The hardest achievement is Ethereal and you cant change my mind.

[Rainy days.]

There is next to no skill, let alone actual interaction that matters from the player, when an achievement boils down to nothing but sheer RNG + Fake difficulty. You are literally playing the lottery and cant do anything about it.

Especially if the Prismatic at the time has something like 'enemies appear outside of there usual locations', because a floating enemy appearing within a .1 second window and then IMMEDIATELY damaging you from a nonsensical range at inhuman reactionary speeds, is the definition of this kind of idiocy.

But seeing as how This is the sort of game where the final boss punishes you for just existing, you really can't expect much.

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Magicalex234:

ok, and again: this is the elitist "git gud" attitude. You can't just say "this one person who makes it their goal to beat every prismatic trial showed it was possible, so it's possible"

Guess what, things are possible all the time. But realistic is a different thing. Or relativistic to people who don't spend hours a day practicing the same 2 stages over and over again, and then have to try again in a few days since the seed changed.

"don't get hit lol" or "git gud" aren't actual advice (people actually say this more often than you think, and it's basically what you're doing). If you have an actual route that includes some amount of ability to make mistakes, then that is valid advice for a prismatic trial.

Git gud?!? Git average, maybe. IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

Like, watch the video I posted: if you believe what he's doing it's difficult, it's hard to believe you're serious.

Every time this complaint is posted, it always boils down to the same thing: people don't like to think or immediately think something is bad because it requires to "not get hit", oblivious to the fact that not getting hit it's relatively simple.

The achievement has flaws, sure, it's not the best challenge of the game, but people always prefer to complaint, instead of just try to think a little.

[Ver-Anna]

Originally posted by Pmk:

Originally posted by Magicalex234:

ok, and again: this is the elitist "git gud" attitude. You can't just say "this one person who makes it their goal to beat every prismatic trial showed it was possible, so it's possible"

Guess what, things are possible all the time. But realistic is a different thing. Or relativistic to people who don't spend hours a day practicing the same 2 stages over and over again, and then have to try again in a few days since the seed changed.

"don't get hit lol" or "git gud" aren't actual advice (people actually say this more often than you think, and it's basically what you're doing). If you have an actual route that includes some amount of ability to make mistakes, then that is valid advice for a prismatic trial.

Git gud?!? Git average, maybe. IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

Like, watch the video I posted: if you believe what he's doing it's difficult, it's hard to believe you're serious.

Every time this complaint is posted, it always boils down to the same thing: people don't like to think or immediately think something is bad because it requires to "not get hit", oblivious to the fact that not getting hit it's relatively simple.

The achievement has flaws, sure, it's not the best challenge of the game, but people always prefer to complaint, instead of just try to think a little.

...and If i recorded the time I beat the prismatic trial like over a year ago, it also looked easy. What you don't see is all the failed attempts and all the hours of practice just to get a point of familiarity in the game where I was even comfortable to do everything I did.

This is what pros do a lot of the time: they make things look easy. But you don't see all the effort they put into getting that good.

Also, i'm having trouble taking you seriously after you basically said that an average player should be able to complete ethereal

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Magicalex234:

...and If i recorded the time I beat the prismatic trial like over a year ago, it also looked easy. What you don't see is all the failed attempts and all the hours of practice just to get a point of familiarity in the game where I was even comfortable to do everything I did.

This is what pros do a lot of the time: they make things look easy. But you don't see all the effort they put into getting that good.

Also, i'm having trouble taking you seriously after you basically said that an average player should be able to complete ethereal

I didn't say that an average player can complete ethereal, but that you need an average amount of effort to complete it. Does the average Risk of Rain 2 player complete achievements? No: as many threads here asses, the average ROR2 player plays with Command artifact.

It's clear that this game attracts a lot of people that don't care much about the fact that this game is a rogue like: it's the game where you make fireworks, where you seek the god run! So, when those kind of players sees that there's an achievement that requires a bit of thought and planning, they lose their temper and start saying that the challenge is bad.

Do I think those people play the game in the wrong way? No, i play with command or in other easy ways myself when I get fed up with Eclipse. But it really makes me sad when people starts saying that something is bad just because they aren't willing to put the effort in it. And it's even worse when the community is so big that there are plenty of people willing to teach and help.

[Ver-Anna]

My main issue is that it unlocks a feature, and not a cosmetic or bragging rights. It's the reason literally nobody is saying anything negative about eclipse: it's optional, and not doing does not downgrade your ability to play the game in the slightest (past the gameplay itself).

If they made more skins like the mastery skins (which I believe at one point hopoo said they were working on that, but it's not happening this DLC) that had legitimately hard achievement like Ethereal, I would love that. It's a challenge for those who want it, but has practically no tangible effect on gameplay.

Also wanted to jump back to something I missed earlier

Originally posted by Pmk:

If you are not a fan of using your brain (I know, many people are like that), it's extremely easy to modify the game files and unlock the achievement and its alt skill. The devs clearly allowed this by choice, so you don't have to feel bad if you want to do it.

Sure, that's correct.... except console exists. As someone who literally had to beat it on console (before I got a PC), I feel like i'm the only person on this forums who actually remember this. As a general rule: "mod the game" or "edit in ___" aren't valid solutions to issue since console can't. And because of this, the solution can never be "there's a way to bypass it" because not everyone can.

I know console has a whole bunch of issues, but the goal of the game has always been parody between platforms, so let's remember that when talking about implementation or the removal of certain features or mechanics

[TheDongsmasher]

You mean the one to unlock the merc skill? Did it a couple of days ago on glass+dissonance+something else irrelevant. Took 4 or 5 attempts because solus probes appeared and hitscanned me or me being bad. I got only 60 hours in game so there's nothing else to say really other than just gitgud.

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Magicalex234:

TL;DidRead

And here's where we simply can't agree: for me, limiting content behind a difficult achievement is good game design. You might not like, I like it and there no solution for that.

And this achievement has a good design idea behind. Merc has two playstyles defined by its shift and R abilities: one to accumulate i-frames (a relatively passive playstyle) and one to accumulate expose debuffs on enemies and reduce cooldowns (a relatively active playstyle).

I-frames are, of course, more newbie friendly and especially helpful for a melee character, so it's the default kit of Merc. Want to unlock the more active playstyle? You have to prove that you have learned how to not get hit, hence Ethereal.

I repeat, there are fair criticisms behind the achievement, but it has a clear design choice behind it and it's what I'm defending.

It's also funny how, in these discussion, Huntress similar achievement is never mentioned... (answer: it can be cheesed)

As for console, that's a problem that comes with the fact that it wasn't planned in early development. The ability to transfer pc profiles to console would partially solve it.

[Ninja Zyborg]

Originally posted by Pmk:

It's also funny how, in these discussion, Huntress similar achievement is never mentioned... (answer: it can be cheesed)

the huntress achievement is a single teleporter event.
the merc one is 2 events plus the rest of the 2 stages.

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

Originally posted by Pmk:

It's also funny how, in these discussion, Huntress similar achievement is never mentioned... (answer: it can be cheesed)

the huntress achievement is a single teleporter event.
the merc one is 2 events plus the rest of the 2 stages.

In the prismatic trial, you just need to kill the boss and you can immediately end the stage, so you can literally do both stages in less than 2 minutes. And doing that, you can complete it even when the difficulty has just passed the first third of easy.

For huntress, you need to first do two stages, so the difficulty will be, on drizzle, at least on late easy, if not on medium, and you have to charge the teleporter after the boss, which not only makes the entire level completable in a similar if not higher amount of time of a single prismatic trial, but you also have to do it staying inside a smaller area and with a character with no i-frames.

If you don't cheese it, doing huntress's achievement takes a higher skill level and way more planning that Ethereal.

[Ninja Zyborg]

Originally posted by Pmk:

For huntress, you need to first do two stages, so the difficulty will be, on drizzle, at least on late easy, if not on medium, and you have to charge the teleporter after the boss, which not only makes the entire level completable in a similar if not higher amount of time of a single prismatic trial, but you also have to do it staying inside a smaller area and with a character with no i-frames.

the huntress achievement can be done on stage 1, and it only counts your health during a teleporter event, and it's also not prismatic trial so you're much more likely to randomly get it.

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

Originally posted by Pmk:

For huntress, you need to first do two stages, so the difficulty will be, on drizzle, at least on late easy, if not on medium, and you have to charge the teleporter after the boss, which not only makes the entire level completable in a similar if not higher amount of time of a single prismatic trial, but you also have to do it staying inside a smaller area and with a character with no i-frames.

the huntress achievement can be done on stage 1, and it only counts your health during a teleporter event, and it's also not prismatic trial so you're much more likely to randomly get it.

No you can't? https://riskofrain2.fandom.com/wiki/Huntress:_Piercing_Wind
Unless you mean by doing a prismatic trial where the first stage can be one of the two you need, which makes you point weaker.

And, no, you can't really get it randomly, unless you are in a looping god run, where it's still easy to take chip damage.

If you don't want to cheese it, piercing winds is way more difficult of a merc run done in one minute and a half.

[Ver-Anna]

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

the huntress achievement can be done on stage 1, and it only counts your health during a teleporter event, and it's also not prismatic trial so you're much more likely to randomly get it.

the one for tiny blink could only be done on rallypoint delta i thought

[PlecixZ]

Didn't bother with the achievement at first, but i like mercenary and yesterday my friend said that the prismatic trail with glass was on. So after 3 attempts i got it, no hit run.
At first i thought the achievement for it was hard and sure it's a challenge but it's not 100% unobtainable or broken, a prismatic glass trail is a great start cause get hit once and you dead anyway.

Also Pmk has a good point, and it's nice for a game to have difficult achievements.
Just play the character more and when you get a feel for it just try the trail, die and try again. Be glad they don't charge you lunar coins for it every time you want to restart.

Originally posted by Pmk:

And here's where we simply can't agree: for me, limiting content behind a difficult achievement is good game design. You might not like, I like it and there no solution for that.

And this achievement has a good design idea behind. Merc has two playstyles defined by its shift and R abilities: one to accumulate i-frames (a relatively passive playstyle) and one to accumulate expose debuffs on enemies and reduce cooldowns (a relatively active playstyle).

[Ninja Zyborg]

Originally posted by Pmk:

No you can't? https://riskofrain2.fandom.com/wiki/Huntress:_Piercing_Wind
Unless you mean by doing a prismatic trial where the first stage can be one of the two you need, which makes you point weaker.

And, no, you can't really get it randomly, unless you are in a looping god run, where it's still easy to take chip damage.

If you don't want to cheese it, piercing winds is way more difficult of a merc run done in one minute and a half.

my bad, forgot the stage requirement. though doing it on rallypoint is easier since you have more items. seriously, this achievement is a cakewalk compared to ethereal.

And saying "you cant really get it randomly" is a lie since I did

[Ver-Anna]

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

Originally posted by Pmk:

No you can't? https://riskofrain2.fandom.com/wiki/Huntress:_Piercing_Wind
Unless you mean by doing a prismatic trial where the first stage can be one of the two you need, which makes you point weaker.

And, no, you can't really get it randomly, unless you are in a looping god run, where it's still easy to take chip damage.

If you don't want to cheese it, piercing winds is way more difficult of a merc run done in one minute and a half.

my bad, forgot the stage requirement. though doing it on rallypoint is easier since you have more items. seriously, this achievement is a cakewalk compared to ethereal.

And saying "you cant really get it randomly" is a lie since I did

Hopping on the train of the fact that the huntress thing isn't comparable: you can choose your artifacts and you can loop so that you have significantly better gear.

Also you can completely cheese the entire achievement in MP by hiding on the guaranteed newt altar island while your teamate(s) do the teleporter

[Pmk]

Originally posted by Magicalex234:

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

my bad, forgot the stage requirement. though doing it on rallypoint is easier since you have more items. seriously, this achievement is a cakewalk compared to ethereal.

And saying "you cant really get it randomly" is a lie since I did

Hopping on the train of the fact that the huntress thing isn't comparable: you can choose your artifacts and you can loop so that you have significantly better gear.

Also you can completely cheese the entire achievement in MP by hiding on the guaranteed newt altar island while your teamate(s) do the teleporter

Yes, and all of that is cheesing in mind (and Ethereal can often have advantageous artifacts). The reason why I brought it up is because people complain about Ethereal being a badly designed achievement, while Piercing winds is in the same boat, but because it can be cheesed (which means disregarding any design behind it), people turn a blind eye.

(also, rallypoint delta and scorched acres are both stage 3, so you usually have the same amount of items for both level)

In other words, people complain about Ethereal because it can't be cheesed and it's one of the few achievement that are truly rewarding of your skills.

Which is why I'm defending Ethereal: I want to truly earn things in game, not receiving them for free. You might not like it and that's fine, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, as there are people that appreciate the design idea behind it.