Support NeoGAF

[DerpHause]

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

Honest question: What other products does this apply to?

Do you get a discount on musical instruments for a song you can't play? Do manufacturers give discounts to customers who can't figure out how devices work? Publishers refunding parts of books for words you don't know? What's the reasonable comparison here?

 

[Airola]

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

You have paid for the code and the media the code is in.

If you don't accept that you don't get to see all the animations in the game because you don't want to 'unlock' them the way the programmers have coded the game to unlock them for you, by all means ask for a refund if it's still possible. Or find a mod to do it. Or look up for a cheat.

The game creators, however, don't owe you anything else than a bunch of "IF-THEN-ELSE" codes to work properly. If you can't accept what they offer, you don't have to buy it.


EDIT:
I think game boxes should have a disclaimer that says "YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO BEAT THIS GAME"
Rubik's Cubes also should have a disclaimer that says "YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SOLVE THIS PUZZLE"

 

[Kaleinc]

If I come back to a game I haven't played for a while looking to replay a specific boss or level, having an auto save from the end of the game doesn't help me. They should just let people play whatever levels they want to play.

A ton of mission based games let you choose any level after beating the game once. Also this end of the game autosave 'problem' is not existent on pc.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

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

They literally say that allowing players to skip content (in this case, boss phases and animations) isn't as good as just having players experience the content with more health or such.

It's almost like skipping parts of a game leads to a sub-optimal experience!

 

[Radnom]

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.

It does matter if you played them, because they're fun to play.
More/less XP doesn't solve the cases where someone would want to skip a boss not because it's difficult but for another reason.

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.

Right, in this specific case of La Mulana which is a game that is notoriously difficult and obtuse, there could be specific reasons not to have a skip boss button including preserving a sense of mystery. Your arguments are good and I'm guessing they would likely match the developer's point of view in that regard (they added a hard mode... a hard mode for La Mulana...). I hope I have been clear that I don't believe that every game should absolutely have a skip boss button. I do think that the downsides you mention can be avoided with precautions (hide the option to enable boss skip in a menu, don't allow toggling it while in-game only at launch, give ample warnings before turning it on, even hide it behind a cheat code!) but in very rare cases, some games may be better off without the options.

A lot of these discussions end up coming back to extra-difficult games where difficulty is a key theme, like Dark Souls and Cuphead. How about the example that I brought up at the end of this post, Persona 5. Would you have an issue with specifically Persona 5 having a Boss Skip option?

They literally say that allowing players to skip content (in this case, boss phases and animations) isn't as good as just having players experience the content with more health or such.

Yes, for players that are struggling to beat sections of the game, an easier mode where nothing is skipped is in most cases a much better solution for players than just entirely skipping parts of the game. I completely agree with that. But as I've stated multiple times, skipping bosses is not just about difficulty or struggling or experiencing 'all of the content'. There are reasons to skip other than those.

It's almost like skipping parts of a game leads to a sub-optimal experience!

I agree. I've mentioned before that skipping parts of the game that you haven't played before isn't the optimal way to experience the game, and if you do skip content that you haven't seen, then you're missing out.

I agree with you on those points, but those aren't reasons not to have a 'Skip Boss' button in games for all the good it does.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

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.

It's only "easy" to make that argument if you somehow disregard the competitive roots of fighting games, as well as disregarding that they are far more skill intensive than other genres. In that regard it comes off as obtuse and forcing similarities in a way that one forces a square peg in a circle hole. Additionally, you're impeding the experience in fighting games by taking away training mode, but what exactly are you taking away by not allowing the ability to skip to certain points/skip bosses? That's why the analogy doesn't serve your purpose well at all: There is a clear difference between spending time in training to learn mechanics, and improve on their skill set vs. allowing skip points because people just don't want to spend time to beat a certain part of the game.

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.

It may not be the point of your argument but you seem to miss that there are completely different purposes to what you see from developers as far as debugging is vs. what you want in a skip feature. It's not as simple as "devs do it, so why can't we???" And I'm not getting caught up on semantics, I'm just saying these features exist and if need be, they can be improved upon without having to interference with the gameplay experience.

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.

The idea being that if you're just going to allow skip points, then what's the point of designing any boss battle? If developers see that people are just going to spam x to skip onto the next cutscene then there's really no incentive to create any kind of challenge. The problem ITT seems to be that people point to small amounts of bad design and assume that skip points should be standard, rather than looking at ways that game design can be improved.

 

[Phu]

It does matter if you played them, because they're fun to play.
More/less XP doesn't solve the cases where someone would want to skip a boss not because it's difficult but for another reason.

If you've got the option between fighting and skipping and both choices are acceptable, then it actually doesn't matter which choice you go with. It's effectively turning a boss into an optional sidequest with a very curious time restraint.

 

[Radnom]

The idea being that if you're just going to allow skip points, then what's the point of designing any boss battle? If developers see that people are just going to spam x to skip onto the next cutscene then there's really no incentive to create any kind of challenge. The problem ITT seems to be that people point to small amounts of bad design and assume that skip points should be standard, rather than looking at ways that game design can be improved.

That argument doesn't hold up. 'If people are going to skip, why have challenge'? Because of all the people who won't skip, because you want to make a good game, because that's where the gameplay lies. I'm not asking for a different game, I'm asking for the same game, with an optional choice to skip some boss battles if I want to. I still want those bosses to exist, because I want to fight them and play them, because boss battles are often some of the best parts of the game.

Games have been released with cheats and even cheat menus before. It hasn't stopped those games having challenge.

If you've got the option between fighting and skipping and both choices are acceptable, then it actually doesn't matter which choice you go with. It's effectively turning a boss into an optional sidequest with a very curious time restraint.

I really don't understand your point here at all.
It's not like every boss is going to pop up with a big option 'FIGHT or SKIP?'. The proposed solution in the article and in many posts would be something harder to access. It would be very clear that skipping is not ideal, and it wouldn't be an impulse selection or an accident.
Also, it DOES matter which choice you go with. One is a fun boss fight where you get to play the game, the other is nothing, and then you continue.

It's a similar choice the player makes when they skip a cutscene - do I want to miss out on something potentially great and important or just move to the next part of the game? The first choice is almost always going to be the best one, except for in cases like, for example, they are replaying the scene and don't want to watch it again, in which case the option is welcomed.

 

[Jaymageck]

If a developer wants to do this, they can.

If they don't want to, they shouldn't feel like they have to.

Games are like any other creative endeavor. The creator chooses how to express themselves.

Should I be able to skip every enemy encounter in Dark Souls? What if easy mode isn't easy enough? Should developers have a mode where enemies just stand still or fall over? Is dark souls mandated to have more story because without it and without the combat the consumer is getting next to nothing?

You choose what you buy. It's not realistic to demand creators make every game accessible to absolutely everyone and I don't think the current level is too inaccessible.

 

[Phu]

I really don't understand your point here at all.
It's not like every boss is going to pop up with a big option 'FIGHT or SKIP?'. The proposed solution in the article and in many posts would be something harder to access. It would be very clear that skipping is not ideal, and it wouldn't be an impulse selection or an accident.
Also, it DOES matter which choice you go with. One is a fun boss fight where you get to play the game, the other is nothing, and then you continue.

It's a similar choice the player makes when they skip a cutscene - do I want to miss out on something potentially great and important or just move to the next part of the game? The first choice is almost always going to be the best one, except for in cases like, for example, they are replaying the scene and don't want to watch it again, in which case the option is welcomed.

You're completely misreading 'it doesn't matter' so I can't help you understand.

 

[Radnom]

You're completely misreading 'it doesn't matter' so I can't help you understand.

What do you mean by it doesn't matter?

All I can think is either 'if I can technically avoid the boss fight through some official method given to me by the game then I should take it because it's the optimal approach" therefore the choice doesn't matter, or else it's more likely that you mean that the rewards of beating the boss versus avoiding the boss are the same, therefore it doesn't matter what you pick?

But one option isn't fighting the boss. If I were offered the equal choice to fight the boss and receive 1000xp or skip the boss and receive 1000xp, I'd almost always choose to fight it because that's the fun part of the game for me. One option is fun, the other is zero fun. The case where I'd pick the other option is if I were replaying the game and wanted to skip it for some reason.

If I'm still not understanding your meaning of 'it doesn't matter', please let me know. There's definitely an argument against having a skip boss option that I've been struggling to understand this entire topic.

 

[Phu]

What do you mean by it doesn't matter?

All I can think is either 'if I can technically avoid the boss fight through some official method given to me by the game then I should take it because it's the optimal approach" therefore the choice doesn't matter, or else it's more likely that you mean that the rewards of beating the boss versus avoiding the boss are the same, therefore it doesn't matter what you pick?

But one option isn't fighting the boss. If I were offered the equal choice to fight the boss and receive 1000xp or skip the boss and receive 1000xp, I'd almost always choose to fight it because that's the fun part of the game for me. One option is fun, the other is zero fun. The case where I'd pick the other option is if I were replaying the game and wanted to skip it for some reason.

If I'm still not understanding your meaning of 'it doesn't matter', please let me know. There's definitely an argument against having a skip boss option that I've been struggling to understand this entire topic.

I'm basically saying something like this:

I ask you, "What do you want for lunch? We can get chicken or salad, it doesn't matter.' and you're responding with 'Actually, it does matter, because one option gets us chicken while the other gets us salad.' However, the point was what to have for lunch and both options are viable and fulfill that role. That's my meaning of 'it doesn't matter' except in the case of boss or no boss, one option takes significant effort to create while the other is relatively no effort.

 

[Radnom]

Haha, sorry mate, I'm trying but I don't think I understand this analogy at all. My apologies for the confusion!

 

[Dynasty8]

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

If that's the case, maybe you should stop playing games altogether. Or maybe you should do some basic research on what games to buy. And maybe you should stop feeling so entitled.

You basically have two options:

1. Suck it up and overcome the challenge the game is intended to offer (most of which are very easy nowadays).

2. Don't buy the game and just watch someone else overcome that not so difficult challenge for free online.

Win win situation if you ask me.

 

[Samemind]

It's only "easy" to make that argument if you somehow disregard the competitive roots of fighting games, as well as disregarding that they are far more skill intensive than other genres. In that regard it comes off as obtuse and forcing similarities in a way that one forces a square peg in a circle hole. Additionally, you're impeding the experience in fighting games by taking away training mode, but what exactly are you taking away by not allowing the ability to skip to certain points/skip bosses? That's why the analogy doesn't serve your purpose well at all: There is a clear difference between spending time in training to learn mechanics, and improve on their skill set vs. allowing skip points because people just don't want to spend time to beat a certain part of the game.

Of course I'm disregarding the skill factor, because it's irrelevant to the point. And you're going to have try harder to explain why time lost doing things you're not interested in due to lack of tools in one genre is different from time lost doing things you're not interested in due to lack of tools in another genre. Like I've previously stated, getting free access to the game's contents is as beneficial to the highly-enthusiastic player as it is the low-skilled one. I would be terrifiicly chuffed if I could revisit my favorite JRPG scenes at a moment's notice, without needing dozens of hours of my time to pre-register save points for future use.

It may not be the point of your argument but you seem to miss that there are completely different purposes to what you see from developers as far as debugging is vs. what you want in a skip feature. It's not as simple as "devs do it, so why can't we???" And I'm not getting caught up on semantics, I'm just saying these features exist and if need be, they can be improved upon without having to interference with the gameplay experience.

There's no special or sacred distinction between the features developers choose to include in the game versus those they build for themselves, it's completely arbitrary. Radial menus, scrolling through your inventory without opening a menu, real-time weapon switching, FAST TRAVEL. Any number of these could be features developers used for debugging purposes without including them in the final game. Hell, Just Cause 3 devs thought spawning in whatever you wanted was fun enough so they threw it in. And what possible interference are you talking about? When you played a game with level select in it, what precisely caused an interference in your experience? What is an optional option going to do to interfere with your experience?

The idea being that if you're just going to allow skip points, then what's the point of designing any boss battle?

What's the point of designing a video game?

If developers see that people are just going to spam x to skip onto the next cutscene then there's really no incentive to create any kind of challenge. The problem ITT seems to be that people point to small amounts of bad design and assume that skip points should be standard, rather than looking at ways that game design can be improved.

I really don't believe you'd see a massive shift in player behavior. It's not how most people watch movies or read books. It it did happen, what does that tell us? That people playing video games currently are consistently having a worse experience than they could have? Why shouldn't devs seek to remedy this? You say "just make a better design, guys". That is like several orders of magnitude more resource-intensive of a solution, to tweak everything case-by-case rather than adding a relatively cheap, all bases covered safety-net. You're talking about cases you might not even find until the game's out the door and in the hands of hundreds or thousands. If your game involves new, esoteric ideas where are you going to find the fix to your broken designs before you get the feedback that it's broken?

 

[Theosmeo]

In lots of talk I've heard here and elsewhere about boss fights people say they should be a test of what you've learned, but I always come away asking why? It's just another part of the game, why lay down a rule like this that it has to be a test. Many games have platforming segments that are more difficult than their boss fights for example. Boss fights tend to be more difficult or tests because narrative-wise they end up being climaxes but i can think of many games where it would benefit the boss not to be a test or a climax in the story. Most people here have played Dark Souls so I'll use it as an example. Sif is a giant wolf who isn't a super hard fight relative to the rest of the game. However learning his patterns can throw some for a loop at first. Now when he gets close to defeat he starts to get weaker and limp around, which makes the player feel sorry for him. If you perceive boss fights as a challenging test this doesn't make much sense but it makes the games story, atmosphere, and world more interesting, personal, and emotional. So by first assigning all boss fights to the category of scary tests and then saying that will make it difficult for some gamers and all boss fights should be skippable you have made the Sif fight skippable, and therefore important story and lore information skippable. The expirience can't reach everyone which is the opposite of what the article's message is trying to impart.

 

[Vermillion]

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

...Isn't Cuphead a boss rush game that had platforming levels added with delays? If you skip the bosses, you don't have much left...

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?

...Because the reward for completing a boss fight is typically advancing in the game. If you have no need to complete the boss fight to advance, you've taken away the reward. So now, no, it's not enough of a reward.

 

[Vermillion]

Double post

 

[SprachBrooks]

No but it takes the mystery away from the bosses if the game itself has built in a feature that makes the boss to not be an obstacle.

Let's say you go to a mountain climbing course where the end goal is to climb on top of an unclimbable mountain. The mountain has this sense of mystery to it. It feels dangerous. It is a legend among the people who know about it.

You are ready to begin the climb. Then the person who has organized the climbing course comes and says "hey, if you don't want to climb the mountain but still want to go to the top, you can take this helicopter here and we'll fly you on top."

While there is still the option to climb, the whole mysterious feeling of the mountain climbing course is partly dimished the moment they even bring in the option to use the helicopter. The mountain itself just doesn't feel the same anymore.

How can an end boss and the path to it retain the mysterious feeling if you are given the option to not go through that path?

So yes, even giving the option can be a bad thing even for those who will never use the option.

Why not go even so far that you would be given the possibility to see what happens when you beat the already optional bosses in, say, FF7 and FF9 without you having to beat them at all? I mean, if the players should be entitled to see everything in the game then they should be able to get to see what happens after you beat the optional bosses too. The Weapons in FF7 and Ozma in FF9 would greatly lose the sense of mystery and dread if the option to get to see what happens after you beat them without having to win them at all.

No. You're presupposing this is an option before one even takes on the boss fight. You're presupposing its implementation as well. Stop presupposing and use the effort to think of how this can be better implemented. Hell, True Crime Streets of L.A. had a smart feature where you could lose to the boss and move to the next all beaten up.

The point is this: try the boss, die once, option to skip is provided. No one is forcing you to press 'yes'.

 

[Airola]

How about the example that I brought up at the end of this post, Persona 5. Would you have an issue with specifically Persona 5 having a Boss Skip option?

I haven't played Persona 5 and I don't even quite know what it's like so can't say much about it.

I'll go through your points nevertheless and try to comment on them even without knowing the game:

No intrinsic link between difficulty and theme like Dark Souls.

I don't think the only reason why Dark Souls shouldn't have a skip boss option is because of its theme. My reasonings pretty much apply to every game from Super Mario Bros. 1 to Dark Souls.

There's already an Easy Mode.

The existence of an Easy Mode doesn't mean there should be an Easier Mode.

There's already a 'skip cutscene/dialogue' option that can be used even the first time through.

I don't think cutscenes and dialogues are important unless the things that are shown and said there are required for the player to understand to advance in the game so I don't mind there being a skip cutscene option from the get go.

Highly replayable so a skip will likely be well-used.

So why not give that option after completing the game?

No multiplayer.

Ok.

A lot of people who would love the storytelling sections don't like turn based RPG combat.

I guess this was the reason for some Final Fantasy phone games to have an option to have automatic battles. Or was there even an option to completely skip the battles?

I am against that too.

I am also against the rewind option in The Disney Afternoon Collection. The mere knowing of the option makes the game feel less enjoyable. Each time I die, it is in my mind that there is this option to make this obstacle completely meaningless. Without the existence of the option the obstacle remains the obstacle it was meant to be and my mind won't even think the obstacle would be less meaningful.

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.

Ok.

The game doesn't teach you necessary mechanics during the scenes.

But the scenes are the parts where the player is tested on how well they have learned the mechanics.

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.
During a boss fight, press Start to pause, then choose it 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.

It's not only about being tempted by the option, although that is a problem too. It's about the existence of the option having an effect in how the player feels the game to be from the get go.

By the way, why there would be the need to have a victory cutscene and rewards from the battle? Why wouldn't it just be that you choose the option and the enemy goes away and you continue playing as if it never was there? Why should you have to see the "winning screen" and get the rewards if you didn't actually do anything the programmers had programmed for the player to have to do to get those screens and rewards?

Let's make an extreme comparison:

You are playing Super Mario Bros. 1 and there is this coin in a tough place that you just can't seem to be able to get to. Should you have an option to press a button and have the coin vanish from where it was and to be added to your coin stash?

Oh hell, now I thought about there being an option to make the Hammer Brothers vanish in level 8-3 by just pressing a button. Had that been an option back in the day, that level and the enemies would've never had the 'aura' of a dreadful obstacle they now have. Kids playing that level would've eventually pretty certainly used it, me included, just out of convenience because you really can't tell kids to not use things that make things easier because they usually are impatient because it's natural for them and they haven't yet learned to be patient.

No. You're presupposing this is an option before one even takes on the boss fight. You're presupposing its implementation as well. Stop presupposing and use the effort to think of how this can be better implemented. Hell, True Crime Streets of L.A. had a smart feature where you could lose to the boss and move to the next all beaten up.

The point is this: try the boss, die once, option to skip is provided. No one is forcing you to press 'yes'.

If it is an option that has to be chosen from the menu screens, then it's something that's already in mind before even beginning to play the game.

If it's something that isn't in the menu screen, but you can access it by pausing the game, then it's available for everyone anytime. And that sucks too.

It's not about being forced to choose the option. It's about the option being there from the get go and having an effect on how the game is being perceived. The game asking if you are sure won't help at all. The option is still there. It's there and it says the obstacles you encounter have been made to be less of an obstacle.

Why not include a button in the game world for every boss, that when you encounter the boss and run to a wall and press the button there, the enemy falls into a pit. You don't have to use the button but it's there to let other get through the enemy faster. I would say that would be the better option because at least it's in the game world and not an arbitrary option in the pause screen. But that would still be bullshit.

Why not give each player a special weapon that lets you kill anything with one shot? You don't have to use it but it's there for those who want to proceed faster.

See, the option to skip bosses is no different from that. And if you really would say you having this special weapon in your inventory wouldn't change how the game feels like even if you would never use it... then you just don't understand the issue and I don't know what to say to you.

 

[TheRazielim]

I actually tend to think that games do have artistic merit, and as such, no one is entitled to finishing them once they've purchased it.

 

[Gravy Boat]

A ton of mission based games let you choose any level after beating the game once. Also this end of the game autosave 'problem' is not existent on pc.

There's also many more games that don't. I also don't play on PC, and even if I did, creating a save at the beginning/end of each section on the off chance I want to come back and play a specific part seems very tedious. Letting me pick what point of the game I start playing at just seems like a net positive honestly.

 

[Calabi]

I actually tend to think that games do have artistic merit, and as such, no one is entitled to finishing them once they've purchased it.

Movies and books have artistic merit and yet I can skip to the end in them.

Its weird and sad. Gaming is limited to such a small audience just through ability.

There's so few people that will see all the great artistic merit in Cuphead because its locked behind an arbitrary difficulty. In a way its similar to the kings of old that would get artists to create works and then keep it for themselves. Gaming is like an exclusive club, get out unless your good enough.

 

[TheRazielim]

Movies and books have artistic merit and yet I can skip to the end in them.

Its weird and sad. Gaming is limited to such a small audience just through ability.

There's so few people that will see all the great artistic merit in Cuphead because its locked behind an arbitrary difficulty. In a way its similar to the kings of old that would get artists to create works and then keep it for themselves. Gaming is like an exclusive club, get out unless your good enough.

I don't think comparisons with movies and books are apt, given that interactivity is a huge part of what makes games different from them.

I don't think Cuphead's difficulty is arbitrary. It's a design choice made by the creators of the game, and that's how they think the game should be played. Anyone who is willing to invest time and be patient can overcome that difficulty. It's not an exclusive club either, since the game is available for everyone to purchase and play.

Mind you, if a developer thinks that skipping boss fights makes sense with their artistic vision, so be it. Like I don't have a problem with Ubisoft's tourism mode, because the series has had shallow Skinner box design for ages and the only pleasure I've gotten out of it in the past is indeed the virtual tourism part, so glad that the devs implicitly admit that too.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

I'm reminded of education where a lot of students feel entitled to a degree just because they've paid for it.

No, you're not entitled to all the content of the game. But you are entitled to the opportunity to try. Gaming is like sports, it requires you to have a certain level of skill to experience it. Unfortunately that's how it is.

I mean, unless it's a walking simulator or a VN I guess.

 

[Gravy Boat]

I don't think comparisons with movies and books are apt, given that interactivity is a huge part of what makes games different from them.

I don't think Cuphead's difficulty is arbitrary. It's a design choice made by the creators of the game, and that's how they think the game should be played. Anyone who is willing to invest time and be patient can overcome that difficulty. It's not an exclusive club either, since the game is available for everyone to purchase and play.

Mind you, if a developer thinks that skipping boss fights makes sense with their artistic vision, so be it. Like I don't have a problem with Ubisoft's tourism mode, because the series has had shallow Skinner box design for ages and the only pleasure I've gotten out of it in the past is indeed the virtual tourism part, so glad that the devs implicitly admit that too.

I can skip cutscenes and speed through conversations in The Witcher 3. Are you saying that makes sense within the developers artistic vision of the game?

 

[TheRazielim]

I can skip cutscenes and speed through conversations in The Witcher 3. Are you saying that makes sense within the developers artistic vision of the game?

But you can't skip through conversation points that require you to make a decision. Boss fights require your input.

 

[enkaisu]

Heck yeah, I love paying for a video game just to skip core aspects of it!

 

[Berserking Guts]

I'm reminded of education where a lot of students feel entitled to a degree just because they've paid for it.

No, you're not entitled to all the content of the game. But you are entitled to the opportunity to try. Gaming is like sports, it requires you to have a certain level of skill to experience it. Unfortunately that's how it is.

I mean, unless it's a walking simulator or a VN I guess.

This guy gets it.

 

[Calfirma]

Movies and books have artistic merit and yet I can skip to the end in them.

Its weird and sad. Gaming is limited to such a small audience just through ability.

If you are skipping movies and books then why the hell are you even reading/watching them? They have artistic merit and yet you ignore the art. Its like going to a national art gallery and not looking at *any* other picture and going straight to the Mona Lisa before leaving.

I just cant understand why anyone could think that this is a valid argument for skipping parts of games, of you really don't want to do the content of a game then watch someone else do it. It isn't like it matters who does the content seeing as you were skipping it anyway.

 

[RRockman]

Um guys, just because you can skip parts in other media, doesn't mean that you should.

Using that as an argument is incredibly flawed because many of those artists and writers would gladly keep the twists and turns out of your reach before you were ready for them.

 

[alt27]

I think most games should have an easy or story mode , but skip bosses ? No

 

[Gravy Boat]

But you can't skip through conversation points that require you to make a decision. Boss fights require your input.

I can still skip through all the story and dialogue required to make a meaningful choice. Otherwise I'm just selecting random options, which again, I doubt was an artistic choice on the developers part.

 

[Skux]

If you're at the point where you want to skip boss fights, you're consuming the wrong form of media.

 

[RockmanBN]

Never seen a person skip ahead in a movie. Why are games compared to movies now?

 

[Galava]

Games in general are not to be consumed the way the player wants it, but as the developer intended you to experience it.

Stop comparing games to other media, they are their own art form, and if the developer wants you to go boss by boss, you go boss by boss, if the dev wants to challenge you, the game will be difficult...etc.

Behind the games there is an artistic vision, something they want to make you experience, and by skipping content just because, destroys that vision.

It's not about what you want the game to be, the game is what it is because someone wanted it to be like that.

Now, deves are free to include any QoL feature that allows to skip bosses and stuff, but don't force them to do it.

 

[dead souls]

If you're at the point where you want to skip boss fights, you're consuming the wrong form of media.

Nah, sometimes a boss just gives you trouble when the rest of the game doesn't. I see no problem with someone skipping that boss, or really any other one they want to.

The negative reaction to this is completely baffling to me. Anybody who gets upset about how other people interact with single player toys really needs to reassess some things about their life.

 

[Calfirma]

The negative reaction to this is completely baffling to me. Anybody who gets upset about how other people interact with single player toys really needs to reassess some things about their life.

What you just said is a negative comment in itself don't act like your the good person here.

Its true that people shouldn't care want others do but you also forget that to add these options in for the other players will also be an option for the people who actually want to play for the game and as someone said earlier in this thread. It doesn't matter if you use it or not, the fact that the option exists for you ruins the atmosphere of the game sometimes and so by adding this function you'd be depreciate the enjoyment of others.

P.s my phone is about to die so sorry about grammer etc.

 

[TheRazielim]

I can still skip through all the story and dialogue required to make a meaningful choice. Otherwise I'm just selecting random options, which again, I doubt was an artistic choice on the developers part.

If you insist in making this baseless comparison, what are these random options in the context of a boss fight, then?

 

[SOME-MIST]

Movies and books have artistic merit and yet I can skip to the end in them.

Its weird and sad. Gaming is limited to such a small audience just through ability.

There's so few people that will see all the great artistic merit in Cuphead because its locked behind an arbitrary difficulty. In a way its similar to the kings of old that would get artists to create works and then keep it for themselves. Gaming is like an exclusive club, get out unless your good enough.

I'm so glad that this doesn't extend to games I love

like imagine if cuphead were like dangun feveron and the only way to reach the true final boss is to clear the entire game without dying once. people would be losing their shit

it's very interesting that there's this big debate over difficulty because of the wider appeal of the game due to the art style alone.

 

[FireSol]

Holy fuck. It's starting to get really sad how neogaf has become so pathetic when it comes to challenging yourself and actually being good at the game.

"NeoGAF is a nexus of hardcore gamers, enthusiast press, and video game industry developers and publishers. This is a neutral ground where facts and evidence, presented within the confines of civil, inclusive discourse, prevail through careful moderation."

Hardcore gamers? Get the fuck out NeoGaf you are drunk.

 

[RedSwirl]

This thread has reached the point where it's just going around in circles.

 

[ActWan]

A new video from TheGamingBritShow about the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoOK6e_y1q8

I pretty much agree with most of what he's saying.

 

[Manu]

A new video from TheGamingBritShow about the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoOK6e_y1q8

I pretty much agree with most of what he's saying.

Great video.

Everyone in this thread should watch it.

 

[Calabi]

A new video from TheGamingBritShow about the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoOK6e_y1q8

I pretty much agree with most of what he's saying.

Yeah great video, very exclusionary its his singular vision of what he thinks and wants games to be. His vision isnt enticing new people. Gaming is in decline.

Having hardcore extremely difficult games isnt attractive to people outside gaming at all. I dont see how that could be. Most people arent like what he thinks they are. They quit after dying once in an online match. You have to ease people into the difficulty first. I dont see many games that do that anymore. People have an extreme variation of abilities, by making a game very hard a developer is excluding a lot of people just by that.

Challenge is great in games I love it. But gaming is in danger of losing itself in that. Of playing to its diminishing audience and not adapting and inviting new audiences.

The crazy thing about gaming is it can do both in a single game. Forget the skipping content aspect(or dont) just give the games an easy mode with slightly less rewards. It doesnt diminish, the game or the challenge on harder difficulties.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Yeah great video, very exclusionary its his singular vision of what he thinks and wants games to be. His vision isnt enticing new people. Gaming is in decline.

Having hardcore extremely difficult games isnt attractive to people outside gaming at all. I dont see how that could be. Most people arent like what he thinks they are. They quit after dying once in an online match. You have to ease people into the difficulty first. I dont see many games that do that anymore. People have an extreme variation of abilities, by making a game very hard a developer is excluding a lot of people just by that.

Challenge is great in games I love it. But gaming is in danger of losing itself in that. Of playing to its diminishing audience and not adapting and inviting new audiences.

The crazy thing about gaming is it can do both in a single game. Forget the skipping content aspect(or dont) just give the games an easy mode with slightly less rewards. It doesnt diminish, the game or the challenge on harder difficulties.

Most games don't ease players into challenge because they're built around easy mode. It's the same reason that barely any games these days have have a clear visual style with effective signposting: because they know that their target audience is just going to follow a giant arrow anyways.

One example here is Prey 2017, which was originally going to have a lot more "survival" elements, but Arkane/Bethesda decided they were too hardcore for the average player and removed them. This gimped the challenge and and cut down on a lot of players' engagement with it. You might think the solution is obvious -- just have a Hardcore mode for people like me, and forgiving difficulties for everyone else! In fact, that's basically what Walker is suggesting. But that ignores the fact that developing and refining game systems takes time. The developer has a choice to make between easy-mode players, or players who want challenge.

Like it or not, this is precisely how "one's own isolated experience of a game is cheapened, lessened, impacted in any conceivable way, by the isolated experience of someone else playing that game."

Challenge is great in games I love it. But gaming is in danger of losing itself in that. Of playing to its diminishing audience and not adapting and inviting new audiences.

This is bizarre when the vast majority of games are incredibly easy. If anything, single-player games are in danger of losing more and more marketshare to the multiplayer space, which is becoming one of the only places in the medium you can find challenge. The traditional, AAA single-player game is dying out while while multiplayer games like PUBG, CoD, and CSGO dominate the charts; maybe it's time devs start trying to win back that audience, instead of everybody trying to appeal to the same hyper-casual walking-sim fan who doesn't seem to actually exist in the huge numbers game journalists claim.

 

[MrBadger]

Never seen a person skip ahead in a movie. Why are games compared to movies now?

People don't tend to skip ahead in movies, but the option is there for people who want to.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

People don't tend to skip ahead in movies, but the option is there for people who want to.

Not in theatres.

 

[jono51]

Just watch a Let's Play. There is this guy on youtube called "DarkSydePhil" who plays all the big games. Check him out.

 

[Earthpainting]

Great video.

Everyone in this thread should watch it.

It's the same argument we've seen in this very thread many times, and it didn't convert its detractors because it failed to understand the core of the issue. Individual experience and skill levels are going to make everyone experience a challenge differently. If the goal is to set up a struggle and letting you overcome the hardships, it's important to realise that some people may be locked out of the latter part where the payoff is supposed to happen for reasons beyond their control. If that is supposedly the entire point of making a game challenging in the first place, the game fails at the very thing set out to achieve for those players. If you think that's fine and those people should go do something else, that's an opinion you're entitled to, but that's why some people are criticising it as an arbitrarily exclusionary attitude. This pretty much permeates the entire video, and is punctuated by the guy patronisingly referring to easier modes as "child-proofed".

The argument that developers only have so much time and resources to spend on a title is true, but that doesn't stop the criticism from being valid. It'll continue to be brought up as long as it's relevant to a player.