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7/25/2025, 1:14:44 AM
>>11893276
I like the GOW games in general but I take issue with their highest difficulty levels because they're a lazy sort of difficulty where they just cranked the damage up to 11 and don't even try to balance things out so you end up with these insane difficulty bottlenecks like the Theseus fight, whose mechanics are not remotely designed around the icicles he summons while he's sitting on a roof completely invulnerable being one-hit kills. Theseus himself never killed me. I died because the game and I couldn't agree if I was trying to roll up or sideways and so my attempts to dodge an icicle meant I just rolled right into it instead. That kind of janky shit is forgiveable if it just results in damage but if it not only insta-kills you but forces you to restart the entire fight from the beginning so you can slog through the complete non-challenge that is the bosses' first phase just to get wned by icicle RNG again? Yeah, fuck off with that.
I don't believe they playtested the hardest difficulty modes at all, just cranked the damage sliders up as high as they could go and figured if it made some sections complete bullshit that was the players' problem. I beat 1 and 2 on max difficulty and based on those experiences I will not even attempt 3. I'm up for a good challenge but not badly designed ones that require as much luck as skill.
That being said, difficulty is somewhat era-relative. The actual hardest game I ever played is probably a tie between a dozen different arcade games from my youth. I only ever got to stage 3 of Shinobi arcade without savescumming, and if anyone can beat Trojan (Tatakai no Banka) straight up without cheats you're a better man than I. Old school arcade games were ruthless on a whole other level.
I like the GOW games in general but I take issue with their highest difficulty levels because they're a lazy sort of difficulty where they just cranked the damage up to 11 and don't even try to balance things out so you end up with these insane difficulty bottlenecks like the Theseus fight, whose mechanics are not remotely designed around the icicles he summons while he's sitting on a roof completely invulnerable being one-hit kills. Theseus himself never killed me. I died because the game and I couldn't agree if I was trying to roll up or sideways and so my attempts to dodge an icicle meant I just rolled right into it instead. That kind of janky shit is forgiveable if it just results in damage but if it not only insta-kills you but forces you to restart the entire fight from the beginning so you can slog through the complete non-challenge that is the bosses' first phase just to get wned by icicle RNG again? Yeah, fuck off with that.
I don't believe they playtested the hardest difficulty modes at all, just cranked the damage sliders up as high as they could go and figured if it made some sections complete bullshit that was the players' problem. I beat 1 and 2 on max difficulty and based on those experiences I will not even attempt 3. I'm up for a good challenge but not badly designed ones that require as much luck as skill.
That being said, difficulty is somewhat era-relative. The actual hardest game I ever played is probably a tie between a dozen different arcade games from my youth. I only ever got to stage 3 of Shinobi arcade without savescumming, and if anyone can beat Trojan (Tatakai no Banka) straight up without cheats you're a better man than I. Old school arcade games were ruthless on a whole other level.
7/23/2025, 7:25:13 PM
>>11889562
Don't get me started on the absolute fucking crock of shit the enemy away materia is. Everything about it is a sick joke.
Fist of all, afaik it's one of only three materia in the game that is obtained purely by RNG. And not the manageable kind of where you just might have to reload and try again, but the incredibly cruel sort of multi-layered RNG where you not only have to hope the thing shows up as a prize at the chocobo races to begin with but then have to also engage in the futile (in my experience) hope that it's the random prize you happen to win. And to find out whether not not that's the case you have to proceed through the entire chocobo race. Every. Fucking. Time. In true JRPG fashion, it takes what was a fun and rewarding little diversion and turns it into a nightmare of endless repetition until you hate everything about it but you have to keep going because otherwise all those hours (and yes, it will take HOURS) of beating your head against the wall was for nothing.
Just make it a fixed fucking prize. Make it hard to get if you must. Put a powerful enemy inside the chest that contains it. Make me steal it form a rare enemy. Make it the reward for some prolonged sidequest. Hell, if had to be a chocobo race item just give it to me for reaching rank S. That was tedious enough. But making it so you have absolutely no fucking idea when you will actually get it and the only recourse being sitting through the short track race (which still takes like 4 fucjing minutes) over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you win it by blind stupid luck is unacceptable. I honestly might have spent as much time just trying to get this stupid fucking thing as playing the entire rest of the game
And the truly insulting part is, IT DOESN'T EVEN PREVENT RANDOM BATTLES, just makes them slightly less frequent. And you have to level it up....by getting xp...by fighting random battles. What the fuck.
Don't get me started on the absolute fucking crock of shit the enemy away materia is. Everything about it is a sick joke.
Fist of all, afaik it's one of only three materia in the game that is obtained purely by RNG. And not the manageable kind of where you just might have to reload and try again, but the incredibly cruel sort of multi-layered RNG where you not only have to hope the thing shows up as a prize at the chocobo races to begin with but then have to also engage in the futile (in my experience) hope that it's the random prize you happen to win. And to find out whether not not that's the case you have to proceed through the entire chocobo race. Every. Fucking. Time. In true JRPG fashion, it takes what was a fun and rewarding little diversion and turns it into a nightmare of endless repetition until you hate everything about it but you have to keep going because otherwise all those hours (and yes, it will take HOURS) of beating your head against the wall was for nothing.
Just make it a fixed fucking prize. Make it hard to get if you must. Put a powerful enemy inside the chest that contains it. Make me steal it form a rare enemy. Make it the reward for some prolonged sidequest. Hell, if had to be a chocobo race item just give it to me for reaching rank S. That was tedious enough. But making it so you have absolutely no fucking idea when you will actually get it and the only recourse being sitting through the short track race (which still takes like 4 fucjing minutes) over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you win it by blind stupid luck is unacceptable. I honestly might have spent as much time just trying to get this stupid fucking thing as playing the entire rest of the game
And the truly insulting part is, IT DOESN'T EVEN PREVENT RANDOM BATTLES, just makes them slightly less frequent. And you have to level it up....by getting xp...by fighting random battles. What the fuck.
7/11/2025, 7:03:30 PM
>>11861476
I know the nips have a masochistic streak but there are acceptable and unacceptable iterations of that.
Like, having to do the same repetitive task until the RNG smiles upon you is tedious as fuck but at least the numbers say the thing will happen at some point. Having to memorize enemy patterns and react with perfect timing can be a lot to ask sometimes but if there's a window and the player has the opportunity to react the it's merely difficult and maybe a little unreasonable but not flat-out impossible.
An enemy who waits until you in the middle of an attack then respond to it instantly with an unblockable counter that you cant possibly react to or predict? An enemy who can initiate a grab that is literally instant and works 100% of the time? Who never has to drop their guard? That's not a difficult fight, it's an execution. If the only way to "win" your boss fight is to get murdered over and over again until the 1 out 1,000 times where the AI has a brainfart and leaves an opening it shouldn't have you can fuck off. Stop giving bosses win buttons.
I know the nips have a masochistic streak but there are acceptable and unacceptable iterations of that.
Like, having to do the same repetitive task until the RNG smiles upon you is tedious as fuck but at least the numbers say the thing will happen at some point. Having to memorize enemy patterns and react with perfect timing can be a lot to ask sometimes but if there's a window and the player has the opportunity to react the it's merely difficult and maybe a little unreasonable but not flat-out impossible.
An enemy who waits until you in the middle of an attack then respond to it instantly with an unblockable counter that you cant possibly react to or predict? An enemy who can initiate a grab that is literally instant and works 100% of the time? Who never has to drop their guard? That's not a difficult fight, it's an execution. If the only way to "win" your boss fight is to get murdered over and over again until the 1 out 1,000 times where the AI has a brainfart and leaves an opening it shouldn't have you can fuck off. Stop giving bosses win buttons.
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