This game could have been bigger than Balatro

[SitcomReality]

Seeing other roguelikes get so popular while Noita languishes annoys me, because this game has so much potential, but it's crushed by the early game experience.

My whole rant here boils down to this: Would any of you bother playing Noita without wand building? All the other cool stuff aside, wand building is the defining feature of this game. It's the feature that makes this game fun, interesting and unique.

Unfortunately, Noita seems to want to deprive players of its one stand-out feature. After all this time, the best review I could give for this game is "If you keep doing the same boring stuff over and over, eventually you'll get to experience some fun for a bit before you have to repeat the boring part again."

To preemptively address the hardcore crowd: I deeply respect the current Noita mid -> late game experience. The unforgiving nature, the high stakes, the feeling of power and the nonsense and hilarity that results from the combinations of spells and perks – I understand its appeal, I love it, and I'm not suggesting we remove or change that for those who love it. However, let's look at some cold, hard numbers: Steam Achievement percentages. These paint a stark picture of player attrition in the early game:

71.7% of players have reached the Coal Pits (Level 2).
58.7% have reached the Snowy Depths (Level 3).
36.6% have reached the Hiisi Base (Level 4).
Only 22.4% have reached the Underground Jungle (Level 5).

Nearly 30% of players who own Noita never even reach the second level, the Coal Pits, literally the first time you get to experience Noita's main feature - wand building! Is that not insane to anyone else? Nearly a third of everyone who has ever played this game has never experienced the core of the gameplay that defines Noita and makes it so special.

That's absurd. That's like if 30% of Monopoly players never bought a property. That's like if 30% of Minecraft players never crafted anything. That's 30% of CoD players never shooting a gun. IT'S THE MAIN THING ABOUT THE GAME!

Noita is so much fun once you get past the initial hump, but the hump is not fun, and most players who buy this game will never understand why anyone enjoys it, because they never get to the fun part, the reason we all still play this game. I also don't think it's a huge assumption to say that the majority of time spent by everyone who plays this game is spent in the mines or coal pits, often dying before experiencing the fun. (Look at a plot of your death locations on the map and think about how many times you died before even making it to the part of Noita that you play Noita for.)

These achievement numbers aren't just random stats. They tell a story. They show us that for every 100 players who buy Noita:

Roughly 30 will bounce off before even getting to decent wand customization.
Over 40 more will give up before reaching the halfway point of the "main path" biomes (Hiisi Base).
And three-quarters won't even experience the Underground Jungle, which is still early in the most basic, standard run. How many players are getting to the sky, or Greek letters, or parallel worlds, considering <10% of us have ever even achieved a standard victory?

This isn't just about "git gud." This is about a fundamental barrier to entry that is preventing a huge number of players from experiencing the real magic of Noita. It's like inviting a kid to a candy shop for the day and then making them sweep chimneys for three hours before letting them eat. Maybe a few kids get to enjoy the sweets if they're one of the few that survives long enough, but wouldn't it be nice if they all did?

Imagine Noita, but starting a new game doesn't require spending four months crawling through the mines with a 1 wet stick of floppy dynamite and a spitter bolt on a 45s cooldown

Is there any reason to make players endure this every time they want to start a new run? Does it make the game more fun for some people, if you spend half an hour walking around the mines looking for $3 and a health pickup? Is there a game design reason that most players should die before delving deeper into the secrets, the lore, the insane wand combinations, and the truly emergent gameplay that Noita offers?

To the devs: From a purely business perspective, those achievement numbers should be a wake up call. Noita is a brilliant game, but it's undeniably niche because of its early game difficulty. You don't have to 'sell out' or even 'make it easier' or ruin any of the existing gameplay that we experience in longer runs, but if you're going to keep updating this game then addressing this early game attrition should be... considered, at least? Those missing 30% (and the percentages that drop off later) represent lost sales, lost word-of-mouth marketing, and a massive amount of untapped potential.

The Workshop is a Hämis nest of mods all trying to address this one problem

I'm not necessarily asking to fundamentally change Noita for everyone. But this game screams out for a more casual mode, as evidenced by the just ridiculous numbers of mods that are all designed to alleviate this one issue.

I can no longer start a new game without Apotheosis and Wands Reincarnation giving me a right-click teleport bolt wand at the very start. This is one small change that makes trying to collect enough health and gold to stay awake for the first couple of levels actually almost bearable. But this itself requires two mods.

Look at the number of mods on the Workshop that could arguably be made to reduce the boredom of the start of the game and tell me it's not the majority of all mods ever made for this game. Look at the most popular mods, the most subscribed mods.

I'm not saying to make Noita easy, or easier. I'm suggesting that the first couple of levels are boring and they should be much, much shorter, and exploring them fully should be much less necessary (in terms of gold, health pickups etc.) to allow people to get to the actual fun of this game more often. (I don't think simply cutting the mines or coal pits in half is sufficient - all of Noita's gameplay is balanced around exploring the proc gen levels and the allocation of early game resources like wands, spells and gold needs to be reworked.)

Roguelikes are a genre that involves seeing the start of the game over and over and over gain, and the start of this game is not fun.

Am I wrong, here? Does anyone actually enjoy spelunking the mines with spitballs and a sparkler for 20 minutes, selecting Extra Perk as the best option, then dying immediately to a swarm of lava wasps in the coal pits, just to repeat the process, never having even seen any interesting spells?

[Monty]

I completely agree with everything you've written.

I also think you can expect some... spirited gatekeeping in the pages to come.

[LoxAndOrder]

This is why I never recommend Noita without also recommending some "Day 2" mods. Sure, give the vanilla/base game a shot to understand what the mods change, but the game is so much more fun and accessible with mods that anyone who's only played the game unmodded has missed out on the ideal Noita experience. And by "ideal," I mean ideal for you, since the great thing about mods is that they make the game customizable.

The most important mod I recommend is one that gives the player a digging tool at spawn. The environmental physics engine is what makes this game stand out, so starting with a way to manipulate the environment is essential.

Then I recommend some quality-of-life and survivability/health mods. Once they get the hang of the things, the real chaos begins with the spell and material mods.

[jungus]

Noita languishes because the community says "Noita is the hardest most complex most difficult game ever!" and so people stay away from it, and people who play it blame the game and never improve. I don't think Noita is difficult, but rather a lot of important game knowledge isn't made obvious.

Originally posted by LoxAndOrder:

The most important mod I recommend is one that gives the player a digging tool at spawn... Then I recommend some quality-of-life and survivability/health mods.

That's not QOL, that's cheating.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by SitcomReality:

Does anyone actually enjoy spelunking the mines with spitballs and a sparkler for 20 minutes, selecting Extra Perk as the best option, then dying immediately to a swarm of lava wasps in the coal pits, just to repeat the process, never having even seen any interesting spells?

The early game is honestly the best part of Noita. It forces you to make use of your surroundings and gives ample opportunity for all kinds of shenanigans. You actually need to survive off the land with intelligent usage of your limited resources. When you have Immunities, thousands of health, means of healing/digging/teleporting, I feel that's when the game starts to get a bit stale.

By the time I finish Snowy Depths and head into Hisii Base, I can already have Greek Letters, copy spells and potentially Divide bys if the Coral Chest is feeling like dropping something other then Myriad Cast. And that's before even going down into the Overgrown Caverns too. Once I'm at that point, there's really not all that much that can stop me besides playing stupidly or my own hubris.

[jungus]

Originally posted by Jimmy Hunter:

The early game is honestly the best part of Noita. It forces you to make use of your surroundings and gives ample opportunity for all kinds of shenanigans. You actually need to survive off the land with intelligent usage of your limited resources. When you have Immunities, thousands of health, means of healing/digging/teleporting, I feel that's when the game starts to get a bit stale.

[Prodeses]

Just out of curiosity, what makes you assume the mentioned 30% would have liked the game if they would have gotten to wand building? While it's the core mechanic it also may drive some players away due the complexity and well... the unintended self harm.

Many negative reviews claims that the game does not respect players time. Many claims that the game is random and unfair. I'd say those 30% might just not have been target audience.

The official trailer promotes pixel simulation action platformer with some magic involved while the gameplay is bit more of a getting your ass handed to you.

[Toasted Sunshine]

"Spirited Gatekeeping"? How do you spell "poison the well", again?

Well. As a big fan of gatekeeping, let me just say I pray to god that the things I like don't get big. If anyone's been paying attention, the moment normies get involved, it's all over. Unfunny, whining about what the game is, trying to change it. Thank god this game isn't still under development.

Also, citing achievement statistics on steam means nothing. Go look at Terraria achievements, for example. Under the logic of OP's post, he might then say, "What? Not even half the people who own this game have chopped down a tree? This must be some fundamental flaw in the game if it's making people get bored before experiencing what the game has to offer, which is crafting!"
And don't forget that mods disable achievements, so the moment you start using those, your steam statistics also aren't reflecting your progress. By achievements, I've only been as far as the hiisi base. By my actual progress, I've been much farther.

I agree that wand-building is one of the best aspects of the game - that's why the only mod I run is for customizing wands anywhere - but with a game where mods solve a lot of issues you might have, it should be "is the base game good?" And then build from there if you want.
Minecraft, Rimworld, Fallout:NV, Terraria... Noita, all very solid games on their own, MADE BETTER with mods. Not made playable, or made interesting. If you didn't like what the base game has to offer, get filtered and spend your time doing something you enjoy more. If you do like what the base game has to offer, keep playing and see if you can't make it even better.

[Just Breathe]

One of the big things you're missing here is the fact that when you play with ANY mods enabled your progress on achievements is halted, any anything you do thats new WONT be counted.

You have to play the game without mods to unlock achievements. Now, how many players are playing noita without mods? Not many. I'm certainly not.

For all we know the actual percentages COULD be 20% higher if the achievements actually tracked while playing with mods on, and I think it is higher just not as significant as 20%. A majority of people who recommend the game to people say that mods make the game better, so they probably start the game with mods and don't get any progress saved.

[Stafford's Bees]

In lieu of them redesigning some part of the game, I have for you a very simple and effective work-around that will alleviate all your concerns. It works with the vanilla game and there's nothing stopping you from getting started with it right away. It is:

Stop doing that stuff you don't like, over and over. You don't have to. Just drop down through the portals and start scrounging around for wands wherever you think the game really begins. You don't need the hearts, you don't need the third bouncing ball or glitter bomb wand either. If you're getting splattered a lot you'll quickly learn how to get a new character back there in a minute or two.


It's a solid roguelike design ideal to try and cut out the stuff that enables players to torture themselves with tedium in the name of playing optimally. This game is not going for that.
Noita is open-ended, mystery-ridden, and probably has to be a kinda loosely-balanced game.

Now, this ahead is a facile thought, but: it wouldn't be very mysterious if the lava lake and waterlogged cave fit on the same screen. There needs to be some amount of expanse with stuff in it to have enough space to hide things.

Learn to git gud at valuing your own time.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Just Breathe:

One of the big things you're missing here is the fact that when you play with ANY mods enabled your progress on achievements is halted, any anything you do thats new WONT be counted.

There's been a community mod that's removed this restrictions for over 3 years now. https://modworkshop.net/mod/38530

[Dr. G]

As a newcomer to Noita (I just picked it up on sale, though I've been looking at it for a while), I think the beginning is fine. The upper floor is a nice introduction to basic mechanics with simple enemies and serves as a tutorial area to get the hang of how everything works (enemies drop gold, everything is destructible, be careful of chain reactions...). The second and third areas start showing what the game is really about (from what I can tell so far): navigating and engaging with threats using your ever-changing assembly of wands.

Granted, I like roguelikes, but most of the roguelikes I enjoy are turn-based strategy RPGs, not action. For example, I bounced hard off of Spelunky. This game has me intrigued, specifically because of the wand powers and insane, wanton destruction of the environment.

From my hour or so of playtime, I don't think this game is horribly unforgiving (there are lots of roguelikes that are worse). It is obtuse, and it is really unclear to me so far how wand crafting actually works, but I can see there is something interesting there and that part of the game is figuring out how powers can work together. Making it more obvious how powers work together (or what will immediately blow up in your face) would be contrary to the spirit of the game. You are supposed to accidentally blow yourself up with a wand that you put the "explosion" power on. You are supposed to accidentally teleport yourself out of a safe zone and into a hoard of enemies while testing a displacement power...and more things that I definitely did not do on my first few runs.

I don't know how Noita will feel once I "know" the game. I am sure I will at some point regret having to go through the first couple of levels yet again hoping to find the build components I most prefer, but that's just how roguelikes are. But, for now, discovering it is a blast (often literally for my unfortunate characters). Would it be fun with the changes OP describes? Probably, but it would be fundamentally different experience. From what I can tell so far, learning the game is gameplay in itself.

[MoosePotato666]

I mean everyone's different but I like the early game. If I make it to the late game, I'm pretty powerful. So the early levels actually become more interesting to me because they're still challenging, and it's exciting to find the initial items that will help guide my build.

[noisyturtle]

Next to Issac, Noita is the best roguelike I've ever played.
I wouldn't be surprised if I still play it occasionally 10 years from now, if I'm still alive.

[Player [1]]

I completely agree. If it weren't for the "Edit Wands Always" mod and the Quicksave/Quickload tool, I would never have played the hundreds of hours I did. With both of these tools, I managed about 90% of all the Atreevements and I loved every single bit of those enormous tasks.

[Knowsome]

I'd say this game just requires just a tiny little bit of hand holding. Like a tutorial level when you first start would help tremendously just like balatro has a seed called "TUTORIAL" when you start playing it.

Even gruesome and incredibly hard roguelikes back in the day like "Towerclimb" had a level dedicated as a tutorial to get you familiarized with the mechanics of the game.

giving players gold to edit wands inside a holy mountain and explaining them the very basics of wand building,teaching them to turn sludge into water, to knowing how to trick kill enemies during a tutorial level, would go a long way to aliviate the frustration of starting to play this game.

But no, Noita just says, "enter the cave, here are keybinds, WASD, 1-9. Go."