The First Berserker: Khazan launches today (March 27), and the game’s developers have already nerfed two of the game’s hardest bosses.
In a post on the game’s subreddit, developer Neople revealed that it has made a number of changes in the form of a launch-day balance patch. Of the numerous changes, the biggest seems to be change in the difficulty of Viper and Maluca.
With the decision to change the difficulties of the bosses, the game’s creative director, Junho Lee, gave context surrounding the motives and what’s being done.
You can read the explanation, in full, below.
Viper has already earned nicknames like “newbie crusher” from many players. While there are several reasons for this balance adjustment, the primary factor was our intentional design choice to present a slightly higher challenge during the difficulty tuning process. However, we realized that this posed an excessive burden on players adapting to the game. Additionally, the extended duration required for immersive combat, although providing a definite sense of accomplishment, led us to question whether it offered an appropriate level of challenge for players reaching Mission 3 for the first time. The answer leaned towards “no.” Despite the possibility for many players to simply give up, you provided us with valuable feedback through various channels. Some mentioned that Viper felt like a “final boss-level challenge,” yet clearing it brought a thrilling satisfaction reminiscent of past experiences, sparking curiosity about “what comes next if the third boss is this challenging.” The required skill level to face Viper was significantly higher than the proficiency players had developed up to that point and the prolonged engagement and the punitive nature of mistakes could have led many to abandon the challenge, yet you chose to share your precious insights with us. Once again, we sincerely thank you for your invaluable feedback.
Regarding Maluca, we have structured Khazan’s storyline into two parts, with Maluca serving as the boss of the first part. While we understand that many of you found this encounter both challenging and enjoyable, we also recognized that it presented a relatively high level of difficulty. Although we cannot disclose exact data, we observed that players new to Khazan found Maluca to be more than twice as challenging as Rangkus, the previous boss and deputy leader of the bandits.
Taking these factors into account, we have slightly reduced the difficulty in the main game. Players can be now rewarded more quickly through stamina-based combat, and we’ve made adjustments to ensure that minor mistakes no longer necessarily lead to failure.
Despite the changes to the difficulty of the two bosses, Lee says that the team has “ensured that the core values of challenge and accomplishment remain intact.” He added both Viper and Mulca will “still present a significant challenge compared to other monsters.”
Other changes in the launch patch include skill balance adjustments for various weapons, buffs to a few other bosses, as well as more benefits for those playing on easy mode.
Lastly, without going into much detail, Lee said that there will be more updates coming to the game “as early as next week” as some have taken more time to implement. He also said there are plans for a free DLC content update to be launched in May.
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