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Super Mario Maker: Not all tools available from the start, unlock over 9 days

phanphare

Banned
Can't believe some people are trying to justify this.

as someone who will be playing more vs. creating I'm actually very interested to see how this plays out

I have a feeling it will create a pretty cool progression of levels. much like Splatoon when a new weapon is released, I'm envisioning a new tool getting unlocked and the community going balls deep with that particular tool, creating levels to take it to its limits. that type of collective experience stuff is really interesting to me. like one week people will be going batshit crazy with one tool, the next week it'll be another.
 
Designing the game so you you gradually unlock content is absolutely a game design issue. Just because you want to arbitrarily disconnect the two situations doesn't make most gamers any less stupid.

You're right, it's a game design issue in that it's poor game design. If people are having trouble with a certain aspect of a game, locking that content behind a day counter for everyone regardless of how much quicker someone might figure stuff out is poor game design.
 

Mcdohl

Member
What should I do if I'm a 100% not ok with this?

I don't want to cancel my pre-order, I do want to play this game. And I'm sure it will be a blast.

But on the other side I don't want to encourage this trend.

1st world dilemma.

Maybe the solution is buying it used?
 
What should I do if I'm a 100% not ok with this?

I don't want to cancel my pre-order, I do want to play this game. And I'm sure it will be a blast.

But on the other side I don't want to encourage this trend.

1st world dilemma.

Maybe the solution is buying it used?

Just play the game you big baby.
 
What should I do if I'm a 100% not ok with this?

I don't want to cancel my pre-order, I do want to play this game. And I'm sure it will be a blast.

But on the other side I don't want to encourage this trend.

1st world dilemma.

Maybe the solution is buying it used?

"Trend"
 
The fact that you're posting on a gaming forum about this means that you're not one of the people who needs this.

There's a reason games have more unskippable tutorials nowadays, why more content is gated behind gradual unlocking schemes. It's because playtesting as shown that if you don't, people get lost, confused, and abandon the game.
Did GAF exist when kids were beating Zelda and Metroid in the 80s?
 

Kriken

Member
I'll just echo what I said in the other thread.

The concept of unlocking more assets doesn't bother me at all, I'll spend some time seeing what i can do with basic assets and then expand as more are introduced, simple enough. My problem is the time frame as if I were to theoretically spend 8 hours over the course of one or two days of it being launched, I should have a firm understanding of the editor and its assets and be able to work with all assets. If I were to design the unlock method, it'd be based on half-hour/hour intervals where the new asset packs are unlocked immediately after the requirement is met. I already set my Wii U's clock back 9 days so when I get it I'll theoretically have all the assets day 1 and a normal in-game clock
 

_woLf

Member
It's not the end of the world but it is a really, really dumb and and unnecessary decision. Makes me not really want to play much until I have everything because I'll keep thinking "I want to use ___ but I can't"

I like the music stuff and FX though.
 

xaszatm

Banned
Can't believe some people are trying to justify this.

As someone who had to do a stint of tutoring, you'd be surprised at how many things that should be "basic" can be incomprehensible to others. All of us that are complaining are complaining because all of us are more gaming oriented than most. This honestly is more well thought-out than people realize.

Granted, they should have allowed people to unlock more stuff via another method to get those people started but this still isn't that big of a deal.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This is way different from Splatoon, and it was definitely criticized for having so little content at launch. Splatoon had a 3-5 hour single player mode, 30ish weapons to unlock, gear to buy, and levels to grind. You had plenty of stuff to do on day one. For Super Mario Maker, you get koopas and goombas day one. Wow, my imagination is firing on all pistons with these options. Even now people dislike how Splatoon handles its content.



Day one: Callie shows up.
Day two: Marie shows up.
Day three: Judd. Since it took this long for him to show up, no one knew who won matches on the first two days.

If I'm not mistaken, this game has 60 courses on disc which means it has a multi-hour single-player mode as well.

This is clearly a decision made based on playtesting and how Average Joe Gamer actually plays a game (and we've seen clear evidences as to why posted in this very thread). It isn't directed at the GAF enthusiast audience.

I don't like it, either, but the vitriol in this thread is laughable.
 
as someone who will be playing more vs. creating I'm actually very interested to see how this plays out

I have a feeling it will create a pretty cool progression of levels. much like Splatoon when a new weapon is released, I'm envisioning a new tool getting unlocked and the community going balls deep with that particular tool, creating levels to take it to its limits. that type of collective experience stuff is really interesting to me. like one week people will be going batshit crazy with one tool, the next week it'll be another.

I prefer if trends emerged from the community naturally rather than artificially.
 
You're right, it's a game design issue in that it's poor game design. If people are having trouble with a certain aspect of a game, locking that content behind a day counter for everyone regardless of how much quicker someone might figure stuff out is poor game design.

This is exactly my problem with it. You don't hold a whole class back because one student is having trouble solving the equation.
 

RagnarokX

Member
CFHbLLi.jpg
 
What should I do if I'm a 100% not ok with this?

I don't want to cancel my pre-order, I do want to play this game. And I'm sure it will be a blast.

But on the other side I don't want to encourage this trend.

1st world dilemma.

Maybe the solution is buying it used?

Trend?

Just buy the game. lol.
 

phanphare

Banned
All right, 10 seconds. How does it invalidate anything I said? It's still an unnecessary annoyance. "Lol"

I don't think anything you said was invalid, you just exaggerated past what is actually present in the game. sometimes those "walls" of text are literally one word, like "gulp" or "ugh".

I prefer if trends emerged from the community naturally rather than artificially.

I mean, yeah that's true too. I'm more envisioning how I think it will play out with Splatoon as the framework. when a new weapon gets released immediately after you will frequently see matches where 5 or 6 out of the 8 people will be using that new weapon. then there will be the calls that the weapon is "OP". then everything eventually goes back to normal. it just differentiates the kinds of experiences you can have and if it's artificial than so be it. I've really enjoyed that aspect of Splatoon so I'm optimistic about it in Mario Maker as well.
 
The fact that you're posting on a gaming forum about this means that you're not one of the people who needs this.

There's a reason games have more unskippable tutorials nowadays, why more content is gated behind gradual unlocking schemes. It's because playtesting as shown that if you don't, people get lost, confused, and abandon the game.

That is the entire point. Something like this should exist for people that need it, not be forced upon everybody. Stuff should get unlocked based on how people are progressing. If someone can competently create a level within 10 minutes of getting the game, give them the fucking fire flower.
 
It is based off the systems clock.... No internet required. What is so hard to understand about that?
Don't need to be a dick about it. Considering Splatoon just did this content roll out thing through patches, I thought maybe this was similar.

Locking it via internal clock is just fucking dumb.
 
That is the entire point. Something like this should exist for people that need it, not be forced upon everybody. Stuff should get unlocked based on how people are progressing. If someone can competently create a level within 10 minutes of getting the game, give them the fucking fire flower.

If it's not "forced" then most people will skip it, including the people who need it.
 

Cbajd5

Member
You're right, it's a game design issue in that it's poor game design. If people are having trouble with a certain aspect of a game, locking that content behind a day counter for everyone regardless of how much quicker someone might figure stuff out is poor game design.

Yeah, that's definitely an acceptable opinion on this.

But it still doesn't make gamers any less stupid.
 

xaszatm

Banned
Did GAF exist when kids were beating Zelda and Metroid in the 80s?

Zelda and Metroid had tutorials, they were just cleverly hidden. You'll find that games like New Super Mario Bros series and even things like Super Mario 3D World also don't do direct gameplay tutorials and instead try to make the level do the tutorial for you. This is harder to do on certain games which is why tutorials got more and more obvious. So this really doesn't disprove the other person's point at all.
 
Yeah, that's definitely an acceptable opinion on this.

But it still doesn't make gamers any less stupid.

Gamers can be very stupid. I have no problem with having stuff gradually unlocked so that people can come to grips with it, but that unlocking should be based on skill, not a day counter.
 
What should I do if I'm a 100% not ok with this?

I don't want to cancel my pre-order, I do want to play this game. And I'm sure it will be a blast.

But on the other side I don't want to encourage this trend.

1st world dilemma.

Maybe the solution is buying it used?

Spend 45 minutes playing the game for five minutes, change the clock, play the game for five minutes, change the clock, etc.
 

Well Splatoon launched in late May, so with our available data points, we can conclude that on Sept 11, the number of games doing this will have doubled over the last 3 and a half months. Extrapolating from this, I think it's safe to assume that ALL games will be doing this by mid 2018.
 

mclem

Member
It's mindblowing to me that day 1 levels can't even have 1ups. Everyone will keep getting game over screens.

What does a 'game over screen' even mean in the context of this? You'll go back to the start of the level, which is what you do if you die anyway?

I had been under the impression that the game simply wouldn't bother with lives full stop, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of point to them.
 
As someone who had to do a stint of tutoring, you'd be surprised at how many things that should be "basic" can be incomprehensible to others. All of us that are complaining are complaining because all of us are more gaming oriented than most. This honestly is more well thought-out than people realize.

Granted, they should have allowed people to unlock more stuff via another method to get those people started but this still isn't that big of a deal.

I'd be ok with this if there's an 'advanced' toggle to disable the gradual unlock. As someone who's done a stint of tutoring, I'm surprised you'd think that everyone should be brought to the lowest skill level, regardless of ability or individual learning style.
 

Vena

Member
For reference, Pushmo also has an unlock system to the creation tools but rather than "time" they use progress in the game's single player modes which are basically a very long tutorial for a while... which takes time.
 
What does a 'game over screen' even mean in the context of this? You'll go back to the start of the level, which is what you do if you die anyway?

I had been under the impression that the game simply wouldn't bother with lives full stop, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of point to them.

Presumably lives have meaning if a creator wants to make a campaign.
 
Soooo... Brain Age / Wii Fit type unlocks - collect 1 stamp for each day you participate, and ___ number of stamps (aka # days played) unlocks stuff.

I mean, I get that it's dumb and agree they shouldn't have bothered in a case like this... but some reactions here, yeesh. This ain't exactly a game that you rush to finish in a week or anything, that's why they feel they can do this.

Don't bother comparing it to unlocking worlds in Mario or dungeons in Zelda. If you want a real comparison, it would be more like unlocking characters in Smash - which yes, would be annoying (kinda like Mewtwo requiring 20 in-match hours!). But so long as the base set is sufficient and the rollout isn't stacked at the back end we'll be fine.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Day one: Callie shows up.
Day two: Marie shows up.
Day three: Judd. Since it took this long for him to show up, no one knew who won matches on the first two days.
Nowdo one for Animal Crossing. Imagine, it would be like:
Day one: Get a tent.
Day two: Get a house.
Day seven: Get to refurbish items
Day ten: Finally get the Convenience Store.
Day 20: Unlock the QR machine.

That would be tedious.
 
You can't really measure "Skill" with a game like this.

Yes you can. Nintendo already has a system in place to review levels for uploading. If someone is able to create and beat a level and upload it on on day one in 10 minutes using the content provided, unlock the new stuff for them. If they do it again unlock the next tier of content. It's not all that complicated. If you can create and upload a level using the content they provide, isn't that sort of the point? Isn't that a sign that someone is "getting it"?


Considering a lot of posters don't even understand the unlock system it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

OH MAN SOME PEOPLE THINK THE UNLOCKS IN A GAME IN 2015 HAPPEN VIA THE INTERNET RATHER THAN VIA ON DISC UNLOCKS YOU SURE SHOWED THEM! WHAT A GOTCHA MOMENT!
 

ramparter

Banned
It's nine days, which in the context of your entire lifetime is absolutely nothing. It encourages you to experiment with a few tools each day which means you can learn how to get the most out of them instead of just focussing on a few from the entire line-up as you'd do if you had everything at once. It's less overwhelming for new players than the full screen being available at once would be. It encourages you to play every day and see what people are doing.
But that will only affect players having it day one
Personally I'd have them unlock by making levels or completing the games stages.
 
Yes you can. Nintendo already has a system in place to review levels for uploading. If someone is able to create and beat a level and upload it on on day one in 10 minutes using the content provided, unlock the new stuff for them. If they do it again unlock the next tier of content.

Make a flat level, run to the end, upload. Rinse and repeat.

I've bypassed your system without ever learning anything about play.
 

mclem

Member
I wouldn't be so sure, we've seen plenty of vids where you could spawn mushroom with super Mario and you can spawn the special mushroom or even fireflower when you're little Mario.
Or maybe by shaking the mushroom?


In SMB1? I was under the impression they'd adopt the behaviour of each game as regards powerups, too, and there were no explicit "Fire Flower Here" question mark blocks, IIRC, they were all "Mushroom, or if big, fire flower". It'd be strange if that behaviour wasn't at least an option.
 
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