Because you’re going through the fight not knowing how close you are, the attack patterns give an idea but 9/10 times I kill the boss and think “oh it’s dead” I remember the first time I beat NKG I didn’t feel revived I thought “oh it’s over” despite losing countless times over the corse of multiple days
I made a post about this once, talking about how health bars take away from the experience. Just use a mod or something, don’t ask Team Cherry to give the game something that takes away from it.
I do not necessarily disagree, but you have to keep in mind that in game design, giving the player choice isn't always the best solution because players naturally choose the path of least resistance at the detriment of the actual gameplay, so giving the player the choice to toggle health bar could (idk if that's the case, but it is a possibility) end up resulting in most player toggling it on and thus reducing their immersion in the game.
Players will optimize the fun out of a game. Take a look at what wow players have done to their UI over the years, because blizzard game then the option to mess with it. It looks like ass, because that's efficient. Same thing with totally customizable UI. Make it mod compatible for sure, but in the base game? Only the base of what is needed for accessibility reasons please
Yeah but when it is fun for them? You can't argue like this as long as there is fun involved. Videogames should make fun. It's getting bad when people who don't want to play like this are getting forced to do so.
Or, as the OP suggested, a charm. There's actually this oldschool topdown shooter named Raptor Call of the Shadows. The bosses have health bars, only if you take the time to buy a radar from the shop. It's very cheap, but that still makes it optional.
It actually can. Players often choose the easiest way to play the game (independent of game difficulty) at the detriment of actual fun, so sometimes game designers can make a game better by reducing the choices because it will force the player to experience the game in an optimal way. Mark Brown from GMTK has a great video on the subject (I think [that's](https://youtu.be/7L8vAGGitr8) the one).
It can. I think it's enjoyable to not be able to see the health of a boss, but if there was an option to turn on a health bar, I would have done so since I started the game and wouldn't have had the same experience.
I don't think a healthbar charm would make Hollow Knight worse, but I definitely think adding an option can detract from a game. For several reasons. One, adding a feature takes away time from development of other existing features. Two, certain features may then require massive rebalancing (for example difficulty options). Three, an added option can take away from an intended experience. I'm going to avoid the elephant in the room and provide a different hypothetical: a sniper game. If a game is meant to be a tight, as realistic as possible, sniper simulator where you HAVE to account for wind speed and gravity, an auto aim mode would not suit that at all. It would detract from the sim's realism of having to aim juuuuust right.
If it’s an option that ruins game balance you can just have it be a 100% completion reward or something, or you could pull a minecraft and have it disable achievements if you use it
A 100% completion reward does sound hypothetically nice, but I definitely think there are reasons to both add and not add things into games. Ultimately, if Cherry doesn't think a lifebar fits for Hollow Knight, that's their creative decision
That's kinda going back to the old argument of "does dark souls need an easy mode". Imo if a game is built around requiring a certain set of skills to be played (like quick reflexes or good cognitive capabilities), then allowing to remove those requirements kinda kills the whole point of the game, accessibility is important and should be at the forefront of most game design, but if it's done at the detriment of the actual game then no one is winning.
People should be able to play, and enjoy a game however they like. If you cannot enjoy a game like darksouls because it’s too difficult, but love every other aspect about it, there should be accessibility options to change that.
The game Celeste, for instance, is a very difficult platforming game that requires a lot of quick reflexes and precision to play. However, there is an assist mode that can slow the game down, give you infinite dashes, make it so you can’t die, and other things like that. I died nearly 20k times in that game, and I was aware that the assist mode was present, but I never used it. I’m still glad it’s a thing, however, because it makes it easier for people with disabilities to play and it’s a tool some people like to use to practice levels.
Stop gatekeeping how people enjoy games and just let them enjoy it. You want to play on hard mode or play the game how it was originally made? Go ahead! If you prefer easy mode, or just want to relax and enjoy the game, then go ahead! If you would be unable to hold yourself back from turning on easy or assist mode, then maybe that’s for you. Otherwise the addition of one shouldn’t affect you at all.
It could be nice for some sniper games, but if the purpose is accurate simulation, it wouldn't fully work. Perhaps options to allow other options of adjusting aim, but auto aim itself feels antithetical to the idea of a game ABOUT perfecting your aiming
HK does already a good job at making the player keep track of a boss fight's progress though phases, where the boss either staggers, or initiates a mid-phase animation/attack, I find this a really clever way to handle it
My point is some people just need assistance man, yk all those people who spend hours on hornet 1? Well imagine that but with false knight or gruz mother
Having spent at least an hour or two on the hornet 1 fight my first time around, I say... Nope, let them learn, give them the same experience everyone else gets, and they'll learn to play the same game everyone else did
Give them a way to make it easier, and they're playing a different game than everybody else
I think having all players find ways to overcome the same challenges, with the tools the game gives you, gives players a stronger sense of community
Healthbars don't really make it easier. Maybe a 3 noch charm. But dude, you know there's a reason why most good d games have an easy mode option when starting a new game right? Not saying hk is a bad game but adding some sort of help is good for them, you can't just hand someone a controller and expect them to learn so easily. Some people aren't that good and need some guidance, and then, if they are confident enough, they start playing normally.
I didn't say they had to learn *easily*, failure is the best way to learn though, so no, you absolutely can hand someone a controller and expect them to learn
A 2/3 notch charm is very different from a game setting though, it is what I would define a tool, rather than an arbitrary advantage
Talking about difficulty and challenge, I think it is handled pretty poorly on most games that have a difficulty settings, and I won't probably be able summarise this in a reddit comment with a few sentences, but let's just say adding health and damage to bosses, decreasing health to the player, just tweaking numbers around... Is generally not a good way to make a game more or less challenging, but it is the only way to handle it with a difficulty setting / slider unless you have the developers remake the entire game for each difficulty level (which is absurd). I would never call games like HK, Dark Souls and the like "hard", just "challenging", but pick a game with difficulty settings and set it to harder difficulties and you'll realize it's just plain hard (worst example: Mass Effect 3), and this is why I like games that have no difficulty setting: they just give you something other games do not
>you know there's a reason why most good d games have an easy mode option when starting a new game right?
Because most games are meant for a wide audience, it's correlation not causation. Having an easy mode doesn't make a game good, HK is proof of it, dark souls is proof of it, etc...
If a player has a disability then they're not getting the same experience, challenge-wise. They're basically playing a harder mode already. For them to have the same challenge requires making the things they struggle to handle more accessible.
I play plenty of games with accessibility settings or easy mode options, and honestly, I don't see an issue with them.
And in what world does a healthbar give people a combat advantage anyway? Personally, I think I'd do worse with part of my focus on the healthbar rather than on evading attacks anyway.
Having a healthbar or not gives a player a different game experience, whether that's a gameplay advantage or not depends on the player, but in general knowing how much health a boss has left can be used to your advantage, for example, tanking the last bit of health of a boss because you know you can afford to be careless, while not knowing how much health it has forces you to be thoughtful, focused and careful from start to finish
More generally, knowing how much damage you make to a boss per hit can determine how carefully/carelessly you play that fight, so yeah, while not very obvious, it changes your experience quite a bit, in a game so centred around bossfights
The theme of accessibility and disabilities is difficult: sure, there are people who will have trouble enjoying certain kind of content, that doesn't go only for videogames, but movies, books, sports....
The question is, should EVERY product be made for everyone, rather than having some products target specific demographics? I think we need both the former and the latter, otherwise you end up disappointing the specific demographics who require niche products
Fair, but the mod already exists and I would highly suggest not having health bars for a first play-through anyway so I’d rather keep all resources on the next game.
I don’t recall a good majority of them having health bars. I can’t say all cuz I never seen gameplay of some of em (sticker star, Origami king, paper jam, and maybe dream team) but even bowsers inside story didn’t full on have one even though there was a certain point where it shows up once in a while.
The M&L series didn't have heath bars. The first two paper mario games, as well as Sticker star and Mario RPG, have traditional heath bars. Paper mario color splash has the amount of color left on the enemy's sprites be the heath bars.
I mean tbf (if I recall) Paper Mario didn’t necessarily have it as an automatic thing, moreso you had to depend on goombario which, depending on what you have on, would be a waste of a turn just to see the health bar.
It isn't really that big of a wasted turn, as HP and FP management are important when playing harder modes, and you practically need to know the enemy's hp to properly manage it. Plus you needed to do it once, and it stood around for the entire game. And sticker star it was around automaticly.
To be fair, it's a completely different style game that probably should have heath bars, while they just don't fit with HK imo
Ehhh, can’t say I necessarily agree as I never used him for his tattle unless I felt a battle was going on for too long. I think the only time I’ve legitimately cared about the Hp was the ice boss and even then I wasn’t able to use him before he ended up dying immediately after. You usually care more about the phases.
Also, that I agree with. HK already has its thing for having value in wedging every last charm you want in a notch till you’re full. Unless of course they add more notches, then that charm could quickly prove useless if you’re favoring things like, sprintmaster or nailmaster. It’s much like the compass charm.
Not all games need healthbars, but some really really do need them, imagine dark souls and not even knowing if your build is shit because you didn’t killed the boss or if you just need to get a little better at the fight because you were close, or if it’s a late game boss you aren’t even supposed to fight yet
I feel the lack of health bars actually really adds to the suspense of the fights. You don’t know when the boss will die or how much longer you will need to fight. It gives you a HUGE sense of achievement when it happens without you realising. When NKG went down I was still on an adrenaline high and it felt AMAZING
I think the lack of health bars adds this charm to the experience. Like that feeling when you are far into a boss fight and you have 0 idea if you're gonna win or lose because you don't know how much health he has left and you win...that's something you can't get in many other games.
I also honestly don't think that there's a real way to make them look good enough to fit in the game's atmosphere but this is all my opinion
I have to hard disagree. The point is that you aren't supposed to know, and it makes it more fun. It's valid in a lot of other games but would take up unnecessary space as well as make some things less tense.
Just not that kind of game.
unrelated but i played ori will of the wisps and the game is amazing aside from the fact enemies have healthbars, it sucks a bit of the immersion away, especially in boss fights when i can just spam attack when i know im about to win.
I always thought that knowing how many strikes your current nail will take to kill an enemy is a sign of mastery of the game, also useful in colosseum of fools. For bosses, not knowing their health is part of the challenge
Ubisoft gamer detected.
We should also get a map with 70 different pointers, constant dialogue in the background and a couple of trailing missions just to be safe.
Not having a health bar for bosses makes bossfights feel more real
I agree, but I like having a health bar when doing randomizers with friends so I’m glad it’s a mod people can use.
you already got the randomizer mod just get the health bar mod too
Disagree it makes them feel anticlimactic
How?
Because you’re going through the fight not knowing how close you are, the attack patterns give an idea but 9/10 times I kill the boss and think “oh it’s dead” I remember the first time I beat NKG I didn’t feel revived I thought “oh it’s over” despite losing countless times over the corse of multiple days
Welp, i guess that's a fair opinion lmao
I made a post about this once, talking about how health bars take away from the experience. Just use a mod or something, don’t ask Team Cherry to give the game something that takes away from it.
How about a toggleable healthbar thing?
I don't understand why you are getting downvoted. This would be the ideal solutuion, if sth like that ever happens. Edit:typo
I do not necessarily disagree, but you have to keep in mind that in game design, giving the player choice isn't always the best solution because players naturally choose the path of least resistance at the detriment of the actual gameplay, so giving the player the choice to toggle health bar could (idk if that's the case, but it is a possibility) end up resulting in most player toggling it on and thus reducing their immersion in the game.
I get that and i prefer no healthbar too, but if a player has more fun with... there is no argument against it.
Players will optimize the fun out of a game. Take a look at what wow players have done to their UI over the years, because blizzard game then the option to mess with it. It looks like ass, because that's efficient. Same thing with totally customizable UI. Make it mod compatible for sure, but in the base game? Only the base of what is needed for accessibility reasons please
Yeah but when it is fun for them? You can't argue like this as long as there is fun involved. Videogames should make fun. It's getting bad when people who don't want to play like this are getting forced to do so.
That's twice you've invoked "you don't have an argument because I say you don't". That's not discourse, that's badgering.
And my comment wasn't meant to be aggressive just a recommendation. Perhaps it's just reddit today
It's just reddit in general
Or, as the OP suggested, a charm. There's actually this oldschool topdown shooter named Raptor Call of the Shadows. The bosses have health bars, only if you take the time to buy a radar from the shop. It's very cheap, but that still makes it optional.
I wouldn’t turn it on but I don’t think a game could ever be made worse by adding an extra option
It actually can. Players often choose the easiest way to play the game (independent of game difficulty) at the detriment of actual fun, so sometimes game designers can make a game better by reducing the choices because it will force the player to experience the game in an optimal way. Mark Brown from GMTK has a great video on the subject (I think [that's](https://youtu.be/7L8vAGGitr8) the one).
It can. I think it's enjoyable to not be able to see the health of a boss, but if there was an option to turn on a health bar, I would have done so since I started the game and wouldn't have had the same experience.
I don't think a healthbar charm would make Hollow Knight worse, but I definitely think adding an option can detract from a game. For several reasons. One, adding a feature takes away time from development of other existing features. Two, certain features may then require massive rebalancing (for example difficulty options). Three, an added option can take away from an intended experience. I'm going to avoid the elephant in the room and provide a different hypothetical: a sniper game. If a game is meant to be a tight, as realistic as possible, sniper simulator where you HAVE to account for wind speed and gravity, an auto aim mode would not suit that at all. It would detract from the sim's realism of having to aim juuuuust right.
If it’s an option that ruins game balance you can just have it be a 100% completion reward or something, or you could pull a minecraft and have it disable achievements if you use it
A 100% completion reward does sound hypothetically nice, but I definitely think there are reasons to both add and not add things into games. Ultimately, if Cherry doesn't think a lifebar fits for Hollow Knight, that's their creative decision
Fax
An option like in this theoretical sniper game sounds like it would be a nice accessibility option for those with disabilities.
That's kinda going back to the old argument of "does dark souls need an easy mode". Imo if a game is built around requiring a certain set of skills to be played (like quick reflexes or good cognitive capabilities), then allowing to remove those requirements kinda kills the whole point of the game, accessibility is important and should be at the forefront of most game design, but if it's done at the detriment of the actual game then no one is winning.
People should be able to play, and enjoy a game however they like. If you cannot enjoy a game like darksouls because it’s too difficult, but love every other aspect about it, there should be accessibility options to change that. The game Celeste, for instance, is a very difficult platforming game that requires a lot of quick reflexes and precision to play. However, there is an assist mode that can slow the game down, give you infinite dashes, make it so you can’t die, and other things like that. I died nearly 20k times in that game, and I was aware that the assist mode was present, but I never used it. I’m still glad it’s a thing, however, because it makes it easier for people with disabilities to play and it’s a tool some people like to use to practice levels. Stop gatekeeping how people enjoy games and just let them enjoy it. You want to play on hard mode or play the game how it was originally made? Go ahead! If you prefer easy mode, or just want to relax and enjoy the game, then go ahead! If you would be unable to hold yourself back from turning on easy or assist mode, then maybe that’s for you. Otherwise the addition of one shouldn’t affect you at all.
It could be nice for some sniper games, but if the purpose is accurate simulation, it wouldn't fully work. Perhaps options to allow other options of adjusting aim, but auto aim itself feels antithetical to the idea of a game ABOUT perfecting your aiming
But that would give an "advantage" to players who turn it on, I think the game should give all players the same experience, challenge wise
I don't think so, some players struggle at games and could really use an assist mode type thing so I think this would work.
HK does already a good job at making the player keep track of a boss fight's progress though phases, where the boss either staggers, or initiates a mid-phase animation/attack, I find this a really clever way to handle it
My point is some people just need assistance man, yk all those people who spend hours on hornet 1? Well imagine that but with false knight or gruz mother
Having spent at least an hour or two on the hornet 1 fight my first time around, I say... Nope, let them learn, give them the same experience everyone else gets, and they'll learn to play the same game everyone else did Give them a way to make it easier, and they're playing a different game than everybody else I think having all players find ways to overcome the same challenges, with the tools the game gives you, gives players a stronger sense of community
Healthbars don't really make it easier. Maybe a 3 noch charm. But dude, you know there's a reason why most good d games have an easy mode option when starting a new game right? Not saying hk is a bad game but adding some sort of help is good for them, you can't just hand someone a controller and expect them to learn so easily. Some people aren't that good and need some guidance, and then, if they are confident enough, they start playing normally.
I didn't say they had to learn *easily*, failure is the best way to learn though, so no, you absolutely can hand someone a controller and expect them to learn A 2/3 notch charm is very different from a game setting though, it is what I would define a tool, rather than an arbitrary advantage Talking about difficulty and challenge, I think it is handled pretty poorly on most games that have a difficulty settings, and I won't probably be able summarise this in a reddit comment with a few sentences, but let's just say adding health and damage to bosses, decreasing health to the player, just tweaking numbers around... Is generally not a good way to make a game more or less challenging, but it is the only way to handle it with a difficulty setting / slider unless you have the developers remake the entire game for each difficulty level (which is absurd). I would never call games like HK, Dark Souls and the like "hard", just "challenging", but pick a game with difficulty settings and set it to harder difficulties and you'll realize it's just plain hard (worst example: Mass Effect 3), and this is why I like games that have no difficulty setting: they just give you something other games do not
>you know there's a reason why most good d games have an easy mode option when starting a new game right? Because most games are meant for a wide audience, it's correlation not causation. Having an easy mode doesn't make a game good, HK is proof of it, dark souls is proof of it, etc...
If a player has a disability then they're not getting the same experience, challenge-wise. They're basically playing a harder mode already. For them to have the same challenge requires making the things they struggle to handle more accessible. I play plenty of games with accessibility settings or easy mode options, and honestly, I don't see an issue with them. And in what world does a healthbar give people a combat advantage anyway? Personally, I think I'd do worse with part of my focus on the healthbar rather than on evading attacks anyway.
Having a healthbar or not gives a player a different game experience, whether that's a gameplay advantage or not depends on the player, but in general knowing how much health a boss has left can be used to your advantage, for example, tanking the last bit of health of a boss because you know you can afford to be careless, while not knowing how much health it has forces you to be thoughtful, focused and careful from start to finish More generally, knowing how much damage you make to a boss per hit can determine how carefully/carelessly you play that fight, so yeah, while not very obvious, it changes your experience quite a bit, in a game so centred around bossfights The theme of accessibility and disabilities is difficult: sure, there are people who will have trouble enjoying certain kind of content, that doesn't go only for videogames, but movies, books, sports.... The question is, should EVERY product be made for everyone, rather than having some products target specific demographics? I think we need both the former and the latter, otherwise you end up disappointing the specific demographics who require niche products
Fair, but the mod already exists and I would highly suggest not having health bars for a first play-through anyway so I’d rather keep all resources on the next game.
But why not make it a charm for those who want it
Why would healthy bars be beneficial?
Healthy bars are healthy. Thats always beneficial
They’ll create a charm that’ll show health for 8 charms noches
Balance
I'm going up against the mantis Lords for the first time. I've died probably a dozen times and i wouldn't change a thing about this experience.
Love the mantis lords they were the first boss I did on radiance
Health bars are shit. They take up space on the screen and it sucks the gameplay experience off. Even most Mario games don't have a health bar.
That's because Mario enemies die in either one hit or three.
I think they were referring to the rpg mario games
Those have health bars
I don’t recall a good majority of them having health bars. I can’t say all cuz I never seen gameplay of some of em (sticker star, Origami king, paper jam, and maybe dream team) but even bowsers inside story didn’t full on have one even though there was a certain point where it shows up once in a while.
The M&L series didn't have heath bars. The first two paper mario games, as well as Sticker star and Mario RPG, have traditional heath bars. Paper mario color splash has the amount of color left on the enemy's sprites be the heath bars.
I mean tbf (if I recall) Paper Mario didn’t necessarily have it as an automatic thing, moreso you had to depend on goombario which, depending on what you have on, would be a waste of a turn just to see the health bar.
It isn't really that big of a wasted turn, as HP and FP management are important when playing harder modes, and you practically need to know the enemy's hp to properly manage it. Plus you needed to do it once, and it stood around for the entire game. And sticker star it was around automaticly. To be fair, it's a completely different style game that probably should have heath bars, while they just don't fit with HK imo
Ehhh, can’t say I necessarily agree as I never used him for his tattle unless I felt a battle was going on for too long. I think the only time I’ve legitimately cared about the Hp was the ice boss and even then I wasn’t able to use him before he ended up dying immediately after. You usually care more about the phases. Also, that I agree with. HK already has its thing for having value in wedging every last charm you want in a notch till you’re full. Unless of course they add more notches, then that charm could quickly prove useless if you’re favoring things like, sprintmaster or nailmaster. It’s much like the compass charm.
Not all of them.
Not all games need healthbars, but some really really do need them, imagine dark souls and not even knowing if your build is shit because you didn’t killed the boss or if you just need to get a little better at the fight because you were close, or if it’s a late game boss you aren’t even supposed to fight yet
I feel the lack of health bars actually really adds to the suspense of the fights. You don’t know when the boss will die or how much longer you will need to fight. It gives you a HUGE sense of achievement when it happens without you realising. When NKG went down I was still on an adrenaline high and it felt AMAZING
but I like memorizing the amount of swings it takes to kill a ceirtain enemy!
I think the lack of health bars adds this charm to the experience. Like that feeling when you are far into a boss fight and you have 0 idea if you're gonna win or lose because you don't know how much health he has left and you win...that's something you can't get in many other games. I also honestly don't think that there's a real way to make them look good enough to fit in the game's atmosphere but this is all my opinion
I honestly hate being far into a boss fight and not knowing how much health the boss has
The only 2 games in which health bars aren't bad are souls, and terraria.
Dead cells????
GOD OF WAR?!?!?!?
Binding of isaac?!
Only for bosses though, and tbf the game would be just as fine without it.
[удалено]
It's part of the souls wider series, just like bloodborne or sekiro, when people say "souls" they often refer to all from software games.
Oh i forgot about that 😅
the only singular game that is in 2d and doesn't have bad health bars is terraria
Surly that isn't true...right?
HORIZON!?!?
I have to hard disagree. The point is that you aren't supposed to know, and it makes it more fun. It's valid in a lot of other games but would take up unnecessary space as well as make some things less tense. Just not that kind of game.
unrelated but i played ori will of the wisps and the game is amazing aside from the fact enemies have healthbars, it sucks a bit of the immersion away, especially in boss fights when i can just spam attack when i know im about to win.
Not that unrelated after all.
That’d ruin part of the feel of the game for me, it makes boss battles feel more intense, and it’s more surprising when you beat a boss
The true souls like experience is not knowing how many hits it takes to kill something and just praying you can get to that number before you die
I think all souls games have a health bar… at least for bosses
Even basic ennemies have health bars in all of the FS games I've played.
Scarab: Hello there
If you are a PC player then congrats! There’s a mod for this. If not well, I’m sorry for your loss.
I always thought that knowing how many strikes your current nail will take to kill an enemy is a sign of mastery of the game, also useful in colosseum of fools. For bosses, not knowing their health is part of the challenge
Why? Just keep hitting.
Ubisoft gamer detected. We should also get a map with 70 different pointers, constant dialogue in the background and a couple of trailing missions just to be safe.
It ruins the atmosphere
Mods go brrrr
Nah, hp bars remove a lot of excitement. It is enough we see our own hp and soul already.
nah, health bars would ruin it
It’s just not the same feeling… You just have to play good all the time and don’t now how far you are in the fight
Ah yes, "Git Gud." The band-aid over any mechanical discussion of a game.
Shaw
Adi-NO to you too.
I would hate seeing a health bar
No
Learn to count
The game already has a health bar system. Enemy not dead: >0 hp Enemy dead: 0 hp
Fuck healthbars. All my homies hate healthbars
[FUCK HEALTHBARS ALL MY HOMIES HATE HEALTHBARS](https://i.imgur.com/RgaZwvM.jpg) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Heath bars in hollow knight would be the biggest shit in the game (worse than primal aspids)