This silksong discourse over the internet has made it extremely apparent that there is a very vocal group of video game players that do not want losing to mean "being set back". They only want losing to mean "not getting to move forward" and see the former as fundamentally flawed. Why is this? Why do some many people that hold this concept get vitriolic towards other gamers that are fully tolerant of being given a minor set back or even a "punishment" for losing in a game. People are calling a 30 second sprint to the boss arena in silksong (and other games) a "fundamentally flawed design and inherently bad game design". Why is it bad game design for losing to mean something more than not getting to take a step foward? I personally blame dark souls games for this. Being spawned at the entrance to the boss arena in elden ring is flouted as a logical and necessary "evolution" of game design and anything that isn't that is barbaric. You can dislike a game feature, and dislike being set back in a game without deriding it as an inherently flawed concept. Did any of these people lose the semi finals in a team sport? You don't get to go on to the finals, and you get set back and have to play an entire season of sports again to get another chance. If you melt down over this you'd be seen as mentally ill and be corrected (if your parents and coach were actually respectable adults).Thoughts on this? Do you agree that being punished or being set back or receiving any sort of push back for losing in a game to be fundamentally flawed? Pic rel. Average gamer when their time is "disrespected by the game" because they lost 30 seconds of their life for losing a boss fight
> I personally blame dark souls games for this. Being spawned at the entrance to the boss arena in elden ring is flouted as a logical and necessary "evolution" of game design and anything that isn't that is barbaric.Why not just blame Elden Ring? DS1 and DeS didn't have such a thing, I haven't played DS2 and DS3 so I'm not sure. But I'm guessing this was first a change in DS3 as part of a streamlining process that the Souls series went through.
>>720112250To answer your question, by the time you get to a boss you've usually mastered the rest of the stage, so if you're having trouble with the boss it can be it can be frustrating having to do sections of a level that you find easy over and over, whilst you're still figuring out a way to defeat it. I don't really know for myself whether I consider this good or bad myself. I suppose it just depends on the quality of the stage, because for example I always just ran past the several Silver Knights guarding the path to Ornstein and Smough, as I found them tedious and boring to fight. But I didn't really mind fighting the Hollow Knight again to get another shot at the Radiance, since I liked fighting the former.
>>720113818You're right, i retract it to mainly blaming elden ring. However, dark souls 3, sekiro, and bloodborne slowly inched their way closer and closer to what elden ring did regarding spawning closer and closer to bosses and death meaning less and less.
>>720113818DS2 had some CRAZY runbacks to bosses, especially some of the dlc bonus area bosses which were meant to be done in multiplayer.The Lud and Zallen runback was legitimately harder than the boss pair themselves. You have to ride a coffin into a giant empty snowscape where you sprint for three minutes through a blizzard while you get attacked by end-game dlc enemies, these flying ice kirin fuckers who shoot lightning at you and can do a good half your health bar in a single attack. Multiple of them can spawn at once.Pic related is the runback, it's 3 minutes while sprinting, and again keep in mind that you get constant blizzards making it so you can't see ahead of you and you get swarmed by those fucking horse niggers constantly the whole way. If you die at any point you have to do it all over again.
>>720114363You also get ambushed by an NPC invader who blocks the bridge directly in front of the boss gate. You NPC phantoms can kill themselves while fighting on this bridge, and the boss fight (a gank squad of two ice tiger things) are designed around the idea you have all your summons with you.
>>720113818>I haven't played DS2 and DS3 so I'm not sure. But I'm guessing this was first a change in DS3 as part of a streamlining process that the Souls series went through.You're right. DS3 started putting bonfires and shortcuts to right before bosses, avoiding the runbacks from the previous three games.
>>720112250Last week I sat down to play the Cobra game with my boss. We started on normal, which lacked almost any challenge, but as soon as he died the first time he switched to easy.I didn't want to make him feel like a tosser by switching to hard on my turn do I just bumbled through it.I don't get it, why even play?
>>720114550So play it safe and get the mobs first before entering
>>720115251That's my hangup, why play a video game if you want the gameplay to be de-emphasized the second you lose. If you did this regarding sports you be called a retard and a weirdo by everyone there. "Oh bro i missed one basket in basket ball, i'm just gonna make rim shots count for points"
>>720115251some people enjoy the art, stimulation, or story of a game, without requiring difficulty or a sense of accomplishment
>>720115762Then just watch a let's play and save your money for snacks to eat while you watch. That's what i do for games i find visually or narratively interesting yet i know i won't enjoy the gameplay of.
Oh yeah, it was real fun dying once or twice to the bed of chaos then having to run about 2 mins back even with the hidden bonfire. Runbacks are just useless and a complete time waster. You already reached the boss, and chances are you already killed the monsters beforehand, having to waste 30s - 2 mins each time to return to the boss is unneccessary and useless.
>>720112250I'm not reading all that.
>>720112250People have bitched about stingy checkpoints for decades, this is nothing new
>>720112250>I personally blame dark souls games for this. Being spawned at the entrance to the boss arena in elden ring is flouted as a logical and necessary "evolution" of game design and anything that isn't that is barbaric.What are you 10 years old? Checkpoints before bosses is nothing new
>>720115865>Then just watch a let's play and save your money for snacks to eat while you watch.Many people actually do that. Longplay channels still manage to rack in a decent amount of views. I think there's a category of gamer who enjoys games, but doesn't want to invest effort into them. They want to play and complete games, but will always look for the easiest way to do so. Difficulty, accomplishment, skill, pride, mean nothing to them. They will always take the path of least resistance on route to making the credits roll.
>>720112250>Why is this?Because any punishment should reinforce learning and most don't, simple as. There is nothing about a run back in Souls that makes you learn harder. If they froze the game after you get hit by the same attack ten times, and made you pass a compulsory minigame where you dodge that attack ten times consecutively before you can resume the fight, that would be a positive punishment. Punishments that don't serve learning but instead exist to function as a frustration barrier to wear down your patience and make you turn the game off are just shit.
>>720112250There has been an upsurge in type B personalities all through societies for some reason. Being emotional and narcissistic has become very common over being humble, logical and calm.
>>720112250I think it wasn't as big a deal in older games because many of those still operated on the concept of lives and were shorter in general. In Zelda II, you have lives, and losing one means getting sent back to the start of the last room you entered, but losing all your lives meant going all the way back to the start in terms of your position on the world map, which thankfully wasn't as long as you might think because you eventually got tools like the hammer and so on to get through early game roadblocks. Even so, it meant getting chewed up by enemies as you spent three minutes working your way back to the temple you died on. The original Japanese one was even more cruel - a game over meant your stats reset to the level of your weakest stat. So if you had 5 ATK and 5 LIFE, if your MAGIC was 3, your ATK and LIFE would get knocked back down to 3, too. Ouch. And at the very least, when it came to the final temple, a game over gave the option for players to restart at its entrance. I haven't played too many modern games dealing with runback like some players are describing, since even Symphony of the Night had save rooms right next to boss rooms most of the time.I think that most players hate it because they feel like they're losing their momentum in not being able to have an instant rematch, they gotta switch gears if they need to handle segments that function different to how a boss fight does. It also means that studying the boss is going to be a slower process if there's a chance they might die during the runback before even reaching them.
>>720112250Lets look at silksong specifically. Early on, if you die twice in a row you lose all your beads. Beads are the single most important thing in the game. You use them to complete quests and buy maps benches and fast travel points. If you fail to maintain your bead supply you now have to go to an area that is close to a bench and kill enemies. The grind is real. You could be spending upwards of 40% of your time farming bead grind spots if you are dying and losing your beds. You also won't know when and what to buy with your beads. There is a vendor who doesn't speak your language and he sells really expensive items. Neither of the items are useful and you just wasted 500-600 coins. Now, you have to go back to a grind spot for 30 minutes to get your coins back to that same point. It is incredibly busy and tedious lame grind for minimal to no reward.
I have no issue with game overs, boss runbacks, etc. as long as they aren't unnecessarily excessive. What I have an issue with in Silksong is that the game drops your rosaries on death, when>they're scarce, especially in Act 1>they're tied to progression, being used for useful checkpoints like benches and bellways>many players feel the need to grind for them, even without them being droppedI feel for the casuals who are actually consistently losing their rosaries. I never lost mine once and it was still frustrating to manage them. On more than one occasion, I'd spend most of my rosaries on a map or precious item, only to be immediately ass-fucked by entering an area where nothing drops them and there are 2 or more checkpoints demanding them.It reminds me of how Dark Souls 2 would reduce your health when you died, trapping casuals in a death spiral of repeatedly dying.
>>720116851afaik every merchant lets you string up your rosaries, you only got yourself to blame when you lose your loose beads
>>720116727You don't need to grind them at all if you don't play with a guide because you travel to same areas more than twice.
>>720117525You lose 20 beads each time. That is 4 red ants or 7 lesser enemies.
>>720116491most people are just horrible bad. Souls game aren't this hard. But most people listened to bullshit gamers spilling shit like "muh muscle memory and learn the fights". Just play open minded and react. You can beat most bosses in 1-3 trys
>>720117638I played on launch without a guide because there was none. Beating the areas in act 1 took less time than farming the beads to purchase everything. If your game requires a guide to be even remotely enjoyable. IT IS A BAD FUCKING GAME.
>>720117782>Beating the areas in act 1 took less time than farming the beads to purchase everything.you dont need to farm. wtf?! I bought all things from the singing map woman (before the bell beast) without farming at all.
>>720117653On my first playthrough where I beat the game on act 2 I ended up with almost 1800 in safely stored rosaries, I had been regularly popping them as well as like you said there tied to progression, very useful to have a necklace on hand for those moments
>>720117889Forgot to mention I didn't do any farming, a lot of exploring though
>>720118083this. everyone who has not enough rosaries is playing with a guide. If you play and just explore you will have more than enough.
>>720112250Yes i agree with you. It feels like it happens
