Support NeoGAF

[DerpHause]

Because those people might be interested in other elements that the game offers and just because they don't have the time or skill doesn't mean they should be locked out of a potential fun experience. That's what a hypothetical easy mode would be good for.

We're talking about the core element here, effectively the one the others are serving to enhance. Why should a dev feel it necessary to cut the core of the experience here? Why can't they leave that as the focus? Especially when there are real costs for not doing so and anomalous gains at best?

 

[Miles X]

Yes please. This would make Cuphead so much more fun.

 

[Manu]

Yes please. This would make Cuphead so much more fun.

I, too, believe not playing my games is more fun than playing them.

 

[Solid Shammy]

We're talking about the core element here, effectively the one the others are serving to enhance. Why should a dev feel it necessary to cut the core of the experience here? Why can't they leave that as the focus? Especially when there are real costs for not doing so and anomalous gains at best?

Devs don't have to feel necessary to do add an easy mode. I've said this many times. Only if they want to. Goodness me.

 

[JamesHolden]

Seems to me like you skipped most of the thread if that's your hot take on the subject

I continue to read multiple posts arguing essentially that Boss Fights could be skipped, but someone who completes the Boss fight must be rewarded and/or the person who skipped the Boos Fight must be penalized. The argument is completing the Boss Fight itself isn't enough of a reward, these players must get something more from the game for being better players. What do you think the reason is for this outlook?

 

[DerpHause]

I continue to read multiple posts arguing essentially that Boss Fights could be skipped, but someone who completes the Boss fight must be rewarded and/or the person who skipped the Boos Fight must be penalized. The argument is completing the Boss Fight itself isn't enough of a reward, these players must get something more from the game for being better players. What do you think the reason is for this outlook?

Some find it odd that skillful engagement with a game wouldn't be rewarded within that game. It often is in some way. In that same vein choosing to interact at all with elements in a game seems worthy of in game reward when the option is present to not do so. A good amount of optional content in games already works on this principle.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

There are a lot of 'bad' players of games that have a hell of a lot more fun than the 'good' players of said games, there's no way to make an experience equal for everyone and that's not what I want. There are so many games and genres that there is absolutely no way to set a universal standard for how to make everything more accessible, but I do think that each game individually can do interesting things to make the experience as inclusive as possible whilst keeping the core experience intact.

A lot of games have experimented in different ways to do this within the last couple of years and I'm absolutely cool with it. I don't think anyone is upset that you can skip missions in Red Dead and GTAV, or that Bioware games have a narrative difficulty setting, and Uncharted 4 is especially great considering it has a narrative difficulty and assistance options for the physically disabled. Options that help people get past button mashing sequences that are otherwise easy to most but sadly function as a stonewall for many eager players.

These are examples of how I think videogames can be more technically inclusive without upsetting the people that don't require these additions, and honestly, I'd even be cool with certain games having an outright 'skip encounter' option in the pause screen. It wouldn't be an option for everything of course, but would it really hurt to say, skip LA Noire's combat sequences (which you already can, just gotta die a few times first) so one can move onto the other investigative elements of the game?

All the games you listed are balanced around easy difficulties. Players looking for a challenge are not looking for Uncharted 4, Mass Effect, GTA, etc. These games appeal does not lie in the gameplay, so it's not any surprise that bad players love them and their narrative difficulties (and having played these games, I'm not surprised that people want to skip the gameplay) - but what about those looking for challenge? These games are terrible if you're that player.

Games are either balanced for bad players or good players. Games balanced for bad players aren't very engaging for good players, and the opposite is true as well.

 

[Radnom]

At the moment less than 15% of Dark Souls players on Steam beat the final boss according to the achievements -

So? This doesn't mean anything.
a) You don't know why it's at 15%. Maybe it's too hard, but it could also be that people are too busy to play, or didn't like it enough to continue. For Dark Souls 3, it appears to be at 25% on Steam (at least for the most common ending, the other endings being at 19% and 16%).
b) 9/10 players won't finish the game they're playing. So if anything, the completion rate for Dark Souls is higher than average
c) Someone actually compared completion trophy percentages of Souls games with other games and guess what, Souls games are not particularly lower than other, more mainstream games.

You know what? Most players don't finish games. This is something we can do to at least help more players experience more of the games they purchased, without taking anything away from the games that we love. There are other much higher impact solutions like 'make the game much shorter' and 'make the game much easier'. This is one that will mess with the game the least.

It's funny you are so desperate to find "solutions" to the "problem" that most players don't finish games, because this implies it's a problem to begin with.

It's not. It's perfectly OK to not finish games. I have a huge amount of games I played, enjoyed, and never finished. That's a normal, okay thing.

It's not a problem not to finish a game. I don't finish a lot of games, and it's generally due to not liking them enough, not because I get stuck. My point isn't that it's a problem that people don't finish games, it's that the people who DO actually finish games, and play through every boss battle, are a minority. It's also not ideal that some players might want to see more of their games, but they can't. So some of the arguments here that people who don't enjoy every aspect of a game shouldn't play them are a bit flawed, because obviously a lot of people like Dark Souls that don't intend to beat every boss. Some people love the aesthetics of Cuphead, but don't like the high difficulty level. Why not allow some form of skip so that, if some players want to, they can see more of the game?

That's the question that's posed, and the question that I'm trying to figure out why there's so much hostility towards.

As for your architecture argument, it's patently silly. If some architecture student is really that interested in Dark Souls' architecture but doesn't want to play the game for real, the onus is on them to hack their game up with cheats and mess around as they please, not on the devs to provide that for them.

well obviously the onus is on the developers, they're the ones making the game! I'm not disputing that it's up to the developers to make the decision to implement it, and as I've mentioned I don't agree with the extreme point of view that not ensuring a player can access every part of the game is equivalent to stealing, I'm just saying that it would be a good thing in some cases for the developers to prioritise adding this feature, because:
A. A number of people would want and use it
B. It doesn't ruin the game for people who don't want to use it
C. It's (potentially) not a huge time consuming feature to add (depending on the game)

I'm not mandating a mandatory boss skip that needs to be in games for them to be released, I'm just saying "Hey, Developers of the games I like? Please add a boss skip feature". Same way I'd say "Hey, Developers of the games I like? Please add high frame rate support". "Hey Developers of the games I like? I can't read the small text on my TV, please add a font size option".

In a lot of these cases, wouldn't it be in the developer's best interests? In some, perhaps not. I don't imagine FROM Software ever giving the option a second thought, and fine, that's up to them. But maybe some other companies will consider it.

I mean, it's a far better and more elegant solution than adding quest navigation or popups or extended tutorials that drag out or arrows guiding you step by step through the game. I don't want to see that any more than you do, which is why I'd prefer this solution that affects the games I like less.

The problem you are describing here isn't the lack of "skip fight" option, it's badly designed boss battle.

As TheRedSnifit and others have mentioned in this thread, the solution is to make better boss gameplay, not give the option of taking it away. I can already devs not making much effort in designing a boss battle because hey, you can always just skip it to continue anyway, why bother.

'Better gameplay' wouldn't even cover half of the reasons I've provided as possible reasons to skip bosses! Plus if the developers could have made a better game, wouldn't they have done that? They could, however, potentially add a skip option with a lot less work.

And developers making worse boss battles is a really weak reason against a skip, because having a cutscene skip button available doesn't make developers think "hey you can always just skip it to continue anyway, why bother putting effort in".


It's a similar functionality to say, games having a 'permadeath' option. Fire Emblem Awakening added a mode where character death isn't permanent, and it didn't ruin the game for anyone, and it expanded the audience. They called it "Casual" mode as opposed to "Classic" mode, so players know the intended way is to have them die, but they can make that decision.

This is a solution that is one of the least likely to 'kill gaming'. I can't even comprehend this amount of backlash.


Alright, even leaving Dark Souls alone for a bit, what about other games? How about this example?

Here's a very specific proposition:

Let Us Skip Boss Fights in Persona 5.

• No intrinsic link between difficulty and theme like Dark Souls.
• There's already an Easy Mode.
• There's already a 'skip cutscene/dialogue' option that can be used even the first time through.
• Highly replayable so a skip will likely be well-used.
• No multiplayer.
• A lot of people who would love the storytelling sections don't like turn based RPG combat.
• There's still a lot of gameplay outside the bosses so there would still be a 'point' to playing outside of watching Let's Play videos.
• The game doesn't teach you necessary mechanics during the scenes.

The implementation would be as follows:
When launching or loading the game, choose an option to allow Boss Skip. This is so that players won't be 'tempted' by the option.
It's not locked based on completing the game, because it's unknown whether the player has played it previously on another console, at a friend's house, etc.
During a boss fight, press Start to pause, then choose 'Skip Boss?' from an option menu.
A message pops up saying "It's highly recommended you complete this fight rather than skip it! You will not receive any more trophies with this save file." If you choose to continue, the boss fight will be skipped as though you beat it, and the victory cutscene will play.
The game will continue as normal, rewards given as normal, but no more trophies will be rewarded.

Players who don't want to skip battles won't even see the option during their game. People who do want the option can see it and use it for whatever reason they want, i.e. too hard, too easy, too long, boring, beaten it 100x before, trying to get to the next segment etc. etc.

Does anyone have a problem with this specific example?

 

[JamesHolden]

Some find it odd that skillful engagement with a game wouldn't be rewarded within that game. It often is in some way. In that same vein choosing to interact at all with elements in a game seems worthy of in game reward when the option is present to not do so. A good amount of optional content in games already works on this principle.

Original Game:
Player A completes bossfight and gets New Power A

Patch adds support for:
Player B skips bossfight and gets New Power A.

Player A being upset about this patch and demanding that player B not get this option is pretty outrageous to me. I think it's fair to try and understand why someone might only derive enjoyment if someone else, less skilled, is unable to derive enjoyment.

 

[DerpHause]

Original Game:
Player A completes bossfight and gets New Power A

Patch adds support for:
Player B skips bossfight and gets New Power A.

Player A being upset about this patch and demanding that player B not get this option is pretty outrageous to me. I think it's fair to try and understand why someone might only derive enjoyment if someone else, less skilled, is unable to derive enjoyment.

It's never the players to decide, but as stated in the optional content scenario, which boss battles become when skippable, if I want to reward a player specifically for completing a fight, should I not be able to?

IE: Using Dark Souls 1 as an example: Do I give the player who skips the bell gargoyles the tail axe even though a player who plays that encounter might miss it?

Devs don't have to feel necessary to do add an easy mode. I've said this many times. Only if they want to. Goodness me.

Need was a poor choice of words, basically what I'm getting at is that discounting the consequence of an easy mode is something there is obviously a disagreement about on the player and creator levels. That should probably be worth considering but you seem to be convinced it would have no effect. For the life of me I don't see where that confidence comes from, especially when it should affect the way players help each other, but if that's your go to, you do you.

 

[BossLackey]

Imagine is Souls games did this.

Exactly what I thought.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Some people love the aesthetics of Cuphead, but don't like the high difficulty level. Why not allow some form of skip so that, if some players want to, they can see more of the game?

Cuphead basically does this. "Simple" difficulty makes bosses trivially easy and removes entire phases from fights to make them easier.

Wouldn't you know it, RPS wrote an article whining about it. Go figure!

 

[Solid Shammy]

All the games you listed are balanced around easy difficulties. Players looking for a challenge are not looking for Uncharted 4, Mass Effect, GTA, etc. People don't care about narrative difficulty in these games because the gameplay is mediocre and not the appeal.

Games are either balanced for bad players or good players. Games balanced for bad players aren't very engaging for good players, and the opposite is true as well.

This is such a simple and inaccurate way of looking at things along with some broad generalisations and facts that you've dragged outta nowhere that still completely misses my point. You should stop assigning the title of bad player to people who play games that you think of as mediocre. Not cool dude.

 

[JamesHolden]

It's never the players to decide, but as stated in the optional content scenario, which boss battles become when skippable, if I want to reward a player specifically for completing a fight, should I not be able to?

IE: Using Dark Souls 1 as an example: Do I give the player who skips the bell gargoyles the tail axe even though a player who plays that encounter might miss it?

The reward is the enjoyment you got from beating a difficult boss encounter. Again, this is a single player experience.

 

[Wulfram]

well obviously the onus is on the developers, they're the ones making the game! I'm not disputing that it's up to the developers to make the decision to implement it, and as I've mentioned I don't agree with the extreme point of view that not ensuring a player can access every part of the game is equivalent to stealing, I'm just saying that it would be a good thing in some cases for the developers to prioritise adding this feature, because:
A. A number of people would want and use it
B. It doesn't ruin the game for people who don't want to use it
C. It's (potentially) not a huge time consuming feature to add (depending on the game)

What if it ruins the game for the people who want the feature and use it? Isn't that a legitimate concern for the developers?

 

[TheRedSnifit]

This is such a simple and inaccurate way of looking at things along with some broad generalisations and facts that you've dragged outta nowhere that still completely misses my point. You should stop assigning the title of bad player to people who play games that you think of as mediocre. Not cool dude.

These games are all balanced around easy difficulty. The harder difficulties in them (those that have them, anyway) are blatantly tacked on and range from "Also pretty easy" to "Ludicrously broken because it was never playtested." Somebody who's looking for a challenging game is not going to go out and buy GTA V.

Like I said, there's no way to satisfy both those looking for a challenge, and those who aren't. They require completely different design.

 

[DerpHause]

The reward is the enjoyment you got from beating a difficult boss encounter. Again, this is a single player experience.

No, the reward is the Tail Axe in the scenario because the developer chose to reward skillful and knowledgeable execution. What's wrong with appreciating that and desiring more of it?

Should DMC style beat-em-ups stop ranking player performance and rewarding xp for it?

 

[Solid Shammy]

It's never the players to decide, but as stated in the optional content scenario, which boss battles become when skippable, if I want to reward a player specifically for completing a fight, should I not be able to?

IE: Using Dark Souls 1 as an example: Do I give the player who skips the bell gargoyles the tail axe even though a player who plays that encounter might miss it?



Need was a poor choice of words, basically what I'm getting at is that discounting the consequence of an easy mode is something there is obviously a disagreement about on the player and creator levels. That should probably be worth considering but you seem to be convinced it would have no effect. For the life of me I don't see where that confidence comes from, especially when it should affect the way players help each other, but if that's your go to, you do you.

How would it effect the way players play with one another?

 

[Clear]

The arguments about completion rates are moot if players can simply elect to bypass chunks of games! How can you say you've completed anything if in order to reach "the end" you skipped a load of stuff?

As I wrote earlier, it feels to me like Walker's argument is that of someone who prefers talking about a games to actually playing them. I mean essentially what we're talking about is basically every game should have a cheat mode! Great for people to say "Yay, I've beaten x game" when they really haven't.

The problem with cheat modes also is that that they are -by design- game breakers. They make a mockery of the very idea of a difficulty curve, or different progression paths having greater or lesser degrees of basic challenge. Because when all challenge is reduced to zero, choice is meaningless in a ludic sense.

This in a nutshell is the deadly flaw of the argument; if developers want to offer a "guided tour" mode, or one that lowers the diffivculty grading to an elementary level, thats fine. Because its still a crafted experience. Allowing the player to make ad-hoc choices about skipping content is like putting an enormously overpowered weapon or mechanic into a game and expecting players not to abuse it.

 

[KDR_11k]

Given how often games end up with random difficulty spikes, particularly bullshit bosses or just unfun parts a skip would be worth it even just as a fallback.

I mean, think about, say, Mega Man 1. The Yellow Devil fight was garbage. Everybody used the pause glitch to skip that guy or at least large parts of his fight. Imagine that glitch wasn't there, how many people would actually have gotten past the Yellow Devil? A long, difficult fight that's not fun.

People glitch or cheese bosses all the time, how much does that actually differ from skipping them? It still avoids the intended game experience.

Personally I often find boss fights an unwelcome alteration to the game's rules, while some of them are mastery tests a lot are just big enemies that are often immune to some parts of your arsenal and if there are game mechanics related to dealing with multiple enemies (kill combos, refills from kills, etc) these are often simply deactivated or awkwardly shoehorned in. Sometimes they even shift genres (swapping action and stealth, for example) and that's IMO always a bad idea because it means the game is only consistently good for people who enjoy all of the included genres. For example I play Metroidvanias mostly for the exploration aspect, the ones that throw hard bosses in there (especially if frequent) switch out the exploration and careful advancing for fast pattern-reaction and may end up locking me out of more of that exploration gameplay because I can't do the specific combat challenge well enough (or just keep me away from the gameplay I want out of the game for a while because I have to practice fighting that boss for many attempts).

And then there are genres like FPS that are notorious for having awful bosses, the few that actually have fun ones stand out.

 

[DerpHause]

How would it effect the way players play with one another?

By the definition of your hypothetical it cuts the easy mode players off from online interaction (or was that someone else who proposed that?). Even eithout that It lowers skill barriers by it's intended function which reduces desire for help, which in turn reduces actual help requested and thus given.

 

[JamesHolden]

No, the reward is the Tail Axe in the scenario because the developer chose to reward skillful and knowledgeable execution. What's wrong with appreciating that and desiring more of it?

Should DMC style beat-em-ups stop ranking player performance and rewarding xp for it?

There is nothing wrong about it, but it is equally fair for those of us who don't care about a secondary experience existing to judge you for your opinion, and to try and understand why psychologically someone would feel this way.

 

[DerpHause]

There is nothing wrong about it, but it is equally fair for those of us who don't care about a secondary experience existing to judge you for your opinion, and to try and understand why psychologically someone would feel this way.

You can, sure, and you'll be judged in turn as is the case with every post for each of us.

Still, I'm not sure why it's hard to understand why people want a hobby that often rewards performance to reward performance.

 

[JamesHolden]

You can, sure, and you'll be judged in turn as is the case with every post for each of us.

Still, I'm not sure why it's hard to understand why people want a hobby that often rewards performance to reward performance.

It has nothing to do with "rewards performance" as you are still rewarded for beating a boss fight even if someone else skips it. Its the specific reward that validates you as a skillful player that is difficult to understand. Achievements/Trophies can still exist that lets everybody know how skilled you are. If that's not enough...

 

[TheContact]

Let’s just skip the entire game. I’ll give them $60 for a digital manual

 

[Solid Shammy]

By the definition of your hypothetical it cuts the easy mode players off from online interaction (or was that someone else who proposed that?). Even eithout that It lowers skill barriers by it's intended function which reduces desire for help, which in turn reduces actual help requested and thus given.

Players that would take advantage of my hypothetical easy mode probably wouldn't play enough of the main game to actually get into the multiplayer content in the first place. Therefore this easy mode wouldn't be taking any of the original players away but instead letting players that otherwise wouldn't play the game play it. Dark Souls is incredibly intricate and even its multiplayer is daunting the newcomers.

 

[DerpHause]

It has nothing to do with "rewards performance" as you are still rewarded for beating a boss fight even if someone else skips it.

So by rewarding performance of an optional task we aren't rewarding performance...

wat?

Its the specific reward that validates you as a skillful player that is difficult to understand. Achievement can still exist that lets everybody know how skilled you are. If that's not enough...

I can't play with an achievement. Why would I want one of those when my efforts could be rewarded by enhancing the game?

 

[Samemind]

The training mode analogy is horrible considering that you disregarding the difference in playstyles between going through arcade mode vs. playing in training mode (or versus other players for that matter). Never mind that you have a CPU in arcade mode vs. a fully customizable experience in training mode tailored toward improving and getting better. Therein lies the fundamental difference, training mode used as a means towards getting better vs. giving an out to players and skipping boss fights/or selecting parts simply because they are low-engagement users.

I was trying to draw a parallel in giving players the choice to skip right to the part they actually want to spend their time doing. To me, the analogy amply serves that purpose. I mean, it would be very easy to make the argument that training mode is totally unnecessary. It adds nothing to the game in terms of content and everything you would want to do in there could be done against a non-controlled AI. But we both understand why that's impeding the player's experience for no good reason.

Additionally arguing for re-experience disregards that some games actively allow you to rewatch cutscenes, or play through bosses that you want to experience in a rush mode, etc., so it's not as if certain games don't already provide this kind of experience. Granted it's not consistent and there's still a lot of improvement to be had, but it's not as if debug mode is the be-all, end-all solution.

I'm ignoring features that only partially accomplish what I'd like to see? Why wouldn't I? It almost sounds to me like you're getting hung up on semantics, if you think cutscene replay and boss rush are ideas that could be improved on. I don't think I ever said anything about a debug mode, but rather that the core functionality of picking a point in the game start from already gets made most of the time and subsequently omitted from user access. Call it Scene Select or whatever, debugging wasn't the point of my argument.

Also, I don't buy that letting people play whichever parts of the game that it means developers won't have to design games to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Primarily bc there's no incentive to create good design when you don't know how your base will respond to them. Look at Pokemon, they scrapped some of the postgame features because they weren't sure that consumers were devoting time to them with the advent of tablets. Granted that is postgame, but the point still remains, where there is no incentive to do so, developers will simply scale back.

I don't understand how this relates to letting players pick the parts of the game they want to play. Just to be clear, I was using lowest common denominator in relation to player skill.

 

[DerpHause]

Players that would take advantage of my hypothetical easy mode probably wouldn't play enough of the main game to actually get into the multiplayer content in the first place.

Yeah, this is the part I have no idea where the certainty comes from. We're talking specifically about a tool designed to help those struggling with the skill barrier not being affected by changing the skill barrier.

That makes no sense to me.

 

[Dubz]

My first Zelda is BOTW, and I would love to be able to skip the puzzle bosses. All I really wanted to do in that game was explore. I didn't mind the small puzzles, but I just youtubed the large ones.

/flameshield

 

[Manu]

Let's say a new horror movie comes out. The movie quickly becomes known through word of mouth for being the goriest movie ever. Like, "people actually throwing up at the theater" gory. It's also a really good movie, of course. Nobody would give a shit about it if it wasn't. Cheap gory movies are dime a dozen. But so are good horror movies. It's the combination of being a really good movie + the gore that makes this movie special. Also, the themes and story wouldn't work without the violence. Some key scenes are really fucking hard to watch.

So you pick up the movie and skip through all the gory parts. By the end you're left with a mediocre movie that's missing some key scenes. You don't understand what all the fuzz was about. You're disappointed.

 

[JamesHolden]

So by rewarding performance of an optional task we aren't rewarding performance...

wat?



I can't play with an achievement. Why would I want one of those when my efforts could be rewarded by enhancing the game?

I don't think you are understanding what I am saying. Have a nice day.

 

[Radnom]

Cuphead basically does this. "Simple" difficulty makes bosses trivially easy and removes entire phases from fights to make them easier.

Wouldn't you know it, RPS wrote an article whining about it. Go figure!

They literally say it is a better game for including simple mode:

Cuphead is a better game for including simple mode, but an easy difficulty level that didn’t remove any content would have been better still.

What if it ruins the game for the people who want the feature and use it? Isn't that a legitimate concern for the developers?

Yeah! It is a potential concern. It's adding another way to play the game that isn't intended, in the same way that players can turn the brightness all the way up in a horror game so that both icons are visible, or playing games in all these ways that aren't intended:
https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/915763320120102912
Reading here, most people aren't likely to use it at all. Of those that do use it, a lot of them will be using it not to bypass content they haven't seen before, but to skip past something they've already seen. Some few might skip bosses they haven't seen that they would otherwise have struggled through and defeated, and some few of those might regret using the option. We can try and limit that final number by hiding the option in a settings menu and making it clear that it's not the intended way to play the game.


Here's a story of how I'd use the Skip Boss function:

I recently played the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 remaster on the PS3. I ended up at the final boss way under leveled and struggled against it. I'd already beaten it on PS2 at launch and enjoyed replaying the game greatly. However, I didn't want to grind out a bunch of levels to have a chance to defeat the final boss. This is the exact situation that I would love a boss skip button - not to skip something I've never experienced, but to experience the end of the game that I previously enjoyed and get that sweet resolution. Instead, I've got a save file stuck at 98% through the game. In this case limiting skip to only letting people who have a completed save file would be useless to me, because my old save file is on a PS2 memory card somewhere, if it hasn't been lost.

 

[Phu]

Here's a story of how I'd use the Skip Boss function:

I recently played the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 remaster on the PS3. I ended up at the final boss way under leveled and struggled against it. I'd already beaten it on PS2 at launch and enjoyed replaying the game greatly. However, I didn't want to grind out a bunch of levels to have a chance to defeat the final boss. This is the exact situation that I would love a boss skip button - not to skip something I've never experienced, but to experience the end of the game that I previously enjoyed and get that sweet resolution. Instead, I've got a save file stuck at 98% through the game. In this case limiting skip to only letting people who have a completed save file would be useless to me, because my old save file is on a PS2 memory card somewhere, if it hasn't been lost.

What if the game was just designed so you didn't have to grind?

 

[Solid Shammy]

Yeah, this is the part I have no idea where the certainty comes from. We're talking specifically about a tool designed to help those struggling with the skill barrier not being affected by changing the skill barrier.

That makes no sense to me.

Dark Souls already has an offline mode for people that want to avoid invasions yet the multiplayer still remains active. How would an offline easy mode that disables trophies effect the multiplayer population any more than the offline mode that it already has? That on top of the PC version having modders and all sorts while still remaining a healthy online game and these games selling in the millions makes me feel pretty confident that it my hypothetical easy mode existed the multiplayer would be just fine.

 

[DerpHause]

I don't think you are understanding what I am saying. Have a nice day.

You're saying we should be happy with my out of game number go upper thing obviously.

You're saying that we should be judged for liking games that internally acknowledge player success in ways useful to the player.

You're saying that judgement should further extend to withholding those rewards from those who don't meet the metric of completion the game requires.

The understanding is clear.

 

[CelestialWolfZX]

I actually think this is an alright idea in fact. I understand that in an ideal situation a boss is supposed to test a players skill that they have learned everything up to this point in the game and that everything from that point on is going to be harder so what's the point in skipping this. That's the ideal situation in most games... but that doesn't always happen, even in some of the best games of all time.

This is Shadow Yukiko from Persona 4. The first major boss you fight in Persona 4 (All the other bosses you've faced so far have mainly been tutorial like bosses, with one mini-boss in there that's decently challenging). Shadow Yukiko in theory is also intended to be semi-tutorial as well, She summons a helper that can heal her, informing the player you should focus on taking out the healers/buffers first, she also has a powerful AOE move called Burn to Ashes, which can grant her another move to her if it hits Chie due to the games Once More system, which informs the player to build their party carefully as the enemies will take advantage of your weaknesses (And also that's not a bad idea to guard once in awhile as well)

The problem is Shadow Yukiko hits a little too hard, even if you know what you are doing, you can just lose based on not actually being leveled enough needing to grind it out in the dungeons a fair bit or craft a specific persona (Slime, Archangel or Valkyrie is commonly suggested) just to take her on. The additional grinding is also a lot harder since your healing abilities will be very limited early on in the game and a full party heal would mean leaving the dungeon and letting a day pass (and the number of days you have to beat a dungeon are limited as well). It was bad enough that in Persona 4 Golden then actually made her easier by giving her an Ice Weakness.

That said, for the skill level of the player versus the skill the games expects the player to be at when the reach it, Yukiko is one of the most frustratingly hard bosses in the game. A number of the bosses after her, whilst still no slouches to beat since it is an Atlus game, don't require nearly as much preparation to beat them. I can say to some people Yukiko is frustrating enough to scare people from actually playing Persona 4 any further than her... which is a real shame because of how good Persona 4 is.

This isn't limited to Bosses by the way, sometimes there are levels that are overly hard or have a frustrating gimmick to deal with that it may scare players off from playing the rest of the game. Anyone who's played the original Driver will know the pain of it's "Tutorial" level that is arguably harder than the rest of the game.

The other thing to take into account is varying player abilities as well. You yourself might have had no difficulty of Shadow Yukiko and beat the Driver Tutorial first time... but that doesn't mean everyone will, some people might even struggle on bosses many see as easy. There's even some bosses people might not be able to beat at all, say they are deaf for example and you need to listen to the bosses audio cues to know which attack is coming (assume the game doesn't have subtiltles) is it fair for that person to have to stop playing the game they were enjoying at this point just because they are deaf?

Then there's just general preference in what you like to do in a game. Some people maybe just don't like fighting bosses and just prefer trying to rush through platforming stages as fast as possible or perhaps they just want to get to the golden saucer and play it's mini games all day. Maybe they just want to raise their Chao to the maximum level and don't want to take a dive into Aquatic Mine. They could be playing Final Fantasy VIII only for Triple Triad and don't care for the RPG battles at all. Let them do that. They saw that they had to fight The Imprisoned yet again and thought "Please, not this guy again!" and wanted to skip it, I see no shame in wanting to do that. To even flip the table, maybe they just want to skip all the regular levels and just get to the bosses to turn the game into a boss rush.

I don't think giving the player more choices on how they want to play their game is a bad idea. Let the people play their game how they want to play it. A Scene Select system to let people play however they want to play only seems like a benefit to most people.

 

[dead souls]

The one good decision I can attribute to Rockstar is the fact that they let you skip any missions you fail several times. Because yes, if I think a mission is bullshit, I'm going to quit and play another game.

Agreed. Every once in a while a mission just aggravates the hell out of me so it's a nice option to have.

 

[Manu]

You'd only want to skip the tutorial in Driver because it's terribly design and doesn't explain shit. It's not even about the challenge. If if was hard but at least told you what you're supposed to do I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.

 

[Airola]

Given how often games end up with random difficulty spikes, particularly bullshit bosses or just unfun parts a skip would be worth it even just as a fallback.

I mean, think about, say, Mega Man 1. The Yellow Devil fight was garbage. Everybody used the pause glitch to skip that guy or at least large parts of his fight. Imagine that glitch wasn't there, how many people would actually have gotten past the Yellow Devil? A long, difficult fight that's not fun.

I didn't use the pause glitch. Back in the day I don't think people even really knew about that glitch.

So what if people wouldn't have gotten past the Yellow Devil? That's the end of their adventure. It's not the end of the world. They can't beat the game and that's it.

People glitch or cheese bosses all the time, how much does that actually differ from skipping them? It still avoids the intended game experience.

There's a world of difference in abusing glitches and tricks compared to a simple option in the menu screen that allows skipping things and which is deliberately built in to the game without it even being a secret thing for people to find out.

For example I play Metroidvanias mostly for the exploration aspect, the ones that throw hard bosses in there (especially if frequent) switch out the exploration and careful advancing for fast pattern-reaction and may end up locking me out of more of that exploration gameplay because I can't do the specific combat challenge well enough (or just keep me away from the gameplay I want out of the game for a while because I have to practice fighting that boss for many attempts).

So?
That's the end of the road for you then.

My all-time favorite game is La-Mulana. Nothing even comes close to that. And I haven't even been able to beat the game. I'm still stuck at the final boss and can't beat it even after watching playthroughs and tutorials. I have accepted that my adventure ended there and I wasn't able to beat the game but the game beat me.

The final boss holds a special place in my heart because of that. While seeing things on Youtube certainly ruins the mystery quite a bit, it's still better than if there was an option for me to skip the boss and run to the exit. This boss wouldn't have the same aura anymore. But now it still is this dreadful enemy that managed to stop me.

While I could practice and maybe be able to one day beat it, I don't really even feel the need to do that. I still think it's the best video game ever created.

 

[Radnom]

My all-time favorite game is La-Mulana. Nothing even comes close to that. And I haven't even been able to beat the game. I'm still stuck at the final boss and can't beat it even after watching playthroughs and tutorials. I have accepted that my adventure ended there and I wasn't able to beat the game but the game beat me.

The final boss holds a special place in my heart because of that. While seeing things on Youtube certainly ruins the mystery quite a bit, it's still better than if there was an option for me to skip the boss and run to the exit. This boss wouldn't have the same aura anymore. But now it still is this dreadful enemy that managed to stop me.

While I could practice and maybe be able to one day beat it, I don't really even feel the need to do that. I still think it's the best video game ever created.

The thing is, in this hypothetical scenario where La-Mulana had a skip boss button, you wouldn't have to use it. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have used it. And even if you did use it, you still would never have beaten that boss, and you wouldn't have beaten La-Mulana. You might have seen the credits, but you wouldn't have beaten it, and you'd know that in your heart. The game still beat you. The skip button doesn't change that.

What if the game was just designed so you didn't have to grind?

Well, yeah, that would be cool for me as an adult, but there are tonnes of people who really enjoy that aspect of Kingdom Hearts and would be sad to see it go. When I played the original when younger and had more free time, I really enjoyed the grind!

That's one of the reasons why I think this is such a good solution, it lets people who want to skip a way around the problem without changing the design of the game who like it as it is.

I hope that clarifies my position a bit!

 

[DerpHause]

Dark Souls already has an offline mode for people that want to avoid invasions yet the multiplayer still remains active.

How would an offline easy mode that disables trophies effect the multiplayer population any more than the offline mode that it already has? That on top of the PC version having modders and all sorts while still remaining a healthy online game and these games selling in the millions makes me feel pretty confident that it my hypothetical easy mode existed the multiplayer would be just fine.

Offline mode certainly does turn off multiplayer for that player. Someone playing offline very likely isn't someone at a skill level that benefits from coop or simply doesn't want to use it.

But more importantly, people play offline mode for different reasons entirely that engaging with an easy mode. Offline mode is not engaged to bypass a skill barrier. Offline mode not addressing skill barriers promotes online mode and the coop system. So obviously we're not talking the same subset of people and thus can't reasonably argue no detraction from the online community, though we can debate the degree.

Trophies are irrelevant and meaningless.

Mods aren't constrained to or endorsed by developer intent of the actual systems built into the game, just because you can transform it on a specific platform doesn't create any reason for the dev to do it for you.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

The bosses in La-Mulana are the easy part.

Skipping the bosses would make the game minute-for-minute HARDER.

Why not just acknowledge those individuals aren't looking for the experience you're trying to provide and move on? I guess what I'm missing is the impetus to act on this proposed change here. At least when looking at the games intent.



v0v

TL;DR of my last post responding to you was basically: A subset of people do like to be challenged in games. That subset is profitable. Therefore it's completely logical to make games for them.

So we're off our meds here and we're losing our ability to read for context, recognize everyone who ain't in 100% agreement is 100% opposed, and the ability to not drop to insinuations and mudslinging from word "go".

Time to step away from the computer for a bit there, Cal.

 

[Phu]

Well, yeah, that would be cool for me as an adult, but there are tonnes of people who really enjoy that aspect of Kingdom Hearts and would be sad to see it go. When I played the original as a child I really enjoyed the grind!

That's one of the reasons why I think this is such a good solution, it lets people who want to skip a way around the problem without changing the design of the game who like it as it is.

I hope that clarifies my position a bit!

I think it would have an effect on the design of the game because boss fights would become superfluous if it didn't matter whether you played them or not. Why even have them at that point if they are apparently not important enough to effect the overall experience? I also don't see how skipping would be better than simply offering a difficulty mode/option that awards more/less xp.

 

[DerpHause]

So we're off our meds here and we're losing our ability to read for context, recognize everyone who ain't in 100% agreement is 100% opposed, and the ability to not drop to insinuations and mudslinging from word "go".

Time to step away from the computer for a bit there, Cal.

The context you provided was advocating accessibility for accessibilitie's sake over tone and message and trying to tie that into basic human drives. I responded to that. If you have a more nuanced message I'd be happy to hear it.

And rereading just to make sure, you fundamentally and without nuance and no redeeming context basically called it a bad decision to make a hard game. You got a response to what you gave.

 

[Solid Shammy]

Offline mode certainly does turn off multiplayer for that player. Someone playing offline very likely isn't someone at a skill level that benefits from coop or simply doesn't want to use it.

But more importantly, people play offline mode for different reasons entirely that engaging with an easy mode. Offline mode is not engaged to bypass a skill barrier. Offline mode not addressing skill barriers promotes online mode and the coop system. So obviously we're not talking the same subset of people and thus can't reasonably argue no detraction from the online community, though we can debate the degree.

Trophies are irrelevant and meaningless.

Mods aren't constrained to or endorsed by developer intent of the actual systems built into the game, just because you can transform it on a specific platform doesn't create any reason for the dev to do it for you.

I agree trophies are irrelevant but can't deny many obsess over them and a mode that disabled them would be a huge turn off for many. Plus I think that would be fair considering they would be playing essentially the God Mode version of the game. Anyway yeah, one way or another like I said earlier this is all just a hypothetical scenario and there'd be no way to gauge how it would work unless of course From actually implemented this into one of their games. You and I both just have different ideas on how this could potentially effect the game.

 

[KDR_11k]

Trophies are irrelevant and meaningless.

Gameplay rewards for everything make no sense. Either you give something that makes the game easier which lowers the difficulty exactly for those who want it high or you give something that adds new challenges or ways to play but the latter then requires its own reward for completion which again either makes it easier or adds challenge... It's an infinite cycle and would require infinite development. The Completionist often goes "and for getting 100% of X you unlock special challenfge Y and for finally beating that you unlock special challenge Z and when I finally beat THAT one I got nothing". Yeah, at some point you just get nothing beyond the satisfaction of having beaten the toughest challenge.

I think it would have an effect on the design of the game because boss fights would become superfluous if it didn't matter whether you played them or not. Why even have them at that point if they are apparently not important enough to effect the overall experience? I also don't see how skipping would be better than simply offering a difficulty mode/option that awards more/less xp.

I mean, numerous games seem to have boss fights more out of a sense of obligation than actual need...

 

[DerpHause]

Gameplay rewards for everything make no sense. Either you give something that makes the game easier which lowers the difficulty exactly for those who want it high or you give something that adds new challenges or ways to play but the latter then requires its own reward for completion which again either makes it easier or adds challenge... It's an infinite cycle and would require infinite development.

Infinite design only becomes required in an infinite game. Going to borrow souls games again, which aer certainly not infinite. Each boss has an effective reward for defeat in the form of a soul for unique weapons. Some have unique abilities which create options in play but don't really alter difficulty. No infinite development, yet rewards for milestone completion without compromise to any game loops.

Edit: And doesn't XP for killing or completing anything already fill that criteria in a small way? With modern games building in protections against overleveling to eliminate cases of overpowering anyways this seems like an issue we figured out a while ago.

I agree trophies are irrelevant but can't deny many obsess over them and a mode that disabled them would be a huge turn off for many. Plus I think that would be fair considering they would be playing essentially the God Mode version of the game. Anyway yeah, one way or another like I said earlier this is all just a hypothetical scenario and there'd be no way to gauge how it would work unless of course From actually implemented this into one of their games. You and I both just have different ideas on how this could potentially effect the game.

This is certainly true.

 

[KDR_11k]

I didn't use the pause glitch. Back in the day I don't think people even really knew about that glitch.

So what if people wouldn't have gotten past the Yellow Devil? That's the end of their adventure. It's not the end of the world. They can't beat the game and that's it.



There's a world of difference in abusing glitches and tricks compared to a simple option in the menu screen that allows skipping things and which is deliberately built in to the game without it even being a secret thing for people to find out.



So?
That's the end of the road for you then.

Can I get a refund for the parts of the game I can't reach then?

 

[Airola]

The thing is, in this hypothetical scenario where La-Mulana had a skip boss button, you wouldn't have to use it. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have used it. And even if you did use it, you still would never have beaten that boss, and you wouldn't have beaten La-Mulana. You might have seen the credits, but you wouldn't have beaten it, and you'd know that in your heart. The game still beat you. The skip button doesn't change that.

But it would've changed the way I feel about the game.
Had I used the hypothetical button, yeah I really theoretically wouldn't have beat the game. But I would've still played the last part. I would've been able to play a place and situation that only should be for those who have been able to beat the final boss.

And had I not used the button, there would still be this sense of the game having an "instant-beat" option for the bosses. When the game doesn't even offer things like that the enemies have a bigger sense of a threat. Then they feel the way they feel now. The places you are able to go after beating certain bosses have a greater sense of mystery because they are behind a boss which is required to be killed for you to be able to enter the new area.

Having the game itself tell you that it's possible to skip the boss would make the mystery a non-mystery. The threat of the enemy would be hindered. The game itself is offering you an option to skip an enemy without you having to do anything else than choose the option and push a button. The game itself has then pushed down its sense of mystery just by offering the option. The only way for the game to retain the exact same sense of mystery is to keep it the way it is and not even give an option.

I could understand if the game would let you skip the boss by finding another way around it and using your exploration skills to find the secret. And while you could say that these things would be known to everyone anyway and not many would really even need any exploration skills to find the way around the bosses because they can look it up on Youtube, it STILL is much better than the game itself saying it straight to your face that the bosses you encounter and the places you visit doesn't necessarily require you to have combat and exploration skills as you can just choose this option and push a button to do it.

It really is completely different to look up clues online to do a trick or to find a secret way than to have a damn toggle button in the main menu to let the game do it all for you. At least you still have to first find out the secret thing whether it was watching a video or reading gamefaqs or a gaming magazine instead of the game saying it to you before you even have played the game for one second.