Nameless Voice on 1/9/2016 at 01:35
Well, the levels aren't really taxing to navigate because they are well-designed and memorable. That said, I never really had much difficulty in navigating game areas anyway. I pretty much never get lost, unless maybe the level design involves a lot of same-looking areas or repetitive features.
Those games are a rather intense experience, though. Something you want to play when you're awake and alert and can take everything in.
Thirith on 1/9/2016 at 05:26
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Though on that same note, I wonder why it is some games can be dinged for not holding your hand enough, while you have games like Dark Souls that have built their reputation on, and are surprisingly popular due to the fact that you're pretty much thrown into the deep end of the pool without water wings. Maybe it has something to do with people's expectations going in.
I'd say it's about what a game sets out to be. It's the same with films; you wouldn't criticise
Raiders of the Lost Ark for not being
Persona, or vice versa. You look at what an individual work is trying to achieve and how it hopes to have an effect. This may be through spectacle, it may be through a certain relentlessness, or it may be creating an atmosphere of desolation and hopelessness.
Dark Souls' difficulty is baked into the game as a whole, mechanically and thematically. Something like
Call of Duty sets out to be a summer popcorn flick, and those are the criteria by which it should be evaluated; just throwing difficulty at it wouldn't make it significantly more like
Dark Souls. It's fair to prefer one thing over another, but I'd still also try to look at what a game is trying to do and whether it does this well or not.
Sulphur on 1/9/2016 at 05:45
On an unrelated note, if that thread title typo is bothering the OP as much as it does me, you can correct it by editing the first post and then clicking on 'Go Advanced'.
catbarf on 1/9/2016 at 16:19
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
A lot of people are talking about the System Shock series recently.
I played SS2 first, and only played the original many years later. However, even then, with its really awkward controls and super-dated graphics, I loved the openness of it, the way that you were free to explore the area, that you had to find your own way around, and especially that you had to work out exactly what to do next by yourself.
The game had a map, sure, but it didn't have much else. It certainly wasn't a case that the game was unplayable because it lacked modern wisdom such as quest markers - instead, it was
awesome because of it.
For an example of a game from the same era that does this wrong, check out Pathways Into Darkness, an early Bungie shooter/adventure/puzzle hybrid. The lack of explicit direction and stated quests is key to the game's puzzles, but it is
extremely frustrating to run into a puzzle that you can't pass because you took a right instead of a left three levels back and never got a necessary item, forcing a hike back through respawning enemies populating the deliberately maze-like levels to see if there was something you missed. Oh, and you have very limited ammunition, the entire game is on a timer, and you can only save at save points, which aren't even on every level. Then, once you find the item, you'll need to either experiment to find its extremely specific purpose, or blunder your way into getting a hint through the enter-a-keyword dialogue with the corpses on the ground (assuming you found the item that lets you do this at the start by going left instead of right).
That's how you do it wrong- by not offering any guidance at all, and making it difficult for players to puzzle their way through. Optimally, a game should either work like Half-Life 2 where it holds your hand but does so in a less obvious way than big objective markers, or it should just give you the clues but also give you room to explore. The game needs to either show you where to go, or give you the freedom to find your own way without punishing you for backtracking or taking your time. When I played System Shock, I found myself clearing out parts of levels, then checking my logs to figure out what to do next, essentially switching back and forth between combat and puzzles. That's an approach that works, but it would only take the removal of a few logs and a higher enemy respawn rate to turn it into a confusing and frustrating experience.
I guess what I'm getting at is that the open approach is hard to pull off, because as a designer you have to hit a sweet spot between 'too obvious' and 'too frustrating', and simultaneously balance your gameplay around the fact that what one player considers a trivial puzzle, another will get stuck on. It makes sense to me that a lot of companies go for the least common denominator and just hold your hand the whole way, because players being exasperated by being told what to do is preferable for a AAA title than players getting frustrated and quitting because they have no idea what to do and aren't having fun. The open approach is relegated to niche products that sell themselves on being cerebral rather than needing to appease every focus group.
Nameless Voice on 1/9/2016 at 21:08
That's part of the wonder of SS1:, it hints at what to do, sometimes outright tells you the rough outline, but never tells you exactly where to go or how to proceed.
SS2 also does this to some extent, though nowhere near as much. At least in SS2 I can honestly argue that being constantly told what to do fits very well into the atmosphere and story of the game, and it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good at establishing the characters without it.
Just leaving someone in a world with absolutely no instructions just leads to everyone needing a guide.
In SS1, if you get stuck you can re-check your logs for realistic, in-universe clues that give you hints at what to do without breaking immersion.
nicked on 2/9/2016 at 09:36
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Dark Souls is a strange example, because while I love the freedom of those games, I also considered them to be somewhat unplayable without a guide.
True, that's not usually because of the level design as such, more the fact that they don't really explain enough of their system or choices, and also because they are so high-risk that you are somewhat discouraged from exploring (especially in DS1, with fully respawning enemies.)
Actually I'd say the
low risk is the secret of Dark Souls' success with not needing any directional helpers. There is no permanent penalty for death - you're expected to die. As strange as it sounds, I would argue that from a certain point of view, Dark Souls is an incredibly forgiving game. It encourages exploration because you always know that even if you die, you've gained some knowledge and experience, and lost nothing but souls (and even then have a chance to recover them).
TannisRoot on 6/10/2016 at 16:25
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Dark Souls is a strange example, because while I love the freedom of those games, I also considered them to be somewhat unplayable without a guide.
I'm not sure I agree with this. I played Dark Souls 1 and 2 without a guide or the wiki no problem. There certainly have been some mindblowing revelations from reading the wiki since, but I find them perfectly playable without a guide. There's really nothing that you wouldn't be able to figure out on your own that would prevent progress imo, though there are a lot of hidden mechanics and secrets.
The biggest hidden mechanics that I can think of are power stancing and agility in 2. It's not necessary to know about them to beat the game though. Most noobs will use a shield.
Starker on 6/10/2016 at 17:16
I started Dark Souls without a guide, but I had to eventually look up some of the mechanics and there was a person giving tips as I played. I think it would probably have been a far more clunky experience otherwise. The second and third game I played without the wiki the first time, though. And yes, I used a shield in 2 :P
Jason Moyer on 7/10/2016 at 02:44
I quit playing Dark Souls after the 80th time I crept up on some massive dude and stabbed him in the back and it didn't register as a backstab. Fuck those games.
TannisRoot on 7/10/2016 at 13:34
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I quit playing Dark Souls after the 80th time I crept up on some massive dude and stabbed him in the back and it didn't register as a backstab. Fuck those games.
Maybe you weren't close enough? I've never had trouble landing a backstab.
