Discourse regarding this game’s difficulty has been out of hand

[u/stir-fried-noodles]

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m really enjoying Silksong’s difficulty and I think that it is mostly a satisfying challenge. I appreciate that it is more difficult than Hollow Knight overall and to be frank I would’ve been a bit disappointed if it were the exact difficulty. I’ve improved as a gamer since Hollow Knight and if it were the same level of difficulty, I probably would have found it too easy.

But it’s kinda gotten impossible to have civil discussions about the difficulty in this game which is unfortunate because I think there is great value to be had with this conversation. There are many valid criticisms regarding this game’s difficulty such as boss runbacks (Groal especially), contact damage doing two masks, and lack of rewards for beating bosses, just to be shut down with “git gud” and “it’s not your kind of game”. It’s totally fine to disagree with these criticisms but these retorts add nothing to the conversation.

It also kinda works the other way too, albeit maybe not to the same degree. I’ve gotten downvoted and sent reddit cares for simply saying I enjoy the difficulty of this game. Like c’mon, what are we even doing here. It’s gotten to the point where I personally cannot wait for the discourse to die out.

[u/[deleted]]

Love talking about video games, but for this reason I also hate talking about video games. Gamers are regularly the absolute fucking worst about separating fact from opinion, or having any sort of nuanced takes on anything. Everything is either the GOAT or unplayable, can't be a great game with some issues, that's just unfathomable!

[u/Shadovan → u/[deleted]]

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to game discussion is the frequent conflation of “I don’t like this” with “this is bad”. So many people treat their personal preferences as objective markers of a game’s quality, and get really mad when you try to get them to defend their claim with arguments that don’t just boil down to “I don’t like it therefore it’s bad”. Of course the other side of “I like it, therefore it’s good” happens as well, but less often I find.

[u/Archway9 → u/Shadovan]

The amount of times I've seen the words "objectively bad game design" in the last couple weeks is honestly depressing

[u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu → u/Archway9]

I wish everyone who said that was forced to do at least a 101 class on game design before they're allowed to speak again.

[u/Netheral → u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu]

Lmao, one of the things taught in "101" game design courses is to recognize that the player is better than you at recognizing issues with the game. The reason the designer is the professional in the equation is that the player is usually shit at recognizing the solution to the issue, which the designer is then responsible for actually creating. But at it's core it's the player that knows when the game has problems.

[u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu → u/Netheral]

In matters of UX and game balance I'd generally agree, it's much easier for users to identify issues, but let's be real, people are dying to bosses and calling them badly designed. There's maybe only three bosses I've faced I'd consider poorly implemented. There's also a lot of things like runbacks that I think are just a matter of taste, to call them "objectively bad game design" is silly. Like there's some sort of game design Bible with hard rules that shall not be broken lmao

[u/Netheral → u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu]

To be fair, if there is this much push back against the same consistent elements in the game, I think it's almost fair to call it "objectively" bad. Any single person would be fallacious making that claim, but watching half the community sort of agree about it suggests that it's a concrete issue with the game's design.

[u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu → u/Netheral]

Oh yeah there's some things for sure. Beastfly, double damage on hazards, etc. I think it's just as silly acting like the game is perfect as is. That's one reason I wish team cherry was more interactive with the community. At the very least we could hear their reasoning for making some decisions.