Whew, what a couple days since I released this video. I ended up crawling the comments a little more than I anticipated over the weekend, but I still had a bunch of unplug time which was awesome. Finally sitting down and catching up with everything, and for everything I said in this video it's funny to feel like there is still more I want to say... TL;DR after thinking about it, the people who have criticized me for the choice of Tweets I highlighted in the nailgun section, are 100% correct, I could've done a much better job of selecting actually toxic and unproductive tweets to show this side of the community's response to changes like this, and I will admit fully I rushed this section thinking that for how quickly it flashed on screen people wouldn't care or notice... I was totally wrong and I messed up. I wrote a longer post with some additional thoughts, and a longer explanation here if you are curious: twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss7dfk I am extremely happy with how constructive and civil the vast majority of the comments here have been, I'm trying still to read and respond to as many as I can. Keep on keepin' on Ultrakillers.
Ngl the Devs response to people just asking if there's a way to go back to another model they enjoyed with no rudeness from them only to be hit with childish replies is one of the reasons I do not like the dev team inspite of the game being great. just childish in a way that turns me off from liking them
As a community gets larger, the amount of bad people in it also increases, even though the percentage stays the same. That's really just to say that don't let those people ruin your view of the community, because there are plenty more amazing people joining and having fun than there are annoying or toxic people, it's just a part of human psychology that you notice the latter a lot more than the former. If the community keeps growing (which it almost certainly will) we'll eventually unavoidably reach the point of saturation where you'll start to see the "The game's good, but the community ruined it" or "I'm never going to play the game because the community sucks" takes become common (I've already seen some of both). That's pretty much the inevitable end point of any indie game community that gets big enough, so I just want to remind people to remember to pay attention to how many amazing people there are and how much incredible fan content and engagement there is instead of accidentally focusing on the worst and thinking the community has rotted into garbage.
Wow, I did not expect this at all. Thank you Hakita, I know the video devolved into negativity about the community some of the time, but I tried to keep it focused and constructive while acknowledging the good I have experienced as well. I think what you are saying is ubiquitously true and has been periodically hard for me to see due to just how much I am disproportionately exposed to negative opinions and toxicity as a content creator, but my ultimate takeaway has always been that I love this game and community and want to keep giving back to it, and that the impact of my positive experiences have way outweighed the negative by far. Thank you for the amazing game and I appreciate your insight!
LISTEN TO THE MAN, PEOPLE. Please don't let the toxic fans ruin your enjoyment of the game, especially before you've even started playing. Filtering who you engage with on the Internet is something we all have to learn how to do for the sake of our mental health.
I honestly think Ultrakill's lucky to have a lead developer who's so uncompromising in his vision. Developers that don't listen to the community suck, but a developer who listens to everyone can straight up ruin a game. I trust Hakita to make his game way more than I trust the entirety of the internet to do so.
@@Miterme Of course there's nothing wrong with suggestions, they can help you think of ideas when you don't have any yourself, the problem is when people believe they know what's best for the game and that it's the developers obligation to listen to them.
@@nevinmyers1245 That's kind of what I meant, I'm not implying removing suggestions altogether, but major content such as chapters should probably just be left to him
@@Miterme Yeah. Criticism is necessary to make the game better in general, if a lot of people complain the same thing, it might be worth to fix it but if it clash with the vision the dev has, they may need to compromise something in some way.
As a player that joined after the Act 2 Update, I can say this game is designed almost perfectly. Gabe 2 definitely kicked my ass, and even Gabe 1. Minos Prime absolute JUDGED me, and I'm trying to P rank P-1.
Same thing happened to me, except that I have spent too much time attempting and successfully P ranking P-1. It was hard, but it was worth it for that golden border.
tbh when a game is just above and beyond most other game of the same genre then yeah its definitely worth it for some people. Some like to play as much game as possible while some just grow their standards a bit too high for their own good(myself included). Games like DMC who is still king of beat em up/hack and slash, ultrakill is now probably the king of fps for me cause i never really like this genre to begin with, Sekiro in term of tight and satisfying combat and boss fights, Monster Hunter in term of hunting-looting system... Like once you play some of the higher quality games, its hard to enjoy another game of the same genre that has an inferior system. People praise GoW and GoW Ragnarok, but personally it just doesnt introduce anything new to the table. As a hack and slash/beat em up game, it feel like another Assassin creed Odyssey, or Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon game; it hasnt surpassed something like Lost Judgement or DMC
as somebody who has ~600 hours in Ultrakill, you raise excellent points about the difficulty of Act 2's bosses that I never really considered before - like my biggest complaint about Gabe 2 when the update first released is that he felt way too easy, not realising this is a boss tailored for somebody who went from Act 1 to Act 2 immedately and not someone who had plenty of time to get very familiar with the game from when Gabe 1 was the last available boss
Honestly, I've always thought of people who make comments like these as the face of the community. I guess it's because it's because I just play the game and sometimes watch videos on youtube about the game, and most of it is shitposting. It has been a great experience so far!
I think that having a dlc where you play as v2 would actually be sick It'd be like Shovel Knight's dlc, where you would look at the world in a different perspective
Very well written as usual. It really sucks that almost every community ever has to come with a "don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch" warning plastered on it, but sadly that's the nature of the internet. It's been an absolute joy being able to grow as a player alongside the game as new content and secrets are added, and I doubt that will change anytime soon, especially with the next update (i'm so hyped for the Serious Cannon RL). I also very much agree with the points you made about taking a break from the game; while I have never taken a super long hiatus from Ultrakill, simply disconnecting from the community for a minute is a great way to a) enjoy the game more and b) start to develop a playstyle that feels uniquely yours.
@@maxgoldstein7202 first of all, the internet was a better place before Corporations capitalized on it & secondly it's not toxicity it's passion Except that they ficus on the negatives
New player here! I got into Ultrakill roughly a few months before Act 2 fully dropped and despite some fears that my inexperience would be ridiculed by the community, I'm so glad to say that hasn't been the case. In fact, this community has felt like one of the most welcoming even with the game having such a high skill ceiling. I've never really seen a community be so vocal about a game's accessibility options and that it's valid to play the game on lower difficulties before (even Gianni pointed them out at the end of his Ultrakill stream). Yeah I'm sometimes sad that I can't do the fancy tech despite watching tutorials, but then I remember that I'm not only learning a new genre (my experience with FPS is very limited) but that I'm also getting familiar with a new style of gameplay (keyboard and mouse). And that's okay because in the long run I've had a blast, plus I've managed to P-Rank a few stages! And honestly it is down to the fact that I personally don't feel ridiculed for playing on the easier difficulties.
My gf recently got into ULTRAKILL and I've had to help reassure her that no, starting on Harmless due to little experience with FPS games and especially movement shooters ISN'T an unforgivable sin (like some assholes on the New Blood discord, of all places, say). Keep with it and never stop improving! And if someone comes along and tries to pull that same stuff, hit 'em with a little Vicious Mockery.
Yeah, I’m new, too, I’m still on the Demo and P-Ranking what I have, I’m planning on getting the game soon, if I can easily find people who are ready and willing to admit that skill isn’t precisely the MOST important factor, then I’m ready to jump in.
A year late but I'm also the same! Never even touched an FPS of this kind before and I was very hesitant to try it despite my friends' recommendations, since skill games tends to have a lot of gatekeeping and mockery for new players. I was surprised that the game itself won't mock you for choosing easier difficulties (they're called Accessible instead of stuff like "coward" or "weak") nor does it expect you to S or P rank everything. Friends and the community, for the most part, have been really supportive. I went from knowing nothing to being able to take down most bosses by just parrying... It's really incredible.
You've done an amazing job of clearly voicing the main issues we see in not just the ULTRAKILL community, but a lot of the game communities I'm a part of. Whether it be Team Fortress 2, Deep Rock Galactic, DOOM, or Minecraft... we just can't seem to get away from these types of individuals, can we? However, I won't be using this video as a way to highlight the issues the ULTRAKILL community has, since I and many others here (Hakita himself included) have already come to terms with the inevitability that is having bad apples in the bunch. With games like ULTRAKILL which have become such huge phenomena, I'll use your video to push forward the idea that we should approach it all knowing full well that the scale of positivity will always vastly outweigh the negativity (which I'm sure you're very familiar with through your time making content, because I know I am hahaha). The way I see things, it just so happens that the higher a game climbs in its lifetime, the more noticeable the potential falls are. Let's all continue to do our best with looking up and continuing to enjoy our journey with these amazing games knowing full well that we can support others who are going through the exact same problems as us, and that things can only get better from this point on through perspective. Awesome video man.
Thank you and this is exactly the takeaway I hope people have from it. I hope this message didn't get lost in the sauce, because although this video was focused on highlighting and calling out toxicity, the ultimate truth is that the vast amount of positivity has outweighed it and ultimately not pushed me away from the game. On some particularly bad days I feel like I'm the only one, so if nothing else I'm glad this video has brought together the vast majority of players who this does not apply to. And thanks to yourself for also being a force of positivity in this community!
I'd probably say that the root of the issue is "agglomeration" of the internet. When everything happens on a handful of big platforms where everybody has an account, what would previously take registering on a forum can now be done in a "fire and forget" manner. We should reject modernity and embrace small dedicated forums...
the entire section about difficulty and making the game harder for yourself by choosing to handicap yourself with self imposed rules is insanely relevant in the pokemon community right now with people claiming that a quality of life feature that saves time is somehow making the game easier instead of just respecting the player's time. people who ignore intended difficulty and insist games need to be harder for the sake of being harder are some of the most annoying individuals i've had the displeasure of being yelled at by. Some people need to understand sometimes difficulty isn't tuned for challenge alone, but the game's experience. Also people complaining about modern pokemon games being too easy when the tera raid bullshit is impossible to solo at higher difficulties, I swear it's people who stopped playing halfway through X&Y and assume all games are exactly like that one.
I will always be here. no matter who you disagree with, even if you disagree with me. this game will always hold a special place in my heart no matter how I think of it. sure, the community is growing to become something I'm starting to hate... but the game will never change. And that's something I can guarantee.
oh btw I didn't mean that it will never change as in changes will never be made to it, because of course they will, but it will never stop being my favorite game of all time. no matter what change gets made to it, because I don't give a shit. I love this game.
This whole video reminded me of two stories I had with some Discord friends I had a close friend who I used to chat with about Ultrakill a lot, either making up theories, praising the music, sending each other memes, whatever; and we were both excited about the Act II update, until we played it. For me, it was a fantastic experience, getting new and fresh challenges, seeing all the new levels and concepts, fucking around with the rocket launcher, and all that stuff; but my friend started saying that the new layers were unfair, and that he kept dying too much, until we read the changelog. Basically, the problem was that his whole playstyle involved just using the pump shotgun and the knuckleblaster, and then using the whiplash when he needed to heal; and so it was killed with the whiplash nerf and the style meter rework, to the point where he just kinda gave up and abandoned the game because he didn't find it enjoyable anymore And there is the case of another friend of mine, who despite being more used to JRPGs and playing with controllers rather than mouse and keyboard, bought the game after seeing the passion and love that me and some other friends had for it... but then he got stuck on V2, and he started feeling bad for not being able to do all the "cool stuff" that me and others talked about, and for playing on low difficulties; until we basically told him to just enjoy the game the way he wants and cheered him on, to the point where he could get unstuck and keep enjoying the game and having fun with it
20:44 oh yeah, from what I remember it's because hakita forgot to assign a weight to the saws, they were supposed to have a weight of one, but because either as an experiment or because someone forgot, the saws weight was set to zero, which meant that magnets could have a lot stacked on them and they wouldn't break
I hate when instead of encouraging and informing newer players on mechanics secrets etc people go out of their way to make people feel bad for not doing it as well as them everybody experience is different and doing so discourages people from playing a game you love its bad for the developers the game and the community
it sounds weird but ultrakill has felt so much like subnautica to me. a "hidden indie gem classic" (i fucking hate that phrase) that really is just so god damn much better than you think it is when you first boot it up, with a community is insanely passionate about it, improving it through development. Hopefully it never becomes insanely cringe like some other game communities are. but it really is one of those games that is so fucking rad the first playthrough, and you always feel like you're looking for that high again afterwards, which is dope to see you drawing parallels with subnautica for this game. ultrakill is like subnautica with guns.
"Ultrakill is like subnautica with guns" might be one of my new favorite lines I've ever read about this game, on its own complete absurdity lol, but you've justified and contextualized it nicely and I totally agree
considering the ultrakill channel in the New Blood discord is the only channel in the entire server to be on slowmode basically permanently, and has its own dedicated mods separate from the rest of the server, really says a lot about the fanbase
Note on the difficulty and balancing section: this exact scenario has been happening in monster hunter and its community. Each game is designed with a difficulty curve in mind, and each game that curve gets reset back to 0. Many people started with monster hunter world, going through all the challenges for the first time and struggling, and when the next monster hunter game came out its difficulty was often compared to when people were experiencing the game for the first time, in a series where legacy knowledge makes a massive difference there were a bunch of people who were disappointed
Another game with balance problem is SOT, which promised and engaging universe and even intersting ship battles but you instead end up shooting more pirates through your cannons than you do cannonballs
I love it whenever dumpster man uploads such a perfectly edited, engaging, and thoughtful video. along with the sheer truth he speaks here, might just be perfect.
The whiplash nerf was eye opening to me. I played through Act II on the day that it launched, and I P-ranked all the levels before really digging into patch notes or community opinions. I died a lot on my first runs through the levels, and P-ranking the ship level was actually really hard! I died even more! it was really fun. I was playing the game as I always did, and using the whiplash, without noticing the nerf, because frankly I don't look at my health bar when playing. Needless to say I was very confused when I looked at the sheer meltdown going on in the community. People were saying it ruined the entire game for them, that they can't play the game the way they want, that it went against the entire purpose of the game, and accusing Hakita of balancing the game as if it was a "multiplayer game". I tried talking with a few people, I told them they could still play the way they always had (that's true, I just got done doing it), they could consider more movement options, or simply try to learn a new way to play with the new whiplash, and they all just got angry. There was no reasoning with anyone, they were all determined to not have fun. Since I learned about the nerf, I still use the whiplash a lot, but I also use other movement options and rocket riding. My playstyle is now more fun for me. Even the full whiplash nerf ended up positively impacting my experience of the game, and I would ride or die by the whiplash. If those people stopped playing a game they loved entirely because of an incredibly small change or not, I will never know, and I do not really care. They probably never enjoyed it in the first place. This is a trend I see in many early access games, people put out the most kneejerk opinions the moment something changes, and you can never reason with them. It's frustrating, but you can't really engage with a lot of communities like this for several days after an update comes out. That sucks, because that is the time you probably want to talk about the game most. I checked what people were saying because I wanted to talk about how cool act II was, and all I saw was people complaining about a change I didn't even notice.
Oh yes, some people definitely took the whiplash nerf out of proportion, but I'd like to posit something about the nerf first: The first iteration of the nerf was straight up just too much. Below S rank you pretty much just couldn't use it at all without a major downside, that of which being if you used it it would add hard damage to your health bar. But unlike the later nerf... It wasn't capped. If you were, say, at 20 health, then using the whiplash would give you 80 hard damage that would take a long while to go away, and as a result, the player who got themselves in that situation, and thus isn't likely to be skilled enough to get themselves out, dies, all because they used the new tool the game gave them. I get wanting to make players use other options, but frankly the solution is not to make a tool that only high level players can use effectively. Many DMC players didn't give Royal Guard a chance until DMC 5 because it changed the way it worked somewhat, that being it consumes your DT gauge every time you block with it, instead of only being able to block small attacks but have to parry heavy attacks. The problem with the previous way was that only the best of the best could ever hope to use it, if a lower level player used it they would end up dying, and then realize they don't believe the time investment to learn it fully was worth it, and appropriately dipped out to use more reliable techniques. The first iteration of the whiplash nerf essentially did just that. Don't get me wrong of course, the people getting angry about it WERE unreasonable, but their opinion wasn't unfounded, if you get my meaning.
My problem with the whiplash nerf is that I used to joke that V1 was Spiderman when I was playing Cyber Grind. Can't do that anymore, at least not at my current skill level
It seems to have become a overall trend throughout a lot of online communities based on videogames, ESPECIALLY ones based so hard around skill like ULTRAKILL, some people just do not want to adapt to change and overcome it, and instead try to complain until something gives and they get what they want, until they get tired of it and just have a grudge about it. It's sad because it leads to so many people who actively play the game that also hold some odd resentment towards parts of it, and they can be just miserable to talk to.
I was ok at ULTRAKILL pre-whiplash nerf, but I used that shit like a crutch. Then when I heard about the nerf, I was like "this shit is gonna kick my ass if I keep playing the way I do, lemme condition myself to not using it." So I literally *removed whiplash from my arsenal* to practice. Was it hard at first? Yeah, not being able to use the tool that I relied on made Cyber Grind hard, but also actually kinda fun. I ended up having a better understanding of the other movement tech available to me and became better st the game as a result. Act 2 dropped and the nerf wasn't even as bad as people made me think it'd be. I still used whiplash, but I used to sparingly instead of as my only way to get a kill. Hell, I barely even use whiplash now that I got good at rocket riding. Why? Because one fits the way I play the game better then the other, and how do I play the game? I play trying to do optimal stuff, but going for style when I can. To me, rocket riding it's that bill perfectly compared to whiplash. It's something that takes practice, some skill to pull of consistently, and looks cool if you manage to pull it off. Not saying the whiplash is bad, but more of something I don't rely on anymore, not like I used to.
I think the only way for dedicated players to have a satisfying challenge is to install mods like the Ultrakill tweaker that adds stuff like permanently sanded enemies or just silly things like a Super Hot mode that makes ultrakill play like... well, Super Hot. Unless Hakita decides to add more customization to the game the amount of unsatisfied pros won't lower much.
Yeah we’ve still got 2 difficulties to go and we’ll be getting a full level and campaign creator as well. When the games out in full release things will be fine.
@@ghoulofthebeat4946 Also Encore levels. I don't know much, but Hakita has confirmed they'll basically be alternate level layouts, potentially with changes to bosses. They'll be independent of difficulty sliders, so they'll be challenging content you can experience without needing to change the core difficulty. The only reason I mention potential boss changes is because we know P2's Encore level will have a full version of the Flesh Panopticon fight according to Hakita himself. Not sure if any other bosses will be given extended fights or altered phases.
Iv been taking a break from ultrakill for about a month now because of there being nothing left that I was interested in and Iv felt almost guilty about it. So I sincerely thank you for reassuring my decision to take a break from the game until probably P-2 comes out.
You should practice cybergrind and 6-1 to get more used to gauntlet type levels, if you don't mind spoilers you can listen to a video with all of the prime souls moves to know them first, also remember to parry
Hey, I just want to speak as someone from the speedrun side of the community on this. I frequent the speedruns channel in the ultrakill discord way way way too much and imo it's the least gatekeepy of any community I've ever interacted with. Whenever someone new shows up they often will say prematurely that they feel embarrassed/intimidated to ask for help or share their times because everyone in the channel is "better" than them, and every single time we have to tell them that no one cares how good or bad you are at the game because we just want to help people improve and share stuff we're proud of. The gatekeeping I have seen for Ultrakill is honestly less experienced players and random youtube commenters (latter I've seen way too much). Like people trying to put other people down just to feel better about themselves because they're "better" at a fucking single player game by some metric that doesn't actually matter. I guess people who are really deep into the community are more supportive of others compared to people with something to prove (am I gatekeeping who can be a gatekeeper? lol), but that seems to ring true for nearly every community on the internet.
Hey, all I'm really going to say here is please be civil and constructive, even if you disagree with me the goal of this video is obviously not to start in-fighting or spur more toxicity, so think twice before you post… and otherwise I already said a lot in this video so instead of adding even more thoughts here, here is a list of people in the Ultrakill community that I believe are making a positive impact on the community, or I have personally had positive interactions with, or that I just otherwise believe deserve your support: DaveDotEXE: ua-cam.com/channels/KiW_hOgMmtVh_q5kF7T2qA.html gLud3: www.youtube.com/@gLud3 HerbMessiah: www.youtube.com/@HerbMessiah Hyze: www.youtube.com/@GHyze Robi: www.youtube.com/@ULTRAROBIEHH EreNyn3: www.youtube.com/@EreNyn3 Anyways I'm off to spend the last 36 hours or so of 2022 getting drunk with friends. Peace, love, and Happy New Year!
NO! I'm gonna start ALL the in-fighting, and be ULTRA-TOXIC! I'll think THREE times before I post, AND STILL POST! jokes aside, be safe, enjoy your 36 or so hours! drink responsibly! oh, and if you sleep in a car drunk, put your keys in the trunk(if your back seat can pull forwards to reveal the inside of the trunk, or you have a button in the car that opens the trunk without the car being on) so you don't get in trouble! either way, have a good end of the year!
man, i just wanna say that, opening the chapters and seeing 7 minos prime poiting at me saying i'm at fault is way too hilarious more importanty i'm really glad to see someone pointing this out, i'm a new player, i discovered the game along with your videos and i think the problem is obviously the size of the game, the more it grows the more toxic it'll become but it's just because we are looking on the wrong side, the other side has ton of amazing animations and content of people showing tips and tricks Happy new year i'm glad to have discovered this channel alongside ultrakill anyways even if the community will suck in the future which i highly doubt
Before the P2 update came out, I thought I was really good at Ultrakill. I had P ranked all the levels before it and had a decent cyber grind record of 37. When P2 dropped and I tried it, I was dumbfounded by how hard it was. The level was on a whole other level and tested my ability more than anything in the game up until that point. The funny thing is that I really liked it when I played through it blind until I looked into the community reaction about it. People were talking on the forums about how brain dead easy it was and how disappointed they were by it’s gauntlet and boss. Many of them were saying they P ranked it first try and it was a pathetic level difficulty wise. My immediate reaction was “wow I am absolute dog shit at this game suddenly” and proceeded to relentlessly throw myself at P2 to try to restore my self image of being good at the game. I eventually did beat it but it made me really upset for a couple weeks. Eventually some of my other friends tried Ultrakill and I realized that I am really good at the game and that all those idiots on Reddit were full of shit. All my buddies had just as much trouble with the prime sanctums and I currently hold most of the P rank records in the group. TL;DR don’t listen to dumb elitists on the internet and just enjoy games at your own pace.
Yeah, no matter what anyone says, this is the experience that literally ~99% of the playerbase had with P-2. The people who give a shit about looking cool because of how 'few restarts' they had, or how 'easy' they found the level are in such a small minority that even if they all were telling the truth they can basically all be ignored/discarded as outliers, but much more likely I think most of them are just lying to look cooler than they are (as if anyone cares)
The whiplash change was funny considering how I took a surprisingly uncommon middling stance, where I totally agreed with the change and the idea behind it, but did not like how it was initially implemented. Clearly the game devs agreed with this because the hotfix update that changed the whiplash pretty much addressed all of my initial complaints. The more funny thing is how _some_ people on the higher level of play didn't like how the hotfix rebalancing made using the whiplash "easy" but I guess you can't please them all. In any case, the issues I had were that, while regenerating hard damage is a great concept, the initial execution made it so there was, in practice, no discernible difference in regeneration whether you were at D rank or SSS rank; only ULTRAKILL rank had any real effect, and that rank outright purges all hard damage instantly. The OTHER issue was that maintaining ULTRAKILL rank was nigh impossible since a single glancing hit was able to remove two entire ranks out of your style meter, so it encouraged an incongruous "play safe" mentality that clashed with one of the core design philosophies of the game (AKA the one that plays into the whole "heal with blood at close range" mechanic). The game never demands outright perfect play out of you, even in getting P-ranks (seriously the metrics for P-ranks in most levels is _very_ generous, with few exceptions). All of this is long past now, and like I said, the hotfix pretty much fixed all of the major issues. Now for what makes this funny is the people complaining about hard damage becoming easier to manage, and even I was kind of in the same mindset. But the thing is, it's really hard to recognize that you're "good" when things feel easy to you but are hard to others. Like, if I can consistently maintain SS or SSS ranks and even the occasional ULTRAKILL rank in the Cyber Grind... maybe I'm just good at the game? And I deserve those ranks? It's very easy to hold oneself to impossible standards especially if you see what some of this game's players can do, but in doing this you can also make yourself blind to how capable you really are.
As someone who has struggled a lot with toxic fandoms and having them thrash me as well as people like me for stupid reasons like a mere difference in subjective opinion or a different perspective, thank you. A lot of people are aware of the concept that "a fanbase will always have some bad apples and as the fanbase grows more bad apples will appear" but I think you were able to put everything into words in an almost immaculate manner. The part where you talked about how reading the comments of toxic fans was so unbelievably relatable to me, people say shit like "they don't know you" or "don't listen to them" but it's honestly hard not to. I really hope that the Ultrakill community (and, in the best possible scenario, fandom culture as a whole) can become more empathetic and considerate. After all, the thing they're fans of has given them such experiences and emotions that they call themselves "fanatics" of it, why is it so hard for them to grasp the concept that others feel the same way?
This is a fantastic video. I have a few things to say: Concerning difficulty, I actually used to have a bit of an attitude myself about the difficulty being too easy. Gabriel Act II got absolutely steamrolled in my playthrough, and I hate to admit that I was disappointed and even a bit angry at the lack of progress. When my friend got the game to play through for the first time, I was genuinely nervous about Gabriel Act II; after all, he was so easy, surely my friend would take him down without a sweat and be disappointed at what the game was offering in its second act. 269 attempts. It took my friend 269 attempts to beat Gabriel Act II on his first playthrough of ULTRAKILL. The absurdity of it was enough to bring me back to reality; this game is fucking hard! I just got so good at it that I have ascended beyond the game's greatest current challenges. My friend loved the fight despite his rage at how "unfair" it was, and that was that. You are absolutely right in that regard, and I can verify that I've seen newcomers like my friend struggle with the boss just as much as they should (I mean, 269 attempts is pretty bad even for a new player, but I'll cut him some slack he was tired lol). Concerning the community; I am honestly sick of the take I've been seeing where a piece of media that a lot of people enjoy is "ruined" by cringe and forever tainted by toxicity. I hate that take with a burning passion, and I despise it so much because it literally throws any semblance of critical thought or individual comprehension out the damn window. Undertale, Five Nights At Freddy's, the Backrooms, Deltarune, MLP... all these communities are totally awesome and full of super cool people, and are evidently amazing, but the moment people bring uncomfortable or strange / cringe content to the media they like, gate-keepers lose their minds; they fail to separate the content from the people who support the content, and suddenly, it all becomes one muddled mess in their brains. I like the Backrooms. I like Undertale and love Deltarune. I love Five Nights at Freddy's. And none of those communities have been ruined or are toxic in any regard. It's just that toxic people are loud, and they WANT you to not like the content they scream about because it makes them feel good when you are sad and have no passions. Giving in to pressure and saying "This community is toxic and ded" is braindead, because you somehow can't separate the concepts of "artist" "art" and "consumers" from each other. ULTRAKILL is amazing. I appreciate your video on this topic; it's important to confront toxicity with maturity and strength, because that's what makes the miserable wretches of the world hiss and hide under their slimy holes! Keep making awesome content, dude, you're doing it right and you should be proud!
Late to the party here but I second this wholeheartedly. For one, Gabe 2 took me 45 attempts on my first playthrough, 10 less than the first fight, but each attempt was longer, more frenzied, more directed. I'd played straight from Act 1 to 2 without booting up the cyber grind or P-ranking anything or fighting Minos. My playstyle had improved a lot, but I was still on one uninterrupted path, and Gabe 2 was the most engaging and challenging boss for me at the time by far. Even though I technically died less here than the first fight, I was directly responding to him more thoughtfully, and it felt like he was doing the same. I was honestly impressed. I love duel boss fights but it's rare they hit such a perfect balance for me. When I finally took him down, it was one of the most satisfying moments I've ever had with gaming, and it's still one of my all time favourite gaming memories. So yeah, when I logged onto the Discord and saw people complaining about how easy he was, it didn't make any sense. Then I thought about it more, about Minos and the grind and about all of the crazy tech I'd seen, and it started making sense. Ultrakill is being balanced in the image of how it'll play when it's finished. By playing the hardest challenges first, you're essentially breaking the flow. I'm still holding off from playing more until Act 3, because I want that challenge again. And yeah, when it comes to solo media especially, the idea that a community can forever ruin something for you just by having a vocal minority of assholes has never made any sense to me. I get becoming enthralled in a toxic space and then losing your love for the media, that's fine, but the very existence of a toxic side? I don't see it. We have to learn to separate the art and the artist all the time, why should separating the art from the community be any different?
This is a very interesting take about the difficulty of bosses in act 2. I felt that it was easier, however, I wasn't upset with that, especially since I don't consider story bosses to be the real challenge anyways. It's tough, but it's no minos prime p-rank. I'm very excited to deal with the uktra violent and ultrakill must die difficulties, and I'm looking forward to beating my head against the wall in that difficulty. I'm very very excited to see the changes between the different difficulties, and I honestly can't wait to see both the story and the gameplay progress over time.
I honestly found the leviathan really hard and it took me like 13 attempts on my first try. The funny thing is I had beaten Minos Prime for the first time about 2 weeks before the update came out.
@@impracticaltesseract don't get me wrong, getting the hang of Levi was rough especially learning his attacks and how to avoid them then finding out he has a crit spot on his head. But those 18 or so restarts on Levi were nothing compared to the 86 I had on minos violent.
Same. Got a friend who only recently started playing Ultrakill and it really is how the bosses are when he streamed the game to me. They aren't made for the _"Hardcore veterans of the game who can P-rank everything with closed eyes"_ but for first time players. And it works well.
I agree with practically everything you said here. as a guy who likes to challenge themselves in this game, I’ve noticed a lot of people in the comments section of my videos repeating several of the statements you mentioned. “The game should be harder”, “Gabe 2 was too easy”, etc. I’ve also had things that I’m proud of be completely ruined by people saying that I should do more with it, I was proud of my whiplash only run, some people complained that it “was easy” or “I need to redo it” and now I can’t bring myself to watch what is arguably my most difficult accomplishment. Most people were likely joking but even so those comments still make me feel like I’m a failure or worse than others. Like I’m not doing it right or that I should be doing more. Which I shouldn’t be thinking. Constantly one upping yourself is a great way to burn out and make you despise the things you love This video gave me a new perspective on all of this, and now I’m going to do what I find fun, as a fellow UK content creator I thank you.
I played ultrakill after the act II update and I thought act II felt like a great section to come after act I. I did feel as though the second Gabriel fight was a little too easy but I thought about the fact that this was only the second chapter in the game and when the whole game releases there’ll be more opportunities for me to feel challenged by him. I also felt it canonically right that Gabriel didn’t get any stronger since the last time we fight him and this was just a way to reflect on how much stronger we’ve become since the first fight.
Ultrakill has become one of my fav games on steam this far and fav shooters because of how complex it is, and even though I have 300+ hours on it and I am decent at the game (having P ranked every level on violent, including minos), I never ever have thought that any of the bosses are "too easy". In my humble opinion, they are as hard as they need to be for each layer, even after replaying them hundreds of times, I still get my ass handed to me by Gabe 2 or V2 2nd if I'm not on my A game. This is what I absolutely love about ultrakill and why I think I will always love it, Hakita and the team have painstakingly balanced every boss to perfection and I respect and admire that a 100%
After finishing the video, I am in tears. I am so sorry people have sucked some of your excitement and enjoyment of this game. I am sorry that you've had to battle with toxic people who honestly should just keep their mouths shut. Ultrakill's community is one of my favourite of any game out there because I've only gotten support and laughs, and it pains me to see people suffering because of it. I always recommend this game to friends and get so excited to teach them strats or see their reactions of certain levels/music, I do not care if they are good or bad or average. So all I've got to say is thank you for making content, thank you for making us laugh and enjoy our times watching you play this awesome game and thank you for putting up with the bad side of the community, it would really hurt to see you leave the community, but if that's what it takes to make you feel at peace, then it is the best course of action. Thank you so much
Thank you for this video. I recently started playing ULTRAKILL and am really enjoying it, even if I play on Harmless and most of the bosses don't take too many tries to beat. I do want to reach further, however, and this video has given me the confidence to perhaps turn the difficulty higher. I might never end up beating Minos Prime or getting a high rank in the Cybergrind or anything like that, but it's people like you who play this game that make me want to try. :) Update: Well I can match the speed of a Filth and I just beat Swordsmachine. I'm off to a great start!
First time watching, I already like this guy. He understands that players end up getting too good then complaining, and he is one of the people who plays godlike, yet doesn’t complain because it’s easy to him. Good guy, good channel.
What he said about difficulty made me think that hakita might actually make the future higher difficulty designed to be harder for invested player pov and not new player one, so he might just say "fuck it, the Cerberus boss fight will be as hard as the Minos prime fight on violent"
This video is like a generous slap in the face for some I'd imagine, lol. Not sure how you can generously slap someone, but you seem to have figured that out.
Imagine if you were able to go back to e1m8 with the Plasma Rifle in Doom 1 and knew every exploit in the book for how to beat the game. You'd think the two Barons at the end of the episode were weak, right? They aren't weak if the best weapon you have is a rocket launcher with barely any ammo for it because you didn't go secret hunting.
i’ve been playing ultrakill for over a year now, it helped me discover many other games i would of neglected otherwise. Many content updates have come out since i started playing, and i liked every single one. I really dont understand the negativity around some changes, i found 4-S really fun, but a lot of people were saying it was not fun or it was too hard. I played act 2 on release and got through it in about 2 hours, i went into it expecting an experience, not a challenge. Hakita knows what he is doing, and some people still think they can make a better game than the person who came up with most of the ideas in it.
"but I have plade 40 minute of the game an i alredy peeranked all the levels and challenges and secrets its too easy you just need to get good" - A liar Don't be discouraged by those comments, they are all trolls and lies meant to feed this fire
Thanks! You made me realize that i could've spent my time way better rather than mastering ultrakill and then weeping for new content in my silly little room! I actually am pretty thankful that i came to that realization and will take a note for future early-acces games i will find interesting.
I feel like the whiplash nerf would've been better received of it came before act 2, since now you had levels that were designed around it, but it no longer works like you're used to
This is a great video overall. I definitely haven’t thought about it myself till this video, but it all makes sense and I agree on pretty much all of your points. I’m kinda surprised by how well you were able to dissect the problems and try to find the root of the issues to talk about them AND talk about solutions! Extremely insightful and very, very well done/spoken. 🤘
This video was plain great, all the time you spent writing the script paid off, and i know how careful with wording you were at times; i'm glad to see it's getting so many views because maybe it'll reach those who are being called out
i just got into ultrakill (been meaning to for a while) and i find the game super fun even if i suck, i feel like im making quick improvements. This video gave me such a warm feeling and im hopeful of this game, even if the community has few bruises from bad apples (assuming this analogy still holds or even made sense to begin with) best of wishes
In regards to the difficulty, I think there is a more fundamental problem: When you balance a difficulty in a shooter you have an expected Damage Per Second (DPS) that player can dish out. Without any tech and game knowledge (such as using a weapon with hard modifier against certain enemy), you get baseline DPS. Any skillful play increase it by some modifier (that can be very hard to quantify) So using a simple formula of: Enemy HP/Baseline player DPS*Modifier of player's skill = Time To Kill an enemy (TTK) With ideal balance, during that time, the enemy must do some counterattacks to make the fight existing, but not kill the player outright. The game is meant to be beaten after all. However in Ultrakill player can negate damage by parrying and dodging, so the "skill modifier" exist here too. The formula for this would look something like this: Player HP * "skill modifier" / Enemies DPS = Time To Die (TTD) for a player. Devs can decrease the importance of skill by nerfing all the little things that give player ability to do more damage then just shooting enemies (and ruin all the fun in mastering the game in the process) Or they could tweak some other variables, they can control more directly. So, its easy! Just increase baseline HP of the enemies or their DPS to match player skill? Well, you could do that to a point. Firstly, after a point you will bang your head against the quantisation of the outcomes. In extreme example the DPS of enemies would be so high that player will have 1hp from a practical standpoint. At the same time high HP of enemies would force player to use the most effective way to play, not necessarily the most fun one Secondly, not all tricks are equally fun to everyone. Some players enjoy some playstyles more than others. And some playstyles are much more effective than others. So by simply increasing baselines you force people to play more in line with a "Meta" and discourage creativity. And thirdly, the "skill modifier" is extremely simplified. In practice it's a combination of hundreds of mechanics interacting in thousands different ways. It would be a nightmare to properly balance, witch in turn would make difficulty curve wildly inconsistent. There are two more general ideas for increasing the difficulty, yet both are not without problems. You can demand more consistency from player - if they die, restart the level, chapter or even the whole game. That option, however do not address individual encounters, and make the game more tedious. Alternatively you can restrict players arsenal to reduce the "skill modifier" and force player to experiment with tools outside their usual playstyle. That however heavily restricts player's freedom of expression and creativity - all the things Ultrakill is known for. So yeah - in terms of difficulty the game was best a few hundred hours of experience ago. Even when new difficulty modes drop - they most likely won't be as good as core experience for newhish player. It's best to accept it and try some challenge runs in the meantime.
This isn't directly related to anything you've said here but since I didn't mention it in the video, I figured I'll say it here. I actually like that Ultrakill isn't balanced by pumping up enemy health at higher difficulties, I think there are more fun ways to introduce difficulty than just making enemies bullet sponges, I could see Brutal and UKMD perhaps making boss health higher, and maybe replacing for example some Strays with Soldiers and Schisms and stuff like that, but even though people are getting better at maxing out the DPS they're dealing, I hope the trend of not just pumping enemy health continues cause I think there's better approaches and a fast ttk for most enemies is actually something positive Ultrakill had going for it.
When the game fully releases, I would love Hakita to implement the ability for user created content for the steam workshop. It will definitively birth the life for some really stupid challenges, for hardcore fans. Even if it's in early access, I still love this game and it's slowly climbing my most played steam games.
I think this is almost a guarantee for full release seeing as there's already a level editor out there that some people have access to. I agree that should provide theoretically infinite replayability for the game.
I bought this game because of your youtube videos. I hit top 500 Violent Cybergrind leaderboards a while ago and I can tell you, even with that level of skill, there are parts of story mode that absolutely trips me up. The game balance is excellent IMO. And if you think there is a lack of challenge: cybergrind is right there people. Literally infinite challenge. A nice challenge mode I like is to 100% and P-rank every level before I am allowed to move on to the next, so I have to use a limited arsenal to do so: no saws for Minos, no nails for Cerbs, no rail for V2, etc.
i am not usually the type of person to play early access games, but for some reason i don't exactly know, i buckled recently for uktrakill. it might have been cause i saw some of the screenshots for layer 7 and thought they looked cool, but still i bent my morals a little bit playing it. either way, as someone from the future in regards to this video, bosses in layer 5 onward kicked my ass , and i really felt like the difficulty curve of learning the the different mechanics was masterfully done, almost to the point where i never felt a substantial difficulty spike or decrease. i am also not an fps person, so playing on standard will probably be all i do, at least for now. however, i am the type to 100%, and just recently beat minos prime for the first time, and that is where i felt the first substantial difficulty spike, even after having gone through all of layer 7. i really respect hakita for making the game this way, as it takes a lot of energy not to power creep things as new content comes out, but seeing how smooth my experience was even though there were years worth of possible power creep that didn't exist makes me feel so much better about playing this game in early access. i feel like i can trust that my experience will be genuine and practically as if i just played it on release, as ill probably put the game down once i catch up with content, needing to familiarize myself with whatever comes next, whenever it comes next.
Yesterday i was looking a video to find the secrets, the video specifically named about "there are secrets and i will show you where they are", the guy had to complete some areas to get to the secrets. The thing is, in the comments there was an amount of people critizicing his playstyle. That doesn't even make any sense, he isn't recording "how to play the game at P ranks". People sucks, but well it is what it is
I unfortunately relate to this way too hard, I have a particular VOD on my second channel where I was playing around with the saw launcher on the *day it came out* and I still get people telling me I'm using it wrong on that VOD to this day. Guess I was just supposed to premeditate the 'proper' use of the weapon so people almost a year later wouldn't be triggered by it?
A really good message this video is sendin. Hope you still get to be that guy that interacts alot with his community even trough the barrage of bad and annoying dummies.
I can confirm, as one who has just recently got into the game, that in terms of "the first playthrough" the game is absolutely tough-as-nails and exactly as Hakita probably intended, even on Standard. Being able to "adjust your own difficulty" in the sense you described is also amazing. I've always loved the idea of challenge running a game, giving myself certain limitations or penalties, and seeing how far I can go. Health drain, no arms, and a god run are just a few ideas that will likely stretch even the present game's content for many hours. And, when UKMD is released, I get to do it all again :).
When I completed act 2, I did think that Gabriel 2 was a little easy for me. But I didn't go to twitter and tell (*the only developer btw*) that he should make it harder. What I instead did was completely take in what was in act 2, P ranked everything, find all the secrets, and tried to play as much as I could. And then I quit the game for an extended period of time. I came back recently and saw that I maintained a lot of the skills I had but was still rusty and needed practice once more. It was awesome when gabriel 2 knocked me down more than 5 times because it felt like I was somewhat new again. I can honestly say that ULTRAKILL is one of, if not my most favourite game.
watched my friend play through the game on standard. he's not too big into fps games, especially not ones of this breakneck pace. i talked him into it (read: held at gunpoint until he beat it). after beating it, he enjoyed it a lot but has very little desire to return and 100% or grind for ranks, mostly due to the effort it would take and there are other games to play. he's essentially a perfect representation of what a average player is like imo. his playtime clock came in at around 16 hours. he struggled on most bosses with death counts above 30, the only exception being the second v2 fight, which he beat first try. he still does not have some mechanics down, but learned enough to power through the game on standard. thought i'd share and provide some insight on how new players tend to handle this game. this is more than likely how a majority of people will experience it.
I've been taking a break from Ultrakill after I've beaten act 2 and I'm glad that I've gotten rusty, almost as if I have to re-learn all the tactics I've learned in the past. when I've played more recently i do feel a difference in playing after taking a long break.
I'm glad before this video I already knew how to find the fun in bullying bosses, when Act 2 came out I rolled through it without any major difficulties and beat every boss in my first try, but I didn't go on twitter to complain saying it's too easy, after I finished 6-2 I was absolutely speechless at how awesome the experience was and how great Act 2 is for ULTRAKILL despite me steamrolling everything that crossed my way. Frequently in game updates I constantly feel happy about things that might not even be my thing but I feel happy simply because I know that the thing that doesn't make me personally happy is improving the overall quality of the game and making a first experience for a new player feel more polished, balanced and interesting. I constantly think "This is awesome, a new player is gonna have a blast figuring out how to do this or when they find out about that" and honestly, every single experienced Ultrakill addict should think the same way, we already know the game is an absolute masterpiece and we have a great time playing it, so let's be happy Hakita isn't listening to the people complaining and is focusing on making the game great for both newbie players and veteran players alike without putting more effort into one side more than the other. Just the fact that the game gets more levels, enemies, visuals, OST, bosses and secrets in new updates is already enough to make me happy, and the fact that it is all very high-quality makes me even happier!
I think most people know this but a vocal and particularly annoying minority of people didn't seem to get the memo unfortunately. I'm glad there's plenty of people in the community who *do* get it though.
@@yelpeter Nah, if you're good enough at cyber grind you learn to deal with this level of BS and more, P-2 to P-1 is what P-1 is to the main campaign, and I think this is fine. Hakita decided give the players a challenge that requires mastery of all the game's systems, and I have nothing against that.
Also something that I think you should've mentioned that I feel is just as important is the gatekeeping of Ultrakills mechanics. I mean this as in Ultrakill fans constantly calling other games that simply take some inspiration from Ultrakill just a "clone" or "rip off". It's honestly really frustrating to see peoples works get put into this category. Games like Reaver, Dimensional Slaughter, and Force Reboot are just inspired by Ultrakill, not rip offs of it. They have new and unique ideas that make them stand out and that really shouldn't be ignored
The biggest part of this that I think I noticed too was the gatekeeping and the whining over the whiplash nerf. These things both remind me of the Minecraft pvp community very directly: a pretty toxic group that gatekeeps frequently, more or less rebelled at the changes to combat in the old 1.9 update and refused to move on, and place more status and meaning to being able to click other people rapidly in a skilled pattern than there really is to it. The fact is that when you play any game that is still being updated or developed, everything you like or become attached to could be subject to change. The community acts like they own a game, but they don’t. The developers created and continue to create the game, and it’s their choice of what to do. Getting bent over a change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it is a sign that people are invested enough to care deeply about parts of the game. When these people let minor changes ruin their enjoyment of the game, it is their choice to be difficult, and it’s the role of everyone else with sense to stay level and see out the new stuff, moving on without throwing a fit. While that’s not great behavior, and inexcusable when it leads to petty anti-dev toxicity over minor issues, what’s definitely much worse, and something I’ve seen and experienced more of, is gatekeeping. I cannot understate how much I agree with you about difficulty. The reason people find things too easy isn’t because they ARE; it’s because they as players have become very skilled at the game, and it’s a marvel to appreciate that the game allows people to reach such heights. It’s also pretty amazing that the game has done a good job of growing well with the average player. New bosses are difficult on a level that scales pretty well with the learning curve of such a player, and it goes to show how both the player and the game have come when Gabriel II is a challenge beyond its original, and almost on par with Minos, but FEELS about as difficult as Gabriel I was: tough for how good you are, but with a possibility of defeating him just within tantalizing reach. I have P-Ranked the entire game, including Soul Survivor, on Violent difficulty. I think it’s a masterclass of difficulty curve and balance. I also don’t think I’m even very good at the game; definitely beyond an average player, but I haven’t mastered a lot of the tricks “pros” use, including coin punching, deadcoining, railgun triple coin instant kills, rocket surfing, etc. I beat the game through a time commitment to pushing through on a harder difficulty, and learned a lot on the way. Putting in the extra time while p-ranking taught me more than anything else about killing enemies quickly and stylishly, and avoiding damage. What helped me the most was not knowing that these pro techniques existed, it was the little tips and trick I picked up and practiced over the course of my playing time, which is probably around 50 hours. When I watch friends play, or see others asking for help, my goal is to make their gameplay go a little more smoothly on the harsher parts of the learning curve, like v2. What I would never do is tell people “oh you’re doing it all wrong you have to do these three combos with pro timing and if you can’t do that you suck”. I’ve seen a lot of that kind of judgement in the aforementioned Minecraft community. I say that new players shouldn’t be held to a standard. They should be encourage to rise to the challenges themselves and enjoy the game naturally. I played through all of the game on violent because it was fun, and I want other people to do the same, including learning from their own individual experience. Gatekeeping others based on skill and achievements is never ok; telling them that some challenges exist, that they are tough but worth it, and encouraging others to seek them out themselves is not only ok but good. Giving people a tip when they’re struggling and a pat on the back is all the “pro” players should ever do. It’s up to each of us to experience the game for ourselves and decide whether or not to stick with it, not the standards of other people.
I want to add that letting people know that more challenges and techniques exist, and even explaining them, is a good thing. Expecting them to do such things or judging them for not doing them is not.
I was admittedly one of the people that really felt stung by the Whiplash nerf and its only because of how it handled, it should have just been prepackaged with the launch of the Whiplash instead of it being dropped out of nowhere after the Whiplash being available for basically an entire year. It was awful growing pains.
One thing I'd like to say is that the ultrakill community is an impatient one which is why I'm afraid of taking a break when new content comes up since I want to go in spoiler free but 5-s already got leaked and I know as soon as p-2 comes out everyone who plays ultrakill will be talking about the boss almost that day
I've started playing after act 2 released, and Gabriel 2 was the hardest boss in Ultrakill for me. On "normall" dificulty I feel like there is logical and skill progression through all the levels that there are. I belive that the act 3 will be balanced to normal of act 1 and 2, so the true challange you can get is the new difficulties. There might be a optional Minos 2.0 and I hope it destroys you, gl.
LOL I think the especially funny thing is that since I cropped the context, the original Tweet could've been about literally almost anything and it'd still be an on-brand response for Hakita
Thanks, this is such a good video. I've had similar experiences in the Dark Souls 3 and Destiny 2 communies and while I'm not as engaged with the community for Ultrakill I'm glad someone put these issues into words so well
this is exactly why I didn't necessarily engage in the community until i had already mastered all the levels and truly experienced the game. this kept me from feeling discouraged to continue because at the time i thought i was doing very well when compared to others, i wasn't.
Yeah i don't get some people, they will join the community before even finishing the game, that is going to do more harm than good even when asking for advice
I never considered a lot of these points before, and I'm glad to keep it all in mind for the eventual Act 3 update. I'm almost to P-ranking everything on Violent, so I fit the group that may find Act 3 easier than most, so I'm happy to have this mindset that you've presented
there is a (very unoptimal) solution to all of these problems and its modding. you can mod your game to be more harder or change some mechanics about the game or enemies or even add new stuff to the game. i already saw some mods like randomiser and fun guns that add a new way to play the game.
As someone who picked up the game recently, on first playthrough on standard the act 2 Gabriel fight was pretty hard the first couple times. After getting all the prior P ranks and fighting Minos though it was an easy P rank. TL;DR it’s a good thing Hakita is developing ultrakill and not us otherwise it would suck
I'm honestly glad that this game is "too good" and that it has addicted me with its replayability. I've spent maybe like 350 hours in P-1 alone and I currently have all 3 world records for the level and I can say even at the highest possible level for a boss level like P-1 it still offers a true challenge with self imposed challenges such as speedrunning for the world record. I may not find just normally playing P-1 particularly challenging anymore but imposing limits on myself or pushing what is humanly possible for the level has kept that fire in me burning. I love this game fr, and the fact that just one boss level can provide a valuable challenge from your first encounter with it to when you play through it thousands of times and become the best there is at it says something.
Hi! I'm someone who bought ultrakill yesterday. I knew that this game had some advanced tech and I even learned some during the 1st playthrough like nuking and coin punching. And the 2nd gabriel boss fight was indeed very challenging. Actually I take that back it took me 1,5 hours so ig it was crazy hard. I never used the whiplash, because I was never able to get rid of the hard damage, I used the green rail cannon and used the nailgun a lot. so yeah... ummmm... 24,5/10 game
Finally, someone said this. Ive always had this idea that the community is way too toxic and competitive and "oh, you didnt do a ultrarailcoingigashitkill speedrun strat!!! Youre bad!!!" But nobody really talks about it. Thank you for saying this.
You have an impact, because while those who need to see this to change their toxic ways likely won't, it still means something to know the rest of us are also a driving force for this game, it's validating to hear someone else articulately express ones own sentiments, and it's inspiring to see that more people care about a game without feeling the need to meet certain expectations of achievement
Having been a part of the speedrunning community since the game was picked up by new blood a lot of the early community was built on helping people get better at the game (that is where herbs videos come from) however as the community grew outside of that, that mentality changed to forcefeeding people tips and ostracizing people that are not as good. Much of the community doesn't do that. I feel like the people that do, do so because they think that people will be able to enjoy the game more if they play like they do, but it is unwarranted. Hell, people Still Constantly shit on underthemayo because of the way he USED TO play and because he has opinions they don't like. It really sucks that these nameless children have soured your experience and I hope you can still find enjoyment with the game when not playing for UA-cam or twitch. I wish there was something I could have done to help mitigate this issue but there will always be bad apples. Also hakita didn't mention it in his comment but the leaks are not approved of. It really fucking pisses me off that I had to get spoiled on the upcoming secret level when moderating the UK discord. If you (well not You but the hypothetical person) want to browse the games files for unannounced content then fine. Go ahead. But keep it to yourself FFS.
I figured the leaks were not approved, I mean common sense would dictate, but I didn't wanna speak on anyone's behalf. I have a hard and fast no leaks rule on my Discord as well and have been subject to the same exact things unfortunately. But anyways I appreciate the comment, the speedrunning community members that I have interacted with have been overwhelmingly welcoming, friendly, helpful and pleasant to me, and it's a big reason why I've tried my own hand at speedrunning in the first place. I think negativity has unfortunately overshadowed the efforts of those people at times, but they certainly don't go unnoticed by me.
24:38 bruh, how are these supposed to be mean or 'toxic?' You show: 1 guy stating his wish for the option to use the older model; 2 guys doing an exaggerated act complaining about the change; 1 guy stating his preference; 1 guy stating his observation that despite people voicing their preferences, no changes will be made nor options added; 1 guy politely asking about the possibility of an option for which model the weapon uses; 1 guy politely asking for the option which model the weapon uses outright; and finally, 1 guy stating his opinion on both models. This isn't mean or toxic. Frankly, this is you overreacting - not those people whose tweets you showed as examples. To quote somebody not at all related to Ultrakill, "it's an option, and as always, options are good!" Obviously, the game is Hakita's, and he doesn't have to add optional weapon models if he doesn't like that idea. At the same time, the only negatives that come from it, are giving the devs more work to do, and slightly delaying the game's full release because of that additional work. And even then, both parties can get what they want (Hakita doesn't have to develop or add the option, and the fans of legacy models get their desired look) if the game receives a Steam Workshop for mods on full release. I generally agree with your point overall, but this specific scene here is just dishonest and unfair. You wonder if these people actually like Ultrakill or if they like their idealized visions for the game? That's blowing this way out of proportion, and it's unfair to assume these folks' characters. It's just a weapon model, and no example shown was even remotely rude or entitled. You saying that was quite rude - to just be dismissive other people's ideas and opinions because they are not your own. Let's look at it like this: those people love and enjoy Ultrakill so much that they provide feedback to the lead dev of the game and make suggestions in the hopes of improving the game! The upper left asks for an option to be added to the game and gives a valid reason as to why; the center guy gives his opinion on the differences between the models, and also gives a valid - though subjective - reason. Both were polite with the latter specifying he means no offense, and the former even complimenting the newer model before stating his preference for the older one. I'll go so far as to say it is hypocritical of you Dumpster Man to moralize about 'toxicity,' while at the same time being rude to people who were civil, polite, and weren't even speaking to you in the first place but to somebody else completely. Come on man. Be nice.
I don't agree with absolutely everything you've said here, but after receiving a few comments about this I've realized that including this section or at least doing it the way I did was a mistake. Read the pinned comment if you're curious on more of my thoughts on this. I do genuinely appreciate the community holding me accountable for making a mistake, I think this comment is a little over the top and makes it out like I did something much worse than I did, but it isn't a hill I'm willing to die on. I think there are worse comments out there I could have picked and I should've put just a little more effort into confirming that what I put on the screen at that moment reinforced what I was saying instead of undermining it.
As someone who as joined about a month after the release of Act 2, I agree with everything in this. I really enjoyed first playing through the game and I rapidly caught on with how the game worked, yet bosses like Gabriel 1 kicked my ass so bad I had to push the autoaim up to 100%. What truly infuriated me is when I managed to enter P-1 and that, still being in the NewBlood server, wanted to share my difficulties and ask for help, but I only recieved highly helpful tips such as "its not hard to dodge Minos he calls out his attacks and you can at least tell what Hes going to do next if you do digging dumbass" and "minos prime is p simple, everything he does has telegraphs, just punishing if you struggle to react" (yes, these are 2 of the actual messages I had the joy to be responded with word for word). I've since been able to P-rank every single level on all difficulties with the exception of P-2 and am very proud of it, but these interactions really left me with a bitter taste in the end. I still have a stained opinion about the NewBlood discord server despite knowing there's likely other awesome people there and it really sucks for these people to be buried under annoying fans that believe telling newer people that one of the hardest challenges in the game is very easy is a great tip and the only thing they need to know. I am very thankful for this video to have put into words my annoyance about the community. The fear of change and constant need for difficulty, ignoring things such as the Cybergrind being harder and harder the longer you go and newer players also needing an experience for their level without having to go in the lower difficulties (Standard should be the fairest difficulty, not a dark soul equivalent). But in retrospect, I do believe this community is in a much, *much* better spot than it could've been. An overwhelming amount of communities are much worse than this and Ultrakill has managed to get a community much more friendly than the vast magority of games I've seen.
at 4:09 when you talk about putting down Subnautica and enjoying it when it came out, it really spoke to me because I always enjoy games more when they are actually complete.
Thanks man, i used to joke on my friend who just started the game and i think i ruined his experience. I regret it now that i know that he doesn't want to play the game anymore because of me so i'm gonna TRY to help him love the game again.
Thanks for posting this video. It echos out in a way that only those struggling to be a part of the community can see and just come back to the roots. I've been in New Blood's official Discord server before ACT II had been released, and I had joined the ULTRAKILL community around Layer 4's release. I've tried to post things and enjoy the stuff I love about ULTRAKILL with me and some friends but, I have never been able to join the community at large. Be it suspicions about stuff that I find online, or even stuff that's uploaded to UA-cam in passing for what would be the next level of P-2. I can't do anything without being kept out by looking suspicious or even downright dumb. This honest does show a huge problem and I see where it's coming from. I wish this community wasn't just all pride and gluttony, I hope that it changes for the better some day.
i started playing ultrakill in october last year which means i played both acts the way they were meant to be played(except for the fact that i had the halloween event enabled the whole time lol) and i can confidently say act 2 gabriel was the hardest boss in the game for me, it took me over 150 restarts to beat him on standard difficulty on my first time playing but now i have p-ranked every level in the game including P-1 and can beat bosses which would've originally taken me 20 minutes in under 30 seconds the game is very difficult for new players and im kind of sad that i didn't get to play through act 3 on my first run but i still find the game to be extremely fun
I didn’t play at all between the 4-S update and the wrath update, figured “I’m good at shooters, lets just hop into act 2 on violent” then gabriel killed me 50+ times in a fight that I now consider easier than his first. I think people playing this for the first time at 1.0 will have a stellar difficulty curve when all is said and done
Literally just got into ultrakill a few days ago because of the sale on steam. I am absolutely in love with this game, I only have about 12 hours so far and I just beat act 2. As someone who is experiencing all this content for the first time, and has played stuff like TF2, Doom 2016, and Doom eternal quite a bit I can say that this game at least from a new players perspective was extremely satisfying and difficult the whole way through. Never did I find the game too easy, never did I get too overly frustrated, as a new player who is playing on the second highest difficulty for my first playthrough I think that the difficulty level was absolutely perfect. I have seen this problem play out a lot in other game communities, where players become so proficient at the game system that they get really upset when content is made for the average player of the game. They want all the content to be balanced exclusively for people who have put in hundreds of hours to the game. Not realizing that while yes difficult games are really fun, making something that's only playable if you have literally hundreds of hours of free time to put into the game just isn't realistic. I think this is a really great video and I think ultra kill is a really great game. It took me 258 tries to beat the second Gabriel fight. So maybe I'm just bad, but I think this game is really fun and very well balanced
Whew, what a couple days since I released this video. I ended up crawling the comments a little more than I anticipated over the weekend, but I still had a bunch of unplug time which was awesome. Finally sitting down and catching up with everything, and for everything I said in this video it's funny to feel like there is still more I want to say...
TL;DR after thinking about it, the people who have criticized me for the choice of Tweets I highlighted in the nailgun section, are 100% correct, I could've done a much better job of selecting actually toxic and unproductive tweets to show this side of the community's response to changes like this, and I will admit fully I rushed this section thinking that for how quickly it flashed on screen people wouldn't care or notice... I was totally wrong and I messed up. I wrote a longer post with some additional thoughts, and a longer explanation here if you are curious: twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss7dfk
I am extremely happy with how constructive and civil the vast majority of the comments here have been, I'm trying still to read and respond to as many as I can. Keep on keepin' on Ultrakillers.
Ngl the Devs response to people just asking if there's a way to go back to another model they enjoyed with no rudeness from them only to be hit with childish replies is one of the reasons I do not like the dev team inspite of the game being great. just childish in a way that turns me off from liking them
good vid, i just did my first play through, the gabriel hate fight took me close to two hours, far more than every other boss
As a community gets larger, the amount of bad people in it also increases, even though the percentage stays the same.
That's really just to say that don't let those people ruin your view of the community, because there are plenty more amazing people joining and having fun than there are annoying or toxic people, it's just a part of human psychology that you notice the latter a lot more than the former.
If the community keeps growing (which it almost certainly will) we'll eventually unavoidably reach the point of saturation where you'll start to see the "The game's good, but the community ruined it" or "I'm never going to play the game because the community sucks" takes become common (I've already seen some of both).
That's pretty much the inevitable end point of any indie game community that gets big enough, so I just want to remind people to remember to pay attention to how many amazing people there are and how much incredible fan content and engagement there is instead of accidentally focusing on the worst and thinking the community has rotted into garbage.
Wow, I did not expect this at all. Thank you Hakita, I know the video devolved into negativity about the community some of the time, but I tried to keep it focused and constructive while acknowledging the good I have experienced as well. I think what you are saying is ubiquitously true and has been periodically hard for me to see due to just how much I am disproportionately exposed to negative opinions and toxicity as a content creator, but my ultimate takeaway has always been that I love this game and community and want to keep giving back to it, and that the impact of my positive experiences have way outweighed the negative by far. Thank you for the amazing game and I appreciate your insight!
I really hate that this is the inevitable doom of these incredible indie titles, but nonetheless I hope ultrakill grows beyond that
LISTEN TO THE MAN, PEOPLE. Please don't let the toxic fans ruin your enjoyment of the game, especially before you've even started playing. Filtering who you engage with on the Internet is something we all have to learn how to do for the sake of our mental health.
Well said
"Then God raised his hand and said..:"
I honestly think Ultrakill's lucky to have a lead developer who's so uncompromising in his vision. Developers that don't listen to the community suck, but a developer who listens to everyone can straight up ruin a game. I trust Hakita to make his game way more than I trust the entirety of the internet to do so.
Hakitas vision of what the game should become is what we've been enjoying, so why try to change it with suggestions?
@@Miterme Of course there's nothing wrong with suggestions, they can help you think of ideas when you don't have any yourself, the problem is when people believe they know what's best for the game and that it's the developers obligation to listen to them.
@@nevinmyers1245 That's kind of what I meant, I'm not implying removing suggestions altogether, but major content such as chapters should probably just be left to him
@@Miterme Yeah. Criticism is necessary to make the game better in general, if a lot of people complain the same thing, it might be worth to fix it but if it clash with the vision the dev has, they may need to compromise something in some way.
You must be right.
As a player that joined after the Act 2 Update, I can say this game is designed almost perfectly. Gabe 2 definitely kicked my ass, and even Gabe 1. Minos Prime absolute JUDGED me, and I'm trying to P rank P-1.
best of luck my friend! it certainly took me a while but i have no doubt you can do it :3
cant wait for P-P where a new level unlocks when each prime sanctum is p ranked
@@4g3nt06 hehe peepee
Same thing happened to me, except that I have spent too much time attempting and successfully P ranking P-1. It was hard, but it was worth it for that golden border.
in the same boat as you, currently trying to P rank minos too because my friend won’t stop bugging me about it,
best attempt i have is 18 retries
I like how some people dont realize that not everyone has that much free time to soak hundereds of hoirs into the same game
tbh when a game is just above and beyond most other game of the same genre then yeah its definitely worth it for some people.
Some like to play as much game as possible while some just grow their standards a bit too high for their own good(myself included).
Games like DMC who is still king of beat em up/hack and slash, ultrakill is now probably the king of fps for me cause i never really like this genre to begin with, Sekiro in term of tight and satisfying combat and boss fights, Monster Hunter in term of hunting-looting system...
Like once you play some of the higher quality games, its hard to enjoy another game of the same genre that has an inferior system.
People praise GoW and GoW Ragnarok, but personally it just doesnt introduce anything new to the table. As a hack and slash/beat em up game, it feel like another Assassin creed Odyssey, or Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon game; it hasnt surpassed something like Lost Judgement or DMC
Hours* hundreds*
@@3c0746 “minor spelling error detected, argument invalidated.”
@@3c0746 autism is mfer huh
@@RatLordFL im sorry
as somebody who has ~600 hours in Ultrakill, you raise excellent points about the difficulty of Act 2's bosses that I never really considered before - like my biggest complaint about Gabe 2 when the update first released is that he felt way too easy, not realising this is a boss tailored for somebody who went from Act 1 to Act 2 immedately and not someone who had plenty of time to get very familiar with the game from when Gabe 1 was the last available boss
Ironically imo act 2 Gabe is easier because he's easier to read (aka better), even if he requires more movement and parry skill to beat
Ok
@@baharrothbluu Sounds like Ultrakill has a few design elements in common with Sekiro when you say it like that, doesn't it?
@@carljohan9265 idk I never played sekiro
@@baharrothbluu bro I didn't parry gabe 2 a single time
the real problem with ultrakill is that who is ultrakill and why must they die
I loved when ultrakill said “it’s ultra killing time” and ultra killed all over the place. Truly the ultrakill of all time
@@The_scrongler1978I'M GOING TO ULTRAKILL™ MYSELF
@@The_scrongler1978 remember the time gabriel say “IT'S BAGING TIME”
Honestly, I've always thought of people who make comments like these as the face of the community. I guess it's because it's because I just play the game and sometimes watch videos on youtube about the game, and most of it is shitposting. It has been a great experience so far!
I think that having a dlc where you play as v2 would actually be sick
It'd be like Shovel Knight's dlc, where you would look at the world in a different perspective
Oh absolutely, I'm merely saying to temper expectations for any content beyond the 3 acts because nothing has been announced nor promised.
Probably gonna be a sex dlc or something.
i mean theres a level editor and a modding community they can just do that
@@aarepelaa1142 every ultrakill player's dream
honestly it could just be a different gamemode with the same levels
Very well written as usual. It really sucks that almost every community ever has to come with a "don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch" warning plastered on it, but sadly that's the nature of the internet. It's been an absolute joy being able to grow as a player alongside the game as new content and secrets are added, and I doubt that will change anytime soon, especially with the next update (i'm so hyped for the Serious Cannon RL). I also very much agree with the points you made about taking a break from the game; while I have never taken a super long hiatus from Ultrakill, simply disconnecting from the community for a minute is a great way to a) enjoy the game more and b) start to develop a playstyle that feels uniquely yours.
Internet was way better until you came along😂
Like come on
@@AcidiFy574 why is that
@@AcidiFy574 I do not find you funny.
@@FrancisCastiglione The feeling is mutual
@@maxgoldstein7202 first of all, the internet was a better place before Corporations capitalized on it & secondly it's not toxicity it's passion
Except that they ficus on the negatives
New player here! I got into Ultrakill roughly a few months before Act 2 fully dropped and despite some fears that my inexperience would be ridiculed by the community, I'm so glad to say that hasn't been the case. In fact, this community has felt like one of the most welcoming even with the game having such a high skill ceiling. I've never really seen a community be so vocal about a game's accessibility options and that it's valid to play the game on lower difficulties before (even Gianni pointed them out at the end of his Ultrakill stream). Yeah I'm sometimes sad that I can't do the fancy tech despite watching tutorials, but then I remember that I'm not only learning a new genre (my experience with FPS is very limited) but that I'm also getting familiar with a new style of gameplay (keyboard and mouse). And that's okay because in the long run I've had a blast, plus I've managed to P-Rank a few stages! And honestly it is down to the fact that I personally don't feel ridiculed for playing on the easier difficulties.
Good on you, man. Keep it up, you're doing awesome!
My gf recently got into ULTRAKILL and I've had to help reassure her that no, starting on Harmless due to little experience with FPS games and especially movement shooters ISN'T an unforgivable sin (like some assholes on the New Blood discord, of all places, say). Keep with it and never stop improving! And if someone comes along and tries to pull that same stuff, hit 'em with a little Vicious Mockery.
@@gekigami1791 nb discord is a trash hole, not even close to what the uk community is like
Yeah, I’m new, too, I’m still on the Demo and P-Ranking what I have, I’m planning on getting the game soon, if I can easily find people who are ready and willing to admit that skill isn’t precisely the MOST important factor, then I’m ready to jump in.
A year late but I'm also the same! Never even touched an FPS of this kind before and I was very hesitant to try it despite my friends' recommendations, since skill games tends to have a lot of gatekeeping and mockery for new players. I was surprised that the game itself won't mock you for choosing easier difficulties (they're called Accessible instead of stuff like "coward" or "weak") nor does it expect you to S or P rank everything. Friends and the community, for the most part, have been really supportive. I went from knowing nothing to being able to take down most bosses by just parrying... It's really incredible.
You've done an amazing job of clearly voicing the main issues we see in not just the ULTRAKILL community, but a lot of the game communities I'm a part of. Whether it be Team Fortress 2, Deep Rock Galactic, DOOM, or Minecraft... we just can't seem to get away from these types of individuals, can we?
However, I won't be using this video as a way to highlight the issues the ULTRAKILL community has, since I and many others here (Hakita himself included) have already come to terms with the inevitability that is having bad apples in the bunch. With games like ULTRAKILL which have become such huge phenomena, I'll use your video to push forward the idea that we should approach it all knowing full well that the scale of positivity will always vastly outweigh the negativity (which I'm sure you're very familiar with through your time making content, because I know I am hahaha).
The way I see things, it just so happens that the higher a game climbs in its lifetime, the more noticeable the potential falls are. Let's all continue to do our best with looking up and continuing to enjoy our journey with these amazing games knowing full well that we can support others who are going through the exact same problems as us, and that things can only get better from this point on through perspective.
Awesome video man.
Thank you and this is exactly the takeaway I hope people have from it. I hope this message didn't get lost in the sauce, because although this video was focused on highlighting and calling out toxicity, the ultimate truth is that the vast amount of positivity has outweighed it and ultimately not pushed me away from the game. On some particularly bad days I feel like I'm the only one, so if nothing else I'm glad this video has brought together the vast majority of players who this does not apply to. And thanks to yourself for also being a force of positivity in this community!
@@DumpsterManTV I think your main message came through great.
Thank you for your kind words as well friend :D
I'd probably say that the root of the issue is "agglomeration" of the internet. When everything happens on a handful of big platforms where everybody has an account, what would previously take registering on a forum can now be done in a "fire and forget" manner.
We should reject modernity and embrace small dedicated forums...
the entire section about difficulty and making the game harder for yourself by choosing to handicap yourself with self imposed rules is insanely relevant in the pokemon community right now with people claiming that a quality of life feature that saves time is somehow making the game easier instead of just respecting the player's time. people who ignore intended difficulty and insist games need to be harder for the sake of being harder are some of the most annoying individuals i've had the displeasure of being yelled at by. Some people need to understand sometimes difficulty isn't tuned for challenge alone, but the game's experience.
Also people complaining about modern pokemon games being too easy when the tera raid bullshit is impossible to solo at higher difficulties, I swear it's people who stopped playing halfway through X&Y and assume all games are exactly like that one.
I will always be here. no matter who you disagree with, even if you disagree with me.
this game will always hold a special place in my heart no matter how I think of it.
sure, the community is growing to become something I'm starting to hate... but the game will never change.
And that's something I can guarantee.
oh btw I didn't mean that it will never change as in changes will never be made to it, because of course they will, but it will never stop being my favorite game of all time. no matter what change gets made to it, because I don't give a shit. I love this game.
You're one of the good ones Lunite 👍🏻
@@DumpsterManTV thanks, dumperman. you are too.
@Lunite76 ive run into you on twitch countless times and now here?
@@Blahaj_Gaming847 I'm everywhere
This whole video reminded me of two stories I had with some Discord friends
I had a close friend who I used to chat with about Ultrakill a lot, either making up theories, praising the music, sending each other memes, whatever; and we were both excited about the Act II update, until we played it. For me, it was a fantastic experience, getting new and fresh challenges, seeing all the new levels and concepts, fucking around with the rocket launcher, and all that stuff; but my friend started saying that the new layers were unfair, and that he kept dying too much, until we read the changelog. Basically, the problem was that his whole playstyle involved just using the pump shotgun and the knuckleblaster, and then using the whiplash when he needed to heal; and so it was killed with the whiplash nerf and the style meter rework, to the point where he just kinda gave up and abandoned the game because he didn't find it enjoyable anymore
And there is the case of another friend of mine, who despite being more used to JRPGs and playing with controllers rather than mouse and keyboard, bought the game after seeing the passion and love that me and some other friends had for it... but then he got stuck on V2, and he started feeling bad for not being able to do all the "cool stuff" that me and others talked about, and for playing on low difficulties; until we basically told him to just enjoy the game the way he wants and cheered him on, to the point where he could get unstuck and keep enjoying the game and having fun with it
Epic
20:44 oh yeah, from what I remember it's because hakita forgot to assign a weight to the saws, they were supposed to have a weight of one, but because either as an experiment or because someone forgot, the saws weight was set to zero, which meant that magnets could have a lot stacked on them and they wouldn't break
I hate when instead of encouraging and informing newer players on mechanics secrets etc people go out of their way to make people feel bad for not doing it as well as them everybody experience is different and doing so discourages people from playing a game you love its bad for the developers the game and the community
it sounds weird but ultrakill has felt so much like subnautica to me. a "hidden indie gem classic" (i fucking hate that phrase) that really is just so god damn much better than you think it is when you first boot it up, with a community is insanely passionate about it, improving it through development. Hopefully it never becomes insanely cringe like some other game communities are. but it really is one of those games that is so fucking rad the first playthrough, and you always feel like you're looking for that high again afterwards, which is dope to see you drawing parallels with subnautica for this game. ultrakill is like subnautica with guns.
"Ultrakill is like subnautica with guns" might be one of my new favorite lines I've ever read about this game, on its own complete absurdity lol, but you've justified and contextualized it nicely and I totally agree
isnt subnautica with guns just Natural Selection?
considering the ultrakill channel in the New Blood discord is the only channel in the entire server to be on slowmode basically permanently, and has its own dedicated mods separate from the rest of the server, really says a lot about the fanbase
Oh shit really? I want to access the unofficial ultrakill discord but I'm sticking to new blood and didnt know that that specific channel has slowmode
the channel really is exhausting to be honest
More than the community it's the fact that it's filled whit children, many things say a lot about this community but not the discord server
Dusk fans are the most oppressed race
@@ssess5499 fr
Note on the difficulty and balancing section: this exact scenario has been happening in monster hunter and its community. Each game is designed with a difficulty curve in mind, and each game that curve gets reset back to 0. Many people started with monster hunter world, going through all the challenges for the first time and struggling, and when the next monster hunter game came out its difficulty was often compared to when people were experiencing the game for the first time, in a series where legacy knowledge makes a massive difference there were a bunch of people who were disappointed
Fellow monster hunter player🙏
Another game with balance problem is SOT, which promised and engaging universe and even intersting ship battles but you instead end up shooting more pirates through your cannons than you do cannonballs
I love it whenever dumpster man uploads such a perfectly edited, engaging, and thoughtful video. along with the sheer truth he speaks here, might just be perfect.
*looks at mayo*
slight correction- the most substantial content update to the game was adding buttplug suppourt
Lmao
Lmao
Lmao
🖕 the chain
Lmao
The whiplash nerf was eye opening to me. I played through Act II on the day that it launched, and I P-ranked all the levels before really digging into patch notes or community opinions. I died a lot on my first runs through the levels, and P-ranking the ship level was actually really hard! I died even more! it was really fun. I was playing the game as I always did, and using the whiplash, without noticing the nerf, because frankly I don't look at my health bar when playing.
Needless to say I was very confused when I looked at the sheer meltdown going on in the community. People were saying it ruined the entire game for them, that they can't play the game the way they want, that it went against the entire purpose of the game, and accusing Hakita of balancing the game as if it was a "multiplayer game". I tried talking with a few people, I told them they could still play the way they always had (that's true, I just got done doing it), they could consider more movement options, or simply try to learn a new way to play with the new whiplash, and they all just got angry. There was no reasoning with anyone, they were all determined to not have fun.
Since I learned about the nerf, I still use the whiplash a lot, but I also use other movement options and rocket riding. My playstyle is now more fun for me. Even the full whiplash nerf ended up positively impacting my experience of the game, and I would ride or die by the whiplash. If those people stopped playing a game they loved entirely because of an incredibly small change or not, I will never know, and I do not really care. They probably never enjoyed it in the first place.
This is a trend I see in many early access games, people put out the most kneejerk opinions the moment something changes, and you can never reason with them. It's frustrating, but you can't really engage with a lot of communities like this for several days after an update comes out. That sucks, because that is the time you probably want to talk about the game most. I checked what people were saying because I wanted to talk about how cool act II was, and all I saw was people complaining about a change I didn't even notice.
Oh yes, some people definitely took the whiplash nerf out of proportion, but I'd like to posit something about the nerf first: The first iteration of the nerf was straight up just too much. Below S rank you pretty much just couldn't use it at all without a major downside, that of which being if you used it it would add hard damage to your health bar. But unlike the later nerf... It wasn't capped. If you were, say, at 20 health, then using the whiplash would give you 80 hard damage that would take a long while to go away, and as a result, the player who got themselves in that situation, and thus isn't likely to be skilled enough to get themselves out, dies, all because they used the new tool the game gave them. I get wanting to make players use other options, but frankly the solution is not to make a tool that only high level players can use effectively.
Many DMC players didn't give Royal Guard a chance until DMC 5 because it changed the way it worked somewhat, that being it consumes your DT gauge every time you block with it, instead of only being able to block small attacks but have to parry heavy attacks. The problem with the previous way was that only the best of the best could ever hope to use it, if a lower level player used it they would end up dying, and then realize they don't believe the time investment to learn it fully was worth it, and appropriately dipped out to use more reliable techniques. The first iteration of the whiplash nerf essentially did just that.
Don't get me wrong of course, the people getting angry about it WERE unreasonable, but their opinion wasn't unfounded, if you get my meaning.
My problem with the whiplash nerf is that I used to joke that V1 was Spiderman when I was playing Cyber Grind. Can't do that anymore, at least not at my current skill level
It seems to have become a overall trend throughout a lot of online communities based on videogames, ESPECIALLY ones based so hard around skill like ULTRAKILL, some people just do not want to adapt to change and overcome it, and instead try to complain until something gives and they get what they want, until they get tired of it and just have a grudge about it. It's sad because it leads to so many people who actively play the game that also hold some odd resentment towards parts of it, and they can be just miserable to talk to.
I was ok at ULTRAKILL pre-whiplash nerf, but I used that shit like a crutch. Then when I heard about the nerf, I was like "this shit is gonna kick my ass if I keep playing the way I do, lemme condition myself to not using it." So I literally *removed whiplash from my arsenal* to practice. Was it hard at first? Yeah, not being able to use the tool that I relied on made Cyber Grind hard, but also actually kinda fun. I ended up having a better understanding of the other movement tech available to me and became better st the game as a result. Act 2 dropped and the nerf wasn't even as bad as people made me think it'd be. I still used whiplash, but I used to sparingly instead of as my only way to get a kill. Hell, I barely even use whiplash now that I got good at rocket riding. Why? Because one fits the way I play the game better then the other, and how do I play the game? I play trying to do optimal stuff, but going for style when I can. To me, rocket riding it's that bill perfectly compared to whiplash. It's something that takes practice, some skill to pull of consistently, and looks cool if you manage to pull it off. Not saying the whiplash is bad, but more of something I don't rely on anymore, not like I used to.
The first whiplash nerf was pretty fucking painful even though I could keep high style in combat. Good thing the nerf was nerfed.
I think the only way for dedicated players to have a satisfying challenge is to install mods like the Ultrakill tweaker that adds stuff like permanently sanded enemies or just silly things like a Super Hot mode that makes ultrakill play like... well, Super Hot. Unless Hakita decides to add more customization to the game the amount of unsatisfied pros won't lower much.
I mean, there's still the last 2 difficulty modes pending.
Which I assume will come after ACT 3, if not with ACT 3.
Yeah we’ve still got 2 difficulties to go and we’ll be getting a full level and campaign creator as well. When the games out in full release things will be fine.
@@ghoulofthebeat4946 Also Encore levels. I don't know much, but Hakita has confirmed they'll basically be alternate level layouts, potentially with changes to bosses. They'll be independent of difficulty sliders, so they'll be challenging content you can experience without needing to change the core difficulty. The only reason I mention potential boss changes is because we know P2's Encore level will have a full version of the Flesh Panopticon fight according to Hakita himself. Not sure if any other bosses will be given extended fights or altered phases.
Iv been taking a break from ultrakill for about a month now because of there being nothing left that I was interested in and Iv felt almost guilty about it. So I sincerely thank you for reassuring my decision to take a break from the game until probably P-2 comes out.
Well P-2 is out and now I’m awful at the game any tips to get back into the swing of things
You should practice cybergrind and 6-1 to get more used to gauntlet type levels, if you don't mind spoilers you can listen to a video with all of the prime souls moves to know them first, also remember to parry
"Players will always find the best way to optimise the fun out of the game" Fallout developer
I thought all this was a given. Thanks for showing people that ULTRAKILL needs to be balanced for the newer generation of players.
Hey, I just want to speak as someone from the speedrun side of the community on this. I frequent the speedruns channel in the ultrakill discord way way way too much and imo it's the least gatekeepy of any community I've ever interacted with. Whenever someone new shows up they often will say prematurely that they feel embarrassed/intimidated to ask for help or share their times because everyone in the channel is "better" than them, and every single time we have to tell them that no one cares how good or bad you are at the game because we just want to help people improve and share stuff we're proud of. The gatekeeping I have seen for Ultrakill is honestly less experienced players and random youtube commenters (latter I've seen way too much). Like people trying to put other people down just to feel better about themselves because they're "better" at a fucking single player game by some metric that doesn't actually matter. I guess people who are really deep into the community are more supportive of others compared to people with something to prove (am I gatekeeping who can be a gatekeeper? lol), but that seems to ring true for nearly every community on the internet.
Hey, all I'm really going to say here is please be civil and constructive, even if you disagree with me the goal of this video is obviously not to start in-fighting or spur more toxicity, so think twice before you post… and otherwise I already said a lot in this video so instead of adding even more thoughts here, here is a list of people in the Ultrakill community that I believe are making a positive impact on the community, or I have personally had positive interactions with, or that I just otherwise believe deserve your support:
DaveDotEXE: ua-cam.com/channels/KiW_hOgMmtVh_q5kF7T2qA.html
gLud3: www.youtube.com/@gLud3
HerbMessiah: www.youtube.com/@HerbMessiah
Hyze: www.youtube.com/@GHyze
Robi: www.youtube.com/@ULTRAROBIEHH
EreNyn3: www.youtube.com/@EreNyn3
Anyways I'm off to spend the last 36 hours or so of 2022 getting drunk with friends. Peace, love, and Happy New Year!
happy new year! oh and the vid is absolutely based
happy new year my dude, remember to spare your liver from drinking because its pretty expensive >:)
NO! I'm gonna start ALL the in-fighting, and be ULTRA-TOXIC! I'll think THREE times before I post, AND STILL POST!
jokes aside, be safe, enjoy your 36 or so hours! drink responsibly!
oh, and if you sleep in a car drunk, put your keys in the trunk(if your back seat can pull forwards to reveal the inside of the trunk, or you have a button in the car that opens the trunk without the car being on) so you don't get in trouble!
either way, have a good end of the year!
man, i just wanna say that, opening the chapters and seeing 7 minos prime poiting at me saying i'm at fault is way too hilarious
more importanty i'm really glad to see someone pointing this out, i'm a new player, i discovered the game along with your videos and i think the problem is obviously the size of the game, the more it grows the more toxic it'll become but it's just because we are looking on the wrong side, the other side has ton of amazing animations and content of people showing tips and tricks
Happy new year i'm glad to have discovered this channel alongside ultrakill anyways even if the community will suck in the future which i highly doubt
The only toxicity I believe was warranted was the reaction to under the mayo stuff.
Well said! I think you've perfectly painted every struggle I've had with the community and more! Keep up the good work! =3
Before the P2 update came out, I thought I was really good at Ultrakill. I had P ranked all the levels before it and had a decent cyber grind record of 37.
When P2 dropped and I tried it, I was dumbfounded by how hard it was. The level was on a whole other level and tested my ability more than anything in the game up until that point. The funny thing is that I really liked it when I played through it blind until I looked into the community reaction about it.
People were talking on the forums about how brain dead easy it was and how disappointed they were by it’s gauntlet and boss. Many of them were saying they P ranked it first try and it was a pathetic level difficulty wise. My immediate reaction was “wow I am absolute dog shit at this game suddenly” and proceeded to relentlessly throw myself at P2 to try to restore my self image of being good at the game. I eventually did beat it but it made me really upset for a couple weeks.
Eventually some of my other friends tried Ultrakill and I realized that I am really good at the game and that all those idiots on Reddit were full of shit. All my buddies had just as much trouble with the prime sanctums and I currently hold most of the P rank records in the group.
TL;DR don’t listen to dumb elitists on the internet and just enjoy games at your own pace.
Yeah, no matter what anyone says, this is the experience that literally ~99% of the playerbase had with P-2. The people who give a shit about looking cool because of how 'few restarts' they had, or how 'easy' they found the level are in such a small minority that even if they all were telling the truth they can basically all be ignored/discarded as outliers, but much more likely I think most of them are just lying to look cooler than they are (as if anyone cares)
r/Ultrakill perhaps???
The whiplash change was funny considering how I took a surprisingly uncommon middling stance, where I totally agreed with the change and the idea behind it, but did not like how it was initially implemented. Clearly the game devs agreed with this because the hotfix update that changed the whiplash pretty much addressed all of my initial complaints.
The more funny thing is how _some_ people on the higher level of play didn't like how the hotfix rebalancing made using the whiplash "easy" but I guess you can't please them all. In any case, the issues I had were that, while regenerating hard damage is a great concept, the initial execution made it so there was, in practice, no discernible difference in regeneration whether you were at D rank or SSS rank; only ULTRAKILL rank had any real effect, and that rank outright purges all hard damage instantly.
The OTHER issue was that maintaining ULTRAKILL rank was nigh impossible since a single glancing hit was able to remove two entire ranks out of your style meter, so it encouraged an incongruous "play safe" mentality that clashed with one of the core design philosophies of the game (AKA the one that plays into the whole "heal with blood at close range" mechanic). The game never demands outright perfect play out of you, even in getting P-ranks (seriously the metrics for P-ranks in most levels is _very_ generous, with few exceptions). All of this is long past now, and like I said, the hotfix pretty much fixed all of the major issues.
Now for what makes this funny is the people complaining about hard damage becoming easier to manage, and even I was kind of in the same mindset. But the thing is, it's really hard to recognize that you're "good" when things feel easy to you but are hard to others. Like, if I can consistently maintain SS or SSS ranks and even the occasional ULTRAKILL rank in the Cyber Grind... maybe I'm just good at the game? And I deserve those ranks? It's very easy to hold oneself to impossible standards especially if you see what some of this game's players can do, but in doing this you can also make yourself blind to how capable you really are.
As someone who has struggled a lot with toxic fandoms and having them thrash me as well as people like me for stupid reasons like a mere difference in subjective opinion or a different perspective, thank you. A lot of people are aware of the concept that "a fanbase will always have some bad apples and as the fanbase grows more bad apples will appear" but I think you were able to put everything into words in an almost immaculate manner. The part where you talked about how reading the comments of toxic fans was so unbelievably relatable to me, people say shit like "they don't know you" or "don't listen to them" but it's honestly hard not to.
I really hope that the Ultrakill community (and, in the best possible scenario, fandom culture as a whole) can become more empathetic and considerate. After all, the thing they're fans of has given them such experiences and emotions that they call themselves "fanatics" of it, why is it so hard for them to grasp the concept that others feel the same way?
This is a fantastic video. I have a few things to say:
Concerning difficulty, I actually used to have a bit of an attitude myself about the difficulty being too easy. Gabriel Act II got absolutely steamrolled in my playthrough, and I hate to admit that I was disappointed and even a bit angry at the lack of progress. When my friend got the game to play through for the first time, I was genuinely nervous about Gabriel Act II; after all, he was so easy, surely my friend would take him down without a sweat and be disappointed at what the game was offering in its second act.
269 attempts.
It took my friend 269 attempts to beat Gabriel Act II on his first playthrough of ULTRAKILL. The absurdity of it was enough to bring me back to reality; this game is fucking hard! I just got so good at it that I have ascended beyond the game's greatest current challenges. My friend loved the fight despite his rage at how "unfair" it was, and that was that. You are absolutely right in that regard, and I can verify that I've seen newcomers like my friend struggle with the boss just as much as they should (I mean, 269 attempts is pretty bad even for a new player, but I'll cut him some slack he was tired lol).
Concerning the community; I am honestly sick of the take I've been seeing where a piece of media that a lot of people enjoy is "ruined" by cringe and forever tainted by toxicity. I hate that take with a burning passion, and I despise it so much because it literally throws any semblance of critical thought or individual comprehension out the damn window. Undertale, Five Nights At Freddy's, the Backrooms, Deltarune, MLP... all these communities are totally awesome and full of super cool people, and are evidently amazing, but the moment people bring uncomfortable or strange / cringe content to the media they like, gate-keepers lose their minds; they fail to separate the content from the people who support the content, and suddenly, it all becomes one muddled mess in their brains.
I like the Backrooms. I like Undertale and love Deltarune. I love Five Nights at Freddy's. And none of those communities have been ruined or are toxic in any regard. It's just that toxic people are loud, and they WANT you to not like the content they scream about because it makes them feel good when you are sad and have no passions. Giving in to pressure and saying "This community is toxic and ded" is braindead, because you somehow can't separate the concepts of "artist" "art" and "consumers" from each other.
ULTRAKILL is amazing. I appreciate your video on this topic; it's important to confront toxicity with maturity and strength, because that's what makes the miserable wretches of the world hiss and hide under their slimy holes! Keep making awesome content, dude, you're doing it right and you should be proud!
Late to the party here but I second this wholeheartedly.
For one, Gabe 2 took me 45 attempts on my first playthrough, 10 less than the first fight, but each attempt was longer, more frenzied, more directed. I'd played straight from Act 1 to 2 without booting up the cyber grind or P-ranking anything or fighting Minos. My playstyle had improved a lot, but I was still on one uninterrupted path, and Gabe 2 was the most engaging and challenging boss for me at the time by far.
Even though I technically died less here than the first fight, I was directly responding to him more thoughtfully, and it felt like he was doing the same. I was honestly impressed. I love duel boss fights but it's rare they hit such a perfect balance for me. When I finally took him down, it was one of the most satisfying moments I've ever had with gaming, and it's still one of my all time favourite gaming memories.
So yeah, when I logged onto the Discord and saw people complaining about how easy he was, it didn't make any sense. Then I thought about it more, about Minos and the grind and about all of the crazy tech I'd seen, and it started making sense. Ultrakill is being balanced in the image of how it'll play when it's finished. By playing the hardest challenges first, you're essentially breaking the flow.
I'm still holding off from playing more until Act 3, because I want that challenge again.
And yeah, when it comes to solo media especially, the idea that a community can forever ruin something for you just by having a vocal minority of assholes has never made any sense to me. I get becoming enthralled in a toxic space and then losing your love for the media, that's fine, but the very existence of a toxic side? I don't see it. We have to learn to separate the art and the artist all the time, why should separating the art from the community be any different?
This is a very interesting take about the difficulty of bosses in act 2. I felt that it was easier, however, I wasn't upset with that, especially since I don't consider story bosses to be the real challenge anyways. It's tough, but it's no minos prime p-rank. I'm very excited to deal with the uktra violent and ultrakill must die difficulties, and I'm looking forward to beating my head against the wall in that difficulty. I'm very very excited to see the changes between the different difficulties, and I honestly can't wait to see both the story and the gameplay progress over time.
I honestly found the leviathan really hard and it took me like 13 attempts on my first try. The funny thing is I had beaten Minos Prime for the first time about 2 weeks before the update came out.
@@impracticaltesseract don't get me wrong, getting the hang of Levi was rough especially learning his attacks and how to avoid them then finding out he has a crit spot on his head. But those 18 or so restarts on Levi were nothing compared to the 86 I had on minos violent.
Same.
Got a friend who only recently started playing Ultrakill and it really is how the bosses are when he streamed the game to me.
They aren't made for the _"Hardcore veterans of the game who can P-rank everything with closed eyes"_ but for first time players. And it works well.
15:10 LOVE the subtle jab at mayo here
Very well said, it's great to see how far you've come and how much growth you displayed in all fronts.
I agree with practically everything you said here. as a guy who likes to challenge themselves in this game, I’ve noticed a lot of people in the comments section of my videos repeating several of the statements you mentioned. “The game should be harder”, “Gabe 2 was too easy”, etc.
I’ve also had things that I’m proud of be completely ruined by people saying that I should do more with it, I was proud of my whiplash only run, some people complained that it “was easy” or “I need to redo it” and now I can’t bring myself to watch what is arguably my most difficult accomplishment. Most people were likely joking but even so those comments still make me feel like I’m a failure or worse than others. Like I’m not doing it right or that I should be doing more. Which I shouldn’t be thinking. Constantly one upping yourself is a great way to burn out and make you despise the things you love
This video gave me a new perspective on all of this, and now I’m going to do what I find fun, as a fellow UK content creator I thank you.
anybody who says whiplash only is "too easy" is trolling
I played ultrakill after the act II update and I thought act II felt like a great section to come after act I. I did feel as though the second Gabriel fight was a little too easy but I thought about the fact that this was only the second chapter in the game and when the whole game releases there’ll be more opportunities for me to feel challenged by him. I also felt it canonically right that Gabriel didn’t get any stronger since the last time we fight him and this was just a way to reflect on how much stronger we’ve become since the first fight.
its been a good 2022 for the Dumpsterverse. Cant wait for next year for new content! o7
Ultrakill has become one of my fav games on steam this far and fav shooters because of how complex it is, and even though I have 300+ hours on it and I am decent at the game (having P ranked every level on violent, including minos), I never ever have thought that any of the bosses are "too easy". In my humble opinion, they are as hard as they need to be for each layer, even after replaying them hundreds of times, I still get my ass handed to me by Gabe 2 or V2 2nd if I'm not on my A game. This is what I absolutely love about ultrakill and why I think I will always love it, Hakita and the team have painstakingly balanced every boss to perfection and I respect and admire that a 100%
After finishing the video, I am in tears. I am so sorry people have sucked some of your excitement and enjoyment of this game. I am sorry that you've had to battle with toxic people who honestly should just keep their mouths shut. Ultrakill's community is one of my favourite of any game out there because I've only gotten support and laughs, and it pains me to see people suffering because of it. I always recommend this game to friends and get so excited to teach them strats or see their reactions of certain levels/music, I do not care if they are good or bad or average. So all I've got to say is thank you for making content, thank you for making us laugh and enjoy our times watching you play this awesome game and thank you for putting up with the bad side of the community, it would really hurt to see you leave the community, but if that's what it takes to make you feel at peace, then it is the best course of action. Thank you so much
I love this! Your view seems very well informed and I can hear the passion you hold for this game/community in how you speak. Cool stuff!
Thank you for this video. I recently started playing ULTRAKILL and am really enjoying it, even if I play on Harmless and most of the bosses don't take too many tries to beat. I do want to reach further, however, and this video has given me the confidence to perhaps turn the difficulty higher. I might never end up beating Minos Prime or getting a high rank in the Cybergrind or anything like that, but it's people like you who play this game that make me want to try. :)
Update: Well I can match the speed of a Filth and I just beat Swordsmachine. I'm off to a great start!
First time watching, I already like this guy. He understands that players end up getting too good then complaining, and he is one of the people who plays godlike, yet doesn’t complain because it’s easy to him. Good guy, good channel.
What he said about difficulty made me think that hakita might actually make the future higher difficulty designed to be harder for invested player pov and not new player one, so he might just say "fuck it, the Cerberus boss fight will be as hard as the Minos prime fight on violent"
This video is like a generous slap in the face for some I'd imagine, lol. Not sure how you can generously slap someone, but you seem to have figured that out.
oh your that guy that Gabriel roasted
It's really funny that this is what some people know me for at this point lol
it was rlly heartwarming seeing you talk about the community and how a lot of it was welcoming over clips of you smiling wide and genuinely having FUN
Imagine if you were able to go back to e1m8 with the Plasma Rifle in Doom 1 and knew every exploit in the book for how to beat the game. You'd think the two Barons at the end of the episode were weak, right?
They aren't weak if the best weapon you have is a rocket launcher with barely any ammo for it because you didn't go secret hunting.
i’ve been playing ultrakill for over a year now, it helped me discover many other games i would of neglected otherwise. Many content updates have come out since i started playing, and i liked every single one.
I really dont understand the negativity around some changes, i found 4-S really fun, but a lot of people were saying it was not fun or it was too hard. I played act 2 on release and got through it in about 2 hours, i went into it expecting an experience, not a challenge.
Hakita knows what he is doing, and some people still think they can make a better game than the person who came up with most of the ideas in it.
The idea of people saying act 2 was easy is fucking bewildering to me, as I started playing during the act 2 update and Gabriel beat my ass REPEATEDLY
"but I have plade 40 minute of the game an i alredy peeranked all the levels and challenges and secrets its too easy you just need to get good"
- A liar
Don't be discouraged by those comments, they are all trolls and lies meant to feed this fire
Thanks! You made me realize that i could've spent my time way better rather than mastering ultrakill and then weeping for new content in my silly little room!
I actually am pretty thankful that i came to that realization and will take a note for future early-acces games i will find interesting.
I feel like the whiplash nerf would've been better received of it came before act 2, since now you had levels that were designed around it, but it no longer works like you're used to
I assure you that 99% of the sore feelings from people about it was because of this reason specifically.
This is a great video overall. I definitely haven’t thought about it myself till this video, but it all makes sense and I agree on pretty much all of your points. I’m kinda surprised by how well you were able to dissect the problems and try to find the root of the issues to talk about them AND talk about solutions! Extremely insightful and very, very well done/spoken. 🤘
This video was plain great, all the time you spent writing the script paid off, and i know how careful with wording you were at times; i'm glad to see it's getting so many views because maybe it'll reach those who are being called out
I know you
i just got into ultrakill (been meaning to for a while) and i find the game super fun even if i suck, i feel like im making quick improvements. This video gave me such a warm feeling and im hopeful of this game, even if the community has few bruises from bad apples (assuming this analogy still holds or even made sense to begin with) best of wishes
In regards to the difficulty, I think there is a more fundamental problem:
When you balance a difficulty in a shooter you have an expected Damage Per Second (DPS) that player can dish out.
Without any tech and game knowledge (such as using a weapon with hard modifier against certain enemy), you get baseline DPS. Any skillful play increase it by some modifier (that can be very hard to quantify)
So using a simple formula of:
Enemy HP/Baseline player DPS*Modifier of player's skill = Time To Kill an enemy (TTK)
With ideal balance, during that time, the enemy must do some counterattacks to make the fight existing, but not kill the player outright. The game is meant to be beaten after all. However in Ultrakill player can negate damage by parrying and dodging, so the "skill modifier" exist here too.
The formula for this would look something like this:
Player HP * "skill modifier" / Enemies DPS = Time To Die (TTD) for a player.
Devs can decrease the importance of skill by nerfing all the little things that give player ability to do more damage then just shooting enemies (and ruin all the fun in mastering the game in the process)
Or they could tweak some other variables, they can control more directly.
So, its easy! Just increase baseline HP of the enemies or their DPS to match player skill?
Well, you could do that to a point.
Firstly, after a point you will bang your head against the quantisation of the outcomes. In extreme example the DPS of enemies would be so high that player will have 1hp from a practical standpoint. At the same time high HP of enemies would force player to use the most effective way to play, not necessarily the most fun one
Secondly, not all tricks are equally fun to everyone. Some players enjoy some playstyles more than others. And some playstyles are much more effective than others. So by simply increasing baselines you force people to play more in line with a "Meta" and discourage creativity.
And thirdly, the "skill modifier" is extremely simplified. In practice it's a combination of hundreds of mechanics interacting in thousands different ways.
It would be a nightmare to properly balance, witch in turn would make difficulty curve wildly inconsistent.
There are two more general ideas for increasing the difficulty, yet both are not without problems.
You can demand more consistency from player - if they die, restart the level, chapter or even the whole game.
That option, however do not address individual encounters, and make the game more tedious.
Alternatively you can restrict players arsenal to reduce the "skill modifier" and force player to experiment with tools outside their usual playstyle. That however heavily restricts player's freedom of expression and creativity - all the things Ultrakill is known for.
So yeah - in terms of difficulty the game was best a few hundred hours of experience ago. Even when new difficulty modes drop - they most likely won't be as good as core experience for newhish player.
It's best to accept it and try some challenge runs in the meantime.
This isn't directly related to anything you've said here but since I didn't mention it in the video, I figured I'll say it here. I actually like that Ultrakill isn't balanced by pumping up enemy health at higher difficulties, I think there are more fun ways to introduce difficulty than just making enemies bullet sponges, I could see Brutal and UKMD perhaps making boss health higher, and maybe replacing for example some Strays with Soldiers and Schisms and stuff like that, but even though people are getting better at maxing out the DPS they're dealing, I hope the trend of not just pumping enemy health continues cause I think there's better approaches and a fast ttk for most enemies is actually something positive Ultrakill had going for it.
When the game fully releases, I would love Hakita to implement the ability for user created content for the steam workshop.
It will definitively birth the life for some really stupid challenges, for hardcore fans.
Even if it's in early access, I still love this game and it's slowly climbing my most played steam games.
I think this is almost a guarantee for full release seeing as there's already a level editor out there that some people have access to. I agree that should provide theoretically infinite replayability for the game.
I bought this game because of your youtube videos.
I hit top 500 Violent Cybergrind leaderboards a while ago and I can tell you, even with that level of skill, there are parts of story mode that absolutely trips me up. The game balance is excellent IMO. And if you think there is a lack of challenge: cybergrind is right there people. Literally infinite challenge. A nice challenge mode I like is to 100% and P-rank every level before I am allowed to move on to the next, so I have to use a limited arsenal to do so: no saws for Minos, no nails for Cerbs, no rail for V2, etc.
i am not usually the type of person to play early access games, but for some reason i don't exactly know, i buckled recently for uktrakill. it might have been cause i saw some of the screenshots for layer 7 and thought they looked cool, but still i bent my morals a little bit playing it. either way, as someone from the future in regards to this video, bosses in layer 5 onward kicked my ass , and i really felt like the difficulty curve of learning the the different mechanics was masterfully done, almost to the point where i never felt a substantial difficulty spike or decrease. i am also not an fps person, so playing on standard will probably be all i do, at least for now. however, i am the type to 100%, and just recently beat minos prime for the first time, and that is where i felt the first substantial difficulty spike, even after having gone through all of layer 7. i really respect hakita for making the game this way, as it takes a lot of energy not to power creep things as new content comes out, but seeing how smooth my experience was even though there were years worth of possible power creep that didn't exist makes me feel so much better about playing this game in early access. i feel like i can trust that my experience will be genuine and practically as if i just played it on release, as ill probably put the game down once i catch up with content, needing to familiarize myself with whatever comes next, whenever it comes next.
Yesterday i was looking a video to find the secrets, the video specifically named about "there are secrets and i will show you where they are", the guy had to complete some areas to get to the secrets. The thing is, in the comments there was an amount of people critizicing his playstyle. That doesn't even make any sense, he isn't recording "how to play the game at P ranks". People sucks, but well it is what it is
I unfortunately relate to this way too hard, I have a particular VOD on my second channel where I was playing around with the saw launcher on the *day it came out* and I still get people telling me I'm using it wrong on that VOD to this day. Guess I was just supposed to premeditate the 'proper' use of the weapon so people almost a year later wouldn't be triggered by it?
A really good message this video is sendin. Hope you still get to be that guy that interacts alot with his community even trough the barrage of bad and annoying dummies.
P-2 humbled the fuck out of me
Same bro... Same.
it's brutal
I can confirm, as one who has just recently got into the game, that in terms of "the first playthrough" the game is absolutely tough-as-nails and exactly as Hakita probably intended, even on Standard.
Being able to "adjust your own difficulty" in the sense you described is also amazing. I've always loved the idea of challenge running a game, giving myself certain limitations or penalties, and seeing how far I can go. Health drain, no arms, and a god run are just a few ideas that will likely stretch even the present game's content for many hours. And, when UKMD is released, I get to do it all again :).
When I completed act 2, I did think that Gabriel 2 was a little easy for me. But I didn't go to twitter and tell (*the only developer btw*) that he should make it harder.
What I instead did was completely take in what was in act 2, P ranked everything, find all the secrets, and tried to play as much as I could. And then I quit the game for an extended period of time.
I came back recently and saw that I maintained a lot of the skills I had but was still rusty and needed practice once more. It was awesome when gabriel 2 knocked me down more than 5 times because it felt like I was somewhat new again. I can honestly say that ULTRAKILL is one of, if not my most favourite game.
Some things that you did there I didn’t even know existed!
Keep up the work, and let nobody erode you to dust.
watched my friend play through the game on standard. he's not too big into fps games, especially not ones of this breakneck pace. i talked him into it (read: held at gunpoint until he beat it). after beating it, he enjoyed it a lot but has very little desire to return and 100% or grind for ranks, mostly due to the effort it would take and there are other games to play. he's essentially a perfect representation of what a average player is like imo.
his playtime clock came in at around 16 hours. he struggled on most bosses with death counts above 30, the only exception being the second v2 fight, which he beat first try. he still does not have some mechanics down, but learned enough to power through the game on standard.
thought i'd share and provide some insight on how new players tend to handle this game. this is more than likely how a majority of people will experience it.
Maybe try to give him a file with P-1 unlocked if you hadn't. It's such a good fight it'd be a waste to not try it out.
I've been taking a break from Ultrakill after I've beaten act 2 and I'm glad that I've gotten rusty, almost as if I have to re-learn all the tactics I've learned in the past. when I've played more recently i do feel a difference in playing after taking a long break.
I'm glad before this video I already knew how to find the fun in bullying bosses, when Act 2 came out I rolled through it without any major difficulties and beat every boss in my first try, but I didn't go on twitter to complain saying it's too easy, after I finished 6-2 I was absolutely speechless at how awesome the experience was and how great Act 2 is for ULTRAKILL despite me steamrolling everything that crossed my way.
Frequently in game updates I constantly feel happy about things that might not even be my thing but I feel happy simply because I know that the thing that doesn't make me personally happy is improving the overall quality of the game and making a first experience for a new player feel more polished, balanced and interesting. I constantly think "This is awesome, a new player is gonna have a blast figuring out how to do this or when they find out about that" and honestly, every single experienced Ultrakill addict should think the same way, we already know the game is an absolute masterpiece and we have a great time playing it, so let's be happy Hakita isn't listening to the people complaining and is focusing on making the game great for both newbie players and veteran players alike without putting more effort into one side more than the other.
Just the fact that the game gets more levels, enemies, visuals, OST, bosses and secrets in new updates is already enough to make me happy, and the fact that it is all very high-quality makes me even happier!
I think most people know this but a vocal and particularly annoying minority of people didn't seem to get the memo unfortunately. I'm glad there's plenty of people in the community who *do* get it though.
P-2 feels like you are meant to know how to railcoin and nuke and deadcoin. The level is still impossibly difficult with this knowledge in mind
Yup, Hakita really went and said "you want challenging? I'll give you *challenging* "
@@mariobiavati942 Not even, I struggle to believe that he actually balanced it. It is the only thing in the game that feels like bullshit when you die
@@yelpeter Nah, if you're good enough at cyber grind you learn to deal with this level of BS and more, P-2 to P-1 is what P-1 is to the main campaign, and I think this is fine. Hakita decided give the players a challenge that requires mastery of all the game's systems, and I have nothing against that.
Also something that I think you should've mentioned that I feel is just as important is the gatekeeping of Ultrakills mechanics. I mean this as in Ultrakill fans constantly calling other games that simply take some inspiration from Ultrakill just a "clone" or "rip off". It's honestly really frustrating to see peoples works get put into this category. Games like Reaver, Dimensional Slaughter, and Force Reboot are just inspired by Ultrakill, not rip offs of it. They have new and unique ideas that make them stand out and that really shouldn't be ignored
congrats on almost 10k man! i just found your channel and i really dig it
The biggest part of this that I think I noticed too was the gatekeeping and the whining over the whiplash nerf. These things both remind me of the Minecraft pvp community very directly: a pretty toxic group that gatekeeps frequently, more or less rebelled at the changes to combat in the old 1.9 update and refused to move on, and place more status and meaning to being able to click other people rapidly in a skilled pattern than there really is to it.
The fact is that when you play any game that is still being updated or developed, everything you like or become attached to could be subject to change. The community acts like they own a game, but they don’t. The developers created and continue to create the game, and it’s their choice of what to do. Getting bent over a change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it is a sign that people are invested enough to care deeply about parts of the game. When these people let minor changes ruin their enjoyment of the game, it is their choice to be difficult, and it’s the role of everyone else with sense to stay level and see out the new stuff, moving on without throwing a fit.
While that’s not great behavior, and inexcusable when it leads to petty anti-dev toxicity over minor issues, what’s definitely much worse, and something I’ve seen and experienced more of, is gatekeeping. I cannot understate how much I agree with you about difficulty. The reason people find things too easy isn’t because they ARE; it’s because they as players have become very skilled at the game, and it’s a marvel to appreciate that the game allows people to reach such heights. It’s also pretty amazing that the game has done a good job of growing well with the average player. New bosses are difficult on a level that scales pretty well with the learning curve of such a player, and it goes to show how both the player and the game have come when Gabriel II is a challenge beyond its original, and almost on par with Minos, but FEELS about as difficult as Gabriel I was: tough for how good you are, but with a possibility of defeating him just within tantalizing reach.
I have P-Ranked the entire game, including Soul Survivor, on Violent difficulty. I think it’s a masterclass of difficulty curve and balance. I also don’t think I’m even very good at the game; definitely beyond an average player, but I haven’t mastered a lot of the tricks “pros” use, including coin punching, deadcoining, railgun triple coin instant kills, rocket surfing, etc. I beat the game through a time commitment to pushing through on a harder difficulty, and learned a lot on the way. Putting in the extra time while p-ranking taught me more than anything else about killing enemies quickly and stylishly, and avoiding damage. What helped me the most was not knowing that these pro techniques existed, it was the little tips and trick I picked up and practiced over the course of my playing time, which is probably around 50 hours.
When I watch friends play, or see others asking for help, my goal is to make their gameplay go a little more smoothly on the harsher parts of the learning curve, like v2. What I would never do is tell people “oh you’re doing it all wrong you have to do these three combos with pro timing and if you can’t do that you suck”. I’ve seen a lot of that kind of judgement in the aforementioned Minecraft community. I say that new players shouldn’t be held to a standard. They should be encourage to rise to the challenges themselves and enjoy the game naturally. I played through all of the game on violent because it was fun, and I want other people to do the same, including learning from their own individual experience.
Gatekeeping others based on skill and achievements is never ok; telling them that some challenges exist, that they are tough but worth it, and encouraging others to seek them out themselves is not only ok but good. Giving people a tip when they’re struggling and a pat on the back is all the “pro” players should ever do.
It’s up to each of us to experience the game for ourselves and decide whether or not to stick with it, not the standards of other people.
I want to add that letting people know that more challenges and techniques exist, and even explaining them, is a good thing. Expecting them to do such things or judging them for not doing them is not.
I was admittedly one of the people that really felt stung by the Whiplash nerf and its only because of how it handled, it should have just been prepackaged with the launch of the Whiplash instead of it being dropped out of nowhere after the Whiplash being available for basically an entire year. It was awful growing pains.
One thing I'd like to say is that the ultrakill community is an impatient one which is why I'm afraid of taking a break when new content comes up since I want to go in spoiler free but 5-s already got leaked and I know as soon as p-2 comes out everyone who plays ultrakill will be talking about the boss almost that day
I've started playing after act 2 released, and Gabriel 2 was the hardest boss in Ultrakill for me. On "normall" dificulty I feel like there is logical and skill progression through all the levels that there are. I belive that the act 3 will be balanced to normal of act 1 and 2, so the true challange you can get is the new difficulties. There might be a optional Minos 2.0 and I hope it destroys you, gl.
Me too, I hope it keeps its difficulty not so high to give us (the not so good players) time to learn and enjoy.
5:55
lmfao that's MY TWEET that hakita is replying to. glad that my public embarrassment is now open to this grand audience
LOL I think the especially funny thing is that since I cropped the context, the original Tweet could've been about literally almost anything and it'd still be an on-brand response for Hakita
rip
Thanks, this is such a good video. I've had similar experiences in the Dark Souls 3 and Destiny 2 communies and while I'm not as engaged with the community for Ultrakill I'm glad someone put these issues into words so well
this is exactly why I didn't necessarily engage in the community until i had already mastered all the levels and truly experienced the game. this kept me from feeling discouraged to continue because at the time i thought i was doing very well when compared to others, i wasn't.
Yeah i don't get some people, they will join the community before even finishing the game, that is going to do more harm than good even when asking for advice
All these people saying the game's too easy... but have they caught a size 2 fish? That's what I thought.
I never considered a lot of these points before, and I'm glad to keep it all in mind for the eventual Act 3 update.
I'm almost to P-ranking everything on Violent, so I fit the group that may find Act 3 easier than most, so I'm happy to have this mindset that you've presented
there is a (very unoptimal) solution to all of these problems and its modding. you can mod your game to be more harder or change some mechanics about the game or enemies or even add new stuff to the game. i already saw some mods like randomiser and fun guns that add a new way to play the game.
As someone who picked up the game recently, on first playthrough on standard the act 2 Gabriel fight was pretty hard the first couple times. After getting all the prior P ranks and fighting Minos though it was an easy P rank.
TL;DR it’s a good thing Hakita is developing ultrakill and not us otherwise it would suck
I'm honestly glad that this game is "too good" and that it has addicted me with its replayability. I've spent maybe like 350 hours in P-1 alone and I currently have all 3 world records for the level and I can say even at the highest possible level for a boss level like P-1 it still offers a true challenge with self imposed challenges such as speedrunning for the world record. I may not find just normally playing P-1 particularly challenging anymore but imposing limits on myself or pushing what is humanly possible for the level has kept that fire in me burning. I love this game fr, and the fact that just one boss level can provide a valuable challenge from your first encounter with it to when you play through it thousands of times and become the best there is at it says something.
Hi!
I'm someone who bought ultrakill yesterday. I knew that this game had some advanced tech and I even learned some during the 1st playthrough like nuking and coin punching. And the 2nd gabriel boss fight was indeed very challenging. Actually I take that back it took me 1,5 hours so ig it was crazy hard. I never used the whiplash, because I was never able to get rid of the hard damage, I used the green rail cannon and used the nailgun a lot. so yeah... ummmm... 24,5/10 game
Update: I just P ranked Minos prime on standard. Yeah
Finally, someone said this.
Ive always had this idea that the community is way too toxic and competitive and "oh, you didnt do a ultrarailcoingigashitkill speedrun strat!!! Youre bad!!!" But nobody really talks about it. Thank you for saying this.
You have an impact, because while those who need to see this to change their toxic ways likely won't, it still means something to know the rest of us are also a driving force for this game, it's validating to hear someone else articulately express ones own sentiments, and it's inspiring to see that more people care about a game without feeling the need to meet certain expectations of achievement
Having been a part of the speedrunning community since the game was picked up by new blood a lot of the early community was built on helping people get better at the game (that is where herbs videos come from) however as the community grew outside of that, that mentality changed to forcefeeding people tips and ostracizing people that are not as good. Much of the community doesn't do that. I feel like the people that do, do so because they think that people will be able to enjoy the game more if they play like they do, but it is unwarranted. Hell, people Still Constantly shit on underthemayo because of the way he USED TO play and because he has opinions they don't like. It really sucks that these nameless children have soured your experience and I hope you can still find enjoyment with the game when not playing for UA-cam or twitch. I wish there was something I could have done to help mitigate this issue but there will always be bad apples.
Also hakita didn't mention it in his comment but the leaks are not approved of. It really fucking pisses me off that I had to get spoiled on the upcoming secret level when moderating the UK discord. If you (well not You but the hypothetical person) want to browse the games files for unannounced content then fine. Go ahead. But keep it to yourself FFS.
I figured the leaks were not approved, I mean common sense would dictate, but I didn't wanna speak on anyone's behalf. I have a hard and fast no leaks rule on my Discord as well and have been subject to the same exact things unfortunately.
But anyways I appreciate the comment, the speedrunning community members that I have interacted with have been overwhelmingly welcoming, friendly, helpful and pleasant to me, and it's a big reason why I've tried my own hand at speedrunning in the first place. I think negativity has unfortunately overshadowed the efforts of those people at times, but they certainly don't go unnoticed by me.
no, the problem with ultrakill is the limitations of flesh
24:38 bruh, how are these supposed to be mean or 'toxic?'
You show:
1 guy stating his wish for the option to use the older model;
2 guys doing an exaggerated act complaining about the change;
1 guy stating his preference;
1 guy stating his observation that despite people voicing their preferences, no changes will be made nor options added;
1 guy politely asking about the possibility of an option for which model the weapon uses;
1 guy politely asking for the option which model the weapon uses outright;
and finally, 1 guy stating his opinion on both models.
This isn't mean or toxic. Frankly, this is you overreacting - not those people whose tweets you showed as examples.
To quote somebody not at all related to Ultrakill, "it's an option, and as always, options are good!"
Obviously, the game is Hakita's, and he doesn't have to add optional weapon models if he doesn't like that idea. At the same time, the only negatives that come from it, are giving the devs more work to do, and slightly delaying the game's full release because of that additional work.
And even then, both parties can get what they want (Hakita doesn't have to develop or add the option, and the fans of legacy models get their desired look) if the game receives a Steam Workshop for mods on full release.
I generally agree with your point overall, but this specific scene here is just dishonest and unfair. You wonder if these people actually like Ultrakill or if they like their idealized visions for the game? That's blowing this way out of proportion, and it's unfair to assume these folks' characters.
It's just a weapon model, and no example shown was even remotely rude or entitled. You saying that was quite rude - to just be dismissive other people's ideas and opinions because they are not your own.
Let's look at it like this: those people love and enjoy Ultrakill so much that they provide feedback to the lead dev of the game and make suggestions in the hopes of improving the game!
The upper left asks for an option to be added to the game and gives a valid reason as to why; the center guy gives his opinion on the differences between the models, and also gives a valid - though subjective - reason.
Both were polite with the latter specifying he means no offense, and the former even complimenting the newer model before stating his preference for the older one.
I'll go so far as to say it is hypocritical of you Dumpster Man to moralize about 'toxicity,' while at the same time being rude to people who were civil, polite, and weren't even speaking to you in the first place but to somebody else completely.
Come on man.
Be nice.
I don't agree with absolutely everything you've said here, but after receiving a few comments about this I've realized that including this section or at least doing it the way I did was a mistake. Read the pinned comment if you're curious on more of my thoughts on this.
I do genuinely appreciate the community holding me accountable for making a mistake, I think this comment is a little over the top and makes it out like I did something much worse than I did, but it isn't a hill I'm willing to die on. I think there are worse comments out there I could have picked and I should've put just a little more effort into confirming that what I put on the screen at that moment reinforced what I was saying instead of undermining it.
This is VERY well put together. Everything you said was rooted in fact and didn't stray to a bias
judgement
As someone who as joined about a month after the release of Act 2, I agree with everything in this. I really enjoyed first playing through the game and I rapidly caught on with how the game worked, yet bosses like Gabriel 1 kicked my ass so bad I had to push the autoaim up to 100%.
What truly infuriated me is when I managed to enter P-1 and that, still being in the NewBlood server, wanted to share my difficulties and ask for help, but I only recieved highly helpful tips such as "its not hard to dodge Minos he calls out his attacks and you can at least tell what Hes going to do next if you do digging dumbass" and "minos prime is p simple, everything he does has telegraphs, just punishing if you struggle to react" (yes, these are 2 of the actual messages I had the joy to be responded with word for word). I've since been able to P-rank every single level on all difficulties with the exception of P-2 and am very proud of it, but these interactions really left me with a bitter taste in the end. I still have a stained opinion about the NewBlood discord server despite knowing there's likely other awesome people there and it really sucks for these people to be buried under annoying fans that believe telling newer people that one of the hardest challenges in the game is very easy is a great tip and the only thing they need to know.
I am very thankful for this video to have put into words my annoyance about the community. The fear of change and constant need for difficulty, ignoring things such as the Cybergrind being harder and harder the longer you go and newer players also needing an experience for their level without having to go in the lower difficulties (Standard should be the fairest difficulty, not a dark soul equivalent). But in retrospect, I do believe this community is in a much, *much* better spot than it could've been. An overwhelming amount of communities are much worse than this and Ultrakill has managed to get a community much more friendly than the vast magority of games I've seen.
I GET IT IM BAD AT THE GAME STOP SHOWING UP ON MY FRONT PAGE PLEASE I BEG OF YOU
at 4:09 when you talk about putting down Subnautica and enjoying it when it came out, it really spoke to me because I always enjoy games more when they are actually complete.
Steve.png
Thanks man, i used to joke on my friend who just started the game and i think i ruined his experience. I regret it now that i know that he doesn't want to play the game anymore because of me so i'm gonna TRY to help him love the game again.
TL;DW:
Game good, community meh.
Thanks for posting this video. It echos out in a way that only those struggling to be a part of the community can see and just come back to the roots. I've been in New Blood's official Discord server before ACT II had been released, and I had joined the ULTRAKILL community around Layer 4's release. I've tried to post things and enjoy the stuff I love about ULTRAKILL with me and some friends but, I have never been able to join the community at large.
Be it suspicions about stuff that I find online, or even stuff that's uploaded to UA-cam in passing for what would be the next level of P-2. I can't do anything without being kept out by looking suspicious or even downright dumb.
This honest does show a huge problem and I see where it's coming from. I wish this community wasn't just all pride and gluttony, I hope that it changes for the better some day.
i started playing ultrakill in october last year which means i played both acts the way they were meant to be played(except for the fact that i had the halloween event enabled the whole time lol) and i can confidently say act 2 gabriel was the hardest boss in the game for me, it took me over 150 restarts to beat him on standard difficulty on my first time playing but now i have p-ranked every level in the game including P-1 and can beat bosses which would've originally taken me 20 minutes in under 30 seconds
the game is very difficult for new players and im kind of sad that i didn't get to play through act 3 on my first run but i still find the game to be extremely fun
This might be one of the best things I've watched this year, could not have said any of this better myself.
I didn’t play at all between the 4-S update and the wrath update, figured “I’m good at shooters, lets just hop into act 2 on violent” then gabriel killed me 50+ times in a fight that I now consider easier than his first. I think people playing this for the first time at 1.0 will have a stellar difficulty curve when all is said and done
Literally just got into ultrakill a few days ago because of the sale on steam. I am absolutely in love with this game, I only have about 12 hours so far and I just beat act 2. As someone who is experiencing all this content for the first time, and has played stuff like TF2, Doom 2016, and Doom eternal quite a bit I can say that this game at least from a new players perspective was extremely satisfying and difficult the whole way through. Never did I find the game too easy, never did I get too overly frustrated, as a new player who is playing on the second highest difficulty for my first playthrough I think that the difficulty level was absolutely perfect. I have seen this problem play out a lot in other game communities, where players become so proficient at the game system that they get really upset when content is made for the average player of the game. They want all the content to be balanced exclusively for people who have put in hundreds of hours to the game. Not realizing that while yes difficult games are really fun, making something that's only playable if you have literally hundreds of hours of free time to put into the game just isn't realistic. I think this is a really great video and I think ultra kill is a really great game. It took me 258 tries to beat the second Gabriel fight. So maybe I'm just bad, but I think this game is really fun and very well balanced