And That’s It For Remnant: From The Ashes
553 words.
Well that was quick.
I got to the first boss fight (Shroud) and I’m ready to uninstall the game forever now.
I chose “Hard” difficulty because I’m a Souls veteran. The combat has been taxing at times, but after some adjustments in tactics, easily overcome.
Up until this one boss fight, when it became ludicrously impossible. Shroud has a million hit points. Shroud teleports away after every attack. Shroud lives in an arena that is choked with obstacles preventing you from moving around freely. Shroud causes a bleeding effect if you have the misfortune of being hit. Oh, and Shroud has an army of spawning adds that magically appear and harass you constantly.
The most effective strategy I’ve come up with is: Run constantly and take a shot or two at Shroud on those rare occasions when you can see him to hit him. At any time, an unlucky combination of events could result in your death in seconds, at which point you start over. The longest I’ve lasted so far is around four or five minutes, and I was not even able to get Shroud’s health down to the first tick mark on his health bar, of which there are four.
Oh, did I mention his health regenerates? Forgot to mention that. Yeah, Shroud’s health constantly regenerates.
I hate to be one of those players that shouts “that’s not good boss fight design!” Because most people who say that just don’t want to put in the work to beat a boss. But seriously, Shroud is not good boss fight design. It’s just straight-up trolling.
I did some Googling to see what I was missing, because surely I must have been missing something. Surely I must have gone the wrong way and hit an area that was too hard for my level or something. Surely there must be some hidden vulnerability. But nope. This is the right place, and the strategy I sussed out is the correct one. “Just keep moving and you’ll take down this boss in no time!” the guides cheerily say. Yeah, right. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Even if I do manage to kill this boss, it’s not going to be a feeling of patting myself on the back for my cleverness in solving an intellectual puzzle, as is usually the case with a Souls boss. It’s going to be a feeling of staggering across a finish line after a punishing marathon in the blazing heat. Not a feeling I strive for in games or in life.
I suppose I could backtrack and farm materials to upgrade my weapons for hours and hours and hours. But that’s pretty boring. Or restart with a different character. But I have no interest in replaying the first bits.
I was starting to get into the game and enjoy myself until I hit this boss. Now I’m very happy I didn’t pay any money for it.
P. S. I should add that the game seems to have been designed to be played cooperatively with others. Based on my experience, I would say co-op play is a requirement to have any long-term fun in this game.
UPDATE 8/27: Here is the video of when I first met Shroud and the trials and tribulations of figuring out it was the worst boss fight ever.
Archived Comments
Jeromai 2020-08-15T19:59:23Z
I think you got super unlucky with the boss trait rolled. That, and setting the difficulty to Hard.
I gave Remnant a try, since as you say, it was free, and on Normal difficulty, because I’m a wuss. The Shroud boss in my world had a Vicious modifier, and I died about 15+ times learning the fight. A good half of those attempts were because I was too lazy to go back to town and buy bandages for the Bleeding debuff, so I’d keel over once Bleeding x 2 stacked up from getting pincushioned by the boss’ crossbow.
After trying a myriad of strategies from keeping distance, running around like headless chicken, aggressively closing distance, or straight up bullrushing and meleeing, I finally found that taking cover in a sheltered corner and taking the time to use the pistol to both clear the adds and rapid fire autopistol down the boss when I could see it worked the best for me.
Every now and then, you hear Shroud do this higher pitched keening shriek, and that’s the signal that his three strike lethal bombardment attack is going to smack your camping ass. Usually after two crossbow shots. So dodge or trigger run at that point and run for the time it takes to finish. Then take cover again and clean up adds/look for Shroud. If he happens to teleport near, then I swapped to shotgun and tried to blow him up a few times while backing off and looking for new cover (because his crossbow and the helping adds would swarm me if I lingered near too long.)
Still pretty rough though. My glorious victory left me with 2 Bleeding stacks that offed me before I could find the exit. At that point, I caved in and went back to buy bandages…only to return and realize the boss hadn’t respawned.
I can see how Regenerator on this thing would be infuriating. Does the trait change if you go back to base and come back, or is it stuck for good?
UltrViolet 2020-08-15T23:00:24Z The game kept calling me back to try different things, so I went back and after another hour or so I finally defeated Shroud. I switched from a shotgun (which was the default for my guy) to a hunting rifle, which worked a lot better, and I bought and installed a fire mod back at Ward 13, which does damage over time, which was a huge help to counteract the regeneration.
UltrViolet 2020-08-15T23:03:35Z Oh, yeah it was the same Regenerator every time. I went back to Ward 13 a lot. But I never did the “Leave Dungeon” so I didn’t have to go through the first level again, so maybe that would have done something different.
Remnant: From the Ashes – The Game Hellgate: London Wishes It Was – Why I Game 2020-08-19T15:05:06Z […] primarily motivator, needing to keep going back and pounding away to beat bosses and the game, and being pissed off if the game appears not to be playing fair. Challenge-wise, he’s got it cranked up on Hard, while I’m pretty darned comfy being […]
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