A Skip Button for Boss Fights

[Dalisclock]

Snip

Hey, I'd skip some parts of Dark Souls if I could. Blight town? GOODBYE!

Hell, the Master Key lets you skip most of it and the Rusted Iron Ring makes the swamp less painful to deal with. So that might be "Cheating".

Myself, I call it "Good Riddance! Blightown can suck it"

 

[Myria]

From a dev perspective, I imagine the most likely outcome would be them thinking "more people seem to be skipping this boss fight than we'd like. Perhaps we should better balance this fight to make them a more reasonable challenge, and people would be less tempted to skip it."

Problem is I don't think that's how it would go at all. I suspect the most likely outcome would be them thinking "We put X amount of money, time, and effort into Y number of boss fights that Z percent of our players outright skip, so is it better for us if we monetize boss fights, monetize boss skipping, or just stop bothering with them entirely?".

I think that's really what's missing here, any real discussion of the inevitable unintended consequences if this did become a thing. It's all well and good to say "So what if someone else skips a boss, how does that affect you?", but the fact is that if it did become a thing and it was commonly used it absolutely would affect how games are designed. It would affect everyone, those who use it and those who don't.

We've already seen this in multiple genres. Traditional adventure games mortally wounded themselves with the abuse of moon logic (not to mention I can't imagine how the current gaming market would deal with the puzzles in games like Riven or The 7th Guest), only to be replaced with walking simulators that arguably don't even qualify as games. In the effort the chase ever bigger subscriber numbers MMOs have watered down and simplified gameplay and come up with ways for everyone to see everything (in fact this argument is identical to ones that have been had endlessly over raiding, resulting in raiding being watered down to near irrelevance) only to see numbers continue to dwindle and their 'niche' being threatened by MMO-lites like The Division and Destiny, only to see Destiny 2 now on the receiving end of a player backlash due to gameplay being watered down so far that there essentially is, apparently by design, no endgame.

Maybe an end to boss fights would be a good thing, they often are an overused Dev crutch. That only works if they're replaced with something better, though, and I don't see anything likely on the horizon. Maybe the removal of that challenge is what the market wants -- watching and listening to my nephews and their friends play video games, I suspect it is. Whatever the case, such a change would inevitably affect the market, affect how games are designed, would affect the gameplay of everyone.

 

[Kerg3927]

I hate anyone who would take pride in accomplishment. Strawman argument, please point out where I said that.

Inferred from you telling me to fuck off, and that I was being self masturbatory (didn't even know that was a word) for thinking some games are designed for good players and/or people who like a challenge. You also said that it's bad if people tell people to go play something else if they don't want to learn how to play a particular game because it displays a smug, arrogant, and I'm better than you mentality. From your comments, I get the feeling that you would see any display of pride in accomplishment as smug and arrogant.

I'm going to snear that videogames are not accomplishments. Strawman argument, please point out where I said that. The closest I can think is when I said that people should get over it if they feel bad when they skip a level because it's a video game. Because skipping a level in a video game is not something that is worth feeling that bad over.

Think I had you confused with Zhukov, sorry. But the yeah, the sneers about lighten up, it's only a video game, are in that same vein.

That is a hilariously inaccurate narrative. It's amazing the shit people make up about me in a desperate attempt to make me look like the bad guy.

I don't think you're a bad guy. I just think you have a loser's mentality.

Now I don't expect other people to put that much effort into it. But it does bother me when people obviously don't want to put ANY effort into it. They want to just skip stuff - even when they have easy-mode - at the first sign of a challenge. It's makes me sad.

Why?

If you want to treat gaming like a second job and get satisfaction from doing so then great, you do you. Why does it matter to you what other people do when their actions don't affect you or anyone else?

Some people don't game for rewards, for them the game is the reward. It's something they do to make their spare time enjoyable.

You'll notice none of the people here who don't mind the idea of skip buttons are saying that hard modes should be taken away. Only the "hardcore" crowd are trying to deny something to other people.

Because gaming is a community, and that community votes with its wallets, which affects future game design. So yes, if more and more people in the community adopt the loser's mentality of quit at the first opportunity, it could very well affect me.

But beyond that, as a part of the community, I simply don't like seeing other people in the community adopt a defeatist, loser, quitter's mentality. I think they are cheating themselves, and will be worse off for it. And if anyone in the gaming community ever has my ear, which you do if you are reading this, I'm going to do what I can to propagate a winner's mentality instead of a loser's one. I just am.

I don't mind easy mode's so much because I liken it to weight lifting. If you set out to do 5 sets of 5 reps on bench press at a certain weight, and by set 3, you can't do all 5, what do you do? You lower the weight and keep going until you finish. You don't skip the rest of the sets, because that would be cheating yourself. Skipping is much, much different than lowering the weight, IMO.

Finally, I have been playing video games for almost 40 years, basically since they were invented. It's my hobby, and it has been for my entire life. It's important to me. People act like this skip button would be a minor change. To me, it's not. To me, games have always been about overcoming obstacles. And if you are able to overcome all the obstacles, you beat the game. This skip button would change that. It would change gaming fundamentally. And, call me an old geezer, get off my lawn and all that, but I don't want to see that happen, because I think it's a bad direction for the hobby to take and bad for the community.

 

[Kerg3927]

From a dev perspective, I imagine the most likely outcome would be them thinking "more people seem to be skipping this boss fight than we'd like. Perhaps we should better balance this fight to make them a more reasonable challenge, and people would be less tempted to skip it."

Problem is I don't think that's how it would go at all. I suspect the most likely outcome would be them thinking "We put X amount of money, time, and effort into Y number of boss fights that Z percent of our players outright skip, so is it better for us if we monetize boss fights, monetize boss skipping, or just stop bothering with them entirely?".

I think that's really what's missing here, any real discussion of the inevitable unintended consequences if this did become a thing. It's all well and good to say "So what if someone else skips a boss, how does that affect you?", but the fact is that if it did become a thing and it was commonly used it absolutely would affect how games are designed. It would affect everyone, those who use it and those who don't.

We've already seen this in multiple genres. Traditional adventure games mortally wounded themselves with the abuse of moon logic (not to mention I can't imagine how the current gaming market would deal with the puzzles in games like Riven or The 7th Guest), only to be replaced with walking simulators that arguably don't even qualify as games. In the effort the chase ever bigger subscriber numbers MMOs have watered down and simplified gameplay and come up with ways for everyone to see everything (in fact this argument is identical to ones that have been had endlessly over raiding, resulting in raiding being watered down to near irrelevance) only to see numbers continue to dwindle and their 'niche' being threatened by MMO-lites like The Division and Destiny, only to see Destiny 2 now on the receiving end of a player backlash due to gameplay being watered down so far that there essentially is, apparently by design, no endgame.

Maybe an end to boss fights would be a good thing, they often are an overused Dev crutch. That only works if they're replaced with something better, though, and I don't see anything likely on the horizon. Maybe the removal of that challenge is what the market wants -- watching and listening to my nephews and their friends play video games, I suspect it is. Whatever the case, such a change would inevitably affect the market, affect how games are designed, would affect the gameplay of everyone.

Great post. As as a former GM of a WoW raiding guild, the part about that is spot on.

 

[CritialGaming]

Problem is I don't think that's how it would go at all. I suspect the most likely outcome would be them thinking "We put X amount of money, time, and effort into Y number of boss fights that Z percent of our players outright skip, so is it better for us if we monetize boss fights, monetize boss skipping, or just stop bothering with them entirely?".

I think that's really what's missing here, any real discussion of the inevitable unintended consequences if this did become a thing. It's all well and good to say "So what if someone else skips a boss, how does that affect you?", but the fact is that if it did become a thing and it was commonly used it absolutely would affect how games are designed. It would affect everyone, those who use it and those who don't.

We've already seen this in multiple genres. Traditional adventure games mortally wounded themselves with the abuse of moon logic (not to mention I can't imagine how the current gaming market would deal with the puzzles in games like Riven or The 7th Guest), only to be replaced with walking simulators that arguably don't even qualify as games. In the effort the chase ever bigger subscriber numbers MMOs have watered down and simplified gameplay and come up with ways for everyone to see everything (in fact this argument is identical to ones that have been had endlessly over raiding, resulting in raiding being watered down to near irrelevance) only to see numbers continue to dwindle and their 'niche' being threatened by MMO-lites like The Division and Destiny, only to see Destiny 2 now on the receiving end of a player backlash due to gameplay being watered down so far that there essentially is, apparently by design, no endgame.

Maybe an end to boss fights would be a good thing, they often are an overused Dev crutch. That only works if they're replaced with something better, though, and I don't see anything likely on the horizon. Maybe the removal of that challenge is what the market wants -- watching and listening to my nephews and their friends play video games, I suspect it is. Whatever the case, such a change would inevitably affect the market, affect how games are designed, would affect the gameplay of everyone.

This is an amazing take on this issue and simply states the consequences of skipping gameplay outright better than any argument on here yet. Great job.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Problem is I don't think that's how it would go at all. I suspect the most likely outcome would be them thinking "We put X amount of money, time, and effort into Y number of boss fights that Z percent of our players outright skip, so is it better for us if we monetize boss fights, monetize boss skipping, or just stop bothering with them entirely?".

As opposed to "We put X amount of money, time and effort into Y number of boss fights, and only half a percent of our players ever got to see it, so why even bother?"

It's not like this whole "maybe more people should get to interact with our lovingly crafted content" stuff came out of nowhere. After all, what use is having a super hard raid if 99.5 of people who could be giving you money just end up watching it for free on YouTube?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Finally, I have been playing video games for almost 40 years, basically since they were invented. It's my hobby, and it has been for my entire life. It's important to me. People act like this skip button would be a minor change. To me, it's not. To me, games have always been about overcoming obstacles. And if you are able to overcome all the obstacles, you beat the game. This skip button would change that. It would change gaming fundamentally. And, call me an old geezer, get off my lawn and all that, but I don't want to see that happen, because I think it's a bad direction for the hobby to take and bad for the community.

Good for you? I've been gaming for over 25 years now, and games aren't(?) that for me. I mean, I see this kind of "Rahman, true hardcore gaming is the one true way" thing a lot, from a lot of different hobbies, and my reaction is unviversally the same: I roll my eyes so hard my retinas threaten to detach.

There's always been hard games, and there's always been easy games, and it's not a coincidence that video games only reached saturation and became a multi-billion dollar industry after the quarter-eater mentality disappeared. The best selling games in the world, of all time, aren't about "overcoming obstacles", they're puzzle games anyone can play. Simulators of wacky everyday life. Simulators of a Quentin Tarantino crime movie.

A skip button wouldn't change games for you. Unless you'd be tempted to use it. There will still be hard games, there will still be your obstacles to overcome, because there's market demand for it. We're just...codifying cheat codes at that point.

Because, shockingly, "games for the hardcore" crash and burn. Been in a lot of betas and played a lot of games dominated by the elite mentality, and they always, always crash and burn.

And before the obvious rebuttal: Dark Souls isn't any harder than Monster Hunter, it just explains itself very poorly.

 

[Zhukov]

Because gaming is a community, and that community votes with its wallets, which affects future game design. So yes, if more and more people in the community adopt the loser's mentality of quit at the first opportunity, it could very well affect me.

That goes for everything though.

I don't particularly like Dark Souls. Should I get all up in the faces of people who buy it because its success has proven influential? (Although I'm actually looking forward to Eitr.)

Same goes for Skyrim and open world games.

I'd think that would be extremely petty. Lots of other people just like different things than me. Getting up in arms about it would be pathetic.

But beyond that, as a part of the community, I simply don't like seeing other people in the community adopt a defeatist, loser, quitter's mentality. I think they are cheating themselves, and will be worse off for it.

You don't get to decide what is good for other people.

Especially not on a matter so utterly inconsequential as the manner in which they play with digital toys in their spare time.

I'm going to do what I can to propagate a winner's mentality instead of a loser's one. I just am.

All you're propagating is garden variety snobbery over the smallest of things.

I don't mind easy mode's so much because I liken it to weight lifting. If you set out to do 5 sets of 5 reps on bench press at a certain weight, and by set 3, you can't do all 5, what do you do? You lower the weight and keep going until you finish. You don't skip the rest of the sets, because that would be cheating yourself. Skipping is much, much different than lowering the weight, IMO.

Entertainment is not exercise. They are two different things done for different reasons.

 

[Myria]

As opposed to "We put X amount of money, time and effort into Y number of boss fights, and only half a percent of our players ever got to see it, so why even bother?"

For an MMO like WoW, where only a small percentage of the playerbase ever got to see the original incarnation of Naxx, I concede you have a point. For the average single-player game? I'm just not seeing it. Even for Souls games, to hear most people talk everyone and their brother killed every boss the first time, it's just the rest of the world that needs to 'git gud'. Really, outside of a few niche games, is this even an issue?

Maybe it is, I dunno, but personally I can't recall the last time a boss was more than a passing annoyance.

It's not like this whole "maybe more people should get to interact with our lovingly crafted content" stuff came out of nowhere. After all, what use is having a super hard raid if 99.5 of people who could be giving you money just end up watching it for free on YouTube?

As I said, if you're talking an MMO than I have to concede that you have a point. However, I do think there's a counter. It seems to me that those 0.5% (or, more likely 5-or-so-%) are a lot more important to the game's overall health than their numbers might indicate. They're the evangelists, the ones who write mods, the ones who write guides, the ones who theorycraft the meta everyone else blindly uses. Their influence and effect on your game's overall health is felt far in excess of their numbers. They can be a pain in the arse, to be sure, but they can also be extremely valuable.

I personally doubt the longevity of any MMO/MMO-Lite that doesn't have it's own "hardcore" element, something that inevitably requires "hardcore" content that's beyond mortal ken.

As I said, this is an issue Destiny 2 is facing currently. The difficulty curve has flatlined -- the hardest thing in the game right now is trying to literally outrun a timer. Max gear/power-level is trivially easy to get. They took the 'looter' out of 'looter-shooter' and what's left is an MMO-lite with a slightly better story than the first and a minute fraction of the longevity. Add in Deej's "Friendship is the real endgame!" MLP-style speech yesterday, and you have a playerbase heavy on the pitchforks and torches side of things.

Now you can say "Screw them, they're the 5%, most players never even come to the forums or reddit" and you'd be right. But I'd argue that they're the ones that write the lore articles, make the strategy videos, stream the game obsessively, and evangelize to any, all, and sundry. I'd argue that they're the ones that kept hope alive when Vanilla Destiny was in the gutter and rightfully getting kicked around, without them there very well might not have been a Destiny 2.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The point was that even if you think the "easy-mode" doesn't affect you, the fact is that it does. Because when shit gets too hard, the player is aware and tempted by just dropping it to easy.

Yep, the skip button would be sitting there like an evil snake with an apple. Some would have the discipline to keep trying until they persevere, some wouldn't, and many of those who gave up and skipped it would feel shitty afterward and regret it. Like a turd.

Fucking Christ! Thank you! Exactly this, this is exact the whole point.

So the temptation of a skip function would add a layer of CHALLENGE for seasoned gamers? I'd say that's ironic, but I shouldn't have to. Also in the vein of irony: a skip function is somehow over-accommodating making every game for everybody which they aren't, therefore devs shouldn't implement it to accommodate me... oh wait, is that my argument coming full circle to bit me in the ass?

I have a feeling there are some people in here who throw fits when a steakhouse has vegan options on the menu: "It's a steakhouse! You eat cow or you don't eat!"

 

[CritialGaming]

There's always been hard games, and there's always been easy games, and it's not a coincidence that video games only reached saturation and became a multi-billion dollar industry after the quarter-eater mentality disappeared. The best selling games in the world, of all time, aren't about "overcoming obstacles", they're puzzle games anyone can play. Simulators of wacky everyday life. Simulators of a Quentin Tarantino crime movie.

Funny you say this but according to business insider the top 11 money making games of all time include several MMO's where people gather together to take on challenging bosses and play with their friends. Casual experiences do make a shit load of money, not denying that, but they aren't the top shit in video gaming history.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-top-grossing-video-games-of-all-time-2015-8/#4-world-of-warcraft-pc-2004--85-billion-8

The four of the top 11 are quarter eaters, like Street Fighter 2, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, etc.

Number 4 is World of Warcraft. While yes, there is a huge casual element to WoW, especially now, it didn't start that way the first 4-6 years of WoW were about challenging dungeons with online friends. If you skipped content, you got nothing for it. Additionally there was potential to be carried by friends through stuff too hard for you to handle on normal circumstances, but really it's besides the point.

I guess the continued point is that, these players who didn't raid, or run heroics or whatever, well....they don't affect the players that do run those things right? But anyone who has played WoW can tell how terrible the game experience becomes when trapped in a group with a player who doesn't know what the fuck to do, or even bothers to try. These "skippers" intermix with the general population and the lack of effort does affect other people.

With gaming becoming a more and more online and interconnected set of experiences, there are factors to consider here.

Now even if we just eliminate everything outside strict single player experiences, who does it hurt to let someone skip? That answer is it hurts everyone. It hurts the game industry who can look at players wanting to skip with the quarter munching mentality of "We'll make the game hard and then offer people microtransactions that let them skip a hard fight". It hurts the general player base of gaming in that it provides a way to lower the bar of playability and skill, plus feeding into a sense of entitlement, that once "skippers" get into a game that doesn't let them skip, they shall take to forums and demand that skipping be enabled.

And it just doesn't make any fucking sense. It really doesn't. I just don't know how anyone can say "Hey if people enjoy skipping through games, then let them because it doesn't take away from anyone else." But really, it's asking to include why for people to NOT play a game they paid to PLAY. How would you like to go to an abridged movie? Pay full price to see a movie and instead of the full movie you get just an abridged 20 minute version. Yet you still pay the same price as someone who saw the whole movie. What about an abridged book, instead of getting a deep and engaging novel, you get a printout of a powerpoint summary of the book. But you paid for the full price of the book.

Again if you can't or don't want to go through the effort of playing the game, there are FREE ways to experience the game without struggling through the challenge yourself. Aka, Let's Plays.

 

[CritialGaming]

So the temptation of a skip function would add a layer of CHALLENGE for seasoned gamers? I'd say that's ironic, but I shouldn't have to. Also in the vein of irony: a skip function is somehow over-accommodating making every game for everybody which they aren't, therefore devs shouldn't implement it to accommodate me... oh wait, is that my argument coming full circle to bit me in the ass?

I have a feeling there are some people in here who throw fits when a steakhouse has vegan options on the menu: "It's a steakhouse! You eat cow or you don't eat!"

No it isn't adding Challenge to seasoned gamers. It's adding a cheap way out. A temptation to say, "fuck it" and missing out on the experience of playing the game in the first place.

Now nobody seems to pay attention to this, but I've said over and over again that a cheat code is fine. A God-Mode is fine, because even with a guaranteed "win" the player still has to go through the motions, they still have to see the content, they still have to experience the game.

God-Mode is basically skipping, except you get to see it all happen, so you don't rob anyone of actual gameplay experience. (although if challenge is part of the experience you rob them of that, but it's less of an effect as a skip would provide).

Then if you wanna use the argument of not putting a skip function in every game, then what determines which games or games types DO get the skip button and which ones don't?

Dark Souls gets a skip, does Mario Kart? If a race is too hard, should players be able to press a button and get the trophy?

What about a skip in an MMO? Say the group can't beat one of the bosses in a dungeon...should they be able to skip it and try the next boss? I mean, does skipping a boss affect anyone outside that group? What about rewards for skipping? Does the treasure at the end still appear?

Where do the limitations go in? At what point do you say that skipping isn't acceptable? What purpose does skipping a boss or a piece of content serve in the first place? How does it enrich the experience for the "skipper"?

Say you skip in a single player RPG because you don't want to fight or can't beat a boss? Does skipping provide any experience, or special loot from the boss? What if a hard boss provides a key to a secret dungeon with more bosses? If I skip that boss do I still get the key? What about the rest of the bosses? What about the loot that often lies in chests around a dungeon or after a hard enemy, if I can skip does that affect the loot lying around? If so, then surely you can see the implications of having to do that extra programming right?

It's easy to say just provide a skip button, but it's a lot harder to put down ground rules for it.

 

[Erttheking]

I hate anyone who would take pride in accomplishment. Strawman argument, please point out where I said that.

Inferred from you telling me to fuck off, and that I was being self masturbatory (didn't even know that was a word) for thinking some games are designed for good players and/or people who like a challenge. You also said that it's bad if people tell people to go play something else if they don't want to learn how to play a particular game because it displays a smug, arrogant, and I'm better than you mentality. From your comments, I get the feeling that you would see any display of pride in accomplishment as smug and arrogant.

I'm going to snear that videogames are not accomplishments. Strawman argument, please point out where I said that. The closest I can think is when I said that people should get over it if they feel bad when they skip a level because it's a video game. Because skipping a level in a video game is not something that is worth feeling that bad over.

Think I had you confused with Zhukov, sorry. But the yeah, the sneers about lighten up, it's only a video game, are in that same vein.

That is a hilariously inaccurate narrative. It's amazing the shit people make up about me in a desperate attempt to make me look like the bad guy.

I don't think you're a bad guy. I just think you have a loser's mentality.

Now I don't expect other people to put that much effort into it. But it does bother me when people obviously don't want to put ANY effort into it. They want to just skip stuff - even when they have easy-mode - at the first sign of a challenge. It's makes me sad.

Why?

If you want to treat gaming like a second job and get satisfaction from doing so then great, you do you. Why does it matter to you what other people do when their actions don't affect you or anyone else?

Some people don't game for rewards, for them the game is the reward. It's something they do to make their spare time enjoyable.

You'll notice none of the people here who don't mind the idea of skip buttons are saying that hard modes should be taken away. Only the "hardcore" crowd are trying to deny something to other people.

Because gaming is a community, and that community votes with its wallets, which affects future game design. So yes, if more and more people in the community adopt the loser's mentality of quit at the first opportunity, it could very well affect me.

But beyond that, as a part of the community, I simply don't like seeing other people in the community adopt a defeatist, loser, quitter's mentality. I think they are cheating themselves, and will be worse off for it. And if anyone in the gaming community ever has my ear, which you do if you are reading this, I'm going to do what I can to propagate a winner's mentality instead of a loser's one. I just am.

I don't mind easy mode's so much because I liken it to weight lifting. If you set out to do 5 sets of 5 reps on bench press at a certain weight, and by set 3, you can't do all 5, what do you do? You lower the weight and keep going until you finish. You don't skip the rest of the sets, because that would be cheating yourself. Skipping is much, much different than lowering the weight, IMO.

Finally, I have been playing video games for almost 40 years, basically since they were invented. It's my hobby, and it has been for my entire life. It's important to me. People act like this skip button would be a minor change. To me, it's not. To me, games have always been about overcoming obstacles. And if you are able to overcome all the obstacles, you beat the game. This skip button would change that. It would change gaming fundamentally. And, call me an old geezer, get off my lawn and all that, but I don't want to see that happen, because I think it's a bad direction for the hobby to take and bad for the community.

That was a general you, and it had a great big "if" in front of it. You can take pride in beating difficult challenges without being an arrogant elitist. Same with the point about telling people to stop playing. I said it's bad IF you're a smug elitist about that. And if you think that about me, you haven't understood me very well. Either that or you happen to meet the conditions I describe after both of my ifs. If that's the case, that's your fault, not mine.

No seriously. If skipping a level in a video game makes you feel bad to any meaningful degree, it makes you feel bad for more than five minutes, you need to lighten up. You life isn't massively impacted, your financial situation isn't impacted, people don't love you less. It's a video game. Keep things in perspective.

Coming from someone who's been acting the way you have, that criticism rings utterly hollow. I think you need to take your games way less seriously.

 

[Kerg3927]

With WoW, there are certainly other factors involved, but on the graph below, you know what happened in Cataclysm, right about the same time that graph starts going downhill? LFR (Looking for Raid) was implemented, trivializing raid content, making it faceroll easy, accessible to everyone, everyone could get all the loot, no need to learn to play, just hop in a queue and go, faceroll to fat loots. And then what happened? Most of the raiding guilds disbanded and all the hardcore and hoping to become hardcore players left. The game's evangelists left.

Millions more got bored and left afterward, and now they return only for new expansions, to spend a few months facerolling through the new content before they leave again.

The casuals wanted the phat loots that the raiding guild members had. But once everyone was able to get it, the phat loot ceased to have any meaning. An Olympic gold medal doesn't mean much if everyone is able to get one for no effort. Turns out, it wasn't the loot that they really wanted. It was the community respect and prestige that it represented.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

With WoW, there are certainly other factors involved, but on the graph below, you know what happened in Cataclysm, right about the same time that graph starts going downhill? LFR (Looking for Raid) was implemented, trivializing raid content, making it faceroll easy, accessible to everyone, everyone could get all the loot, no need to learn to play, just hop in a queue and go, faceroll to fat loots. And then what happened? Most of the raiding guilds disbanded and all the hardcore and hoping to become hardcore players left. The game's evangelists left.

Millions more got bored and left afterward, and now they return only for new expansions, to spend a few months facerolling through the new content before they leave again.

The casuals wanted the phat loots that the raiding guild members had. But once everyone was able to get it, the phat loot ceased to have any meaning. An Olympic gold medal doesn't mean much if everyone is able to get one for no effort. Turns out, it wasn't the loot that they really wanted. It was the community respect and prestige that it represented.

Weird, I remember dungeons getting harder in Cata, because raiders wanted more than tank-and-spank bosses, and I remember a lot of people leaving because Lich King ended the story set up in Warcraft 3. I know I dropped out in shortly after Mists because the story was busy crawling up it?s own ass, not because casual raids were a thing.

Did you even try that clusterfuck?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

There's always been hard games, and there's always been easy games, and it's not a coincidence that video games only reached saturation and became a multi-billion dollar industry after the quarter-eater mentality disappeared. The best selling games in the world, of all time, aren't about "overcoming obstacles", they're puzzle games anyone can play. Simulators of wacky everyday life. Simulators of a Quentin Tarantino crime movie.

Funny you say this but according to business insider the top 11 money making games of all time include several MMO's where people gather together to take on challenging bosses and play with their friends. Casual experiences do make a shit load of money, not denying that, but they aren't the top shit in video gaming history.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-top-grossing-video-games-of-all-time-2015-8/#4-world-of-warcraft-pc-2004--85-billion-8[

Yeah, why didn?t I include arcade games and free to play MMOs and adjust earnings for inflation based on wikia reports when I?m talking about the highest selling games? Never mind that Tetris, as a series, has sold almost half a Billion copies, followed by Minecraft, then WiiSports, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Super Mario Brothers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/07/08/here-are-the-five-best-selling-video-games-of-all-time/#3206f39c5926

I mean, shit, you want to count arcade games? Most of the top grossing arcade games can?t be beaten. A ?skip level? button would just end up leading to a higher difficulty level. Which people would frequently use, by the way.

 

[Xprimentyl]

So the temptation of a skip function would add a layer of CHALLENGE for seasoned gamers? I'd say that's ironic, but I shouldn't have to. Also in the vein of irony: a skip function is somehow over-accommodating making every game for everybody which they aren't, therefore devs shouldn't implement it to accommodate me... oh wait, is that my argument coming full circle to bit me in the ass?

I have a feeling there are some people in here who throw fits when a steakhouse has vegan options on the menu: "It's a steakhouse! You eat cow or you don't eat!"

No it isn't adding Challenge to seasoned gamers. It's adding a cheap way out. A temptation to say, "fuck it" and missing out on the experience of playing the game in the first place.

I?m sorry, the seduction of seasoned gamers is NOT an argument; that?s just a silly cop out, hence my post. I don?t blame the mistress alone if the affair she?s engaged in breaks ups the man?s happy home; they?re each culpable for their own decisions, good, bad or indifferent.

And instead of going to unrealistic extremes and saying that the option to skip could run rampant and prey upon the weak wills of hardcore gamers (boo-effin?-hoo) and issue in a new era of defeatists and quitters, let?s be realistic: no one (let alone everyone) is going to spend money on games just to skip them. Gamers buy games; we?re not stupid; if we buy a game, we?re going to play it. At the end of the day, whether or not I skipped O&S and enjoyed myself playing Dark Souls has no bearing on Joe OverThere who was stuck on O&S for 4 days and popped a boner when he finally ?fun-challenged? himself through them. If I deny myself that sense of accomplishment, that?s on me.

Now nobody seems to pay attention to this, but I've said over and over again that a cheat code is fine. A God-Mode is fine, because even with a guaranteed "win" the player still has to go through the motions, they still have to see the content, they still have to experience the game.

God-Mode is basically skipping, except you get to see it all happen, so you don't rob anyone of actual gameplay experience. (although if challenge is part of the experience you rob them of that, but it's less of an effect as a skip would provide).

As for God Mode and Cheat code alternatives you?re ok with (as am I,) if someone really just wants to see the story or faff about in late areas of the game (i.e.: enjoy their purchase in a way of their choosing,) how are you or anyone else validated by them being forced to essentially do busy work? Should I be forced to engage in conversation at a bar because bars are generally social gathering places? Can I not take my drink to the pool table and shoot a game by myself? By the way, pool is supposed to be a two player game; should have to find someone else to play with me because that?s how it?s meant to be played? Is my wanting to be alone affecting the social butterfly over there who?s talking to anyone who?ll listen? Point is, if I pay the same for my drink and game of pool as everyone else, how I choose to enjoy them is up to ME, not an arbitrary standard set by ?the norm.? And the skip option is not ?robbing? anyone of anything; that implies a deliberate, malicious intent when it?s a choice an individual would make for themselves; if they miss out on something, so be it; their loss.

Then if you wanna use the argument of not putting a skip function in every game, then what determines which games or games types DO get the skip button and which ones don't?

Dark Souls gets a skip, does Mario Kart? If a race is too hard, should players be able to press a button and get the trophy?

Not what, WHO; the devs can make that determination on a game by game, IP by IP basis. The point is how you or anyone else chooses to enjoy your entertainment should not set an exclusionary standard for everyone. It?s not that the option to skip is accommodating to making every game for everybody, it ALLOWS every game to be for everybody; is that a bad thing? Is it bad the erttheking?s friend is enjoying Dark Souls even though he may be doing the heavy lifting? Is it bad she?s enjoying Dark Souls in a way other than you or anyone else? It?s entertainment; no one willing to support the industry with their purchase should have leveled at them a static rule on how to enjoy their purchase.

What about a skip in an MMO? Say the group can't beat one of the bosses in a dungeon...should they be able to skip it and try the next boss? I mean, does skipping a boss affect anyone outside that group? What about rewards for skipping? Does the treasure at the end still appear?

Where do the limitations go in? At what point do you say that skipping isn't acceptable? What purpose does skipping a boss or a piece of content serve in the first place? How does it enrich the experience for the "skipper"?

Say you skip in a single player RPG because you don't want to fight or can't beat a boss? Does skipping provide any experience, or special loot from the boss? What if a hard boss provides a key to a secret dungeon with more bosses? If I skip that boss do I still get the key? What about the rest of the bosses? What about the loot that often lies in chests around a dungeon or after a hard enemy, if I can skip does that affect the loot lying around? If so, then surely you can see the implications of having to do that extra programming right?

It's easy to say just provide a skip button, but it's a lot harder to put down ground rules for it.

I said in an early post that I didn?t believe skipping should apply to the multiplayer games; those are truly tests of skill and buffs for weaker players would make the game a moot point. Though ranking systems are often used to ensure similarly skilled people are matched for a fair fight; that?s the most I think newer players can ask for, that or play in private matches where they can set their own parameters with friends. I also said that I believed skipping should have a soft price, achievements/trophies don?t unlock, additional/bonus/non-narrative critical content remains locked, etc. The idea being if someone is willing to skip, they likely don?t expect much more than progression of the story and likely aren?t questioning why they?re not getting? I?m sorry? DESERVING of the ?extra? stuff. There are any number of ways this could be handled most of which I imagine would not require a drastic restructuring of the game at the genetic level as you?re positing.

And of course, not every game is going to lend itself to skipping, so if you want to suggest myriad hypothetical games/instances for which skipping wouldn?t work, I can but agree with you; conversely, if I muster up a similar number of hypotheticals wherein skipping would work, could I expect the same in return?

At the end of the day, no side of this ?debate? is gaining any ground save for what?s collecting in the treads of our shoes as we dig in our heels. No one?s mind is changing, but I think we can agree the reality ultimately is going to be somewhere in the middle: not all games will get skip features and those that do will not be mountains of ruin threatening the ideals of purity, honor and nobility that have come to define the gaming industry?

 

[CritialGaming]

As for God Mode and Cheat code alternatives you?re ok with (as am I,) if someone really just wants to see the story or faff about in late areas of the game (i.e.: enjoy their purchase in a way of their choosing,) how are you or anyone else validated by them being forced to essentially do busy work? Should I be forced to engage in conversation at a bar because bars are generally social gathering places? Can I not take my drink to the pool table and shoot a game by myself? By the way, pool is supposed to be a two player game; should have to find someone else to play with me because that?s how it?s meant to be played? Is my wanting to be alone affecting the social butterfly over there who?s talking to anyone who?ll listen? Point is, if I pay the same for my drink and game of pool as everyone else, how I choose to enjoy them is up to ME, not an arbitrary standard set by ?the norm.? And the skip option is not ?robbing? anyone of anything; that implies a deliberate, malicious intent when it?s a choice an individual would make for themselves; if they miss out on something, so be it; their loss.

Buy a game of pool and then try throwing the balls into the holes physically and see if anyone let's you "enjoy" the game however you want.

I am all for a person playing a video game however they want. So long as they are PLAYING. Skipping is not playing the game. If you don't wanna deal with the "busy-work" i.e. playing the game. Then go watch a youtube video, why spend you money to not play a game that is meant to be played?

The God Mode cheats still at least require the playing interaction with the media, despite loosing all challenge.

Not what, WHO; the devs can make that determination on a game by game, IP by IP basis. The point is how you or anyone else chooses to enjoy your entertainment should not set an exclusionary standard for everyone. It?s not that the option to skip is accommodating to making every game for everybody, it ALLOWS every game to be for everybody; is that a bad thing? Is it bad the erttheking?s friend is enjoying Dark Souls even though he may be doing the heavy lifting? Is it bad she?s enjoying Dark Souls in a way other than you or anyone else? It?s entertainment; no one willing to support the industry with their purchase should have leveled at them a static rule on how to enjoy their purchase.

Does anyone really buy a game to skip through it? How does a skip somehow make a difficult game for "everybody"? It doesn't it just means that anybody can press a button to not play. That's the point that you, err, or anybody else on this thread fail to counter. SKIPPING IS NOT PLAYING! If you pay to PLAY and then choose to NOT play, then why did you waste your money? Because you are not enjoying something you are not experiencing.

It's like saying, "I've never had ice cream, but I really like Ice cream."

I said in an early post that I didn?t believe skipping should apply to the multiplayer games; those are truly tests of skill and buffs for weaker players would make the game a moot point. Though ranking systems are often used to ensure similarly skilled people are matched for a fair fight; that?s the most I think newer players can ask for, that or play in private matches where they can set their own parameters with friends. I also said that I believed skipping should have a soft price, achievements/trophies don?t unlock, additional/bonus/non-narrative critical content remains locked, etc. The idea being if someone is willing to skip, they likely don?t expect much more than progression of the story and likely aren?t questioning why they?re not getting? I?m sorry? DESERVING of the ?extra? stuff. There are any number of ways this could be handled most of which I imagine would not require a drastic restructuring of the game at the genetic level as you?re positing.

And of course, not every game is going to lend itself to skipping, so if you want to suggest myriad hypothetical games/instances for which skipping wouldn?t work, I can but agree with you; conversely, if I muster up a similar number of hypotheticals wherein skipping would work, could I expect the same in return?

At the end of the day, no side of this ?debate? is gaining any ground save for what?s collecting in the treads of our shoes as we dig in our heels. No one?s mind is changing, but I think we can agree the reality ultimately is going to be somewhere in the middle: not all games will get skip features and those that do will not be mountains of ruin threatening the ideals of purity, honor and nobility that have come to define the gaming industry?

This is true, nobody is doing anything but digging heels into the dirt. However I wish that wasn't the case. I am more than willing to budge on any issue if someone provides a legitimate point, but so far nobody has done anything but say, "people should be able to enjoy things however they want." Which I've countered several times already and the moment someone can explain to me how not experiencing something is enjoying it, I'll be happy to budge and bow down to you.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Games are more serious and challenging than real life and you can't skip real life, so no skipping in games either.

 

[Kerg3927]

Weird, I remember dungeons getting harder in Cata, because raiders wanted more than tank-and-spank bosses, and I remember a lot of people leaving because Lich King ended the story set up in Warcraft 3. I know I dropped out in shortly after Mists because the story was busy crawling up it?s own ass, not because casual raids were a thing.

Did you even try that clusterfuck?

Raids did get harder in early Cataclysm. They were good. Then about a year into it, they introduced LFR in a patch. Most of my guild migrated over to the newly released SWTOR about that time. We gave it a go there, but many of us didn't like the SWTOR end-game, so we ended up disbanding.

I came back in Pandaria for a few months, and it was all about LFR. Large pug raids of mostly bad players or kids facerolling through trivialized easy content, all bickering and cussing at each other in raid chat. It was like Lord of the Flies. Awful. I tried to challenge/entertain myself by trying to finish highest on the damage meter, but after a month or two of that I parted ways with WoW for good.

LFR destroyed guilds and destroyed the community. It took away a lot of the incentive to organize, communicate, and coordinate together as a team. Everyone could just log on at their whim, jump into a queue, and faceroll to phat loot. And it was the same loot that you got in the real raids, minus a few stat points. The raiding guilds used to compete with each other for boss kills and were ranked on each server, but it just wasn't the same when everyone was killing all of the bosses in LFR daily upon release. And in LFR, stats didn't matter. Skill didn't matter. It was just going through the motions. Auto-win.

I never thought WoW had much in the way of good story. Warcraft 3 had one of the best stories in the history of video games, IMO. But WoW just took all of the characters from the WC3 story and made them into raid bosses, and milked that for as long as it could. There were a few cool stories here and there, but most of the rest of it was just fetch quests with some fluff. MMO's are a terrible format for story. Stories have a beginning and an end. MMO's don't end, they repeat.