When games becomes luck

[dennyaaa]

Everyone have tried it. You are just finishing up an excellent game, and want to knock it up a notch, by playing it again, but this time, on the hardest difficulty. So you once again begin your epic quest for redemption, revenge, glory, rampage or whatever the game wants you to do. But the you realize something. Something which I learned the hard way long ago. The game was Call of Duty, and no doubt, I loved the game and still does. I tweaked the difficulty up to Veteran, and saw something, that forever changed my vision on this concept. The game went from being fun, innovative and very immersive, to a pile of "lucky shots" and "repeating-the-same-senario-over-and-over-again". Don't get me wrong, I ain't a bad FPS player, and I like a challenge, but when the gameplay physics all of a sudden is based on luck, the whole image just collapses. And this stupid gameplay element is also showed in Call of Duty 4 and World at War, where you can die anytime, even when the game states you're safe.

Bioshock on the PS3 is also a very good example, where you can choose "Survival mode" for maximum gaming experience, but all it does, is making you a very unlucky fluffy bear going up against a horde of super mutated tanks. Even when I did my best, my health droppede below the limiter just by looking at a adversary. I threw traps, plasmids, proxymines on gascans at everything I saw but still I lost the game so hard, that I could feel a big daddy standing behind me, laughing.

A good challenge is important, but make it into a "leap of faith twisted with a good portion luck", I'm laying down my controller, refusing to play it.

Any thoughts on the matter?

 

[Proteus214]

I don't necessarily see all random events as making the game entirely luck-based. Think of it more as an element that you need to plan for. If a majority of a game relies on a single random event (say for instance, rolling the dice in a game of Monopoly), then you really do have a luck element. If three years of WoW raiding has taught me anything, it's to plan for randomness. Most raid boss encounters can be summed up as: random things happening to random people at random times in random places for random levels of effect, and yet, you can strategize around just about all of it. If you truly can't strategize around it, then yeah, it is luck-based.

 

[dennyaaa]

I don't necessarily see all random events as making the game entirely luck-based. Think of it more as an element that you need to plan for. If a majority of a game relies on a single random event (say for instance, rolling the dice in a game of Monopoly), then you really do have a luck element. If three years of WoW raiding has taught me anything, it's to plan for randomness. Most raid boss encounters can be summed up as: random things happening to random people at random times in random places for random levels of effect, and yet, you can strategize around just about all of it. If you truly can't strategize around it, then yeah, it is luck-based.

Like the sniper level in Call of duty 4...

 

[w33g33]

i know exactly what you're talking about OP.
i beat regular difficulty with no problem, went back for veteran... im still stuck on 'Burn 'em out' cause ill be around the corner about to pop out and maybe get some shots off and *BOOM* im dead.
no grenade marker, no enemies that could have done it, just dead.
i was able to advance past THAT part by grabbing a shotgun and rushing underneath 2 guys in a nest but i was stonewalled again soon after.
and from what ive heard of wow, theres entire websites devoted to any little fucking thing that happens in there,
you can prepare for a grenade any number of ways but if they're gonna just magic one underneath me with no fuse... then, as penn and teller or avgn would say, thats bullshit.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Randomness... not to bad when used in it's place but I can understand the gripes when it becomes the whole of the game. There should always, ALWAYS, be an element of skill in a game and FPS for sure. There is nothing more frustrating then having some ridiculous 'cone of fire' or other element of pure luck in a first person shooter, particularly on the hardest settings (what I tend to play on).

When you have to do the same level a dozen times over all because your perfectly lined up shot decides to go 45 degree out of the barrel each time. Yeah. Worse is I am not making that up, I have seen my bullets kicking up dirt on a target in such a way it means they would of had to have flown out of the barrel at 45 degrees....

Luck should never become more important in a game then skills.

As for the magic no fuse magical grenades in COD:WAW. I found that frustrating to no end until I learned something - They where 'punishment' for not following the script 100%! Then I got really pissed, to the point of swearing, cause the last thing I want for a video game to be is some bloody movie where I have to guess what the director wants me to do next or... BOOOM!

Don't even like the idea of it being a movie period.

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I didn't really have any trouble with CoD4 in veteran mode (minus the second to last level- ugh), but I did notice enemies throwing A LOT more grenades. I counted 15 thrown at me at once in the mission "Hunted!".

*EDIT* I did notice a lot of those insta-exploding grenades in WaW veteran mode as well. It was especially bad trying to play it on co-op.

 

[dennyaaa]

Randomness... not to bad when used in it's place but I can understand the gripes when it becomes the whole of the game. There should always, ALWAYS, be an element of skill in a game and FPS for sure. There is nothing more frustrating then having some ridiculous 'cone of fire' or other element of pure luck in a first person shooter, particularly on the hardest settings (what I tend to play on).

When you have to do the same level a dozen times over all because your perfectly lined up shot decides to go 45 degree out of the barrel each time. Yeah. Worse is I am not making that up, I have seen my bullets kicking up dirt on a target in such a way it means they would of had to have flown out of the barrel at 45 degrees....

Luck should never become more important in a game then skills.

As for the magic no fuse magical grenades in COD:WAW. I found that frustrating to no end until I learned something - They where 'punishment' for not following the script 100%! Then I got really pissed, to the point of swearing, cause the last thing I want for a video game to be is some bloody movie where I have to guess what the director wants me to do next or... BOOOM!

Don't even like the idea of it being a movie period.

Doing the same level 1000 times isen't fun, at all. And if it's because your enemies can throw magical "you-only-seeking-granades" if you're not following the script 100%.. then something have gone terrible wrong...

 

[Proteus214]

Randomness... not to bad when used in it's place but I can understand the gripes when it becomes the whole of the game. There should always, ALWAYS, be an element of skill in a game and FPS for sure. There is nothing more frustrating then having some ridiculous 'cone of fire' or other element of pure luck in a first person shooter, particularly on the hardest settings (what I tend to play on).

When you have to do the same level a dozen times over all because your perfectly lined up shot decides to go 45 degree out of the barrel each time. Yeah. Worse is I am not making that up, I have seen my bullets kicking up dirt on a target in such a way it means they would of had to have flown out of the barrel at 45 degrees....

Luck should never become more important in a game then skills.

As for the magic no fuse magical grenades in COD:WAW. I found that frustrating to no end until I learned something - They where 'punishment' for not following the script 100%! Then I got really pissed, to the point of swearing, cause the last thing I want for a video game to be is some bloody movie where I have to guess what the director wants me to do next or... BOOOM!

Don't even like the idea of it being a movie period.

Doing the same level 1000 times isen't fun, at all. And if it's because your enemies can throw magical "you-only-seeking-granades" if you're not following the script 100%.. then something have gone terrible wrong...

I think once you hit that point, you've basically wandered into the realm of "the only way to truly win is to not play at all." I've never played the CoD series, but that just sounds like poor design to me.

 

[dennyaaa]

The game is not poor design on "Regular" difficulty.. But I agree when you try it on Veteran

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Single player in COD4 wasn't too bad. Sure it was an 'in depth story' that contained a great deal of scripted events, and while the whole thing could read as a movie the actual game parts where all up to you. True there was very few places where you where punished if you broke the script but they where far and few between. All and all the good combat parts where up to whatever style you chose to play as as a game should be.

In COD:WAW... nope, your screwed if your not psychic. Prepare for grenades to be spawned at your feet. Oops you should of led that charge, not snipped with the scoped rifle we gave you, have a grenade. Good, you led the charge but failed to realise you had to stop and let two NPC's die going into that bunker... have a grenade. Oh now you failed to realise you had to snipe from the bunker, oh don't blame us we did give you a scoped rifle, not our fault if you don't know when to use it... HAVE A GRENADE!

Sighs... I was not impressed.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

In all games your have to assume that the enemies are smarter than you and thus will get the drop on you. I play by assuming that they are aware of their existance and will fight to stay alive. What would you do if you saw a sniper? or say if you were a sniper and were seen? react as if they are alive and you kill more ai's

 

[Aqualung]

No, I... Never turn up the difficulty from Normal...

No idea what you're talking aboot.

 

[dennyaaa]

No, I... Never turn up the difficulty from Normal...

No idea what you're talking aboot.

why don't you ever play it harder than normal diff?

 

[dennyaaa]

In all games your have to assume that the enemies are smarter than you and thus will get the drop on you. I play by assuming that they are aware of their existance and will fight to stay alive. What would you do if you saw a sniper? or say if you were a sniper and were seen? react as if they are alive and you kill more ai's

If that is how the react in IRL warfrare, then i'm never going to war... It's like having an exetreme aimbot installed in your brain, and a ability to see into the future...

 

[Kermi]

No, I... Never turn up the difficulty from Normal...

No idea what you're talking aboot.

why don't you ever play it harder than normal diff?

Maybe he's trying to avoid the frustration you're currently suffering?

 

[Ph33nix]

COD 4 on vet or w/e the hardest dificulty was was jsut lukc shots and memorization of where they came from when and where to find more bullets becuase i would unload 4 or 5 clips trying t oget 2 or 3 guys. I guess thats closer to realism but COD 4 is unrealistic considering you are a 1 man killing machine who can assault military bunkers.

 

[Ultress]

The only thing I can think of that hads been luck based aside from maybe COD2 on Veteran was a mission in SMTS where I had to keep Gin from getting his ass kicked and If I was lucky he would go after the guy who was hitting him from afar before he got killed.

 

[dennyaaa]

No, I... Never turn up the difficulty from Normal...

No idea what you're talking aboot.

why don't you ever play it harder than normal diff?

Maybe he's trying to avoid the frustration you're currently suffering?

I not saying that every game is unfair luckyness on higher difficulty... but maybe your right

 

[Proteus214]

No, I... Never turn up the difficulty from Normal...

No idea what you're talking aboot.

why don't you ever play it harder than normal diff?

Maybe he's trying to avoid the frustration you're currently suffering?

I not saying that every game is unfair luckyness on higher difficulty... but maybe your right

I think it's more about managing the random factors and weighing that against the penalty for dying, the amount of time another attempt takes, and the rewards for success. If it always takes you 5 minutes to get back to that "hard part" and you have less than 25% chance of success even when everything is going right, then you're looking at upwards of 20 minutes for just one section of the game. It all comes down to whether you think the frustration is worth it.
Then again, I'm the kind of player that is willing to put in 40+ hours of attempts on one hard mode boss in WoW so ultimately my opinion is a bit biased.

 

[timmytom1]

Some of the later duels on call of juarez bound in blood are just plain luck based on the harder difficulties what makes it all the more annoying is that you have to shoot your opponent in the head as just fring into the body results in insta-death in most cases for some reason