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« on: September 10, 2015, 11:12:18 pm »
What you're saying implys that you can't have games without contact damage be difficult though, which is untrue, and there are plenty of examples to back it up, 2D, 2.5D and 3D. It's not that we aren't willing to master the game mechanics for the most part, but rather that even if you know hot to use all the abilities and such, there are points where it just becomes ridiculous, and makes the game seem harder than it really is. Like Zelda II, like you mentioned, where the game itself really isn't that hard, but what makes it hard is the stupid butter-knife like attack range, and the fact that things hurt by touch, which can be problematic in tight spaces, or when Link has to get close to hurt the enemy with his butter knife, but gets hurt trying to get close enough to use it.
Ninja Gaiden, where the game itself really isn't that hard, but it only seems hard because things respawn infinitely, often knock you back to instant death (which makes the life bar seem pointless), or because it and some other examples you mentioned are just based on trial and error, rather than skill. "Have you memorized the layout and enemy placement? If not, do it again and again and again." You shouldn't have to do that to finish a game, hence why that sort of thing is considered fake difficulty. If one truly understands the game mechanics and how they work, they should be able to get through the whole game on the first continue, albeit with some mistakes, like missing jumps because they under- or over-shot them (hence lives), or were being too gungho and taking too many hits, etc. It's fair to expect the player to learn enemy behavior. It's not fair to expect them to memorize where everything is, so they can create the perfect run with that knowledge.
People actually have complained about in Terraria, myself included, especially since after a certain point in the game, everything moves faster than you, and you've only got 1 or 2 frame to react before you end up taking an obscene amount of damage (Expert Mode is no joke when it comes to the Pillars).
The whole game doesn't have to slow down because of the use of attack animations, especially if said animations happen in the window of less than a second. In fact, it can even encourage the use of very speedy enemies that do swipe and weave tactics.
Contact damage in and of itself isn't bad as a whole; it has its use in some scenarios like scrolling shooters and such, but most of the time it begs the question of why.