This game is so frickin hard

[Smiley]

...but it's not bad at all (rage-bait title for attention. If you're reading this, you fell for it. In b4 "git gud" and "L2P".)

Actually the balance seems pretty damn good for a start, but it's on the steep side. I haven't lost this much in a row since I played Battletoads back in the early 90's.
A bunch of us are coming over from Binding of Isaac, but that game has the massive benefit of a lot of feedback and tweaking, I'm sure something similar will happen for ETG.

Until then, I will voice my opinion and say that ETG is a bit over the top on the difficulty side. I'll make a bullet point for easy reading:

• Max health versus actual health drops - Past the first floor, dropped health seems rare to the point that having extra containers feel like a loss. Would love more ways to either attain health or funds, that aren't just from room clears.
  
• Bosses are a bit too intense when you consider how much time you spend looking for better weapons that may or may not appear. Even with good weapons, you just reduce the amount of time you have to spend frantically dodging.
  
• Difficulty ramps significantly per floor.
  
• The Iron Maiden mob could do with 1 wave less of spikes.
  
• Glacier gun has a bullet-removing burst on impact - would love to see this mechanic utilized on more weapons.
  
• Consider letting shields act like "spirit hearts" in Binding of Isaac, letting you receive a double reward from bosses, for not losing actual health. It lets it be a calculated purchase over a gun.

That's it for now, but let me also propose something else - An "Easy" difficulty. There might be one that I've missed somehow, but there's a group of folks who enjoy the current difficulty, so it's not fair for them to have less fun.
On the other hand, there's a bunch of us who either don't have the hand-eye-coordination (I'm 32, it's only going downhill from here for me) or could use a lower difficulty to practice on, at least.
I have about a hundred hours in Isaac (roughly 30 in co-op on a mates pc), but currently ETG is beyond my skill level. Seeing how much harder the game gets on floor 4 and beyond, it's obvious to me that I'm either going to have to marathon this game to get in "the flow" just to beat it a couple of times, or just give up from rage-inducing difficulty.

Like I said, this is just my opinion. I hope the game doesn't get dumbed down, but perhaps gains some smart choices that makes the game easier to deal with. Even if it doesn't change at all in the years to come, I don't mind, I'm genuinly glad to have supported this game.
It's awesome, kudos to the devs.

[Demon Blood]

The level of challenge in this game is near-perfect, apart from the inconsistent shop items.

[Azimuth]

From my experience it pretty typical for these kinds of games to be very hard. They usually aren't very long either. I used to play a lot of Risk of Rain and Relic Hunters. It was a long time before I beat either of those games and there's only like 5 levels. I do agree that health drops a little too rare but you really do just need to "git gud" at these kinds of games.

[Smiley]

For everyone who disagrees with my opinion, I'd remind you that you can create your own topics to raise yours and give the devs an idea of what the community wants in general. Until then, thank you for bumping my thread :)

[PRinciple prickley!?!?!]

The easy mode change sounds fair and the heart drop thing does seem like it could use some shifting to keep rewards in line.

[fudeu]

I feel like a lot of the people who get upset with criticism about the game's difficulty have a bit of trouble grasping the difference between "difficult", "easy", "fair" and "frustrating".

A game can perfectly be difficult and fair (Dark Souls), just like a game can be easy and still be frustrating (Tetris).

Many people don't understand that while a boss can have patterns, said patterns can still have a random factor to them and depending on how much of a random factor there is to said pattern, knowing the pattern can do you no good, all the same, since you can't be ready for it.

And then they think that when you say the RNG factor needs to be toned down a bit in certain departments, that you are a CoD fanatic who can't handle anything that isn't as linear as a corridor. The true brilliance of games that adopt RNG is knowing which aspects needs it and how much. Just making a completely RNG-dependent game on everything would absolutely make it the most replayable game, but would also be extremely tedious, frustrating and uninteresting. Most people play games for the entertainment provided by the challenge, and not because they think rolling dice over which they have no agency seems enticing (not the case in this game, just trying to illustrate my point).

I totally agree with making different difficulty modes. This is coming from someone who always plays all games on the hardest difficulty, but on this one I wouldn't mind some tweaking. After all, having the options to accommodate everyone is better than forcing changes on people who wouldn't want them.

[nai249]

Originally posted by Yung Venuz:

Shouldn't of given it away, I didn't read anything you just typed, because of stupid click bait title, also I don't really think it's a rage title I think it's more along the lines of noob title, kinda like "lil' hunter is so hard"

so to show that you are better than them you decide that it's best not to read anything they said and assume that it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? I just don't know how this would make any sense in anyones mind above the age of 6.

[Snarke]

Let me just preface this by saying I like this game. A lot. But it's so hard, and "git gud" only gets you so far.

This game in it's current state is far harder than Binding of Isaac, or Nuclear Throne, or Risk of Rain or any of those games. When you get a powerup in Binding of Isaac, it will almost always help you in some way. A gun in nuclear throne can be a huge upgrade over your starting weapon.

Not this game. The RNG is really really unbalanced. Most weapons are bad. Most items do very little. A small number make a big difference to be sure, but so many runs feel utterly wasted due to the mountain of junk items. Sometimes I can't even get to any weapons because there just aren't any keys. None in the shop. None that drop. You get to open one chest ever and that's it basically.

[The Corn God]

I agree, the game just needs some tweaking.

[FireShark]

Originally posted by Smiley:

• Bosses are a bit too intense when you consider how much time you spend looking for better weapons that may or may not appear. Even with good weapons, you just reduce the amount of time you have to spend frantically dodging.

Yet another person that doesn't know what a bullet hell is. Don't buy a bullet hell game and then complain that it's a bullet hell.

If you had any understanding of this genre at all you would know that this is exactly what to expect.

[Yung Venuz]

Originally posted by nai249:

Originally posted by Yung Venuz:

Shouldn't of given it away, I didn't read anything you just typed, because of stupid click bait title, also I don't really think it's a rage title I think it's more along the lines of noob title, kinda like "lil' hunter is so hard"

so to show that you are better than them you decide that it's best not to read anything they said and assume that it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? I just don't know how this would make any sense in anyones mind above the age of 6.

No, I mosly did it because click bait titles are getting really, really anoying. But after a little I read like half of it but I didn't really feel like being and active member of gungeon(right now), maybe when the hype settles down I will.

[Sauce]

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate those iron maidens.

[Lokki (◕‿◕✿)]

git gud

[Guywars]

Bosses have too much health imho. Considering all the stuff you have to go through in order to beat them.
The fights with them are way too long, and dodging perfectly for such a long time is not possible.

Maybe it's because the guns don't do much damage, i had some pretty damn cool guns that felt so weak. But buffing them would make nomal mobs too easy.
Just remove some health from the bosses.

[Guywars]

Originally posted by nai249:

Originally posted by Yung Venuz:

Shouldn't of given it away, I didn't read anything you just typed, because of stupid click bait title, also I don't really think it's a rage title I think it's more along the lines of noob title, kinda like "lil' hunter is so hard"

so to show that you are better than them you decide that it's best not to read anything they said and assume that it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? I just don't know how this would make any sense in anyones mind above the age of 6.

Just leave him be, a comment like that coming from someone that got to the 3rd floor only 2 times is pretty hilarious.

[Grokitach]

"but you really do just need to "git gud" at these kinds of games."

The problem is that the 1st floor is so boring, that nothing push you to play this game over and over... Risk of Rain is absolutely awesome, I even made some speedruns on it in Moonsoon difficulty, and even scored some really nice times. So I'm not a noob or whatever, but nothing in ETG calls me to continue to play the game.

I'm even considering to get a refund... But I'm hoping for some updates that will fix the major problems of this game.