I'm not a fan of Karma Gates

[Shnurbs]

Hi! I really want to like this game, but there are some simple things that are really stopping me from enjoying the experience. Rain World is beautiful, and the exploration and simple act of finding new things is rewarding and enjoyable. What stops this, however, are the Karma gates. When I find a karma gate, and I don't happen to have the correct amount of Karma, I kinda want to die. I have to trudge all the way back to another hibernation pod, wake up, possibly get more food and hibernate again, and then go to the karma gate. And then if you die, you have all the fun of going out and finding more food and then hibernating again and then going back to the karma gate to see if you're tall enough to ride. The point of this system, from what I've read with interviews with the game designers, is that it adds tension and emphasizes the survival elements. In my experience, it creates roadblocks and introduces farming. Since I don't want to die, when I have to get past a Karma Gate I find an area that's full of flies and just farm it, then hibernate, and repeat. The best outcome is I'm bored for 20 minutes until I've got enough to go past the Karma Gate. The worst outcome is that I get attacked and end up losing my progress, or a lizard pops out of a hole and kills me, or I miss a jump or maneuver akwardly because the controls aren't exactly tight and I have to go through all of my misery again.

I want to love this game, the world is beautiful and the creatures are great, but the Karma Gates just make me feel like I'm drowning in sludge. I understand there's another mode that's easier and allows karma gates to be opened whenever, but I like some of the difficulty. The danger of all the critters and the vultures and the drops is important to the atmosphere, and creates really cool sandboxy moments. Getting past all the pitfalls of the world should be a triump, but instead I just feel like I'm out of the frying pan and into a bowl full of porridge.

[Enderzilla747]

Well the devs said the karma gates are to make sure players don't breeze through the games and go into harder regions despite knowing little to nothing. If you know the region well enough and the creatures in it, even if it's boring, you should be able to survive up to where you need to be.

Otherwise, you're better off either sucking up the boredom (RIP), or waiting for the update.

[stealthXG]

Always get a karma flower so if you die you won't lose any karma and you can also go back to the spot you died and eat the karma flower again. That is if you don't die before getting there.

[Kaeporo]

Rain World's primary gamplay loop requires you to survive in a living ecosystem. It's not enough to simply make it from point A to point B. Don't think of karma gates as the flag at the end of the level. Instead, think of karma as the melons in yoshi's story. Blasting through each region without consequences turns this game into a dull platformer instead of an intense survival game.

---

The update will solve your main issue but it's not a perfect solution. I'm not fond of them restricting certain enemies to specific characters. You should be able to encounter Dropwigs (for example) as the monk. They could be locked behind the lineage system or restricted to optional rooms.

[NilchEi]

The upcoming update should solve your concerns! There is a difficulty option that disables Karma gate entirely. Apparently some does not like that there will be hard-mode only "nightmare creatures", but I think it's difficult to make judgment about that decision without knowing how frustrating they will be.

[Enderzilla747]

Rain World was heavily nerfed for the public ro play! If the devs kept it hard like they originally planned... I'm sure many of the great players would have a tough time. Thankfully the devs call The Hunter's difficulty "hardcore". If it's hardcore to the devs, then it's legendary status to us.

[Dino Dare]

It's not farming. It's EATING. And hibernating for the rain season. And it's an important aspect if you ask me.

[BoltTheJolteon]

I am also not a fan of karma gates. For me they don't add very much except to punish you more for dying and making the player feel bad when they do die. This is especially bad when the cause of my death was not my fault: e.g. when an item I require for a section of the game clips out of bounds and I am forced to commit die. I believe that the punishment for dying already exists as you are brought back to your last checkpoint and have to complete the next section of the game again. Karma gates don't often impact my gameplay as generally I maintain a high amount of karma showing that their presence does not introduce much difficulty but rather when I occasionally lack the karma requirement, I am forced to grind at the nearest safe point for karma in this boring loop. I am happy that the game in current years includes a setting to disable them thus removing the only problem I have has with this game.

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Karma gates are doing their job then?

If you struggle to raise your karma level in a certain area, you are definitly not ready to go to the next one. Essentially, this game's "level up" system isn't a fancy number or increased stats, but the player's own skill and knowledge of the game, which translate by being able to survive better.

Plan your hibernation, pin-point food stashes.

Dying is punished in this game, like any other, but you never truly lose progress, as getting rammed by something will teach you about how to avoid "X" danger the next time. They really only are a problem for hunter's campaign.

[Enderzilla747]

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Rain World was heavily nerfed for the public ro play! If the devs kept it hard like they originally planned... I'm sure many of the great players would have a tough time. Thankfully the devs call The Hunter's difficulty "hardcore". If it's hardcore to the devs, then it's legendary status to us.

Hunter isnt hard enough I NEED MONK WITH SPEARMASTER SPAWNS

[Sonstar]

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Rain World was heavily nerfed for the public ro play! If the devs kept it hard like they originally planned... I'm sure many of the great players would have a tough time. Thankfully the devs call The Hunter's difficulty "hardcore". If it's hardcore to the devs, then it's legendary status to us.

Hunter isnt hard enough I NEED MONK WITH SPEARMASTER SPAWNS

Get that one mod where it allows you to change the stats of each slugcat lol. Become monk manually.

[Moh]

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Rain World was heavily nerfed for the public ro play! If the devs kept it hard like they originally planned... I'm sure many of the great players would have a tough time. Thankfully the devs call The Hunter's difficulty "hardcore". If it's hardcore to the devs, then it's legendary status to us.

Hunter isnt hard enough I NEED MONK WITH SPEARMASTER SPAWNS

Play Inv then

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Originally posted by Ms Namelesa:

Originally posted by Enderzilla747:

Hunter isnt hard enough I NEED MONK WITH SPEARMASTER SPAWNS

Play Inv then

Never again.

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

Since this has been necro'd anyway,
Friendly reminder that nowadays you can simply disable karma in the remix options,
or at least change it to 'monk mode', aka one time only requirement per gate.

[Watereater]

skill issues

[Douknodefox]

I like them.