Rain World isn't Punishing...

[darugo06]

Rain World isn't a game that punishes you. No, punishment would imply a lesson is given. You take away something from being punished, what not to do or how to do something to avoid the same treatment. Rain World isn't punishing, because losing doesn't teach you anything, and you'll often find yourself losing more and more trying to correct your behavior in most situations. The word I'd describe Rain World with is Abusive.

I've been playing on PS4, and not PC through Steam, but from my understanding there's no difference in the game really. I'm choosing to air my word here because I have more experience with devs paying attention than I have had experience on somewhere like, say, Reddit. I barely use that site anyway and I'm always logging into Steam, so this works better anyway.

So, Rain World in my eyes is Abusive. I've played through it a hell of a lot as of late, and there are as many deaths I feel were justified as there were deaths that I could not do anything about, regardless of my experience at the time.

I think it stems mainly from the unpredictablity of predator placement and how lethal some of the later creatures can be if you only give them a moment to react to your presence. Often times I'm traveling through an area, sometimes I've already explored and passed through on that "day", or cycle, and I find myself entering a room with an enemy sitting right by the door I just entered. I have barely half a second to decide fight or flight, but often even if I choose flight and turn back into the door I'll be chased down and caught because of the terrain or have trouble aboutfacing anyway, due to the secondary issue in all this.

The controls are... well, as I read someone put it before, this game requires exact moments but only gives you maybes. There are plenty of inconsistancies, from the slugcat's movements to whether a spear will lodge itself in the wall from 1 meter away or 10 meters away. In most cases of making a bad jump, I either overestimated my abilities or misjudged my footing. But even the footing can be blamed on how slippery slugcat's balance seems to be... as fitting as that is, it's not fun to play and when you die due to it you gain no better understanding, just the sense of feeling ripped off.

It's a shame. This game has such an interesting presentation and a world that just sucks you in with its interesting flora, dangerous fuana, and often times scary terrain, and I mean the latter in the best of ways. The Karma system isn't fun to play around, and the fact that it is required to move between regions left me in a particular attempt to have to restart my entire save because I dared to go too far off the beaten path and got whipped for it. If I only lost the Karma, but was still able to retreat to a safer area, that would've been fine, Karma could have some kind of greater affect on the Slugcat and the world around you.

That's something that almost discourages me from trying to complete any of the other "tasks" as I'll call them, the trophies in PS4. I got The Survivor in due time, I assume like most, and found myself with what I thought was the permanent ability to fast travel. Wasted it immediately going back to an earlier zone to recharge my karma for the area I'm trying to get to, but hey. It gave me my karma so I guess I got that done. But then I get the Cheiftain and I'm expecting something worth the effort, like maybe scavengers are always nice to you unless you outright attack one, or they'll try to follow you or give you a spear if you pass by one. Nope. Congratulations! In this world where you have no idea of your end goal and getting between regions is already difficult, have another fast travel because why not. I almost don't care to finishing Dragonslayer and Wanderer, because I want something that'll actually help me rather than a useless ability for my mindless travelling.

I really am I love with this game, but it's the kind of love that you only stay in because you're desperate for someone to fill that role, no matter how much they berate or beat you. Yeah, harsh it may be, I'd compare experiencing Rain World to being through an abusive relationship. Dark Souls would be more like dealing with strict parents who ultimately mean good for you, but Rain World just does things to hurt you and there often isn't a reason for it and nothing you can gleam from the last run to help your next. It beautifully captures to futility of trying to survive in a world like this, but ultimately that's not enjoyable in the least, and in the end this is supposed to be a game people want to play. I'm afraid my patience is waning thin already, and I so desperately want to find out what happens in this game, but if it keeps hurting me this much for just trying to go from room to room, I don't think it's worht it.

I rambled a lot. I do that often.

[Dan]

I get the point you're trying to make (even if I personally think you're wrong anyway)
I get that you're being intentionally hyperbolic.

I still feel it's pretty repulsive to compare the experience of *any* computer game with the experience of being in an abusive relationship. I mean really, that's just a bit sick.

Rain World, for all its difficulty, is not going to leave you an emotionally scarred wreck in need of extensive therapy.

[Jonathan66100]

It is a very hard game because you have to learn by yourself, but once the secret of plants and other object found in the games, it becomes much easier and to make flee the monster or make them kill each other is a game Of child:)

Filling up with food is also very easy once the miracle plant is found (you have to know how to listen to the little worm that accompanies us :)

For maneuverability it is a blow to take but after 20h of games we handle it very easily, we just perseverer if we are in love with the post apocalyptic world that offers us Rain World : )

[TinyBitQuantum]

thank you for he thoughts. Personally, my experience is very much the same. Trying to gain the courage to get through the story cause I get that the brutality is part of the point.

[Tat011]

As a rw fan that has been around since release i 100% agree, if you play this game, it will hate you for it, you can practically FEEL it's resentment for its players. It's hard to tell just how much of this hostility is intended by the devs but it very much seems to me that not even them realized just how hostile the experience they made really is.
It's such a shame cuz this definitely could have been best game of all time if it weren't for the devs handing half the game to the RNG machine, having extremely questionable level, creature and player design at times and just everything about the ""karma"" system. At least some of these are mitigated with remix and mods.

[Serafine]

You have missed the point of Rainworld. This game's world IS NOT FOR YOU.
Unlike in pretty much any other game out there your slugcat is NOT the "main character" of this world and other creatures do not just exist as "roadblocks" or "challenges" that do nothing while you are not nearby. Every creature in the game world has an agenda of its own, tries to find food (while avoiding to become food) and you are only one of those many creatures. Rainworld's world does NOT revolve around YOU, you merely happen to exist in it. You are NOT special, you don't have all those unfair advantages that allow you to drop on enemies without them being able to do anything about it - in Rainworld EVERY creature has those unfair advantages to get the drop on everyone else, including you.

Rainworld's world is NOT hostile or abusive towards you, it's just indifferent. You do not have special pampered protagonist status. It treats you like any other creature, and that's what makes it so special. It's one of those few games where you really feel like you're part of an actual living world and not just jumping the hoops through an elaborately designed obstacle course specifically created for your entertainment.

[Tat011]

Congrats you missed the point

[Clail]

All map knowledge is retained through deaths. When I came into new area during my original playthrough, I would just go as far as I could in a particular direction and then check another path after the rain or predators caught me. To say you learn nothing by loosing, is clearly a false claim.

This game isn't punishing I agree, you don't necessarily loose any thing in death. But it is the furthest thing from "abusive" considering there are games out there with permadeath or gear loss.

The rest of your complaints are honestly skill issues. Predators at the opposite end of a tunnel can be noticed if you observe your entrance for a few seconds for any light flashing. Even if there is, get a rock or spear and stun them at worst, kill them at best. Alternatively find bait; you can drive off any lizard just feeding it a different creature. Awareness, patience, and tool uses are the key things you needed to learn in these situations.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned through death by predators, but it sounds like they went over your head during your playthrough.

[Tat011]

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

All map knowledge is retained through deaths. When I came into new area during my original playthrough, I would just go as far as I could in a particular direction and then check another path after the rain or predators caught me. To say you learn nothing by loosing, is clearly a false claim.

Did you know this was added in a patch and didn't use to exist? yeah. also this is hardly rtelevant to what op was talking about which is that you don't learn anything if you just get cheesed by an enemy, like having a lizard do both a 180 and grab you in half a second or less.

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

This game isn't punishing I agree, you don't necessarily loose any thing in death.

May i remind you of the karma system? were surviving for 15 mins + getting food and seeking shelter is equivalent to being shot from offscreen?

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

But it is the furthest thing from "abusive" considering there are games out there with permadeath or gear loss.

is your argument really other games do worse? besides it's not dying that's the problem, it's how you die.

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

Awareness, patience, and tool uses are the key things you needed to learn in these situations.

No ammount of skill can save you from a miros bird getting stuck in the middle of a room or a miros vulture entering the room and grabbing you in a literal second or a scavenger deciding to stab you for no reason or scavs ignoring your pearl in a toll or having to go through a dropwig and literally having no recourse but to let it jump on you and prey it misses or having to go through leeches and pray they don't latch on or having to go through a red centipede or having a white lizard cloak inside a pipe or experiencing one of the many, many raindeer bugs and just in general having to deal with the fact that almost every single creature has extremely broken ai making their behaviour unpredictable and unreliable.

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

There are plenty of lessons to be learned through death by predators, but it sounds like they went over your head during your playthrough.

Being smug is not helping your case.

[Tat011]

Also that's rich coming from someone who hasn't finished the game, let alone finished Downpour

[darugo06]

Wait I wrote this? I guess this is why I don't remember ever finishing Rainworld.

In case nobody noticed, this was back in 2017. I don't even *remember* having wrote this, let alone remember having these feelings. I came back to Rainworld recently to play co-op over Parsec and it's just as fun as I remember, just as interesting a world to explore. I... guess, after unlocking fast travel, that I expected the other achievement paths would give you stuff too? And I think I remember you need to like... carry something all the way across the world to one of the robots? Idk, I didn't finish Rainworld clearly lol but I remember it fondly. I don't feel the need to finish it because man, this game's tough, I'll stick to Souls where I have a bit more agency, but I feel like I got a good time out it anyway.

Anyway TL;DR, I don't remember this post so old me is dumb and bad at videogames lol.

[Teal V2]

Publicado originalmente por Serafine:

you don't have all those unfair advantages that allow you to drop on enemies without them being able to do anything about it

Someone hasn't played Gourmand yet.