especially hard ones. okay, this is going to be me defending boss runbacks and death penalties in games. i realize this is madness, please hold on and let me explain

a shitty runback or death penalty for something in a game gives your brain the sometimes necessary bit of friction to step back and actually try something new instead of just endlessly banging your head against a brick wall. in smoothing off all the sharp edges of these things, even in hard games, we've actually increased the Tilt to make it too easy to keep going past having fun

yes this is coming from me seeing people saying it's good XIV didn't take leveling down from XI, and yes i am aware i am a Little broken from this. it is really hard to delevel in modern XI, but even in 75era / on horizon it's not exactly something you should be running into super often

to be honest, it doesn't even have to be that shitty of a runback/penalty. i wish xiv's gear degradation was a little bit stronger, if not going to introduce an actual penalty. margit had just enough of a little hallway that you go "ugh do i really feel like trying this again" when you're stuck, same with malaketh, same with malenia. i realize these are Nothing compared to traditional series runbacks (to the point where all of them are generally considered removed in Elden Ring) but there are tons that just spawn you right outside the fog wall again.

but let's contrast to AC6. which, objectively, is one of the best games of all time. balteus is a "hop right back in" just like almost every other fight from hell. while this is a fantastic choice in, again, the best game ever made, i do not think that a single one of my early play sessions with it didn't involve me going about 30 minutes past "i am learning this fight" and straight into "your reflexes are too shot to continue tonight, sleep on it"

or compare to every group i've ever progged ex or savage with. not tons, i'll admit. but there has always been a point, somewhere around the first food wear, that the pulls just go Bad. someone mistakes the current pull for the last one. someone instantly pulls the second the respawn happens and it means another instant death and just a little bit more psychic damage on everyone. maybe i'm asking for duty timers to be removed in favor of a number of continues, with a pull timer -- maybe that's all the additional friction duties in 14 need.

if there's one thing code vein actually did really well, it's giving you an option that requires going back to your base to recover half your missing souls. this is beautiful. it forces you to disengage, but then doesn't penalize you any further for doing it.

a good death penalty or runback should be a way for the game to let you know that even if you're at peak form, you need to change gears for a moment. strategize. stretch. get a drink of water. we used to get some of this from load times that have basically evaporated since nvme took over consoles, and that's after disk loading speeds, which was after things just being slow because the rest of the hardware was. i dunno.