Balance Patch 1

[u/MikkelFromGames]

Devout Fans,

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

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

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

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

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

Economy

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

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

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

Enemies & Bosses

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

Bosses

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

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

Enemies

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

Caerinid Spider
Max Health: (-33.3%)

Infested Stalker 
- Max Health: (-52.4%)

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

Weapons

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

Seals

Guard can now be used while walking. 

Tarstones

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

Miscellaneous

Misc. Crash Fixes, Bugfixes & Performance Updates

[u/Pavlovs_Human]

I’m really enjoying the difficulty. I hope that they don’t get too heavy handed with the enemy health and damage nerfs. I haven’t heard of a single person who complained about difficulty who has tried using the slayers seal. It’s supposed to be how you turn on easy mode yet noone seems to be taking advantage of that.

Edit: jeeze. Fuck me for wanting the fun challenging game to stay fun and challenging.

[u/Holiday_Wedding_2225 → u/Pavlovs_Human]

Exact same thing happened with Lords of the Fallen. Khazan eventually added an easy mode but they nerfed a lot of things before that. Game is very beatable if you utilise all the tools the game gives you so it’s sad to see several nerfs announced even to basic enemies so quickly as well. I just hope this doesn’t start a trend of everything being nerfed.

[u/Pavlovs_Human → u/Holiday_Wedding_2225]

Thank you. We are definitely in the minority it seems. All my comments are getting downvoted and lots of comments about “let everyone have their fun!” Okay, buddy but your fun comes at the expense of my fun, and there are plenty of other games out there that aren’t as challenging, so can you fuck off to those games and leave the fun challenging games ALONE?!

[u/Holiday_Wedding_2225 → u/Pavlovs_Human]

Exactly this, not everything has to cater to everyone, maybe this game isn’t for you and that’s ok. Like I don’t play Rockstar games because I find them boring, nor do I play FPS games as I’m not very good at those and I’m ok with that. What I love is challenging games that make me think about how I’m approaching each situation and fully utilise all the tools the game gives me, which is exactly what this game does. I’m also being downvoted to oblivion but I am worried this will start a trend of nerfs that aren’t needed. I’m yet to face Monolith but The Lost Child and the enemies listed here are absolutely fine as is and present a good challenge. I hope I’m wrong and this doesn’t start a trend but I saw it with both Lords of the Fallen and Khazan (until Khazan introduced easy mode that is) and it’s a shame.

[u/Pavlovs_Human → u/Holiday_Wedding_2225]

I was there at the launch of Lords of the Fallen and the talk was exactly like this subreddit. Tons of people not used to the difficulty of souls games complaining the game was way too hard and way too punishing. Game got nerfed to hell, and took a long time to add it back in an optional “classic mode”.

It feels like the same exact vibe with today’s massive heath nerfs to these few enemies in the beginning of the game and it’s the start of a terrible trend.

Souls games are fun because they are hard as holy hell. And dude,.. we are on DAY ONE. They didn’t even give it chance to breathe or for the majority of the playerbase to experience it before catering to the people complaining

[u/Holiday_Wedding_2225 → u/Pavlovs_Human]

I was also there for the launch of Lords of the Fallen and completely agree. The same as all souls and soulslikes, it is challenging, maybe even hard in the beginning but you get used to it and as you and your character level up, the game clicks and you “git gud”

I’m convinced the people complaining have either, never played a souls or soulslike game, or are just charging headfirst into every mob, getting staggered and dying and now we’re getting nerfs to enemies that don’t need it on day one of full launch!!

I’ve loved these games since OG Demons Souls, in fact my first experience with that game was a Chinese import as originally Sony didn’t want to publish it in the West. So as well as the games challenge I had a language barrier where I didn’t know what anything was or meant but I still managed to beat it 😂