Was in a comment section about designing games to respect the player’s time and mentioned I never finished Hollow Knight because it makes you fight the final boss again each time you want to give the secret boss another shot.
Someone jumped in literally telling me “GET GOOD” and when I told them there were other things I’d rather be doing, they followed up with “so don’t get hard games just to complain about.” They never responded when I asked them how I was supposed to know exactly how hard everything in the game would be before I ever played it.
Every fucking time. I swear I can set my watch by it. The Dark Souls series has earned my undying enmity for what it has done to gaming discourse.
You must log in or # to comment.
I repeat that it’s not the fault of Dark Souls itself that this shit happened. Miyazaki for instance deliberately adds various ways in all of his DS titles to “cheese” encounters and otherwise make them much easier for yourself. In interviews for Elden Ring he talks about how he always uses summons and makes Sorcery broken vs bosses on purpose for that reason.
That doesn’t mean the design is unimpeachable or anything, but the repeatedly stated attitude of the director that is obviously present in the design of the games is counter to the “get good” culture.
And most of the characteristic features of the general archetype are there to make it easier or are these sorts of iterative experiments towards fixing long running mechanical problems in games. Like how the “limited, but endlessly refreshing heals” part was a very successful experiment on how to stop the “I’m saving these limited healing items for when I really need them” problem that RPGs have, giving both a constant pressure of resource scarcity but also the complete freedom to use those resources when you like since you literally can neither hoard them nor really run out. Also lots of checkpoints, making sure boss attacks have clear telegraphs and consistent timings (matched to the rhythm of their encounter music, too), trying to make hitboxes actually match the visuals instead of just being “there’s a big damage box around the entire space the boss moves in” like a lot of games do, giving the players lots of iframes to just not get hit at will, giving the option to just have a 100 damage reduction block if they want that instead, etc.
Like the things that most define it as a genre are all these nice little ways the game accommodates and empowers the player, so that then the level and enemy designers can dial up the difficulty in ways that aren’t just the traditional “so everything’s a sponge that one shots you” way that most games create “difficulty”. Most of the complaints people have with them are mostly just cases of the devs either doing a poor job of it or chasing a very specific niche of escalating things to build off an earlier work as just “thing, but more!”, the equivalent of like those nightmarish Kaizo ROMhacks for old SNES games like Mario and Metroid.
I think anyone who doesn’t want accessibility options in games is exhausting. Celeste did it right.
“Oh but it’s not the developer’s vision”
Ok. But uhhh that’s as fucking annoying as getting mad at someone for wanting a salt reduced version of a meal, or adding chilli sauce or whatever. Just let people experience things at a level appropriate for them.
If someone stunts their development as a person by avoiding new experiences or not building skills or whatever you think they’ll get from “the vision” then that’s on them I suppose.
Annoying soulslike fans also don’t respect the developers vision, or they wouldn’t get annoyed at people using summons / pyro / spells / shields / whatever tools the developers deliberately put in the game.
“Oh but it’s not the developer’s vision”
The funny thing is that a very similar issue arose with Pathologic 2. The developers initially didn’t include difficulty settings because the intended experience was a difficult one where the player would struggle. When they received feedback that the game was too difficult for many players to even finish, though, they added easier difficulty modes on the grounds that they would rather players be able to complete the game on an easier difficulty than not at all. The game defaults to the hardest difficulty and describes it as the intended experience but it also says “But go ahead and play on a lower difficulty if that’s what it takes you to finish the game.”
I really think that most people should first /try/ things as intended, but people know themselves and even if someone doesn’t want to engage with a game at all like… who cares? I might find activating god mode makes games about as engaging as writing “I win” on a post-it note and mashing my fist on it but that’s me, if someone wants to play that way then good for them. I play games like aurora 4x sometimes where I literally write software to help me calculate missile engine requirements, many people would probably prefer the post-it note to that haha.
The game defaults to the hardest difficulty and describes it as the intended experience but it also says “But go ahead and play on a lower difficulty if that’s what it takes you to finish the game.”
And that’s literally the simple answer to all this supposed controversy. Doing it this way makes it a no-lose scenario. People who want the developers intended vision can have it. People who need or would like it more accessible still get to play it. The developer gets to be confident that people who can play it as intended will probably do so while more people who never would have been able to play otherwise, still get to experience it too, if a little bit lighter of a version than the “intended” one.
But the “git gud” crowd still bleats and moans and acts as if mere knowledge that an easier mode exists would somehow negatively effect their experience. Which reveals that for most of them it’s actually a lot more about them wanting to be gatekeepers than it is about some supposed artistic purity. They should be happy with difficulty settings because if anything it’s an additional feather in a person’s cap to be able to say “yeah, I beat such and such game on hard mode.!” Like, I get to feel pride to be able to say I 100%'ed Aeterna Noctis, contender for the hardest metroidvania, on its hard mode setting. (For the record, I’m not very good at games in general but I loved that one and so I enjoyed practicing it. I was also privileged enough to have the time to do so). It has an easier mode, and I’m glad it does, for altruistic reasons: I’m happy that more people get to enjoy it, and for selfish reasons - I can puff out my chest and boast about how I beat it on the hard mode.
There is no good argument that any difficult game can’t do as Pathologic 2 and Aeterna Noctis ended up doing. Make it clear that the game is “meant” to be played on the hard mode, but give people the option to play it on easier, more accessible modes.
And that’s literally the simple answer to all this supposed controversy. Doing it this way makes it a no-lose scenario. People who want the developers intended vision can have it. People who need or would like it more accessible still get to play it. The developer gets to be confident that people who can play it as intended will probably do so while more people who never would have been able to play otherwise, still get to experience it too, if a little bit lighter of a version than the “intended” one.
I only found out that I enjoy harder games by being forced to learn to play dark souls. If it had difficulty options I would have set them as low as they go. At the end of the day devs will make their games as difficult or easy as they like, and that’s not a sleight on anyone. I like the aesthetics of RTS games but I friggin’ suck at them to the point I don’t really bother. There’s not really a reason to rail against this, I just find other games that suit me. Certainly accessibility options should be as inclusive as possible but there is a place for games that are just… Difficult, just like there’s a place for super involved novels that I can’t keep up with and obtuse films I don’t understand. Not everything is for me and that’s fine.
What there isn’t a place for is the “git gud” dickheads who should be put into a great big mincer.
i do personally think people should give the “real” version a fair shot, games are made with purpose to evoke certain emotions and i as the author feel good when that connects (and also yeah, you might discover something new you like)
but also i’m not your boss, i’m the author and you’re welcome to kill me and spend your time as you like, if i added difficulty settings i did it in particular ways and with intent to preserve the “real” experience as much as possible, fuckin go for it
The director’s vision argument is only ever used one way. They always say it if a game is too hard for someone, but if it’s deemed too easy by them they have no issue saying the game should be changed to accommodate their taste.
but if it’s deemed too easy by them they have no issue saying the game should be changed to accommodate their taste.
That’s literally why i left paradox forums for good, entire forums were choke full of this, no normal discussion was possible anymore.
this I will always agree with 100%. I’m fine with a game that is hard but not everyone is like me and was lucky enough to be gifted with the hand eye coordination and motor skills that I take for granted. I’m reminded of that every fucking time I play a fromsoft game and end up having to install a mod for large type in the menus, because GOD FORBID someone want to play the game who has poor vision.
And then you get banned from online leaderboards because you had the gall to install a mod that made it so you could actually read context menus and shit. Fuck your vision. Your vision sucks if I can’t actually see it. And frankly I think the vast majority of devs don’t give a shit about adding such features; they’re not prioritized because of the cost:benefit analysis being lackluster. “spending $x dollars on dev time for $y dollars in additional sales, if the projection shows adding accessibility will generally lead to X>Y, why bother?” Kind of thing. But then the worst people ever, culture warrior /v/ trash, latch on to make excuses for the bean counters.
“Oh but it’s not the developer’s vision” yeah cool i’m not omniscient, if someone who i didn’t forsee found a way to play my shit anyway then good for them!
I am teaching myself game dev and maybe I’m not auteur enough or something but frankly I’d be delighted if anyone spent any time on my silly little creations and had any thoughts about them at all.
I think anyone who doesn’t want accessibility options in games is exhausting. Celeste did it right.
i don’t think anyone has a problem with color blind settings, subtitles, or turning off shaky cams.
Sure, but Celeste’s accessibility settings go so far beyond colorblind settings, subtitles, and turning off camera shake it’s unreal!
I haven’t really messed around with the accessibility settings for Celeste because I like the challenge where it is, but holy hell can you tweak just about everything about the game experience to precisely your desired level.
Want to change it so that you don’t get fatigued hanging onto walls as quickly (or at all)? You can. Want to give yourself an extra dash or 3? Go for it. Want to slow the entire game down by 10% because your reaction times are just a touch slow? Yeah, you can do that too.
You’re really underselling Celeste’s accessibility features, is what I’m saying. They are gameplay difficulty modifying features, because the Celeste devs understand that a ridiculously hard platformer like Celeste can be made accessible to a much wider audience if you think carefully about gameplay difficulty settings and how to implement them well.
I really do think the existence of Celeste and its accessibility menu should have put this “debate” to bed. Devs should be adding menus like this to every single game. I understand it’s a lot more work, especially to do it well, but it’s work that I think is really important, because I’d like video games to be widely played, by all kinds of people, and having a menu of settings you can tweak to tailor the experience to a difficulty level you prefer can open up these experiences to a ton of people who otherwise would never have been able to play the game.
i’m not underselling celeste, i think there’s a big difference between granular easy/challenge modes and accessibility features.
if something is challenging, anyone can try and be bad at it. if something is inaccessible, some people physically can’t participate at all.
having sound design so immaculate that a blind person can play street fighter is accessibility, the simplified control options are some other thing we should have a different word for because it’s not about mitigating disability.
Celeste’s wealth of settings are interesting but they abdicate the work of designing the learning curve onto the people least able to make informed decisions about it and that has downsides on their experience too. Games are unlike other media because you have to learn a whole new set of rules and mechanics every time and it’s completely unreasonable to put all those decisions on people who have no idea what they’re getting into.
im old enough to not care about any kind of “street cred” beating a hard single-player game would give me. it’s why i cheat in all games where that’s an option
Based and sigma pilled. Being in medschool truly made me appreciate any free time I have
I just play on pc and use cheats. I don’t have much time to waste on repeat attempts and runbacks
“Noooooo, you can’t use cheat codes. That ruins the game dev’s vision of the game.”
Uh aktually, Freedom 0 states that a program installed on a user’s PC ought to be run by the user as they wish for any purpose. Therefore, if the user wants to use cheat codes on their game, they should be allowed to do so.
Freedom 0 isn’t about engaging with art. you can scramble the frame order in a movie, that’s your prerogative, but it’ll probably just make a mess.
lots of professional developers are mediocre game designers, the user at home is extremely likely to be even worse than that.
Whenever I hear “git gud,” I point to the “every game becomes hard when you speedrun it, so the fact that you don’t have an any% run, let alone a competitive any% run of a popular game where people actually try speedrunning it, means you don’t actually want a hard game experience” sign.
I mean doing it fast is one kind of difficulty, I actually think some of the more frustrating ideas about what makes a game a satisfying experience is that difficulty is a monolith.
There’s speed of execution, perfection of execution, study, memorisation, self exploration, exploitation of systems, persistence, reaction speeds, planning, strategy, tactics, coordination, parsing a game, pattern recognition, and of course many more and any permutation of any of these.
Chess is “difficult” but chess is (until an elite level) also just very easy and boring. Depends on who you ask and how they’re approaching it? Do they seek to master the game without studying anyone else’s play? Extremely difficult in some ways but no reaction speed required. Do they want to spend hours of their life drilling and studying? In some respects that easier but it demands extraordinary persistence and tolerance for tedium.
Is COD less difficult than chess? Depends on if you have arthritis I suspect.
At least personally I am never looking for a game that requires fast reactions or play but I adore games that require remaining calm in the face of challenge and not making any input mistakes at their highest levels. I also love games where you have to fill notebooks to solve them. Do I not like difficult games because I will never speed run?
Difficulty is so fuzzy that when it comes some way of ranking “real gamers” or whatever the conversation just devolves into calling each other names and erecting random goalposts.
The non-shitposting version of my post is that every game becomes hard when you have a challenge run of that game. Some easy platformer becomes super hard if you are trying a no damage run. It doesn’t matter if the base game is easy or not. Every RPG becomes hard when you’re trying a pacifist run or a naked run and so on. Besides speedrunning, there’s also stuff like 1cc runs for arcade games, which is beating the game without dying, pacifist runs, no damage runs, and so on. Each type of challenge run tests for something different, and speedrunning for that matter differs depending on genre. Speedrunning platformers focuses on frame perfect execution and twitch reaction while speedrunning RPGs with RNG focuses on memorization and being able to adapt to both good and bad RNG. They’re completely different.
My point is that git gudders almost never speedrun or do any other challenge runs, which is what you would expect from people who actually want a hard game experience. They mostly just play the base game, which isn’t even that hard especially when compared to a challenge run of an easy game, before shitting on people like the OP for not wanting to put up with various design choices the game has.
I am of the camp that game devs should give players the tools to make the game as easy or hard as they want it to be, whether it’s through cheat codes or making the game easy to mod. Challenge runs should be build within the game as options.
So we broadly agree but all speedrunning/challenge runs are things you do playing a game repetitively.
My point is that “difficulty” (I don’t actually like that term for reasons like this) also encompasses stuff like when a game is first approached. I love dark souls (1, fuck the others) and everyone knows it so as an example your first play through is difficult, not because darksouls requires any particular skills to play but because it’s very strange. Back in 2010 or whatever games without objective markers and stats explained, hell games without a compass or map, were uncommon. So playing it was genuinely quite difficult because it is very opaque.
Learning the language of a game can be challenging, can be really challenging! But none of that challenge is replicated on repeat playthrough. Someone looking for that would not find anything satisfying in a challenge run/speed run/whatever. So maybe some people who say they like difficulty like the blind exploration and learning kind, rather than the others. They might not be full of shit, just wrong about accessible design.
My point is that “difficulty” (I don’t actually like that term for reasons like this) also encompasses stuff like when a game is first approached. I love dark souls (1, fuck the others) and everyone knows it so as an example your first play through is difficult, not because darksouls requires any particular skills to play but because it’s very strange. Back in 2010 or whatever games without objective markers and stats explained, hell games without a compass or map, were uncommon. So playing it was genuinely quite difficult because it is very opaque.
I think it’s hard to genuinely go into a game blind, especially when you consider genre conventions. It’s not like the 90s where you can play a (non-platformer and non-shmup) game that is one of the first of its genre, so you literally have nothing, not even genre conventions, to rely on.
Take Hollow Knight, the game mentioned by the OP. In the end, Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania that didn’t stray too far from the conventions of a Metroidvania. It has a lot of Metroidvania cliches like the player needing to progress through the game to double jump. Breaking Metroidvania conventions would be either not having the ability to double jump or starting out with double jump. You have to beat various sections of a level once filled with enemies before unlocking a shortcut or quick travel so you don’t have to go through it the normal way. Hollow Knight is very much a “it’s all about the execution” game with a pretty cool and thematically fitting aesthetic.
Ironically, Hollow Knight was the first soulslike game I played and it made me realize I enjoyed a very difficult challenge from time to time, so immediately after playing it I started doing some Path of Exile 2 speedruns (never got good at it because the tech got changed in the last patch). Maybe your argument is correct but it doesn’t necessarily work on everyone!
I like Souls-likes, but I do think there should be some quality of life stuff that respects your time. They can call it “I have a job” mode because that will make gamers angry and I find that very funny.
Soulslike fans really are the dark souls of gamers
I seriously wish this soulslike fad would finally pass. Unfortunately worst craps tend to have long life, like usian politicians or zombie apocalypse theme.
Honestly if these comps didn’t make damn near every hack n slash like em I wouldn’t have a prob. Instead you play a demi god who moves like he was born with rickets and has a bear trap on him and has to do these weird checkpoints
And need stamina bars for basic movements
Fair enough on its own but not every 2 games. How is this fun? we need to trick them into becoming fighting game players. human opponents are infinitely more rewarding to learn and overcome
ngl, idgaf about the “director’s vision” of software
Sekiro fans giving out advice like “to beat this boss you have to parry them”
The most useful piece of advice i got for this game was here on sexbear someone told me to stop looking at the bosses healthbar and never take my eyes off the boss. After 3 failed attempts at playing that game i then breezed through to the end and didn’t even die against the final boss lol. In this instance its the only game i ever bothered to “gut gud” at but only because someone actually told me how to.
That’s how to beat untimed bosses in general regardless of the genre. And I think this principle is pretty old too since I got it from a shmup guide on Gamefaqs way back in the day. You conceptualize the boss fight as a contest to see how long you can survive the boss with dps being secondary. If you can get to the point where you can dodge every single one of the boss’s attacks, then you pretty much win the boss fight as long as you occasionally remember to attack the boss. Even if you only do 1 dps, if the boss can’t land their attacks on you, then you win because 1 dps > 0 dps.
Well kind of i didnt explain properly because sekiro isnt really about just blocking or just dodging thats actually a very hard way to play infact its not even about doing damage its primarily a mimic shonen sword fighting anime game. So the way to play is partially learning the sequence of attacks but also in between parry and dodging is wildly swinging your sword. It doesnt matter if it doesnt do damage because damage isnt really important the stagger bar is the real health bar the health bar is a distraction.
What I learned about the game is to not focus on doing damage because if you’re waiting to do damage you’re waiting forever and the damage you deal is way too low what you want to be doing is keeping up the pressure so the bosses stagger builds up, landing a hit is just a bonus but not the objective. Once i learned that the game became smooth sailing because the only way to end a fight quickly is to keep the pressure up.
I was by no means saying anything akin to oh just dont get hit nerd that’s basically just git gud mentality and equally as annoying. What I meant to say is the health bar in sekiro is a red herring and can be completely ignored because its not relevant to winning a fight. If you do infact just only not get hit and wait for the perfect opportunity to land a hit the fight will go on forever and also suck, sekiro is actually very anti that strategy it disincentivises that kind of play.
Silly as it sounds that’s surprisingly good advice for Sekiro, working on the assumption someone’s experienced with Dark Souls and the like. In the other games parrying is overpowered but incredibly janky and slow, so everyone learns to either block or iframe everything and only a few learn to parry the handful of things you can parry in those games. Sekiro on the hand relies on staring enemies down and blocking at the last possible instant instead, in a way that’s very unintuitive if you’re used to prioritizing iframing and positioning to just not get hit.
You can get through the early fights with just dodging and positioning, but that does hit a wall eventually where you do literally have to just start learning the game’s core gimmick until you’ve internalized it the way you have to internalize iframe timing in the other games.
The biggest irony is that imo the best boss fight in the game is a more traditional soulslike fight with minimal parrying and lots of dodging and careful positioning. The parrying is a cool gimmick but I didn’t really like the fights that were actually designed around it. Maybe the what was it called? Long-necked centipede or something? That was exactly the right length and amount of parrying for a fight, just a fast frantic burst of parrying everything like mad and then it was done.
Seen mfs harass and threaten streamers for not playing the game the way they want them to
This behavior wouldn’t be acceptable even in an activity where they’re making money but they do this goofy shit for free. I like soulslike but a lot of bosses boil down to “dodge 10 attacks then hit once otherwise you get hit for 1/3 of your hp” or in glorified Guitar Hero parry simulator.
gamers delenda est
I like playing games but it’s not my only hobby so I go weeks in between playing sometimes (unless it’s baulders gate 3) meaning I frequently forget the game mechanics. I save hard mode till after I beat the game else I’ll never be motivated to replay if I know what’s going to happen.
The git gud crowd believes paying hard is to hone a skill but I have a very hard time believing playing video games is gaining a skill. The only skill I get is being better at games. It’s cope, everyone should play disrespectfully. I’ve offended all kinds of gamers with how I play my games
Umm sorry my 5000 hours in paradox gaming obviously makes me qualified to join the war room
Well the latest counter-terrorism director is a 22 year old whose resume includes grocery clerk and landscaping so I think you’re more than qualified lol.
Mandem bragging about sinking thousands of hours into this shit, tens of hours on forums annoying people to impress other sweaty hogs “see I can be an annoying prick too”. By the way they speak with such pomp they make it sound like they perform complex life saving surgery on the regular
Or that one day the military will come to their doorstep to aid them in saving the world using gaming skills like that adam SandlerThe git gud crowd believes paying hard is to hone a skill but I have a very hard time believing playing video games is gaining a skill.
I think competitive games can teach you skills applicable real life but those skills are largely trained when competing in anything. when it comes to single player games you’re largely correct in my view
I think competitive games can teach you skills applicable real life but those skills are largely trained when competing in anything.
Not to be dense but like what? The only one I can think is teamwork. But I don’t think the skill from gaming will transfer over for working on a project or a sport as easily. I think it’s just getting good at a game. Unless it’s like an education/learning game.
Tone: this is not intended to come off as argumentative.
effective practicing, focus, emotional control, self criticism. When I say competitive I mean actually competing in tournaments for what it’s worth
Those are good skills
unsolicited advice
If you ever go back to it, using the unbreakable strength charm (get the money for this from doing the second trial in the arena a couple of times) with quickslash makes the THK fight considerably quicker, and it helps with Radiance too. Regardless of your skill level, by the time you have a chance to beat Radiance you’ll breeze through THK so fast it won’t be a considerable amount of time. Radiance herself is a fight that I found to be much easier when I approached it very slowly and methodically, first learning how to survive in each phase without dealing damage before I started trying to work in more places to DPS.
And you can always go for Nightmare King Grimm too, that fight is pure gasoline and it’s super challenging and worthwhile right from the start.
I find THK to be a very easy boss, it’s rare that i don’t beat it. HOWEVER, i do not think that is OPs point. In any case, it wouldn’t be my critique of that fight.
Having to do an easy miniboss first every time before i get to work on the actual challenge i care about is a waste of my time.
It’s just how it is. This would have easily been mitigated if Radiance would just work like any other dream boss. I get there are plot reasons why i have to fight THK again before i get to dreamnail it, but it still means i have to redo a time consuming task i have already achieved and that has become really unrewarding over and over again until i get nauseated by it. Some amount of that kind of thing is ok-ish, but i always found this approach fairly pointless, it doesn’t have the same payoff that beating a hard boss or a tricky plattforming segment delivers. I also do not find it adds significantly to the payoff of these challenges when they get obstructed by routine rote tasks.
More importantly, beating THK shouldnt be turned into a repetitive rote task. It cheapens that part of the lore.
Edit: After reading the post upthread about the same situation, i get why people would disagree on this
Yeah you’re right, it doesn’t feel great. But if it’s a matter of difficulty rather than satisfaction there’s steps to mitigate the difficulty so you can still get to see the true ending, and I wanted to help OP with that!
