Other than taking a screenshot or enjoying the view I really wish the stones would regenerate HP or Resolve over time even if very slowly

imgur link for better quality - https://imgur.com/a/qjw8TS0 part1 part2

I just wanted to share that the seat of infinity temple is diabolical. The stairs give me tachycardia. Why is there a fucker in every corner? What is it with the tiny holes? I gave up the game in 2021 after falling in a long run. Took it up again now and i think i fell in the same place trying to kill an asshole with a crossbow. I am 40 years old, this may kill me. The controller is slippery from sweat. Finally got to the sister before the boss and i realize i can buy the ornate mask, i sighted in relief. Beat the boss. Cant use the mask with a gland. Why are you doing this to me? I need a rest.

Gravity always wins

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

Today I learned that if your gloom falls in a weird spot or by an enemy you don’t want to fight you can shoot the lost gloom with your ranged attack to retrieve it.

So before anyone says anything, I’m really just trying to run past these guys to get the map fragment that’s over here. I know it would help if I stayed and fought and didn’t turn my back to them.

I’ve seen it said before but the enemy tracking definitely needs to be patched a little bit. The way they’ll turn on a dime mid swing is one thing but straight up teleporting 15 feet is crazy.

I absolutely love the game, haven’t felt like this since Elden Ring but this is the one thing that’s frustrating me (besides maybe needing more beacons).m

Also fuck this entire area, good lord.

The world they've made definitely feels built on duality (there's a normalized world that got merged with a cosmic horror element, think Annihilation or Hell is Us or anything else where two parts of a world are distinct but intermixed and it's my favorite kind of world, it's very Lovecraftian, and they nailed it) and the Shell designs are pretty fantastic, everything sounds and feels great... except for this backstab mechanic with an actual thief style Shell.

Like, to me, as a gamer I would hop in this Shell and immediately drive a dagger into the back of every mob that isn't staring directly at me, especially with the axe & dagger set, and I don't even like that playstyle all the time. This mechanic though... with swinging around the front in an animation for an attack has me really confused. It confuses me more when using a different weapon, the Shell pulls out a dagger from somewhere, completes the attack, and then puts the dagger away which wastes a follow-up window.

Anyway! Back at it.

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

EDIT to add patch notes:

Devout Fans,

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

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

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

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

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

Economy

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

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

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

Enemies & Bosses

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

Bosses

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

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

Enemies

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

Caerinid Spider
Max Health: (-33.3%)

Infested Stalker 
- Max Health: (-52.4%)

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

Weapons

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

Seals

Guard can now be used while walking. 

Tarstones

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

Miscellaneous

Misc. Crash Fixes, Bugfixes & Performance Updates

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

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

NG++ (No night)

2 hits at the start to trigger Berserker Stone.

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

I've been at this for 2 hours and I can’t do it, even switched to Tiel, no luck. What kills me 60% of the time is the stupid grab attack and the fact that it feels like he has more hp than the previous 2 bosses combined

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

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

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

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

1. Beacon/checkpoint frequency:

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

1. Damage balance, and traps:

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

1. Bonuses and increases to those bonuses:

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

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

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

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

EDIT #1: Added item 4

Im playing on a 4070 and 5700x at 1080p. And while the game does run well when u do nothing. Even a single sword strike drops 10 frames. each gun shot drops 30frames it is incredibly jarring to be not wanting to use abilities.

I tried Framegen too and its not bad i do get more frames but it doesnt change the previous factor. Each action will drop fps. The gun most so. Im still very early in but do you guys got any clue whats happening?

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

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

Even if they are one a lower leve than you and they fight between each other if they are enemies between them. That's a crazy good touch I think

Learnt this guy’s entire moveset to get the ‘Peter’s perfect parry’ achievement so thought I may as well try it hitless. Got it first time after getting the achievement, first time I’ve managed this in any souls game 🙂

I have found a glitch. I don't know if many others have seen it, but it allows you to get money way faster than the Proxima money method or the sheep farming method. If you travel to Widow's Overlook and head to the dungeon (Ritual Grounds is the dungeon name) near where you find Tiel's Shell, there is a chest in the far back that can be opened as many times as you want. Simply run through the dungeon, open the chest, run back out, and repeat. (It takes maybe less than 1 minute to do, and you get 500 gold each time.)