Please, it's so annoying to be attacking something (anything but a retrode which are rather easy enemies) in Ghost in the Machine, then a soul wanders into my Divine Avenger's swing range and blows up on me. I would like to see them be able to be killed with swords before they're charged up a certain amount, or deal far less damage when killed with a sword, or maybe only inflict their status effect when killed in such a way even. The fact that they spawn at the rate they do makes them the main focus of the floor when the focus should be the already somewhat tough mecha knight and gunpuppy combinations. It's not only this mission I know souls exist on, but the shock they cause or the shock caused by other enemies makes this an unfair fight as you can't stop to constantly shield to stop the shock damage or your shield will be broken by the mecha knights or by other souls, and the souls do enough damage that accidentally hitting two with a sword will mean you need to block the shock damage when entering the floor with 13 HP or you'll go down. You NEED a gun or bomb to kill them without taking damage. It goes into the gun meta argument as well. Swords in general need a buff, but while that will take a lot of balancing and time to implement such balances, and while I'm uncertain if there are plans for such changes to take place at all, I would love an expedient solution to this in some form of nerf to how the souls react to being struck with a blade.
Fix the souls
get a gun
@Ze-Epik
My blackhawk one shots the souls, but if I'm taking the time to shoot them, I'm unable to deal any damage with my DA to the enemies, who quickly become a much larger threat when I'm slowed during firing, dodging the souls sometimes right beside the enemies, dodging Gunpuppy fire, keeping away from retrode explosions, and watching out for the rotating shock orbs on the tesla coils. Then there's the mecha knight's attacks which instantly break my full health shield. I think there are a lot of elements here that need to be balanced, not just the souls, but I can handle myself fine if the souls were just spawning say at half the speed even
I enjoy playing around them and the devs give bigger rewards for levels with souls on them; e.g. dreams and nightmares, danger missions, etc. Basically, they're a fun and great feature.
As a longer response... I think we should put them in FSC.
I believe I could enjoy playing around them if I had a 4 person team, but alas, my previous guild's all abandoned the game, and out of my few hundred friends, only one is on daily. Going solo shouldn't take an hour and a half to get through two floors, though, that's about how long it would take on Ghosts in the Machine if I was soloing with the souls spawning that speed.
I don't see the problem with the souls quite frankly. They encourage the following:
1) using bombs
2) playing with other people
Souls only show up in fairly difficult content to keep the player moving. I will say that if souls did not explode when killed (ie, hit by a sword) then that would be fair, however as they stand they only really make the game difficult if you're playing alone with swords, which quite frankly is not the best idea for levels where lost souls are present.
I don't think playing around them with just swords is that difficult, they're actually pretty easy to deal with as long as you don't use weapons that root you in place for too long. But they can still be annoying, when bombing, a soul will suddenly appear OUTA NOWHERE AND START CHARGING AT YOUR-200MS-PING-POOR-SELF while the bomb is JUST ABOUT TO DETONATE and BOOM! half of your health is gone because you couldn't shield on time. Personally I had easier time playing around them with just acheron and divine avenger rather than with bombs. Guns make them almost harmless tho (excluding autoguns and magnuses).
The only problem i really find with souls is that they are spammy, and are a pain to deal with lag.
I mean, i hate shooting an bubble that showed up as far away from me & not blowing up, but then suddenly it explodes right in my face
Swords don't need a buff, they still deal the most damage out of all weapons. A more proper way of fixing this is to nerf the souls so that they only start to grow bigger once they're on the same tile as you not before they reach you by a tile. This would make them balanced.