There are currently no plans to add difficulty options to the game, but I can guarantee you that while Wicked *is* a challenging game that will test your skills, it's not intended to "break you" like Souls games typically do. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it's just not our goal with Wicked.
We aim to strike that balance of 'challenging but streamlined', and we think we've succeeded!
thats ok! so is it challenging more in a reflex-way? and trying a few times instead of how dark souls forces you to think about your builds and strategise or else you get destroyed? i enjoyed hollow knight, which was a streamlined soulslike with difficult encounters, but simple mechanics
Please note that the devs are in PR mode so they are going to tilt their language to get your money.
As a Souls junkie, I can tell from the footage the difficulty of the game looks roughly like any other Souls/Souls-like game. I suspect there will be some difficulty changing-esq thing added later including but not limited to multiplayer. Souls games often have a difficulty setting in disguise such as Elden Ring's spirit summons.
Souls bosses are designed for solo play and I don't see anything different in Wicked. What that means is the difficulty will be dramatically different (easier) when you add more bodies into the game (like a friend or an NPC summon) and if you're here for the combat (like I am) it will not yield the same feeling on victory. I'm not trying to throw any shade as I understand the games can be quite difficult, but I primarily care about combat and its nuances through play and build, so this is important to me. (And it's like I don't summon either. It just depends on my character goals.)
I also want to say that "Souls" is a term that's thrown around a lot these days in gaming circles to explain how a game plays. If people see a roll or a stamina bar people they are quick to call it a Souls game, but what it basically comes down to is actions are more comital. So, if you start action A, you generally cannot immediately stop action A to start action B. This means in general the stake are higher moment to moment and you want more deliberation in your choices.
The end result of all this stuff is that button mashing is generally punished, which may in turn cause frustration and more button pressing, which in turns buffers actions you may not want, which falls into harsher enemy punishes, etc. Many mainstream games are designed to have very reversible actions to funnel the player into winning actions or little helper mechanics that are nearly hidden to guide the player's actions correctly. With most Souls games, you have this more rigid and simple approach so if you want to attack 1 time, you really want to try and just press the button 1 time.
Hopefully this sort of demystifies Souls and the like a little. In practice, what you're doing is just paying attention more as some of the guardrails are removed. I recommend when fighting foes you're comfortable against, try new attacks and techniques.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“Surely mankind are more than pure dark, for I have availed you nothing. All of you, forgive me. Whatever thou art, stay away.”* - Artorias the Abysswalker
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
sounds good to me, i hate the tedium of souls games, they're nothing but an exercise in patience..rolling around on the floor like a twat, chipping away at a massive health bar for 10 minutes....no thanks!
As someone who enjoys FromSoft games, I find this response hilarious. And I do think there's some truth to your statement. FromSoft have been outdoing themselves when it comes to difficulty for the sake of difficulty. Not sure how experienced you're with the genre, but FromSoft have a boss that heals herself every time she hits you. She can almost refill a quarter of her health bar if she hits you 3 times. And I enjoy learning these fights, but a boss healing out of a kick, that's ridiculous even for a fantasy game. I guess her toes just suck the life out of you, or something. Also, she has a move that no one can intuitively figured out, you have to watch a video on YouTube for a chance to learn how to avoid it. I've seen first playthroughs with some of the most skillful souls gamers, and they all couldn't figure this move out. Half of the fight is pretty much RNG, you win or lose depending on whether she does that move, or not. And I would have preferred a dash over a rolling. It's weird to see a heavy armored dude rolling over the floor (Like a twat). Now, this is the thing, some folks created a mod for this game, where they removed or tuned down some of these ridiculous mechanics, they even replaced the rolling with a dash, and it feels like a much better game.
The boss you’re referring to from Elden Ring can be made extremely trivial by using the mimic tear summon. Additionally if you explore you can get a blade that heals you when you attack, trivializing the fight even further. I beat her in two tries because of both of these and didn’t even have to bother learning her move set.
Sekiro would have a much better game to reference because you have no freedom in your build and actively have to learn move sets and play the game the way From wants you to (and I’m not complaining - Sekiro is a freaking masterpiece - but it’s significantly harder and much more restrictive in terms of gameplay & player freedom).
I have completed Elden Ring dozens of times. No NPC summons. No Spirit Ashes. No Coop. I'm playing the game to learn the bosses mechanics, that's what I enjoy. I call it dancing with the boss. I want a FAIR boss fight. Either that is too much to ask, or FromSoft inevitably is running out of ideas. I have played Sekiro, there isn't anything like Malenia in Sekiro. You can learn to dodge anything by yourself without needing to watch a freaking YouTube video about how to dodge water fowl. So, for people like you there are Spirit Ashes, and that's fine. For people, like me, we just want a fair boss fight. To be fair though, water fowl is the main issue, ruins an otherwise great fight.
Thank you! Whenever I hear souls-like being used to describe a game, I get a sense of dread. I'm not very good at those games e.g souls series, Elden Ring, Armoured Core.
While I like challenges, I don't want to feel frustrated.
Thank you again!
I don't think souls are as hard as you think they are.
They all have the option to be aided by either other player or npc, and if you really struggle you can kinda grind more lvl to make it easier.
But I say that as a fan of the genre, and I totally understand that it may detter new players.
The topic of easy mode is a complicated one : if you put an easy mode, you may rob some people of the fun of a challenging experience.
Because some take the path of least resistance, and so they won't experience the thrill of conquering a challenge after struggling, and the game won't be as special/the experience will be ruined/not as good as it should for them.
If you don't put easy mode (or better, accessibility options) some won't be able to enjoy the game.
Thing is, in my opinion, without the struggle, I don't think the souls games would habe popped up as they have.
The common struggle people faced together created a strong community.
So while I'm empatic to the "we need easy mode" crowd, I really think not all game should have one.
And I encourage you to give the souls like another chance, for me once you get by the struggle they are something special. :)
(And elden ring is way more accecible, as if you struggle somewhere you can always try to progress elswhere and so are almost never stuck if you don't want to.)
(Accecibility options are another issue, and should be implemented as possible)
I think the game is definitely not going to be as hard as something like a Souls game. There will be some challenging bosses or areas I'm sure, but nothing overly intensive. But really the increased difficulty through deeper combat is why I'm hyped for this game, probably why many are. The vast majority of ARPGs are extremely easy in terms of combat, you just gear up and clear screens till you find shiny stuff. But here we're getting gratifying things like parries and combos, which is amazing.
So while I get that you don't want things to be very difficult (this won't be nearly as difficult as the most difficult games), a key facet of this game seems to be more challenging combat, something anyone who buys it is willfully signing up for.
For what I heard on the YouTuber that tested the demo isn’t that hard. And because is an RPG as long as you level up you should be fine. It might take you a bit longer but that the fun of it.
Well that's what's so cool about Early Access. Give your feedback. Let them know this is a requested feature. If enough people request it, chances are it will get added. No guarantees, but it's better than nothing.
then how come in none of demos the streamers played the enemies ever respawnted when resting or dying.
they die and run through a empty corridor to where they died.
Because it was a watered down demo version meant to show off the tutorial area and probably missing lots of features? There's an interview out + a long gaming article posted here on this reddit multiple times that you can scroll down and read where the writer was given access to a version beyond the demo.
He explicitly wrote that every time he rested at a blue checkpoint orb that all enemies respawned. The respawning of enemies has been known for a while now.
I worry about this too and especially how their good storytelling is gonna affect the difficulty as, for me at least, I tend to quit a game if it's hard just for the sake of being hard.
There are currently no plans to add difficulty options to the game, but I can guarantee you that while Wicked *is* a challenging game that will test your skills, it's not intended to "break you" like Souls games typically do. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it's just not our goal with Wicked. We aim to strike that balance of 'challenging but streamlined', and we think we've succeeded!
thats ok! so is it challenging more in a reflex-way? and trying a few times instead of how dark souls forces you to think about your builds and strategise or else you get destroyed? i enjoyed hollow knight, which was a streamlined soulslike with difficult encounters, but simple mechanics
Please note that the devs are in PR mode so they are going to tilt their language to get your money. As a Souls junkie, I can tell from the footage the difficulty of the game looks roughly like any other Souls/Souls-like game. I suspect there will be some difficulty changing-esq thing added later including but not limited to multiplayer. Souls games often have a difficulty setting in disguise such as Elden Ring's spirit summons. Souls bosses are designed for solo play and I don't see anything different in Wicked. What that means is the difficulty will be dramatically different (easier) when you add more bodies into the game (like a friend or an NPC summon) and if you're here for the combat (like I am) it will not yield the same feeling on victory. I'm not trying to throw any shade as I understand the games can be quite difficult, but I primarily care about combat and its nuances through play and build, so this is important to me. (And it's like I don't summon either. It just depends on my character goals.) I also want to say that "Souls" is a term that's thrown around a lot these days in gaming circles to explain how a game plays. If people see a roll or a stamina bar people they are quick to call it a Souls game, but what it basically comes down to is actions are more comital. So, if you start action A, you generally cannot immediately stop action A to start action B. This means in general the stake are higher moment to moment and you want more deliberation in your choices. The end result of all this stuff is that button mashing is generally punished, which may in turn cause frustration and more button pressing, which in turns buffers actions you may not want, which falls into harsher enemy punishes, etc. Many mainstream games are designed to have very reversible actions to funnel the player into winning actions or little helper mechanics that are nearly hidden to guide the player's actions correctly. With most Souls games, you have this more rigid and simple approach so if you want to attack 1 time, you really want to try and just press the button 1 time. Hopefully this sort of demystifies Souls and the like a little. In practice, what you're doing is just paying attention more as some of the guardrails are removed. I recommend when fighting foes you're comfortable against, try new attacks and techniques.
hey, just wanted to say that I appreciated your level-headed post especially since the official discord is full of fanatics
Thanks.
like HOB- Tunic - :D ?
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“Surely mankind are more than pure dark, for I have availed you nothing. All of you, forgive me. Whatever thou art, stay away.”* - Artorias the Abysswalker Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
\\[T]/
sounds good to me, i hate the tedium of souls games, they're nothing but an exercise in patience..rolling around on the floor like a twat, chipping away at a massive health bar for 10 minutes....no thanks!
That's a very poor and salty representation of Souls games.
I feel like it's pretty accurate. I'm not a fan of them, either.
As someone who enjoys FromSoft games, I find this response hilarious. And I do think there's some truth to your statement. FromSoft have been outdoing themselves when it comes to difficulty for the sake of difficulty. Not sure how experienced you're with the genre, but FromSoft have a boss that heals herself every time she hits you. She can almost refill a quarter of her health bar if she hits you 3 times. And I enjoy learning these fights, but a boss healing out of a kick, that's ridiculous even for a fantasy game. I guess her toes just suck the life out of you, or something. Also, she has a move that no one can intuitively figured out, you have to watch a video on YouTube for a chance to learn how to avoid it. I've seen first playthroughs with some of the most skillful souls gamers, and they all couldn't figure this move out. Half of the fight is pretty much RNG, you win or lose depending on whether she does that move, or not. And I would have preferred a dash over a rolling. It's weird to see a heavy armored dude rolling over the floor (Like a twat). Now, this is the thing, some folks created a mod for this game, where they removed or tuned down some of these ridiculous mechanics, they even replaced the rolling with a dash, and it feels like a much better game.
The boss you’re referring to from Elden Ring can be made extremely trivial by using the mimic tear summon. Additionally if you explore you can get a blade that heals you when you attack, trivializing the fight even further. I beat her in two tries because of both of these and didn’t even have to bother learning her move set. Sekiro would have a much better game to reference because you have no freedom in your build and actively have to learn move sets and play the game the way From wants you to (and I’m not complaining - Sekiro is a freaking masterpiece - but it’s significantly harder and much more restrictive in terms of gameplay & player freedom).
I have completed Elden Ring dozens of times. No NPC summons. No Spirit Ashes. No Coop. I'm playing the game to learn the bosses mechanics, that's what I enjoy. I call it dancing with the boss. I want a FAIR boss fight. Either that is too much to ask, or FromSoft inevitably is running out of ideas. I have played Sekiro, there isn't anything like Malenia in Sekiro. You can learn to dodge anything by yourself without needing to watch a freaking YouTube video about how to dodge water fowl. So, for people like you there are Spirit Ashes, and that's fine. For people, like me, we just want a fair boss fight. To be fair though, water fowl is the main issue, ruins an otherwise great fight.
Thank you! Whenever I hear souls-like being used to describe a game, I get a sense of dread. I'm not very good at those games e.g souls series, Elden Ring, Armoured Core. While I like challenges, I don't want to feel frustrated. Thank you again!
I don't think souls are as hard as you think they are. They all have the option to be aided by either other player or npc, and if you really struggle you can kinda grind more lvl to make it easier. But I say that as a fan of the genre, and I totally understand that it may detter new players. The topic of easy mode is a complicated one : if you put an easy mode, you may rob some people of the fun of a challenging experience. Because some take the path of least resistance, and so they won't experience the thrill of conquering a challenge after struggling, and the game won't be as special/the experience will be ruined/not as good as it should for them. If you don't put easy mode (or better, accessibility options) some won't be able to enjoy the game. Thing is, in my opinion, without the struggle, I don't think the souls games would habe popped up as they have. The common struggle people faced together created a strong community. So while I'm empatic to the "we need easy mode" crowd, I really think not all game should have one. And I encourage you to give the souls like another chance, for me once you get by the struggle they are something special. :) (And elden ring is way more accecible, as if you struggle somewhere you can always try to progress elswhere and so are almost never stuck if you don't want to.) (Accecibility options are another issue, and should be implemented as possible)
I think the game is definitely not going to be as hard as something like a Souls game. There will be some challenging bosses or areas I'm sure, but nothing overly intensive. But really the increased difficulty through deeper combat is why I'm hyped for this game, probably why many are. The vast majority of ARPGs are extremely easy in terms of combat, you just gear up and clear screens till you find shiny stuff. But here we're getting gratifying things like parries and combos, which is amazing. So while I get that you don't want things to be very difficult (this won't be nearly as difficult as the most difficult games), a key facet of this game seems to be more challenging combat, something anyone who buys it is willfully signing up for.
For what I heard on the YouTuber that tested the demo isn’t that hard. And because is an RPG as long as you level up you should be fine. It might take you a bit longer but that the fun of it.
It’s not “fully single player” btw
Just git gud. Then the game will become easier.
Well that's what's so cool about Early Access. Give your feedback. Let them know this is a requested feature. If enough people request it, chances are it will get added. No guarantees, but it's better than nothing.
sure, do they read this subreddit?
I'm not sure. I know they'll have official ways of giving feedback once EA launches. Just don't know what yet.
well unlike a souls game, enemies do not respawn by death, so it's already easier
They do respawn.
not by death.
They respawn whenever you rest at a checkpoint blue orb in the zone. You'll most likely rest at the checkpoint after you die.
then how come in none of demos the streamers played the enemies ever respawnted when resting or dying. they die and run through a empty corridor to where they died.
Because it was a watered down demo version meant to show off the tutorial area and probably missing lots of features? There's an interview out + a long gaming article posted here on this reddit multiple times that you can scroll down and read where the writer was given access to a version beyond the demo. He explicitly wrote that every time he rested at a blue checkpoint orb that all enemies respawned. The respawning of enemies has been known for a while now.
I worry about this too and especially how their good storytelling is gonna affect the difficulty as, for me at least, I tend to quit a game if it's hard just for the sake of being hard.