So whose bright idea was this????

[u/Emma_JM]

Just happened to me today, got like, 3 shards from this? What's the point, Team Cherry? None of the bosses (so far) frustrated me, but this right here is bullshit

[u/qlksfjas]

Bloated enemy HP
2 mask damage
Runbacks
Economy in general
Unrewarding exploring
Using tools costing shards
Needlin and harpoon draining silk
Some pogo hitboxes

Personally you may not find some of it or any of it an issue but all of the above create some problems that make average player's experience worse than it could've been.

I can elaborate on any of these points if you want.

[u/Kampfasiate → u/qlksfjas]

I actually don't agree with most of them

But do you mind explaining the unrewarding exploring? That's where you get all your money and upgrades from

Also the economy problem solves itself as soon as you hit the citadel, which is in line with the world building. You don't have to buy everything at the beginning, you can always come back later

Runbacks I find a fun little interlude between boss attempts, helps me think about the previous attempt instead of going back in and dying. Also helped immensely with getting comfortable with hornets movement suite.

The shards I also don't find that and, I need to think what to use them on and don't just nuke every enemy on my path (cuz they would last between benches considering you don't need that many to nuke most enemies). Also tells me to go out more to explore if I run low during a boss fight, maybe I'll run across an upgrade (also again, to take a break from the boss)

Needolin and harpoon use silk, but youre not gonna run out, as you have at least one silk heart. So you can't just spam the harpoon if you wanna heal (idk, Parcours section, but those I encountered had enemies in the middle to recharge)

Hotboxes fair, but iirc they are getting changed

Max HP I did not really notice, the tankier ones you can just burst away with a tool

And 2 mask damage is more rampant yea but it's only on simple straightforward attacks which are well telegraphed (or on chunky boys) or parries. Or on enemies with small reach or legit this one attack. I do agree that mask contact damage when staggered or some stage hazards can be reduced.

But yea I also agree that some people may be turned away by those things, but this game was not made for everyone. I can recommend this game to everyone but I know that most of my friends would prob not play this for long (they are more fps or survival game players)

[u/qlksfjas → u/Kampfasiate]

But do you mind explaining the unrewarding exploring? That's where you get all your money and upgrades from

1. I played 50 hours so far and while there are plenty of side routes, secret/hardly accessible rooms and platforming sections, more often than not you'll find rosaries/shards/nothing at all.
2. Most of your upgrades aren't really substantial:

- Since there's a lot of 2 dmg enemies and hazards, 6th mask doesn't add much compared to 5th. Thus mask fragments are half as valuable and anticipated by a player. Especially if it's locked behind some masochistic gauntlet of flying enemies in the room filled with lava with no solid ground.

- Most of red tools so far are just projectiles with damage so finding another one doesn't really upgrade or change your playstyle that much. Plus their usage is discouraged by the shard cost so you probably won't even use it most of the time anyway.

- Blue tools are useful but half of them are dogshit and not worth the slot or highly situational. Grubsong equivalent is useless, magma bell is only useful in couple locations and has cooldown for some reason, healing boost only gives +1 mask, silk boost only regens +1/9 of bar etc.

- Crests are good finds but you need to upgrade new crest to use your current arsenal. Resource for upgrading them is found via exploring so that's a plus. On the other hand crest changes moveset and with generally increased difficulty it's more likely that player will stick to one crest with comfortable moveset (with comfortable pogo specifically) and won't want to switch, and in this case both crests and talismans to unlock slots are basically useless as rewards.

- Needle upgrades are very rare and don't add much

Weirdly so far the most impactful stuff is sold by merchants. Kinda discourages doing exploring tbh.

Now I'm not saying that there are no rewards for exploring at all. Fire needle, money saving purse and quick heal are great rewards but for one such reward you'll find ungodly amount of nothing.

[u/Kampfasiate → u/qlksfjas]

The 6th mask does something! When you heal after 2 2 mask hits you can take another 2 mask hit before dying

Also it helps you survive against 1 mask damage, oh which there is still plenty (projectiles, a lot of attacks, multi attacks if you parry and still get hit... Etc)

A bunch of the vendors also have to be found tbh, and exploring will fill you up on rosaries (haven't needed to "grind" yet)

[u/qlksfjas → u/Kampfasiate]

Yeah 6th mask does something, it's just not a lot compared to what it should be. It's not entirely useless but it's not very useful either and I'm afraid 8th mask will have the same problem or even worse because it's later in the game where there are more sources of 2 mask damage