A Skip Button for Boss Fights

[ManFromTheInternet]

Giving people an option is never a bad thing, though I wouldn't use it personally, bosses are the best part.
What befuddles me is game critics looking for this. How can you give an honest review of a game while skipping critical parts of it?

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Sure. Someone pays for the game, someone should be able to access all the game. Obvious caviates are multiplayer games, especially mmos, where their presence as an underskilled player can affect the experiences of those around them. But in single player games? Sure. Just lock off trophies and let them go at it.

I live with a guy who has muscle problems, and while he loves games, he can't touch games like dark souls because the reaction times required of him burn him out too quickly. It's not even that he's not skilled enough, when he's fresh he can play most games to a pretty high standard. But he just can't have fast reaction times for long, so games that demand that he just doesn't play. I'd love for there to be something like this so he can actually join in on experiences I love.

But ultimately, someone else being able to enjoy the same experience as me in an easier sense does not take away from my sense of achievement in completing games. Fact that some people managed to beat dark souls using summons doesn't detract in any way the achievement I felt when I got platinum in 3. Why would this?

 

[Dr. Crawver]

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.

Honestly I'd say something like this actually means developers are less likely to use them as a baseline player. If everyone can skip something if it's too hard, why would you hold back? You've given them the ability to move forward anyway.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

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.

Valid comparison if madden had any significant experience in it outside of gameplay. It does not. No-one buys it for the story, or the in game world. People buy madden to play a simulated version of american football. It's not comparable to say nier automata, which has a rich story and world with which the exploration and discovery in both gamespace and story is engaging by itself.

And you mention those with disabilities. Do we just stick our middle finger to them? We have the ability to make it accessible to them at no cost to us. Why not give it to them. It's one thing to have never considered them, but you just did. Do you think it's ok to just ignore their position entirely?

 

[Dr. Crawver]

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.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I can't even fathom what it would be like to care if somebody else plays a game differently than me anymore

Like easy modes of skippable cutscenes or cheat codes or level selects or anything else, it literally would never affect me or my gameplay.

So I'm all for it. And I'm okay with other folks advocating it.

This argument was stupid when it was about Mega Man's easy mode.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Can say I can really object to a completely optional feature that does not need to affect you if you don't want it to. Though, to be fair, I would probably use such a thing from time to time.

 

[sanquin]

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.

In this case, you're not fixing a problem but just putting a band-aid on it. As the problem with that game is the sudden spike in difficulty, not you not being able to beat bosses. In other words, the fault lies with the developers for putting a bad difficulty curve in the game.

 

[laggyteabag]

Most of the comments in this thread explain why they wouldn't use it, and thats fine, but they don't seem to remember that there are a lot of people out there who find games intimidating, but would love to give them a go. I personally know plenty, like my girlfriend, and my parents, for example.

A game is much more than the gameplay. People like the interactivity. People want to make their own choices, or look like an action hero. Mass Effect's Narrative difficulty is a great example. It makes the combat painfully easy, but means that the player can focus on the story, without constantly being bogged down with combat that they may not enjoy, or aren't very good at.

Personally, I can only see this as being a good thing, and I wish it would appear more often. Maybe not as a "skip button" because:

if you make Gameplay skippible, you also can't have any of theStory take place during said gameplay.

But something like ME's aforementioned Narrative mode would be perfect.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

What about access for people with disabilities? Physical ailments and other issues that hamper their ability even when they want to see a story through? Some developers like Naughty Dog go a way to add in features and it doesn't harm the experience for anyone else when all you have to do is not bloody choose the option.

Time to wheel out the Duke for this one;

 

[maninahat]

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.

Interesting point,though in most games that have bosses, the gameplay and story usually already is segregated. There is a cutscene to introduce a boss, the gameplay boss fight, and then another to show the boss is defeated. Rarely do plot relevant things come up in an actual fight that haven't already been established beforehand. I agree games should desegregate their games and stories, and having a skippable fight would be disruptive in a game that genuinely manages to include valuable plot details in the fight. Then again, we already have the power to skip cut scenes, that also contain story important information, so surely that's just a thing the designers can either accept, or account for in their design.

 

[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.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Yeah, why not? I mean, it's inclusion wouldn't take anything away from my gaming experience as I would never use it, but it would allow people who don't play games as their primary hobby to get the same enjoyment out of gaming that I do.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

As long as it will not hinder the content behind the "skip" button, sure... Play your single mode as you wish, with cheat codes, trainers, or that.
But we live in the time of focus groups and steam charts. I'm a bit afraid that some higher ups might look on statistics, and conclude, that since so many people use the skip button, polishing parts that you can pass by is a waste of time and resources.
(Also, i'm sure someone is looking at these threads right now and thinking "Yeah, we could replace those skill gates... with a paywall":>)

Oh and it's OK to ask developers to add those features... just, don't argue that, i don't know, permadeth or removing saves is consumer unfriendly. As long as it's announced before the release, it's not.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

...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.

 

[BarkBarker]

Fuck no, you are gonna earn your shit or be a coward(presuming the games reasonable and not ass blastingly broken) and look it up. It is the ONLY medium that does it and you will not be given it without working for it. It is a HUGE appeal of the challenge to be rewarded with more game, this shit is why I got upset with Star Fox Zero and its invincible mode. No you don't have to use it but the lazy uninterested people will use it and just see what happens.....oddly enough in a game where the crux of what happens is not all that good or interesting. Please don't appeal to these kinds of people, some shit is just NOT for you.

 

[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!

On topic: I don't really have a problem with a boss fight skip button but there has to be an option to disable it from the start of the game. If I accidentally skipped a boss fight via an errant button press it would really bring my piss to a boil.

Also, no achievements for skipped bosses!

 

[sageoftruth]

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.