I have to call it quits until there's an "easy mode"

[DragonDai (Uey)]

So I've played the game for 30 hours now according to Steam. In that time, I've beaten the First Chamber 21 times, the Second Chamber 6 times, and the Third Chamber 2 times. Both times I beat the Third Chamber I died almost immediately (room 1 and room 3 respectively) in the Fourth Chamber, both times with more than 3 health at the start of the Fourth Chamber (aka either 4 or more health or 3 health + armor). And basically every time I've ever gotten past the First Chamber I've had an "OP" weapon (like the Super Meat Gun or something). I think I've beaten the First Chamber without an "OP" weapon less than a half dozen times, and always against Gattling Gull with blocking Pillars (aka EZ-mode).

In short, I'm not getting better. At all. Even a little bit. I am making basically no forward progress. I scrape 1-2 Hegimony dollars together every third or forth run (from beating the First Chamber...which I only do about a 1/4th of the time, at best, proabably less). And that's the sum total of my forward progress.

Now I get it, I'm bad. But I have a disability that pretty significantly impacts my hand-eye coordination/reflexes/twitch gaming skills. To put it in terms that are easier to understand, before I was typing about 100 WPM, now I type about 30. That's the sort of loss of motor skills we're talking about here. And I hoped that, like BoI or A Wizard's Lizard, I might be able to overcome that through practice/beating my head against a wall. I'm not blaming my disability for all my woes in this game. I KNOW I'm bad. But the disability is severly impacting my ability to get better.

And to that end, I'm REALLY tired of playing the first level again and again and again. I'm really tired of not taking a single damage at all during the First Chamber only to get hit 6+ times in the boss after dodging around and doing my best for 5-10 mins while I wittle away at their giagantic health pool. I tired of knowing what to do and how to do it and just not being able to execute. It's gone from fun to annoying to frusterating to down right maddening, and I just can't keep going.

Now I've said it before, in other threads here, but this game desperately needs an Easy mode for the younger audiance/disabled gamers. Accessability is a really big deal for some of us. I don't care if you lock me out of achievements, seperate my progress from the "real" game, whatever, but the old school mentality of "get gud" just doesn't cut it anymore. Gaming is more diverse than ever, and there is not a single good reason for games to be less accessable than they could be.

It's not just about me or people like me. It's about growing the games community, helping the devs gain and maintain a fanbase, and getting the devs that cash. In short, more people able to play = more money for the devs = more/better games for the fans who like the games these guys and gals make.

So yeah, I'm gana put this one away for now, but I REALLY hope that the devs give Accessability and an Easy mode a good long think. It'd be pretty easy to impliment (from a design standpoint), there's lots of good ways to do it, and there are lots of ways to make the people playing at Normal/Beast Mode difficulty still feel rewarded for their play.

Finally, I'm sure I'll get lots of people in here saying "EZ-Mode? NO WEI MAN!" To them I say, "You didn't start the game with Beast Mode turned on, did you?" It's really that simple.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por Neptunella:

My main problem with this game is not even its hardness - I've played both Isaacs and Nuclear Throne, put a ton of hours and each one of them and had great fun. But you know what differs Gungeon from BoI and NT? Those games want you to be good, but this one wants you to be perfect. You pretty much have to flawless the rooms because health drops are incredibly rare, and you have to flawless the boss because you really do need that health upgrade. And unless you are near perfect already, you have to learn to be by repeating the same rooms and same bosses over and over and over and over and over again (it even reminded me of Hotline Miami, which I also had problems with).

I can't. I just can't keep playing the same two floors, it's honestly boring - especially considering how much time one run takes and how nothing around you really changes. Isaac had room for strategy with its Devil deals, beggars, arcades, secret rooms, curse rooms, Guppy transformation, combos etc., and NT just was fun to play due to its fast paced gameplay, but EtG doesn't really worth it for me. And that's a great shame, because I really like the art style, the freeing NPCs mechanic and the humour of this game.

This is an excelent dissection of the real issues with the game. Get hit during a boss fight? No heart for you. Get hit while clearing a floor? Your coolness is reset and you get less loot. Get a crap gun? Oh now you're out of keys, sucks to be you.

The game's core is amazing. The game's mechanics are fun. The games theming and athetic are incredible. But the game is designed to help those who are good at the game and punish those who aren't. And that's a tiny bit bassakwards.

[midori]

WAHHH its a hard game, seriously, focus on getting better at it to win. I hate to call someone a wuss, but you're a wuss.

[Coin]

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

This is an excelent dissection of the real issues with the game. Get hit during a boss fight? No heart for you. Get hit while clearing a floor? Your coolness is reset and you get less loot. Get a crap gun? Oh now you're out of keys, sucks to be you.

Don't get hit during boss battle? Here's a bonus heart for you. Don't get hit while clearing a floor? You'r cool and get more loot (what???). Got a good gun? Good for you. Dont? Deal with it and try to make the best out of the worst.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por D2daICE:

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

Difficulty is NOT a defining trait of the roguelike genre. There are PLENTY of easy roguelikes, and most are just complex, not actually hard.

Could you name a few (or more) of the easy Rougelites? (I'm curious because the ones that i own i consider not easy)

Many Rogue-LITES have difficulty settings. But as Coin pointed out, I said roguelike, not rogue-lite.

Even many roguelites have difficulty settings. TOME has multiple "super easy" difficulty settings, including a "infinate lives" setting (which, to be fair, doesn't gaurentee you can beat the game).

But even the roguelikes that don't are more about tactics, planning, and knoweldge than about execution. Sure, it can be rough when you don't find a good way to constantly identify items in Nethack or something, but that isn't difficulty...that's RNG.

The fundementals of a roguelike are permadeath and procedural generation. That's it.

For reference, Wikipedia doesn't use any form of the word "difficulty" or "challenge" when it describes them at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Neither does Rogue Basin, probably THE biggest home of roguelikes on the net:

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Seriously, the idea that roguelikes/lites are fundementally hard is a new phenominon that isn't really part of the genre's roots...at all.

Complex? Totally. Intricate? You bet. Mysterious? Sure. Partially luck based? Indeed. But hard? Not nessisarily.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por unkind:

WAHHH its a hard game, seriously, focus on getting better at it to win. I hate to call someone a wuss, but you're a wuss.

You just called someone with a physical disability a wuss. I bet you make your parents super duper proud.

[Carrier Pidgeons]

I never knew getting hit on a floor did anything. Usually I go full casual when clearing..

[NBG | Lime]

"But the idea of a roguelike (and, therefore, rogue-lites) is that you get better every time via knoweldge gained. Therefore, next run, you do a tiny bit better than last run.

I'm not doing better than last run. That's the whole point of this post.

Also, this is one of the only rogue-lites I can think of where if you cannot beat the first boss you cannot make ANY forward progress in the meta-game (cause you need the Hegimony dollars). But that's really beside the point."

^This is a valid point. You lose in Rogue Legacy, you still make progress. Not in the Gungeon atm. Thats taking away the fun for me. Also there seems to be inconsistencys with the "money"-drops: sometimes i kill 8 enemys, i get 3 shells, sometimes it is almost reversed...

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por Carrier Pidgeons:

I never knew getting hit on a floor did anything. Usually I go full casual when clearing..

Yeah...there is a hidden stat called "coolness." It goes up the more things you kill without getting hit. There are also items that directly increase it (like cigarettes). It increase drop rate of consumables (hearts, keys, etc) and decreases reload speed.

[Coin]

Yes, people don't expect a rogue-like/lite to be difficult, it surely isn't a staple of this genre.

Said no one.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por NBG | Seagull:

^This is a valid point. You lose in Rogue Legacy, you still make progress. Not in the Gungeon atm. Thats taking away the fun for me. Also there seems to be inconsistencys with the "money"-drops: sometimes i kill 8 enemys, i get 3 shells, sometimes it is almost reversed...

Even Dark Souls and Demon Souls, the pinicle of "get gud gaming" allow you to farm the easy mobs for hours to get souls if you want/need to. This game says "can't beat the first boss? sucks to be you."

[D2daICE]

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

Publicado originalmente por Neptunella:

The game's core is amazing. The game's mechanics are fun. The games theming and athetic are incredible. But the game is designed to help those who are good at the game and punish those who aren't. And that's a tiny bit bassakwards.

That's why you keep playing and get better until you reach your personal "skill limit".

And as you've stated before: The real problem is not the game being hard, it's you not getting better because of your disability that prevents you from doing better.

I suck at the game but i get better, slowly but i still feel the improvements on dodging, learning the patterns and so on.

You said you understand what to do but you can't execute it because of your body is not able to do it. So there is your problem.

I don't want to offend you with it but the game is made for players you want a challenge and only with a real challenge you want to get better or you quit.

Sure, it kinda sucks that you physically can't get better at the game but it's not the games fault and the developers intended it to be the way it is - was we figured out before.

[Coin]

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

Even Dark Souls and Demon Souls, the pinicle of "get gud gaming"

You seem to be aware that there are game like tome. Dark souls doesn't compare in any way in terms of difficulty.

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

This game says "can't beat the first boss? sucks to be you."

Exactly. Now you'r getting it.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por D2daICE:

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

That's why you keep playing and get better until you reach your personal "skill limit".

And as you've stated before: The real problem is not the game being hard, it's you not getting better because of your disability that prevents you from doing better.

I suck at the game but i get better, slowly but i still feel the improvements on dodging, learning the patterns and so on.

You said you understand what to do but you can't execute it because of your body is not able to do it. So there is your problem.

I don't want to offend you with it but the game is made for players you want a challenge and only with a real challenge you want to get better or you quit.

Sure, it kinda sucks that you physically can't get better at the game but it's not the games fault and the developers intended it to be the way it is - was we figured out before.

Again, why does it have to be this way? If we can make it easier for some people without changing it at all for the majority, why not do it? If we can make people who are deaf able to hear without taking away hearing from those with it, shouldn't we? Same principle.

[DragonDai (Uey)]

Publicado originalmente por Coin:

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

Even Dark Souls and Demon Souls, the pinicle of "get gud gaming"

You seem to know that there are game like tome. Dark souls doesn't compare in any way in terms of difficulty.

What? You think TOME is hard? LOL Tome is math. Math is not hard.

Publicado originalmente por Coin:

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

This game says "can't beat the first boss? sucks to be you."

Exactly. Now you'r getting it.

That's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ attitude for a game (or a person) to have. Only an ass would have that attitude.

[Coin]

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

That's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ attitude for a game (or a person) to have. Only an ass would have that attitude.

Don't like it - don't play it.

Publicado originalmente por Dragon Dai (Uey):

Again, why does it have to be this way? If we can make it easier for some people without changing it at all for the majority, why not do it? If we can make people who are deaf able to hear without taking away hearing from those with it, shouldn't we? Same principle.

It's not the same at all.