Video Games are Doomed.

[CriticalGaming]

We've had this debate a lot around here when it comes to video game difficulty. Usually when a new FromSoft game comes out or something like Cuphead, or The Surge, whatever it is, there is always a talk about difficulty in some way. Why isn't there difficulty options? Why do games leave mechanics unexplained.

And the flip side to this is that a lot of games these days have those things right? Difficulty settings, map markers all over the fucking place telling the player exactly where to go next, tutorials galore that explain every new mechanic or gameplay tool as it pops up. Very few games leave themselves for the player to learn and explore on their own.

Today i found out why.

They make games specifically for DarkSydePhil. Don't believe me......


Holy shit! That explains a lot.

For those who don't know, good for you, but DSP is basically the worst Let's Player in the world. He has zero ability to learn gameplay concepts, he will literally forget or just not pay attention to something the game told him seconds beforehand and fumble around an area unable to figure things out for himself. If he wasn't a streamer in which chat could explain the answers to him, Phil would never beat any game on his own outside of Mario games MAYBE.

This is not a post to bash Phil for many things he deserves bashing for. What I mean to discuss is the merits of designing games for players completely inept and whether or not that design choice is good for the medium as a whole.

 

[happyninja42]

No extreme is good. Designing a game with a "chuck in the deep end and fuck em if they can't figure it out" is a terrible design plan. But equally "hand hold them through everything" is also bad. Unless you are literally making games for children, who are still actually developing their mental faculties, in that case, sure, make a game with training wheels at every stage.

The idea is to find the right balance of them. How much is the right amount of "leave it to the player to discover for their enjoyment/gratification" and "this is really something we should explain, because it's too abstract, and nothing IN GAME is going to make it make sense."

There is no one answer to that question, as it will vary wildly from player to player, and dev to dev. I personally lean on the "give them as many tools as they can have, but make them optional if people want to turn them off." side of things, including things like difficulty settings. Because A) they've been around for decades, and B) they only make the game more inclusive. There is nothing stopping the die hurds out there from both turning those things off, and optionally crippling themselves for more challenge and self-gratification, as they do that shit anyway, even in games without difficulty settings.

Personally, I don't play video games for a "challenge" that's never been the draw. I play them like interactive stories. I get to direct the flow of the story, to see an ending I'd like to see. When a game makes itself hard JUST to be fucking hard, to give chubbies to that subset of gamers, well, frankly I don't give a shit. When I'm being held up from experiencing your story, because I have to bash my head against a wall 30 times, I don't feel rewarded at the end, I feel like I've finally done away with a massive annoyance, and can FINALLY get back to the narrative. Though the reality is my enjoyment has probably been soured, because I'm annoyed at the shit I just dealt with, roadblocking my narrative adventure.

 

[BrawlMan]

We've had this debate a lot around here when it comes to video game difficulty. Usually when a new FromSoft game comes out or something like Cuphead, or The Surge, whatever it is, there is always a talk about difficulty in some way. Why isn't there difficulty options? Why do games leave mechanics unexplained.

And the flip side to this is that a lot of games these days have those things right? Difficulty settings, map markers all over the fucking place telling the player exactly where to go next, tutorials galore that explain every new mechanic or gameplay tool as it pops up. Very few games leave themselves for the player to learn and explore on their own.

Today i found out why.

They make games specifically for DarkSydePhil. Don't believe me......


Holy shit! That explains a lot.

For those who don't know, good for you, but DSP is basically the worst Let's Player in the world. He has zero ability to learn gameplay concepts, he will literally forget or just not pay attention to something the game told him seconds beforehand and fumble around an area unable to figure things out for himself. If he wasn't a streamer in which chat could explain the answers to him, Phil would never beat any game on his own outside of Mario games MAYBE.

This is not a post to bash Phil for many things he deserves bashing for. What I mean to discuss is the merits of designing games for players completely inept and whether or not that design choice is good for the medium as a whole.

I'm not even worried. Because a chuckle fuck like Phil would still blame the game for his own dumb actions. No matter how much they try to cater towards him or other gamers like him. Besides, I don't bother with most triple AAA games anymore. I go for AA, medium budget, or indie small games. They all have no plans of catering towards Phil. They will regret their decision sooner or later.

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

That is an unusual way to highlight their commitment to accessibility options.

 

[Worgen]

What is your point here? Devs have been making games like this for a very long time.

 

[CriticalGaming]

SNIP

I guess my argument would be that there is less opportunity to explore now. Take ubisoft games for instance. You can't play a Far Cry game without the map showering you with shit, the player always knows where every blade of grass is in the world despite the open maps being fairly interesting to possibly explore. Except you can never explore when everything interesting is laid out before you.

I feel like the sense of discovery is gone, and maybe the answer would be to give the player maps to find before showering the fucking map with icons. Which ironically Ubisoft used to do with the towers that people actively hated. But really there was a lot of good ideas behind the towers, usually they involved a puzzle of some sort which mean that people had to work at least a little bit for the reward of knowing where all the other things on the map are.

And I think that balance is the key, I don't think that they should look at the lowest common dumbass who is 49 years old and has never played a video game before. Even if someone gets into gaming at an older age and didn't grow up ingraining the built in universal skills that kids who grow up with games will automatically understand without having to be told. Because you have to credit the adult for at least having the mental capability to grasp how to hold the control and push the buttons on a basic level.

I don't like the idea that developers would possibly hold themselves back with level and gameplay design because they fear people would miss out on something they've laid out.

 

[happyninja42]

I guess my argument would be that there is less opportunity to explore now. Take ubisoft games for instance. You can't play a Far Cry game without the map showering you with shit, the player always knows where every blade of grass is in the world despite the open maps being fairly interesting to possibly explore. Except you can never explore when everything interesting is laid out before you.

I feel like the sense of discovery is gone, and maybe the answer would be to give the player maps to find before showering the fucking map with icons. Which ironically Ubisoft used to do with the towers that people actively hated. But really there was a lot of good ideas behind the towers, usually they involved a puzzle of some sort which mean that people had to work at least a little bit for the reward of knowing where all the other things on the map are.

And I think that balance is the key, I don't think that they should look at the lowest common dumbass who is 49 years old and has never played a video game before. Even if someone gets into gaming at an older age and didn't grow up ingraining the built in universal skills that kids who grow up with games will automatically understand without having to be told. Because you have to credit the adult for at least having the mental capability to grasp how to hold the control and push the buttons on a basic level.

I don't like the idea that developers would possibly hold themselves back with level and gameplay design because they fear people would miss out on something they've laid out.

I actually like the tower stuff in games, I've never had an issue with that. And while I agree that the map clutter is a problem, especially when you couple it with a pinpointing system that shows up in your FOV, even if you aren't in some kind of mech suit that would justify a HUD. But, I mean some things are just there to try and bridge that sensory gap of player looking at screen, versus actually being there. I do think that Ubisoft, in some of their more recent titles, are making improvements in this regard. The way the mapping system works in both AC: Odyssey and Valhalla, is a lot more intuitive, and doesn't just spew everything on there. You have to first figure out the general area via context clues, and actually refer to the map. And then when you get closer, you can start to get some minor HUD data to further pinpoint.

I think more open world games would benefit from that system, as it definitely made me more engaged in exploration in AC:Od. Didn't play Valhalla, but I heard from a poster on YT that explained how it was different from AC:Od, and the changes seemed to be a further refinement.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've noticed, that I have some spatial awareness issues in 3D games a lot of the time. I will easily get turned around, when moving through an area, that if I was ACTUALLY there, I wouldn't have this issue. Because there would be more than just my visual sense at play, giving me location input. I'd have sense of balance, reminding me that I'm on an incline, and I had started at the bottom, so up is how I need to be moving. The wind had been blowing steadily from my left, so since it's now on my back, I've clearly turned 90 degrees. A fucking sun that doesn't speed across the sky in 10 damn minutes, giving me a reliable measure by sky and shadows. It's just, a lot easier to navigate, and actually KNOW my location. So I've always seen the various HUD systems, as an attempt (not great I admit, but still) at trying to replicate that organic sensory understanding a person often has, when they are IN something, versus looking at something.

I try to be a bit forgiving about this, but again, there are varying degrees of intrusion of systems like this. Some do it better than others.

 

[BrawlMan]

I guess my argument would be that there is less opportunity to explore now. Take ubisoft games for instance. You can't play a Far Cry game without the map showering you with shit, the player always knows where every blade of grass is in the world despite the open maps being fairly interesting to possibly explore. Except you can never explore when everything interesting is laid out before you.

I feel like the sense of discovery is gone, and maybe the answer would be to give the player maps to find before showering the fucking map with icons. Which ironically Ubisoft used to do with the towers that people actively hated. But really there was a lot of good ideas behind the towers, usually they involved a puzzle of some sort which mean that people had to work at least a little bit for the reward of knowing where all the other things on the map are.

And I think that balance is the key, I don't think that they should look at the lowest common dumbass who is 49 years old and has never played a video game before. Even if someone gets into gaming at an older age and didn't grow up ingraining the built in universal skills that kids who grow up with games will automatically understand without having to be told. Because you have to credit the adult for at least having the mental capability to grasp how to hold the control and push the buttons on a basic level.

I don't like the idea that developers would possibly hold themselves back with level and gameplay design because they fear people would miss out on something they've laid out.

I get your feelings, but I feel you are worrying too much. This is nothing new unfortunately and fortunately. Developers and publishers are always going to find ways to make things more accessible every single day. I don't feel like this is 2009 and 2010 again, cuz we've already been down as well before when it was more. Game balance is hard, but it can be made easier depending on who you're catering towards.

Look, well I do look for a challenge, I'm not hardcore crazy this game if you just pulled all the time. Whenever I play a game I usually prefer playing on normal. Now I know normal has changed over the past couple of decades and gaming, but if I feel the game is too easy, I'll bump it up on hard if the game allows me to. Like I said before, if these devs try way too hard to please Phil, and those like him, they'll see the consequences. Plus, I highly doubt that many of them are going to try to please this one imbecile. Most AAA games are already have accessibility yet options or are easier then usual. This is like that time when nearly one everyone went into a panic back between 2008 to 2010, because the Wii allowed a more casual audience. Then everyone follow suit no matter the console. The fact that games were no longer "hardcore" was a stupid myth that needed to die. Nothing inherently wrong with getting a casual audience. Sometimes new blood is a good thing. Devil May Cry 5 was more accessible than almost all the previous Devil May Cry games, yet it's still brought in a new bunch of casuals or people who didn't play those type of games. And it's the best selling game to date in the entire series. Not everything's going to be one to one of course, and differences will inevitably vary. But you got to relax dude. You get worried over the simplest things or at something that's not that big of a deal and it's not a serious business as you think it is.

 

[stroopwafel]

Games like God of War are obviously meant to be played by everybody with a Playstation. I didn't like it but I can see it's appeal. It's a very curated experience with a low learning curve and easy rewards to trigger the dopamine system. From story to gameplay to presentation everything is meant to be accessible to the lowest denominator. It's a high quality game deliberately designed for the mainstream.

I think there will always be a demand for less mainstream titles as well eventhough they obviously won't get the kind of budget God of War got. Some people just want to chill and play a videogame like they would watch a show on netflix. Nothing wrong with that. For me personally the real joy in videogames are those titles that are difficult to get to know, but also deep and rewarding. You'll never find that kind of intimate engagement with a game's mechanics in a mainstream title just from the way it's designed.

For those who don't know, good for you, but DSP is basically the worst Let's Player in the world.

Don't forget that one time Dipshit Phil got caught masturbating on stream lmao.

 

[bluegate]

Critical Overreactions might have been a better name, in hindsight.

 

[BrawlMan]

Games like God of War are obviously meant to be played by everybody with a Playstation. I didn't like it but I can see it's appeal. It's a very curated experience with a low learning curve and easy rewards to trigger the dopamine system. From story to gameplay to presentation everything is meant to be accessible to the lowest denominator. It's a high quality game deliberately designed for the mainstream.

God of War has always been this way. Even with the old games. Yes, the older games are way more challenging compared to the new one, but the new game ain't no slouch either. While more accessible, God of War 4 has plenty of challenges. Especially if you're starting a fresh run on give me God of War Difficulty. The only difference being is not as much rated M for money and manly attitude. Appealing to even wider demographic, or those that have kids now. Oh, and Kratos is not a gigantic douche nozzle any more.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Good.

People who take pride in their "difficult" games, and look down on games that are designed for everyone to be able to step into, make me belly laugh.

 

[CriticalGaming]

. But you got to relax dude. You get worried over the simplest things or at something that's not that big of a deal and it's not a serious business as you think it is.

Critical Overreactions might have been a better name, in hindsight.

Admittedly a lot of this is hyperbole. But i do that in order to promote conversations. Looking at the extremes of something allows more room for responses.

Don't ever think I'm all that upset about things in that way. I mostly was also making a joke that if DSP is influencing game design then the world might as well explode. So you know.....hahaha funny funny.

 

[CriticalGaming]

People who take pride in their "difficult" games, and look down on games that are designed for everyone to be able to step into, make me belly laugh.

I don't know if i would argue this from specifically a difficultly stand point, to be honest.

I'm more concerned with the player's lack of discovery and exploration in the game world. We all remember games of our youth that would hide treasures behind side paths or breakable walls, that were awesome to discover. This is heavily pushed in games like Metroid and even Shovel Knight had a few of these.

We know as gamers that when a game spawns you into a level, the first thing to do is to look backwards to see if there is a hidden item just off screen. And whereas before the players have to figured that shit out for themselves, instead games now either tell you exactly where said secret is, or they paint a big fat bullseye on it to make sure that as few players miss it as possible.

But i would argue, that if the developer wants the player to find all the secrets so badly that they clearly marked them. Then i would argue you didn't want secrets in the game in the first place. Just make them main items or side items at best.

Hell some games are so desperate for people to even check out the cool visuals that many games have "seesighting points", these where in Horizon Zero Dawn, and are big in Ubisoft games where you reach the cool spot and the camera shows the player around the area in deep detail. These points are fine, but let the player discover them on their own.

Or if you want to reveal the things to the player, make them earn at least a few of the first ones themselves. So they have a sense of progression to what's available.

 

[09philj]

Games that are underexplained are just as irritating as games that are overexplained.
I'm about halfway through Ace Combat 7 at the moment. I think it is a very good game but it is held back by it not explaining itself very well.

At the end of Mission 10 you have to beat a boss enemy in a dogfight. I managed this on Normal Difficulty, which is recommended by the game for players who are familiar with Ace Combat's flight controls. The problem is that I failed the mission twice before winning, and have no idea what I did differently on my third attempt that allowed me to win. AC at no point explains how to win aerial combat beyond explaining the bare minimum of how to control the plane and how to fire your missiles. I'm not discovering how to dogfight for myself because I have such a limited understanding of the game's deeper systems that I literally lack the knowledge to begin formulating actual strategies.

Compare and contrast, with, say, Dishonored or Prey 2017. Both of those games have a lot of things the players can do, and multiple skills with versatile uses. When they introduce a new thing they can do they explain very clearly what you can do with it (And often without having to break the flow of gameplay), but then leave it up to the player to determine how best to use it.

 

[meiam]

It's easy to say just make everything optional so that if the player want to ignore it they can do so. But in practice game are build around the idea that the player will use those option. So a game that has fast travel will be more inclined to make a quest where you have to repeatedly travel back and forth between two locations since the dev will just assume that the player will just fast travel. In this way the players who doesn't use fast travel are still impacted by the presence of the system

On the flip side you have game where they can't make any encounter necessitate the use of weapon/tool/gadget outside the very basic one in case players never bothered learning them. So this leads to very simplified combat encounter that never evolve over the game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't know if i would argue this from specifically a difficultly stand point, to be honest.

I'm more concerned with the player's lack of discovery and exploration in the game world. We all remember games of our youth that would hide treasures behind side paths or breakable walls, that were awesome to discover. This is heavily pushed in games like Metroid and even Shovel Knight had a few of these.

We know as gamers that when a game spawns you into a level, the first thing to do is to look backwards to see if there is a hidden item just off screen. And whereas before the players have to figured that shit out for themselves, instead games now either tell you exactly where said secret is, or they paint a big fat bullseye on it to make sure that as few players miss it as possible.

But i would argue, that if the developer wants the player to find all the secrets so badly that they clearly marked them. Then i would argue you didn't want secrets in the game in the first place. Just make them main items or side items at best.

Hell some games are so desperate for people to even check out the cool visuals that many games have "seesighting points", these where in Horizon Zero Dawn, and are big in Ubisoft games where you reach the cool spot and the camera shows the player around the area in deep detail. These points are fine, but let the player discover them on their own.

Or if you want to reveal the things to the player, make them earn at least a few of the first ones themselves. So they have a sense of progression to what's available.

Discovery and exploration is a vague concept in gaming that most people can't even agree on when it's good or when it's bad. There's not a perfect spot that we can pinpoint. Everyone will have differing levels of tolerance when it comes to a game explaining or withholding information. Some people probably love that the Souls games will screw you out of strong weapons because you talked to an npc before they stepped over the theshold of a church somewhere, others probably don't. And seeing as the Souls games and games that are trying to go for the same formula aren't going anywhere, I think we're fine on that front.

I can't say I've experienced any annoyance over games overexplaining themselves in the previous generation, apart from maybe a few JRPGs (Persona 5). And yes, open-world games highlight the shit out their maps, but that's because open-world games are conceptually flawed. They're about exploring a big world, but in order to actually explore highlights need to not be there (which can usually be turned off in the options menu), but without those highlights the world becomes a fucking disaster to navigate. The fact that open-world games have a fast travel - the abilty to skip parts of the game - shows how flawed this genre is.

As an experiment I played a bit of Ghost of Tsushima with the wind mechanic turned off (as praised as that thing is it's still just a big arrow), and it was the first time within the game that I felt like I was looking at the world and where the scenery guided my view, instead of the next item on the docket. I did a similar thing with Red Dead Redemption 2. And it's amazing how great of an experience these games become... but the size of the world stops this being fun for too long. These worlds need to be sizeable enough for the story and lore fit, but you can't make a gameworld that big without needing a heck of a lot of visual and tavel aid, which in turn takes away from the more "pure" form of exploration and discovery.

 

[CriticalGaming]

As an experiment I played a bit of Ghost of Tsushima with the wind mechanic turned off (as praised as that thing is it's still just a big arrow), and it was the first time within the game that I felt like I was looking at the world and where the scenery guided my view, instead of the next item on the docket. I did a similar thing with Red Dead Redemption 2. And it's amazing how great of an experience these games become... but the size of the world stops this being fun for too long. These worlds need to be sizeable enough for the story and lore fit, but you can't make a gameworld that big without needing a heck of a lot of visual and tavel aid, which in turn takes away from the more "pure" form of exploration and discovery.

And maybe size is the problem. Games have gotten so big that they'd be impossible to play without these video game guidances in place. Things are much different than the linear small levels of Crash Bandicoot games or old Metriods. Something like The Witcher 3 covers a much larger piece of ground versus those early 2000's and late 90's games.

Perhaps these markers are just a thing we have to deal with when also getting large games.

But if i remember correctly Breath of the Wild had a huge open world with almost no markers at all right? 900 seeds to discover and find, 150 shrines, with little more than a proximity beeper on your belt to tell you where to go. Now I hated that game, but i hated it for the combat system not the exploration.

I wonder if there is an argument to be made that something like Far Cry could work without all the marker fluff, but developers are too scared to try. The thing about people and video games is that they will only usually deal with a challenge for as long as they can tolerate it or are unable to turn it down. It's easy to say that you could turn the markers off, but the problem there is that usually the quest dialog relies on having those markers on. Which means that the quest description isn't very good because it doesn't have to be, the map willtell the player where to go anyway.

However like with Breath of the Wild, if you bake discovery and exploration into the game as a core element, then it can certainly work without a million map markers.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And maybe size is the problem. Games have gotten so big that they'd be impossible to play without these video game guidances in place. Things are much different than the linear small levels of Crash Bandicoot games or old Metriods. Something like The Witcher 3 covers a much larger piece of ground versus those early 2000's and late 90's games.

Perhaps these markers are just a thing we have to deal with when also getting large games.

But if i remember correctly Breath of the Wild had a huge open world with almost no markers at all right? 900 seeds to discover and find, 150 shrines, with little more than a proximity beeper on your belt to tell you where to go. Now I hated that game, but i hated it for the combat system not the exploration.

I wonder if there is an argument to be made that something like Far Cry could work without all the marker fluff, but developers are too scared to try. The thing about people and video games is that they will only usually deal with a challenge for as long as they can tolerate it or are unable to turn it down. It's easy to say that you could turn the markers off, but the problem there is that usually the quest dialog relies on having those markers on. Which means that the quest description isn't very good because it doesn't have to be, the map willtell the player where to go anyway.

However like with Breath of the Wild, if you bake discovery and exploration into the game as a core element, then it can certainly work without a million map markers.

Yeah, but then BotW also had its naysayers in that regard. though it was a small amount.

Breath of the Wild could get away with few if any markers, because of how the gameworld was designed. The map was big, but since you could climb practically any structure it allowed the player to always have the ability to scope out the area from high up. And because you could climb just about anything, they could add a lot of verticallity, which made for a lot of distinct and recognizeable scenery.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Yeah, but then BotW also had its naysayers in that regard. though it was a small amount.

Breath of the Wild could get away with few if any markers, because of how the gameworld was designed. The map was big, but since you could climb practically any structure it allowed the player to always have the ability to scope out the area from high up. And because you could climb just about anything, they could add a lot of verticallity, which made for a lot of distinct and recognizeable scenery.

So basically the answer isn't make a dumbbed down world, but instead make a well-designed one.