Ongoing Difficulty Balancing - A Recap

Since our launch in mid October, we’ve worked diligently with you, our steadfast Lampbearers, to refine and perfect the balance between challenge and enjoyability in Lords of the Fallen, based on your own experiences through Mournstead and the sheer amount of (crazy) builds you guys have created. To date, we’ve released no less than 25 updates, nearly all of which have included numerous difficulty balancing enhancements based on your feedback, and we 100% believe you guys made the right call with everything so far! 

So today, we wanted to take a moment to summarise everything that has been achieved to date:

Reduced Enemy Density

We have received significant player feedback on enemy density, which, combined with our internal telemetry, has been invaluable in our ongoing endeavour to better balance difficulty throughout Lords of the Fallen. 

To this end, the entire game has received an enemy density pass, with the number of mobs reduced by up to 30% in some of the most challenging areas. Additionally, we have removed some of the ‘sneakiest’ of foes that had a tendency to creep up behind you at the very worst of times. Typical Rhogar! 

Improved Enemy Leashing

It quickly became apparent that we had given our enemies too much freedom around Mournstead, meaning they would pursue you a little too enthusiastically from one area to another resulting in further increased mob density. 

By improving enemy leashing (TL;DR: they won’t follow for as long or as far), players now have more freedom in their exploration, and a better chance at overcoming mob encounters as per our original design.

Vestiges in NG and NG+ 

At launch, permanent Vestiges were only available in your initial playthrough, meaning you were forced to rely solely on Vestige Seedlings (the ones you create yourself) in NG+. Though vestige seeds (used to create Vestige Seedlings) can be purchased rather cheaply, not to mention, farmed from Umbral entities including Mamma Moth, we have since reinstated the majority of permanent Vestiges to NG+ by popular demand. 

The number of permanent vestiges decreases with each additional level of NG+ (meaning there are a few less in NG+2 and so on), however, development continues on the NG+ Customiser we announced a few weeks ago, which will provide players the option to fully modernise their NG+ experience (including Vestige availability). 

Rebalanced Ranged Enemy Accuracy 

Thanks to your feedback, we realised that our ranged enemies were simply too accurate at long distances, meaning some players were being sniped before they had even spotted the enemy responsible for it. In response, we have reduced the accuracy of ranged enemies at greater distances, and have also reduced the distance at which they will shoot you from. 

Better NPC Helpers 

With nearly every boss in the game, you have the option to summon an NPC for aid. Based on our findings, players will call for aid when they are either struggling to overcome a boss by themselves, or are looking for a less challenging experience overall. To that effect, we recently buffed the NPC boss summons, and furthermore, if you equip the Braided Ring, they will also have twice the number of projectiles now. 

Beasts as Glass cannons

By depleting an enemies ‘posture’ (by attacking, kicking or parrying), you can then stagger them with either a Charged Heavy Attack, a Kick, or a Parry, ready to perform a Grievous Strike for significant damage output. 

For any beasts or creatures in the game (i.e. hounds, sparrows, Brogids), a Grievous Strike will now insta-kill them! With this update, their original gameplay design to complement the mob attacks remains intact, but they can be taken out much faster (provided that you parry them!).

Split PvP/PvE Ongoing Balancing 

For several updates already and ongoing, all balancing is split between PvE and PvP. We continue to work hard further refining the balance of each – with particular focus on weapons, spells, and other combat abilities – to ensure the very best experience during both modes. 

Increased Boss Difficulty 

Contrary to the above, it appeared that the vast majority of our players actually wanted an increased degree of challenge when it came to the bosses. In turn, as well as minor tweaks on their HP and damage output, we have fully overhauled the less challenging boss encounters, with additional movesets, enhanced behaviours, and more aggressive playstyles. 

Check our 2023 free content roadmap for more information on what’s coming next before the end of year. As you’ll see, there’s a fair few surprises yet in store for our loyal Lampbearers…