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The elegance of movement in Silksong

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Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#341
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... you're right. Ultimately it's not that my time is precious, it's that I get no satisfaction of beating a boss. I hate how overpowered are with scripted stuff, for example, and how they break most game mechanics introduced so far. And so, my time spent seems to be wasted. Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy. I usually have that with the cor…

> Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy It's the pleasure of mastery. To me, the fun of a challenge like that is in gradually mastering something difficult and then being able to perform it perfectly. In fact, I'm sometimes a bit disappointed by the way that a boss fight ends when you get it right. The feeling of getting it right is my reward for th…

The video moved something in me. I feel I hate being put down a bit too much. (Being made feel stupid, small, inadequate). I mostly counter this not by facing the problem itself, but by overpowering myself in another context - in games, via gear or levels. After winning these battles I don't feel victorious, I feel like I finally got away.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, I really appreciate it.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#342

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun [...] I haven't actually played HK yet, and I don't normally play Souls-likes, but I did finally start playing Elden Ring about two months ago. Yes, I've had times where I'm cursing out loud because I've been trying to beat a boss for three hours without success, so…

Lots of people say this but they can unfortunately never articulate why that works in Elden Ring. Making a game that is insanely difficult will not be enough to give you that feeling of accomplishment. If that's all it took there's be thousands of games that gave you that feeling. And yet there aren't. So whatever makes Edlin Ring so special, it's appearently really hard to describe in a way that separates it from le…

> So whatever makes Edlin Ring so special, it's appearently really hard to describe in a way that separates it from lesser games.

Actually, there is:

Knowing the difference between a game being difficult versus punishing. Here's a 12 year old, 7-minute video that talks about it: https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs

(EDIT: If it helps, consider changing "punishing" to "unfair")

The TL;DW is that punishing games are not fun because they often rely on cheap things like unavoidable damage, actions not being telegraphed, inconsistency of rules, long iteration times (ie, unskippable cutscenes, excessively long boss fights where you're redoing the same first 10 minutes over again). Punishing games are poorly designed by people that want to defeat the player, rather than allowing the player to overcome the challenge.

In Elden Ring, all damage is avoidable. Every attack is telegraphed. Boss fights aren't really that long, and if you die, the walk back to try again is always short and doesn't rely on fighting through waves of enemies. Some fights have cutscenes either at the start of the fight or during a transition to a second phase, but they're skippable.

It's still a challenging game. Some boss hits will eliminate over 60% of your HP in a single hit, but those attacks are telegraphed and you're supposed to dodge them.

But to a certain extent, ER is a "choose-your-own-difficulty" game. You can grind out higher levels to get your stats up if you want to give yourself more of an edge. The people complaining about Margit (A very early boss) being super hard were probably under-leveled. I got him to 1% HP on my second try (Seriously, his health bar was a single pixel wide), and got him down on my 5th.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#343
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the sequel to a game (Hollow Knight) which is widely regarded as one of the best of all time. It had a long seven-year development cycle, with "Silksong release announcement at (upcoming event)" becoming a meme, leaving people wondering if it would ever come out. Last month the developers randomly dropped a release trailer with "by the way it's coming out in 3 weeks". It came out and has been a hot topic because…

> It's the sequel to a game (Hollow Knight) which is widely regarded as one of the best of all time. There is intense debate in the community to know if it should figure amongst the best of its genre (metroidvania). It’s absolutely not in contention for best game of all time. It’s not even in the top 3 of its release year which includes Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, Cuphead and Divi…

You are welcome to your opinion. This has been addressed in the very deep sibling thread, but broadly speaking, it has been widely acknowledged that Hollow Knight is one of the best games of all time.[0] This does not mean most people believe Hollow Knight is the #1 game of all time (or even its release year), or that every single person likes Hollow Knight. It is an explanation as to why Silksong received an enormous amount of hype.

As I said in the parallel thread, you can argue that Michael Jordan and LeBron James are better than Kobe Bryant (and I would agree, and frankly few would argue otherwise), but that does not invalidate the statement "Kobe Bryant is one of the best basketball players of all time."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered...

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#344
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the sequel to a game (Hollow Knight) which is widely regarded as one of the best of all time. There is intense debate in the community to know if it should figure amongst the best of its genre (metroidvania). It’s absolutely not in contention for best game of all time. It’s not even in the top 3 of its release year which includes Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, Cuphead and Divi…

You are welcome to your opinion. This has been addressed in the very deep sibling thread, but broadly speaking , it has been widely acknowledged that Hollow Knight is one of the best games of all time.[0] This does not mean most people believe Hollow Knight is the #1 game of all time (or even its release year), or that every single person likes Hollow Knight. It is an explanation as to why Silksong received an enormo…

It does mean that a majority or a large percentage of people believe it's one of the best of all time though. That Wikipedia article is a bad example for reasons I've explained in the sibling thread and which you haven't yet addressed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186805

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#345
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoilers: Silksong has arenas with 3 mobs that throw discs plus you. Idk about you, but I can't track 7 things moving at once. This isn't fun. Nor is it challenging, you just have to get lucky. I like Silksong, but the only way some the bosses were made challenging was because of constant adds. Hollow Knight rarely had this.

This is making me want to go back and try again to beat Hollow Knight (I got up to the Mantis Lords and that... teleporting warlock guy... looked it up, I'm thinking of Soul Master.) I'm pretty sure I remember things of this sort of difficulty level in it, too. The fights were brutally hard, but still felt fair.

Mantis lords is a fantastic boss fight, because it's really hard, but super fair.

There's an attack during which you can consistently heal, so once you recognize that it just becomes about mastering the reactions to each of their attacks faster and faster and faster as the fight goes on. It's sooo satisfying.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding controls, I have to play precise 2D games with a d-pad or I get immediately frustrated— that said, it was odd playing most of Celeste that way and then having to switch back to the thumbstick for the section at the end with the bubble comets.

Precision platformers are generally _much_ easier with the d-pad. Since hitting some such parts in Silksong, I've exclusively switched over to it.

I don’t know of an easy way to fix that on the Switch. The keys are where the keys are.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you don't have to believe the people who are sharing their sincere opinion, but A LOT of people regard Hollow Knight as one of the best games ever made. I'm one of the people. I grew up in the SNES era, and I think Hollow Knight is an all around better game than every SNES platformer I've played, including Super Metroid which it's directly comparable to.

> Again, you don't have to believe the people who are sharing their sincere opinion, but A LOT of people regard Hollow Knight as one of the best games ever made. Why do you think I don't believe that? It's undeniably popular and was critically acclaimed. I never said it wasn't. What I did say was that that Wikipedia article didn't support your assertion that it was widely regarded as one of the best of all time. Just…

You're right. I guess I just think you're being really pedantic, and that pedantry is what I was reacting to.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you have given up and found out that the game is not for you. That's not a bad thing, it's just you finding out things about yourself. Move on to another game and let other players have fun with this one. Regards, Someone who has never player HK and doesn't plan to

Did you reply to that wrong post?

Indeed I have, not sure how that happened. Thanks!

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#349

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun. They are meant to delight with their whimsy. Sometimes, yes, they are meant to be challenging. But that challenge is in service of fun. Games, more than any other form of entertainment, offer skill challenges. As they've become more popular they've gotten better ab…

I believe you have given up and found out that the game is not for you.

That's not a bad thing, it's just you finding out things about yourself. Move on to another game and let other players have fun with this one.

Regards, Someone who has never player HK and doesn't plan to

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, you don't have to believe the people who are sharing their sincere opinion, but A LOT of people regard Hollow Knight as one of the best games ever made. Why do you think I don't believe that? It's undeniably popular and was critically acclaimed. I never said it wasn't. What I did say was that that Wikipedia article didn't support your assertion that it was widely regarded as one of the best of all time. Just…

You're right. I guess I just think you're being really pedantic, and that pedantry is what I was reacting to.

I appreciate the response! I have no defense against the charge of pedantry. I do stand by my points, but I definitely didn’t need to argue it for so long
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