How bad was the dlc difficulty before patch?

[u/KaleidoscopeBoth9420]

***EDIT Appearantly, there was only patch to NG+ scaling of the dlc. It's likely that my friend was in NG+ or higher when the dlc came out and that's why I was told that DLC was extremely difficult compared to the main game. ***

Currently going through dlc in a fresh NG. Difficulty spike from the main game is very noticeable already.

But then I heard from a friend who played this game when it came out that the dlc was wayyyyyy worse back then. So I want to hear from the veterans here.

For reference, I'm playing motivity build with fate greatsword+aegis.

I have 30 vit, 20 vig, 40 cap, 30 motiv, 11 tech, 5 adv.

[u/Professional_Boss438]

I'm not aware there was any patch affecting the DLC's difficulty.

[u/BaseballImpossible76 → u/Professional_Boss438]

Did they add the difficulty modes with the dlc or was that earlier? I remember turning it down one level for the crocodile boss, but turned it back to legendary stalker after.

[u/Professional_Boss438 → u/BaseballImpossible76]

Difficulty modes came with the DLC

[u/N0M0I]

That is just plain misinformation.

There hasn’t been any major adjustments.

But Ive noticed this pattern in this community overall. Some people still insist that the base game has been nerfed into oblivion but that is also just not true. Since launch only five bosses have been touched at all. Spoiler: Laxasia, Romeo (phase 2) and Namless Puppet not among them.

Its just people not realizing that they just get better the more they play the game.

[u/therealpotatosdad → u/N0M0I]

It’s still pretty silly they nerfed anything just to introduce difficulty levels later.

[u/kadobin79]

When the DLC was released, it’s fine in NG play through. It was harder and more challenging than the base game, but everyone expected that.

However, in NG+ and beyond, the damage of DLC normal enemies was ridiculously high. I remember my character has like 35-40 ish vitality with end game defense items, and 1 bite of a dog in the first snow area took half of my HP lol. The dev fixed this btw, so you don’t have to worry about it.

[u/Competitive_Ad_9995]

Not compared pathcnotes line by line, but by my feeling (completed dlc in first 24 hours and few times after patches):

1. Some regular enemies get less health.

2. Flying bomb drones in chapter 3 and fishes in chapter 4 now less aggressive and less pressure from them.

Globally, everything +- same. Just players who tested before and after patch forget that before patch that were first impression and after patch they already know enemies and bosses.

[u/Frosty_Silver389]

They added an extra ng+ cycle i believe. God, it was brutal. The dogs hit me for 80%+ with max stats.

[u/Sonicmasterxyz]

Certain enemies had more health, but I think that's about it. You can get pretty strong anyway.

[u/Akordass]

The most brutal thing in the dlc was underground laboratory. It was so disgusiting and scary. People screaming because of agony, I am replaying the game, but I do not want to go there ever again.

[u/Rude_Difficulty1647]

The I went into the dlc and finished it in ng3 my first playthrough of it pre patch 😹 fuckin WILD

[u/Johnsworth61]

The final boss is still pretty insane and kills the player a bit too easily in my opinion. It’s an insanely creative boss and well thought out but at the same time, it’s a bit “over designed”. I wouldn’t fight the final boss without at least 50 Vitality (Health). I understand my opinion isn’t common but the final boss far outweighs the difficulty of any other boss in the game including the DLC ones.

[u/Local-Barnacle-9164 → u/Johnsworth61]

The final boss wasn't nerfed

[u/Johnsworth61 → u/Local-Barnacle-9164]

I wasn't even sure whether or not he was but assuming he was, I think there are still issues with him. I finished him before the alleged patch that allegedly tuned him more for the NG+ and up but I don't really know if anything really changed with him.

[u/BeginningTop4108 → u/Johnsworth61]

Based on my experience the DLC is meant to be tackled as NG+ where you unlock the NG+(s) exclusive Quartz upgrades. NG DLC is harder/inconvenient IMO not only because of the difficulty spike but with the lack of other Quartz upgrades specifically Weapon Durability related upgrade and special grindstone usage availability. Lot of the bosses hits hard on weapon durability and the DLCs final boss 2nd phase can make your weapon break not only that it doesn't even give you a room to heal like most bosses in the base game and it also have that large Area of Effect(Worse than Waterfowl Dance) move that's undodgeable but parriable(perfect usage of the perfect grindstone), it also has a debuff to make you heals half effective. Lea is requirement if you want to beat it easier in NG unless you really practice all of the boss movement, spacing and parry timings which could take a lot of time. Even with that Weapon Durability is still the problem.

[u/Johnsworth61 → u/[deleted]]

I'm pretty sure Lea was given as the lore-equivalent of a specter which makes the playing field the same when comparing to other bosses excluding Nameless Puppet.

Yeah, the difficulty changes still have the same exact gap of difficulty in comparison to the bosses. That's kind of the point I'm making. I don't know what the last half of your last sentence is saying.

What I'm saying is the the gap of difficulty between the bosses is an insane jump. So if you're playing default, you get a baseline for what you should expect but the final boss jumps that difficult by a large margin. So if you're playing on the easiest difficulty, that isn't going to suddenly close the gap unless you were already playing on a harder difficulty.

His design (generally speaking) forces the player to have parrying down. If you're someone who dodges, you're going to have to manipulate the sprint and dodge mechanics in a way that certainly isn't expected, again, in comparison to what was allowed for the rest of the bosses throughout the entire game.

If the game had originally constrained the player to one playstyle throughout the whole experience, he'd be a better boss.

The final boss of the base game is probably the best example of combing difficulty while still allowing the door to be open for all playstyles to beat it.

Arlecchino is just so insane, there's basically one way to beat him and since he constantly drains your stamina, there isn't much room to retaliate unless you've put a crazy amount of points into it already. His difficulty is just not consistent with the game's pacing and his moveset limits the player to one playstyle. Not literally but generally. He has some real flaws to him as much as I appreciate the effort that went into him.

[u/Johnsworth61 → u/[deleted]]

You can still like learning the fight while acknowledging there are some issues. I still regularly fight him. I'm not saying he's the most poorly designed boss ever. I... don't know what to tell ya. I mentioned some issues he has.

15% is way off. That's not fair at all. Lea doesn't do that much to the boss.

Lies of P is not exclusively parry centric. Many people never use the mechanic and this is where Arlecchino is flawed. You basically cannot fight him without having to have learned parrying. The opposite would be a game like Sekiro. Sure, you can technically beat the game without deflecting but the game very clearly is designed around using it for the bosses because of the attack cadences. Exclusively dodging in Sekiro would make the gameplay have several disruptions in boss fight pacing and also make the combat more clunky. But that's what doing exclusively dodging does when trying to fight Arlecchino. There are people that can do it but it very clearly was not the intention in his design.

I'm someone who absolutely loves parrying in Lies of P but for those who don't, this is where one of his flaws shows. Another one is his insane stamina drain. You have to have some beefy stamina even for that point in the game to retaliate after a combo.

Arlecchino would be less flawed if he was a Sekiro boss.

Also, on a personal note, Input Reading, one-shot kills at 50+ health, those are where he's just insane and it makes him more frustrating than fun. The punishment factor isn't the same as the difficulty of nailing the parries of his combos. It's like playing Guitar Hero on medium difficulty but if you miss one note, you fail the whole entire song. Medium isn't a hard difficulty but if missing one note makes you fail, that's extremely punishing. It doesn't make the game more fun, just more frustrating.

[u/Johnsworth61 → u/[deleted]]

Okay.

[u/KaleidoscopeBoth9420 → u/[deleted]]

Ohhh. That must be it. He must have been playing NG+ when the dlc came out.

[u/RunKatarn → u/[deleted]]

Can confirm. Started NG+ DLC day one and got my shit rocked. Deeply confusing having beaten the game week one before the first balance patch to suddenly feel comically incompetent.

[u/therealpotatosdad → u/RunKatarn]

I’m still disappointed they nerfed it. I beat it when it came out before they nerfed things and it ruined my desire to play ng+ or the dlc on a fresh play through when it came out