In Defense of Hepler Mode

[Xanthious]

I agree someone should invent a game mode without all the pesky interactivity. Think about it you could just sit on your couch and watch the games play out all by themselves with no action required on your end. You could see the entire story without touching the controller. I bet if it got popular enough you could hire honest to goodness living people to act out this "Helper Mode" rather than rely on computer animation. If it REALLY took off you could set up times to demonstrate this "Helper Mode" to entire theaters full of people and charge them admission. I bet there's real money to be made if you could just find a way of watching games instead of playing them.

Yeah ya see what Ms Helper was/is looking for is called a MOVIE or TV SHOW. They show em on TVs, you can see em theaters, hell, you can even watch them on your phone or computer or even gaming consoles! Games are already getting painfully easier with each passing day and now you have a section of people bitching because they can't skip the interactive parts. Get the fuck out of here! Seriously if you are trying to tell me this is what you want with a straight face then please turn around and take up a new hobby because obviously gaming isn't for you.

Games by their very nature are meant to be PLAYED. If you don't want to deal with that then go fucking watch a TV show or a movie or watch a Youtube video if you're really aching for the garbage that passes for story telling in video games. However, what isn't needed is a way to skip the very part of what makes a video game a video GAME. You see THIS is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

"Games are about gameplay!" screams the crazed purist. Actually, games are about fun

Sure, except you could say that about every form of entertainment!

-Books aren't about reading, they're about having fun!
-Movies aren't about watching a non-interactive story on a screen, it's about having fun =D
-Murdering prostitiutes every Sunday night isn't because I'm complused to, it's about having fun

Games are not that special.

Edit: In a perfect world every form of entertainment would come with so many options you could go through any story in any medium any way you wanted to. Fuck man, it's only 2012.

*Sigh* Calling someone a "crazy purist" when they'd like some gameplay in their games is like calling (a gamer) entitled or whiny these days. It's virtually meaningless and it does nothing but make you sound like a degrading asshole. What happened to the gamers who wrote about gamers that were actually on the other gamer's side? It seems like every fuckpump with a column or a internet video show gets off on berating gamers even if they've admitted to being one themselves (but of course, they aren't that type of gamer).

And guess what (breaking fucking news!!!) some asshats on the internet overreacted (ahhhh!)! That doesn't immediateyly make them wrong and that doesn't mean the person they're "bullying" - in essence - deserves more sympathy than anybody else.


___________ You know what? Games should have more options, for everything. "Herpler mode" could very easily and understandable be included in that. I've already seen several games that had 1 hour - 2 hour long cutscenes come with a movie viewing mode. So fuck it, yes, games could come with a movie viewing "herpler" option with them. But they shouldn't be all about that. Games ARE about gameplay. [sub]derp[/sub]

And from what I've heard she's single-handedly responsible for Anders in DA2 so she deserves whatever writing job she can get.

Edit: and the day I pay $60 for a non-interactive game is the day I swear off games and drink myself to the brink of insanity.

 

[mjc0961]

Skipping combat? Are you mad? Gaming as a whole still hasn't even figured out how to properly let us skip cutscenes, tutorials, and place proper checkpoints yet! Granted, I don't actually care if other people can skip the combat bits in games (doesn't mean I have to), but asking for this seems like wishful thinking right now. It's 2012 and games still suck in the skipping department. Hell, speaking of BioWare, let's direct some ire at Mass Effect 3's shitty checkpoints and unskippable cutscenes. The big problem is placing the checkpoint BEFORE the unskippable cutscene instead of after where it belongs.

Spoiler

Dying to the infamous Marauder Shields (yes I know he just wanted to stop me from seeing the ending, spare us all the link to that stupid video for once) over and over and over on Insanity didn't piss me off. Having to watch that unskippable fucking cutscene of watching Harbinger fly away and Shepard slowly get up and pick up a pistol pissed me off. And there were a few other instances too, but this one sticks clearest in my mind because it was at the end of the game.

And the unskippable tutorial on Earth. I've already beaten the game once. Was it really necessary to make me go through all that crap again? Yeah, I know how to shoot a gun. I know how to take cover. I know how to reload. Just let me get on with the proper first mission of the game already.

Again, lots of games are guilty of this nonsense. In 2012, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect issues like this to no longer exist, but yet, they still do. So asking them to let us skip another part of the game when they haven't mastered making the parts that are in much greater need of being skippable actually being skippable is just madness. Part of me is actually interested to see a game developer try this and see how badly they fuck it up like they've been fucking up all the other stuff that should be skippable for pretty much the entire duration of the time I've been playing video games.

[small]Seriously, why the fuck is it so hard for beating the game to create a small note in a save file somewhere that says "this player beat the game now, make the tutorial and every cutscene skippable in case they don't want to go through them again for whatever reason"?! >:[[/small]

As for Hepler herself, while the community at the time certainly didn't handle things correctly, she IS nothing less than a living tumor, one of many Bioware developed and rotted down to nothing because of.

And this is your idea of handling things correctly?! You are a horrible person.

 

[FredTheUndead]

I read the article, I merely disagree with it. His example of combat being a chore in the Witcher 2 could be improved merely by having Witcher 2 combat not be shit in the first place.

If you did, then you didn't put any real thought into it.

And yeah no Hepler is awful. I don't dislike her because she's a woman or anything (that'd be an odd place to come from for a variety of reasons), I hate her because she's a bad writer who clearly dislikes games, and who when originally called out for her bad writing basically used "you just hate it because I'm a woman" as a defense.

The way you expressed yourself was still dickish and seemed to justify the horrible treatment she received. Your vitriolic rhetoric makes it seem as if you approve of that sort of abuse and nonsense all in the name of your impotent, insignificant rage. So yeah, I stand by my comments. Don't like it? Prove me wrong, sparky. Act like an adult.

You accusations of not putting any thought into things certainly ring clear when you yourself are just acting like a condescending asshole and not making any actual defense.

As I made clear, she does not deserve the hatred sent her way because she's a woman or anything like that. What she DOES absolutely deserve is any hatred sent her way over her being an awful writer or using her oh so beloved "you're just made because I'm a woman and have a job in the industry!" argument. She's incompetent at what she does (which she only does because she failed as a novelist and is married to another employee), and her defenses are infantile and petty. So yes, much of the hate sent her way is 100% legitimate.

As for Hepler herself, while the community at the time certainly didn't handle things correctly, she IS nothing less than a living tumor, one of many Bioware developed and rotted down to nothing because of.

And this is your idea of handling things correctly?! You are a horrible person.

My idea of handling an incompetent IS for people to tell them that they are incompetent yes.

 

[Knight Templar]

Snip

What was wrong with the Anvil of the Void in Dragon Age? What was wrong with Legacy for dragon age 2?

 

[mjc0961]

As for Hepler herself, while the community at the time certainly didn't handle things correctly, she IS nothing less than a living tumor, one of many Bioware developed and rotted down to nothing because of.

And this is your idea of handling things correctly?! You are a horrible person.

My idea of handling an incompetent IS for people to tell them that they are incompetent yes.

Except that's not what you said at all, and if you can't tell the difference between what you originally said and what you said just now, I truly pity you.

 

[Callate]

Hmm.

On one hand, I kind've appreciate the idea that once you buy a game, it's yours, and you should be able to play it more or less any way you wish. God knows, if the ME3 ending controversy has done one thing, it's been to deepen my skepticism of anyone whose argument more or less starts from "you plebians are destroying the art...! *shake shake shake*"

On the other hand, I can't help but think about the recent Final Fantasy games, about which a common criticism I hear is "these people would clearly rather be making movies, and pushed against that desire, their audience can apparently go hang."

I entirely appreciate games like the Deus Ex series that at their best work very hard to make non-combat choices a real option for progression. I love good conversation systems, and writers who work hard to make characters who are worth talking to. And I'll admit that, much as I enjoyed much of Mass Effect 2, I very much got to the point where every new plot development had me musing "Hmm, I wonder how I'll use gunplay to resolve this issue...?" I totally agree that game designers should work harder to make sure that every aspect of their game is well integrated into a solid and fulfilling whole, ideally such that players feel little or no desire to skip over "onerous" aspects of game-play or so that they can minimize aspects that they're less enthusiastic about (either, for example, talking their way out of fights... Or, conversely, using brute force to resolve what at face value appears to be a social conflict.)

But we shouldn't pretend that if a "Hepler mode" actually became something of an industry standard it would have no effect beyond allowing players to play the game in a way they found more enjoyable. Even a relatively shallow examination of games in the twenty-first century ought to suggest that that's simply not true. Game company executives hate putting production hours into material that players aren't going to experience; they see it as a waste of time and money. Their response to finding that 51% of gamers are skipping over combat or dialogue, frequently, is not going to be to say, "Hmm, how can we make this [combat/dialogue] more fulfilling to the player", it's going to be, "In the sequel, cut out the [combat/dialogue] altogether."

Look at the way planet exploration in Mass Effect [e-/de-]volved.

I also hesitate to give gamers more reasons to claim that a game is too short when they simply skipped over large sections of gameplay, even with the designers' half-hearted blessing.

I'd love to see dynamic, non-violent/non-action gameplay continue to evolve and designers continue to find new ways to incorporate elements of conflict and challenge that involve more than reflexes and basic tactics. But I have real concerns if something like a "Hepler mode" was how we tried to go about it.

 

[FredTheUndead]

As for Hepler herself, while the community at the time certainly didn't handle things correctly, she IS nothing less than a living tumor, one of many Bioware developed and rotted down to nothing because of.

And this is your idea of handling things correctly?! You are a horrible person.

My idea of handling an incompetent IS for people to tell them that they are incompetent yes.

Except that's not what you said at all, and if you can't tell the difference between what you originally said and what you said just now, I truly pity you.

OH GOD SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET USED HYPERBOLE

She's bad for the company. She just is. Even if you like what she writes for some reason, nobody who draws so much bad press is good for a company that already has an utter assload of public relations problems. Maybe she's a nice person in real life, I don't know. I DOUBT it, given her typically arrogant responses to criticism, and that whole "we wanted to write a fantasy story that was different from the typical one written by some old white man" nonsense, but I don't really know. What I DO know is that she brings nothing good to the table for Bioware, she just sits there, festering ill feelings in the community and clogging up the works. That's what a tumor is. If Bioware knows what's good for them, they'll cut her. Which is pretty likely anyway, since Old Republic and ME3 both reek of "Ea is going to bring down the goddamn executioner's axe" for Bioware.

So do I hate her for some bigoted reason, or wish death on her? No. Do I think she's good for Bioware or gaming in general? No. Do I think a skip combat button is a good idea? Absolutely not.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Maybe instead of adding Hepler Mode, developers should make games where the story and gameplay are in harmony instead of competition. But if Hepler Mode is possible - if combat is nothing more than an obstacle between cutscenes and nothing you do in a fight will have consequences later on - then I don't see any reason not to give players the option.

This is exactly my line of reasoning.

I don't like Bioware very much for both game and meta-game reasons. Mostly because I despise the method of "drop player in level, player kills all enemies/walks to end, then interactive cutscene" that seems to infest their games so deeply. I hate having to wait for "Ambush" dialogue options to pop up in order to kill people I don't like (Miranda), I hate how the different classes are just different flavors of combat and I hate having to kill just as many people in a "Paragon" playthrough as a "Renegade" playthrough.

If I were to implement some sort of combat skip option, I would rather accomplish it by offering variety in problem solving that may appeal to a more story minded gamer. Things like coercion or stealth. Variety is always more appealing to me than just offering a cut down experience, and really, if the combat isn't contributing to the experience, then why is the combat even there?

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I just don't understand why you'd bother defending anyone from that little Reddit hate circle. Dragon Age II was a piece of crap, but if you or anyone else got so invested in it that you can't help but burst with misogynistic rage when a female writer expresses her ineptness at playing games, I think it says more about you than it does about them.

I'm not defending anyone, it was rather shitty what they did and especially in which tone, but reactionary putting it off as some sort of "misogynistic/homophobic outburst" or whatever gaming media tried to "paint" it as won't help anyone but EAs PR.

She isn't the only female in the industry and it's not like everyone else got the same treatment. It's easy to put it off as "stupid gamers", it's harder to try to analyze and find reason as to why it actually happened and maybe try to prevent it the next time.

And that's not going to happen unless either the press start being more critical and asking questions, similar to what Forbes is doing right now or if that certain part of the industry changes its ways. Hell, people are literally throwing millions of dollars at this Kickstarter thing mainly because they are frustrated of the state the industry is in and some critical commentary in regards to that and the obvious business practices instead of the PR puff pieces and glowing reviews every now and then as well as some basic respect for your audience and their thinking ability would go a long way.

I see what you're saying, but two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[Dwarfman]

...

However, for, say, Bioware games (or RPG's in general), they could just give us a way to skip combat through dialog. Like, say, you get ambushed, leader starts gloating, you use your super-awesome speech skills to persuade him/her to back off.

Bam, combat section skipped.

...

Personally if I want a story, I read a book. If I want a game I play a freakin' game. This suggestion by Irridium here I like. Given the RPG style of gaming involves a lot of conversation It would make sense to have a means of using that to skip through combat sequenses as a reward for your character being a good diplomat, bully, sneaky git, whatever.

At the same time that should reciprocate and give us a way to skip dialog with combat. If you want to skip the conversation and just get stuck into the combat an option should be there for your character to say 'fuck it!' and just start blowing people away.

 

[Knight Templar]

we wanted to write a fantasy story that was different from the typical one written by some old white man" nonsense

That is nonsense, because she did not say that, I have already pointed that out in this thread, and you could have figured this out yourself had you looked into the matter, or thought about it for one moment.
She works under an old white guy. Old enough anyway.

her typically arrogant responses to criticism,

Typically we hear nothing from her, so that is a dishonest statement. It's a bit of a theme from you.

 

[Fearzone]

If watching a sibling play a videogame is a close equivalent to Hepler mode, then so is watching a Let's Play on YouTube. Which I've done at least a couple of times for games that are short and more about spectacle than gameplay.

So you don't really need to buy the game for Hepler mode.

But, I guess you mentioned if we do that we can't explore or pick dialog options. Okay, maybe the price you have to pay to save $60.

This is a roundabout way of saying that in story driven games, there is no harm in it.

 

[=HCFS=Discoman]

Maybe instead of adding Hepler Mode, developers should make games where the story and gameplay are in harmony instead of competition. But if Hepler Mode is possible - if combat is nothing more than an obstacle between cutscenes and nothing you do in a fight will have consequences later on - then I don't see any reason not to give players the option.

Wasn't this basically how Portal worked? The entire game was essentially tutorial just through the level design, yet it never really seemed like it was holding your hand, despite the design of the levels doing just that.

In some cases, it would be hard to have a helper mode. In some cases, it would work well. I wouldn't mind it myself in the few games where the story and gameplay are horribly separated and the gameplay is a boring repetitive task. But I'm not sure it should be in some games that do use their combat well and reinforce the story through combat. At that point, the fights become a part of the story, and I think skipping those will end up with you missing out on a lot of what is going on.

Then again, you don't need to skip it. It would be an option.

Yeah, I may not use it, but I don't really see the huge issue. Although, if they do have a ode like that, they may want to re-work the cutscenes to better flow, because t will be more movie than game at that point.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Hmmm. the gamer in me doesn't like the idea much. I already feel much of the challenge and reward lost in Bioshock's "revive with all your weapons" vita chambers, Final Fantasy XIII's quick retry, health regen, and games autosaving every 5 minutes. On the other hand, what old school gamer can't sympathasize. The endless hours replaying Ninja Gaiden to get the next cut sceene. The fighting game endings we never got because we couldn't get a handle on the character. That RPG that needed hours upon hours of grinding. Not everyone has the time to get good enough to progress in a game, and if there's a story attached, that can be a little cruel. Even as a gamer, I'll admit, I like reliving cut scenes but taking the time to replay 10 - 20 hours into a final Fantasy isnt' in the cards anymore, let alone the multiple playthroughs a bioware game can ask. Back to the other hand, we have more than a few companies that seem more interested in movie making than video games, and I don't wish to encourage them to just into interactive film.

Maybe there's something in having the feature but attaching a penality to it. Say making of video unlockables if you beat the game naturally, or discounts on upcoming story based DLC. Depending on the game you could just cut out the game entirely and sell the cutscenes on DVD. It woulddn't work with Bioware titles, but Metal Gear Solid could make a kiling.

 

[back pain]

snip

I could make a drinking game out of this.

Don't, it's a one way ticket to alcohol poisoning.

Original topic: I actually played a mission in Mass Effect 3 on story mode. Ended up just meleeing everything to death because it was so easy. Except for the Cerberus turrets, those things can fuck your shit up fast even on story mode.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Pretty much all Bioware games would be improved if you could skip the combat. Since combat in most Bioware games is pretty bad.

However, for, say, Bioware games (or RPG's in general), they could just give us a way to skip combat through dialog. Like, say, you get ambushed, leader starts gloating, you use your super-awesome speech skills to persuade him/her to back off.

Bam, combat section skipped.

Really wish Bioware, and more developers for that matter, let you do that. Let you really exercise that speechcraft and charisma score. Of course some people you may have to fight no matter what, but you could still talk to them first, and whittle down their confidence and moral to make them easier to fight. Maybe have a button that let you throw combat taunts of your own. Or something.

KOTOR 2 played with this idea. Only with Sion, but still. HK-47 tells you the best way to kill a jedi (or sith) is to mess with his/her mind. Erode their confidence. You could do this with Sion, and his skills would decrease, and you'd eventually talk him into dying (or "letting go").

The problem with how they did it with Sion, IMO IIRC, is that you HAD to talk him down. If you only fought, he would never die because that was his whole sctick. I do love how it (and the entire game sans the non-story parts of Malachor) was done, but I don't feel that's a good example of what you were talking about.

As for the actual argument, I don't get the people who are saying "If I want a story, I'll read a book." This completely misses how amazing games are as a storytelling medium. Even if you skip the combat, you're still controlling the conversations, which means you get invested in a way I've yet to see done by another medium.

Besides, even if that were not true, there are some very good stories that I can only experience in games. Yes, there are Mass Effect books (for example), but Shepard's story is only available as a game. If I didn't like the combat (I do- finished all 3 games on Insanity, but let's just suppose), why not let me just skip to the story?

 

[Irridium]

Pretty much all Bioware games would be improved if you could skip the combat. Since combat in most Bioware games is pretty bad.

However, for, say, Bioware games (or RPG's in general), they could just give us a way to skip combat through dialog. Like, say, you get ambushed, leader starts gloating, you use your super-awesome speech skills to persuade him/her to back off.

Bam, combat section skipped.

Really wish Bioware, and more developers for that matter, let you do that. Let you really exercise that speechcraft and charisma score. Of course some people you may have to fight no matter what, but you could still talk to them first, and whittle down their confidence and moral to make them easier to fight. Maybe have a button that let you throw combat taunts of your own. Or something.

KOTOR 2 played with this idea. Only with Sion, but still. HK-47 tells you the best way to kill a jedi (or sith) is to mess with his/her mind. Erode their confidence. You could do this with Sion, and his skills would decrease, and you'd eventually talk him into dying (or "letting go").

The problem with how they did it with Sion, IMO IIRC, is that you HAD to talk him down. If you only fought, he would never die because that was his whole sctick. I do love how it (and the entire game sans the non-story parts of Malachor) was done, but I don't feel that's a good example of what you were talking about.

I agree, but I couldn't think of any other game that let you weaken an enemy between fights by talking to him/her. He's pretty much the only example I can think of...

 

[Darkmantle]

I love the idea of a Helper Mode. In a story-driven game I'm there for the story, and unless the gameplay is really, really good it's really just something I put up with. I'm not saying I'd never play the gameplay. I'm guessing I'd play with it a lot. But whenever I stop playing games because I didn't finish it it's always, always because I got sick of the gameplay. Even if I've been really into the story up to that point.

This idea would make the achievement system essentially worthless, wouldn't it? Like, I could skip the combat and cinematic sections, couldn't I just achievement whore every game?

Uh, I'm not really sure what the achievement system has to do with this? If you mean "You unlocked this chapter!" achivements, this could be solved very, very easily. Just tie the achievement to the last boss or door or something. Problem solved.

Yeah, I was taking about the end of chapter achievements, there are probably solutions.

 

[The Pinray]

I think the best way to do this is a "story" mode that seriously beefs up your character (even makes them invulnerable) and makes your enemies pathetically weak. That way the player can still get a feel for the fight and still enjoy the victory, then hurry to the next story segment.