This game is designed to be annoying

[galdon2004]

This is the best way I can sum up how I feel about this game. There's just so much about it that seems to be designed deliberately just to annoy the player.

Pilfers show up to steal your gold whenever you find it, and don't actually die, they just get "knocked away". So you never even get catharsis from hitting them to stop them from stealing from you.

Valuable items block you from walking through them, and can be destroyed by your pickaxe so when you open a chest, you often have to deal with an item blocking some of the gold that drops from it and trying to be careful not to accidentally destroy the item while trying to chase away pilfers.

Bosses have WAY to many hit points, making boss fights last far longer than the fun lasts.

Wall lanterns can be destroyed with a single hit, and make the room darker, but serve no actual purpose beyond one "puzzle" room which isn't even a puzzle because it has a sign in the room that spells out what you have to do.

The Black Rabbit rooms are not pilfer proof, so gambling on prizes there and getting an actual payout is soured by having to deal with pilfers spawning in and taking some of your prize.

Curses are always worse than any benefit you get from acquiring them, making most choices to take one or more curses in exchange for something basically equivalent to placing a valuable item behind an unbreakable wall to tease the player.

You get no real invulnerability time or chance to recover from being hit before you are vulnerable again, making it possible to be chain-hit without a chance to regain control over your character.

Not many of these are big things, (except taking player control away when hit and not letting them recover before becoming vulnerable again; that's a cardinal sin of design) but it's a lot of little annoyances. far too many to be accidental. It seems the devs have taken the wrong idea about how to oppose the player and are opposing the player's ability to have fun. Which is not a good design philosophy. There is definitely a good game underneath a lot of these annoyances, but after playing a while, it feels like it just isn't worth dealing with the endless annoynaces to get tastes of what potential the game has.

Since this is in early development, I hope some changes are made to either add more catharsis and payoff to the annoying mechanics or cut down on how much annoyance is relied upon, but as it is, it's like the game goes out of it's way to keep stopping me to say "No, no. Stop this isn't supposed to be a fun experience" at every turn, which makes it just not feel satisfying to keep playing.

[Filthy Sheep]

First time playing game like that huh? Try Enter the Gungeon and Binding of Isaac and you will see that this game is relatively easy compared to these two bad boys.

[Mason_Troy_Adams]

its designed to be that way because its supposed to be hard if you practice then you will do better

[galdon2004]

You seem to be misunderstanding. the game isn't *hard*. It's *annoying*. I don't get beaten by the damage spongey bosses, I get bored of them. I don't lose all my gold to the pilfers, but they occasionally grab a piece successfully which is annoying on it's own then when I hit them, they just bounce away without any apparent harm, so I can't get any satisfying revenge against them. The darkness doesn't make the game harder, it just strains my eyes.

There are just a *lot* of mechanics or design decisions which are there exclusively to be annoying/bothersome without any sort of payoff. And that lack of payoff is what makes them so annoying. It builds up annoyance at a lot of little things as you play, but you never get any opportunity to release that annoyance/frustration, or get any payoff that justifies the existence of those things.

Like the wall torches; what are they for? It's not a standard gaming trope for you and for enemies to be able to break the lighting in the rooms. Extra effort went into designing the lighting system and adding it to the game when nobody would expect them to need to, so then what's the payoff? One single one room "puzzle" with the solution spelled out for you on a sign? And that's it?

Now, if there was an interesting mechanic related to the darkness vs the light, it would make more sense. for example, if darkness made everyone take more damage, so there was a risk/reward to turning out the lights to kill things faster. Or if enemies behaved differently when in the dark, making turning off the lights sometimes tactically advantageous and sometimes not, and sometimes things go sour because the lights were turned out accidentally, that would be interesting.

but just causing you random pointless eye strain every time you or an enemy hits the upper wall a couple times during a fight? That's not interesting, it's just annoying.

[lopedo]

I don't have the game but have kept my eye on it for a long while. A number of things have kept me from pulling the trigger. I don't mind spending the money, I just don't want to buy a game I'll refund/not play. This post is pretty much verbatim what I would say if I did play the game though, and I'm happy that it exists to show me to steer clear until and if things like this get resolved.

Difficult games are fun. Games with artificial difficulty like +stats to enemies are lazy. Games that just try to annoy the player for no reason and 0 payoff.. well.. I don't know. I just avoid them.

[galdon2004]

If your intention isn't to be annoying to players; you may need to take a second look at a lot of design decisions and ask yourself if they are providing something of value to the player. Something can be annoying and still work if it has a payoff that the player can appreciate, but when something only ever sours the player's experience while playing, and doesn't have any form of payoff, it's only making the game worse to experience.

For another example, the "short jump"? I've never once seen a situation in the game where I thought to myself "I need to jump, and land exactly one tile next to me. Better do the short jump" If you don't want to go anywhere, you can just jump in place. If you want to go somewhere, you would do the full jump.

Now, if the short jump went two tiles and the long jump went further, that would have a payoff, as you would have two useful jumps for crossing distance that are good for different situations. As it is, the short jump is completely useless, making it exist purely as a booby trap for the player. Even though you immediately move at full speed when walking, there is just this arbitrary period of time at the start of walking that will trigger the short jump just to screw you over when trying to platform.

A mechanic should never exist *solely* to irritate/annoy the player unless you are deliberately trying to make the experience unpleasant. It needs to be balanced either with utility the player gets out of the mechanic's existence, reward for putting up with the mechanic, or ingame opportunities for catharsis so the player can vent their frustrations with the mechanic.

[SLAIN]

Originally posted by galdon2004:

You seem to be misunderstanding. the game isn't *hard*. It's *annoying*. I don't get beaten by the damage spongey bosses, I get bored of them. I don't lose all my gold to the pilfers, but they occasionally grab a piece successfully which is annoying on it's own then when I hit them, they just bounce away without any apparent harm, so I can't get any satisfying revenge against them. The darkness doesn't make the game harder, it just strains my eyes.

There are just a *lot* of mechanics or design decisions which are there exclusively to be annoying/bothersome without any sort of payoff. And that lack of payoff is what makes them so annoying. It builds up annoyance at a lot of little things as you play, but you never get any opportunity to release that annoyance/frustration, or get any payoff that justifies the existence of those things.

Like the wall torches; what are they for? It's not a standard gaming trope for you and for enemies to be able to break the lighting in the rooms. Extra effort went into designing the lighting system and adding it to the game when nobody would expect them to need to, so then what's the payoff? One single one room "puzzle" with the solution spelled out for you on a sign? And that's it?

Now, if there was an interesting mechanic related to the darkness vs the light, it would make more sense. for example, if darkness made everyone take more damage, so there was a risk/reward to turning out the lights to kill things faster. Or if enemies behaved differently when in the dark, making turning off the lights sometimes tactically advantageous and sometimes not, and sometimes things go sour because the lights were turned out accidentally, that would be interesting.

but just causing you random pointless eye strain every time you or an enemy hits the upper wall a couple times during a fight? That's not interesting, it's just annoying.

There are mechanics to the torches in some rooms where you get something, just gotta figure it out.

Anyone who nit picks everything little thing that annoys them is going to be very sorry and life and have no friends, just a heads up.

[galdon2004]

When i find issues with a game, I generally try to give feedback on those issues. Note how I did offer suggestions on how to solve the issue with each example I brought up.

The only instance I have found so far of putting out the wall torches to solve a puzzle was one single room with a sign in it that spells out the answer. The other torch related puzzles I've seen so far have been ones where you light torch statues, not put them out. The puzzle rooms also tend to be a bit segregated from the rest of the gameplay; they are in empty rooms with no enemies so they don't really give much payoff for the set up. You never really *use* the darkness for any purpose in the main gameplay loop, so it's all negative and no positive.

The issue with annoying mechanics that have no payoff, or very poor payoff is that they tend to give a purely negative contribution to the overall experience. If you are aiming to make the player feel bad, then that can work if you know what you are doing. For example, the genocide path in Undertale is deliberately not fun to play on purpose. But if the goal is for the player to enjoy the game, annoyance need to either be minimized where possible *or* counterbalanced with a benefit so that the player feels like the times they are annoyed by the mechanic is worth putting up with because the times the mechanic helps them, rewards them, or entertains them is more fun.

[BahamaLlama]

Completely agree. I've just recently brought this game (As in, I've had it just over a day xD) and so far have come across a few mechanics that have just come across as being annoying for the sake of it and nothing more. I'll give you some examples.

1. Poison/Slow effect. Why does poison SLOW you? If you get hit by 1 poison attack, you're more than likely going to lose at least half of your hp. "But you can attack from range" Yes, and I've had plenty of rooms that are basically single file and have had 4-6 spiders on me that require 2-3 hits to kill, causing 1 to hit me, then I get stuck in a trap until my attack speed finally deals with them all.

To fix this, either just remove the slow effect, or add a 1-2 second window of vulnerability, just so you don't get stuck in a damage loop.

2. Room designs. I cannot tell you have many times I've walked into a new room of the dungeon and INSTANTLY taken damage. Whether it be from a spinning saw, a spike trap or a hole. I also can't tell you have many times I've had rooms that have had annoying mobs in, but have given me next to no space to deal with them. I get that the game should be hard, and I LOVE difficult games. BUT, when the difficulty has basically NO payoff, to the point that MOST guides I've read have basically said to "save-scum", there's something wrong... GUIDES on how to do things in the game should NEVER have anything to do with save-scumming, yet the ones I've read does.

Again, a good way to fix this is to add a 1-2 second window of vulnerability/float when you transition between rooms.

3. Sparse keys/bombs. These 2 types of items are a HUGE thing in the game, and yet, you're lucky if you have multiple of each. again, I can't say how many times I've had to skip over chests/money/blessings/shops JUST because the game hasn't given me a single key, same with secrets for bombs. If you're going to add the mechanic where you lose ALL bombs and keys at the end of each run, why do you then also make it VERY difficult to find them?

There are 2 ways you can fix this one. First one is to add an item to the upgrades where it supplies you with a couple of keys/bombs at the start of each run. Yes, I know there's a place where you can sometimes buy bombs/keys, but when gold is the biggest resource in the game, and a lot is required to progress, so only making it possible to start with bombs/keys by buying them is a little stupid. The second would be to increase chances of finding bombs/keys. If you remove them from the player when they die, then you might as well give them a chance to use some of them, or have some fun with the bombs.

4. Losing gold on death/pilfers. These is one of the ONLY things I truly hate about this game. Pilfers were just added into the game to be annoying, that's it. When there's no magnet type thing in game (That I know of. Correct me if I'm wrong), making you have to literally walk OVER the gold to pick it up, then make the pilfers FASTER than you, meaning the second they pick one up, you'll be VERY lucky to get it back, THEN to top it all off, if you end up dying, you lose a good portion of the gold you got in the run, it just becomes tedious. I've had runs where I've made 8-9k gold and lost out on 2-3k of it because of this stupid mechanic, which is basically a complete upgrade for me. It PUNISHES you for having a good run and getting a good amount of gold. If someone can tell me any other game in the world that punishes it's players for having a good run, I'd be quite amazed. This just adds to the annoyance of it all. Not only that, you can also do a run and come back with LESS than what you went in with, meaning that run was meaningless.

Ways I think these problems can be fixed are, with Pilfers, make them slower. Or add a magnet that you can upgrade. I know that there was a single upgrade for picking up gold a little further, but I have that and still feel I need to walk exactly on the gold or I don't pick it up.
With the losing gold on day, make it less punishing.. This mechanic doesn't make the game "hard", it just makes it punishing for punishment's sake. That's it. Again, when a game punishes you for actually having a good run, then the game can no longer be classed as "hard", just punishing for no reason.

All in all, I AM enjoying the game, quite a bit. Had plenty of deaths that I know are my fault and have laughed whilst dying (Which is weird for me :P), but these (And some other) annoyances makes the game that little bit less enjoyable than this should be.

[galdon2004]

Yeah, losing gold on death doesn't work here. It exists just so you can spend gold on upgrades to 'fix' the problem it introduces; though the max bag upgrade still doesn't get you up to keeping all your gold so eventually you will always be losing more gold than you gain, putting an effective soft cap on how much gold you can have.

Losing currency is a trope of games, but not like this. For example, games like Pokemon punish you for a party wipe by taking half your money. But the thing is, you can go from the starting town all the way to beating the elite four without a single party wipe. Most games with an irrevocable currency loss as punishment do so to encourage you to stop dying. This game? 99% of runs end in you dying. Because that's literally the gameplay loop. You go into the dungeon, explore as far as you can, die, then get a new peasant to buy upgrades and do it again.

Roguelikes which have a currency system integrated into progression generally fall into two camps; either you get to spend your currency at the end of the run as a reward for the progress you made then lose your unspent currency at the start of your new run, or you lose all of your currency when you die, and have regular opportunties to spend money during a run; often with a risk/reward system for bringing currency further into the run to spend it at rarer and more powerful shops, knowing that any unspent currency will be lost if you die.

This game seems to REALLY want to avoid rewarding the player. You never feel rewarded for anything. Whenever you get a big payout, it's soured by pilfers rushing in to steal all your loot, and when you die, you get to see a huge chunk of your money just scattered to the wind.

Outside of the small handful of boss fights, the game just CAN'T let you have a win. Every payout has to be compromised by a "tax" of annoying little monsters snatching away your hard won loot, and then death gives you a second tax on your loot. Leaving an unsatisfied and irritated feeling in players.

Loss is something people are psychologically predisposed to feel more strongly than gain. When you see that you got 10k gold, but 3k of it was taken away, you just naturally focus more on the loss of 3k than you do the gain of 7k. Understanding how the player feels and reacts to things is important to getting the player to feel the way you want them to when playing the game.

[mcflux101]

I think that the slime steal from you is calculated and you get a little bit more then you should that is been stolen then.
I agree that the invincibility after getting hit should be a thing since there are enemies that hit you in a way you cannot move and burst you down. But I guess this is a design choice and chosen on purpose.

[galdon2004]

Oh I'm sure the amount stolen from you is calculated into the game balance. But it doesn't change how the game *feels* and gamefeel is very important. The gold stolen isn't annoying because you are mechanically hindered by it, but because losing something feels a lot worse than gaining something feels good.

[BahamaLlama]

The idea of the Pilfers is a good one, but the bad thing about it is they show up EVERY SINGLE TIME! They should either:
A - Be a rare occurrence
B - Be considered a curse
C - Only allow 1-3 spawn per room, and when you knock them away, that's the end of them.

The fact that there's NO way of removing them completely just causes it to be an annoying mechanic. Going into games where gold is required to push through more things, you shouldn't have those moments of panic when you're getting it.

When you find a decent room that can drop a LOAD of gold, and you have pots that can make it even more, you end up losing 1/4 - 1/2 of that gold by the time you've finished using the potions, since potions take 2-3 seconds to consume.

The game isn't difficult, at all. It's based entirely on luck (About 75% luck to 25% skill) and has annoyances in their bounds.

Maybe you can add an upgrade thing, like the gold sack, where it limits the amount of pilfers that spawn? Or slows their movement down, or does ANYTHING to make them less annoying.

[Adeptguy]

So many new players refusing to learn the game and asking for the devs to cater to their casual gameplay... Smh You guys are what's wrong with gaming today and ruin it for everyone. LEARN THE GAME. Every single thing everyone mentioned is something that everyone playing this game HAVE experienced, including myself, and we all LEARNED to play with the game's mechanics. Im not gonna bother spending more time explaining to you how wrong you all are because I'd have to spend a whole lotta time. And I have better things to do.

TL;DR get good and stop complaining.

And FYI OP since you refer SO much to the light system I couldnt resist coming up with a very quick answer because its so obvious yet you cant seem to accept a different opinion other than yours. Maybe the light system learns you to be situationally aware? Maybe the poison enemies learn you how to deal with unexpected negative conditions and MAYBE the game is trying to teach you early how to deal with stuff like that? MAYBE it is to prepare you for even greater difficulty down below in the deeper levels? And get this, this may sound insane but listen up... MAYBE the early levels are training just like in every game ever created in gaming history??? Crazy huh?

[BahamaLlama]

I'm betting you the majority of us that have comment on this game DO know how to play this game. That does not change the fact that multiple of the mechanics in this game are very punishing, more so at the start than further down.

Again, tell me ONE game where poison SLOWS you as well as doing damage to you. There are NONE other than this one. And that's not to say that this mechanic is difficult, it's really easy to deal with. Just run in a circle spamming your throw weapon so they don't get close. So, again, not difficult to deal with, just downright annoying.

The Pilfers are another thing. What are we supposed to be learning? There's only so fast a player can move, and the pilfers move at a faster pace. So, near the start, you barely get chance to get the gold before they run off with it.

I KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. This does not mean that some mechanics are still down-right irritating.

Yes, the early levels are training (Goldmines), but after that, it's not anymore. And yet, some of the most ANNOYING monsters are further down. The gargoyles, Bobo the big, giant, area throwing annoyance, the bigger spiders etc.

I've just completed SS1 and am moving on to SS2, and I have to tell you, SS1 was FAR easier than the first part. I get that much further down the line, it's going to become difficult, but it took me 2 attempts at the last boss in SS1 to beat it, where as it took 10+ at SS0.

So, you can continue your comments of telling us to "git gud", that doesn't stop the fact that these are JUST in the game to annoy people.

OR, are you one of those people that doesn't understand that the majority of those who criticise a game are those who actually enjoy it, and feel that it can be better?

[Adeptguy]

Originally posted by Shortbolts:

I'm betting you the majority of us that have comment on this game DO know how to play this game. That does not change the fact that multiple of the mechanics in this game are very punishing, more so at the start than further down.

Again, tell me ONE game where poison SLOWS you as well as doing damage to you. There are NONE other than this one. And that's not to say that this mechanic is difficult, it's really easy to deal with. Just run in a circle spamming your throw weapon so they don't get close. So, again, not difficult to deal with, just downright annoying.

The Pilfers are another thing. What are we supposed to be learning? There's only so fast a player can move, and the pilfers move at a faster pace. So, near the start, you barely get chance to get the gold before they run off with it.

I KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. This does not mean that some mechanics are still down-right irritating.

Yes, the early levels are training (Goldmines), but after that, it's not anymore. And yet, some of the most ANNOYING monsters are further down. The gargoyles, Bobo the big, giant, area throwing annoyance, the bigger spiders etc.

I've just completed SS1 and am moving on to SS2, and I have to tell you, SS1 was FAR easier than the first part. I get that much further down the line, it's going to become difficult, but it took me 2 attempts at the last boss in SS1 to beat it, where as it took 10+ at SS0.

So, you can continue your comments of telling us to "git gud", that doesn't stop the fact that these are JUST in the game to annoy people.

OR, are you one of those people that doesn't understand that the majority of those who criticise a game are those who actually enjoy it, and feel that it can be better?

Right, the guy that is good at the game that recommends to get better at it is the one that enjoys the game less than the one complaining about said game. Right.