This video is such a succinct summary of game design across accessibility, depth, and difficulty.
Who Gets to be Awesome in Games? [GMTK]
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This video is such a succinct summary of game design across accessibility, depth, and difficulty.
This video kinda lost me when it lists Doom of all things as having a stiff learning curve. I'm about as much of a non-fps a gamer (but still am a gamer hence have some fundamental skills) as you can come across and I played it on hard from the get go and it was very simple, you just had to react to things correctly. Doing so at the pace of the game is hard but not because of the complexity of the task but rather because of the timing and precision required since there's a million assholes appearing all around you and each needs to be dealt with in a particular way that doesn't work on every other asshole. It's more keeping up with the pace of the game rather than the complexity that makes it hard. You can kinda just randomly tap the flamethrower and chainsaw when they refresh and no matter what you hit with them it's more or less just as good. Making those tools the reason people die at Doom is to show you don't understand what the game is about.
On the point of rewarding time spent instead of mastery, he just confuses himself I feel. If you spend time you are also increasing your mastery. It's literally impossible to grind at a game and not get better at it. So rewarding mindless grinding instead of skill is a less optimal thing to do because the people willing to grind, the ones not discouraged, will be attaining mastery anyways. So this is just the earlier point of not discouraging people from wanting to put in time, just worded less smartly.
But yeah fundamentally everyone should get to be awesome but every game should not be made for everyone. You are responsible to pick the game you want to be awesome at. Games should still choose to be one way or another. The fact that some people can't be awesome at this one game isn't an issue because we will have other games for them to be awesome at.
Part of the fantasy some games offer is that of "only the select few get to be good at this, rejoice, you are one of them!". Which is also a valid fantasy, just as much as that of wanting to punch people in the face as Batman.
On the point of rewarding time spent instead of mastery, he just confuses himself I feel. If you spend time you are also increasing your mastery. It's literally impossible to grind at a game and not get better at it. So rewarding mindless grinding instead of skill is a less optimal thing to do because the people willing to grind, the ones not discouraged, will be attaining mastery anyways. So this is just the earlier point of not discouraging people from wanting to put in time, just worded less smartly.
But yeah fundamentally everyone should get to be awesome but every game should not be made for everyone. You are responsible to pick the game you want to be awesome at. Games should still choose to be one way or another. The fact that some people can't be awesome at this one game isn't an issue because we will have other games for them to be awesome at.
Part of the fantasy some games offer is that of "only the select few get to be good at this, rejoice, you are one of them!". Which is also a valid fantasy, just as much as that of wanting to punch people in the face as Batman.
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Yeah basically, there’s game types for everyone and that’s a good thing. Not every game can or should cater to a catch-all audience either. That’s what makes games unique and gives the industry and medium depth. I’ll never be great at the most demanding fighting games because I don’t have the time to dedicate to their systems, but I’m sure as hell not going to expect those games to change for me.
Same with movies or books. There’s easily consumed and digested comfort food on one hand and stuff that requires more thought and introspection to really get the most out of on the other. I’m not going to ask the director or author to compromise their artistic choices so that I can have everything spelled out for me. Doesn’t make one or the other less valid.
About options and accessibility, those things can be helpful in getting the player’s foot in the door, but they also need to let the house speak for itself, so to speak. IE, the game’s design should be sacrosanct regardless and basically exist in a vacuum. If the developers did their job people continue to play the game.
There are exceptions and gray areas to this though, like MTX’s. Paying full price for a game should be enough for anyone.
Same with movies or books. There’s easily consumed and digested comfort food on one hand and stuff that requires more thought and introspection to really get the most out of on the other. I’m not going to ask the director or author to compromise their artistic choices so that I can have everything spelled out for me. Doesn’t make one or the other less valid.
About options and accessibility, those things can be helpful in getting the player’s foot in the door, but they also need to let the house speak for itself, so to speak. IE, the game’s design should be sacrosanct regardless and basically exist in a vacuum. If the developers did their job people continue to play the game.
There are exceptions and gray areas to this though, like MTX’s. Paying full price for a game should be enough for anyone.
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You're kinda losing me saying Doom is simple but then it's hard but arguing that you didn't get how the video used it as an example of having an at least decent learning curve to it. You literally just explained why it had a learning curve for you. Plenty of games are hard for either complexity or execution skill or both, I don't get why it matters what kind of hard a game is. I haven't played Doom because it's not my cup of tea so I can't really comment on it specifically.
There's plenty of games that let you grind that don't require skill and thus you're not improving your mastery of the game when the game really has nothing to master. Many JRPGs fall into this as you grind because your numbers aren't high enough, it has nothing to do with the player actually getting better at the game. Whether you grind because your levels are too low and can't win or you grind because you're not good at strategy part of the game and just rather brute force your way to victory. Just playing online shooters, I can tell you there's tons of players that don't learn from their mistakes and play like newbs with 100s of hours of playtime. The majority of the COD player base doesn't understand how to play the extremely simple game mode of Domination.
To me, the point was basically the old adage that the best games are easy to pick up and play while being hard to master. The concepts aren't mutually exclusive.
It's very easy to have something simple be difficult, you just need to make the timing required be hard to do without muscle memory. Fighting games of old especially had this where the simplest thing like doing two light punches in a row in a combo would require timing within 1/60th of a second.
Doom is hard in that vein of hard, you know what you gotta do, you understand it, but performing at the pace it requires you is still hard even if you do understand it. The video was making it sound like Doom is hard because having to juggle all the different systems is too complicated. No, that part is the easy part. It doesn't even really require any management at all, just not forgetting what button does what. It's nothing like knowing how to use your esthus in a souls game and not using em all up on the first stage of a boss. You don't need a fraction of as much thought put into Doom.
Even without grinding Jrpgs are never really challenging games or games where you go in there for a power fantasy like the games we talk about here. You go in for the story, and the function of the gameplay is to draw you in to the story more and allow the chars to express their personalities through the combat. This is why Jrpgs have fights where you always lose even if you win, or fights where the hero is in some sort of super mode and is untouchable.
These are not there to challenge you mechanically, they're there to be compelling thematically and add narrative meaning to your experience.
Its a pretty thorough talk as far as a lot of approaches to game design, although I do kind of feel stating that most games are power fantasies is a little limiting in what you can discuss. Given its what he wanted to focus on I don't blame him, but I do feel like it fails to acknowledge a lot of games that, to an outside perspective, could be simply categorized as a power fantasy, but to an internal perspective aren't really about that. For that reason I think the discussion is a little limited.
As much as Dark Souls looks like a game where you try to go from wuss to god from the outside, from an internal perspective its very rare to actually feel powerful - particularly on the first run through. I don't think Dark Souls would be made worse by making it more accessible, but I do think that the ruthless asskicking that the game doles out is a necessary part of the story. If you legitimately breezed through the game, you probably felt powerful and had fun, but I think you also missed out on a chunk of the story. A other games like Shovel Knight or Risk of Rain take a similar tact that also serves a narrative purpose - it wouldn't blow me away if someone said that they breezed through either game for the most part, but from my perspective that last fight in each is not supposed to be particularly easy, or necessarily fun. You're coming up against the last guy, who (avoiding spoilers) has some opinions on you and did some stuff that you won't find pleasant, and has the power to bust you down to size just as you may have done to many preceding bosses.
RoR2 is a big one for me because I've been playing it way too much lately. At this stage I go into the game expecting to either get to the boss or cycle the stages (difficulty goes up over time no matter what, so you can either stop at stage 5 and fight the boss or keep going to do other stuff). If I cycle it will be 10-20 times before I finaly lose which effectively means every enemy is a boss by the time I'm done [humble brag]. No matter when I stop and go for the boss, its going to be a problem. Barring the times I've cheesed him, no amount of obnoxious overpowered gear I strap to my face is really going to make this fight trivial in the way that I've crapped on the rest of the enemies, and I think that's important for the story.
What he's talking about does make sense though. When being weak or powerless is a necessary part of the experience for the purposes of the story it breaks down a little, but overall its a well done discussion on methods to stop games from being unapproachable for some without making them shallow or uninteresting.
As much as Dark Souls looks like a game where you try to go from wuss to god from the outside, from an internal perspective its very rare to actually feel powerful - particularly on the first run through. I don't think Dark Souls would be made worse by making it more accessible, but I do think that the ruthless asskicking that the game doles out is a necessary part of the story. If you legitimately breezed through the game, you probably felt powerful and had fun, but I think you also missed out on a chunk of the story. A other games like Shovel Knight or Risk of Rain take a similar tact that also serves a narrative purpose - it wouldn't blow me away if someone said that they breezed through either game for the most part, but from my perspective that last fight in each is not supposed to be particularly easy, or necessarily fun. You're coming up against the last guy, who (avoiding spoilers) has some opinions on you and did some stuff that you won't find pleasant, and has the power to bust you down to size just as you may have done to many preceding bosses.
RoR2 is a big one for me because I've been playing it way too much lately. At this stage I go into the game expecting to either get to the boss or cycle the stages (difficulty goes up over time no matter what, so you can either stop at stage 5 and fight the boss or keep going to do other stuff). If I cycle it will be 10-20 times before I finaly lose which effectively means every enemy is a boss by the time I'm done [humble brag]. No matter when I stop and go for the boss, its going to be a problem. Barring the times I've cheesed him, no amount of obnoxious overpowered gear I strap to my face is really going to make this fight trivial in the way that I've crapped on the rest of the enemies, and I think that's important for the story.
What he's talking about does make sense though. When being weak or powerless is a necessary part of the experience for the purposes of the story it breaks down a little, but overall its a well done discussion on methods to stop games from being unapproachable for some without making them shallow or uninteresting.
I'm in the same camp as hanselthecaretaker not all games should aim to be for all people. Accessibility options are cool though
Why?
Simple.
You will never be able to design a skill system to cater to everyone and make it reasonable to beat.
Don't believe me?
Find a parent or sibling or significant other who has never played a game. Convince them to try playing.
Watch what happens.
That's who now has to have a difficulty designed round them. People who have never picked up a controller before.
What you think there should be a basic level of competence needed to play at least? Guess you like excluding people!
That's the issue of ultimate inclusivity. Everything else in media has some kind of understanding or learning involved. Would you demand Shakespeare be made easier to read to help some-one who is just learning to read? I mean it could be done but in literature generally you work your way up to more complex things and have been doing from when you were in elementary school. Games need to be considered the same to an extent as things you learn to play and work your way up to those more complex challenging games.
Accessibility options aren't making it easier it's just letting people tackle the challenge without additional issues using the Shakespeare example they could be the yellow / blue filter sheet used by dyslexic people to help them more easily read the words on a page without them seemingly jumbling up.
Why?
Simple.
You will never be able to design a skill system to cater to everyone and make it reasonable to beat.
Don't believe me?
Find a parent or sibling or significant other who has never played a game. Convince them to try playing.
Watch what happens.
That's who now has to have a difficulty designed round them. People who have never picked up a controller before.
What you think there should be a basic level of competence needed to play at least? Guess you like excluding people!
That's the issue of ultimate inclusivity. Everything else in media has some kind of understanding or learning involved. Would you demand Shakespeare be made easier to read to help some-one who is just learning to read? I mean it could be done but in literature generally you work your way up to more complex things and have been doing from when you were in elementary school. Games need to be considered the same to an extent as things you learn to play and work your way up to those more complex challenging games.
Accessibility options aren't making it easier it's just letting people tackle the challenge without additional issues using the Shakespeare example they could be the yellow / blue filter sheet used by dyslexic people to help them more easily read the words on a page without them seemingly jumbling up.
Probably quite a few people aren't good at adjusting strats per different enemy and just wanna shoot shit in a shooter, they'll be punished for doing that in Doom (it seems, I haven't played it). That was only one of the reasons Doom was said to have a higher learning curve than most, not the only reason. Again, I can tell you from playing online shooters that most players make zero adjustments and we keep trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results (or blame stuff like lag or OPed guns or whatever that isn't themselves).
I was just making the point that there are games where the mastery ceiling is very low and grinding away at it isn't making you better at the game like a standard JRPG or in the case of online shooters where players don't care about getting better even though the game has a high mastery ceiling. You said that "It's literally impossible to grind at a game and not get better at it." There's many games that help the player out if they're struggling whether it's Hades (as mentioned) or Bayonetta (buying items) or even RE4's dynamic difficulty. You can play a game not getting better at it and beat it by the game adjusting itself whether making your character more powerful, the enemies weaker, etc. Ghost of Tsushima makes your player character so god damn OPed as you play more of the game, the player could get worse at the game and still have better results.
I think the main issue in video games is far too many games focus on combat (because that's easy to do from a game development standpoint) and power fantasies become a large majority of games that way. Sports are a perfect example of making a game without combat. We have stuff like Rocket League but that's basically soccer with cars, which is cool and all but develop a whole new game. Then, you have board games that are rarely about combat and it's so refreshing. It's why the cyberpunk game that's my most anticipated game is Gamedec and not Cyberpunk. Video games can strive for far more meaningful interactions that just killing hordes of enemies slightly differently this time.
There are games out there like that, but they don’t sell like whatever puts combat front and center. It’s a form of escapism involving something that’s basically forbidden in today’s reality yet nonetheless apparently still hard-wired into human beings.
The dark cloud has a silver lining though -
Can there ever be a big-budget action game without violence?
Game worlds are becoming ever more beautiful, and the appeal of photo modes and enemy-free mods shows we are keen to interact with them without guns and fists
www.theguardian.com
There’s still a ways to go before dynamic stories full player agency become a thing, but we’ve already seen other attempts being made at creating meaningful levels of interactivity.
I believe there's tons of games that would sell a lot without combat front and center. Mass Effect sold a ton when combat isn't what you're doing most of the time in that series. Just look at what could've been a game based on Ms. Marvel instead of the generic brawler that is Marvel's Avengers. Image an immersive sim that isn't just basically System Shock or Deus Ex but based around a superhero, say Ms. Marvel. The amount of different ways to use that kind of power set in a world would be amazingly fun. Imagine being able to do everything the Flash can do in a video game world, though that would probably be super OP but in Dishonored you're OP as hell and that works. Those games would sell like hotcakes. It's just that doing a game like that would be far harder from a development standpoint than a generic brawler is (it took 30 years of Zelda games for one to finally get systemic game elements like fire and wind affecting the world).There are games out there like that, but they don’t sell like whatever puts combat front and center. It’s a form of escapism involving something that’s basically forbidden in today’s reality yet nonetheless apparently still hard-wired into human beings.
The dark cloud has a silver lining though -
Can there ever be a big-budget action game without violence?
Game worlds are becoming ever more beautiful, and the appeal of photo modes and enemy-free mods shows we are keen to interact with them without guns and fists
There’s still a ways to go before dynamic stories full player agency become a thing, but we’ve already seen other attempts being made at creating meaningful levels of interactivity.
In Mass Effect you play an elite special forces soldier in the position of a functionally unaccountable agent of government out to stop a raving lunatic from destroying the galaxy. I’m sorry but for all I loved the conversation sections, RPG world building and even being able to avert the odd shootout with my conversation skills, thinking that setup wasn’t going to involve lots of shooting is laughable. Truth be told in retrospect I find the first one insufferable to play because it’s shooting is gimped by RPG talent points.
Except they do exactly that all the time, they make versions of his works with page by page translations into more modern english. Seeing as very few people are familiar with a mode of speech and phrasing that is centuries out of date of current linguistics. Not even counting people "just learning to read", trying to interpret Shakespeare can be problematic for some people, as they just don't get it, for whatever reason. So no, you don't "demand" to make it easy, but it doesn't harm anything to HAVE an easier, more digestible version of the material available to people. Also, Shakespeare isn't actually complex, it's just old. It was written to be told to the unwashed, potentially illiterate masses of the era he lived in. So it's hardly going to be written in a style that was hard to grasp. They are very simple tales, written very broadly, with overly dramatic characters so that people can easily follow what's going on. They are basically the soap operas and dramas of today. It's just very VERY out of date, in it's cadence, structure, and delivery.
Except it's not always just a matter of git gud. For example, I have arthritis in my hands, from manic button mashing for 35+ freaking years as a life long gamer. No amount of git gud will change the fact that the frenetic button mashing and hand manipulations required to do some of the precision actions in games is physically painful for me now. In fact, trying for hours on end makes it worse, as it's putting even more strain on my hands. I will have muscle spasms in my palms and thumbs if I've been playing with a controller for any length of time beyond a few hours, especially if it's a tense game where a single fuckup means I lose all progress. I find myself clutching the controllers to try and maintain control, which just makes my hands hurt faster, which makes my performance tank faster, as pain outweighs performance. And that's just from arthritis and regular aging. Not even counting for people with actual, serious disabilities, that still might love playing games, but don't actually have the motor functions, or even freaking digits required to git gud enough to 360 no scope or whatever. Why should they not be able to play a game, just because other people want to feel superior to others? That's some arrogant shit right there, no matter how you slice it. You (the plural you) still get to feel proud of your video game big dick card, and show off that you beat X thing on Ultra Hard Uber mode, and have the platinum trophy to show for it as one of your accolades. Good for you, those of us that can't, or don't want to bother with that level of difficulty, can still enjoy the game and story if we wish, and it doesn't tarnish your accomplishments.
Things like Easy Mode have been in games for decades, yet recently people seem to treat them like the sign of the downfall of humanity or whatever.
Thank you.
As for you @Dwarvenhobble, how you never knew about books that translates Shakespeare works to make thing easier to read or comprehend is beyond me. They had a tons of those translation books or easy to read versions viable when I was in high school and still do now. Just because a person is one of the few that can expertly read a long dead dilaect does not make them better than those that can't or have trouble. Enough with the elitist attitude. Be proud of your accomplishments, but don't be an arrogant ass to those less skilled, less fortunate, or those who only play casually.
It only removes the issue of olden time language though not the requirement to be able to read what's written even in the translations and have a somewhat decent grasp of English.
Are you done being on your high horse?
because it seems from up there you missed this little thing I said.
In your case it could be changing the button mashing for press and hold or other such kind of options.
I could pull a really nasty turn around on you here but I won't this time for the simple reason I'll repeat that there's this idea of a mythical easy mode that will solve the problem.
As I said such a mode would have to be designed so even your gran or other elderly relative who have never touched a game in their life could beat it.
No kind of challenge at all to overcome. literally none because it has to be an easy mode so easy anyone can beat it without having to Git Gud. So the difficulty at the beginning can't change or ramp up to the end either it must be at the level where it's essentially you being unkillable and the enemies never moving or attacking, after all for many people new to gaming they struggle to use a controller so even getting to the enemy and getting the camera in a position to kill them is a challenge to them.
See above as it also works as a reply to you.
So it'd still be challenging for my gran and they'd get the full experience of playing a challenging Soul's game.
What's the downside again?
Like, if you've played sufficient Monster Hunter, Dark Souls isn't hard. If "but it's hard" is an integral part of Dark Souls, then doesn't that mean that already being good is playing the game wrong?
Yeah, I really don't care. People are allowed to play whatever game with whatever difficulty they want. If they want to improve, then that is his or her choice to make. I like a challenge too, but I am not "HARDCORE GAMER" (a term that has little to no meaning to me) 24/7. There are games I play to unwind or relax. Like Tertris Effect for example. It does have a hard mode for those that want it, but there plenty of Normal or Casual game modes for people that want to chill out to the music. I don't mind any accessibility options for those new to games, the elderly, handicapped, or those with poor hand eye coordiation. I'll give Sony credit for legit actually trying accessibility options in most of their 1st party games. I know not every game is everyone and you can't please everyone. That is fine. Everyone is different.
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This has already been discussed in here and other places, but there’s also big difference between “difficulty” and “accessibility”; the latter of which you seem to be referring to.
Accessibility part at 10:45
As for pure difficulty, this makes some interesting points -
My take, I’m all for more people being able to play a game (accessibility), but at the same time it’s imperative that the designer’s desire for the player to learn the game (difficulty) is never trivialized.
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All I was saying was that shooting is not the thing you spend most of your game time doing in Mass Effect.
Ok so then you run into the issue of "Oh but easy mode is providing a challenge"
Again some publications have already been complaining even present Easy modes are too easy
The Difference Between Final Fantasy VII's Easy And Normal Modes Is Too Drastic
Combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake, especially when facing powerful boss battles, involves juggling normal and special attacks, destructive and healing magics, and strategically exploiting enemy weaknesses. Unless you’re playing in easy mode. Then it’s just button-mashing bullshit.
kotaku.com
And this is without making them the ultimate easy mode accessible to everyone.
Easy mode shouldn't be seen as the answer to accessibility which is what it is being seen as by many.
Not every game will be for every person and part of the issue seems to be people only wanting to play try the big named titles in various genres. Should grand strategy games like the Europa Universalis series have to make themselves easier or would it be better they start with one of the less complex ones instead and learn about the genre to then be able to tackle a grand strategy?
Yes, that particular mode was way too easy. As in "if you were having problems with normal mode, this particular easy mode goes way too far, making the gap between the two too wide, in my opinion."Ok so then you run into the issue of "Oh but easy mode is providing a challenge"
Again some publications have already been complaining even present Easy modes are too easy
The Difference Between Final Fantasy VII's Easy And Normal Modes Is Too Drastic
Combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake, especially when facing powerful boss battles, involves juggling normal and special attacks, destructive and healing magics, and strategically exploiting enemy weaknesses. Unless you’re playing in easy mode. Then it’s just button-mashing bullshit.
You also didn't answer the "if the easy mode is still a challenge, then how does it hurt the "Dark Souls should be challenging as part of the game"" question.
Because I've played a fair bit of Monster Hunter. Dark Souls is, thus, not particularly challenging outside of specific systems knowledge. Am I playing Dark Souls wrong because I don't think it's any more challenging than Monster Hunter?
What's the harm in Europa Universalis having an optional easy mode?