Did Shadow Lords difficulty increase?

Shadow Lords
#1

Ever since 3.7 dropped, I’ve noticed that both challenging and godlike seem more difficult. Maybe I’m completely crazy, but Omens seem harder, mimics shadow counter more and their reaction time on my wake up and on poking me out of stuff seems dramatically improved, even on medium difficulty.

I used to have to play Impossible level opponents on challenging to get a real run for my money, but now characters on hard seem to do that.

Am I losing my mind here? Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a difficulty spike in Shadow Lords?

#2

Not sure if it is just Shadow Lords. AI, in general, seems to be doing the right things. Played against AI Jago and during his instinct, he ACTUALLY used an optimal combo to gain his health back. Something I would normally do, the AI did, which is weird because I have never seen AI act this way. Normally it would just activate instinct and either sit on it or do the same combos it did before.

AI has grown smarter, it has become advanced. Skynet is no longer a fictional script from a popular movie as much as it has become a part of our very near future!

The end is near!!!

Lol, sorry. Got carried away there. But, yes to answer your question, it has become more difficult since the latest update in terms of how the AI proceeds to utilize their mechanics better and optimize their combos.

1 Like
#3

I noticed to mainly for the fact they won’t let you him them and they combo breaker almost everything and sometimes they shadow counter yeah your not the only one who noticed.

1 Like
#4

I can confirm that fighting the CPU on the Kyle/Ultimate difficulty setting performs Shadow Counters once again, so yes, Shadow Lords is likely affected by this change.

More information can be found here: Fix Kyle AI

#5

I don’t mind the CPU performing optimal combos for situations, as it makes me feel like I’m fighting another person to an extent. Though at times it makes me feel like I’m fighting someone a lot better than the difficulty level would indicate, like when everything I do gets punished for max damage.

But after several hours of play today, I’d say there’s key differences here between optimal combos here and there and constant optimal combos, counter breakers, shadow counters (on single hit moves, no less), constant corner pressure, and reaction time that goes FAR beyond normal human levels.

Trying to fight this AI with Shin Hisako is exceedingly obnoxious. I don’t mind a challenge, but it feels like everything I do gets punished for a long combo, I get poked out of everything on wake up, in her rekka, in any vulnerability window in any of her specials, the computer reacts simultaneously to my button presses, spirit slice is utterly useless on even medium level opponents… Virtually every match is now sucked dry of any nuance or showmanship or fun because I have to figure out how to cheese the AI on anything above easy.

If you wanted higher difficulty on Kyle / Godlike, that’s fine. I have zero issues with that. If you play on that level, then you’re likely looking for a punishing level of difficulty. I’m not looking for that though, especially not in Shadow Lords, which is so resource dependent to begin with. But it would seem as though they buffed every level, including easy and I think they did it significantly. So now I’m burning good resources just to get through hard level matches. I basically have to avoid very hard and impossible matches altogether.

The reaction time in particular bothers me. It’s too “gamey.” That most definitely does NOT make me feel like I’m playing a human opponent, but rather, an AI that has been coded with an unfair advantage, and I despise using the term unfair.

Sorry for the rant. I swear I’m not as salty as I sound here, but I’d ask that IG take a serious look at this again. Keep the highest difficulty the way it is and keep some of the optimal strategy AI, but I’d implore you to get rid of the inhuman level reaction time stuff. Leave that quarter munchy crap back in the 90’s arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 where it belongs.

#6

I believe in Shadow Lords the AI has been changed to react to your patterns kind of like Boss Shago.It’d be fine if just Gargos adapted to patterns but all of your enemies do so I kind of have a problem with it.In the past challenging and godlike were hardish at times but not as obnoxiously difficult as it feels now.

1 Like
#7

Well that sucks, as a scrub it was already to hard to beat on godlike. :expressionless:

1 Like
#8

Well the AI getting smarter is kinda silly it still acts dumb.

#9

I wouldn’t have noticed any change if it hadn’t been altered on Normal as well. I’m pretty good at the game, and I’ve learned quite a few tricks against the AI, so I’m not having much trouble adapting, but it must be rough for anyone who can only play on Normal.

#10

Wouldn’t call it silly if AI Jago uses his health gain to the fullest during juggle. I mean, it relatively predicatable in most scenarios but in certain instances it can be quite fascinating to see how AI picks up on certain methods usually done by a human.

#11

I tend to play on challenging more lately because it seems to be the only way to get the Mask of the Ancients item, which I’m hoping has something, anything to do with the dossier of the same name that no one seems to know how to get yet.

Yeah I mean I’ll have to adapt, of course, but for one thing, it would’ve been nice if they told us that they were ratcheting up the AI difficulty and maybe explain the reasoning, if only because it seems like a bit of an odd choice, especially in a mode that seems geared a little more toward the casual audience.

I don’t claim to be the only audience for this mode obviously, but if people were asking for something harder, it would’ve been nice if they’d made godlike tougher and not every difficulty setting.

I dunno, maybe it’s a bug of some sort? Seems very strange if that were the case.

Either way, I’m burning through red, blue and green buffs and since I’m trying to get Shin Hisako up to level 50, I’m losing far more, but even with characters I’m good with too. Again, it wouldn’t be so bad if the AI was just outplaying me. But the nano-second reaction time is just garbag and it’s frustrating as hell. @ZTRAINOVER9000 might have the right if it as far as the AI.

I really hope they’ll change it back.

#12

Well it did get a little smart but it still blocks a lot.

#13

In Shadow Lords I used to get to turn 10-11 easily on challenging without casualties. Now I just as easy lose one or two members after the third or fourth turn. Shadow counters galore as well by the mimics. Lol.

1 Like
#14

Initially I could get up to 30 turns on Godlike. Now I can’t get past 10

1 Like
#15

Well it seems I’m not the only one who thought he was going crazy.
I always play on Normal difficulty in Shadow Lords and hadn’t lost a team member in months.
I upgraded to 3.7 and I lost 4 team members in 8 turns of game play in Shadow Lords?
The AI blocks way more than before. Also The Omens seem way more aggressive than before as well.
The Omens being to aggressive happened before in the past and they actually adjusted the AI for that in a past patch.


Now it seems the Omens are like before that patch again?

Playing offline against the CPU (versus) is the same. I always had the AI set to very hard difficulty setting.
Now I actually needed to adjust it to medium difficulty setting to mimic the same difficulty as before.

I hope they will adjust it back like the way it was before, since there is no lower difficulty setting in Shadow Lords than Normal.

1 Like
#16

SL Gargos in Normal is much, much harder than before. What happened?

1 Like
#17

No idea. I’ve seen the idea thrown out there that the AI might be bugged somehow, but if it’s not, man I don’t know. The AI is insane right now.

#18

I’d prefer if we had the 3.6 AI as the Shadow Lords AI, because if you get Shadow Countered by a Mimic, the fight is almost literally over

1 Like
#19

Phew So I don’t just suddenly suck even worse now. I was getting owned on SL Normal diff when I wasn’t before. I’m struggling to level up characters that I’m not as good with for this reason. Ramping up Kyle/Godlike for the more masochistic/elite players is great but for those of us who aren’t that skilled we need an Easy Mode if they are gonna up the diff across the board.

1 Like
#20

Shadow Counters have increased in every mode. Not fun watching my 9 year old (who is silver Tier) struggle on turn 8-10 sucks