In Defense of Hepler Mode

[FedericoV]

I have no problem with a story-mode if it doens't affect the game in any significant way.

But I fear that if the Hepler mode shows any kind of success and the possibility to make more money out of it, Bioware (and any other company) would immediately change the gameplay to fit that mode better.

Just look at how MP has changed the gameplay of ME3: yes, I am one of the few who prefers ME2 gallery shooting because it felt more rpg-ish and less of a proper shooter. Not to mention how MP actually affects the ending, no matter what the devs said on the argument.

What are we going to see then? More cinematics. More heavy handed "storytelling". Less exploration. Less depth in the gameplay. Less proper RPG elements.

My solution? Allow story mode if you finished the game once (even at the easier difficulty level). Accomodate the easy level to be more similar to a proper story mode, removing all filler combat and having very easy and short boss fights (no multi-phased boss at easy/casual level).

 

[Trippy Turtle]

So basically gamers are getting angry that someone suggested taking out the game bit of games. What did anyone expect? It was a pretty stupid suggestion.

 

[veloper]

I see this "Hepler" mode as a capitulation to incompetence.

Basicly it amounts to "we agree our gameplay is bad and not fun, so instead of improving it and making it fun, we'll give you the option to skip gameplay entirely".

Seems like the writers at Bioware don't want to make games, or atleast not action-rpgs, or tactical rpgs, but rather movies, or adventure games at best. "Our game designers suck, but we writers so fabulously good we can carry the whole experience on our own."
Hepler mode is the new design by committee: every discipline stuck on their own little island, agreeing to be optional.

I prefer a good game instead. Bioware cutscenes cannot compete with movies.

 

[Carnagath]

'Hepler Mode' is all about making games into interactive movies, to appeal to a wider audience. I don't like this idea. Just look at what happened to television when the industry realised what a cash cow it was. Now there's virtually nothing on TV worth watching.

Actually, since I consider 3 of the shows that are ongoing as we speak to be 3 of the top 5 TV shows ever made, this is the best period in TV history since, well, ever. Talking about Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Walking Dead by the way. But hey, opinions.

 

[T3hSource]

I am actually playing through Mass effect 1 again in something you could call Hepler Mode.I've bound some keys with console commands that make encounters trivial and speeds up the game,so it takes less time to get around *cough* first Citadel visit *cough* so I can get to the dialog pies as quickly as possible which make this a much more enjoyable experience.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Ah. This is why I think the gaming community is made up of cunts. Vile, bigotted cunts.

It's unfair to use that word to describe some of the vile bigots in the gaming community. I have a ****, and it's quite nice. My go-to term is "anal polyp" - unnecessary, painful and best excised.

 

[ms_sunlight]

I see this "Hepler" mode as a capitulation to incompetence.

Basicly it amounts to "we agree our gameplay is bad and not fun, so instead of improving it and making it fun, we'll give you the option to skip gameplay entirely".

Oho, you're just begging to have the word "elitist" painted on you, aren't you?

Don't you get it? No-one's threatening to take your toys away. You can still be elite if you want to. The suggestion is that more options are open for those that want them, not that options be taken away from those that don't.

Now, I'm a gamer. Worse, I'm an "arrogant PC elitist" gamer. I consider myself to be competent at several game genres, but all I will say is, if you're not good at a game, and you see no way of getting better any time soon, it's not fun. I'm never going to be good at RTS, and my one attempt to get into League of Legends was miserable.

I gave a friend of mine (he's a guy in his 50s and a non-gamer) a copy of Vampire: The Masquerate Bloodlines, because I knew he'd enjoy the story and setting. He played it to completion because the world carried him along, but he's never been tempted to pick up another story-based RPG (even though I've recommended several) because he found several sections of the gameplay a real chore.

In some games, the conversations and choices are the most compelling part of the game. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a very competent stealth game, and that's how I played it, but I know a lot of people found the most compelling part of the whole game to be the "conversation battles", where careful dialogue choices were needed to get the result you wanted. There are ways to do this that would actually bring interesting new options to existing gamers and new gamers alike.

 

[RedmistSM]

There is absolutely room for games with a helper mode, as long as games are being made where all the story and the action is kept seperate, like Mass Effect. It's not what I prefer, but it isn't really about me either, but rather about keeping people playing the game. That feature in NSMB allowing you to skip levels? Would have done wonders for my 6-year old self who could never finish the original SMB, even if I breeze through NSMB these days.

I read some of the things people were saying about Hepler. That's some horrible stuff, and I don't think the situation calls for any of it.

 

[veloper]

I see this "Hepler" mode as a capitulation to incompetence.

Basicly it amounts to "we agree our gameplay is bad and not fun, so instead of improving it and making it fun, we'll give you the option to skip gameplay entirely".

Oho, you're just begging to have the word "elitist" painted on you, aren't you?

Don't you get it? No-one's threatening to take your toys away. You can still be elite if you want to. The suggestion is that more options are open for those that want them, not that options be taken away from those that don't.

Now, I'm a gamer. Worse, I'm an "arrogant PC elitist" gamer. I consider myself to be competent at several game genres, but all I will say is, if you're not good at a game, and you see no way of getting better any time soon, it's not fun. I'm never going to be good at RTS, and my one attempt to get into League of Legends was miserable.

I gave a friend of mine (he's a guy in his 50s and a non-gamer) a copy of Vampire: The Masquerate Bloodlines, because I knew he'd enjoy the story and setting. He played it to completion because the world carried him along, but he's never been tempted to pick up another story-based RPG (even though I've recommended several) because he found several sections of the gameplay a real chore.

In some games, the conversations and choices are the most compelling part of the game. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a very competent stealth game, and that's how I played it, but I know a lot of people found the most compelling part of the whole game to be the "conversation battles", where careful dialogue choices were needed to get the result you wanted. There are ways to do this that would actually bring interesting new options to existing gamers and new gamers alike.

I'm not sure why you are bringing difficulty into the discussion here. Hepler mode is not just an easy difficulty mode.

This is about standing by the product you bring out. Skipping additional mini-games I can get into, but skipping the meat of the game I cannot.
If a player doesn't like shooters, he should not be buying shooters. If a game developer doesn't like their own shooter, that's even worse than lying down and giving up.

 

[ms_sunlight]

I'm not sure why you are bringing difficulty into the discussion here. Hepler mode is not just an easy difficulty mode.

This is about standing by the product you bring out. Skipping additional mini-games I can get into, but skipping the meat of the game I cannot.
If a player doesn't like shooters, he should not be buying shooters. If a game developer doesn't like their own shooter, that's even worse than lying down and giving up.

Many games nowadays don't have a single mechanic, though. Like the example I gave, DE:HR; it has stealth and combat, but it also has choice and dialogue. As long as the other mechanics are not nerfed (and that is critical) why can't games have modes that allow you to skip one mechanic and enjoy another? Or how about if you're sick of the combat sections having completed a game once, but just want to see different story paths or a different ending?

Also, it's not a question of difficulty. If you don't enjoy or can't grok a particular gameplay mechanic, the difficulty setting is irrelevant; being able to faceroll your way through a mechanic you hate is just as annoying as not being able to progress at all. (That's how I feel about Bastion. Hate the combat, even though it's piss-easy. Makes the whole game a chore.)

Like I said, I'm crap at RTS. You could release the most awesome story-based game in the world, with great dialogue and branching story paths, but if the way to get to those sections was by playing through RTS battles, I'd never play it. Even if I did plough through it once (like my friend did with V:TMB) I'd never get to see other branches of the story because the combat wouldn't be fun for me. That's how some people feel when they look at a great game with branching story paths and choice-based roleplaying like The Witcher 2, but know they're crap at action-RPG combat.

 

[LiquidGrape]

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.

But people *do* hate her for being a woman.
Did you see the sexist ad hominems thrown her way? It didn't start with her retort.

She suffered countless instances of people making derogatory remarks regarding her sex, appearance and ability, and when she chose to respond in kind (and quite wittily to boot) the bleeting horde cried out indignantly about "reverse sexism" and other such nonsense, escalating the abuse at the same time.

So yeah, you'll have to excuse me when I say you're a horrible person for referring to her as a "living tumour". I don't have any patience for your kind. You add absolutely nothing of value to the discourse.

OT: More options in terms of how to approach and experience a game is only a positive in my book. I think most attempts to make the medium more accessible is a good thing.

 

[Hitchmeister]

Are you implying a huge dose of hatred, sexism, homophobia, and general jackassery isn't the definition of gamers, at least online?

 

[Riki Darnell]

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?

I think if they did add a mode like this that it should disable achievements. Cause if people are skipping action just to hear/watch the story then they shouldn't care if they aren't getting achievements lol.

 

[veloper]

I'm not sure why you are bringing difficulty into the discussion here. Hepler mode is not just an easy difficulty mode.

This is about standing by the product you bring out. Skipping additional mini-games I can get into, but skipping the meat of the game I cannot.
If a player doesn't like shooters, he should not be buying shooters. If a game developer doesn't like their own shooter, that's even worse than lying down and giving up.

Many games nowadays don't have a single mechanic, though. Like the example I gave, DE:HR; it has stealth and combat, but it also has choice and dialogue. As long as the other mechanics are not nerfed (and that is critical) why can't games have modes that allow you to skip one mechanic and enjoy another? Or how about if you're sick of the combat sections having completed a game once, but just want to see different story paths or a different ending?

Also, it's not a question of difficulty. If you don't enjoy or can't grok a particular gameplay mechanic, the difficulty setting is irrelevant; being able to faceroll your way through a mechanic you hate is just as annoying as not being able to progress at all. (That's how I feel about Bastion. Hate the combat, even though it's piss-easy. Makes the whole game a chore.)

Like I said, I'm crap at RTS. You could release the most awesome story-based game in the world, with great dialogue and branching story paths, but if the way to get to those sections was by playing through RTS battles, I'd never play it. Even if I did plough through it once (like my friend did with V:TMB) I'd never get to see other branches of the story because the combat wouldn't be fun for me. That's how some people feel when they look at a great game with branching story paths and choice-based roleplaying like The Witcher 2, but know they're crap at action-RPG combat.

Can anyone release the most awesome story based game in the world though? Planescape Torment after 12+ years still holds the #1 place in these para-olympics of storytelling.
Maybe if storytelling in games much improved I can see a couple hours of just cutscenes and dialogues being worth my time.

Well, the Bioware writers seem to think they can, so let them try. Maybe the response of the gaming community will be amusing to watch atleast.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Like I said, I'm crap at RTS. You could release the most awesome story-based game in the world, with great dialogue and branching story paths, but if the way to get to those sections was by playing through RTS battles, I'd never play it. Even if I did plough through it once (like my friend did with V:TMB) I'd never get to see other branches of the story because the combat wouldn't be fun for me. That's how some people feel when they look at a great game with branching story paths and choice-based roleplaying like The Witcher 2, but know they're crap at action-RPG combat.

__
Let's look at arguably the best story-driven RTS - Homeworld. In that game, story is generally delivered through gameplay. A "Hepler mode" Homeworld would be missing several of its most impactful moments. Hepler mode is fundamentally incompatible with the way many video games tell stories.

On the other hand, I think the need for this sort of game where the gameplay is the story could effectively be filled by high-budget iFiction and VNs. There's probably a market for that sort of thing.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Isn't what she's asking for just a visual novel?
Maybe she should stop complaining and just learn Japanese (it really isn't very hard to make it to that level). Except, no one calls those games, because they aren't. I still haven't heard anyone advance an argument to show that making gameplay skippable wouldn't just result in an inferior imitation of what's already being done in other mediums. If she had said "let's make a game with no combat and a strong emphasis on storytelling", that would make sense (although it's hardly something that's never been done), but she didn't say that.

Actually, if a game with combat and a focus on narrative allowed you to skip combat and didn't suffer tremendously for it, that would just show that designers had failed miserably to tell their story in a manner befitting the medium. Including a feature like the one suggested in any game would only encourage that kind of sloppiness and reinforce the misguided notion that story and gameplay are entirely separate entities.