A Skip Button for Boss Fights

[Xprimentyl]

It was dumb when Hepler was saying Gameplay should be skippible and it's dumb now.

And what everyone beating the "it doesn't effect other people" drum is ignoring is that if you make Gameplay skippible, you also can't have any of theStory take place during said gameplay. Effectively you've now made the story irrelevant to the gameplay and vice versa. It might as not exist at that point.

Gaming n?eds MORE story relevance during gameplay, not less.

So far, I'd say this is the first argument against the idea that actually raised a good point. I'm fine with adding things that don't effect me, but worrying about how they'll affect the design of future games is definitely worth considering.

And I?d counter that when he?s saying skippable, he?s assuming the boss fight is entirely omitted which is not necessary. Should you choose to skip a boss fight, why wouldn?t a tool-assisted run of the boss suffice? The AI would be restricted to whatever items/weapons/tools you currently have at your disposal and essentially do a ?flawless victory? against itself while you watch and take in any exposition or anything else of significance; tool-assisted speedruns are already a thing. Also, each year, someone pits the Super Bowl-bound team against each other in simulation in the latest Madden to see if it might determine the winner.

 

[CritialGaming]

It was dumb when Hepler was saying Gameplay should be skippible and it's dumb now.

And what everyone beating the "it doesn't effect other people" drum is ignoring is that if you make Gameplay skippible, you also can't have any of theStory take place during said gameplay. Effectively you've now made the story irrelevant to the gameplay and vice versa. It might as not exist at that point.

Gaming n?eds MORE story relevance during gameplay, not less.

So far, I'd say this is the first argument against the idea that actually raised a good point. I'm fine with adding things that don't effect me, but worrying about how they'll affect the design of future games is definitely worth considering.

And I?d counter that when he?s saying skippable, he?s assuming the boss fight is entirely omitted which is not necessary. Should you choose to skip a boss fight, why wouldn?t a tool-assisted run of the boss suffice? The AI would be restricted to whatever items/weapons/tools you currently have at your disposal and essentially do a ?flawless victory? against itself while you watch and take in any exposition or anything else of significance; tool-assisted speedruns are already a thing. Also, each year, someone pits the Super Bowl-bound team against each other in simulation in the latest Madden to see if it might determine the winner.

If you do an assisted boss fight to make the boss trivial, then what's wrong with just having an easy mode? or perhaps if you fail too many times on a fight the game offers you an invincibility mode for the fight for you to simply get through it?

I think the verdict is simply there are far better solutions than an outright skip button. If a person is sooooo badly equipped to play through a game, then they are better off spending their money on other hobbies. But I also don't think that the video game player base has very many people so utterly terrible at gaming that a developer should waste money for extra programming of features that literally skip content that was far more expensive to create.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's like they're making games for my girlfriend now.

HAHA! I know, right? The next thing you know they'll be letting them drive... or even vote!

That was less a reflection on women and more on my lazy-ass girlfriend who thinks fuckin' Sound Shapes is an ordeal.

 

[Cycloptomese]

It's like they're making games for my girlfriend now.

HAHA! I know, right? The next thing you know they'll be letting them drive... or even vote!

That was less a reflection on women and more on my lazy-ass girlfriend who thinks fuckin' Sound Shapes is an ordeal.

It's all good. I mostly just couldn't resist. Also, my wife once bragged about beating Fable 2.

 

[Xprimentyl]

It was dumb when Hepler was saying Gameplay should be skippible and it's dumb now.

And what everyone beating the "it doesn't effect other people" drum is ignoring is that if you make Gameplay skippible, you also can't have any of theStory take place during said gameplay. Effectively you've now made the story irrelevant to the gameplay and vice versa. It might as not exist at that point.

Gaming n?eds MORE story relevance during gameplay, not less.

So far, I'd say this is the first argument against the idea that actually raised a good point. I'm fine with adding things that don't effect me, but worrying about how they'll affect the design of future games is definitely worth considering.

And I?d counter that when he?s saying skippable, he?s assuming the boss fight is entirely omitted which is not necessary. Should you choose to skip a boss fight, why wouldn?t a tool-assisted run of the boss suffice? The AI would be restricted to whatever items/weapons/tools you currently have at your disposal and essentially do a ?flawless victory? against itself while you watch and take in any exposition or anything else of significance; tool-assisted speedruns are already a thing. Also, each year, someone pits the Super Bowl-bound team against each other in simulation in the latest Madden to see if it might determine the winner.

If you do an assisted boss fight to make the boss trivial, then what's wrong with just having an easy mode? or perhaps if you fail too many times on a fight the game offers you an invincibility mode for the fight for you to simply get through it?

I think the verdict is simply there are far better solutions than an outright skip button. If a person is sooooo badly equipped to play through a game, then they are better off spending their money on other hobbies. But I also don't think that the video game player base has very many people so utterly terrible at gaming that a developer should waste money for extra programming of features that literally skip content that was far more expensive to create.

The verdict is that ?skip? need not necessarily mean ?omit;? there are any number of ways to address getting past a difficulty spike or boss for inexperienced/incapable players that need not affect the game for anyone else, so simply making those players ?suck it up, buttercup? and not afford them the option is an unnecessarily dick-ish and elitist move. Just because ?you? (and that?s speaking generally, not at YOU, CritialGaming,) prefer to and can play a game without assistance doesn?t mean everyone absolutely has to, no questions asked. I keep saying, it?s ENTERTAINMENT; holding it to some inordinately high and austere standard is taking games way too seriously. A couple people in here have drawn direct correlations between easy modes and people?s actual life character? Seriously? If you think how one chooses to enjoy a video game is any indication of how they must behave in real life, then couldn?t you draw the same correlation between, say? video game an real life violence? ?ZOMFG, NO, OF COURSE NOT! THAT?S CRAZY TALK!!!!? Oh, ok; double standard?

I don't like thing so nobody should have it.

Exactly this. Folks in here are talking like an option they think is silly for someone who?s not them is somehow innately wrong. I?m not a fan of Easy modes personally, but it doesn?t bother me that they exists neither do I think less of someone who opts to play an Easy mode; more power to ya?, you bought the game too, go have your fun! And as for comparisons to other forms of media, don?t care if you eat your books, smell your movies and taste your radio, doesn?t affect me, your choice, enjoy yourself.

 

[Kerg3927]

I think the verdict is simply there are far better solutions than an outright skip button. If a person is sooooo badly equipped to play through a game, then they are better off spending their money on other hobbies. But I also don't think that the video game player base has very many people so utterly terrible at gaming that a developer should waste money for extra programming of features that literally skip content that was far more expensive to create.

I can agree with this.

There are already easy modes in most single player games. I would guess that the percentage of people who literally are not capable of beating a game on easy mode is very small. And for most of those, the main reason is probably simply that they are too lazy to put any effort into learning to play at even a basic level.

As far as people with disabilities, is skipping bosses going to even help with that? They still have to play the game. If they are still struggling on easy mode, I'd say making the easy mode even easier is a better solution than just skipping content. But not every sport or game is for everyone. Sometimes people just have to go play something else.

Video games are not movies or books. They are interactive. They require that you DO STUFF in order to complete it. You take away the DOING STUFF requirement and it is no longer a game. The comparison between the mediums is not a good one.

 

[Sonmi]

I'm actually not entirely against the idea, as long as using it locks away content like the ending or the ending level until you go through the whole thing properly. I'd apply the same philosophy to lower difficulty settings as well.

Cuphead had the right idea.

 

[Imre Csete]

*sees RPS outrage*

*checks if it's John Walker clickbaiting again*

No surprise there, he is the Dark Souls of hack videogame journalists.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

I mean, I thought games having difficulty options was already the solution to this. To lessen the challenge so you can still experience a boss battle, but not be decimated if you're not up to the task enough.

Of course, there are games without difficulty options, but they usually have some kind of crutch for those that either don't want the full challenge or simply can't physically/mentally take the challenge.

*sigh* I don't know. I'm conflicted. The enthusiast in me is like "WAT?! NO! THEY MUST ENDURE LIKE I HAVE AND TRIUMPH!" but the other part of me is all open about player choice in games. But even this is a bit far. I mean, a boss battle IS part of the content. If you skip it, you're still skipping content.

 

[Silvanus]

Yep. Because they didn't realize LA Noire or Raymond Origins existed.

Hmmmm...

[https://imgbb.com/]

 

[RaikuFA]

Yep. Because they didn't realize LA Noire or Raymond Origins existed.

Hmmmm...

[https://imgbb.com/]

Fucking autocorrect.

 

[Kerg3927]

*sees RPS outrage*

*checks if it's John Walker clickbaiting again*

No surprise there, he is the Dark Souls of hack videogame journalists.

This is probably correct.

He's trying to turn this into an SJW-type debate. He's taking an issue that was probably never much of an issue and painting it with SJW colors in order to create a heated debate out of nothing. And it apparently worked.

We've got...

1) But what about the really, really bad or lazy players? What about them? They should be able to complete games, too. If we don't stand up for the little guy, who will??? *torches out*

vs.

2) Really? Give me a f---ing break. Git gud or gtfo.

The reality is that easy-modes have already addressed this issue. They typically allow all but the most terribad players to play through games and complete them. If there is an issue with a particular game, it's likely because that game's easy mode is not tuned easy enough. So complain to that particular developer and ask them to tune it easier. Problem solved.

No need to drastically change the medium. It's fine the way it is. Hopefully developers who saw that article laughed it off as the click bait that it was.

 

[Ravenbom]

There's not that many games where skipping a boss is even that big of deal anymore.
I mean, there's a ton of bosses on the SNES Classic that I would love to skip, where they're just pallet-swaps but the only real companies that do pallet-swap bosses or two first level bosses at the same time later in the game are Wayforward and Platinum Games. Both you could argue are providing throwback gameplay so boss repetition is partially expected.

 

[CritialGaming]

This is probably correct.

He's trying to turn this into an SJW-type debate. He's taking an issue that was probably never much of an issue and painting it with SJW colors in order to create a heated debate out of nothing. And it apparently worked.

We've got...

1) But what about the really, really bad or lazy players? What about them? They should be able to complete games, too. If we don't stand up for the little guy, who will??? *torches out*

vs.

2) Really? Give me a f---ing break. Git gud or gtfo.

The reality is that easy-modes have already addressed this issue. They typically allow all but the most terribad players to play through games and complete them. If there is an issue with a particular game, it's likely because that game's easy mode is not tuned easy enough. So complain to that particular developer and ask them to tune it easier. Problem solved.

No need to drastically change the medium. It's fine the way it is. Hopefully developers who saw that article laughed it off as the click bait that it was.

And to add to this, I feel for people with disabilities. I'm sure we all can empathize with that. But there is still a rule of "adapt and overcome" and there have been many instances of people playing with horrible debilitations. Some get help from outside sources, others just learn how to get around it if they have a passion too.

For example the kid who had some sort of problem with one of his hands that prevented him from using a controller, Sony made him a custom one-handed PS4 controller, even though the kid managed to play most games using one hand.

How about the blind player who plays fighting games competitively?

Or the man who was 100% paralyzed and could only move his tongue, who played and streamed himself playing World of Warcraft PVP.

I mean for fucks sake he could literally play only with his fucking tongue and his breath! How bad do you have to be to not be able to get through a fucking easy-mode?

It's excuses and that is all it is. Skip buttons can fuck right off. Although I fully support skippable cutscenes that I have seen 100 times already. I'm dying to a boss over and over, let me skip his fucking intro please.

 

[maninahat]

I'm actually not entirely against the idea, as long as using it locks away content like the ending or the ending level until you go through the whole thing properly. I'd apply the same philosophy to lower difficulty settings as well.

Cuphead had the right idea.

That seems like the worst way to go about it. The whole point of having a skippable/easy mode is to avoid locking away content from people (who would otherwise not be able to finish the game). Making content available only on higher difficulties has always been a bad idea. You want to do something on the hardest mode? Get an easter egg or an achievement.

We've got...

1) But what about the really, really bad or lazy players? What about them? They should be able to complete games, too. If we don't stand up for the little guy, who will??? *torches out*

vs.

2) Really? Give me a f---ing break. Git gud or gtfo.

The reality is that easy-modes have already addressed this issue. They typically allow all but the most terribad players to play through games and complete them. If there is an issue with a particular game, it's likely because that game's easy mode is not tuned easy enough. So complain to that particular developer and ask them to tune it easier. Problem solved.

No need to drastically change the medium. It's fine the way it is. Hopefully developers who saw that article laughed it off as the click bait that it was.

The example given is Cuphead, a Nintendo difficult game that gives the less skilled two choices: play an easier mode which locks off content and prevents you from getting the full ending, or play the regular mode that may well be too difficult to get to the ending anyway. They actually had to make more changes to the game just to punish easy mode players, than if they'd simply kept all the content the same and simply tweaked the numbers (i.e, the number of hits the player can take, the boss's health bar etc).

Hopefully the devs will see that as a perfectly reasonable argument and go "wait, why are we preventing less skilled players from seeing a chunk of our game?"

 

[kenu12345]

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

This is a fair point, except for one thing. Let's plays aren't truly representative to a lot of games. A lot of games feature exploration as a major point of engagement. You can't get that from a lets play. In addition, if a lets play doesn't find certain parts of content, well guess you never get to see it either. Having a solution be at the mercy of other players experiences robs you of your ability to experience it for yourself.

Every single part of every game is on youtube in one let's play or another. I watched alot of let's play in my day I tell you what

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I had a longer, better thought-out response to this thread, but I'll leave it at this:

I'll buy RPS's logic on this one when I see six-year-olds reading Dostoyevsky. Sorry, but there are indeed (extensively researched, quantifiable and quantified) thresholds for skill one must meet to read certain books, without which one cannot experience the content. Can't meet them but want to know what happens in the book anyway? read a synopsis or get a CliffsNotes.

I made a point about A Tale of Two Cities in another forum, that the first sentence of it alone has a readability score, across multiple indexes, that actually places it at grad student-level to read and comprehend. Video games' difficulty at least scales more often than not, to allow players to build skills they need to meet later thresholds.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...sure, why not? My brother had poor reflexes due to muscle problems, so I often had to help him with boss fights and difficult game-play sections, I see nothing wrong with giving him a button to skip through the hard parts instead. Or cheat codes, whatever, not my problem.

And if you're gettin' your panties in a twist over someone else being able to beat a game you want to be difficult, then, fukkin', I dunno, ask the developers to give you a fancy hat for never using the skip button or something. Cosmetic rewards for feats of difficulty, that's how they did it in the old days, and back in the old days nobody lost their shit over IDCLEV## existing in DOOM.

....I don't remember that code. I (still) remember IDDQD and ADKFA but that one you've typed isn't ringing any bells.

It's the Level Skip code. IDCLEV (number of Episode) (number of level), so you can jump straight to the final level if'n you pleased.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

It's the Level Skip code. IDCLEV (number of Episode) (number of level), so you can jump straight to the final level if'n you pleased.

Well, of course nobody got their panties in a twist over cheat codes. Most "cheat codes" early on were debug codes left in by the game developers, and in some very famous cases (the Konami Code) were intended to be removed, but the devs forgot about it. And, in the case of the DOOM codes, some debug codes were the basis of self-imposed challenges as skipping ahead meant a player lacked the weapon and armor pick-ups of earlier levels, and therefore unprepared for the levels to which one was skipping.

It kind of negates the point if "cheat codes" can also be used to make the game harder than was originally intended by the developers as well.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

It's the Level Skip code. IDCLEV (number of Episode) (number of level), so you can jump straight to the final level if'n you pleased.

Well, of course nobody got their panties in a twist over cheat codes. Most "cheat codes" early on were debug codes left in by the game developers, and in some very famous cases (the Konami Code) were intended to be removed, but the devs forgot about it. And, in the case of the DOOM codes, some debug codes were the basis of self-imposed challenges as skipping ahead meant a player lacked the weapon and armor pick-ups of earlier levels, and therefore unprepared for the levels to which one was skipping.

And yet a button that does the same thing is... bad? Like, a skip button is functionally the same as the old debug cheats anyway, which let you skip past all kinds of content, but because it's an 'official' button now apparently everyone is losing their minds over it. It's fuckin' weird.

Then again, people lose their shit if you skip to the last chapter of a book or movie, so, at least it's consistently fuckin' weird.