Difficulty - WTF?

[Cerveyio]

Wtf is this difficulty level of the game?
Gorgerzer (first boss) absolutely NO chance.
Boss hits me 3 times and I am dead and I make like 2% dmg with one hit.
It's clearly overtuned.
Where are the difficulty options in this game???
Let's say, this is very hard.
Then the devs just have to add hard, normal and easy now =)
Am I overseeing something... ?!

[Eli Huxtable]

Yeah, the boomerang biomorph. Jump, jump.. jump, slide through legs.

[HoneyDruid]

This is not hard, you are just beating your head against a wall expecting the same result other than a bruised skull. Try thinking with bio morphs, some are incredibly strong against bosses when used properly. And no - the devs need to change nothing when it comes to difficulty to appease anyone.

[Cerveyio]

Modern games have multiple difficulty settings to fit a variety of playerbase.
But nvm.. already refundet. Have fun with the game.

[Птица]

not found any fun in this boss fight. too long, too repetative, feels like a waste of time more than challenge. refund

[thorin.hannahs]

This game has been very easy like Pankapu or Ori easy. I figure the difficulty is around the 8-13 year old range. Enemies and bosses go down relatively quickly and they speed up a bit in phase 2. I don't use morphs for combat. Chips later on make you very powerful and versatile. You can abuse the pogo (attacking downwards and bouncing off the boss/enemy) and the slide comes with I-frames right out of the box.

I'd like to see a challenge mode added if there isn't one already available once you clear the game once.

[xReS3Tx]

OMG when i'm hear "modern games have multiple difficulty settings" i get really Mad!!!!!!! No!!!!!! Genre-Games Like soulslike l, MV or Some plattformes Need no difficulty settings!!!! F**k the Mainstream. I Love hard games and If some people crying about "the Game is so hard" then go and play "Stardew Valley"

The Game is absolutly perfect!!!!!
Props to the Devs!!!!

[Missa108]

I consider myself a moderate gamer and found the first couple bosses pretty easy! As I’ve progressed they have gotten harder but to me that’s the whole point! People who want difficulty/accessibility options and aren’t sure if the game has them should play the demo first or simply come to the discussions to ask the devs/other players 🤷🏻‍♀️ As for myself I’m loving the game!

[Chocos Ramabotti]

No keep it at it is. I will buy the game now just because Cervejiyo refunded it. If I like it I will buy it twice, so to tip the scale in favour of rewarding uncompromised gamedesign. I'm tired of these games having so called "assist mode" in the background allowing you to become invincible on a sheer button press, just because allegedly that's something someone disabled would want/need.

Developers the like who made Ultros, I ignored these games cause it's not worthwhile.

[Word Eater]

Originally posted by Cerveyio:

Wtf is this difficulty level of the game?
Gorgerzer (first boss) absolutely NO chance.
Boss hits me 3 times and I am dead and I make like 2% dmg with one hit.
It's clearly overtuned.
Where are the difficulty options in this game???
Let's say, this is very hard.
Then the devs just have to add hard, normal and easy now =)
Am I overseeing something... ?!

I agree. The difficulty spike between everything else and then Gorgerzer is ridiculous.
I'm losing so badly that I assume I missed something, a chip, a momento, a biomorph that is required to beat it.
This is not a souls like. This is a Metroidvania. I do not expect spikes like this. I do not expect a boss to require skills that the rest is the game has not been teasing.

Also, I'm 50 years old. I appreciate assistance modes or difficulty settings. I've never played on hard mode in my life. It's normal, easy, or story mode depending on my free time. I don't play games to challenge my reflexes and muscle memory. I play them to experience a neat story in a fictional world.

I'm not going to ask for a refund on this game. I can't get past that boss, true. But, at my age, I can buy games that I appreciate what they are trying to do even if I suck at playing them. I don't regret buying Rainworld, for example.
I like what this developer is doing. I love the style and the premise. I love that these guys worked on other games I enjoyed as part of AAA studios.
I want them to succeed.
But some difficulty options would be nice.

Might I suggest what Hades and Trinity: Fusion did? Everytime you die, you get a small boost to damage resistance. I think they both cap out somewhere between 50% and 65%.
And it is OPTIONAL. You have to go turn it on.
Games like Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy 2 have an entire menu section dedicated to tuning difficulty up or down. So does Baldur's Gate 3.

Edit: I played through the demo multiple times and nothing spiked me like the boss in the full game.

Edit: reading the other comments, why would anyone be against "assist mode" or difficulty settings? I cannot understand how the availability of completely optional settings could possibly impact your personal enjoyment. Why would developer want to artificially limit their audience? Do you think games that allow mods are fundamentally less than those that don't because somebody could install a mod to make the game easier?
How do you feel about BG3 which had a Story Mode and an Honour Mode?

[MadCrabPrime]

Originally posted by Eli Huxtable:

Yeah, the boomerang biomorph. Jump, jump.. jump, slide through legs.

that is the answer, sadly this boss is just kinda long and boring. Also a bit to much health for the slog that it is,
biomorphs tend to be the answer to beat bosses easily.

[mgregoirelds]

Originally posted by Word Eater:

Originally posted by Cerveyio:

Wtf is this difficulty level of the game?
Gorgerzer (first boss) absolutely NO chance.
Boss hits me 3 times and I am dead and I make like 2% dmg with one hit.
It's clearly overtuned.
Where are the difficulty options in this game???
Let's say, this is very hard.
Then the devs just have to add hard, normal and easy now =)
Am I overseeing something... ?!

I agree. The difficulty spike between everything else and then Gorgerzer is ridiculous.
I'm losing so badly that I assume I missed something, a chip, a momento, a biomorph that is required to beat it.
This is not a souls like. This is a Metroidvania. I do not expect spikes like this. I do not expect a boss to require skills that the rest is the game has not been teasing.

Also, I'm 50 years old. I appreciate assistance modes or difficulty settings. I've never played on hard mode in my life. It's normal, easy, or story mode depending on my free time. I don't play games to challenge my reflexes and muscle memory. I play them to experience a neat story in a fictional world.

I'm not going to ask for a refund on this game. I can't get past that boss, true. But, at my age, I can buy games that I appreciate what they are trying to do even if I suck at playing them. I don't regret buying Rainworld, for example.
I like what this developer is doing. I love the style and the premise. I love that these guys worked on other games I enjoyed as part of AAA studios.
I want them to succeed.
But some difficulty options would be nice.

Might I suggest what Hades and Trinity: Fusion did? Everytime you die, you get a small boost to damage resistance. I think they both cap out somewhere between 50% and 65%.
And it is OPTIONAL. You have to go turn it on.
Games like Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy 2 have an entire menu section dedicated to tuning difficulty up or down. So does Baldur's Gate 3.

Edit: I played through the demo multiple times and nothing spiked me like the boss in the full game.

Edit: reading the other comments, why would anyone be against "assist mode" or difficulty settings? I cannot understand how the availability of completely optional settings could possibly impact your personal enjoyment. Why would developer want to artificially limit their audience? Do you think games that allow mods are fundamentally less than those that don't because somebody could install a mod to make the game easier?
How do you feel about BG3 which had a Story Mode and an Honour Mode?

Often, the reason why difficulty modes are not included in a game boils down to the time and cost involved in implementing them, as well as the need for extensive testing to ensure everything works seamlessly. We collaborated with quality assurance teams to fine-tune the game's balance, aiming for a challenge that wasn't overly difficult. However, testers who repeatedly play the game inevitably become too skilled, making it challenging to gauge the ideal level of ease.

Your idea about incorporating damage resistance when you die is excellent. It's something we could potentially add in a future update, though I'll need to discuss it with our creative team first. Thanks a lot for the suggestion!

[TheRoboris]

I'm a bit surprised by the comments here about the first boss. I tried it twice and found it pretty tough, but haven't studied its patterns yet, and I think it takes a little too long from the save point to it.

I realised I had a bunch of pending quests, so I decided to do that first and come back to the boss later, assuming I'd be a bit more powerful by then and the boss would naturally be easier.

As far as difficulty settings go, I think it's pretty complex because it creates a separation among players and a sense of FOMO: am I missing something, am I not playing the game to its fullest?

About accessibility options, I like what Lone Fungus did: you can pick a number of options and even an assisit mode, but it's only allowed when you create the save file, after that you're stuck with your choices until you create a new save file. I think that's very clever in not trivializing the game. We've all at least once got a bit annoyed with a game and ended up switching on some of those accessibility options to overcome a difficult part and get it over with, but it feels wrong somehow.

[artofwar]

Originally posted by TheRoboris:

As far as difficulty settings go, I think it's pretty complex because it creates a separation among players and a sense of FOMO: am I missing something, am I not playing the game to its fullest?

I personally often dislike difficulty settings for this exact reason. I also think that when there are difficulty settings, developers often feel like they have to make the hardest setting unreasonable (and not fun) in order to satisfy the subset of gamers who like to pretend nothing is ever hard enough for their god-tier skills.

I love difficult games like the Souls series and Sekiro, and I cringe to think of having to play those games on "Hard" mode in order to get the "true" experience. Hollow Knight also comes to mind as a satisfyingly difficult game that would only be made worse with the inclusion of a hard mode.

[Virey]

Originally posted by Cerveyio:

Wtf is this difficulty level of the game?
Gorgerzer (first boss) absolutely NO chance.
Boss hits me 3 times and I am dead and I make like 2% dmg with one hit.
It's clearly overtuned.
Where are the difficulty options in this game???
Let's say, this is very hard.
Then the devs just have to add hard, normal and easy now =)
Am I overseeing something... ?!

If the game's too hard for ya, try something like Stardew Valley or a coloring book instead......

[Fluxia Lumionia]

My biggest problem with the boss is very often if you get hit once, you will get hit again.

I finally managed to bring him down to like a sliver of health, jumped over the double projectile and I guess there was a bit more to the hitbox of it than I thought, cause I got hit by it when I was on the other side of the projectile. Took the 43 damage, knocking me back a few pixels, which apparently was in the hitbox of gozer, a little further in front of it, and so I got hit again and died.