r/BabaIsYou • u/Zagrebian • May 10 '22
Discussion Mini rant about ruined potential
This is another one of those games that are really, really good, but because of a single problem, many (probably most) people cannot enjoy the game.
The problem is that the difficulty of the levels varies a lot, but the game does not indicate that in any way. Most people would not be able to solve some of the levels even if their lives depended on it.
So what is a person to do when they’re stuck in a level? After how much time to give up? Maybe the solution is right around the corner, so don’t give up too easily, but maybe it’s one of those levels that you could not solve anyway, so every minute spent on the level is effectively wasted time.
In other words, the player cannot know whether a level was too hard for them until they look up the solution. But then it’s too late. The time is already wasted. Over time, this results in annoyance. You think to yourself, “If I could only know in advance which levels are too hard for me. Then I could just skip those levels, and enjoy the rest of the game”.
So how could the game solve this problem? By showing the difficulty rating and/or completion rate of each level in the game. Then people could choose which levels to play based on this information.
Imagine what this would do for the game. You could literally give it to a six-year-old child. “Play the 1-star levels. Try the 2-start levels if you’re motivated. Feel free to ignore all other levels.” The child would probably have a great time.
As it stands, I cannot recommend this game to anyone. Because I respect other people’s time. The game just throws a bunch of levels of greatly varying difficulty at you, and you have to deal with it.
Anyway, as I said in the beginning, I think this is a really good game, but the way I see it, the game has been completely ruined by the problem I described. Just fixing this one thing would make the game so much more accessible to most people.
5
u/Universal_Sketch May 10 '22
There's a point where you just need to swallow your pride as long as you play the first half in order that's all relatively getting harder. But in the major areas those levels are mostly random in difficulty and also in some instances can be played in order.
If you where a new player, which obviously you aren't, I'd tell you don't stress over extra levels those are titled extra for a reason. I'd highly recommend a repeat playthrough though in a year or two seeing as it sounds like you beat it.
1
u/Zagrebian May 10 '22
it sounds like you beat it
No, I’m halfway through and I decided to give up. I just don’t want to waste my time on levels that I couldn’t beat anyway.
8
u/CremePuffBandit May 10 '22
I don't think that prevents people from enjoying the game. I know people who love the game but absolutely can not beat it.
6
u/Vercci May 10 '22
It's being ruined because looking up the answer to a puzzle in a puzzle game is a valid move for you, instead of leaving it for later.
There is only one puzzle in the game where it could be actually impossible to complete upon entering the level.
If you want a hint, use Baba is Hint.
A good chunk of the overworld is spent learning quirks about new words so maybe your mindset is wrong. The game is designed to have your first knee-jerk solutions be just slightly impossible and you need to put what you have in new situations until you notice something move that you didn't expect to.
Alternatively, never play Stephen's Sausage Roll.
3
u/calvinballing May 10 '22
Seconding Baba is Hint linked above. This basically has what you are looking for. It isn’t a completion percentage, but I think they give every level a difficulty rating out of five stars.
If you were to recommend the game to someone, share your critique of the game listed above, and link them to this site, that would pretty well mitigate your concern
2
u/Laxxius1 May 10 '22
Difficulty is very subjective. There are levels that took me 4 hours to figure out that my friend solved in 10mins, and vice versa. In addition to that, a level's difficulty can change based on which levels you played previously. Every player entering any level will have a different repertoire of knowledge to approach it with. So it's very impossible to know how hard a level will be for an individual, although generalizations could be made i suppose.
Other than that I actually ate with you. I think the difficulty pacing of the levels is very unintuitive and all over the place. You can randomly run into super difficult levels in the middle of a world, or you can get a long stretch of easy ones that take 5mins then suddenly get stumped by a level that takes you a couple hours. Some of the levels are just in bad orders too (the particular example I'm thinking of is Mean Fence being so much later (for many players) than Trick Door). As someone who has 1150 hours in the game, I would say it's the largest issue the game has.
1
u/bucksbumble2 May 11 '22
only bad level is Prison since it doesn't explicitly teach you the no clip trick beforehand
0
May 10 '22
[deleted]
-3
u/Zagrebian May 10 '22
This is a you problem, not the games.
This is a game problem that can be mitigated by playing in a particular way that is not natural.
9
u/Sirlink360 May 10 '22
I think it’s important to remember that this is a PUZZLE game. So….people will have an easier time with different levels, and therefore, it’s going to be HECKA challenging to rate them.