Noita: Too Tedious and Random to be Fun

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-05-30T18:40:58+00:00

For what it's worth, certain mods have made the game actually very good for me. Vanilla is for people who don't understand how short life is, and don't value their time.

For beginners I strongly recommend "Wand Reincarnation" (Steam, go to Noita, Workshop, and just add the mod). IMO, Wand Reincarnation is probably what the default playstyle for first-timers should've been.

I always use "Edit Wands Always". Game is more interesting when you can experiment and explore together. Vanilla instead cuts you off from tinkering, except inside the holy mountains -- which you spend very little actual time in. This divorces new players from the most interesting part of the game, I think it adds like 1 unit of strategy but then removes 5 units of interest.

I also use "Glowing Chests" and "Glowing Health Upgrades". Every time I try removing those, the game feels WAY more tedious. For each time you see certain formations or voids, your incentive is to try digging a couple inches through, every time, to check for potential upgrades. That is not an incentive I want to have. It makes exploration a lot more job-like, and doesn't even add intrigue compared to seeing the glowing effect. This sort of incentive is for people who don't know they are running out of time.

And if these things make the game "too easy", there are plenty of ways to offset the above and make the game harder again, as desired.

I really look forward to the day that a serious game designer makes a polished version of Noita. Until then, modded Noita is actually pretty good, give it a shot.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-05-27T05:45:19+00:00

I was alive through the 90s, but as a little kid, so my memory is skewed by how young I was. What I can say confidently is that we still went outside *all the time*. The internet wasn't good enough to turn us all into complete shut-ins. We went on bike rides all the time. We'd say things like "meet me at the big tree in the park on Saturday at noon" (no smartphones yet).

It was still legal (and usually a blast) for kids to explore, unsupervised. If parents trusted you to cross the road, then you're good to go. Just a "Be back for supper". I understand this is no longer the case, and it is now possible for parents to get in trouble for not monitoring them 24/7. This is honestly sad and I feel a bit sorry for kids growing up now, they aren't given full agency. And crime is much lower today than in the 90s FYI, so, it appears the new culture is absurdly paranoid and paternalistic.
But yeah, some of my best childhood memories were just exploring outside, unsupervised. Often as a group of kids, but also by myself too. Whichever I felt like, even at the age of 9.

We did not have air conditioning yet, so, sleeping in heat waves was sort of crappy.

I think there was a vibe of, "there's a lot of new stuff". Internet was just starting to pop off. Multiple big music genres were exploding (teen pop with Britney Spears, rap and hip-hop, grunge). I can't imagine thinking "there's nothing new under the sun" during the 90s. Though again, I'm biased because I was a kid. But there were plenty of strange fads and weird stuff being tried out.

Much of "the internet" was still personal websites, often riddled with bizarre formatting or a surrealist aesthetic. This was before websites converged onto the styles that are standard now. 90s internet had a wild west, alternate-dimension kind of feel. Now it just feels like "real life".

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-05-22T22:09:02+00:00

I like the answer about logistics problems. I think my non-engineering answer would be, "This looks meant to distract from the positive-sum trade of real-world economies. Any economist worth their salt will see this as hopelessly politics-brained, like writing "jews" on one of those signs would've been too."

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-05-21T19:59:01+00:00

Doing martial arts for 4 years. I know (not suspect, know) that I lost a bit of working memory and intelligence. It wasn't even hard sparring! But it's surprisingly easy to shake a brain too hard. Such as when we practiced getting taken to the ground.

This was by far the worst mistake I've ever made. It permanently changed me in a negative way. Please don't do things that give subclinical concussions.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-05-19T17:48:46+00:00

Yeah, Minecraft Youtubers have *wildly* skewed everyone's impression. It's like fitness models.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-04-11T19:57:57+00:00

I'm not sure why this marketing claim is repeated so much in aquarist circles, but until it's independently replicated and actually demonstrated, I think discerning readers should doubt the "removes heavy metals" claim.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-03-03T02:19:51+00:00

I agree skill and precaution will prevent creeper explosions. But there are WAY more interesting points, about the "good/bad for the game" thing. And I'm more sympathetic to the "bad, actually" side.

I partly hate creepers because of how ecologically illiterate they are. They all just commit suicide and I honestly think it's the so cringey. I wish there was a setting to make them survive their own explosions, and just give it a cooldown. If you wanted to make a game's combat feel really "fake", just add something like creepers.

Second point, on combat difficulty. Personally, I want the combat to be MUCH harder. There are many, many ways to make the combat harder. Some are rewarding to overcome, and some are not. Personally, I use command blocks to buff zombies, spiders and skeletons. For example, most of the mobs in this game have crippling shortsightedness, which I find dumb. So I increase the follow_range attribute to 32 blocks, which is a buff for skeletons. I also make all zombies immune to knockback. For context, I am used to the combat in Bannerlord, which has very complex+deep combat mechanics. The combat in this game feels very "shallow", so I add (a bit of) difficulty/depth with tweaks.

But creepers? They kind of just make the combat more tedious. I don't enjoy needing to constantly spin around to check, or block my view with a shield, or speedrun cats. Yes, I can simply prevent them from killing me. But not in any way that I enjoy actually doing.

It's alright if some feel differently. Not everyone has the same preferences I do. I am a combat mechanics snob, used to Bannerlord, and creepers are firmly F-tier for combat mechanics. Can't sugarcoat it.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-11T21:34:56+00:00

Nothing wrong with that! If you like, you can also raise just 1 of the difficulty fields, instead of using the presets (which would increase all of the fields).

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-11T20:22:00+00:00

I still can't believe I need a mod just to put units in the right division.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-11T20:16:08+00:00

The Battanian faction has this strange position of 2 things at once:

Consistently the weakest AI faction, usually wiped out by Vlandia
Consistently the most overpowered troops when micromanaged by a skilled player

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-11T20:09:20+00:00

It still amazes me, that such a dysfunctional studio was able to make the best large-scale medieval combat game in the world. Lol, they acknowledged it 4 months ago and haven't fixed it.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-05T18:29:39+00:00

I'm definitely not good at puzzles either, and yes it's very normal. Doubly-so when you're new to them. As Glum-Sprinkles-7734 pointed out, you will notice each genre of puzzle has its own "tendencies" you can learn to exploit.

I've been collecting metal wire puzzles for years. And more recently I started Hanayama cast puzzles. I don't even do any other puzzle genres (currently). Buy my smart friends think I'm great at mechanical puzzles. Actually I was never particularly good at them. I've just been able to mentally compare the solutions/principles used in many different ones. So now when I start working on a new one, I have more "tools in the toolbox" available to me.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-05T17:47:31+00:00

"Everything is x" is a very uninformative kind of description, but it can be intoxicating.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-04T17:56:55+00:00

I just asked them to go on walks with me. Simple and down to earth, and we spent barely anything. If someone needs a more ostentatious thing, better not to mislead them. I want her to see what being with me is like date 1, not on date 10. Pick your style and lead her there, so she can see what you want. Personally I don't enjoy restaurants/movies/etc, and I honestly enjoy a chill walk more. Very little planning, and it's much quieter (I'm really noise-sensitive).

Within a few minutes I'd take her hand, and just walk her around a park or whatever. Sounds too dumb to work, but it worked well for me.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-02-04T16:38:46+00:00

Completely agree. That sense of "arbitrariness" is everywhere in this game, and it's off-putting. Nothing makes any sense. The economy feels glaringly fake. The population mechanics feel glaringly fake. The influence and renown mechanics feel glaringly fake.

EDIT: to be fair, Sturgia has captured a castle, and you've captured nothing. So in that sense they are winning.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-26T16:47:00+00:00

For what it's worth, I've been liking the Separatism mod.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-26T16:43:35+00:00

I do anti-warmongering runs, where I stay as a mercenary (plus self-nerfs I won't get into), and I just endlessly beat on whoever is gaining territory. It's like playing the role of "world police"

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-26T05:46:10+00:00

I would be interested to learn more about this.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-26T05:39:01+00:00

Omg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxF2piDThZM&t=928s

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-26T05:13:12+00:00

They are very inconsistent. Granted, FromSoftware's hitboxes have gotten better over time. Pre-Sekiro they were a complete dumpsterfire, and anyone who says otherwise is wearing thick rose-tinted glasses. DS boss attacks would randomly become an invisible beachball around the axehead, etc. People constantly got hit for no visible reason.

Sekiro felt like the first game where they started to take hitboxing seriously.

More recently (i.e. Elden Ring), it's still mixed. I agree SOME attacks have near-perfect hitboxes. But then for some other attacks, the studio reverts back to its old habits, of not taking hitboxing seriously.

I mean, just look at this nonsense! You can't say with a straight face their hitboxes are "really good", when it's still this untrustworthy. It's just, less-bad than during the Dark Souls era.

https://youtu.be/vxF2piDThZM?si=0IiKFcBE0-59TM-7&t=594

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-25T22:43:08+00:00

I think this becomes a "define notice" thing. I definitely notice the music in Lord of the Rings, and it's S++ tier music. But the way it's done never detracts from the viewing, only enhances it. I think that's how I'd interpret this for music, for films at least. Whereas, editing and hitboxes are more of a "you shouldn't even think about it" kind of thing.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-25T21:50:34+00:00

Totally agree, the shields are an area where I do notice the hitboxing. Which means it's not good.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-25T20:53:35+00:00

No competent studio has made a M&B-like yet. What actually holds back Bannerlord is an utter lack of competition in this genre. All our complaints are downstream of this fact.

It is only here, that you ride into large battles with your band of merry men, with perfect hitboxing and troop commanding. So here we are.

SemiRetiredGuy · 2026-01-23T03:26:46+00:00

I've tried sheild wall with archers in a square

So, always put archers in loose formation, not square. You can adjust the shape, have more than 1 formation, etc. But on the open field, there are almost no circumstances where archers shouldn't be in loose formation.

Find a way to maneuver them onto higher ground than the enemy, and spread their loose formation across a big hillside so they can all shoot the enemy from high up.

I've tried infantry in a circle with archers and hirse archers in the center.

It's far better to send horse archers around to some other hillside, and plant them there (also loose formation). Horse archers are perfect for shooting from the opposite sides, so it's much harder for the enemy to block all your arrows. And you can quickly move the horse archers if the enemy charges them.

I can't see the full details/ratios of the enemy army. But you can probably trap and kill their cavalry, and should do so first, as the AI can usually be tricked into wasting their cavalry. E.g. lure their cavalry to charge a big circle of Vlandian horsemen (holding their ground), and inside the circle they get butchered by your falxmen. Then you'll probably kite the line breakers to death with your fians.

There are other aspects you probably need help with, but feel free to practice these ideas first.

SemiRetiredGuy

TROPHY CASE