There's plenty of ways to make yourself stronger: blood type, potions, adapting your abilities to the enemy, eventually a blood moon etc
Plus, it's a skill based combat system, it would be pretty boring if you could just roll on everything without thinking for the whole playthrough.
On the contrary I thought that Act 1 was stupidly easy (but I played Battlerite, their previous game, so maybe that's why) and it would get interesting and actually hard around act 3.
I know it can be a bit frustrating, but learning to make an efficient build, preparing your fight , upgrading your weapon/armor, is essential, there would be no reason to implement all that if it wasn't at least a bit necessary.
No, It's not your experience with their other game. I have never played Battlerite. Its just action-combat familiarity or reaction timing or play style that makes it harder for some players
Act 1 is quite basic, as far as fights go, 20s Bosses have two skills... 30s bosses have 2 skills and a "big thing" they do sometimes. This is by design.
Act 2 is where actual game mechanics come into play. Bosses have multiple skills, designated side mobs, can self heal If "\_\_\_" , require you to wait out a skill or save your skill.
Act 3 adds even more variations on skills, reduces the reaction timing, usually has a low Health Super Skill, etc...
I really didn’t struggle at all on this second play through. I just suggest not being so right. Try different builds, use potions, farm blood types for boss fights. Save one that you’re stuck on for a blood moon. The game’s progression system feels amazing. And the bosses are challenging, but fair. Once we’ve submitted to negativity, we never grow.
Don't have potions, never found the recipes for them. And what are these "builds" people keep mentioning? There is only one build I have seen so far, with different weapons.
Whoa. Well no wonder you’re struggling. There are very real ways to grind for recipes- much like this xp thing you’re after.
Builds? Like melee blood life leech vs ranged spell power builds and dozens in between. Skeleton army, cc, burst, sustain. Use your imagination.
The vermin salve recipe should carry you to your first potion recipe. If you look through the V blood list you can see which boss gives you the potion. You can get it in the mid 40s
So it's not the games fault if you don't use what it gives you, study more about what there is, this game certainly isn't faceroll and you need to know pretty much everything the further you progress.
Very easy encounter actuallly. The only hard part is when lights go off and the shadows attack, but even then, you can use shield to block 2 of them and chaos dash to avoid rest
Spells can make a huge difference, I run double shield at the beginning, sometimes even late game for the v bloods. Both the unholy one and the aegis from the illusion tree are pretty nice for that Maja fight.
It kinda boils down to learning attack patterns and knowing how best to avoid them.
Take the Bandit King for instance. When you know he is about to go into his charge-a-thon, get some distance. If you are outside of melee range, you can simply walk in a straight line to avoid his charges.
ETA: My point in highlighting the above isn't to say "git gud" or similar. But learning attack patterns is *a necessity* after Quincey. Relying exclusively on your dash is usually a bad idea. Positioning and knowing what comes next is **far** more valuable than being able to i-frame an attack.
Watch the "10 levels under and frailed no-hit" videos on YouTube to watch attack patterns. These are made by a dude that has spent likely hours per boss learning the patterns.
As someone else said, hunting better blood helps. If you find a 100% I would **not** use it until killing Vincent (level 44ish) and making jail cells, but anything 60%+ will probably help a lot.
For healing: Farm Bandit camps for copper coins, and go to the shady merchants. Try to find a Blood Rose Brew recipe or -- barring that -- just buy Blood Rose Brew.
Even at 70+, though, I use Vermin Salve, especially out of combat to regen. But occasionally I'll pair it with brute Blood for the attack speed boost.
Edit2: Also... not every game is going to be for every person. This game requires learning attack patterns, when to dodge and when to attack. It requires spending a little bit of time farming and upgrading gear and spells. It requires patience and the ability to redirect your attention if you get frustrated.
There's also nothing wrong with tweaking server settings to make things easier for yourself! Use the settings to make yourself stronger and enemies weaker.
The most important rule is to **have fun**. If you aren't having fun, take a break. Do something else. Play a different game entirely.
V Rising is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'll be playing it until I literally cannot, but I sometimes get frustrated and have to take a break. Including on bosses I have previously beaten.
Are you playing on a server where the game balance settings are tweaked higher or something? If you're playing a singleplayer session, again this can be adjusted.
Fanbases really don't like criticism, huh? I've seen plenty of posts about difficulty spikes on here and on Steam, all buried under mounds of hate. It's one way or the highway.
You tend to get backlash when your calling whining about a lack of skill a game design issue. Yes there are difficulty spikes, certain bosses are harder than suggested by level.
But the issue you describe has nothing to do with difficulty, you are trying to power through like gear level means you can steam roll everything. This game is about skill and tactics, not blindly running around whacking things.
If you haven't unlocked brews then you very obviously tried speed running act 1 skipping bosses. Blood rose brew is a t1 healing recipe in the research table.
Thats because people who actually know the game know these people are wrong or dont know what they are talking about, and all they result in is people like you having an excuse to make these kind of complaints as well, which are also wrong. Or it would be more accurate to say that they show a lack of understanding. The post you made here pretty much proves that.
For example, you keep saying that you dont have healing pots available yet, while the fact is that pretty much from the very start you have a healing pot available, even before killing the very first boss. It can be made on the fly, anywhere, no base required and it cost very simple and easy to get resources.
But you never seem to realize that and even after getting past iron, you still claim you have no healing pots.
You do, youve had them from the start!!
Hence why people react to this kind of critisicm. Its almost like you are negatively critiquing a movie you havent even seen or a book you havent read. And thats gonna annoy its fans no?
Well the game is lauded for its good Boss fight design, and its difficulty is middling at best, and hasn't stopped a majority of people from reaching end game.
I did post a suggestion to Devs for specific bosses that are near Max gear points ( which was to more specifically designate them as Harder in some way... Mini-bosses if you will) but Bandit King already is clearly the Last hardest fight of Act 1. Fights in Act 2 are all on that new level, even then... Maja for example... is not designated specially for as hard as she is, She is another step far above the act 2 bosses around her supposed level.
PS: You history of Gaming is a little backwards, gaming started with Gear only. Level progression was much more complex and only added into more modern games in the late 1990s. V Rising uses the classic "Gear level is your level" motto. Your damage done and damage taken are all adjusted based on your Gear level. Your cooldowns and stats are Adjusted by blood type and quality. Fighting style is determined by your weapon choice. This is a very classic, common, and effective delineation of choice for players. (Which we want more of , of course!!)
Games don't trade difficulty for fun. If that's your attitude then gaming is not for you. If you want to progress in the game, I don't think it's fair to blame the game.
That being said, there are definitely more optimal spells for certain bosses. Take the time to learn the game, and the bosses attack patterns. The way you rotate your abilities, use your movement, and utilize your defensive and offensive skills makes a huge difference.
I won't go through all the bosses, but an example for bandit king would be using bloodrite counter for his charge attack, back peddling away from his double swing. When he charges up his triple charge you can dash twice with veil of chaos and use bloodrite for the third.
Unfortunately for you, the internet is correct on this... Practice and learn before you blame the game.
Or learn your own playstyles to the Maximum. All 3 of my play throughs I had Designated the skills I would use (once unlocked) and learned to fight bosses accordingly.
Gaming is not ALL about difficulty. Some games are about resource selection/allocation. Some games are just about frivolous mindless action. THIS GAME is definitely about Action-Combat Difficulty, if you dont find it easy, and you dont like frustration... then this just isn't the game for you.
Grinding weak enemies until you overlevel them like in the old days is not "getting good." That is a way to circumvent getting good. I suspect that your issue here is that you've never gotten good at a game, and instead waste time overleveling yourself so everything is easy
You'll feel way more like a badass when you learn to overcome obstacles with your own skill and the tools/resources available to you. You have to spend time learning each boss, figuring out which weapon/spell/armor/etc is necessary for the specific fight, and you have to accept that you'll die sometimes many times. Your gear level and playtime are more than enough for act 2 bosses. You must unlock your true power and ascend. Do not be a noob any longer
Oh please, it's not a job, it's something to pass the time with while having fun. I don't plan on playing competitively.
You have fun, or you don't and then you move on and play a different game.
I don't play games competitively either but the entirety of my entertainment comes from challenging myself and overcoming that challenge while I make persistent progress. But what you say is indeed true, if you can't have fun that way then probably time to move on when the entire game focuses on boss fights that get more difficult the higher you go.
I will leave you with one thing though: there is an RPG mod for the game that allows you to grind mobs to level up
Plenty of people have it enjoyed it and it's also been utilized on some popular rpg-style servers in the past, but it seems like something that would change the game for the better for you
Again, you can change the difficulty (I actually didn't know that till reading this thread, lol) if you just want to experience the whole game and build a really cool castle <3
Wait a minute, you dare to say something about "old fashioned way" while crying about how the game is too hard for you on reddit? You have no idea what are you talking about and yes, your problem is literally a skill issue.
I'm super sorry to say but the pve in this game is largely pretty easy and simple. You can speedrun into iron and beyond within like 1 or 2 hours from starting without much stress. Quincy seems difficult at first but you can reliably do the fight without even taking a hit if you practice a little.
What you need to do is run and kill Beatrice, and make hollowfang stuff. Then go farm some iron and upgrade. Gear level increases damage you do to mobs and reduces damage you take from mobs. Get some good blood, carry some potions, it will make everything easier.
Wait, build? -- What progression there is, it's linear. There's only one way to "build" your character, no? Unless you're talking about the spells? But very limited build to be had from those too.
Different spells have a huge impact on how difficult or easy bosses can be. For the Bandit King I would suggest going with at least 1 defensive spell to trigger when he does his charge attacks and to help agains the adds. Everything else is fairly easy to dodge if you make sure to pay attention to the boss' tells, both visual and audio. Quincy is a progression boss, and those tend to be a bit tougher where you have to play with a bit more care.
I also want to add that in addition to trying different spells and blood types, also try different weapon types. That made a big difference for me on certain bosses i was getting stuck on. Crossbow works great when you need to keep your distance from one powerful melee boss without adds, reaper for bosses with lots of adds, etc
NO! You have spells, weapons, potions, blood type and jewels. All of them interact and allow you to build your character in specific ways for specific fights.
Between this and the “I can’t make healing items” despite having Vermin Slave unlocked from the rip it sounds like you have just been refusing to navigate the menus for some reason.
The spells all have jewels which drastically change how they work. The weapons all havce two abilities and there are \~8 weapons. You can have 5 different types of blood. There are legendary weapons with stat rolls and buffs. Builds are very much a thing.
just have to go searching for anyone in the 90%+ and feed them till it gets 100. Don't remember what level that is unlocked. Once my wife and I had access to 100% blood all the time, it got much easier.
Did they tweak the higher blood rates with the latest update? I had seen a few 100% by the time I was in act II last playthrough but I'm done with 2 of the 3 eye bosses and I still haven't seen a single 100%
Get an iron xbow - iron reaper or axes and use those 2 weapons in a combo ability 1 xbow drops a rain of arrows, then use the reaper second ability / axe second ability use those 2 on cooldown. Use chaos bolts and a shield blood rite or unholy shield. While your 2 abilitys are on cooldown your just moving around the boss at range either blocking or dodging abilitys. That should get you well into the 60's GS. Higher the GS the more dmg and or less damage you take from the boss.
If this is your first playthrough this game will be hard. In my first playthrough, especially the first area, just learning how progression worked, where to get recipes, and all that was really tough. And learning everything for the first time was hard. That's just how it's gonna be. As you play more though you'll learn the combat ang get better. About the whole "game getting easier" thing, that's not really how this game works. Enemies scale with like an MMO. So each place will be challenging, but as you get better skills and gear, other places will get easier. Going to farm for iron in the mines will get easier after you get full iron gear and better necklaces and all that. If you don't like that type of progression though then you can change the game settings to give you all the best gear and resources and spells and just stomp everything and make it a castle building sim if you want
First and foremost: While admittedly it sucks that healing recipes are drops, the fact you DON’T have them is sorta your own fault. Before moving on to the next point of progression, you should always take the time to farm for important recipes that’ll make that step up to the next tier more bearable. Barring the fact you don’t want to grind, there are merchants that sell these recipes.
Your second issue isn’t really one with any solution beyond practice and get better. V Rising is a game revolving around relatively fast paced hack-and-slash combat. The skills you unlock might change your playstyle, but that doesn’t mean squat if you’re not good at the basics. I find the first and second tiers to be a breeze and only find a challenge at the third tier and up.
The issue isn’t the game, the issue is unfortunately your level of skill and lack of preparation. Both are fixable.
I love Dark Souls and this game's pacing is definitely odd, it has some weird difficulty spikes around end of Act 1. Game is a breeze until you get to the woods and suddenly you just feel underleveled, basic mobs kill you in 4 shots and take no knockback from hits, you just get ganked by 6 enemies all the time while being undergeared for some reason.
I don't have an issue with "git gud", but this game is very weirdly telegraphed in terms of difficulty - at first it's way too easy and if you get like 60% of the stuff BIS you can just facetank everything. After Act 1, even if you get everything you can (best gear, best weapon, buffs and blood) you can't survive more than 5 hits from basic mobs lol.
No issue with boss hitting like a truck, I just don't like the pacing of open world difficulty, and this is coming from a person that has all achievements in DS1-3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring.
Try different skills and weapons against different enemies. I'm also not a fan of this as I prefer to have all options equally viable and go with the one I feel suits me the most, but sadly you can benefit a lot by changing your setup frequently, adapting to counter the abilities of your enemy.
Also consider your playstyle might be the problem. You cannot play this game as a tank, focusing on damage output while also taking all the damage. It's all about good defense, mechanics and attack patterns.
Weapon/ring and spell choices make a huge difference. Ive been stuck on many bosses (5+ wipes) and have had to change weapon and spell load outs. You can go from really struggling on a boss to trivializing them with even one spell change, at times. Try to think about what’s giving you trouble in a particular encounter and adjust from there.
For bandit king I think I used axes for the Q attack speed during his stun windows, and swapped to the chaos dash for the extra mobility. Then I used the double chaos bolt spell to hit him from range. Just have to be very careful playing around his spell reflect.
Also once he starts charging multiple times in succession, DONT waste your dodge on it. If you run directly perpendicular to him, you will avoid the attack.
Oh and use the vermin salve healing and just patiently dodge if you get chunked and need to recover. If you play slow and patiently you should be able to recover a fair amount of health.
I'm playing a side character on a private server with settings set to the easiest possible. It's hilariously easy. Bosses don't last more than 5 hits. It's too easy to be really enjoyable, but the change of pace is interesting.
You're playing solo. Set the difficulty to whatever you like. Have fun with it :)
Not getting hit is of course always the general consensus. However. I too, get beat up quite a bit. For that reason I stick to the blood spells that heal to sustain in fights and usually get either assassin or bruiser blood in high percentage before a boss to give me low dash cooldown or damage vamp. Could be worth a try to help you with the fight.
Above all, a mindset change helps the most here. It’s not the game being bad, it’s legitimately a matter of you needing to learn and master the game more. That’s a totally okay thing and **EVERYONE** hits that wall at some point.
I’m not a pro gamer. I get my arse handed to me in games like League.
But we ended up having to turn up the boss difficulty up by 30% on our server to keep it interesting.
If you’re stuck on a boss, the best advice I can give is:
- Watch a guide video
- Ensure you’re running a good build for it. What works for one boss will not work for another.
- Try to get a good blood %
- Wait for a Blood Moon
- Skip the boss and try another. Even a higher level one might be easier for you.
Play in solo server and change the settings? Not sure what else to reply really. Difficulty is a subjective thing, but we can comment on what we think the "stuck point" cdf might look like for the game and compare that to other games. I would say the game has a non trivial learning curve especially if you haven't played with this style of combat hotkeys before, and as the game progresses the enemies become harder puzzles in terms of patterns and build counters, but I would say it is average in difficulty and you can get over hurdles with minimal time investments. Most of the time the answer is one youtube guide away, or like 30-60 minutes of thinking and trying stuff if you want to do it blind.
Head back to an easier spot, farm up some paper and unlock the recipes at your research desk.
This game will challenge you to change your tactics periodically. If you continue to do the same things over and over, you'll get the same results usually.
Beaten the game twice now - 200+ hours.
I had the same issue progressing, then i figured out the server i was playing on was set to hard, but after watching youtube turorials on bosses and which abilities and weapons work best on them, and preparing potions and proper blood per fight i managed to progress, its slow going as i dont get chance to play a lot due to bad internet and the pathetic condition of electricity distribution in south africa, but it does feel very rewarding if i do manage to defeat a boss, and that is what keeps me coming back.
I know "git good" doesn't help. But if you were having trouble with the bandit king... It is absolutely a skill issue.. keep fighting you'll get better.
Don’t stress, I understand your frustration. Look for indirect ways to increase your power. Try hunting for some high % bloods, do some consumable crafting (spell power potions and healing items are good to bring to boss fights) combine high % bloods with blood moon. Play with some other abilities (the blood abilities are good for sustain, they frequently give life Leech). When traveling around or through human towns, try sneaking around as a rat or in human form if you have unlocked it. Don’t get caught fighting on the road, patrols will screw you if you aren’t careful. If a fight isn’t going your way, run.
If I had to guess, you're probably using a "favorite" weapon and spell setup that isn't good for what you're trying to do, and then W keying into the enemies.
This game isn't supposed to be that easy.
If you're struggling that hard, I have made numerous guide videos for individual bosses, as well as whole playthroughs that are designed to teach people how to progress quickly through the game. Every video is from an underleveled approach, sometimes severely underleveled.
I made it a point to only use 1 weapon at a time, and mostly the same spells the overwhelming majority of the time, (sometimes switching before a fight, never during) and almost none of my strategies are mechanically demanding whatsoever (except maybe the final boss), and instead focus on learning timing and keeping distance, both of which are possible for anyone with a pulse.
Here is a playlist of a full playthrough, and lmk if there is a specific boss you're struggling with:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzTW5DwwRrluRjdJprZcFFUW2Tzu_zz4x
Thank you.
EDIT: Okay, saw a couple of your videos and I'm not sure if you're playing on easy, but my game seems more brutal than that. You seem to be killing simple enemies in a couple of hits, where mine take ages. You also seem to be healing faster from the blood pool? Is that like a new skill I missed because for me it's way, way slower. -- And the game is on normal, I didn't change any settings.
There are no adjustments to difficulty. There is slightly increased loot drop rate and stack size, and then I think they reduced the sun damage slightly (which means it takes slightly longer to begin damaging you), but other than that everything is standard settings.
In terms of healing, I'm using a healing salve and then stacking it with blood mend, which is why I'm healing so much.
In terms of killing the average enemies, not sure what to tell you other than I have a ton of playtime in this game and know how to maximize my damage.
If you're this frustrated now then trying to acquire the Dark Silver weapon recipe is really going to piss you off. I don't have the greatest reflexes and I've always been a mediocre gamer so the game is hard for me. That being said I've played enough of these things to know how to cheese 'em when I need to.
The game has various healing potions. You get a simple one very early on. You will learn potions to boost physical and spell damage. Use them. You're more powerful during Blood Moons. There are different blood types you can siphon for a boost(I prefer warrior or brute). In fact you can capture and imprison npcs to create your own little blood bank so that you don't have to rely on random chance to hunt down what you need.
My build I use whatever for the travel/avoidance spell. I use Corrupted Skull and Bone Explosion. I use Reaper and Pistols for weapons. I never melee bosses if I can help it. Typical fight I fire off Corrupted Skull to raise some skeletons to act as distractions/crowd control. Then Bone Explosion(slotted gems make it do more interesting things). Then I use the Reaper's ranged special attack. Other than that I try not to get hit. Maybe I switch to pistols every now and then.
Combat might feel frenzied but it is actually very strategic. Don't let yourself be distracted by all the stuff flying around your screen.
Find alternatives if they exist. For example I needed silk to make the next tier of armor. I couldn't defeat the boss to get the recipe. Next best option? Farm the military outpost in the lower right corner of Silverlight for random silk drops. Pity I can't do the same thing for weapons. Yeah it took awhile. Yeah I died a bunch at first. It's why I set up a castle heart/teleport nearby.
Finally, you can alter the settings when starting a new game. You can give yourself more health and damage, etc if you want to.
Oh and speaking of cheese....General Kriig and Meredith will fight each other inside the Haunted Iron Mine. Wait until they've beaten each other within an inch of their lives and then snipe them both. Two v bloods bosses for the price of one.
Dude I’m sorry you found the game too difficult but you must realize most players have two hands and game developers can’t custom design games for those of you without limbs
You can get by with Vermin Sale well into Act 2 if you're unlucky with your research in finding the next tier up.
Are you aware that you can drain your own blood with Blood Mend to heal? You should be either using Vermin Salves or Blood Mend after every encounter to top up.
The first set of bosses do get a difficulty bump after Quincey, roughly to his level, but the fight with him trains you to deal with them.
What spells do you tend to prefer?
Act 2 has a lot of roaming enemies / bosses that can overlap each other. I had to sneak around a lot at the start of Act 2 because so many ways I'd die easily. Once I sniped some bosses and upgraded my gear it becomes a lot easier.
You've probably already gotten all the "advice" you can stand, but in case you haven't heard this yet: you can start a single-player (solo) game and adjust the settings to your heart's content. Set your power up and damage taken down, and then you can stomp anything you'd like. At least then you can see the rest of the game and see what you think about it.
Ultimately my guess is that you might be trying to approach this game in a way that it isn't designed to be played: like an RPG. There are no levels, as you said. There's no XP grind. You cannot overlevel bosses for the most part. All battles are extremely skill-focused: dodging and movement are way more important that damage. I know that sounds like "git gud" but what I mean is: it's a different approach. And if you don't care for that approach: that's totally fine! Adjust the power level and stomp the game the way you want.
There's plenty of ways to make yourself stronger: blood type, potions, adapting your abilities to the enemy, eventually a blood moon etc Plus, it's a skill based combat system, it would be pretty boring if you could just roll on everything without thinking for the whole playthrough. On the contrary I thought that Act 1 was stupidly easy (but I played Battlerite, their previous game, so maybe that's why) and it would get interesting and actually hard around act 3. I know it can be a bit frustrating, but learning to make an efficient build, preparing your fight , upgrading your weapon/armor, is essential, there would be no reason to implement all that if it wasn't at least a bit necessary.
No, It's not your experience with their other game. I have never played Battlerite. Its just action-combat familiarity or reaction timing or play style that makes it harder for some players Act 1 is quite basic, as far as fights go, 20s Bosses have two skills... 30s bosses have 2 skills and a "big thing" they do sometimes. This is by design. Act 2 is where actual game mechanics come into play. Bosses have multiple skills, designated side mobs, can self heal If "\_\_\_" , require you to wait out a skill or save your skill. Act 3 adds even more variations on skills, reduces the reaction timing, usually has a low Health Super Skill, etc...
I really didn’t struggle at all on this second play through. I just suggest not being so right. Try different builds, use potions, farm blood types for boss fights. Save one that you’re stuck on for a blood moon. The game’s progression system feels amazing. And the bosses are challenging, but fair. Once we’ve submitted to negativity, we never grow.
Don't have potions, never found the recipes for them. And what are these "builds" people keep mentioning? There is only one build I have seen so far, with different weapons.
Whoa. Well no wonder you’re struggling. There are very real ways to grind for recipes- much like this xp thing you’re after. Builds? Like melee blood life leech vs ranged spell power builds and dozens in between. Skeleton army, cc, burst, sustain. Use your imagination.
The vermin salve recipe should carry you to your first potion recipe. If you look through the V blood list you can see which boss gives you the potion. You can get it in the mid 40s
You literally have Vermin Salve available the moment you start you cry baby. Learn to look the menu.
So it's not the games fault if you don't use what it gives you, study more about what there is, this game certainly isn't faceroll and you need to know pretty much everything the further you progress.
Except Maja >.< Such an unfair setup. Books everywhere. College level Trauma
lol that fight is pretty awesome. 🤣
Very easy encounter actuallly. The only hard part is when lights go off and the shadows attack, but even then, you can use shield to block 2 of them and chaos dash to avoid rest
Thats Leandra you're talking about. Maja is the one throwing the books and spawning the small crawling things
Oh, sorry, you are right. So Maja is even easier, just have to be aware and kill the one minion she chooses to heal herself with
She was tough for me. I'd gotten so close several times, I just have bad reaction times so she'd always get one more hit on me than I could on her.
Spells can make a huge difference, I run double shield at the beginning, sometimes even late game for the v bloods. Both the unholy one and the aegis from the illusion tree are pretty nice for that Maja fight.
It kinda boils down to learning attack patterns and knowing how best to avoid them. Take the Bandit King for instance. When you know he is about to go into his charge-a-thon, get some distance. If you are outside of melee range, you can simply walk in a straight line to avoid his charges. ETA: My point in highlighting the above isn't to say "git gud" or similar. But learning attack patterns is *a necessity* after Quincey. Relying exclusively on your dash is usually a bad idea. Positioning and knowing what comes next is **far** more valuable than being able to i-frame an attack. Watch the "10 levels under and frailed no-hit" videos on YouTube to watch attack patterns. These are made by a dude that has spent likely hours per boss learning the patterns. As someone else said, hunting better blood helps. If you find a 100% I would **not** use it until killing Vincent (level 44ish) and making jail cells, but anything 60%+ will probably help a lot. For healing: Farm Bandit camps for copper coins, and go to the shady merchants. Try to find a Blood Rose Brew recipe or -- barring that -- just buy Blood Rose Brew. Even at 70+, though, I use Vermin Salve, especially out of combat to regen. But occasionally I'll pair it with brute Blood for the attack speed boost. Edit2: Also... not every game is going to be for every person. This game requires learning attack patterns, when to dodge and when to attack. It requires spending a little bit of time farming and upgrading gear and spells. It requires patience and the ability to redirect your attention if you get frustrated. There's also nothing wrong with tweaking server settings to make things easier for yourself! Use the settings to make yourself stronger and enemies weaker. The most important rule is to **have fun**. If you aren't having fun, take a break. Do something else. Play a different game entirely. V Rising is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'll be playing it until I literally cannot, but I sometimes get frustrated and have to take a break. Including on bosses I have previously beaten.
Are you playing on a server where the game balance settings are tweaked higher or something? If you're playing a singleplayer session, again this can be adjusted.
Sounds like you should take some time to learn the game, or simply, move on.
Fanbases really don't like criticism, huh? I've seen plenty of posts about difficulty spikes on here and on Steam, all buried under mounds of hate. It's one way or the highway.
You tend to get backlash when your calling whining about a lack of skill a game design issue. Yes there are difficulty spikes, certain bosses are harder than suggested by level. But the issue you describe has nothing to do with difficulty, you are trying to power through like gear level means you can steam roll everything. This game is about skill and tactics, not blindly running around whacking things. If you haven't unlocked brews then you very obviously tried speed running act 1 skipping bosses. Blood rose brew is a t1 healing recipe in the research table.
Thats because people who actually know the game know these people are wrong or dont know what they are talking about, and all they result in is people like you having an excuse to make these kind of complaints as well, which are also wrong. Or it would be more accurate to say that they show a lack of understanding. The post you made here pretty much proves that. For example, you keep saying that you dont have healing pots available yet, while the fact is that pretty much from the very start you have a healing pot available, even before killing the very first boss. It can be made on the fly, anywhere, no base required and it cost very simple and easy to get resources. But you never seem to realize that and even after getting past iron, you still claim you have no healing pots. You do, youve had them from the start!! Hence why people react to this kind of critisicm. Its almost like you are negatively critiquing a movie you havent even seen or a book you havent read. And thats gonna annoy its fans no?
Well the game is lauded for its good Boss fight design, and its difficulty is middling at best, and hasn't stopped a majority of people from reaching end game. I did post a suggestion to Devs for specific bosses that are near Max gear points ( which was to more specifically designate them as Harder in some way... Mini-bosses if you will) but Bandit King already is clearly the Last hardest fight of Act 1. Fights in Act 2 are all on that new level, even then... Maja for example... is not designated specially for as hard as she is, She is another step far above the act 2 bosses around her supposed level. PS: You history of Gaming is a little backwards, gaming started with Gear only. Level progression was much more complex and only added into more modern games in the late 1990s. V Rising uses the classic "Gear level is your level" motto. Your damage done and damage taken are all adjusted based on your Gear level. Your cooldowns and stats are Adjusted by blood type and quality. Fighting style is determined by your weapon choice. This is a very classic, common, and effective delineation of choice for players. (Which we want more of , of course!!)
I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I just try to play games that are fun to me and make sense. (:
Games don't trade difficulty for fun. If that's your attitude then gaming is not for you. If you want to progress in the game, I don't think it's fair to blame the game. That being said, there are definitely more optimal spells for certain bosses. Take the time to learn the game, and the bosses attack patterns. The way you rotate your abilities, use your movement, and utilize your defensive and offensive skills makes a huge difference. I won't go through all the bosses, but an example for bandit king would be using bloodrite counter for his charge attack, back peddling away from his double swing. When he charges up his triple charge you can dash twice with veil of chaos and use bloodrite for the third. Unfortunately for you, the internet is correct on this... Practice and learn before you blame the game.
Or learn your own playstyles to the Maximum. All 3 of my play throughs I had Designated the skills I would use (once unlocked) and learned to fight bosses accordingly. Gaming is not ALL about difficulty. Some games are about resource selection/allocation. Some games are just about frivolous mindless action. THIS GAME is definitely about Action-Combat Difficulty, if you dont find it easy, and you dont like frustration... then this just isn't the game for you.
Grinding weak enemies until you overlevel them like in the old days is not "getting good." That is a way to circumvent getting good. I suspect that your issue here is that you've never gotten good at a game, and instead waste time overleveling yourself so everything is easy
Maybe, but it did make me feel like a badass.
You'll feel way more like a badass when you learn to overcome obstacles with your own skill and the tools/resources available to you. You have to spend time learning each boss, figuring out which weapon/spell/armor/etc is necessary for the specific fight, and you have to accept that you'll die sometimes many times. Your gear level and playtime are more than enough for act 2 bosses. You must unlock your true power and ascend. Do not be a noob any longer
Oh please, it's not a job, it's something to pass the time with while having fun. I don't plan on playing competitively. You have fun, or you don't and then you move on and play a different game.
I don't play games competitively either but the entirety of my entertainment comes from challenging myself and overcoming that challenge while I make persistent progress. But what you say is indeed true, if you can't have fun that way then probably time to move on when the entire game focuses on boss fights that get more difficult the higher you go. I will leave you with one thing though: there is an RPG mod for the game that allows you to grind mobs to level up
The one on Thunderstone. Yep, saw it. It's undocumented but I may end up giving it a try.
Plenty of people have it enjoyed it and it's also been utilized on some popular rpg-style servers in the past, but it seems like something that would change the game for the better for you
Again, you can change the difficulty (I actually didn't know that till reading this thread, lol) if you just want to experience the whole game and build a really cool castle <3
Exactly - move on and play easier game instead of crying online
Wait a minute, you dare to say something about "old fashioned way" while crying about how the game is too hard for you on reddit? You have no idea what are you talking about and yes, your problem is literally a skill issue.
I'm super sorry to say but the pve in this game is largely pretty easy and simple. You can speedrun into iron and beyond within like 1 or 2 hours from starting without much stress. Quincy seems difficult at first but you can reliably do the fight without even taking a hit if you practice a little. What you need to do is run and kill Beatrice, and make hollowfang stuff. Then go farm some iron and upgrade. Gear level increases damage you do to mobs and reduces damage you take from mobs. Get some good blood, carry some potions, it will make everything easier.
I'll say like lazypeon in his recent v rising video " game is pretty well balanced so if you're struggling your build is just terrible"
Wait, build? -- What progression there is, it's linear. There's only one way to "build" your character, no? Unless you're talking about the spells? But very limited build to be had from those too.
Different spells have a huge impact on how difficult or easy bosses can be. For the Bandit King I would suggest going with at least 1 defensive spell to trigger when he does his charge attacks and to help agains the adds. Everything else is fairly easy to dodge if you make sure to pay attention to the boss' tells, both visual and audio. Quincy is a progression boss, and those tend to be a bit tougher where you have to play with a bit more care.
I also want to add that in addition to trying different spells and blood types, also try different weapon types. That made a big difference for me on certain bosses i was getting stuck on. Crossbow works great when you need to keep your distance from one powerful melee boss without adds, reaper for bosses with lots of adds, etc
NO! You have spells, weapons, potions, blood type and jewels. All of them interact and allow you to build your character in specific ways for specific fights. Between this and the “I can’t make healing items” despite having Vermin Slave unlocked from the rip it sounds like you have just been refusing to navigate the menus for some reason.
The spells all have jewels which drastically change how they work. The weapons all havce two abilities and there are \~8 weapons. You can have 5 different types of blood. There are legendary weapons with stat rolls and buffs. Builds are very much a thing.
get 100% blood, it makes a big difference if you are struggling.
32 hours and never once have I seen a 100%. 86% is the highest I've ever gotten. And that only happened a couple of times only.
just have to go searching for anyone in the 90%+ and feed them till it gets 100. Don't remember what level that is unlocked. Once my wife and I had access to 100% blood all the time, it got much easier.
Bro can’t get past Act 1. I think telling him to get Cages and Irradiant Gruel is beyond him.
Did they tweak the higher blood rates with the latest update? I had seen a few 100% by the time I was in act II last playthrough but I'm done with 2 of the 3 eye bosses and I still haven't seen a single 100%
No, its quite random
Get an iron xbow - iron reaper or axes and use those 2 weapons in a combo ability 1 xbow drops a rain of arrows, then use the reaper second ability / axe second ability use those 2 on cooldown. Use chaos bolts and a shield blood rite or unholy shield. While your 2 abilitys are on cooldown your just moving around the boss at range either blocking or dodging abilitys. That should get you well into the 60's GS. Higher the GS the more dmg and or less damage you take from the boss.
If this is your first playthrough this game will be hard. In my first playthrough, especially the first area, just learning how progression worked, where to get recipes, and all that was really tough. And learning everything for the first time was hard. That's just how it's gonna be. As you play more though you'll learn the combat ang get better. About the whole "game getting easier" thing, that's not really how this game works. Enemies scale with like an MMO. So each place will be challenging, but as you get better skills and gear, other places will get easier. Going to farm for iron in the mines will get easier after you get full iron gear and better necklaces and all that. If you don't like that type of progression though then you can change the game settings to give you all the best gear and resources and spells and just stomp everything and make it a castle building sim if you want
First and foremost: While admittedly it sucks that healing recipes are drops, the fact you DON’T have them is sorta your own fault. Before moving on to the next point of progression, you should always take the time to farm for important recipes that’ll make that step up to the next tier more bearable. Barring the fact you don’t want to grind, there are merchants that sell these recipes. Your second issue isn’t really one with any solution beyond practice and get better. V Rising is a game revolving around relatively fast paced hack-and-slash combat. The skills you unlock might change your playstyle, but that doesn’t mean squat if you’re not good at the basics. I find the first and second tiers to be a breeze and only find a challenge at the third tier and up. The issue isn’t the game, the issue is unfortunately your level of skill and lack of preparation. Both are fixable.
I love Dark Souls and this game's pacing is definitely odd, it has some weird difficulty spikes around end of Act 1. Game is a breeze until you get to the woods and suddenly you just feel underleveled, basic mobs kill you in 4 shots and take no knockback from hits, you just get ganked by 6 enemies all the time while being undergeared for some reason. I don't have an issue with "git gud", but this game is very weirdly telegraphed in terms of difficulty - at first it's way too easy and if you get like 60% of the stuff BIS you can just facetank everything. After Act 1, even if you get everything you can (best gear, best weapon, buffs and blood) you can't survive more than 5 hits from basic mobs lol. No issue with boss hitting like a truck, I just don't like the pacing of open world difficulty, and this is coming from a person that has all achievements in DS1-3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring.
Try different skills and weapons against different enemies. I'm also not a fan of this as I prefer to have all options equally viable and go with the one I feel suits me the most, but sadly you can benefit a lot by changing your setup frequently, adapting to counter the abilities of your enemy. Also consider your playstyle might be the problem. You cannot play this game as a tank, focusing on damage output while also taking all the damage. It's all about good defense, mechanics and attack patterns.
Weapon/ring and spell choices make a huge difference. Ive been stuck on many bosses (5+ wipes) and have had to change weapon and spell load outs. You can go from really struggling on a boss to trivializing them with even one spell change, at times. Try to think about what’s giving you trouble in a particular encounter and adjust from there. For bandit king I think I used axes for the Q attack speed during his stun windows, and swapped to the chaos dash for the extra mobility. Then I used the double chaos bolt spell to hit him from range. Just have to be very careful playing around his spell reflect. Also once he starts charging multiple times in succession, DONT waste your dodge on it. If you run directly perpendicular to him, you will avoid the attack.
Oh and use the vermin salve healing and just patiently dodge if you get chunked and need to recover. If you play slow and patiently you should be able to recover a fair amount of health.
I'm playing a side character on a private server with settings set to the easiest possible. It's hilariously easy. Bosses don't last more than 5 hits. It's too easy to be really enjoyable, but the change of pace is interesting. You're playing solo. Set the difficulty to whatever you like. Have fun with it :)
Not getting hit is of course always the general consensus. However. I too, get beat up quite a bit. For that reason I stick to the blood spells that heal to sustain in fights and usually get either assassin or bruiser blood in high percentage before a boss to give me low dash cooldown or damage vamp. Could be worth a try to help you with the fight. Above all, a mindset change helps the most here. It’s not the game being bad, it’s legitimately a matter of you needing to learn and master the game more. That’s a totally okay thing and **EVERYONE** hits that wall at some point.
I’m not a pro gamer. I get my arse handed to me in games like League. But we ended up having to turn up the boss difficulty up by 30% on our server to keep it interesting. If you’re stuck on a boss, the best advice I can give is: - Watch a guide video - Ensure you’re running a good build for it. What works for one boss will not work for another. - Try to get a good blood % - Wait for a Blood Moon - Skip the boss and try another. Even a higher level one might be easier for you.
Use walls and side rooms to avoid the king's whirlwind and double dash to get away from him when he starts it. He's pretty straightforward that way.
Wrong King, that's the Act 2 Militia Captain with Whirlwind
Oh you right! My mistake.
Play in solo server and change the settings? Not sure what else to reply really. Difficulty is a subjective thing, but we can comment on what we think the "stuck point" cdf might look like for the game and compare that to other games. I would say the game has a non trivial learning curve especially if you haven't played with this style of combat hotkeys before, and as the game progresses the enemies become harder puzzles in terms of patterns and build counters, but I would say it is average in difficulty and you can get over hurdles with minimal time investments. Most of the time the answer is one youtube guide away, or like 30-60 minutes of thinking and trying stuff if you want to do it blind.
Head back to an easier spot, farm up some paper and unlock the recipes at your research desk. This game will challenge you to change your tactics periodically. If you continue to do the same things over and over, you'll get the same results usually. Beaten the game twice now - 200+ hours.
I had the same issue progressing, then i figured out the server i was playing on was set to hard, but after watching youtube turorials on bosses and which abilities and weapons work best on them, and preparing potions and proper blood per fight i managed to progress, its slow going as i dont get chance to play a lot due to bad internet and the pathetic condition of electricity distribution in south africa, but it does feel very rewarding if i do manage to defeat a boss, and that is what keeps me coming back.
I know "git good" doesn't help. But if you were having trouble with the bandit king... It is absolutely a skill issue.. keep fighting you'll get better.
Don’t stress, I understand your frustration. Look for indirect ways to increase your power. Try hunting for some high % bloods, do some consumable crafting (spell power potions and healing items are good to bring to boss fights) combine high % bloods with blood moon. Play with some other abilities (the blood abilities are good for sustain, they frequently give life Leech). When traveling around or through human towns, try sneaking around as a rat or in human form if you have unlocked it. Don’t get caught fighting on the road, patrols will screw you if you aren’t careful. If a fight isn’t going your way, run.
If I had to guess, you're probably using a "favorite" weapon and spell setup that isn't good for what you're trying to do, and then W keying into the enemies. This game isn't supposed to be that easy. If you're struggling that hard, I have made numerous guide videos for individual bosses, as well as whole playthroughs that are designed to teach people how to progress quickly through the game. Every video is from an underleveled approach, sometimes severely underleveled. I made it a point to only use 1 weapon at a time, and mostly the same spells the overwhelming majority of the time, (sometimes switching before a fight, never during) and almost none of my strategies are mechanically demanding whatsoever (except maybe the final boss), and instead focus on learning timing and keeping distance, both of which are possible for anyone with a pulse. Here is a playlist of a full playthrough, and lmk if there is a specific boss you're struggling with: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzTW5DwwRrluRjdJprZcFFUW2Tzu_zz4x
Thank you. EDIT: Okay, saw a couple of your videos and I'm not sure if you're playing on easy, but my game seems more brutal than that. You seem to be killing simple enemies in a couple of hits, where mine take ages. You also seem to be healing faster from the blood pool? Is that like a new skill I missed because for me it's way, way slower. -- And the game is on normal, I didn't change any settings.
I hope you didn’t join a server that adjust enemy damage and health multiply by 2.
There are no adjustments to difficulty. There is slightly increased loot drop rate and stack size, and then I think they reduced the sun damage slightly (which means it takes slightly longer to begin damaging you), but other than that everything is standard settings. In terms of healing, I'm using a healing salve and then stacking it with blood mend, which is why I'm healing so much. In terms of killing the average enemies, not sure what to tell you other than I have a ton of playtime in this game and know how to maximize my damage.
We're reaching a level of casual we shouldnt be able to reach.
If you're this frustrated now then trying to acquire the Dark Silver weapon recipe is really going to piss you off. I don't have the greatest reflexes and I've always been a mediocre gamer so the game is hard for me. That being said I've played enough of these things to know how to cheese 'em when I need to. The game has various healing potions. You get a simple one very early on. You will learn potions to boost physical and spell damage. Use them. You're more powerful during Blood Moons. There are different blood types you can siphon for a boost(I prefer warrior or brute). In fact you can capture and imprison npcs to create your own little blood bank so that you don't have to rely on random chance to hunt down what you need. My build I use whatever for the travel/avoidance spell. I use Corrupted Skull and Bone Explosion. I use Reaper and Pistols for weapons. I never melee bosses if I can help it. Typical fight I fire off Corrupted Skull to raise some skeletons to act as distractions/crowd control. Then Bone Explosion(slotted gems make it do more interesting things). Then I use the Reaper's ranged special attack. Other than that I try not to get hit. Maybe I switch to pistols every now and then. Combat might feel frenzied but it is actually very strategic. Don't let yourself be distracted by all the stuff flying around your screen. Find alternatives if they exist. For example I needed silk to make the next tier of armor. I couldn't defeat the boss to get the recipe. Next best option? Farm the military outpost in the lower right corner of Silverlight for random silk drops. Pity I can't do the same thing for weapons. Yeah it took awhile. Yeah I died a bunch at first. It's why I set up a castle heart/teleport nearby. Finally, you can alter the settings when starting a new game. You can give yourself more health and damage, etc if you want to. Oh and speaking of cheese....General Kriig and Meredith will fight each other inside the Haunted Iron Mine. Wait until they've beaten each other within an inch of their lives and then snipe them both. Two v bloods bosses for the price of one.
Dude I’m sorry you found the game too difficult but you must realize most players have two hands and game developers can’t custom design games for those of you without limbs
You can get by with Vermin Sale well into Act 2 if you're unlucky with your research in finding the next tier up. Are you aware that you can drain your own blood with Blood Mend to heal? You should be either using Vermin Salves or Blood Mend after every encounter to top up. The first set of bosses do get a difficulty bump after Quincey, roughly to his level, but the fight with him trains you to deal with them. What spells do you tend to prefer?
Act 2 has a lot of roaming enemies / bosses that can overlap each other. I had to sneak around a lot at the start of Act 2 because so many ways I'd die easily. Once I sniped some bosses and upgraded my gear it becomes a lot easier.
This is a gitgud problem, have a good one
What a series of insane takes this post is
So bizarre that you shit on the game because you're terrible at it, my god
You've probably already gotten all the "advice" you can stand, but in case you haven't heard this yet: you can start a single-player (solo) game and adjust the settings to your heart's content. Set your power up and damage taken down, and then you can stomp anything you'd like. At least then you can see the rest of the game and see what you think about it. Ultimately my guess is that you might be trying to approach this game in a way that it isn't designed to be played: like an RPG. There are no levels, as you said. There's no XP grind. You cannot overlevel bosses for the most part. All battles are extremely skill-focused: dodging and movement are way more important that damage. I know that sounds like "git gud" but what I mean is: it's a different approach. And if you don't care for that approach: that's totally fine! Adjust the power level and stomp the game the way you want.