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

caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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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- caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I haven’t gone out of my way. While I haven’t used the word “fun”, I did say I enjoyed most runbacks in Dark Souls as a sort of puzzle. Being downvoted for a subjective opinion is absurd, especially qhen the person I’m responding to also has a subjective opinion. But nice to know my opinion has less value.
  
  Anyway, I don’t really want to go in circles with this since I feel like both sides here have said what they want to say.
  
  I’ll just leave with an example of a mechanic I find unfun and wish would go away, as a sort of olive branch of understanding that opinions are opinions. In Breath of the Wild and similar games, I hate the weapon/item degradation mechanic. I understand their design goals with it, and I understand how removing it from those games would change quite a bit of how they want the game to run, but I’d be much happier if it were to disappear completely.
  
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  - ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    I haven’t gone out of my way. While I haven’t used the word “fun”, I did say I enjoyed most runbacks in Dark Souls as a sort of puzzle. Being downvoted for a subjective opinion is absurd, especially when the person I’m responding to also has a subjective opinion.
    
    I think we all know that the up/down votes are people agreeing or disagreeing with you. So having more downvotes than upvotes means that more people disagree with you than agree with you.
    
    Also, if you complain about downvotes, that usually deserves a downvote from me.
    
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  - EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It’s only subjective in that it’s not entirely impossible for at least one person out there to enjoy the mechanic. However at the same time there has been a general consensus made that it’s not a good mechanic. Your opinion may be the equal of any one other persons opinion, but what I think you’re not understanding is that is that it’s not the equal of the many opinions of the majority of people. If you expect your one opinion to hold the same value as the collective opinions of everyone else, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
    
    as a sort of olive branch of understanding that opinions are opinions.
    
    That’s not a great example to your point because the weapon degradation mechanic of BOTW is also widely regarded as a bad mechanic. It’s the most disliked mechanic in that game.
    
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    caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I think I approached the discussion wrong and perhaps wasn’t voicing what I was thinking properly. Regardless, I’m clearly not in the majority of opinion, so I’d like to just bow out of this discussion and wish everyone has the fun that they want to have.
    
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  - PixxlMan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Lemmy is really weird about these kinds of things. The hive has decided your personal feelings towards game design must be punished I guess.
    
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    AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    “Punished” lmfao
    
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    caseofthematts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I’ve spoken to others about this subject due to this and none of them have reflected the comments here. I don’t even know most of the people I posed the question to. I suppose this forum (and the forums or social media these poaters frequent) hold their opinion as more of a fact than I was led to believe.
    
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FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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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