Loktofeit wrote:He didn't say anything about the game being too hard. His point was a valid one, which was that the rules of the game changed drastically once the player reached level 9. Now, you can Hi-five each other over your various levels of condescension (he said something negative so he must be a child or WOW player or want everything handed to him) all you want if that makes you feel better, or you can take a step back and acknowledge that he does have a valid point about the design of the game.
You left out the alternative, that of examining his points and deciding that they lack validity. Believe it or not, people can disagree while being completely honest with each other and themselves. The only subject on which the OP is unambiguously correct is that he did not enjoy the experience of level 9 and further in. While he has my sympathy - I too have encountered games that I enjoyed until near the end and found to be unbearable at that point and never finished - that does not make his assertion that the things bothering him are bad game design correct.
I, personally, never noticed the rules of the game changing drastically at that point. The ice lizards were no worse than the spiders on level 3, and in fact were much better in that they did not inflict a probably-lethal status attack when they hit and did drop delicious food. The respawn rate was easily handled, and represented no more threat than the occasional spiders or other monsters released form hidden chambers when you explored earlier levels. Legend of Grimrock "best practices" include closing doors behind you from level 2 onward, expressly to avoid having monsters from behind you murdering you while you are not looking - this practice further reduces the threat of ice lizard respawns.
As for the "horrible" puzzle, the items it requires are readily available trekking no more than 1 level back. That is not an abusive puzzle design by any stretch of the imagination. Now, I'd be singing a different tune if the puzzle required 4 gems to open, since those would take you back to level 1 if you didn't pack-rat them along. A puzzle that requires you to go that far back in order to complete the core game is, frankly, absurd in a modern game. That sort of requirement is only marginally acceptable for secrets and iron door solutions. This is probably why the designers did, in fact, restrict the need to pack-rat things from many levels above you to purely optional puzzles.
I don't mind the OP disliking levels 9-13. That's his prerogative. I don't object to people agreeing with him, and asking that Almost Human take their feedback into account in future games, either. Again, that's the prerogative of current and potential future customers. My objection to your post, and my major reason for replying to it, is your assertion that responses to the OP are properly divided into two categories: trollish mockery, and agreement. Sorry bud, you're dead wrong there. Calling disagreement "trolling" is the first recourse of a poster devoid of critical thinking skills. There certainly have been many people mocking the OP for being "bad" or otherwise trolling him. In the main, however, they're just pointing out that the problems he states are hard to take seriously as reasons for his dislike of the game, as they are quite minor problems, except in cases where they are so crippling that they would have kicked in well before he claims to have stopped enjoying the game. It is hard to take seriously somebody who has trouble with ice lizards on level 9, trouble with starvation beyond level 9, and didn't have trouble before level 9. The nature of the game makes such arguments hard to credit.
