The rhythm mechanic is disappointing.

[I Cant Think of a Good Username]

This game's premise has so much potential, especially compared to other similar games that don't focus on metal since metal uses rhythmic elements from so many other genres and combines them in such interesting ways that you don't find as often in other music, but this game wastes so much of that potential to me. The game barely scratches the surface of what you could do with this mechanic in conjunction with the soundtrack.

I've played the drums for almost a decade now so I already have a good feel for tempo and know how to match a beat to a guitar riff, and when I play something like Doom Eternal and get really into it I'll tend to land shots at the same time as a snare hit or along with an emphasised note in a guitar riff, and I've noticed other people that have no experience with music or percussion do the same.
The issue here is, because metal can be so syncopated, the emphasis in a guitar riff might be delayed or played early by an eighth note, or the drums will go to double time which puts the snare on offbeat eighths, but the game only counts fourth notes. So I'll instinctively go to shoot on that emphasised part of the song only to have it not count and ruin my combo because I wasn't shooting on exactly fourth notes. I'll get used to it again after a bit and really start getting into playing along with the music only to yet again try to syncopate my moves like a drummer would syncopate their hits to a particular riff, and get punished for it. Every time this happens I get frustrated with the music itself, the same way I'd get frustrated by another musician for messing up during a live performance and throwing everyone's timing off momentarily.

Over all it makes game-play feel jarring as I'm treated like a fourth grade student being told to count fours in their first ever music class at school.

Timing shots with the music's emphasised notes when they do land on fourth notes doesn't feel very rewarding either since the game is just rewarding actions that land on any fourth note, so if I purposefully skip the last note in a bar because that's what the song is doing, the game doesn't acknowledge it. It doesn't acknowledge skipping a note the song emphasises either. I'm not actually rewarded for playing to the song; I'm just rewarded for keeping a tempo. At that point you could replace the soundtrack with a metronome and the game would feel the same. If anything, it'd probably make combat feel more consistent.

All of this seriously kills any momentum the game has. Metal isn't always moving at a blazing pace but generally the genre feels fast. Meanwhile the game forces you to be incredibly slow with the pace of your inputs, yet it's meant to play like arena shooters akin to Doom, which tend to focus on faster game-play that requires quick inputs and instant reactions to enemy attacks and other hazards that could happen at any second. Do you see the issue there? The game is not only constantly fighting against the music it's meant to be synchronised with, but is also fighting against its own game-play design and the game design of the entire genre it's a part of, simultaneously. I just want to play along with the music, which is what the game is meant to encourage, yet I'm punished whenever I try to do so, and when I do time my inputs correctly at the pace the game requires, I'm punished by enemies that require fast inputs to effectively combat like every other shooter in the genre. Either I time all my inputs the way this rhythm mechanic requires, which effectively forces me to play as if I had input lag on purpose, or I play how the enemy and encounter design encourages me to which ruins my combos and kills my damage output. No matter what, I'm getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by poor game design. There are so many individual elements of the game-play loop that conflict due to this poor execution of the game's core premise.

It sucks 'cause that core game-play along with the animations, environments, art direction, and controls are all done incredibly well and the soundtrack is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beautiful, but even if you want to play Hellsinger just for that you're stuck dealing with this core mechanic of timing inputs that doesn't do enough to be interesting and is constantly interrupting the flow of combat if you try to play at your own pace, and I personally believe that's evidence of poor design and a failure to truly realise the potential of this mechanic and concept. Hellsinger is meant to be a game that makes you feel like your actions are a percussive instrument in a brutal orchestra, acting as the driving force behind its violent song. Instead it just makes you feel frustrated.

[I'm cucked]

Do you have any idea how hard it would be to make it so you're rewarded for playing with the song?

[<blank>]

Sounds like a skill issue.

[Toanir]

Aside from performance issues, which are really jarring for me, even though I lowered what I could, I think OP taught me what got on my nerves though I couldn't recognize it.

I think i did syncrhonize with those shifted/emphasised beats just to get a big oof in a form of a missed note and at times I had to stop and observe the visual aid for tempo and even then I couldn't figure out what was up.

I'm really rooting for this game because it already bursts with lovingly hand crafted world and everything but I guess the devs need to polish the core concept around which it's built and dress the timing mechanics up into the songs actual rhythm instead of tempo... Or both so that it's not punishing for players following neither tempo nor rhythm)

(And the performance bit, also :') )

[I Cant Think of a Good Username]

Originally posted by CheferyDahmer:

Do you have any idea how hard it would be to make it so you're rewarded for playing with the song?

Not saying each input should to be matched to just the rhythm the guitar or drums play, but if the player tries to match the actual song, that should be rewarded as it displays a better understanding of rhythm and is more in-time with the song. It'd also help to remedy the slow pace of combat if eighth notes were considered. Players that just match fourths would still have a decent damage output but, like learning to master weapon combos in Doom, learning to match emphasised beats or play at that faster pace would reward that increase in rhythmic skill and understanding by increasing that damage output. Tie that in with the preexisting combo system and bonuses for hitting notes perfectly, and getting a high score on the leader-boards becomes far more impressive and adds far more depth and replayability to the game as a whole.

The reason why games like Doom Eternal are replayed so much is because while they can be accessible to those who just want a shooter, they give a lot to master for those who want to. At higher skill levels you can dictate the pace of battle yourself rather than having it dictated by your enemies or the encounter's design, and that control is achievable to anyone who wants to put their mind to learning the game's systems. Rhythm games are the same, with easy difficulties being accessible to everyone with generously slow and consistently timed notes, and hard difficulties that require quick, accurate playing and the ability to adjust your pace to the song's at any moment. Hellsinger only lets you play at that one pace. At the highest level of play, you still can only go as fast as those quarter notes allow. Adding eighth notes and rewarding emphasised beats would only help Hellsinger in both its shooter and rhythm game aspects.

[I Cant Think of a Good Username]

Originally posted by Toanir:

Aside from performance issues, which are really jarring for me, even though I lowered what I could, I think OP taught me what got on my nerves though I couldn't recognize it.

I think i did syncrhonize with those shifted/emphasised beats just to get a big oof in a form of a missed note and at times I had to stop and observe the visual aid for tempo and even then I couldn't figure out what was up.

I'm really rooting for this game because it already bursts with lovingly hand crafted world and everything but I guess the devs need to polish the core concept around which it's built and dress the timing mechanics up into the songs actual rhythm instead of tempo... Or both so that it's not punishing for players following neither tempo nor rhythm)

(And the performance bit, also :') )

Genuinely, try headbanging to the music as you play. It helps to internalise the song's tempo. Otherwise, tapping your foot to the song at eighth note speed and counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and " repeatedly and focusing on emphasising the numbers helps too. It's actually a tip we're taught early on to help with keeping time on the drum kit during slower songs, so hopefully that's applicable here.

The game is definitely fantastic every other aspect and is absolutely bursting with passion from the developers; I wanted to keep playing and give it another chance because of that, but yeah, those performance issues were a pain in the ass. Sorta killed my enthusiasm towards it.

[Mozgus]

I see other folks have chimed in here with new threads to back up my claim. Nice. Hopefully the dev will notice and make the better financial choice.

[Koros Antavo]

Do you understand how difficult it would be to design difficulty around?

4/4 is a blank canvas, with which the player can do a lot of things. If the game rewarded you for following the song, for the best possible score you'd have to match the song perfectly. In a rather open environment of boomer shooter, this would feel excrucaitingly linear, forcing you to perform a specific sequence of inputs. How do you mesh this with running around unpredictable enemies, weapons with specific rhythms to them, evasive actions that have to be performed when the situation demands it, not the music?

There is a reason all rhtym games in existence are linear. It's to not distract you from the piece, help you focus on what you mus perform. This is a shooter with a rhythm mechanic imbued into it. It has to provide enough space for the shooting to occur.

The rhytm aspect of this game is about adding gun noises to the music in a way you see fit. A kind of freeform performance. The only thing I wish to add to this would have to be subdivisions and different time signatures. Perhaps, other weapons and other levels provide this.

If there was a hypothetical game that would allow you to make a bullet sympony, what criteria your performance would be graded on?

[Koros Antavo]

Originally posted by Mozgus:

I see other folks have chimed in here with new threads to back up my claim. Nice. Hopefully the dev will notice and make the better financial choice.

This thread is the opposite of what you want. It's about adding more rhythm into the game, not less.

[Mozgus]

Originally posted by Koros Antavo:

Originally posted by Mozgus:

I see other folks have chimed in here with new threads to back up my claim. Nice. Hopefully the dev will notice and make the better financial choice.

This thread is the opposite of what you want. It's about adding more rhythm into the game, not less.

No it is not. If it was added in a way that made sense, it would be enjoyable. My argument was that removing the feature as an option would be easier for them to do than to do it PROPERLY. That would require extra effort. I don't assume they have that ability.

[I Cant Think of a Good Username]

Originally posted by Mozgus:

I see other folks have chimed in here with new threads to back up my claim. Nice. Hopefully the dev will notice and make the better financial choice.

Eh, I don't really agree with your take. I like the rhythm mechanic in concept; I just think the implementation of it is too shallow and doesn't allow for skilled players to show their abilities by using more complex rhythms while playing. The highlighted response in your thread shows game-play of BPM, which looks like it does give you the choice to play on eighth notes while still using its visual indicators to encourage emphasising 4th notes that the music is also written to emphasise, which makes for a more understandable game mechanic and a far more polished experience. I'd rather Hellsinger take influence from that design and adjust it to match the game's faster and more syncopated music, than outright remove the core mechanic.

[Mozgus]

Originally posted by I Can't Think of a Good Username:

Originally posted by Mozgus:

I see other folks have chimed in here with new threads to back up my claim. Nice. Hopefully the dev will notice and make the better financial choice.

Eh, I don't really agree with your take. I like the rhythm mechanic in concept; I just think the implementation of it is too shallow and doesn't allow for skilled players to show their abilities by using more complex rhythms while playing. The highlighted response in your thread shows game-play of BPM, which looks like it does give you the choice to play on eighth notes while still using its visual indicators to encourage emphasising 4th notes that the music is also written to emphasise, which makes for a more understandable game mechanic and a far more polished experience. I'd rather Hellsinger take influence from that design and adjust it to match the game's faster and more syncopated music, than outright remove the core mechanic.

You don't agree with my take because you didn't read my take. If they would do this concept properly, it could be fun, as I have agreed with you. But since that would require them to do 10x the work on that mechanic, I offered the easy out, and then that user there showed how their competition did as an easy out.

I'd very much like to see the whole rhythm concept done properly. No video games have yet.

[I'm cucked]

Originally posted by Mozgus:

Originally posted by I Can't Think of a Good Username:

Eh, I don't really agree with your take. I like the rhythm mechanic in concept; I just think the implementation of it is too shallow and doesn't allow for skilled players to show their abilities by using more complex rhythms while playing. The highlighted response in your thread shows game-play of BPM, which looks like it does give you the choice to play on eighth notes while still using its visual indicators to encourage emphasising 4th notes that the music is also written to emphasise, which makes for a more understandable game mechanic and a far more polished experience. I'd rather Hellsinger take influence from that design and adjust it to match the game's faster and more syncopated music, than outright remove the core mechanic.

You don't agree with my take because you didn't read my take. If they would do this concept properly, it could be fun, as I have agreed with you. But since that would require them to do 10x the work on that mechanic, I offered the easy out, and then that user there showed how their competition did as an easy out.

I'd very much like to see the whole rhythm concept done properly. No video games have yet.

That's an incredibly pretentious thing to say. No game has done it properly yet. Ok. Go make one then. But wait. You can't. The game is great, the concept is great, the execution is great, it's just not a game for you. So get over it. Go play Dusk or Doom or Painkiller or something. Great games. Games you could enjoy. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with the way you feel at its core. The part that's wrong is that you're so entitled that you think the devs should alter their game to cater to you. It's not happening. So get over it.

[Mozgus]

Originally posted by CheferyDahmer:

Originally posted by Mozgus:

You don't agree with my take because you didn't read my take. If they would do this concept properly, it could be fun, as I have agreed with you. But since that would require them to do 10x the work on that mechanic, I offered the easy out, and then that user there showed how their competition did as an easy out.

I'd very much like to see the whole rhythm concept done properly. No video games have yet.

That's an incredibly pretentious thing to say. No game has done it properly yet. Ok. Go make one then. But wait. You can't. The game is great, the concept is great, the execution is great, it's just not a game for you. So get over it. Go play Dusk or Doom or Painkiller or something. Great games. Games you could enjoy. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with the way you feel at its core. The part that's wrong is that you're so entitled that you think the devs should alter their game to cater to you. It's not happening. So get over it.

I've played all those. I'm here to vote with my wallet. Why are you hellbent on this developer losing profits? Did they wrong you in some way?

[I'm cucked]

Originally posted by Mozgus:

Originally posted by CheferyDahmer:

That's an incredibly pretentious thing to say. No game has done it properly yet. Ok. Go make one then. But wait. You can't. The game is great, the concept is great, the execution is great, it's just not a game for you. So get over it. Go play Dusk or Doom or Painkiller or something. Great games. Games you could enjoy. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with the way you feel at its core. The part that's wrong is that you're so entitled that you think the devs should alter their game to cater to you. It's not happening. So get over it.

I've played all those. I'm here to vote with my wallet. Why are you hellbent on this developer losing profits? Did they wrong you in some way?

As most indie devs are, I'm 100% sure they're way more interested in their vision than compromising it for profits. Not that I think the game would even sell better without the mechanic. You're not voting with your wallet. You're whining about a game that clearly isn't for you. It's like if someone went into the Doom community tab and was like "This game would sell so much better if it had a mechanic where like, you had to shoot with the rhythm of the music to do better damage. But like not the rhythm, the tempo. I'm just not really digging the whole "shooting without a unique rhythm mechanic" this game is going for, and I think the devs are stupid and it's gonna sell badly."

That's you right now.

[Mozgus]

Originally posted by CheferyDahmer:

Originally posted by Mozgus:

I've played all those. I'm here to vote with my wallet. Why are you hellbent on this developer losing profits? Did they wrong you in some way?

As most indie devs are, I'm 100% sure they're way more interested in their vision than compromising it for profits. Not that I think the game would even sell better without the mechanic. You're not voting with your wallet. You're whining about a game that clearly isn't for you. It's like if someone went into the Doom community tab and was like "This game would sell so much better if it had a mechanic where like, you had to shoot with the rhythm of the music to do better damage. But like not the rhythm, the tempo. I'm just not really digging the whole "shooting without a unique rhythm mechanic" this game is going for, and I think the devs are stupid and it's gonna sell badly."

That's you right now.

Steam needs a public "remind me in 1 year" bot to remind me how right I was when this game fizzles out into obscurity like everything else has in its niche genre. I'm not proposing anything that would hurt your experience. I'm proposing they spend an hour of manpower to double their sales. Easily. So simple. But your entire existence revolves around videogames. No one cares how good you are at some hyper specific button sequence. You get enraged that random people might see the end screen without torturing themselves with the same nonsense you did. Touch grass, child.