I don't like this complaint. I don't get why someone would want to play a video game when there's no challenge to it. In that instance, why not watch a movie? I like that the game doesn't hold your hand through everything, and I like that I have to use my head to figure things out. My issue is that repetition you mention, and how long it takes to get an encounter over with. Like I say below, for every 10-second encounter, you're doing at least 3 minutes of prepping for it. In the setting of a survival/horror scenario, it totally makes sense. However, in a video game, it turns something tense into something tedious for me.
I think I'd be more into this game if it borrowed from
Mordor's A.I. a bit. Sticking an enemy in a 20-foot stretch of ground and setting the guy to pat back and forth until a sound is made or the player is seen, that's boring. When the guy is patting across the whole of the area, and you have to constantly be moving to get into position, that's at least making the encounter one that is engaging.
I'll give a quick example of where I'm at in the game, to explain:
I'm sort of stuck with the Sadist (but like I said, I'm aiming for the stealth kill for the Achievement, so I'm being overly challenging like an idiot). So, every time I start, I go through this sequence:
--Kill the torch bearer patting on the right before he enters the house (the masked guy with the gun is in there, and I don't want to deal with him).
--Use the torch to light up the guy forward and on the left, near the hay bales, because his back's to a wall (can't sneak easily), and shooting draws the others.
--Get positioned under the stairs and wait for the knife-wielding woman to turn her back, then sneak kill her.
--Go into the room and get the Agony Crossbow.
--Watch the guy explode by the large ladder, pick up his brains.
--Climb the ladder, get the supplies.
--Go to the barn, open up the area with the Sadist, and try to do enough damage to make sneak kills feasible.
I only ever fail on that last part, but when I do, it means taking 10-15 minutes to get through all of that other mundane stuff so I can actually try to do something difficult. It's not engaging, it's waiting for the pats and trudging through the monotony.
That's where the game loses me, because the difficult parts are few and far between, but you get thrown back pretty far upon failure, left to repeat the same silly things that involve mostly sitting and waiting on the way. With something like
Halo, getting back from a checkpoint at least offers you a gunfight with some action on the way, but this is just 3 simple kills and a lot of sitting and walking.
I found that I stopped dying as much when I began to take a really slow and methodical approach to the game. I'd peek slowly around every corner and when I saw enemies I'd sit for a long time watching their patterns before taking action.
I already did this from the beginning, and it's kind of what my complaint is. Everything's watch the guy and learn his pat route, then slowly position yourself for a stealth kill. The game spreads the action too far apart, with the vast majority of the game instead being sitting behind a wall and watching the timing of an enemy, like you mentioned.
I don't mind methodical approaches, and I take them into account for most game encounters (except
Mordor, which let you go crazy on enemies without much tact, beyond the strengths and weaknesses of captains). This game doesn't really ask for tact or planning of any kind though, it just asks you to sit and watch. It's like a 2-D platformer in a way, as everything's based on timing, but you don't have the opportunity to take things as they come. Instead, it's all about sitting and watching for 2 minutes, positioning yourself for another minute, then 10 seconds of engagement.
Good article on this:
http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-evolution-of-death-in-games/1100-5044/
by the way, I'm waiting for my Oculus rift before I play this and Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
I didn't read the whole thing, but I'll put this out there:
I love
Shadow of Mordor, but I don't care for
The Evil Within. Like the article states,
Mordor does something with death, using the awesome Nemesis system.
Evil just makes you go back and try again, and because of how slowly you must move through levels, it's borderline irritating. Both use the "death is a lesson" tactic, but
Mordor does it in an interesting way (adapting strengths/weaknesses, promoting and strengthening enemies), where as
Evil just uses it as a memorization test.