@Cheeseness@mastodon.social there's an interesting thing where a lot of modern gamers want to feel a sense of achievement without actually achieving anything. It's an understandable desire in a world where you spend all your time struggling and almost never getting a sense of achievement, but it does create a situation where many designers and other gamers prioritise actual challenge and that's not communicated well, people end up with mismatched expectations fairly often. The success of the soulslike exists I think in the cultural communication of the genre's focus on challenge.