No respawns near difficult encounters, wtf ?

[Redrick]

Is becoming frustrating. Repeated boss attempts, dying over again to learn them and 'git gud' is a hallmark of a difficult game, but when you respawn on a bench 5 screens away you spend > 75% of your invested time on these retries just travelling back again, is a bit draining.

To add insult to injury that journey from the respawn point 5 screens away back to the boss is hazardous, and you are faced with the option of rushing to the boss again like you want to to stay in-the-zone but risk losing a few health bars along the way, or fighting your way there slowly by killing trash mobs (which drags it out much worse), only to die to said mini boss within 30sec again because you're no longer in the zone.

Does anyone else feel there that it was design misstep to not just respawn you next to a boss or miniboss encounter to help get you straight back into the action ? Feels like this is a bit of a design misstep. To me thats what makes all the difference, not the difficulty in and of itself, but the un-needed chore thats added on top.

On one hand I love the game, on the other I hate it. My will to keep giong is draining fast.

[Salfaden]

Yeah it is frustrating quite a few times for bosses like Hive Knight and Soul Master. Would love for them to add benches near them but no chance now. Survival is all we can do.

[kanna]

Nope, but it's understandable to be frustrated if you keep repeating the same thing over and over. Just take a break and come back to the game later.

After you clear your head, you'll find yourself playing better than you were before. If you're still having trouble, then save wherever you were stuck for later.

You can usually get more abilities/upgrades and come back when you're stronger and more experienced in the best ways to move, the best times to attack, and the best times to heal.

[kanna]

Originally posted by Salfaden:

Yeah it is frustrating quite a few times for bosses like Hive Knight and Soul Master. Would love for them to add benches near them but no chance now. Survival is all we can do.

Both of these bosses have shortcuts that can be opened back to a bench (as many do), and are one is a bit too easy to have a bench right next to them it, taking the game as a whole.

If you're struggling at how to approach a fight, and you've seen the boss fight already so you won't be spoiled, check out a video or two and see how others do it. There are plenty available.

Using everything the game gives you helps a lot as well. All spells boost damage. "Down" spell even gives invincibility frames, "left/right" spell can push lighter enemies/bosses back, and fully upgraded "up" spell has the highest damage (though it can be risky at first if you're just getting used to safely using it).

Understanding charms helps you strategize more effectively for your play style (which hopefully consists of more than just regular nail hits unless you are okay with lower damage output), and knowing how to move well (which platforming challenges can help with) gives you loads of options for avoiding damage from unexpected directions.

And again, if you can't solve the puzzle of how best to handle a fight on your own, youtube videos can probably give you some ideas.

*edited some comments with strikethroughs above

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

As someone with almost 200h in HK, I can say I can recall only but a few bosses (maybe 5? out of 47 total) to which the trek can be long.

Which boss gave you so much trouble?

I can say two things:
#1. At some point in the game you will acquire something that will greatly help with travelling, and backtracking will largely stop being an issue - I won't spoil you what or where or how. I want to leave it for you to discover on your own.

#2. You can take longer breaks from the game each time you notice that you are feeling frustrated. When you will go back after some resting and with a clear head you may be surprised how easy the challenge will become. For me personally anger or frustration in a game is one of the signs to stop playing, take some rest and return later.

Originally posted by kanna:

it's understandable to be frustrated if you keep repeating the same thing over and over. Just take a break and come back to the game later.

Fully agree. The best thing to keep in mind for any game!

=============

I would say, in my opinion, most of the time we're frustrated actually because of our own mistakes. We tend to use games or developers as easy scapegoats for our own failings to avoid blaming ourselves and feel better. That's why observing and taking breaks from a game is so important - it helps discover and manage our own emotions.

[MADE IN IRON]

Maybe at firtst I got the same impression as you, but in some cases I didn't find the shortcut to the boss room on my first playthrough.
That was the case with Soul Master on my first playthrough. Not only I struggled a lot with that boss, but also had a really hard time with the enemies in the area where he is located. Some time later I found out about the shorcut, so the second playthrough was faster and easier, as I got a little better and at least the bugs around the area weren't a problem anymore.
And reading this thread I've just found out about a shortcut in the Hive I didn't knew about, and that area and boss were really difficult to me, so shame on me.

[Whiskra]

Nah, it's not a design misstep. It's a very deliberate move on the designers' part to both punish you for losing to the boss, and to teach you how to play the game in general better. Any boss that you haven't seen before will require you to run back if you lose. These are mostly found in new areas that you've only recently explored, with new enemies, new hazards etc. If you want to retry the boss again faster, you have to become better at contending with the open world, and the run back serves to temper your skill at this. If you get good enough, no run back will take more than a minute, most can be done in about 30 seconds. Eventually you will get faster when playing the game normally, a reward for sticking to the frustrating parts of having to run back every time you died.

Any potential boss refight in the game though, like dream bosses for example, will reset you back directly in front of the boss to try again rather than a bench, because by that point, the game is no longer trying to punish or teach you anymore, it just asks you to apply what you've learned.

[Hydrasent]

Theres only 2 bad walkbacks in the game imo: mantis lords and soul master, so its not a big deal. Theres also traitor lord and hive knight, but by the time you fight them you should probably have dreamgate.

[Nibbie]

I don't think any boss runups are longer than a minute, and most are probably under 30 seconds. Is there any in particular you think are an issue? For example, if it is Soul Master, you may have missed the shortcut that connects the the Sanctum to right beside the bench, cutting out a couple screens.

You can use that time to gather soul and mentally reset. It also offers 'a way out' if you decide you don't want to fight them right now.

[kanna]

Originally posted by MADE IN IRON:

And reading this thread I've just found out about a shortcut in the Hive I didn't knew about, and that area and boss were really difficult to me, so shame on me.

I'm pretty methodical about finding shortcuts and it's not a huge difference but I should maybe update my post above for a couple of reasons: First, maybe I should give the difficulty for a newer player more credit on that fight (but the point remains that the trip back is still supposed to be part of the challenge.) Second, as someone else mentioned, you're very likely (though definitely not guaranteed) to have dream gate by that point, so the trip back can be easy. (I know I used it for that boss.)

Also, there's no reason to fight every single regular enemy in the game. That is the #1 waste of time if you need to return to fight a boss that defeated you. I'm thankful I learned that before my first playthrough was over, at least. Learning how to evade attacks (or even evade detection) and just get wherever you're going quickly without minding the regular enemies involves learning how to move better, which still helps a player's survivability.

[kanna]

You don't have to collide with something to stop the crystal dash ability. You can stop on demand (but not on a dime). :')

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

I feel 💔 when some people just straight up say without any spoilers that a new player will acquire a Dreamgate to be able to Teleport. That was the very thing I wanted to avoid telling directly, so that a player new to the game could discover it on their own and satisfy their need of adventuring and discovery in HK 🤦‍♂️

[MADE IN IRON]

Originally posted by kanna:

I'm pretty methodical about finding shortcuts and it's not a huge difference but I should maybe update my post above for a couple of reasons: First, maybe I should give the difficulty for a newer player more credit on that fight (but the point remains that the trip back is still supposed to be part of the challenge.) Second, as someone else mentioned, you're very likely (though definitely not guaranteed) to have dream gate by that point, so the trip back can be easy. (I know I used it for that boss.)

Also, there's no reason to fight every single regular enemy in the game. That is the #1 waste of time if you need to return to fight a boss that defeated you. I'm thankful I learned that before my first playthrough was over, at least. Learning how to evade attacks (or even evade detection) and just get wherever you're going quickly without minding the regular enemies involves learning how to move better, which still helps a player's survivability.

Don't worry, I'm quite absentminded in general, so I missed some things in the game and found about them in the forum.

And you are right about dreamgate but I totally forgot about this tool and barely used it.

I agree with you about evading enemies, but first time I played the game I had trobles with that too. It's not that I'm a good player now, but at least I'm better than then.

[kanna]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR.technology:

I feel 💔 when some people just straight up say without any spoilers that a new player will acquire a Dreamgate to be able to Teleport. That was the very thing I wanted to avoid telling directly, so that a player new to the game could discover it on their own and satisfy their need of adventuring and discovery in HK 🤦‍♂️

Thank you, forgot to include a comment about this. Hints are one thing but straight up spelling out what abilities someone can get is likely to take away some of the joy and excitement of discovery.

Originally posted by MADE IN IRON:

Originally posted by kanna:

I'm pretty methodical about finding shortcuts and it's not a huge difference but I should maybe update my post above for a couple of reasons: First, maybe I should give the difficulty for a newer player more credit on that fight (but the point remains that the trip back is still supposed to be part of the challenge.) Second, as someone else mentioned, you're very likely (though definitely not guaranteed) to have dream gate by that point, so the trip back can be easy. (I know I used it for that boss.)

Also, there's no reason to fight every single regular enemy in the game. That is the #1 waste of time if you need to return to fight a boss that defeated you. I'm thankful I learned that before my first playthrough was over, at least. Learning how to evade attacks (or even evade detection) and just get wherever you're going quickly without minding the regular enemies involves learning how to move better, which still helps a player's survivability.

Don't worry, I'm quite absentminded in general, so I missed some things in the game and found about them in the forum.

And you are right about dreamgate but I totally forgot about this tool and barely used it.

I agree with you about evading enemies, but first time I played the game I had trobles with that too. It's not that I'm a good player now, but at least I'm better than then.

I can get pretty absent-minded too and I still missed some suspicious walls I should have noticed, like the Fungal Wastes entrance to Deep Nest and King's Station passage to Kingdom's Edge. Nobody's going to get them all. My intent above was supposed to be to point out that if someone is desperate for progression (like I was upon encountering most new bosses on my first playthrough, lol), then it's time to pay attention to your environment and see what else you can do.

Also, in my reply to you earlier, I apparently accidentally removed the part where I stressed that I had a lot of trouble with the Hive's boss, too. It's probably still my least liked area of the game, to this day. (Not because of the enemies, but the scale of the place. I can get impatient about long travel times, so I empathize with OP where it comes to the frustration involved, but I was never about to call out the design of the game because I didn't get a challenge on my first try. I just learned to get there faster with each attempt.)

[MADE IN IRON]

Originally posted by kanna:

It's probably still my least liked area of the game, to this day. (Not because of the enemies, but the scale of the place. I can get impatient about long travel times, so I empathize with OP where it comes to the frustration involved, but I was never about to call out the design of the game because I didn't get a challenge on my first try. I just learned to get there faster with each attempt.)

I'm not sure about that area.
I really like the way it's hidden, or at least it took me a while to find the entrance despite the "clues" pointing to it. It might be my mistake missing the entrance, but I like the exploration part about it as real life beehives sometimes are like that, a tiny entrance hidden somewere that leads to a huge hive.
But about playing it, a little frustrating I must say.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

The only bosses I recount having terrible runbacks were Soul Master and Traitor Lord.

With Traitor Lord however, since a lot of Dream Essence is needed to enter White Palace anyway, I would plan to get the dream gate ability before attempting him. This runback and the flower sidequest are probably where the dream gate becomes the most useful.