Is it Just Me ? (The Sequel)

Confronting your own Shortcomings is hard… Which is why I’m always looking for anything I can blame other than myself :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: !!!

If you’re looking to have a discussion for opportunities for personal growth and being a better human bean… This isn’t it… Sorry :grin:.

This is about times in Video Games or in Real Life when you think you should take responsibility for your shortcomings but just can’t… Only to find out that… Yes… It’s not just you there actually is something to blame other than yourself… Like how to Use a simple door :face_with_raised_eyebrow::

To talk about myself, personally,

Spoilers For Hollow Knight

I have a pretty high Oppinion of my skill in video games… And you know… Occasionally I will rage quit a game such as Hollow Knight when I arrived in the White Palace and get stuck in between a Saw Blade and a Hard Place. I mean… It’s fine… I don’t have to be good at everything so I could let it go… But then Dan Uploads a video of him doing the whole thing like it’s nothing :drooling_face::
Hollow Knight - FINALE - Pantheon of Hallownest - YouTube

Just so we’re clear… When I say I have a high Oppinion of my own skill in video games… One of the things that plays into that is believing that I’m Significantly better than other players… And while I don’t expect to be better than anybody in any Fighting Game Community (after all Fighting Games are harder than every other type of game)… I did think I was better than the Original Dan (In restrospect I now know it’s foolish to think you’re better than any member of The Dans… That’s just setting yourself up for dissapointment… Nobody is better than a Dan :smiling_imp:… Nobody)…

And just to add Insult to Injury… Fighting Cowbow … a content creator whom I’m pretty sure is better than me… Did not make it to the True Ending of Hollow Knight… So now I don’t even where I belong anymore…:sob: !!!

Hollow Knight - Let's Play Part 47: Finale - YouTube

Maybe I just suck… Or worse… Maybe I’m a lazy rage quitter :sob:

Or… Maybe… Just maybe… There might be something off with Hollow Knight :thinking:

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is 100% accurate and precise… Sooner or later you will inevitably make a mistake. Clearing a relatively simple platform in Hollow Knight is not difficult… However the imperfections of being human might be better observed in difficult challenges… But not to the exclusion of simpler challenges… Hence you will inevitably mess up even the simplest of challenges… And botching easy jumps in Hollow Knight happens to me every now and then… Hey… I’m only human… It happens…

But now it’s time confront my lousy humanity aaaaaand I don’t want to… But at the same time I can’t come up with a scape goat for my Terrible Platforming…

Until I watched this video:
Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play? - YouTube

And while I haven’t played Celeste… I could easily identify that Hollow Knight does not implement all the things that Celeste (and numerous other Platformers) does… Hollow Knight doesn’t have Coyote Time, Acceleration/Deceleration on running/stopping both in mid air and on the ground… Stickiness to Wall Slides… An Consistent Input Buffer for Wall Jumps in and even regular jumps or Nail Strikes… And probably some other stuff I either forgot or don’t even know about.

Basically it’s Deceptively difficult to control Hollow Knight in a Predictable Fashion…

And here’s the Kicker, it’s not just me… Having Watched both Cow Boy and Dan play Hollow Knight and botching the exact same Techniques I did in the same situations as me then that’s all the evidence I needed to know it wasn’t just me… Infact I can describe to you once such Instance of the Hollow Knight’s unintuitive controlls… Upon Either Respawning from Recovering from Falling into Spikes or Completing a Focus Heal, you can Move Bug Knight left and right but there’s a very short window where you can neither jump nor Attack for whatever reason :face_with_raised_eyebrow:… This can lead to a situation where you fall into Spikes (because there’s no Coyote time)… Respawn then try again pressing the jump button earlier only to fall again resulting in the world’s most elaborate and convoluted case of Double Damage… The same goes for using Focus Heal… You might just narrowily complete a successful heal and thinking you have plenty of time to avoid the bosses attacks You press the jump or Dash button only for Bug Knight to just stand there and gets hit yet again… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Yeah… It’s definitely not just me, something was definitely wrong and I wash myself of all responsibility of all my Failures in Hollow Knight… Even the legitimate ones (Hey… I’m only human :smiling_imp:)…

So how about you ?
What situations made you think “Is it just me ?” ?
Do people look at you funny when you tell them you don’t know your own phone number ?

Perhaps you find it extremely irritating when YouTube Automatically plays a video that you did actually click on (I just wanted to read the Description)…

Perhaps you played the Entirety of Devil May Cry not knowing Dante can Change Styles ! :thinking:

Or the creators of your Favourite MMO are like “Why do you want to lose all your Loot and start all over again from scratch ?” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Chances are it’s probably not just you… Hell… It may not even be your fault at all :grin: !!!

Addendum:
I actually did go back and Beat the True Ending of Hollow Knight… so yeah… Suck on that, Cow Boy :sunglasses: !!!

Here’s another rant:

Slow Moving Hazards

Over the course of your quest to be the most Hard Core Player ever you will encounter things that kill you in a seemingly fair manner even more so than things that seem harder at first glance… In the case of platformers like Hollow Knight or Lightfall… It’s the Slow moving projectile… You know… The one that has no right to hit you yet seems to be responsible for ending most of your challenge attempts. It doesn’t even track you… It travels from one side of the screen to the other in a Predictable Fashion with no awareness of you… And yet… bam… When you evade something faster these slow projectiles are there to finish you off.

Seems fair right ? You would be hard pressed to prove that Radiance’s Swords are more dangerous than tracking Fireball which moves Significantly Faster.

But it turns out it’s the Slow nature of that hazard that makes it difficult… Why ? Because the developers who use this specific trick feel like they don’t need to Telegraph that Hazard’s Trajectory…compare this to Radiance’s Solar Ray Attack which first needs to Ray Caste where the hotbox will be before the attack goes off and you can see it’s easier to Dodge that because it leaves no room for Guessing… It’s a fast full screen attack hence the telegraph tells you whether you are in danger or not irrespective of where you are on the Screen… However when a Slow moving Projectile appears from the Top or Side of the Side Screen and you happen to be on the other side… The only thing that’s Telegraphed is how long it will take for the Danger Reach you… Unless you are some kind of Savant you have to imagine an Imaginary Ray Cast from your Character to the Slowmoving Projectile or vice versa to determine if you in its path or if you’re safe… It’s not until it’s much closer to your character when you can tell if the gap you’re trying to squeeze through is actually wide enough…

Oh but wait… There’s more !!! Because these Projectiles are Slow moving the Enemy/Boss that initiated the Slowmoving Projectile will recover and attack again before that Projectile clears the Screen… Even if you mentally projected your current location to be safe… The bosses next attack which then Overlapswith the previous attack constrains the total number of Safe Areas momentarily… Thus you have re-mentally-project all the attack vectors to locate a safe zone… If you don’t or can not do this you run the risk of getting hit by the new attack or you might avoid the new attack but lose track of the Slow one often Running into it by accident when avoiding the faster Threat…

While I can not be certain if Developers know this combo is borderline Unfair… I’m 100% they are implimenting this trick on purpose to achieve this very scenario… And I really wish they would stop…

It’s seems silly but those things would be easier to avoid if they were significantly faster simply because at that side they would need to have the trajectory be Telegraphed before hand and the speed means they can’t stay on screen forever creating persistent danger for longer periods of time.
So yeah… I just needed to get that one of my chest because Ive seen it in way too many games now…

Edit:
Apparently “Is It Just Me?” Already exist…

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