I don't think this is a distinction worth making. If the only barrier between having fun and not having fun is the fact that you could possibly be defeating the game in an easier manner, and you choose to not have fun, that is just stubborn.
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Giant Bomb Thread #5 - We love you, Ryan Davis
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I don't think this is a distinction worth making. If the only barrier between having fun and not having fun is the fact that you could possibly be defeating the game in an easier manner, and you choose to not have fun, that is just stubborn.
They will never get past this.
I don't find playing my way fun, and I don't especially find trying another way to play a bad game fun, either. It's not me choosing not to have fun -- It's me choosing to have fun by playing a better-designed game instead.
chickdigger802
Banned
its amazing how musou games in 2013 still animate roughly like how they did (or how I imagine they do, don't correct me with your 'evidence' and stuff 
) back on ps1 or 2.
Is it too much for enemies to ragdoll away?
) back on ps1 or 2.Is it too much for enemies to ragdoll away?
razgriz417
Member
Sad that they decided to QL the broken ass 360 version of DW8, I've always loved the series and see it as the evolution of old school beat-em ups.
Well the crux of your argument is that if the game is not designed so that the default method is not fun, the game is boring. It's an unanswerable question because you still haven't defined what the "default method" is. Is it the difficulty level? Is it how you play? What your loadout is?
So a game is only fun if the default way is fun? All the other tools aren't worth shit huh. So what's the default method to play through Dark Souls? I take issue with that because what would you define as the default method?
Why don't you just play on the easiest difficulty then? Then you can finish the challenges with little resistance. So just because you can play on Easy Automatic in DMC3, the game has boring design? Just because you can play on easy/use cheats for [insert favourite game here] it has boring design? Because that's what you mean by defeating obstacles with the path of least resistance. If that trivializes the obstacle, then why do you want an obstacle there anyway?
The tools are there for you to have fun with, but you don't want to use them for God knows what reason and then decry a game for being boring and offering you choice in how to play. Those tools were put there for a reason, you could even say the game was designed around them being used, but just because it's not necessary in your warpath to trivialize difficulty it makes the game design boring. Okay.
If you're willing, could you provide like, 5 games you consider fun?
its amazing how musou games in 2013 still animate roughly like how they did (or how I imagine they do, don't correct me with your 'evidence' and stuff
Is it too much for enemies to ragdoll away?
Basically yes. Ragdoll middleware is optimised for way less enemies ragdolling at once than those games would want. If they went through the pain to develop their own physics engine to handle it, then the PS3 and 360 could do it.
Seriously - what is WRONG with you? Why do you keep obsessing over this question? Dark Souls is a game that is not boring by design. I have said this three times now. This question is irrelevant because this game does. not. have. the. problem. I'm. describing. For the fourth time. Get over asking me about it, because I'm not going to answer. Dark Souls isn't a boring game, largely because it does force the player to use more than a single idiotic thing to get through it. again.
A game that is boring by design is a game like Dynasty Warriors. (you know, the one we've been talking about the entire time here and the one that sparked the discussion) Walking through the levels and mashing the X button is a winning strategy. It beats more or less everything in the game, other than maybe a couple things where you have to press a different button instead.
You keep bringing up all these other things and other games, but we're talking about Dynasty Warriors here. It's a game that is designed to be boring, and you have to go out of your way to make it not boring. I'm not talking about good games like Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy or Halo or Fire Emblem. I'm talking about fucking Dynasty Warriors.
You are making an argument against Dynasty Warriors that can also be applied to plenty of good or even great video games. It is possible to play Vanquish in a very boring, effective manner. That has absolutely no bearing on whether or not Vanquish is well designed, or good. It's not the designer's job to drag players kicking and screaming towards fun.
I've beaten Dark Souls just by holding up a shield and stabbing with a spear, with the exception of Moonlight Butterfly since you need range for it. It was also pretty boring. Therefore Dark Souls is a boring game.
I've completely dismantled your argument.
I actually did think some sections of Vanquish were pretty boring. However, the game was pretty short, and there were plenty of sections that forced you out of that stupid comfort zone - certainly enough that I wouldn't say the game was boringly-designed overall.
securitypigeon
Banned
The fact that this conversation is even happening is a testament to Dynasty Warriors probably not doing something right.
vitaminwateryum
corporate swill
You seem to be looking at it very objectively for some reason.
There is no specific design that will make something 100% exciting or boring. I used to be super into Dynasty Warriors games when I was younger, and Dark Souls can be super boring if you just aren't into it.
This is like saying Gears is a boring game because if you're playing on easy you can just run around and shoot things without needing to take cover. If you're going to play a Dynasty Warriors game on the hardest difficulty and do nothing but basic attacks, you're going to get wrecked.
Is it really "designed" to be boring, just because you don't think it's interesting? I think Fire Emblem is boring as fuck. but the game is well designed and obviously isn't intended to be boring.
OK, well, I guess I didn't stumble across that game-ruining tactic. Granted, I haven't played more than 10 or 15 hours of the game.
Thanks for letting me know that it is, in fact, a bad game and I can now safely not bother going back to play more of it.
It's not really told to you, but through experimentation I found that tactic (it was also my first run through).
I've clocked 200+ hours on Dark Souls, and a vast majority of that is gimmick builds or forced restriction. It makes the game way more fun because it forces me to be creative with how to deal with bosses, or just to perform flawlessly. That pursuit of perfection and stretching the gameplay systems is something I find extremely fun. I adore stressing and exploring gameplay systems, so of course I absolutely love games like Bayonetta/DMC as well.
I don't even think the designers intended that, but here we are.
That's cool, and I'm not going to say your tastes are wrong, just that they're different to mine. There have been a rare handful of games over the years that have caused me to do things like that, but they were more common in my youth when I didn't have the income to just buy a different game if I didn't like the one I was playing.
I still maintain that a game where the simplest and most obvious thing to do, repeated ad nauseum, is a winning strategy, is boring by design. That's not to say that people can't go out and find fun in a game set up that way, but only that the base game is fundamentally boring. Just as basketball would be boring a boring game if it was illegal to defend a player from dribbling down the lane for a layup, or a platformer with no enemies and no pits where you simply hold right to win.
A game where the simplest and most obvious strategy is effective but often difficult to use is not boring. I'm reminded of the scene in Chasimg Amy where they're playing Skee-ball and the girl says, "Why not just walk down there and put it in the 50 every time?" The answer, of course, is that the rules of the game are that you roll the balls up the ramp from the far end, which makes the simple and obvious not necessarily so easy - not that skee-ball is an especially challenging game. Good video games accomplish this in a variety of ways, From enemy/obstacle placement, to enemies with different properties, and so on. I mean, most of this is really obvious stuff, but I think people really aren't getting where I'm coming from here, and maybe some of that is from me not being clear, and admittedly, being a little snarky from time to time.
...yes it is. If the game is not well designed enough for all players to have fun, then these players can use that as a complaint. There's no such thing as "you're playing it wrong."
The thing that ticks me off is that you are willing to condemn a game because one of the many ways to play is boring. Why, if I adopted that stance I would never play any game ever again. Playing on easy rots my brain, using the boring but effective strategy rots my brain. By my standards, everything is boring by design. But that's simply not true because I still have fun with games. What you would consider hard, I would consider easy, which makes the whole "boring by design" a nebulous concept. You have to take into consideration the extra tools the designer gives to the player. Fundamentally boring as a term doesn't really make any sense because you are assigning it an objectivity that it doesn't have. I think you should just throw that term in to the bin.
Game design does have objectivity at a fundamental level. You're talking about products as a whole, while I'm talking about the fundamental rules, tools and obstacles offered in the game as a self-contained entity. Perhaps that's where the disconnect is coming from.
And yes, the difficulty settings of a game fall under the "obstacles" area, and "easy" mode is generally very boring in most games. However, I think we're both smart enough to know going in that that will be the case, and choosing a more appropriate difficulty setting doesn't require anything of the player. I also refrain from using cheat codes and other things that subvert the game experience, at least during my initial playthrough.
I do find it unfortunate that a lot of games put a too-easy difficulty on the "normal" setting, which should be the best representation of a game. Some games (Such as EDF3/2017) also fail to make it clear up-front that the highest difficulty levels can't be tackled until the player spends time improving their character on lower difficulty levels. This is also bad design, but EDF on Inferno is one of my great joys in gaming despite this.
edit - and one more note, I'm not necessarily condemning every game that is boring at a fundamental level. Some boring games are very entertaining products for other reasons. The game parts of the Walking Dead, for instance, are the most rote and simple adventure game puzzles you'll ever see, but the overall product is very good for other reasons. Even the aforementioned EDF, which I love, is borderline boring on normal difficulty. You get a slew of varied weapons, but only really have any incentive to use 2 or 3 of them until the higher difficulties. Alan Wake had a basic combat premise that I thought was interesting, but then it became far too one-note and repetitive over the course of the game, but I found myself enjoying the story, so I had no problem slogging through a few more sections to see how it turned out.
ThreePiMatt
Member
I think you're misunderstanding. The issue isn't that there's one overly effective tactic that the player can use to beat a game (which is still an issue), the problem is when that one overly effective tactic is basically the simple, default attack. Its the reason people complain about button mashers in fighting games. If someone knows the moves, knows the combos, knows the strategy, but can still be felled by someone just mindlessly pounding the buttons, that is a fundamentally bad game.
I should add in a disclaimer that I generally find all games of the genre to be pretty much unplayable to me. God of War, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, can't stand any of them. I find them all to be mind numbingly dull.
You kinda contradicted your "path of least resistance" point there. I thought you wanted no resistance. You're now saying you don't want to pick the path of least resistance? I'm getting mixed messages here.
Winning itself is worthless, I can stomp lower skilled players with ease in multiplayer games. But I don't do it because it's not very fun, and there's no value in doing so. That's what I see when you make your argument. I could play in this totally boring way, but why would I do that when I could be playing in a different, more fun way? I don't see the point in being stubborn and doing things only in one way, or holding on to "playing the default way".
That's a badly designed game, not necessarily a boring game.
Winning for winning's sake is worthless. Why do you find those games dull anyway? Are you playing on Easy or what?
Yeah, you're really not getting anything I'm saying here. I'm just going to bow out of the conversation at this point. We're not only not on the same page, we're not even in the same library.
Yeah we've gotten pretty far from the main point so let me try and purify my argument.
If you are playing a game in a style that is boring you, and you are too stubborn to experiment and find a more fun style, then you are an idiot for self-inflicting a boring play style.
I think that gets the point across quite nicely.
I'll jump on this boat. Although part 3 was a step down from part 2 IMO.
I usually just stop playing said game - Who says I keep playing them? As I said above, there are situations where reasons other than gameplay make continuing worthwhile, but most often I just stop playing a bad game and pick up a better one in its place.
ThreePiMatt
Member
The point is, if I'm playing a game in a style that is boring, but effective, I'd sooner put the game down and find something more stimulating out of the box than trying to come up with some self-imposed limitation or some other meta-challenge like seeing how high a combo I can get. I put the onus on the developer to come up with a gameplay loop that is stimulating and requires finesse.
This is why I dislike your arguments. Just because a game isn't fun in this one specific playstyle that you play in, out of many that are designed and supported in a game, makes the game as a whole objectively bad. A ridiculous stance.
The style is in the game, you just choose not to use it. Who cares if it's effective if it's boring, why don't you try this other way which may not be as effective but is a hell of a lot more fun? No? You don't play games to have fun?
TemplaerDude
Member
This is the most sprawling and pointless argument over games some people may or may not find boring that I have seen on this forum.
My apologies. If I had known so many people would get so angry that I called a game boring and then repeatedly either ignore or not get what I was saying, I'd have never brought it up.
We can drop this as soon as Brashnir accepts that he's being dumb
Plus, we entering weekendGB-Gaf now. Time to get creepy!
TemplaerDude
Member
Dynasty Warriors is boring as fuck, though.
ThreePiMatt
Member
So, Pacific Rim: The Game isn't boring, you're just not playing it right? I'm sorry, if playing the game to win isn't fun, the game isn't fun.
Are there different ways to play it? You tell me, I don't know anything about that game. My argument doesn't affect games with a limited breadth of verb application.
Are you attaching the fun inherently to the win, or the things you need to do for the win, because if it's the latter then that's what I've been arguing the entire time.
ThreePiMatt
Member
I attach fun to overcoming challenges, which is a key part to beating games.
What about overcoming challenges in a boring manner, or through cheesing?
In that case, I don't understand why you don't find DMC/Bayonetta/NG fun, since they provide a crazy amount of challenge (although I wish all the harder difficulties were unlocked from the start).
ThreePiMatt
Member
Well, then its not really a challenge then, is it?
Then I don't even know why we're arguing. Far as I can tell, you're views line up mostly with mine.
Infinite Justice
Member
damn Patrick and Alex are keeping the content flowing.
Very cool to see
Very cool to see
lol
Now let's get back on topic, Patrick's got a lot of time on his hands now, but I don't exactly know how he's gonna fill it. I'm really hoping for an Earthbound playthrough but I'm worried about dead air if he's gonna play through by himself.
It's starting to feel like the site is getting back to normal, or as close to normal as it can get.
Now let's get back on topic, Patrick's got a lot of time on his hands now, but I don't exactly know how he's gonna fill it. I'm really hoping for an Earthbound playthrough but I'm worried about dead air if he's gonna play through by himself.
It's starting to feel like the site is getting back to normal, or as close to normal as it can get.
SteveWinwood
Member
hey guys what about dynasty warriors
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