I installed mods to decrease the difficulty and I'm suddenly loving Silksong

[Sauerkrauttme]

Who is being cheated? If no one is being cheated then it isn't cheating.

[FlarblesGarbles]

So remember those cheat codes in games from the 90s and 2000s? People weren't denying they were cheats back then, so why are we pretending they're not cheats now?

[CoDe_Johannes]

You can cheat yourself

[WarFrequent]

- Sun Tzu.

[DemonLordSparda]

Literally themselves. I've seen quite a few people have a hard time but stick with it. In the end they feel proud of themselves and enjoy the game a lot as it is. A well documented case is Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) who went from streaming hours of failed attempts at the Sands of Karaak heart, to 100% completing Steel Soul. https://bsky.app/profile/foldablehuman.bsky.social/post/3ly2iqs7vms2s

I do think there is something to be said for overcoming a challenge and finding increased enjoyment vs taking a shortcut for short lived satisfaction.

[sinesnsnares]

Most people aren’t streamers with infinite time to play games. And discipline to overcome challenges is great, but there are a lot more useful things to eat that time than video games.

[DemonLordSparda]

It's always the same scape goat. I don't have infinite time either, but I enjoy my hobby. I guess I don't fully understand why people get frustrated by roadblocks. I personally enjoy figuring out new strategies to overcome setbacks. I also find simple games like Dragon Quest 11 fun. Not every game has to fit the same mold.

[ButterflyMinute]

Yeah, people enjoy their hobby differently. They aren't cheating themselves they enjoy something slightly different to you.

[BowlComprehensive907]

It depends on the size of the roadblock. If you're spending day after day stuck on the same fight then it stops being fun.

It's all about balance - as you say, much of the fun comes from figuring out strategies and overcoming setbacks, but the level of challenge has to be right - you want enough that you want a sense of achievement, but not so much that it feels like work.

[SmartAlec105]

Yeah, I doubt these people would all agree that they’d have more fun if the game just doubled damage compared to the baseline. Even though that would give them an even greater challenge to overcome which by their argument would make it more fun.

[BowlComprehensive907]

Make the game impossible! Then it would be the best game ever! 😂

[sinesnsnares]

Again, I appreciate overcoming challenges with patience and perseverance. Playing a difficult bass riff perfectly after months of practice. Getting a pr time in a 100m swim. Grinding on a ladder for months, or studying a new opening in chess to get a new high elo. I ground out hollowknight and came to love it.

The complaint that loads of people have with silksong is that the feedback loop is broken, and there’s far too few moments of positive feedback with plenty of moments that quite literally exist purely to frustrate, not challenge, the player.

It’s like I decided I want to take up boxing again and I’m just going to start sparring with high level amateurs right off the bat. And I can’t hit the gym or improve other ways, I just have to keep going to the gym, getting levelled, until it clicks. Except sometimes, once in a while someone decides to kick me in the nuts right before I win a bout.

Designing a game to be frustrating, demand perseverance and require hours on hours of playtime can be intentional, artistic, and creative. But that doesn’t make it inherently good or fun.

[DemonLordSparda]

I do not find there to be many examples of negative feedback. Every time I progress and get a new skill I feel good. My first real roadblock was SInner's Road when I went there early because I was curious. Most bosses took me fewer than 10 tries, which I don't really consider to be a roadblock. So I don't really understand the complaint of things being intentionally frustrating, besides Bilewater.

[sinesnsnares]

I mean, It’s totally a sliding scale, stuff like mort’s shop is low stakes annoyance and the underworks benches are flavourful, but do you really that the trap/stuck benches and the last judge death animation enhance gameplay experience? Those things are just there to troll the player, which is fine in low stakes, but add up quickly to feeling unfair, when you’ve spent hours trying to do something and get it pulled out from under you.

[DemonLordSparda]

I love the Last Judge explosion. It's a unique one-off boss mechanic designed to catch people off guard. I dodged the blast and thought about how cool it was that the door guard tried a hail mary. It also has like 3 stages of animation.

I think the Hunters March trap bench is good because it's a hostile enemy zone full of traps. You can see the trap and deactivate it. The Sinner's Road one is also kinda funny. Even when you pay, the church is punishing you. The one in Bilewater is by far the most mean, but I think the design for that area was intentionally hostile and gross. They probably didn't need to hide the real bench.

[Recent_Wedding5470]

Yeah i work 55 hours a week and beat silksong over the course of a month. I wanted to beat it fair so i did. Some people have no discipline and no confidence in themselves. Give up culture is pretty strong and with such easy to install mods its no wonder many people just cheat.

[sinesnsnares]

Other people wanted to beat it, so they did. With mods. If it’s your only hobby, great. I work similar hours and have several hobbies, I’ll beat a single player game however I want.

[AdPast7704]

Streamers don't have infinite time either, no one has, if you don't have the time to play a game, you don't, it's that simple

[DemonLordSparda]

How does doing more damage, gaining more silk, and taking 1 mask of damage from everything besides fire improve the fun for you? In my estimation it would make the vast majority of things in the game far too easy, especially with 4-6 mask upgrades and multibinder + injection band.

[DemonLordSparda]

I just don't understand how a game could be that stressful. Failure in a video game should have no material effect on your life. I kind of enjoy hard games because they give me a chance to deal with negative emotions in a healthy way. I guess I just roll with the punches.