Poll: Realism vs player's convenience.

DementedSheep

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Depends on the game and the mechanic in question.

I generally lean more towards realism though in part that's because I like an element of resource management which is the route a lot of games going for "realism" do.
 

SmallHatLogan

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For me it's really about whether a particular mechanic serves the game, realistic or not. For example in a turn based strategy I prefer permadeath for the added challenge and strategy it brings. But I don't like it because it's realistic, I like it because of the way it alters the gameplay. On the other hand in Fallout: New Vegas I don't like hardcore mode because I find it's just annoying busy work and doesn't add anything to the game for me.
 

Aeshi

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Depends on the mechanic. If the the realism makes a given task more difficult then yeah it could go either way, but if realism just makes stuff take longer without making it any harder, ditch it.
 

BarkBarker

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Consistency is appreciated even if they handwave the player convenience, else the convenience might make me believe possibilities that are impossible are otherwise.
 

Casual Shinji

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It depends on what the game is trying to convey. No game is ever going to be realistic, but some games can benefit from applying certain restrictions. Shadow of the Colossus has already been mentioned for its stamina meter, and it helps to convey this sense that you're just this little guy taking on colossal monstrosities. It makes you feel like you're giving it everything you've got, as well as adding to the puzzle element. And the frustration one might have toward the stamina depletion is alleviated by the fact that you have an extremely high tolerance for fall damage.

It's nice to have a game that's convenient to play, but it can be more enriching to have some strain. It just depends on how well balanced it is, but I'm sure that's different from person to person. For me, Resident Evil 4 and The Last of Us work, while The Evil Within and Max Payne 3 don't.
 

The_Great_Galendo

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It depends on the mechanic and what the game asks you to do with it. Or another way of thinking about it is, "If the inconvenience isn't too high, I (tend to) prefer realism." But it's a sliding scale.

Take inventory and encumbrance, for instance. Some games actively break me out of immersion because of weird inventory limits. Like, I can carry 9 heal potions and 9 high potions, but if I want 10 high potions instead, that's suddenly a no-go? All other things being equal, I'd prefer a game with more realistic weight/volume restrictions, so that I can pack those 10 high potions if I want. More flexibility, less breaking immersion. So far, so good.

But I tend to like games with the less realistic inventory management mechanics better in practice. Why? Because the games that do weight/volume restrictions often tend to have a lot of item drops that you can't just carry around, so if you end up needing or wanting these things you need to go on the backtrack trip from hell, which just feels terrible. You also end up dropping items to make room for new stuff, but then I always wonder if I should be backtracking to the nearest store to sell off this extra junk rather than just dropping it. Basically, the realism tends to add a level of tedium that just never seems worth it in the long run.

So give me my 9 potions and 9 high potions. I'll grumble about the arbitrary limits (and limits of 99 and 99 aren't much better; they bring other problems, usually regarding game difficulty and grinding), but I'll deal.

Still, sometimes a game will come along and do it right. I can't remember the name of the game, but there was a dungeon crawler where 1) you could sell items while in the middle of the run by sending your pet back to town, 2) you rarely needed old gear/stuff once you got better stuff, 3) you didn't need to hoard/collect a bunch of useless junk, and 4) inventory limits were never really a problem. I got tired of the game after a while and never finished it, so I can't say that this pattern held up for the entire time, but it wasn't the inventory management system that did me in.

tl;dr: I prefer realism if it's not too inconvenient, but often it is too inconvenient.
 

CyanCat47_v1legacy

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I admire the MGS franchise for trying to be as realistic as possible but in practical terms it makes the process of making the player characters move the way you want them to feel like operating a forklift with a pager
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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I'm not sure why these two need to be opposite.

For example, I'm not a gun expert but its my understanding that the target has to be pretty damn far away for dropping, arcs and wind direction/speed to really matter. Like if you're in the next room, why does it matter if my 9mm pistol hits you in .02sec, whereas the assault rifle hits you at .002secs? Or it it pulls 1/4 a centimeter to the left?!

Or even your Uncharted thing. Sure, hanging indefinitely from a ledge is unrealistic, but who the hell just hangs off the ledge in a goofy game anyway?! Doesn't Nathan have better things to do than just plank?!

And lets be honest, even a realistic game is at best what, 20% realistic? Like Fallout 4, where's my terrible diarrhea illness after eating irradiated squirrel and 13 bottles of whiskey?! Without it, I'm just thrown out of the immersion.
Or DayZ. How often do you randomly sprain your ankle from stepping on a loose rock? Not often enough I say!
 

MiskWisk

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I'm going to throw up another vote for "it depends."
Sometimes being more realistic makes a game more interesting while other times being convenient would be preferable. For example, it is realistic to receive a salary rather than looting money off of a monsters corpse in Final Fantasy 8. That does not make it any less of a god awful, poorly explained, craptastic system that should be consigned to the darkest pits of Hell.
 

Azure-Supernova

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Depends on the game doesn't it? Nathan's infinite stamina suits Uncharted, Wander's limited stamina suits SotC.
Yeah I mean, this. It depends on the game and the tone the game is trying to set.

The Protagonist in I Am Alive needs pitons to restore stamina while climbing, yet Nate can go for days without so much as a finger ache. I love em both and mechanically they're both about a dude that climbs and shoots people to their own ends, but the mechanics are so different and that's because of their respective genres.
 

Squilookle

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Unless realism is such a core part of the game that literally every part of it is designed with it in mind (like say, Operation Flashpoint), then realism can get stuffed for all I care. If an element of realism gets in the way of smooth, balanced gameplay in any way, shape, or form, then just. Get. It. Out. Of. There.
 

Angelous Wang

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Realism is just a sub point of immersion.

If the realism is just going to hurt immersion rather than enhance it, then it is defeating it's entire purpose.

In Uncharted for example if the main character was dying every other jump because he was running out of "grip" (or whatever) that would break the immersion because there is always some kind story played over the top of these climbing sequences and continuously restarting would loose the player immersion in that story (even cause them to hate it if they have to keep listing to the same parts over and over).

In Shadow of Colossus on the other hand the main character realistically running out of "grip" actually enhances the immersion because it makes the player feel the struggle of taking down a Colossus.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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I am always grateful a game doesn't demand that i evacuate my bowels and bladder regularly. It is an inconvenience in real life, it will be in game too. Even MGSV's judgey mechanic with my poor hygiene became a hassle. You can't skip all the helicopter travel for if you only want to get rid of those flies giving away your position. If the realism adds a layer of strategy to your play, then it can be immersive. If it is needlessly time wasting, then it's needlessly timewasting and will get old real fast.
So from me, it's a resounding 'depends.'
 

Pyrian

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Convenience trumps realism every time. Buuut, I don't think your examples are, for the most, inconveniences, per se. They're core challenges. That's different. Bullet drop is challenging, not inconvenient. Stamina can be either; if it just makes things take longer, then it's merely inconvenient, but if it's something you have to actively work around, then it's a challenge.
 

Something Amyss

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MysticSlayer said:
Compared to games without any stamina meter, though, it is an element of realism. It's an element that has more purpose than "REALISM!!!!!!", but it's an element regardless.
So then reloading is the same. Okay, seems to devalue the concept of "elements of realism" to the point of uselessness, but whatever.
 

GrumbleGrump

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Depends on the game doesn't it? Nathan's infinite stamina suits Uncharted, Wander's limited stamina suits SotC.
This, pretty much.

It all depends on the tone you're going for, realism is better suited for serious games or simulation games. Cartoon physics and characters don't really help the former, while you have to be married to the latter pretty much on principle. It has to fit the tone, simply, because it will be kind of schizophrenic when the elements don't fit.
 

Danbo Jambo

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Neither are really the answer, as a good user response is the goal, so if either achieve that then that's good.

Overall, from recent gaming history, I think too many games have sacrificed fun/conveniance for realism to their detriment.

But basically devs should as themselves the question "is the gamer enjoying this?", and if they are however they achieve that is good.
 

Zipa

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Dec 19, 2010
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It depends on the game, fast travel in MMOs is a must nowadays. SWTOR got caned for making players have to walk for half the game when it launched and they did eventually add several methods of speeding up travelling. It was just a forced inconvenience for slowing people down from reaching the end game too quickly.
 
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inu-kun said:
Realism is smiliar to Innovation, on it's surface it sounds good, as a way to better the experience, in practice it usually fails since it makes simple actions far harder then they should be and increases frustration. A good example is the Skell Insurance in Xenoblade X, rather then have your Skells just repair themselves if you die, you need to go back all the way to the HQ and restore them, which just made me reload the game because it would be less of a bother.
entirely this. realism sounds nice in theory, especially in alot of games, but then you realize after trying those "realism" mechanics a few times that you are highly annoyed by them and would just prefer convenience over that. Hell a decent amount of mods in games are made purely in favor of convenience.