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[TidusYuna]

TS, You are ready.

 

[Modrot]

I still love games that are about pattern recognition and preparation.

The games I fell out of love with where the roguelites (with the exception of Risk of Rain 2).

Not a fan of game design where you're supposed to die and grind levels until you can get over the difficulty spike.

I love grinding in fun games, I don't find modern roguelites fun.

 

[bender]

Not a fan of game design where you're supposed to die and grind levels until you can get over the difficulty spike.

I love grinding in fun games, I don't find modern roguelites fun.

I often describe Rogue Lite's as games that should be 2-8 hours long that are padded to 30 hours because of the persistent upgrade systems that gently lower the difficulty ramp. It's really one of my least favorite trends in game design right after everyone copying Ubisoft's paint-by-the-numbers open world design.

 

[Modrot]

I often describe Rogue Lite's as games that should be 2-8 hours long that are padded to 30 hours because of the persistent upgrade systems that gently lower the difficulty ramp. It's really one of my least favorite trends in game design right after everyone copying Ubisoft's paint-by-the-numbers open world design.

Pretty much.

And I like roguelikes/lites that are about rolling the dice, preparation, and intelligent build optimization.

Those seem to be in the minority.

Hades being one of those "die until you have the correct numbers" is a little sad, as a fan of Supergiant Games.

 

[bender]

Pretty much.

And I like roguelikes/lites that are about rolling the dice, preparation, and intelligent build optimization.

Those seem to be in the minority.

Hades being one of those "die until you have the correct numbers" is a little sad, as a fan of Supergiant Games.

Supergiant Games have never clicked with me (haven't tried Pyre). I love everything about them except actually playing their games.

I'm not much into roguelikes either, with exception to Spelunky which I'd probably have in my top ten favorite games ever.

 

[Rodolink]

I agree and have posted about this many times, devs should make games with more accessibility options (cheat modes, difficulty modes whatever) So one can play a game at her own pace, we're not in the 90s anymore were "challenge" and "skill" was backbone of most games.
some will say "then don't play these, they're not for you" blabla. Or "watch a YouTube playthrough if you just want the story" blabla.
But there are different kinds of players and there are ways yo make games appealing to most.
Anyway I still struggle and will keep playing From Software entries as aesthetically wise I love them. But other ones I think twice before even considering playing them. Cuphead is one example I really want to play and finish it but I'm sure it will fill me with anxiety and frustration so it's still on the backlog maybe when I retire...

 

[RoyalLaFlame]

Agree OP. I already have to deal with a lot of shit during the day, so when I get home I just want to relax. Play a mindless fun or story-heavy game is my ideal game for any situation (I don't mind some difficulty). From Games are simply not for me and probably the worst games I've played because of it.

 

[AV]

Pretty much.

And I like roguelikes/lites that are about rolling the dice, preparation, and intelligent build optimization.

Those seem to be in the minority.

Hades being one of those "die until you have the correct numbers" is a little sad, as a fan of Supergiant Games.

People have literally beaten Hades without getting hit once, and plenty have beaten the final boss on their first run.

Obviously that's going to be a minority, but Hades is definitively not "die until you have the correct numbers". Hell, at least you can get to the final boss on your first run, unless games like The Binding of Isaac which, while my favourite roguelite, requires you to beat the game over and over to even see those later bosses.

 

[Orta]

Games for me are about relaxation. I find nothing relaxing about games with stupidly high difficulty levels, mensa-esque memory level requirements and constant grinding repetition.

If you enjoy that kind of stuff good luck to you but I have better things to do.

 

[Banjo64]

I’m becoming a filthy casual for campaigns, I’ll do it on the easiest possible difficulty for the Platinum trophy and if there’s a method of cheesing the hard play through like in Uncharted 4, I’ll do it. I’ll always Plat From games though, they aren’t artificially hard - they just make you respect the rules.

 

[tassletine]

Returnal bored me. It definitely playing games with your time, especially for such a hardcore shooter. I want to shoot and dodge, looking at maps it for puzzle games and there's really nothing in the meta game that is worthwhile.
I came away thinking the two just don't mix very well here.

Dark Souls at the very least gives you amazing lore, art direction and choice to drive you forward. Returnal looks excellent but there's nothing that original being done so it's not that engaging despite being spectacular to look at.
It's basically linear and I think would be a better game if it was. I came away thinking they were just riffing on Control, which has it's own (different) problems, but has far more of it's own character. It's superbly programmed but takes no real risks, despite trying very hard to be hardcore and edgy. Mortal Shell is the same, amazing to look at and not in any way bad, but it's really just strung out, pacing encounters further apart.

A lot of these games are just the equivalent of wearing a tight pair of shoes just to take them off at the end of the day -- You feel relief, not necessarily accomplishment after defeating the bosses.
My favourite is The Surge because the combat was unique and excellent, but I didn't even finish that as it got so repetitive.

The gameplay is always pretty decent in these tough games but they often seem workmanlike and lack focus, and to quote Bukowski "I do not have time for things without a soul". They leave me hollow.

 

[kyussman]

Yea,I've retired from souls games.....they are brilliantly designed but I don't have the patience(or skills)for them any more.

 

[DarthPutin]

I see zero value in "getting gud" in arbitrary mechanic that is no use in real life. Me and really hard games aren't really even in the same universe, but I get plenty of challenge from ordinary games still. And when the stubbornness gets the better of me and I keep pushing and pushing again and again, and finally "win", satisfaction is very short lived, and comes with feeling that I could so something more useful or creative with my time. Like hitting your head against the wall, and then the wall breaks, and you realize that there was better use for your head...

I play games to enjoy myself, plenty of challenge IRL, so I only keep pushing if I really enjoy myself. When enjoyment is gone, so are my efforts. For example, Kena was difficult for me even on normal, but I tried some fights dozens of times, because I enjoyed the combat and didn't want it to end too soon on easy. But if I get enough of the fight and still don't progress, I'll either switch difficulty or employ cheats.

I feel for developers though. To hardcore gamers you give hard challenge and they are happy for it. But casuals/noobs like myself still don't like it when things are super easy for too long, it gets boring, you want to feel like you had to apply yourself every once in a while.... and succeeded, but after only few tries. It has to be so hard to create perfect learning curve, and add difficulty, that, however, most people will be able to overcome without getting bored and annoyed by repetition.

 

[DarthPutin]

Oh, and one of the reasons I like open worlds is because dying is fine.... but to keep dying in the same place to same enemy without variety is boring.

 

[Fare thee well]

For me it is 100% an aging+free-time thing. Excuse my brevity.

 

[Modrot]

People have literally beaten Hades without getting hit once, and plenty have beaten the final boss on their first run.

Obviously that's going to be a minority, but Hades is definitively not "die until you have the correct numbers". Hell, at least you can get to the final boss on your first run, unless games like The Binding of Isaac which, while my favourite roguelite, requires you to beat the game over and over to even see those later bosses.

Some people also did the same thing with Rogue's Legacy, but literally less than a percent of players will do that.

No hitters in the Soulsborne games also exist, tell that to all the people in this thread that don't play them because they're too hard.

The core gameplay loop in games like Hades is about dying in order to level up and get the correct stats. The fact that some upper percentile players can do amazing things is irrelevant to the actual core design of the game.

 

[saintjules]

I found Hades to be too repetitive and boring for my tastes though. Only roguelike I've played, I guess that genre isn't for me.

Yeah, I never understood the high praise for Hades. It was cool, but I never felt compelled enough to finish it.

 

[Doom_master1122]

To me I haven't had much of a love/hate issue. I just started fading away from the Souls series as they release more and more. Demon's Souls and Dark souls 1 will forever be the best in the whole genre and series. They blended level layout, enemy placement, Boss design/mechanics very well into how the game played and felt. Every single boss of Demon's souls 1 and Dark souls 1 I can fully remember, due to how unique they were to fight again (And in some scenarios, not even fight!).
Right around Dark souls 2 and 3 (And to some extent Artorias DLC). Bosses became less interesting and more "How can we make this boss more difficult? How much more health can we give the boss? How can we add more mechanics onto this enemy to make them take 15 trial and errors to take down? How many more times can we delay an enemies' attack to throw off the players timing in every fight?". I have a very hard time remembering any bosses from either 2 or 3. Bosses became more of a chore to take down than something rewarding. Their favorite choices for making something difficult was either, tossing several enemies in a fight that can easily overwhelm a player and make the fight feel like its RNG, or make their patterns so unreasonably weird with delaying attack, and random speed ups, to throw of the player. Copy paste those ideas across several bosses, and you have the Dark souls 2 and 3 boss roster.
A good example for me personally would be Dark souls 3's Abyss watchers. This fight I found far too challenging. The start of the fight with only 1 Abyss watcher is fun, challenging and perfectly fine, in fact when his sword starts on fire near the end of the fight is an excellent progression into making the boss more difficult. But tossing in multiple abyss watchers made the fight unbearable. It really felt like I was playing against RNG to whether or not I would win the fight.
By the time I beat it, it wasn't a moment of wonder. It wasn't rewarding. I was just thankful I never have to fight them again. I left the fight feeling bitter, and just wanting to continue. I'm all for having a difficult game. However when it came to Souls games. The reason I came to play them wasn't for a challenge. Yeah that's part of it, but it was much more.

As for others:
Bloodborne was excellent as well, however bosses were starting to go down that same path, but the aesthetics and other cool gameplay mechanics made the game really special and unique.
Sekiro was something I adored. It was very difficult, but that's because I approached it wrong. After realizing how the game wanted me to play, the game was an absolute blast to play. It was entirely different. Might actually replay this relatively soon.
Nioh suffered from a lot of "make boss hard because hard = fun" mentality. Which the bosses half the time didn't make me feel like I overcame a trial, more so I just got lucky. I haven't played Nioh 2. Although I do wanna give it a try.

That said, none of these games I find bad. Quite opposite. I love em all. I just started fading from the main series over time. They aren't capturing what I enjoyed out of the first two in the series.

 

[El Muerto]

I played and completed both Nioh 1+2 and The Surge 1+2 and loved them as they were a lot of fun. I played Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro and did not find them enjoyable. The From Software games are just bland and the controls are so clunky it feels like you're playing a PS2 game.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

the older i get, the more i'm into these games
people told me it's gonna be the opposite, but i just can't give my time to something that doesn't actually challenge me
this is why Nintendo shit just doesn't do it for me anymore

Yup I love

But every Switch game feels like im just following ikea instructions.

 

[AV]

Some people also did the same thing with Rogue's Legacy, but literally less than a percent of players will do that.

No hitters in the Soulsborne games also exist, tell that to all the people in this thread that don't play them because they're too hard.

The core gameplay loop in games like Hades is about dying in order to level up and get the correct stats. The fact that some upper percentile players can do amazing things is irrelevant to the actual core design of the game.

I (mostly) agree, but that doesn't change what I disagreed on initially. Hades is not "die until you have the correct numbers", Hades is "die until you beat the game in one run, and dying makes things a little easier". It took me 4/5 runs to beat Hades and it was because I got better at the game, not because I hit some arbitrary stat that suddenly broke the game.

 

[Arthimura]

Returnal bored me. It definitely playing games with your time, especially for such a hardcore shooter. I want to shoot and dodge, looking at maps it for puzzle games and there's really nothing in the meta game that is worthwhile.
I came away thinking the two just don't mix very well here.

Dark Souls at the very least gives you amazing lore, art direction and choice to drive you forward. Returnal looks excellent but there's nothing that original being done so it's not that engaging despite being spectacular to look at.
It's basically linear and I think would be a better game if it was. I came away thinking they were just riffing on Control, which has it's own (different) problems, but has far more of it's own character. It's superbly programmed but takes no real risks, despite trying very hard to be hardcore and edgy. Mortal Shell is the same, amazing to look at and not in any way bad, but it's really just strung out, pacing encounters further apart.

A lot of these games are just the equivalent of wearing a tight pair of shoes just to take them off at the end of the day -- You feel relief, not necessarily accomplishment after defeating the bosses.
My favourite is The Surge because the combat was unique and excellent, but I didn't even finish that as it got so repetitive.

The gameplay is always pretty decent in these tough games but they often seem workmanlike and lack focus, and to quote Bukowski "I do not have time for things without a soul". They leave me hollow.

Did you finish Returnal?

It doesn't take so much of your time, if you know what you are doing you can get to the end in a few hours, specially if you are using Electropylon Driver or Hollowseeker with the right perks. You just have to experiment and see what works for you.

Only if you're going for the platinum, in this case it will take some more hours.

Despite the game being compared to Metroid Prime, because of the atmosphere and blond female protagonist, there's no puzzles or metroidvania elements. The only thing you have that is remotely similar to Metroidvania, is that you get some tools to reach some places and skip some sections, besides that is a roguelike shooter with AAA graphics and gameplay, something that I had never see before.

 

[drganon]

I'll take too easy difficulty over too hard any day of the week. I get very frustrated and angry pretty quickly ( one of my many character flaws). A game like Dark souls would end up with me rage quitting , snapping the disc in half and using the case as a frisbee.

 

[K2D]

If Sekiro or Demon Souls is to hard for me (or plain not as fun) that doesn't diminish my love for the other souls games.

Bloodborne 10/10. Not a hard game. Just the player being too stubborn (as was the case for me).