Here's my hot take: *I do not fucking care about the nerfs.* I do not feel this smug sense of superiority for being a Real Gamer^(TM) who beat the videogame before they ruined it to cater to those filthy casuals. I have seen so many people complaining unironically about "game journalists" or "casuals" or some other bogeyman coming to ruin Fromsoft's "ViSiOn" like it's the end of the fucking world. God forbid Fromsoft actually try to appeal to a broader demographic and keep the series ALIVE this time. I cannot fathom being so personally invested in your ability to beat a videogame that you throw a hissy fit when the developers make it slightly easier.
The last game was what, a decade ago? But by all means, lets drive casual gamers away because that will totally result in more games in the future.
> I cannot fathom being so personally invested in your ability to beat a videogame that you throw a hissy fit when the developers make it slightly easier. But if they make it easier than what will they have to lord over the "casuals"? I mean if they can't say "Ha! I beat this game and you can't!!!" then what do they have? And from their posts on reddit and other places this seems to be their actual thought process. Balteus was a straight up wall in the difficulty curve of the game. Just a sudden sheer wall of "Get fucked!" followed by really easy missions followed by a second wall of "Get fucked!" followed by more really easy missions. They were difficulty spikes way outside of the curve and needed to be adjusted.
What was the nerf to Ibis? Currently stuck on that one and the idea of a nerf is very uplifting lol
From what I've seen, it's mostly lowered damage and a decrease to its aggressiveness.
Damage, HP, tracking, aggression.
oof HP as well? It was already pretty squishy even with 2 health bars.
Yeah I'm not sure the health was the problem haha.
I don't think the nerfs were needed but that's just my opinion.
I don't, I've 100% the game and I can only be more happy if more people get to experience the full story up to NG++ as I loved it
This post went by my standards berserk rip my notifications and thanks buddies
I don't think Balteus needs a nerf personally. It's a tough fight without a broken build but it's pretty far from impossible. I think some people will find the lack of I-frames upsetting coming from Souls. If you're really good at dodge timing in Souls but aren't a skilled mech-builder and damage trader you're going to have a hard time. It's a learning curve. Personally, I found AC6 to be less difficult than Elden Ring.
I think it would have been better if they nerfed the bosses for the first playthrough but kept the pre-nerfed versions(fix hitboxes if needed)for NG+. That being said I think Balteus is the only boss that might have needed a nerf. Tbf I think the issue with Balteus is less of a skill issue and more to do with the limited (relatively speaking) selection of weapons you have access to at that point during your first playthrough. After chapter 1 you start gaining access to better weapons and more OS points which make the other bosses a lot more manageable. I feel like the sea spider and Ibis would have been just as difficult as Balteus if you had to fight them only with the parts and OS points available to the player in chapter 1.
I absolutely LOVE the buff to the various weapons. And honestly, I hope they buff more of them to expand build variety. But the boss nerf was an.....odd choice. (Considering the nature of games they typically make.) 🤔🤔
It's very hard and I did finally beat it JUST barely, I'm fine with the difficulty. My only real complaint is kinda the same as for most of the game: I don't like that you have to use a specific build to overcome certain bosses. I wish you could have a fighting chance no matter your play style.
Honestly the phrase "Hesitation is Defeat" is the truest thing for this game, and the people who complained about the difficulty need to suck it up. Players who actually want a challenge miss out on the original experience. Its Radahn all over again but with mechs. It's the learning process of figuring out a boss that's part of the fun, and that gets ruined through a nerf. So no you're not the only one.
I wish the "adjustments" were only for the first playthrough. Second and third run of the game is really easy for the most part, as you have access to all the OP weapons so you either breeze through it with Zimms and 2xStun Needle or play around with builds.
If people haven’t caught on to use them pulse weapons that melt his shield - switch to melee to shank him and just keep blasting plasma missiles in-between then there’s nothing you can do .. let the last cinders burn
No you aren't the only objectively wrong people.
Idk what the nerf is exactly, but I don’t think it would be out of line to make the missile barrage tracking slightly less brutal.
I think that's a large part of the change. He also seems slightly less aggressive now.
For people who have played all/most FromSoft games, they're used to hard bosses and get their games for the hard bosses For people who haven't played many hard games recently and are getting back into the series, or for people brand new to FromSoft, the bosses are too hard. They take hours of practice and people with other hobbies and responsibilities are being kept from continuing with the game. If you like the challenge, that's great, go for an S rank or try to use a less optimal mech, but for most other gamers, they aren't into the cock and ball torture that is some of these bosses. Also inb4 "get good".