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IcaroRibeiro said:
And that's the issue. Many parts of the game don't look designed around "this will be fun" but rather "this should be the hardest and most annoying possible." Shellwood comes to mind. Mobs are slow, dumb, with uninteresting movesets but they fly away from you all the time. Killing them is purely a matter of patience because you need to hit them 5–6 times. I simply don't have that much patience, which leads me to fail more and die more. It's just not a fun gameplay loop for me Sometimes, more difficulty doesn't improve the experience and that's the case of many areas here. I like to be constantly tested against a boss with a difficult moveset to learn and react to, like, for instance, Last Judge. Died for like a whole night against him and still found the fight fun. But I absolutely hate bosses that summon minions (flying minions, to make it worse) and turn the combat into something more RNG-based like, let's say, Sister Splinter You can make a game harder and still satisfying somehow, with better mechanics. One area that is a good example of difficulty, while also a bad example of difficulty, is Sinner's Road. I like the fact that you can’t simply heal if you touch the putrid water it gives you a fair punishment for making a mistake without ruining your run, and gives you the opportunity to heal again if you beat enough enemies What does this area do wrong? It locks you out of a bench (a bench you paid rosaries to get) with a hidden platforming section. Okay, you want to increase difficulty by making me earn the bench? Fine, even with the annoying runback from Greymour, I'd still think that's fair. What isn't fair, however, is making it extremely hard to even find the platforming section. I totally missed it until my second playtrough and I needed to look for a guide, which means you're locked out of a bench during Sinner's Road and need to always go back to Greymour. And… for what reason? To make the playtime longer? More stressful? |
This is where we differ because what you do not consider as fun, I found it challenging and fun. I wanted to conquer those areas and it seems like you just wanted to breeze through them. The thing is, once you become adept at using the abilities given to you in the game, all those areas are a breeze to get through.
Its interesting that you say the enemies are too aggressive in a previous post and I believe they are not aggressive enough. I have a very aggressive playstyle so I love it when enemies are aggressive because they are way easier to engage. If I had an annoyance is when enemies run away from me which there are a few but even they have their patterns that are very easy to predict and take advantage of.
The game isn't difficult to be difficult. Its difficult because you do not have the skill set or knowledge yet. A lot of the bosses and battle areas are so easy now that I understand the mechanics of the game and the pros and cons to the silk skills and tools. The key point in making any game is that you are never going to please everyone and a game developer should never even try because that will lessen your focus and vision for your game. Instead the key to any game which makes it fun for me is did the developer give me the tools to succeed within the game and this the Devs gets a high mark. There is nothing within Silksong where the devs did not give you plenty of tools and abilities to not only be successful in the game but a boss.
A game gets boring to me if its not making me adapt to different situations and that is what Silksong does very well. You are never comfortable playing the game. Enemies change with different areas and different environments have their pitfalls which you as the player need to overcome. It they just made everything this static playstyle where all you need to do is use the same set of attacks every time, I would have jump off of it quick.
This of course just my opinion but I believe the whole goal of the devs isn't difficulty but to make sure each and every different zone felt unique and different which than challenged the player to upgrade their abilities to overcome and adapt. Its why you remember those areas so well because they were challenging your first go through and you as the player felt uncomfortable because you couldn't use the same skill set you developed in the previous level to the new one. To me that is great design, for others its frustrating but like I said, as a developer, you cannot please everyone.
