Did the update make the game significantly easier? I just picked this up and beat the final boss on my first run, knowing absolutely nothing about it going in. What was the game like before the update?

I know there's certainly more to the game than just beating the final boss, but after listening to the GotY talks and how supposedly brutal the difficulty was and how beating the final boss for the first time was one of their most memorable gaming moments ever after doing like over a hundred runs, I don't quite understand. Did the update break the difficulty? I know there's a element of randomness to roguelikes, did I just get insanely lucky with my drops? I had 2 tonic uses and 1 flask use left and 60% HP when I felled the boss, so it wasn't especially close either.

I'm not trying to make this some stupid "humble brag" thread, I'm just actually bewildered and a little disappointed. I think the game plays absolutely flawlessly in its controls and pacing, and I'll definitely play more to see all the different unlocks and such, so I'm not disappointed in that regard. I just feel like I bought and played a game that is much different than what I heard in the GotY talks. I heard the update changed a lot of things and made a ton of balance changes, so maybe part of that was making the game easier? I actually don't know, would like to hear from someone who has played before and after the update.

A patch altered it so that enemies have a set level per stage. In the past, they would scale based on how many scrolls you picked up, so by the end of the game all the enemies were super-tough. I haven't played through it in a while, so I don't know how/if they altered the final boss any, but he used to be super fast, hit like a truck and had a huge knockback on his attack. He'd usually get up on you, start swinging and then knock you onto the spikes at the edges of the arena.

I'm not saying you're a liar, but considering the Tonic is an item you have to unlock the blueprint by beating an enemy that's randomly carrying that blueprint, and then have enough cells in your inventory to unlock it for use. Also, the health flask is initially a one-use item that you also have to upgrade with hundreds of cells to use multiple times. I find it odd that you had both of those items on your first run or implied you may not have used the health flask at all during the final boss. In which case I'd say yes, you did get incredibly lucky with the drops during your run as well as having high, high twitch gaming skills.

As someone who just beat the Hand of the King for the first time after 138 runs, 4,790 cells spent and 443 health flasks used (including plenty of runs I had perfect loadouts only to screw myself over my getting too ambitious in the High Peak Castle) I also think it's a little unbelievable somebody could beat this game without having access to + and ++ grade weapons.

I guess I know that I'm bad enough at skill-based video games that I can't totally disbelieve this, but it sounds absurd to me. I wish you'd taken video of this just so I could see it, it sounds absolutely unbelievable on paper, like some ADGQ magic trick.

Also, I'd be curious to know if you stuck with the game and gave the boss stem cells systems a shot? I've just given it a cautious try and I like how it feels like a natural progression from the base game.

I'm sure most of this game's audience is on PC, but just for fun I decided to pull up the PS4 trophies just so you could really understand how big of an outlier your run was:

Only 30.2% of players on PS4 have made it to the final boss room.

From there, only 14.7% of players have beaten the Hand of the King. Additionally, it might just be that a lot of people that play this game would rather have DPS than a safety valve, but I beat the game with the YOLO mutation still active (meaning I never died) and only 4.3% of players have done that. Again, that may be because a lot of people have a different, less fearful of death playstyle than I do, but I just figured these stats would make it even more clear how much of an outlier you are.

The speedrun record is something like 8 and 1/2 minutes - maybe you should go for it!

@nodima: I found the Tonic blueprint early and bought it, then found a legendary version of it later on in the run. Before then I had spent the cells on buying a health flask. Other than that I think I found the blueprint for the teleport move and bought that. Looking back after doing more runs, it really was an insanely lucky run with all the drops and level ups I got.

After that run I ended up doing 3 more successful runs, killing Hand of the King on those as well. I didn't really know what to do other than do more runs to unlock things, that's when I gave up and started looking up how to unlock those runes and access all the different levels and stuff. But I ended up kinda falling off of the game before I found them, so I haven't seen like half the levels (from what I've seen on the wiki).

I have since stopped playing. Never did end up trying out the harder difficulties. I'll probably come back in a few months and check in and see what new stuff they've added. Again, not trying to sound shitty or cocky, just sharing the experience I had with the game and how much it differed from what the GotY talks described. I still think it's probably the tightest 2D action I've ever played, and really enjoyed it regardless of my disappointment. I just wish I had an experience more similar to Dan and Ben.

Speaking of updates to this game. Did the Switch version ever get the performance update that was suppose to come out late 2018

Not yet, Only the PC version that I'm aware of.

I play the Switch version several times a week for a quick run or two and there hasn't been an update

@doctordonkey: Did you play on PC? Because yeah the update basically trivializes the boss fights, IMO. If you played on PS4 or Xbox or Switch, that's way more of an outlier (and impressive) because the update hasn't dropped yet, so the bosses still scale which means the Hand (and even the clocktower dude) can be a real DICK (this is the only version the crew played AFAIK).

The update modified scaling which trivializes the 0 boss cell runs at the expense of making anything past boss cell 1 or 2 substantially harder.

@atastyslurpee: Thank you!

@sethmode: On PC, yeah. That's what I was wondering when I made the thread, is how much the update actually changed. Since then I read the change list and it's crazy just how much easier the bosses are on normal difficulty. From people doing hundreds of runs to finally best it, to some guy beating it literally his first time ever playing the game.

Yeah, I went from getting to and losing to the Hand of the King probably upwards of 20 times before the update and then after the update finished it on my first try.

From what I hear though, the difficulty spikes like CRAZY later though with the new patch.

Oh wow, that’s wild. I didn’t realize the PS4 version was behind the PC version like that. I’d almost hope they don’t change it in that case, I’m loving how boss cell level one neither feels like a total reset of the game nor a glorified challenge boost. It’s more like, finally you got good, now prove it wasn’t a fluke.

I didn’t buy Dead Cells until right before GotY when it and Celeste both got a deep discount, but Celeste seemed the more focused play so I was leaning towards that through December. My January has been dominated by Dead Cells runs though, both speed and meticulous. As I said, I only beat the base level the one time still but I’m loving the split between the two challenges now and can’t wait to get at least the second boss cell at some point.

Was thinking about this post in the back of my mind when I started playing. I just beat the game and according to the stat keeping guy I died a total of 12 times. Granted I feel like I lucked my way into a great run with great gear (think highest level throwing knives and a solid whip). In fact I know I got lucky because I was stuck on the first 2 levels for 10 of those runs and made it to the late stages only twice. I’d be curious to see how I’d fare in older versions. Now I’m considering going back since there are 7 levels I never even touched and upgrades to see and secrets I don’t understand, not to mention a higher difficulty.

...on the other hand I was feeling really bad about my lack of skill at Apex Legends so I might just take this (lucky) win and never look back.

Apparently there's a new patch in alpha for PC that adds a new biome, new boss at the end of that biome, 50 character skins that randomly drop from enemies ala blueprints, ten new weapons, ten new enemy types and a handful of new skills as well as a five boss cell difficulty that ends with a new final boss and extended ending.

Hope that comes over to PS4 soon, I'm still struggling through BC1 every couple weeks and I'm not sure I'll ever beat it but I'd appreciate the skins and new biome just for more variety whenever I do settle in for an hour or so of cell collecting.