Don’t stop posting, Zylon’s just… like that. This was actually pretty tame comparatively.
Not excusing his attitude, just saying some of us appreciate your contributions so don’t run off.
I recently watched a review of Dark Souls game play which discussed how difficult it was but also how there are mechanics within the game to make it easier for the person who didn’t want to spend the whole game dying or who found that they just couldn’t “gut good” enough to solo everything. Things like summoning and the rings of sacrifice.
Dark Souls 3 especially offers NPC’s for summoning everywhere.
One thing I’ve always thought was that in games where the core design was not “beat these levels/puzzles,” the player should always be able to figure out what to do without having to do it and die a few times. So, say there’s a door you have to get through, and it’s trapped, and you die if you just open it, but you realize the second or third time that if you do X or Y first, it’s ok. X and Y should be discernible through skill, attention to detail, use of some ability that you can be expected to both have and know when to use, etc. One reason I hate games with limited saves or no saves is that the design rarely lets you actually avoid dying through any skill other than learning by dying.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance drove me away twice. First, learning how to steer a horse for the first time while being shot at during a high speed chase. A bit too frustrating for my tastes and it turned me off after the third or fourth attempt. A few weeks later, I fired up the game again, patiently finished that quest, and then during the very next quest got angry when bandits and an annoying combat system kept forcing me back to an earlier checkpoint. I can understand failing one bandit combat, or maybe two, but this was three separate encounters and the game wanted me to endure them again and again for no good reason. Felt like punishment rather than an inspiring challenge.
I see now that there’s at least one mod out there that allows for saving anywhere, may try that if I decide to pick up the game again.
Same response as always for this topic:
I’m happy to retry an interesting challenge until I get it right, but don’t make me repeat the trivial part beforehand to get to the hard part I want to dive into.
Trivial being a cutscene or other easy shit, or even a part that’s tricky but I’ve already mastered. Once I’m done with something, I’m really done with it.
I dunno about getting rid of them entirely, but I do now play everything on easy because I have less patience than I did when I was younger.
Okay fine, since you “came out” now, I will too. I generally always play on Easy these days (Except the Sniper Elite and Ghost Warrior series. In those, I crank the difficulty to the max, because it’s so bloody satisfying that way). There, I feel better now.
As far as fail states, instead of seeing a screen with “Retry” or “Quit”, I’d much rather the game continue on with you being forced to deal with the consequences of your failure. In the case where you lost the dude you were supposed to follow, it’d be pretty easy to simply lose that mission and move the story along.
However, if it’s a case where you die in a fight, then yeah. Fail. However, in that case the fight should not be forced upon you. You should have the opportunity to run away if you are losing, just like in real life.
This is how I feel, basically. There is legitimate challenge, and then there is also busy work, or just dumb ideas of developers.
Also, I can’t remember the last game I played with checkpoints. Probably a Sonic game. One of the newer 3D ones.
My chosen genre comes from consoles so I’m stuck with them. I rage occasionally like the NES days, but overall modern checkpoints aren’t too bad.
Yeah, I usually start at Normal, but have no problem lowering the difficulty if I’m not having fun. If it’s a game where you can’t change the difficulty on the fly, I try for a bit and then restart on easy if I find it’s too much of a grind. Life’s too short to spend too much time on getting good with a game these days!
I appreciate fail states in strategy games. I see them in stuff like Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings where the game is more of a journey. I can stuff up badly, then have a chance to at least reflect on the position I’m in and move forward as part of the journey, or simply abort what has happened and start all over again. Depends on my mood, and I’ve accumulated a lot of personal history that shows when I persist, normally things swing go on a much better trajectory for some reason or other. Importantly, failing in strategy games encourages me to think, reflect and try to be better.
I haven’t really played AC much, but I can say that with Just Cause series as an example, I appreciated the open world enough to know that while there were challenges present, I was offered a myriad of ways to either do them, or just skip entirely. Base jumping in Just Cause 2 challenges were optional, and I was glad for it. If it were a mandatory part of the game, I’d have never finished it. Couldn’t even get the basic ones, no matter how much I tried. I certainly have no interest banging my head against a screen trying to pass stupid challenges like the AC one mentioned earlier, to the point where I don’t think I’d bother with those games now.
Worst fail states I’ve run into are from the classic adventure game era of the 90’s. Kings Quest V where I can use a golden needle rather than a golden coin to pay a gypsy and find out hours later I needed the needle for something else. Or alternately in Return to Zork where I can cut a bonding plant right at the beginning of the game rather than dig out the bonding plant. Hours later, where entry into a comedy club requires a live bonding plant and it’s a case of start again. I dealt with that when I was younger and with more spare time and patience. I’m not dealing with that anymore.
One or two games I played when I was younger offered the ability to bypass levels if it detected I was having difficulty. Not sure how it was programmed - maybe time spent on an actual level. There was no cheat or warping, just a simple message that said “Hey, you’re having trouble. Press (A) to proceed to the next level or (B) to keep trying.”
I play every game in normal mode. It’s not that I enjoy the frustration that can sometimes come early in games, it’s more that I can’t imagine how easy the game would become later on when you get some levels, equipment and experience in the game.
It seems like almost every game gets easier in the second half, sure there boss fights or battles that are still hard but individual actions become much easier.
I wish I could join the easy bandwagon. But I’ve tried it a few times, and not had any fun. If a game isn’t pushing back at all, it just exacerbates the problem. Because if I lowered the difficulty because I don’t like the gameplay systems, then lowering the difficulty makes it worse usually.
Perfect example of this was in Jedi Outcast: Jedi Knight II. I was so frustrated with always being stuck on where to go next, which usually involved a jumping puzzle using force jump. I started the game over on Easy. Only that still had the jumping puzzles, and now the fights were trivial too. So it made the whole thing feel completely pointless.
Statistically speaking, not many game owners ever play the second half anyway, so I assume the team works harder to balance the first half and then coasts a bit for the latter content.
I find games get easier later in the game mostly because of the way I play, i.e. completionist. If you’ve unlocked all the special moves, accumulated enough money to buy the best gear, etc you’re going to have an easier time than someone just breezing through the early game, more often than not.
This is why I like powerful consumables in RPGs. They don’t affect the difficulty of 95% of the game because I’m either hoarding them or forgetting that I even have them. It’s only when I’m stuck losing a fight repeatedly that I remember to open my inventory.
Only fail state (as described in the OP) I really couldn’t stand was the racing stage in Mafia. If the game had been built more around driving skills and they actually had a decent model, I probably wouldn’t have hated it as much as I did.
I have watched several streamers playing the new God of War, and it seems you can’t stand around for more than a few moments without Boy or Head shouting advice on how to advance “Hey, I bet we could see it better from up on the ledge.” and such…
I prefer that this kind of thing can be disabled, because I want to solve such problems myself.
OMG, this x1000. Remember rage quitting the game originally when I couldn’t get past that race. They made it easier in a later patch and I went back and finished the game.
This , times 10. I always finish games with the best consumables unused, waiting for that last tough battle.
I think this plays a huge role in it. You also know what to expect and have an understanding of the game play, so things become easier.