A Skip Button for Boss Fights

Bedinsis

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The way I see it there are two kinds of people:

1. Those that for whatever reason cannot finish a particular boss fight

2. Those that can.

Implementing such a feature would help those in group 1, while not affecting those in group 2. So sure, I see no problem with it.

The only problem I see is if defeating the boss in question is integral to the experience as a whole. But games as a skill test is hardly the only existing form of game so my generalized answer is I don't have a problem with it.
 

Canadamus Prime

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It seems to me that if you're going to skip the gameplay in a game, ostensibly the thing that differentiates it from a film or a TV show, then it might as well be a film or TV show.
 

Xprimentyl

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Yeesh, folks, ease up; games are ENTERTAINMENT; why are so many of you so adamant that they should exclude anyone with hard and fast rules as to how they?re appreciated? Yes, we can all agree that playing them is ideal, but an option for someone who simply can?t overcome a boss or two hurts no one; how does it take anything away from you or the industry that you?d actively and purposefully deny it? What might happen is ?Johnny Skipped-The-Boss? might skip a boss or two and stay interested in the game since he?s not required to eat his own face out of frustration just to keep going. And we?re talking boss fights, not the other 85-90% of the content in between them that can still be enjoyed and might not require encyclopedic knowledge of a boss? patterns and dodging one-hit-kills.

Also, like many have already said, there are too many free options for those unwilling to buy a game; this says nothing of the people who are willing to support the industry by buying the games, but aren?t as ?uber awesome bro-skilled? as ?real gamers,? and those people will likely try to play as much of the game as possible (they just spent $60, for Christ?s sake,) so it?s not likely they?ll exploit a skip option from beginning to end.
 

sanquin

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As others have said, what's the point of playing a game if you're just going to walk through it? Games these days are generally already piss easy to complete. Even the boss fights. There is no need to make things even easier. Might as well make it a movie then. Or on the consumer end, watch a let's play.

Besides, one thing games have always been good at was teaching players that achievement requires practice and learning. Remove that part from games, and you're basically telling players "No need to deal with difficult stuff in life! You can just skip those and move on to the easy parts!"

Now I know some people are going to think "but it's just a game, people won't draw parallels to real life from that!" Sure, not consciously maybe. But today the general consensus seems to be that everyone needs to be rewarded even if they fail or can't do it. And that does start to add up over time, even if subconsciously. And that's just not the kind of lesson you should teach people. No, not everyone is special. (In fact, most people aren't.) No, life isn't easy for most people. Learn to work for it if you want to achieve something.

In short, I think this is a stupid idea. Another mark on the dumbing down of games, and partially on society as a whole.
 

maninahat

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sanquin said:
As others have said, what's the point of playing a game if you're just going to walk through it? Games these days are generally already piss easy to complete. Even the boss fights. There is no need to make things even easier. Might as well make it a movie then. Or on the consumer end, watch a let's play.

Besides, one thing games have always been good at was teaching players that achievement requires practice and learning. Remove that part from games, and you're basically telling players "No need to deal with difficult stuff in life! You can just skip those and move on to the easy parts!"

Now I know some people are going to think "but it's just a game, people won't draw parallels to real life from that!" Sure, not consciously maybe. But today the general consensus seems to be that everyone needs to be rewarded even if they fail or can't do it. And that does start to add up over time, even if subconsciously. And that's just not the kind of lesson you should teach people. No, not everyone is special. (In fact, most people aren't.) No, life isn't easy for most people. Learn to work for it if you want to achieve something.

In short, I think this is a stupid idea. Another mark on the dumbing down of games, and partially on society as a whole.
Well, to give a personal example, I like the game Catherine a lot, but I put it down about halfway through, right after beating a boss on what was probably the thirtieth attempt. This was a notoriously hard game that I was playing on its "easy" mode as well (there is apparently a hidden, easier mode that I wasn't able to unlock for some reason). It had a great story, and the whole block pushing gameplay is a fun challenge for the most part, but the difficulty spikes were so big and unreasonable, I'd rather not spend an absolute age of my free time faffing about trying to beat them.

As a result, I haven't finished a game I would really like to play my way to the end to. I paid for it, and there actually is a difference between playing a game yourself and watching someone else do it, so I'd rather get to my ending that comes as a consequence of playing through it. I don't see how letting me skip past a stupidly hard boss is going to transform me into some kind of quitter who coasts through life on a palanquin made of participation trophies.
 

-Dragmire-

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The rerelease of FFIX has built in cheats that I'll probably be using. I own the original PS1 version and have beaten it. I have been wanting to replay it for the story and characters but the time investment has been turning me away so this version is perfect for what I want.

On a slight tangent, telling people to enjoy their entertainment the "correct way" else be ridiculed seems silly to me.
 

maninahat

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Caramel Frappe said:
That would be like if the movie industry went, "Well you guys can now skip the horror scenes in a scary movie" or if a book had a page with the title "Skip to page 132 to see the plot twist" written on it. What's the point of skipping something that was meant to be played? You might as well watch it free on a LP or something if you're that lazy / unmotivated to skip a boss fight lmao.
Actually, it's more like if I said "wouldn't it be great if there was some way to skip through a movie to get to a bit I liked?" and people respond with "Absurd! I always watch a movie all the way through, including the full end credits. What's the point in watching movies if you ignore bits?"

Being able to use a fast forward or a chapter select does not preclude our ability to enjoy movies. Hell, I re-watched the last ten minutes of Jason and the Argonauts so many times as a kid, I literally wore the videotape down.

(Also, I confess, whenever I read Tolkien, I skip the parts whenever characters start singing).
 

Kerg3927

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maninahat said:
This was a notoriously hard game...
So you knew before you bought it that it was tough. And on easy-mode, you can't beat a boss in 30 attempts? Then why did you buy "a notoriously hard game" in the first place? Sorry, but I have a hard time feeling symphathy for you. Looks like you made a poor purchase. It happens.

Most single player games have easy modes these days. If people can't progress through the game on the easiest setting, then they are probably playing games they shouldn't be playing.

If I buy a helicopter when I don't have the skill to fly it, do I then have the right to complain to the manufacturer that it doesn't fly itself?

Johnny Novgorod said:
It's like they're making games for my girlfriend now.
I laughed.
 

MetalDooley

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I wouldn't have a problem with this. It'd be an optional feature that would help less skilled gamers get past parts they may not otherwise be able to beat. Maybe have it like the super guide mode in the NSMB games where it only becomes available after dying a certain amount of times.

Another reason I wouldn't have a problem is that boss fights have become one of my least favorite parts of games over the last few years. Very few developers seem to know how to make a good boss fight and I struggle to remember the last time I genuinely enjoyed one. There's been plenty over the years I've wished I could skip.
 

Ftaghn To You Too

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It definitely depends on the game. Not every game needs to be made for everyone, but if something more story heavy does it, who cares? I got into video games by playing through all of the Medal of Honor games with infinite health and ammo as a really young kid. Having that sort of option doesn't hurt most games.
 

maninahat

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Kerg3927 said:
maninahat said:
This was a notoriously hard game...
So you knew before you bought it that it was tough. And on easy-mode, you can't beat a boss in 30 attempts? Then why did you buy "a notoriously hard game" in the first place? Sorry, but I have a hard time feeling symphathy for you. Looks like you made a poor purchase. It happens.
I'm not asking for sympathy, I'm simply explaining why I would have, in those circumstances, very much benefited from being able to skip forward when the going gets too tough. Your suggestion that I (retrospectively) not buy the game means I don't get to play a thing I otherwise enjoy, which is not a solution at all.

If I buy a helicopter when I don't have the skill to fly it, do I then have the right to complain to the manufacturer that it doesn't fly itself?
Aircraft manufacturers don't make aircraft harder to fly on purpose, insist this is part of the fun, and actively discourage people from trying to take up flying. They try to make it as easy as possible, and its only because they are so technically complicated that they aren't easy for the layman to fly. If I was a pilot, and a particular aircraft was too difficult to fly, than the fault would probably be with the manufacturer for making an unflyable aircraft, rather than the pilot for not being able to fly it.
 

TilMorrow

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I thought those were called cheat codes at one time in the ancient (recent) past. Granted they were a series of button presses rather than one but they still footed the bill without resorting to cheapening the value of the game. I mean would it really look good if you started fighting Samah Ai'baal God Crusher of the Lomarion Empire from Paracrest Sigma Nebula with his army of cybernetic buggerzords and as you charge towards him, his amazing laser plasma elemental flame sword striking down towards you, "the words press A/X + Start (it'd still have to be a unusual combination otherwise someone is bound to skip the boss fight by accident) to skip this boss fight" light up in the centre of the screen?
 

kenu12345

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Going to have to go with the majority here and say at that point, you might as well just watch a youtuber. If you are at a point in a game where you can't continue cause its too hard, skipping won't help you and most likely just hurt you further and I am someone who is okay with phoenix mode in Fire Emblem (A mode that absolutely trivializes the game play) Tis best if they just learn, you would have to have no faith in a human to think they can't after sometime. When I was a kid, the sephiroth fight in kingdom hearts 2 was the hardest thing for me, it took me weeks, but when I finally did it, it felt great that I learned patterns and such. Still something I am proud of to this day. Ain't no shame in going to youtube to watch a game, I know I did for paths I didn't want to go through on certain games

Edit:Though I do feel cheat codes should come back
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Marik2 said:
maninahat said:
A recent Rock Paper Shotgun article [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/02/assassins-creed-origins-tourism-difficulty/] is getting about ten times the usual number of comments because it asks the question, why can't games - all games, that is - give us a skip boss fight button?

In the wake of Ubisoft's decision to include a "Tourist Mode" in their next Assassin's Creed game, the article goes into how games are the only medium to bar progression based on skill, and this can result in stopping people from getting to see most of a game they paid for. Letting someone skip a bit they find particularly difficult so that they can go and enjoy the rest of the game seems like an obvious solution, and not a technically difficult one to implement. That happens to be something I find quite agreeable, but what are your thoughts?
Didn't a writer for Mass Effect say this and got death threats for it?
She worked on DragonAge 2 I think, but otherwise you're dead on the money. I mean I think its a dumb idea and said so, but then some shit-flining chimps got in on the action and then the trajectory of the discourse was fairly predictable.
 

Marik2

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Aren't games and bosses easier these days? There's a ton of hand holding in modern games.
 

Mikeybb

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Very much dependent on game type and developer goals in my opinion.

I doubt we'd ever see something like this in a multiplayer game of any type, but in a single player story based (or otherwise) game who does it harm?
After all, you can skip a cutscene...

Just ensure a low difficulty setting offers good tips and increasingly detailed hints, then eventually offers the skip.
The reason I'd say offering it after some attempts is it would indicate that the player has probably hit a wall and doesn't automate the process, allowing the low skilled player a chance to expand their experience with the game.

The only concern I can see anyone having is the fear that low skill users would become the baseline experience developed for, resulting in developers neglecting the user base that requires a degree of challenge to gain satisfaction from the game they're playing.
Personally, I doubt that's a valid concern, but it's the only one I can imagine.
 

meiam

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CritialGaming said:
Meiam said:
And every art form have some form of skill gate, can't read a book if can't read and when TV/movie were new people actually had to learn how they function (ie the audience isn't part of the story, you just watch it happen). Plus if you just skip part of a book/movie your going to be really confused about what just happen and plenty of them require some other knowledge to fully appreciate (maybe you need to know some history to appreciate the story).
Actually this isn't technically true. If you can't read, they make audiobooks. Everyone can look at a piece of art (drawing, paintings, sculptures, etc) and acknowledge it. Everyone can watch television and movies (except the blind). The point isn't about UNDERSTANDING, it's about ability to experience.

Games are the only form of media that require actual ability to experience.
And if you can't play you can watch a let's play (hell it's even free compare to the audiobook).
 

Squilookle

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Bedinsis said:
The way I see it there are two kinds of people:

1. Those that for whatever reason cannot finish a particular boss fight

2. Those that can.

Implementing such a feature would help those in group 1, while not affecting those in group 2. So sure, I see no problem with it.

The only problem I see is if defeating the boss in question is integral to the experience as a whole. But games as a skill test is hardly the only existing form of game so my generalized answer is I don't have a problem with it.
This one gets it.

And even if the beating of the boss is integral to the game as a whole- this could be circumvented either by having the information in a cutscene the skipper would still see, or have the skip button actually play the sequence -for- you, so you really do miss nothing.
 

Trunkage

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I generally don't go around thinking, 'this is the best and only way to do _______. I should force others to do it my way.' I am interested if something negatively affects a third party. E.g. cheating in multiplayer and that's where rules and guidelines are important
 

Kerg3927

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So what if Madden NFL gave you an option where every time you get the ball, you can skip to scoring a TD? Skip to victory in every game all the way to winning the Super Bowl? Are y'all saying devs can't draw the line somewhere?

I feel like they've already made a lot of concessions to people who are bad at games or who don't like any challenge by putting in easy/story modes. And I'm sorry, but unless you have a physical or mental disability, with the entire internet at your disposal giving you tips and outright telling you and showing you step by step how to beat every encounter, and you still can't do it on easy mode? That's pretty pathetic.