Nihilism on 27/6/2010 at 05:19
Quote Posted by Koki
Hahaha, oh wow. Okay, keep talking, just not to me.
Wow. Some people have serious social skill deficiencies, even on a forum.
Quote Posted by Muzman
In this discussion of modern "difficulty" trends there's a fine line between being pathetically forgiving and giving the player a sense that they
could succeed if they tried again. Valve manage more the latter for my money (although their greatest crime in most games is boredom, I reckon). It seems pretty easy to do superficially similar things and just make your game a hopeless nerf ball of a thing though, which no one seems to mind making these days (since games are disposable and no one finishes them anyway).
People here probably can't stand it but the reaction to Demon's Souls was kinda interesting; reviewers and so forth seemed surprised to find a game so unforgiving. But it turned out pretty popular (the reaction was such that I wouldn't mind trying it, just to find out how hard is "Hard" these days. Severance was
tough, to beat that first ghoul boss guy you had to be skilled and patient as fuck or you died and it was amazingly rewarding. Plus I like (
http://manydeaths.blogspot.com/) my Zone nice and harsh.) And things like bullet hell shooters are still a solid niche.
So I'm wondering if maybe the no difficulty trend will abate at some point. Like, now would be nice.
Demon's Souls isn't
that hard. It could be considered demoralizingly difficult, but from my perspective it was never hopeless. Each time you die, you learn something new to take you further through the level on your next attempt. So when I'd die, I wasn't thinking, "
THIS IS BULL SHIT. I'M NOT WASTING MY TIME ON THIS SHIT." It was more like, "okay, I need to do this differently next time." It's really difficult in the classical sense. And when you finally win, it's rewarding as hell.
Your use of the word "ghoul" reminded me of Ghouls N' Ghosts -- now,
that's a hard game.
SubJeff on 27/6/2010 at 08:34
Quote Posted by Nihilism
Why must games be considered art by non-gamers? Art is eternally subjective, so what another thinks of what you consider art, should be irrelevant.
Did I say it was by non-gamers? I'm a gamer and I think that having meaningful choices would advance gaming in my eyes.
And how can you claim that a game isn't that hard and also say it's demoralisingly difficult? I'm sure that counts as "hard". A game that is hopelessly difficult starts to veer dangerously close to impossible, doesn't it?
Nihilism on 27/6/2010 at 15:25
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Did I say it was by non-gamers? I'm a gamer and I think that having meaningful choices would advance gaming in my eyes.
And how can you claim that a game isn't that hard and also say it's demoralisingly difficult? I'm sure that counts as "hard". A game that is hopelessly difficult starts to veer dangerously close to impossible, doesn't it?
So you mean, personally, gaming would mean more to you? I think having meaningful choices would avance games as well, but their presence is scarce. My problem is, the choices are mundane and lead to completely forseeable outcomes. Take Fallout 3, for instance, you have the town (Megaton?) with the nuke sitting in the center of it, and you have the choice to detonate it. The outcomes of detonating it aren't compelling in terms of narrative. Bethesda basically is asking the player, "are you an asshole or not?" In GTA4, a gangster having the choice between killing one gangster or another, isn't compelling to me either. Are there any games out there that present morally ambiguous choices with unforseeable results like in real life?
For the second point, I'm saying, it might not be for the easily discouraged. A game like that would separate those who quit from those who persevere. I also said it wasn't hopeless, not hopelessly difficult.
Thirith on 28/6/2010 at 07:20
Short comment on the difficulty thing: I don't mind difficult games as long as they give me a tangible sense that I'm getting better at whatever it is I'm doing. If the game pretty much gives binary feedback - you succeed vs. you're dead - without giving me a clear sense why I'm still dying and without letting me know that what I'm trying is more or less successful than my previous try, it gets frustrating. It's progress, even if it's just progress along the lines of "This time I survived half a second longer because I used X instead of Y - let's practice using X!", that keeps things motivating. That's a large part of why so many people find sniper alley boring and frustrating - they're difficult, but their difficulty has little to do with player skill or progress.
negativeliberty on 28/6/2010 at 08:10
Quote Posted by Nihilism
Take Fallout 3, for instance, you have the town (Megaton?) with the nuke sitting in the center of it, and you have the choice to detonate it. The outcomes of detonating it aren't compelling in terms of narrative. Bethesda basically is asking the player, "are you an asshole or not?"
I can't believe I'm "defending" Fallout 3 here, but this is a pretty weird example of meaningless choice.
It's way more far-reaching than you make it out to be. For one, if you choose, it destroys Megaton, which, besides confirming you're role-playing a murdering psychopathic closes off a number of quests (as in, narrative), encounters etc., but opens up a couple of other ones (as in, narrative). In a recent Bethesda sandbox RPG that's about as close to multi-path as you'll come.
I'm
not saying it's compelling storytelling, but at least they didn't shy away from closing off a whole branch of narrative in favour of a different branch, and vice versa, unlike pretty much 95% of all developers which preach "choice" but end up too scared to "waste" resources on bits of game only a portion of people play, and so end up having pretty much every player experience the exact same thing, even if it's not in the same order.
I'd be surprised if DXHR gave more freedom than Invisible War (heh) because actually that is the
*one* game you should've used in your example of
meaningless choice.
Matthew on 28/6/2010 at 10:33
Quote Posted by Muzman
So I'm wondering if maybe the no difficulty trend will abate at some point.
Not completely, I hope.
Muzman on 28/6/2010 at 11:42
Well, no I guess not. Here's somewhere that we can again look back on System Shock as being decades (probably at this rate) ahead of the curve. Their system didn't really undermine the game in quite the same way modern methods do. I don't know how hard it could be. Someone might say that with modern damage and AI and so on it could add a lot of labour allowing things to be that flexible. But could it really be much worse than those convaluted dynamic difficulty systems they try and employ (which don't really work all that well from what I gather). Seems like they're just outsmarting themselves trying to 'smooth' the experience.
As an aside, there's a lot of things like that about recent game design trends though. They don't make a lot of sense to me. They often seem idiotic on the face of it. Why do these ideas stick?
Ok, I'm a bit of a weirdo. But it's not just me. Quick Time Events is a good example. You will be flat out trying to find anyone on the internet with a nice thing to say about them. Mostly they are reviled. It's been that way for years. Yet they only increased in prevalence in that time, across the board. And it looks like a continuing trend. Who is telling them "more of this sort of thing please"? The internet and reviewers can't be that unrepresentitive still, can it? I just don't know.
Thirith on 28/6/2010 at 12:14
Quote Posted by Muzman
Ok, I'm a bit of a weirdo. But it's not just me. Quick Time Events is a good example. You will be flat out trying to find anyone on the internet with a nice thing to say about them. Mostly they are reviled. It's been that way for years. Yet they only increased in prevalence in that time, across the board. And it looks like a continuing trend. Who is telling them "more of this sort of thing please"? The internet and reviewers can't be that unrepresentitive still, can it? I just don't know.
My take on this is that QTEs look extremely cool when you're not the one playing them - more so than regular gameplay. Someone looking over your shoulder will say, "Wow, that game looks amazing! I think I'll get myself a copy too."
(I quite enjoy the way
God of War uses QTEs, at least 90% of the time. The one at the end of
GoW2 nearly broke me, though.)
SubJeff on 28/6/2010 at 12:43
There is no doubt they generally make for weak gameplay experiences though. The game that they really annoy me in is Heavenly Sword. The normal combat with stances and counters allows for fairly complex, if a little uninteresting, encounters but with every boss you have to play a do-or-fail QTE. It was irritating.
Having said that the fight in the Heavy Rain demo is a QTE and I found that tremendous fun.
I find the Demons Souls difficulty being lauded as a refreshing step forwards. I don't think every game should be rock hard but at least give us the option, and for Christoses sake give us intelligent difficulty. It wouldn't be too much to ask of a dev to put in difficulty sliders/switches that let us tailor things individually. Heck, The Dark Mod does it with it's difficulty settings (I believe). I want the option to play on hard, but where hard doesn't mean regular grunts laugh at a clip in the (non-armoured) face, you aren't insta-headshotted ad nauseum and the enemy don't have a magic fairy that tells them exactly where that silent sniper shot that killed their buddy came from.
