One easy way to make sure the player doesn't get (too) bored is to never let them feel safe. There should almost always be the threat of danger. If you have monsters, the monsters should never be predictable in their appearance. They should be able to surprise you at almost any time. You shouldn't be able to clear an area out and not worry about monsters anymore.KageReneko wrote: ↑15 Jan 2023 In that case they would need to make the environments really interesting, not just random obscure references or subtles hints of the lore like we had before so modern players won't get bored. Also, the time that we spend at the streets would need to be shorter, I still remember how everybody complained about sailing from one island to another in The Wind Waker because players said it was tedious. I guess you mean something like the beginning in SH2, from observation deck to the graveyard and then to the first Lying Figure; I love that sequence and how the game used those sounds in order to play with my paranoia, but this kind of stuff is good because it is not overused, if you have the same during all the game it can get old.
I think what they did was keep the combat and monsters, and just made it so that they can't actually kill you. I tested, on the PC, letting RPT buck wild on James in the Catacombs for entire minutes, he was on death's door almost right away, but would never knock. It's like his HP couldn't fall below 1. Other than the boss fights in which you can be OHKO'd, Beginner does essentially make non-boss combat optional.The original release was going to have that option available, though it was inevitably scrapped for whatever reason—I forget why.
In any case, I don't mind some combat, if it's interesting, meaningful, and occasional. I don't mind encountering several lying figures throughout the game, but three or four of them in every other room dilutes the horror factor to a degree.
