Matthew on 4/1/2012 at 09:30

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It's a trap.

Koki on 4/1/2012 at 14:20

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Uhhh really? I'm fairly sure it didn't, but they would NOT attack you during the hack... they would just enter the combat-ready stance and wait.

heywood on 5/1/2012 at 01:46

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I didn't watch Khad play Thief, so I don't really know where he's coming from.

Personally, I don't think lock picking in Thief 1&2 is completely pointless, because it's something a thief should be able to do. But it's a weak gameplay element and making the player guess which lock pick to use doesn't really add any substance to it. Deadly Shadows had a better idea for lock picking which could have been pretty good if they didn't have to make it console-friendly (i.e. loose spots are all left, right, up, or down).

I assume the point you're trying to make is that the time spent picking a lock and the noise it makes increases your chance of being detected by patrolling guards, so there is an element of risk. That is true in theory, although I can't remember any occasions in the game where I was hesitant to try picking a lock for fear of getting caught.

I guess my general view is that defeating security measures should either require resources, or there needs to be a way to fail the attempt and get punished for it. There should be some downside or disincentive to lock picking, hacking, etc. to make the player weigh the cost vs. benefit before proceeding with the attempt, otherwise they don't add much to the gameplay.

Digital Nightfall on 12/1/2012 at 17:41

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Did I play the same game as you guys?

I remember failing hacks set off alarms, and you could very much be busted and shot to death in the middle of a hack, or while reading email. (I played on 'give me deus ex'.)

Papy on 15/1/2012 at 19:05

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I remember my first night in Morrowind. This was really beautiful. I had the same feeling with Oblivion a few times. I do remember looking at a sunrise only for the pleasure of looking at the sunrise. The thing is, I quit playing both games really fast. Those few moments were good, but not worth all the time playing those games. They were simply too boring. The reward of those moments was not worth the chore of playing them.

On the other hand, the Gothic series also had those moments. I remember that Paladin in Gothic 3 who was resigned to kill his old friend because of what he and the world have became. I was really moved. But here's the thing : the Gothics games were not only a few good graphics or nice bits of writing here and there, they were also fun to play because of the challenge. The Gothics games were not a few rewarding moments between boring gameplay, they were a few rewarding moments between a rewarding gameplay.

I can also talk about BioShock. As I said many times, finding the sanctuary was a very emotional moment for me. But would it have been worth 20 hours of boring gameplay? No. I loved BioShock because I was able to disable the Vita-Chambers and so feel like having a challenge to overcome.

If beautiful scenery and good bits of writing is the only thing someone has to offer, then a video game is not the medium for it.



I'm not the one using straw men. It's just that I'm trying to show that your arguments are absurd and self-contradictory.


I know what you are proposing, it's just that I think it would make the game worse.

Anyway, you're saying it might be "better" if finding the code for a lock and hacking it were mutually exclusive? Better for who? I'd say it would make it easier for the developer to control the player progression, but is that really a good thing for players? I think players always end up doing what they like most, even if they complain the game was not "fun" (and even if that's not what the developer intended them to do). People who are trying to get the most XP possible do it because that's what they prefer. They prefer the "reward" of those XP points to the simple "fun" of the game. If they didn't, they wouldn't hack locks. It is as simple as that. So they complain, but it's normal. People always want their cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, it's not possible to have both, one will always destroy the other, so I think we can safely ignore their complains for their own good.

What I'd like to know is how do you, the player, give a value to a reward in a video game? Suppose you receive a "+5 sword of destruction". Is that a good reward or not? It certainly sound impressive, but if this reward has little impact on the gameplay, then the player will most probably become jaded and bored with all those impressive sounding reward and he will find the game dull. The player must feel the reward was worth it through its consequence on the gameplay. So how do you think this can be done?

Personally, I think the perceived value of a reward is always in a direct relationship to the effort made to get the reward or the one the player think he will not have to make in the future because of it. Of course, if you can think of a game which is both rewarding and which doesn't require any effort, then please enlighten me.



Oh I don't know... You? Yes, that's sarcasm. The same way that when I said I'm the only one who think challenge is fun was sarcasm.

I believe overcoming a challenge is fun. The thing is, by definition, every challenge requires work and effort to overcome. So when I see people asking for the fun of overcoming a challenge without any work or efforts, I just think they are idiots.

So let me resume. I do think that not enough challenge in a video game leads to a boring game. Yes, some video games are a tools for creativity and self expression, but I personally think they are a bad medium for that. On the other hand, I certainly agree that when the work and effort necessary to overcome the challenge becomes to great, then the reward of overcoming is simply not worth it.

The problem is, not everyone has the same abilities. I'm a runner. For me, a 10K run in an hour is something I do to relax and enjoy the scenery. My heart rate is below 120, I don't breath heavily and I barely sweat. I begin to feel I'm doing an effort when running at about 12 kph. At this speed, my heart rate raise to about 135 bpm and I begin to sweat. At 14 kph, it's becoming a real challenge. Of course, I know some people for whom running an hour at 14 kph is something they do to relax and enjoy the scenery and who would gladly say I'm a poor runner. I also know some people who can barely do 10K walking at 5 kph.

My point is what people find challenging and what they qualify as tedious or demanding a real effort is a very personal feeling.

Did I feel hacking locks in Human Revolution was too much work for the reward? No. I understand some people did, but that's not my case. But let's be honest, the reward for hacking those locks were mostly insignificant. Anyone could play the game without the few XP points given by hacking those locks. So why are you complaining? Why do you care if I had fun getting those little rewards? Why do you want to remove my fun? (BTW, that's a rhetoric question, I know perfectly what you want, it's just that I think you don't want to admit it.)



Let me get this straight. It's you who said that without challenge, there is no fun. I am the one who gives you an example of creativity as a pursuit and I am the one who says it can be fun... and yet you are saying that I fundamentally fail to understand it? really?



That's because you read what you want to read and fail to even imagine that I just think you're just wrong. I think you fail to understand the big picture and see only one point at a time.



It depends if XP are used as a reward or as a way to control the progression of the player. In most RPG, they are used for both and so both goal-accomplishing and task-performing XP are present.

OK. The truth is I'm not a big fan of task-performing XP. It does lead to tedious gameplay. I think a game is first and foremost about learning, not about doing. But that's theory. In practice there are very few video games which are really about learning and games like Human Revolution are far too limited to be able to rely on learning. They have to rely on repetition and "tedious" gameplay. Without the "tedious" part of the gameplay, there not much left.