Artificial difficulty

[Alice ⦂☽]

The game is great fun but starting at level 3 it's getting really absurd. The distance between checkpoints only serves to force you to repeat the same puzzle you've completely a dozen times just to REACH the new puzzle. This serves to make it slightly more difficult through artificial means just because so many of these puzzles mean one wrong move is instant death. This wouldn't be a problem if there were enough checkpoints but with the huge lack of checkpoints starting here it only serves to make the player more and more impatient and frustrated thus resulting in even more errors.

http://i.imgur.com/55QKZIr.png

This is a perfect example. This area is annoying enough the first time due to those sheet lasers. It's difficult enough just with the ones that move down the path. After completing it correctly about half a dozen times then failing on the next bit I ended up trying to use the large vertically moving lasers to get to the tops of the towers just to avoid doing it properly because it was getting on my nerves so badly.

There is no real reason there shouldn't be a checkpoint just after this puzzle on the blocks before the next one other than to make the whole stretch more difficult simply by setting you back farther than is really reasonable.

[Yoyoshi]

It's hard to answer at such case. On one hand you seems to like the game on the other hand you don't have the skill required.

I'll try to answer you with game designer basics. The difficulty creates frustration, and frustration creates happyness when you success. It pushes on you to continue the game and force you to be stronger etc...
When the difficulty is too low, you don't have that kind of frustration.
Imagine the game with a flying power and without obstacles. The happyness that the game gives you wouldn't exist. There is no reward of finish a game easy you see ?
If the game is too hard you cannot even feel that happyness. It's impossible for you or at least really boring, it seems it's your case.

Devs wanted an hard game for good players and speedrunners. Unfortunately, it's hard to make diffrent difficulties in this game, it creates other problems.

The best advice I can give you is to try, retry again. Just play and you will have the skill required. Try also to find good way to pass hard parts. I mean, when you're stuck, find other way to success.
At the point you're it's not so hard. Go on the lower platform. When the moving laser-squares arrive, jump and dash when you're at the highest point of your jump. Then wait before moving laser-rectangles and go at the good moment.

I agree that the game is hard, so I think you should try if you want to finish it. I swear you'll be happy. Next levels are hard too. You can also watch some walkthrough videos.

Hope I helped you :)

[Alice ⦂☽]

Originally posted by Yoyoshi:

The happyness that the game gives you wouldn't exist. There is no reward of finish a game easy you see ?

Unfortunately this bit isn't actually true for everyone. There's a fairly large number of people out there who don't actually feel any real sense of reward when overcoming something difficult, just a sort of sense of relief that it's finally done with.

And I don't actually mind the difficulty of the puzzles themselves. My real issue is that they're using the lack of checkpoints as a difficulty point which is a really artificial way of making something more difficult. I didn't mind beating that bit in my screenshot the first couple of times but after that it just became an annoyance because I already knew I could beat it but the slightest misjudgment in my timing would result in me failling to even reach the bit that I got stuck on.

There's plenty of room in the area between this and the next puzzle for a checkpoint and that wouldn't actually lessen the difficulty of either puzzle really. It would just lessen the frustration of having to continuously repeat a puzzle you've already finished.

[Zithee]

Originally posted by Alice ⦂☽:

Originally posted by Yoyoshi:

The happyness that the game gives you wouldn't exist. There is no reward of finish a game easy you see ?

Unfortunately this bit isn't actually true for everyone. There's a fairly large number of people out there who don't actually feel any real sense of reward when overcoming something difficult, just a sort of sense of relief that it's finally done with.

You DO have a point, but then again every game can't be for everyone. Some might like this as it puts you to the test even more and serves to boost the feeling of accomplishment when you succeed. I, for example, like when you finally just glide through the obstacles because I've learned it in and out and it kind of makes me feel like I'm a pro at the game (even if I'm obviously not).

And then there are those, as you said, who doesn't like things that are difficult in this way. While changing the game to be easier could make this group feel better, the other group could feel like the game is less enjoyable.

It all comes down to what the developers want the game to be. It doesn't please everyone.

Just look at:
LoL vs DotA 2
WoW vs Rift
Rainbow Six Vegas vs Ghost Recon

Same genre, diffrent games. I really like DeadCore, but maybe there is another game in this genre that suits you better?

[Sledge Hammer!]

Originally posted by Alice ⦂☽:

There's a fairly large number of people out there who don't actually feel any real sense of reward when overcoming something difficult, just a sort of sense of relief that it's finally done with.

You are absolutely correct. The game designers made a huge mistake catering to the speedrunner/hacker crowd at the expense of casual gamers. And the game's poor sales reflect that failure.

http://steamcharts.com/app/284460#All

Consider those numbers. DeadCore has never had more than 113 players on Steam, period. Out of millions of Steam customers they only sold 113 copies of the game. They obviously need to change something in the game's design if they want it to be successful.

[Alice ⦂☽]

Originally posted by Sledge Hammer!:

You are absolutely correct. The game designers made a huge mistake catering to the speedrunner/hacker crowd at the expense of casual gamers. And the game's poor sales reflect that failure.

http://steamcharts.com/app/284460#All

Consider those numbers. DeadCore has never had more than 113 players on Steam, period. Out of millions of Steam customers they only sold 113 copies of the game. They obviously need to change something in the game's design if they want it to be successful.

The worst part in my opinion is that it is actually a good game and they could still cater to the speedrunner crowd without having to neglect the more casual side. Something as simple as multiple difficulty levels which only affect the amount of checkpoints would have been a perfect solution.

And the 113 bit is only concurrent players. I'd warrant a guess they've sold a lot more than only 113 copies of the game, especially with TotalBiscuit's video featuring it. It's not even in the top 500 though for concurrent players which is saying something when a mlot of really old games like Assasin's Creed (the first one I mean) are beating it and even Dungeon Defenders which is old enough now that it fairly recently had a sequel released. Actually here's a good example. Super Meat Boy is a very difficult game (some of the later stuff is far more difficult than anything I've seen in DeadCore) and it's several years old. It currently has 91 people playing it according to that site though with a peak of 496 players. But it does what I'm saying DeadCore should do and have more frequent checkpoints. The only levels that really suffer from checkpoint issues in SMB are the warp zones and even then there's only one that's over the top in most peoples' eyes. (And for the record, for the people who have argued against me, I actually greatly enjoyed SMB and got quite far in it. I only had the one warp zone left which I didn't get too frustrated with for over two hours before quitting, as opposed to DeadCore with something like 15 minutes due to having to repeat the same easy to mess up puzzle I'd already finished, and just about had all the dark world levels sans Cotton Alley finished.)

[Alice ⦂☽]

They could always make it so if you choose any difficulty other than the standard one you can't be ranked on the leaderboards. I'm not playing the game to be competitive myself. They could alternatively have done the difficulties thing and just made the leaderboards separate for each difficulty level.

[Alice ⦂☽]

Unfortunately criticism of any game (no matter how valid) will generally be drowned out by those who don't want things to change even if those changes could accommodate both groups adequately. Something that comes to mind is Miasmata where people suggested an option to remove the creature because for many people it detracted from the rest of the gameplay (which can't be found in other games because the cartography system in the game is very unique) at which point those who liked the creature conveniently ignored the fact that an option is just that, optional, and drowned out the opposition saying it should stay the same because it would ruin the game for everyone if it was changed somehow. To which the developers listened, though luckily someone made a mod for the game later allowing you to remove it.

Developers have to be careful to strike a balance between their vision for a game and what will actually appeal to the widest audience and sell best. A good example of that would be this GameMaker game called Distorted Travesty. Even on the easiest difficulty it's absurdly difficult but the developer of it actually reined in the difficulty on all difficulties except the highest one because while that difficulty was what he envisioned for the game it was rather unfair and overly difficult for the vast majority of the players. But like I've said about SMB and how this should be, even on the highest difficulty there the developer kept save rooms pretty frequent (though on the highest difficulty a few were actually removed iirc) and if you game overed in a room there was an option to restart the room from when you entered it.

[Zithee]

Well, everyone wants diffrent difficulty levels, and the game is designed for one.

What solves that?
A MAP EDITOR!

And we got the workshop and all. And also I asked the devs when the game still was on alpha on Desura (if I remember correctly) about multiplayer and map editors and were very positive about it. I don't know if/when they'd implent it tho.

[@ddNothing]

Hello Alice,

you got some very good points here : )

Maybe I should spend some time adding more room for resting and saving progress in the levels... but it will require some more Level Design work to adress that ^^

Take this part of level 3 you're pointing out for example: where would you place an additional checkpoint?

Thanks for your feedback anyway!

[Alice ⦂☽]

In that area I would place one on the pillars after the laser causeway but before the cubes with the retracting stairs. Those pillars seem to serve as a sort of breather area anyways so it already feels like there should be one there.

[@ddNothing]

@Alice:

That's funny: I kept wondering until the end if I should place the checkpoint before or after the cube with the retracting stairs because I wanted the players to be able to save their progress right after the laser causeway.

But in the same way I didn't want them to redo the cube with retracting stairs after every failed attempt, so I placed it after the cube: I really thought once players would have cleared the laser causeway, this cube with retracting stairs wouldn't be a real threat (putting pressure only onto the players), so I placed the checkpoint on it.

But your comment makes me wonder if this cube is really needed anymore... He, maybe I should just remove it in a future update.

Thanks again for your feedback!

[Xriborg]

Yeah, this game's rapidly turning from a fun game into a "♥♥♥♥ you" game the farther I go. I don't really shy away from hard games either. I'm a big fan of the Souls series and don't mind a challenge. I just find certain elements of the game to be less challenge and more tedium.

Two big ones stick out in my mind so far, the red gates with horizontal slits that you need to dash through, and the gravity changing areas.

Since the game is first person, it's really difficult to get a sense of your own height, and this can only be achieved through trial and error. It feels very unforgiving as well. I have yet to get a good sense of what vertical height I should attempt to dash through those gates. It's not "I can't get my timing down to dash through", it's "I can't figure out what height I should aim for."

The purple gravity zones are just utterly disorienting. It's so easy to lose track of which way is up and where you're supposed to aim for. I really think the gun needs a 3d compass for this to work.


So far, I've gone "♥♥♥♥ this" twice and alt+F4d in the middle of a level. Not sure how many times I'm gonna bother retrying. It's a shame too, the game is beautiful and the movement feels fantastic.


Oh, forgot one more thing. I always hate it when a hitscan shot has a fake traveltime bullet. Ugh.

[Alice ⦂☽]

Originally posted by Xriah:

Since the game is first person, it's really difficult to get a sense of your own height, and this can only be achieved through trial and error. It feels very unforgiving as well. I have yet to get a good sense of what vertical height I should attempt to dash through those gates. It's not "I can't get my timing down to dash through", it's "I can't figure out what height I should aim for."

This actually brings up one more thing I have an issue with. This is a matter of it being first person more than anything but a couple times now I've had an issue where I fell off a paltform rather than jumping at the edge as I intended and ended up using my double jump instead and not realizing it until I tried to extend my jump. If there was an indicator that told you whether you still have a double jump or not (for example the crosshair being green if you do have a double jump but red if you don't) then while it wouldn't prevent that first person issue it could at least give the player a chance to react and get back on the previous platform rather than falling to their death.

It's usually not a huge issue since it doesn't happen too terribly often, at least not in my case, but it's still a little obnoxious when it does happen. I believe something like that crosshair idea should actually be fairly simple on the developer's side however.

[Zithee]

an indicator that told you whether you still have a double jump or not

Yeah, if you make it optional. I'm kind of used to keeping it in my head.

Actually more difficulty levels and more optional screen elements or stuff could make it the game better as long as it's optional, so that each player could have their optimal experince.

Then it could actually fit most people.

and uhm... Level editor anyone?

[Alice ⦂☽]

Originally posted by CyberWing89 Merry Xmas:

Yeah, if you make it optional. I'm kind of used to keeping it in my head.

I don't think it'd be too controversial if they didn't make it optional but I definitely agree that allowing the player to customize the game to their personal tastes is a very good thing.