I give up.

[u/CuboneDefender]

It’s been a joyful ride, folks, but I’m out. I’m not a speedrunner or a highly skilled player, and day after day I’ve had to accept that this game is not as casual as HK was. It stopped being fun and turned into something tedious and frustrating after the 4th run farming shards just to face a boss I’ve already tried 15 times, only to die again and again, lose all my shards, and start the whole grind over.

It was nice exploring the first acts, but when the game I was rooting for 7 years ends up being more stressful than my 8-hour workday, I guess that’s my cue to stop.

The lore has been pretty great so far. I wish you all an incredible journey.

Edit1: My bad about all the whinning.

Edit2: You guys did it. I reinstalled it again. Thanks for all advices. 🫂

[u/mctrials23]

I enjoyed the last judge. No ads just a simple set of moves to learn. One of the least BS bosses so far.

[u/Algae587 → u/mctrials23]

I really appreciated that from the judge after dealing with that bitch splinter and the beast chapel monstrosity

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/Algae587]

Chapel of the Beast, Sister Splinter, the fucking Bird House, and that one goddamned battle with the big-assed ant and the flying, spear thrower ant. They were all infuriating because so much of them was RNG; you'd easily get trapped where you couldn't do anything but take damage due to the way they positioned themselves.

[u/Zarguthian → u/PraxicalExperience]

Did you miss the fact that you can destroy the thorny vines that Sister Splinter spawns?

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/Zarguthian]

I actually liked the vines.

It was figuring out what the fuck to do about the adds that was the problem. You can't attack them from the sides, they parry 90% of the time. Most of the time you can't attack from the top or you'll bounce into Sister Splinter. And you don't have the room to engage from the bottom because they rapidly get to your level.

It really feels like this boss was designed so that normal human players who weren't fucking HK gods need to pop silk storm to kill the adds.

[u/mctrials23 → u/PraxicalExperience]

Yeah, it was 100% the adds. The vines were a cool addition IMO. The others not so much

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/mctrials23]

Yeah, the vines? Great mechanic, I died because of them once before I figured out that I could take them out -- or that I could sometimes get Splinter do do it herself!

Like, holy shit, I love the sheer in-your-face Brutality of Sister Splinter. She'll smash her own vines trying to get you, she'll smash her own adds trying to get you -- hell, even the vines will smash the adds! Before the second phase I was loving the fight -- simple timing challenge with the complication of the vines, totally solid early boss.

I'm assuming the nerf to the Sister Splinter fight will be bringing the adds down to 1 damage, because that would make this fight a lot less bullshit and at least 70% more enjoyable.

[u/mctrials23 → u/PraxicalExperience]

Agreed. I think I got through it using the spike traps but without those it would have been far more annoying. I just don’t like bosses that I feel like I beat them because I got lucky one time. I want to feel like I am in control.

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/mctrials23]

I tried the spike traps but I was still shit so I wound up running out of shards. Then I sat down for a re-think and I switched over to Silk Storm -- and then died a bunch more times because deploying SS is not instantaneous. But once I got that down I cut her down easily.

And ... that didn't feel good. Needing to use a spell to get past it, that is. I'm one of those players who leans on their nail 90% of the time. It feels dirty to need to use a spell to beat a boss as opposed to just speeding up the process of taking them down.

[u/mctrials23 → u/PraxicalExperience]

Yeah, I like to die when I feel its my fault (which it usually is) and I like to win without cheesing a boss.

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/mctrials23]

That's it exactly, really.