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Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong Sparks Debate About Difficulty and Boss Runbacks

Not everything that makes the game harder or more challenging to play is good game design though, and a game shouldn’t get a free pass just because its developers stated “well the game being hard is part of our artistic vision”. It’s fine to criticise things, even - or actually maybe especially - things we like. We don’t have to be binary about things, we can like something while still recognising its flaws.

Excessive runbacks for example is something that is primarily concerned with disrespecting your time as a player and even FromSoft seem to have realised that they’re not a good addition or a fun way of increasing difficulty seeing as they introduced Stakes of Marika in Elden Ring.

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caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I can’t say I’ve gotten to some of the examples people have mentioned as “annoying; bad design”, so I’ll leave judgement until I get there. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with runbacks if it’s part of the design and the boss is the culmination of that.

Stakes of Marika are definitely there to appeal to a wider audience. I personally don’t care for them, as for most areas in DS I enjoyed trying to claw my way back to the boss unharmed. It was like a puzzle.

It’s fine to criticise things, but I personally think “make checkpoint outside of the boss” the criticism is not a good one.

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- FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  A lot of DS1 runbacks were true runbacks where you could just run past everything. Once you’d worked out the running, they weren’t too irritating, but some were a bit long. In DS3 a number of runbacks had unavoidable enemies on the way where you could mess up and eat a hit and then be down an Estus charge.
  
  The main two problems are:
  
  boredom. Punishing you for failure by forcing you to walk through a section of level again for a couple of minutes isn’t fun for anyone. It’s not “stakes”; it’s boring. Repeatedly dying to the challenging boss is not boring because you are constantly trying to improve, learn its moves, and beat it. Running through the same path is boring. Anything boring is bad game design.
  
  Risk of unrelated mistakes. This is more subjective, but for me there should be some separation between different challenges; there should be a feeling that after you have convincingly solved one challenge, you shouldn’t have prove yourself against it again too much. Doing so is, yes, boring again, but also frustrating. Things that are frustrating (to some) can be good game design, but I don’t want to be frustrated. Whiffing a roll you’ve done successfully many times and being set back on an unrelated challenge is, to me, annoying.
  
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  - caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You’re getting voted up for your opinion, and I’m getting down for mine. Strange. Things you say are unfun for you are fine for me, like I said in my post, I do believe it’s personal opinion.
    
    I’m not denying that there has to be design intent in here, but I take great issue with people stating “runbacks are unfun” as a matter of fact. Again, if it’s taken into consideration with time and how the boss mechanic works, that’s simply how the game is designed. I respect everyone’s opinion and their thoughts being the opposite, but I don’t think it’s a universal truth that must be upheld with every game.
    
    Again, maybe I’ll feel differently regarding Silksong specifically as I get further. So far I don’t take umbrage with it’s runback design.
    
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    EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think he’s being upvoted and you’re being downvoted because boss runbacks have been around for a long time and both the industry and community have since come to a consensus that they’re just objectively bad game design. They don’t add anything of value to a game and their existence is a detriment to the experience. I don’t think you’ll find a single person who holds the opinion that they’re fun. People like yourself may tolerate them, but a tolerable inconvenience is not the same thing as fun. You’ve actually gone exceptionally out of your way to avoid calling them fun.
    
    Like with anything, not all personal opinions are going to be held in equal regard. And your take here is going to be an outlier so I wouldn’t be surprised if you continue to get this reception.
    
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    FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Well, some opinions are more valid than others, even when there is subjectivity… of course, I would say that.
    
    “Design intent” is not an excuse for unfun mechanics. Design intent matters - for example if you’re complaining that it took you 50 attempts to do a boss and you’re frustrated, but other people are completing the same bosses in fewer attempts and enjoying it, the intent of the designers and the spectrum of opinions is absolutely critical. But this isn’t that.
    
    Someone else in the thread made a great example: would you be so “design intent is all important” if the designers put a 1-minute unskippable cutscene before the boss? To me, and I think to almost everybody, that would be fuckin awful. Everyone hates unskippable cutscenes you have to sit through repeatedly. How does that differ, really, from a typical 1-minute runback?
    
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