this phase 1 horde is punishing me for using the fun parts of combat and by proxy rewarding me for playing in an unfun way.
put another way
if i try to switch up my rune usage and deal with the plague bats in any creative way, i take enough damage to almost instantly die.
i found that the best way to deal with them is to keep walking backwards and spamming the same stamina rune over and over, frontflip kick. it takes 3-5 minutes of repeating this with no rune/moveset variety until i finally kill them all and get to the good part. it’s not exactly hard, just tedious and time consuming. the worst kind of difficulty.
this bruteforcing behavior has never been welcome in no rest for the wicked’s combat.
diagnosis
i think the first problem is that there’s no enemy variation. every bat is the same. no moveset differences, no health differences, no positioning differences.
this leads to no prioritization and strategy skills that other combat scenarios have;
’i should climb up this ladder to kill the risen ranger first, then do a drop attack on the brute, parry him for focus, finish him off, then rune attack the dagger guy to death.’
see how much more interesting that feels? variation is important and the brood needs this treatment desperately, lest we start spamming the same strat over and over.
the second problem is that it’s just too damn much. remember that this is the only the first phase. don’t go to overboard with the length of it!
the new hunger limit makes bosses way more difficult, and you need to keep that in mind when designing the phase.