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[McBradders]

But none of those are "skip to the end of the dungeon and get the treasure".

No, but many (if not all) of them remove some of the frustrations around the core game that might be hindering folk who want to enjoy it.

As with Dark Souls, it doesn't have to be so strict as to be "skip to the end", it's about giving folk more pathways into enjoying the content that's there. You can argue that unchecking any of those boxes diminishes the intendedexperience - but the option is there for those who want them. Is the game any worse for it? Or any worse for someone who leaves it as is, which seems to be an issue for a lot of folk here (and one I still don't understand).

 

[Hero]

You still have to actually go through the motions with the FE games, not just hit the 'Skip Grima' button to see the ending or bypass chapters you find tedious. Few have issues with difficulty modes and lowering the stakes, it's outright skipping ahead that makes people wonder 'why the heck do you even play'.

So do you agree that there should at least be an uber-easy 'god mode' where your characters continuously rez and you will just win vs the bosses due to attrition? If so then we agree with the underlying goal of making games more accessible via difficulty adjustment and we're just arguing over the best implementation.

I think this is somewhat of a straw man misrepresenting the position. This was what was said:



It doesn't say "brutalizing difficult." It says the point of the experience revolves around the difficulty. It could be said that extremely easy games revolve around the difficulty, meant to be a light and breezy experience for everyone. Or middling difficulty games are designed that way, for most people to be able to enjoy but not necessarily for anyone. Maybe the developer wants to ease players into other games they have made or other games in the same genre.

I think in most games, the developer's intent is to begin by introducing players to how the game is played and help them find strategies to be successful, and then over the course of the game continue offering twists and natural evolution on the formula. The intent is to nurture player mastery of their game, so that they will be prepared every step of the way to be able to deal with the boss fights. Many of them are very intentionally designed and balanced.

Difficulty is subjective which is one of the underlying reasons why this discussion is taking place. The reason I asked that loaded question is because the overwhelming majority of developers don't design a game to be exclusive to only the most skillful or hardcore players. You design around the average user but that doesn't mean you can't cater to the extremes on both sides, the people where this may be their first video game ever, or the people that want a difficult challenge that they view as an accomplishment.

 

[Rathorial]

Not on board for players to be able to just skip boss fights, and the comparison to other mediums seems weak. Games are built around rules and overcoming challenge of some kind in an interactive space, not skipping the content entirely.

Just design the game with various levels of difficulty, so people can pick the challenge that is surmountable for them, and if they die more than once suggest lowering it. If someone refuses that lower difficulty and quits the game, that's their own fault because you already provided the option.

A dev could even auto adjust the stats of a boss in increments based on failing more than twice in a row, so players can "feel" they got better. My logic is if a dev has the time to build the functionality to skip all their encounter,s and still have the story continuity make sense...then they also have the time to make a lower difficulty.

Only problem I would have is if a dev didn't want to build a boss fight, was trying to design a story heavy game, and they were pressured to do one for some reason. Too many games do have boss fights shoehorned in.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Difficulty is subjective which is one of the underlying reasons why this discussion is taking place. The reason I asked that loaded question is because the overwhelming majority of developers don't design a game to be exclusive to only the most skillful or hardcore players. You design around the average user but that doesn't mean you can't cater to the extremes on both sides, the people where this may be their first video game ever, or the people that want a difficult challenge that they view as an accomplishment.

I don't quite get what this has to do with anything.

Maybe only 1% of games are designed to be brutally difficult. So why are people demanding that this 1% of games abandon their design ideas instead of playing the 99% of games that are easy-to-average difficulty?

 

[Hero]

I don't quite get what this has to do with anything.

Maybe only 1% of games are designed to be brutally difficult. So why are people demanding that this 1% of games abandon their design ideas instead of playing the 99% of games that are easy-to-average difficulty?

The point is virtually no developers design that way, and even the games that people seem to cling to as examples of this (Dark Souls) have ways to lower the difficulty.

 

[UncleSporky]

The reason I asked that loaded question is because the overwhelming majority of developers don't design a game to be exclusive to only the most skillful or hardcore players.

The overwhelming majority of developers design a game to provide a very specific experience, which can be undermined with the sort of options being discussed in this topic. It doesn't have anything to do with being skillful or hardcore.

Some boss fights are intended to teach mechanics necessary for use later in the game. Some are meant to be easy pushovers because that's where you're at in the story, just got a new power and the player is meant to use it to win handily...some are meant to be very difficult and significant, because you're fighting a major villain who's antagonized you for the whole game and has demonstrated their power in the past. Gameplay serves the plot, gameplay helps deliver intended emotional responses. But whatever the developer intent is for any given fight, it's rendered moot when it can be simply avoided.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

The point is virtually no developers design that way, and even the games that people seem to cling to as examples of this (Dark Souls) have ways to lower the difficulty.

It's not "virtually none," there are plenty. Cuphead. Sunless Sea. Super Meat Boy. Rain World (which is still stupendously hard even on the "easy" mode they patched in). Probably a bazillion arcade games like Metal Slug.

Again, if it's only 1%, why do you care? Play the other 99%! Are you that upset that just 1% of games have the audacity to cater to a different audience than you?

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I don't quite get what this has to do with anything.

Maybe only 1% of games are designed to be brutally difficult. So why are people demanding that this 1% of games abandon their design ideas instead of playing the 99% of games that are easy-to-average difficulty?

This is kind of where I'm at, and why I used the example of Lisa. Lisa shouldn't EVER have had an easy mode, an easy mode completely misses the point of the game. It goes against the artistic intent of the game, yet the creator had to capitulate and abandon his original vision to sate a mob (and yes, this being the internet, it's a mob) who wouldn't let little things like artistic integrity get in the way of "enjoying" the game. Hell, wasn't the article that kicked this thread off based on Breath of the Wild, a game most people agree is actually pretty easy if you make even a token attempt to meet its systems half way? And already offers dozens of methods to subvert it's presented difficulty via lateral thinking or preparation, rather than something so dissonant as a difficulty slider or "press to avoid hardship" button?

Why did Fire Emblem need a casual mode? Because it was excluding casual strategy fans? No, it was hard because it had a point to it, and that difficulty was a crucible by which a "casual" fan could become a serious one. It didn't need to pull punches because it expected the player, over the course of playing the game, to rise to meet it. I don't know you but I didn't come out of the womb Hannibal Barca, yet the old Fire Emblem games were some of my first introductions to strategy war games, As probably with many others, and I'm still a fan.

A lot of this honestly reads like people who don't have the time or inclination to actually learn to enjoy games beyond a surface level, content muncher experience. Maybe good "gateway" games are becoming less common, maybe tastes have changed. That was always Nintendo's thing since I can remember, but I guess they don't have the appeal they used to. I don't know. But making things easier or simpler isn't the answer. That just cheapens the experience overall.

 

[Ever]

No bad players should be playing my video games, thanks

 

[Kinyou]

Just bring back cheats. Everyone will be happy

 

[Morrigan Stark]

This is totally nonsensical. If someone could just choose to not buy the game and watch the ending on youtube, why bother making it at all!?

Wut? Your post is what's nonsensical. People right now can literally just not buy the game and watch it on youtiube, but devs are still making games...

It's not a moving goal post, it's reality. The game needs to be playable by everybody that purchases it.

Unless it's so buggy it's broken, it technically IS playable. Just because someone struggles and gives up, doesn't make a game unplayable.

That's what the game content is; a series of challenges meant to be overcome. If that doesn't suit the buyer, then they are free to buy something else.

If you're a fan of something like Bloodborne/Dark Souls/etc then it's in your best interest for the game to catch as wide of an audience as possible.

Clearly not, because now we have people wanting skippable bosses and shit like this and I for one am glad we are spared this garbage:

Now that I have answered your question, please answer mine on how a game having a stage/boss skipping option impacts your personal enjoyment of the game?

Having the option is not free/instant. Devs have to make it work into the game and that takes time and resources that could be spent on other things that the people actually playing the content will want.

Seriously, why can't people just accept the fact that not everything is going to cater to them? This isn't an issue about disability (hell I feel like it's patronizing and at some point offending towards disabled people being used as scapegoats or defense for this). Hell, there are subgenres meant to be difficult, imagine bullet hell being "downsized" and skippable.

Also claiming that boss fights are artificial difficulty is very damning.

The "more options is good" argument is a vacuous one. It has no substance, and could be said about anything wanted from any game ever. Furthermore it's predicated on a hypothetical scenario where adding extraneous things is effortless and doesn't diminish the end product.

I know what you mean. I signed up for a baseball league this summer. I couldn't believe they didn't give me the option just to take 1st base. I didn't want to have an bat I just wanted to be a baserunner.

"You're just being mean!"

He skipped it.

rofl

It's not beneficial to the player either. Let's say you can't figure out how to beat Boss 2, where you have to parry the boss to win. So you skip it! Congratulations! You now don't know how to parry. You never learned it. The dev has to assume you did, because most players will. You now spend the entire game being frustrated because you keep fighting enemies who just ruin you because you are supposed to be parrying them. You quit the game, not because you can't beat the bosses but because you can't beat anything! Given that games often turn early game bosses into later game minibosses and then common enemies, this doesn't seem like an uncommon occurrence.

In this situation, the developer has made a bad game because they allowed you to skip a key part and ruining your experience later on. Which is effectively the same as creating the affordance to not learn a mechanic in the first place. Something early games were lambasted for over time. No dev wants this because it makes them look bad when you tell all your chums how bad the game was and because I like to imagine they want you to enjoy the game in the first place.

Excellent point.

People saying "it's trivial, just add a skip button, there, done!" are completely ignoring game design and game progression.

A lot of bosses are there to teach you about core mechanics. Take early Nioh bosses for example.
1) Derrick the Executioner is a very simple humanoid boss. It will teach the player the basics of combat: blocking, dodging, maybe draining ki. It's easy and simple just to get you started.
2) Onryoki is much harder and the first real challenge for new players. He hits very hard and some of his attacks are very fast. The slower, more powerful attacks are more easily dodged (blocking will leave your ki drained and vulnerable), the super fast twirl however is safer to block. Destroying a yokai's horn leaves it more vulnerable. Draining its ki makes it vulnerable to being stunlocked. It creates yokai realm pools that you need to dispel with ki pulses.
3) Hino-Enma teaches the player about the paralysis effect, and how hitting flying enemies with projectiles is effective at draining their ki.
4) Nue teaches the player about the lightning status effect, and how attacking a specific weakpoint can drain the monster's ki and make them vulnerable.
5) Umi-Bozu teaches the player about the effectiveness of elemental weakness (the boss is weak to fire and the game provides fire-buffing torches, but at a cost of spawning additional mobs).

Not only do these bosses teach, and test, the player about important gameplay mechanics, they are an important part of the game content themselves and pretty much the most fun and interesting part.

Sure, the bosses in Deus Ex HR were trash and could probably be skippable, but that's because they were badly designed and didn't fit in with the game's design philosophy. But that doesn't apply to every game. Souls games, Nioh, Ys games with skippable bosses are a patently absurd idea.

Over time, options and/or changes to modes like that could create a shift in the way games are reviewed or experienced. You could argue that shift would be a good thing overall, but there are also good arguments in favor of the status quo (in that specific respect, not necessarily status quo overall).

You can say critics are smarter than that now, but if we see a slowly shifting paradigm in the way games are designed to accommodate less interaction, more passive consumption if desired, self-imposed difficulty starting to become a thing of the past, it's absolutely possible for industry criticism to change, as well as game design itself.

Who knows? If all games adopted boss fight skipping overnight, maybe devs would lean toward making harder bosses because they know people can just skip them if they're too hard and want to offer a challenge to the remaining players. Maybe devs would lean toward easier bosses because they know people might just skip them if they're too hard, and want that content to be experienced regardless. Or maybe they would make fewer bosses because they know that their hard work on those bosses would often just go to waste - we already see this happening via stats on game completion, all the money is spent in the first few levels because that's all 50% of players ever see. Not necessarily even due to difficulty, just people losing interest. That's also why there's been a gradual reduction in side quests and optional content, it's seen as a waste of time and money on the 5% of players that will actually do it.

Options absolutely impact the rest of the game design, whether you can see it or not.

Another great point.

Does it really matter if someone else skips a part of a game? It really has no impact on your experience while playing the game if someone else skipped a section or was given extra help or whatever.

See the two points above. These things don't happen at no dev cost, and don't happen in a vacuum.

"I paid $60 for this game and I'm entitled to all the content!"

*proceeds to skips portions of the content*

Right??

 

[LordJim]

So do you agree that there should at least be an uber-easy 'god mode' where your characters continuously rez and you will just win vs the bosses due to attrition? If so then we agree with the underlying goal of making games more accessible via difficulty adjustment and we're just arguing over the best implementation.

I do not completely agree with the extent of 'Phoenix mode' piss easy difficulty, but 'skip part of the game' is not in the realm of discussion about difficulty is my point.
Unlike a piss easy mode or even an invulnerability cheat, it can impact how segments of the game are actually designed for quite a few genres.

 

[Mesoian]

Just bring back cheats. Everyone will be happy

This is the best solution.

It's just the solution that the current landscape of video games refuses to support.

 

[Filben]

It kinda depends on the game. Many already have difficulty options, trying to appeal those seeking for challenge or leisure and story only. If the game is focus on a narrative I guess it's okay. Because it would be too bad to miss aI wouldn't aggree with this on games like Dark Souls, though or Rogue Likes because the core mechanics ARE the combat or challenging situation. Skipping them would make the game completely pointless.

No game has to appeal to everyone and I'm totally OK with not playing games like Metal Slug, Rogue Legacy, Dark Souls and the like.

 

[_Rob_]

This is the best solution.

It's just the solution that the current landscape of video games refuses to support.

Sure, that'll be £1.69 and you can only use it 3 times before the resource runs out.

 

[Ascheroth]

This is the best solution.

It's just the solution that the current landscape of video games refuses to support.

You can do it on PC at this moment. There are trainers, CheatEngine, mods, whathaveyou.
And I believe this is the solution to this 'problem'. Let the devs make what they want, let the players do what they want, but don't put the onus on the devs.

I'll just quote my post from earlier.

The book/movie comparisons are silly.

Stories are written to be read from beginning to end.
Movies are created to be watched from beginning to end.

A writer or director does not spend time thinking about "how could I make my work so that people can skip certain parts".
The ability to do whatever you want with books and movies is not specifically created by the creators, it's simply something the technology you use to consume the book or movie grants you, as in flipping pages or forwarding a movie.
Why should this be different for games?

Why should game developers spend time and money to make sure that all the twelveteen edge cases some consumers want are covered?
The platform should provide the ability to do what you want, which means mods and cheats. All that stuff that is argued about in this thread is a non-issue on PC, because you can already do things like skipping bosses. Unlimited health instakill God Mode if this is too hard for me. No inventory limit if I don't like it. Etc.
The 'problem' is that consoles don't allow mods and cheats, but this is not an issue game developers should care about, but the platform holders.

Let's be real here: If there is an eBook-Format that does not allow you to search or skip ahead and only lets you read one word at a time then it's not the writers job to change his book so that you can do all the things the eBook-format doesn't allow - whoever came up with that idiotic eBook-format should change the format.

 

[Carl7]

I agree that chapter selection should be added to as much games as possible. It is one of the best things about Nier Automata for example as you can experience the story without deviations and then just come back later to finish the side quests you missed.

 

[Gbraga]

snip

Just finished reading this thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1425653

And wanted to say that I really appreciated your posts there. Kinda weird to just bring that up, but you put a lot of effort into writing some of them, so I thought it would be nice to say that, even more than a month later, they still have a lot of value.

I did get to that thread through Riposte's post being quoted here, so it's not off-topic, I guess.

"I paid $60 for this game and I'm entitled to all the content!"

*proceeds to skips portions of the content*

Hahahahaha

 

[RedSwirl]

Rami and some other devs are subtweeting (or whatever you call it) this discussion, and an interesting point they're bringing up is that players often incorrectly assume that developers always know what they're doing when tuning difficulty. Another good point they make is the developer's original vision doesn't really stay the same throughout the years of a game's development. The point is, devs aren't perfect. I imagine many or even most of them don't believe their artistic intent or whatever is sacrosanct.

I think it brings up the point that a lot of bosses and other encounters are just plain badly designed, which is what makes people frustrated with them and want to skip them in the first place. Badly-executed instances is what led to things like developers uniformly hating health packs or save points or whatever. Maybe there are parts of a game players agree aren't really worth playing. Compare to say, a TV season where most fans agree there are certain parts more essential to others for new viewers strapped for time. If someone was playing God of War 1 for the first time and they could skip that Hades rotating spike section I'd definitely suggest they do it. Better example: The Fade in Dragon Age Origins. There are mods on PC made just to let players skip it. Or what about that whole Power system in Inquisition. Or maybe the last 1/3 of the original Crysis.

That's one reason I support the idea of linear, chapter-segmented games having level select from the start. Most people still read books from the beginning and most people still watch movies from the beginning. The ability to skip through is really just a useful utility.

Maybe it's just Japanese developers who are less flexible on this, valuing their "intended experience" over all else. Western developers, especially back in the old days on PC, seem to regard their games as something a little closer to just software or "tools" they expect customers to use however they want, like Microsoft Word or Photoshop. The point is, developers aren't infallible, and they know it.

 

[HunterXZelos]

I think this is ok for the more story based games out there. So many of them already play themselves anyways. I think it's cool that people like doing that, I don't but whatever.

BUT, to think this can be universally applied to all games is just stupid.

I think a good example is would be platformers. Just because you didn't "quit" the game because of a difficult section earlier, doesn't mean you actually continued to the game. Let's say...Megaman X. Someone else already brought this up, so let's say you can't beat one of the eight robot masters, and you end up skipping it. Then when you get to the Sigma stages you realize...well...guess I still can't beat it here and need to employ skip function again. Then...what? You're here for the story of Megaman(no presentation really and the story is probably like 10 minutes of reading at most). You're here for the cool platforming?(Maybe, though if you can't beat bosses then I'd say you probably can't do the harder sections anyways(just an assumption, maybe you're somehow a platforming god but can't beat bosses for whatever reason)

I find it hilarious that the author used BoTW as an example, considering that he is actually talking about something that is completely skippable.

I think he brings up a good point because I've definitely encountered badly designed bosses or stages in games. What he should want is a better standard in games so we don't have to deal with these badly designed parts of the game. Disabled players should NOT be dragged into this. I doubt their wish is "because I'm disabled I hope I can press 1 button to kill a boss". That doesn't help them in any meaningful way...What they need is a better way to control the game, hopefully allow them to control just as good as everyone else.

Either way, good idea for games that's storybased but I can easily think of multiple genre where this wouldn't carry over well at all.

 

[UncleSporky]

That's one reason I support the idea of linear, chapter-segmented games having level select from the start. Most people still read books from the beginning and most people still watch movies from the beginning. The ability to skip through is really just a useful utility.

No. From the start this has always been an awful comparison. It's an inherent part of the medium, not some useful option that authors are generous enough to provide us.

Authors don't have to think about how to design their stories such that some chapters can be skipped and readers won't be confused, or will still have a good experience. Adding in boss-skipping is something devs would have to allow for or consider in this way.

The book is written on pages and the game is coded into a computer. Physically skipping pages is outside the concept of the story, just like hacking or modding a game to skip parts. If you're asking devs to make games that allow for skipping but remain enjoyable, that's within the game...you might as well also ask authors to write books where skipping ahead is intended and the story remains intact and understandable.

Plenty of things done for entertainment don't allow for skipping ahead. I mentioned earlier that people ride bikes for fun, you can't "skip ahead" on the trail short of asking someone to pick you up and drop you off at a later part. Skipping is not some universal virtue that all mediums give to us except for video games.

 

[Hero]

The overwhelming majority of developers design a game to provide a very specific experience, which can be undermined with the sort of options being discussed in this topic. It doesn't have anything to do with being skillful or hardcore.

Some boss fights are intended to teach mechanics necessary for use later in the game. Some are meant to be easy pushovers because that's where you're at in the story, just got a new power and the player is meant to use it to win handily...some are meant to be very difficult and significant, because you're fighting a major villain who's antagonized you for the whole game and has demonstrated their power in the past. Gameplay serves the plot, gameplay helps deliver intended emotional responses. But whatever the developer intent is for any given fight, it's rendered moot when it can be simply avoided.

If a developer designs a specific experience and they lock a portion of the customers out because of difficulty then they have failed. Having an option to cheat or skip a boss does not negate the gaming experience, no matter how much you claim it does.

It's not "virtually none," there are plenty. Cuphead. Sunless Sea. Super Meat Boy. Rain World (which is still stupendously hard even on the "easy" mode they patched in). Probably a bazillion arcade games like Metal Slug.

Again, if it's only 1%, why do you care? Play the other 99%! Are you that upset that just 1% of games have the audacity to cater to a different audience than you?

You've named four, five at best. How many games have been created? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? You can name specific examples, but they are a drop in the bucket.

This is kind of where I'm at, and why I used the example of Lisa. Lisa shouldn't EVER have had an easy mode, an easy mode completely misses the point of the game. It goes against the artistic intent of the game, yet the creator had to capitulate and abandon his original vision to sate a mob (and yes, this being the internet, it's a mob) who wouldn't let little things like artistic integrity get in the way of "enjoying" the game. Hell, wasn't the article that kicked this thread off based on Breath of the Wild, a game most people agree is actually pretty easy if you make even a token attempt to meet its systems half way? And already offers dozens of methods to subvert it's presented difficulty via lateral thinking or preparation, rather than something so dissonant as a difficulty slider or "press to avoid hardship" button?

According to you, the developer put in an easy mode into Lisa afterwards. Why do you think that is?

Why did Fire Emblem need a casual mode? Because it was excluding casual strategy fans? No, it was hard because it had a point to it, and that difficulty was a crucible by which a "casual" fan could become a serious one. It didn't need to pull punches because it expected the player, over the course of playing the game, to rise to meet it. I don't know you but I didn't come out of the womb Hannibal Barca, yet the old Fire Emblem games were some of my first introductions to strategy war games, As probably with many others, and I'm still a fan.

That's great that it worked for it, but it was pretty clear that the old formula was not working, and why it was changed, and the brand is stronger than ever before and you can still play the games like you want to. Still not seeing what the problem is that casual/phoenix mode was added as an option.

 

[UncleSporky]

If a developer designs a specific experience and they lock a portion of the customers out because of difficulty then they have failed. Having an option to cheat or skip a boss does not negate the gaming experience, no matter how much you claim it does.

They aren't locking anyone out of anything, no more than authors or movie creators lock out portions of the audience that don't understand the plot or themes involved. Creating something not everyone can experience to the absolute fullest does not constitute a failure, no matter how much you claim it does.

If an R-rated movie makes a kid cry and they have to turn it off and still get nightmares regardless, the studio didn't fail in any respect. It was never their intention for a kid to watch it. They told the story they wanted to tell for the audience they wanted to tell it to. The fact the kid couldn't finish the movie is not a failure on their part.

 

[Hero]

They aren't locking anyone out of anything, no more than authors or movie creators lock out portions of the audience that don't understand the plot or themes involved. Creating something not everyone can experience to the absolute fullest does not constitute a failure, no matter how much you claim it does.

If an R-rated movie makes a kid cry and they have to turn it off and still get nightmares regardless, the studio didn't fail in any respect. It was never their intention for a kid to watch it. They told the story they wanted to tell for the audience they wanted to tell it to. The fact the kid couldn't finish the movie is not a failure on their part.

Yes, they are. Do you think it's healthy if people purchase a game, get stuck on an encounter, and can no longer progress in the game? Because more than likely they won't come back and purchase the next installment of the series, they won't be buying DLC, more likely to resell the game, etc. This is bad business for the developers and again, the overwhelming majority of them are making games to make a product, not art.

An R-rated movie is just a suggestion, and just because it's an R-rated movie is intended for older audiences doesn't mean it won't make people 17+ cry or have nightmares. I don't get this point at all.

 

[RedSwirl]

No. From the start this has always been an awful comparison. It's an inherent part of the medium, not some useful option that authors are generous enough to provide us.

Authors don't have to think about how to design their stories such that some chapters can be skipped and readers won't be confused, or will still have a good experience. Adding in boss-skipping is something devs would have to allow for or consider in this way.

The book is written on pages and the game is coded into a computer. Physically skipping pages is outside the concept of the story, just like hacking or modding a game to skip parts. If you're asking devs to make games that allow for skipping but remain enjoyable, that's within the game...you might as well also ask authors to write books where skipping ahead is intended and the story remains intact and understandable.

Plenty of things done for entertainment don't allow for skipping ahead. I mentioned earlier that people ride bikes for fun, you can't "skip ahead" on the trail short of asking someone to pick you up and drop you off at a later part. Skipping is not some universal virtue that all mediums give to us except for video games.

Just because it doesn't inherently occur in games doesn't mean it would ruin games. People already have the ability to do this on PC, and it hasn't turned the world upside down. Most people who play through PC games probably still play them from the beginning. So no, I don't think this would change how designers actually design the levels. And I'm not just limiting this to boss fights, but really any section. Black Ops III already tried this and it wasn't a disaster.

And I've already mentioned other good reasons: Maybe some parts of a game are just plain bad -- designers aren't infallible and don't always know what they're doing when balancing a game. Maybe I lost my save file or re-bought the game on another platform and don't want to go through the whole thing again or just THAT part. Maybe I'm showing someone a part from a game but I'm doing it on their console where I don't have my save file. You can just show someone a specific part of a book or movie.

And personally I don't like this view that all video games are some kind of crucible like climbing a mountain. They're media, and also software. Software is at the mercy of the user. So what if a game is designed to elicit a certain experience when played from beginning to end. So are movies and books, and most people don't skip through them when enjoying them for the first time.

 

[gogosox82]

I just can't agree with this. This would ruin actions games entirely because the games are built around the boss fights. Maybe some story based games but those barely have any gameplay to begin with and what it there could hardly be called challenging or a difficulty spike so why would you skip it? Now poorly done boss fights can be annoying but that just means that fight was poorly designed, not that boss fights are inherently bad.

 

[UncleSporky]

Yes, they are. Do you think it's healthy if people purchase a game, get stuck on an encounter, and can no longer progress in the game? Because more than likely they won't come back and purchase the next installment of the series, they won't be buying DLC, more likely to resell the game, etc. This is bad business for the developers and again, the overwhelming majority of them are making games to make a product, not art.

If the developers are concerned about this, then let them build in difficulty options. The ones pursuing the dollar will do so. If developers are not building in boss-skip buttons, that should tell you something about how and why they're making their games. Who they're making their games for.

I mean you said it yourself, isn't it ludicrous that all these devs are shooting themselves in the foot so hard, crippling their sales? They're making games as a product, not art! How stupid can they be?

Or, maybe the fact that we don't have those buttons means you're wrong, and they DO care about what they're presenting. The guys who make the boss encounters don't want something they worked hard on to be skipped. The guys making the music don't want something they worked hard on to be replaced by generic MP3s, which is why consoles introduced and then quickly canned the ability to use custom music.

The message communicated across the board is completely clear. You don't want to read this chapter? Skip ahead, but we're not summarizing the story up to now for you. You don't want to watch this part of the movie? Skip forward, but we're not going to any extra effort to make sure you're not lost. You want to skip this boss fight? Hack the game, we're not spending any of our time and money making sure the experience supports that.

 

[Kaleinc]

Buy a $60 game, watch it on yt, problem solved.

 

[Hero]

If the developers are concerned about this, then let them build in difficulty options. The ones pursuing the dollar will do so. If developers are not building in boss-skip buttons, that should tell you something about how and why they're making their games. Who they're making their games for.

And they are. Increasingly so. Moreso than they ever have before. That doesn't mean we should stop doing it, stop talking about it, and stop improving it.

I mean you said it yourself, isn't it ludicrous that all these devs are shooting themselves in the foot so hard, crippling their sales? They're making games as a product, not art! How stupid can they be?

Most games that are targeting an extremely niche audience without bucking on accessibility are absolutely shooting themselves in the foot and I expect most developers will make more and more concessions to accommodate the lowest common denominator as we move forward.

Or, maybe the fact that we don't have those buttons means you're wrong, and they DO care about what they're presenting. The guys who make the boss encounters don't want something they worked hard on to be skipped. The guys making the music don't want something they worked hard on to be replaced by generic MP3s, which is why consoles introduced and then quickly canned the ability to use custom music.

The reason we don't have more skip features is because this is a new concept, because gaming is still relatively young for a medium. Accessibility is only going to become more of an emphasis as we move forward in time, not less. The majority of content doesn't get experienced for numerous reasons. Based on data, most games don't ever have their campaign/story-mode finished by the people that start the game. Some of it could be time, some of it could be because the player loses interest, some of it can be attributed to an encounter being difficult. Guess which one of those three the developers can actually change something in their game to accommodate for?

The message communicated across the board is completely clear. You don't want to read this chapter? Skip ahead, but we're not summarizing the story up to now for you. You don't want to watch this part of the movie? Skip forward, but we're not going to any extra effort to make sure you're not lost. You want to skip this boss fight? Hack the game, we're not spending any of our time and money making sure the experience supports that.

A lot of books will reiterate or retell major story bits in different ways to remind you of important plot points, and long-running television shows will actually have recap episodes to bring someone up to speed and remind them again of the important plot points.

 

[UncleSporky]

Breaking this out into a new post so you don't miss it:

An R-rated movie is just a suggestion, and just because it's an R-rated movie is intended for older audiences doesn't mean it won't make people 17+ cry or have nightmares. I don't get this point at all.

A person not able to finish a game isn't getting the full experience. A person not able to fully comprehend the vocabulary, themes, and implications of a book also isn't getting the full experience. A person who shuts off a movie because it was too scary also isn't getting the full experience. A person not able to bike a complete biking trail isn't getting the full experience. A person too full to finish an entire gourmet meal isn't getting the full experience.

It doesn't matter which of these are about physical or mental capability. You even said:

more than likely they won't come back and purchase the next installment of the series, they won't be buying DLC, more likely to resell the game, etc.

Someone who freaks out too much to watch a horror movie won't come back and watch the sequel, either! Someone who doesn't understand a novel won't read others like it! These creators should be more welcoming if they're chasing that dollar!

 

[Ascheroth]

And they are. Increasingly so. Moreso than they ever have before. That doesn't mean we should stop doing it, stop talking about it, and stop improving it.



Most games that are targeting an extremely niche audience without bucking on accessibility are absolutely shooting themselves in the foot and I expect most developers will make more and more concessions to accommodate the lowest common denominator as we move forward.



The reason we don't have more skip features is because this is a new concept, because gaming is still relatively young for a medium. Accessibility is only going to become more of an emphasis as we move forward in time, not less. The majority of content doesn't get experienced for numerous reasons. Based on data, most games don't ever have their campaign/story-mode finished by the people that start the game. Some of it could be time, some of it could be because the player loses interest, some of it can be attributed to an encounter being difficult. Guess which one of those three the developers can actually change something in their game to accommodate for?



A lot of books will reiterate or retell major story bits in different ways to remind you of important plot points, and long-running television shows will actually have recap episodes to bring someone up to speed and remind them again of the important plot points.

I loathe that kind of thinking.
Did it ever occur to you that some games are only successful because they target a specific niche that will buy that game?

 

[Kinyou]

It's not beneficial to the player either. Let's say you can't figure out how to beat Boss 2, where you have to parry the boss to win. So you skip it! Congratulations! You now don't know how to parry. You never learned it. The dev has to assume you did, because most players will. You now spend the entire game being frustrated because you keep fighting enemies who just ruin you because you are supposed to be parrying them. You quit the game, not because you can't beat the bosses but because you can't beat anything! Given that games often turn early game bosses into later game minibosses and then common enemies, this doesn't seem like an uncommon occurrence.

In this situation, the developer has made a bad game because they allowed you to skip a key part and ruining your experience later on. Which is effectively the same as creating the affordance to not learn a mechanic in the first place. Something early games were lambasted for over time. No dev wants this because it makes them look bad when you tell all your chums how bad the game was and because I like to imagine they want you to enjoy the game in the first place.

That's a good point. Tons of times do games try to teach the player stuff through game design itself. It's probably most obvious in the Zelda games where whole dungeons are designed around one new item, culminating in the final boss fight where you'll use everything you learned.
If you skip right to the boss fight you'll have missed all that training and likely skip that boss as well, now you're in the next dungeon and still don't know how to use that grapple hook so you skip again... etc. etc.

I understand that people want more accessibility but a skip button is probably the worst way to do it.

 

[Gsnap]

The comparison to books and movies is silly.

Outside of the fact that they're fundamentally different art forms, the author also completely misunderstands the purpose of chapter select or fast forwarding. It's not so you can skip the "boring" parts. No writer or director wants you to skip parts of their movie/book, especially not on your first time experiencing it. Because they didn't make those parts to be boring. Maybe they're bad at their job, but they don't put slow parts in movies to bore you. It's to inform the pace.

So, first off, when talking about books, it's ridiculous to say "Books let you skip right to the end!" as if they had a choice in the first place. Outside of the recent invention of e-books, books are physical goods that would be unable to prevent you from skipping parts even if they tried. Books are divided into chapters and page numbers so that you can take breaks from reading and come back without losing your place. Not so you can skip around freely. Nobody expects you to finish their book in one sitting so they use chapters to show you where the story naturally breaks into pieces, making it easier to digest over time.

Movies are the same way. The intended way to watch is all the way through, which is why movies come to theaters first the majority of the time. Unlike books, movies do have a way to prevent people from skipping around by going to theaters first. It's not until afterwards when you got your VHS that you could fast forward, and not until DVDs that you could select scenes. But these options still weren't given to you for the purpose of skipping parts. It's because they know sometimes you won't be able to watch the movie all in one setting. Sometimes you have to leave. So they let you find where you were when you come back.

So none of these functions are comparable to a boss skip button. Because even though people are able to abuse them for other purposes due to their nature, their true purpose is actually a save system. Something games already have in place.

Video games have been experimenting with ways to make games more accessible for years, but they've rarely stooped to just saying "fuck it, let them skip whatever they want. Whenever they want" Because it really is nonsense when you think about it. To ask developers to make that some sort of standard feature. That's not to say developers are flawless. There are a lot of them that make crappy boss fights and just crappy games in general. So really, we just need game design to continually improve. If a book or a movie has "boring" parts (not just intentionally slow or thoughtful parts that bad readers/watchers claim are boring) then it's probably a bad movie. If a game has a numerous bad boss fights then it's probably not a great game. Asking for what the author is asking for is just a patch that doesn't consider the root of the issue.

So it seems to me the author shows a significant misunderstanding of multiple art forms, not just video games. Which makes it sound like he just got a little upset about a boss and is now throwing the baby out with the bath water. Especially when the game in question that seemed to send him over the edge was Zelda. A game whose bosses are certainly not "incongruous" to the rest of the game, seeing as how the game is built on 3 simple pillars (exploration, puzzle solving, and combat). And whose bosses are optional. Which this person, as a game journalist, didn't even know? https://twitter.com/botherer/status/915222282930401280 Despite that being a major selling point of one of the biggest games of the year that has been talked about to death? So he misunderstands multiple art forms and the very game he's critiquing. Doesn't sound like he really has a point to make in the first place and is just venting to an audience.

 

[UncleSporky]

Most games that are targeting an extremely niche audience without bucking on accessibility are absolutely shooting themselves in the foot and I expect most developers will make more and more concessions to accommodate the lowest common denominator as we move forward.

The reason we don't have more skip features is because this is a new concept, because gaming is still relatively young for a medium. Accessibility is only going to become more of an emphasis as we move forward in time, not less. The majority of content doesn't get experienced for numerous reasons. Based on data, most games don't ever have their campaign/story-mode finished by the people that start the game. Some of it could be time, some of it could be because the player loses interest, some of it can be attributed to an encounter being difficult. Guess which one of those three the developers can actually change something in their game to accommodate for?

This is all pretty laughable. You say this in an era where games are branching out into various difficulties more than ever before, with a huge surge in "hardcore" games in recent years. Souls is a newer creation. Cuphead just came out. The hottest thing these days is hardcore permadeath roguelites and survival games. So many creators these days are making the games they want to make, not games that are simply finishable by all. Lots of games aren't even finishable! You just survive as long as you can, build a cool base, hold off the zombies, set a new record for how long you survived.

Multiplayer is massive these days too. Are you going to let people "skip" in PUBG and get to experience being that final winner? What a terrible dev, to make a game that some people just won't ever be able to win.

What about skipping endgame raid bosses in MMOs? "Hey guys I know we got 20 people together for this guy, I'm tired of trying at this point, can we all agree to click skip here and collect our reward and go home?"

The modern gaming industry does not agree with your assessment at all. Everything is hardcore permadeath and multiplayer. By your metrics, people should not be buying these games because they are too hard, because they will lose and get mad and not buy other games like it. But that's not happening.

A lot of books will reiterate or retell major story bits in different ways to remind you of important plot points, and long-running television shows will actually have recap episodes to bring someone up to speed and remind them again of the important plot points.

...Please tell me you are not honestly arguing that book and TV show creators intentionally do this in order to generously support the whims of their audience that goes gleefully skipping through the story, and not simply because traditionally TV shows air on a weekly basis and people need recaps after breaks.

 

[Temeculan3000]

I just thought of two really great game ideas.

The first one is called Gatekeeper, it will be a very difficult souls-esque game with very challenging unskippable bosses, each of which guards a gate that you need to open to proceed. The big feature though is that if you buy the sequel, you need to have a 100% save from the previous game on your system in order to access the second game This would apply going forward with each subsequent sequel.

The second game is called Line Cutter, the whole point of this game is to try to cut in line or skip the queue without getting caught. It can be pretty challenging, thankfully this game will have a "skip queue" button if you think it is too hard.

 

[Hero]

I loathe that kind of thinking.
Did it ever occur to you that some games are only successful because they target a specific niche that will buy that game?

There probably are, so if you're cool with Example X being niche for the rest of your life, I hope you're okay with it being niche and never getting other games in the same veins and/or possibly not getting sequels.

This is all pretty laughable. You say this in an era where games are branching out into various difficulties more than ever before, with a huge surge in "hardcore" games in recent years. Souls is a newer creation. Cuphead just came out. The hottest thing these days is hardcore permadeath roguelites and survival games. So many creators these days are making the games they want to make, not games that are simply finishable by all. Lots of games aren't even finishable! You just survive as long as you can, build a cool base, hold off the zombies, set a new record for how long you survived.

Souls has difficulty options, we've been over it on this same page. Cuphead is one example and as successful as the game is (and I want it be) where do you see the sales cap on that? If MS doesn't see the returns on that title there is no way they are investing money for a sequel. Now compare that to most popular, breakout new IPs like Angry Birds or Minecraft. There's been a resurgence in roguelikes/lites. Again, you're still missing the point that these creators can still make the game they want to while accommodating for the lowest common denominator in an unskilled player. You still have yet to prove how introducing options is a negative thing.

Multiplayer is massive these days too. Are you going to let people "skip" in PUBG and get to experience being that final winner? What a terrible dev, to make a game that some people just won't ever be able to win.

What about skipping endgame raid bosses in MMOs? "Hey guys I know we got 20 people together for this guy, I'm tired of trying at this point, can we all agree to click skip here and collect our reward and go home?"

Multiplayer games are an entirely different beast and not what we're talking about at all. Not sure you want to cite MMOs either since most encounters continuously get nerfed after their introduction so players will be more successful at tehem.

The modern gaming industry does not agree with your assessment at all. Everything is hardcore permadeath and multiplayer. By your metrics, people should not be buying these games because they are too hard, because they will lose and get mad and not buy other games like it. But that's not happening.

Everything is hardcore permadeath? Really? That's a literal statement you want to make?

...Please tell me you are not honestly arguing that book and TV show creators intentionally do this in order to generously support the whims of their audience that goes gleefully skipping through the story, and not simply because traditionally TV shows air on a weekly basis and people need recaps after breaks.

It doesn't matter what I personally believe or not, the fact is that those instances happen and for good reasons.

 

[Gsnap]

There probably are, so if you're cool with Example X being niche for the rest of your life, I hope you're okay with it being niche and never getting other games in the same veins and/or possibly not getting sequels.

We are living in an era where plenty of niche games are successful enough to get sequels, and various dead genres are back and thriving thanks to the indie scene. So what are you talking about?

 

[Woo-Fu]

Sounds to me that perhaps games should have a "toy" mode for people who don't want the gameplay. Gated progression is a core gameplay element for many games, after all. Remove that and I'm not sure that those games are games anymore, they're closer to toys at that point.

 

[HomunculousBosch]

Games having cheat codes or easier difficulties is fine, but letting you pick and choose bosses to completely skip encourages bad and uneven game design. A lot of games also revolve their entire design philosophy and dynamic around difficulty and tension, letting you skip any boss you want would destroy that. People will try to argue that you can skip scenes in a movie or book you buy and thus should be allowed to do so in a game but this is not the case, video games are an entirely different medium and there's nothing wrong with some games making you beat a difficult encounter to proceed. If you don't want to fight difficult bosses don't buy games like Bloodborne and Cuphead.

Also, some games use bossfights as valuable ways of teaching the player. If you skip Matador in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, you don't learn that buffs and debuffs are incredibly important and can turn an impossible battle into an easy one. If you skip Father Gascoigne in Bloodborne, you didn't adapt to the fast-paced, aggressive gameplay and learn to use the mechanics to beat him.

 

[Saty]

Don't worry, i'm sure in no-time you'll be blessed with the option to pay a fee to skip any fight you want.

 

[Hero]

We are living in an era where plenty of niche games are successful enough to get sequels, and various dead genres are back and thriving thanks to the indie scene. So what are you talking about?

Where's Vanquish 2?

 

[Gsnap]

Where's Vanquish 2?

Don't know. But do you really think finding an exception or two proves a point?

 

[Platy]

Just bring back cheats. Everyone will be happy

That was my reaction to this whole debate. IDDQD was basically retro "skip boss fights" =P

 

[Ascheroth]

There probably are, so if you're cool with Example X being niche for the rest of your life, I hope you're okay with it being niche and never getting other games in the same veins and/or possibly not getting sequels.

You're equating being 'niche' with being unprofitable and that's abso-fucking-lutely ludicrious.
Yes, I'm totally fine with Example X being niche for the rest of my life and this doesn't mean there won't be more or it won't be profitable.
In fact, some game series are dead now because they tried 'catering towards the lowest common denominator'. Turns out the lowest common denominator still didn't like it enough and they alienated their actual target audience instead.

Where's Vanquish 2?

Not every game gets a sequel, doesn't matter if its niche or mainstream. Shocking.

 

[HomunculousBosch]

Where's Vanquish 2?

One arbitrary example hardly proves you right. Bayonetta got a sequel, Devil May Cry has 4 games, plenty of niche titles get sequels without having to neuter themselves.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I strongly disagree that you should be allowed to skip boss fights.

Where possible, and not in a game where the challenge is a large proportion of the point (Yes, I mean souls type games), the developer should have dynamic difficulties instead.

Resident Evil 4/5 does it very well. If you play well, more enemies spawn, they deal more damage, can take more damage, affects the tactics the AI use, and vice versa if you're playing badly. And the games never tell you they're doing any of this, which then lets most anyone get through eventually if they keep trying without them realising they had to be let through a tough section.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

What about skipping endgame raid bosses in MMOs? "Hey guys I know we got 20 people together for this guy, I'm tired of trying at this point, can we all agree to click skip here and collect our reward and go home?"

Actually, Destiny 2 gives you one drop from the raid and trials (hardcore PvP) every week if your clanmates accomplish the task. While they're derisively referred to as "welfare engrams," it hasn't appreciably diminishing the hardcore's enjoyment of the game, and made a lot of people who don't have the skill, time, or friends to do those activities pretty happy.

Anyway, it seems like a lot of games already do this? Not a literal skip, of course, but just about every shooter and RPG out there has no-questions-asked difficulty selector in the middle of the game. If you don't mind missing out on some trophies/achievements, you can totally bump the game down to the lowest difficulty level if you get stuck on a boss in The Witcher 3, or Horizon Zero Dawn. Hell, this goes way back - old school Bioware like Baldur's Gate 2, and new school emulations like Pillars of Eternity offer the same thing. It's pretty close to skipping, considering how easy the lowest difficulty can be, and none of those games were compromised for the experience.

 

[Kusagari]

There probably are, so if you're cool with Example X being niche for the rest of your life, I hope you're okay with it being niche and never getting other games in the same veins and/or possibly not getting sequels.

We've already seen through Dark Souls that hard as nails games can sell 3 million + copies. There's no reason developers have to dumb their games down unless they're intentionally aiming to be the next Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.

 

[GlitchyDegree]

I strongly disagree that you should be allowed to skip boss fights.

Where possible, and not in a game where the challenge is a large proportion of the point (Yes, I mean souls type games), the developer should have dynamic difficulties instead.

Resident Evil 4/5 does it very well. If you play well, more enemies spawn, they deal more damage, can take more damage, affects the tactics the AI use, and vice versa if you're playing badly. And the games never tell you they're doing any of this, which then lets most anyone get through eventually if they keep trying without them realising they had to be let through a tough section.

Seriously? That's pretty interesting.

 

[zMiiChy-]

This isn't an issue about disability (hell I feel like it's patronizing and at some point offending towards disabled people being used as scapegoats or defense for this).

It's pretty sad that it happened so many times.
Please don't assume the right to speak on behalf of other people's weaknesses just you can rely on them as a crutch for an argument.

To be fair though that just shits on disabled players like BrolyLegs who overcome those handicaps and come out champs due to dedication. He probably would scoff at skip boss options, because he wants to play the same game as you, and kick ass at it even though he has to work harder to do so.

Case in point.

650+ posts and no one could give a good justification to why they don't want the option to be there for those who want it.

"it's a game" is not a good argument. A game can have options.

"I declare that every opposing opinion is wrong because reasons that I can't explain in more than one vague blanketing statement."

Worst post in the thread.