Why Easy Games Fail Yahtzee's Game Theory
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Catharsis would be good. It's just sort of fun fucking around action without pushing or engaging you anywhere on its own.
It's funny how Yahtzee brings up Super Meat Boy in the positive side of hard games. I'm a fan of I Wanna Be The Guy, Cave Story, and Dark Souls, but I absolutely hated Super Meat Boy. The controls were lousy and there was absolutely no Context or Gratification, just obnoxious Challenge
I think gratification always refers to instant gratification. Gratification seems to refer to things you can respond to without knowledge of the context or challenge. Impressive visuals, big explosions, jokes. If you have to wait, it's probably challenge (you're enjoying it because you had to work hard to make that big explosion) or context (you're enjoying it because you're watching a bad guy get his comeuppance).I say old chap said:
If you have to ask "Was that gratifying?" it probably wasn't.
Right, I've played (though not beaten) Ninja Gaiden. It's a good game. But my point was that the whole idea of death/dying/struggle/conflict/triumph/etc is built THEMATICALLY into the very core of Dark Souls, in terms of art, story, setting, etc, in a way that makes it become more than the sum of its parts, and ends up having something worthwhile to say. Whereas Ninja Gaiden or DMC is (I wince to use the word "just") a really fun, really challenging action game.Ace2401 said:
Well, to some extent, I guess that was my Ninja Gaiden fanboyism speaking. XDteknoarcanist said:
Though if I may, a similar theme does permeate Ninja Gaiden, and that is the theme of honing skill to work towards mastery. That is spoken very clearly in the game design, even down to the differences in difficultly level. As the game progresses, you journey through areas that feel more dangerous than the last visually as well as actually, implying the further skill one must develop to conquer each area. That visual design is also reflected in the enemies you fight, and it's particularly noticeable when you see these more dangerous enemies in areas once thought conquered. It's also worked into the story (flawed though it may be) as well, as it is the story of Ryu's ascension from merely skilled to a true master without peer.
So what I'm really saying is not that NG has the same themes as Dark Souls, but that it does just as well build2ing and presenting its own themes as Dark Souls. I would say that Ninja Gaiden is most definitely more than the sum of its parts, or else I wouldn't have played through it 30-50 times over the years, not to mention all the time I've sunk into mission mode. And if that last statement weren't true, then NG2 would be the better game, as the combat is even better in terms of what you as a player have available to you, which you would think would be the biggest factor with these kinds of games.
Also, I find it telling that I think of Dark Souls as the Ninja Gaiden of RPGs, not just for difficulty, but for the overall experience.
Dark Souls has been the best game I've played that has come out in the last five years. That is all I have to say.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who, when faced with a very frustrating challenge that had been going on for too long and is eating at the fun, takes a break (sometimes as long as a day) before coming back with a clear/fresh mind. It's surprising how often that works.
Sorry but my inner fan boy is raging. WoW is easy to a certain extent yes, but when you do hardmodes and compete in PvP its pretty challenging. Maybe not so much as dark souls as its hard pretty much ALL throughout but WoW is no where as easy as point n shoot pew pew you die I win FPSs5ilver said:
Just a note to all fellow Dark Souls fans.
Demon's Souls is even better. Don't agree? You're wrong!
I you havent already, do yourselves a favor and play it before the servers shut down (May31)!
On a separate note: Rayman Origins is another epitome of context challenge gratification!
Demon's Souls is even better. Don't agree? You're wrong!
I you havent already, do yourselves a favor and play it before the servers shut down (May31)!
On a separate note: Rayman Origins is another epitome of context challenge gratification!
Demon's Souls had a better world and enemies, but Dark Souls is a huge improvement in terms of game design. Any Dark Souls fans that haven't played Demon's Souls yet need to, no question. The best thing ever of course would be adding all of the Demon's Souls areas as Dark Souls DLC.
The "difficult" thing about the Souls games isn't that you get killed a lot. I think I get killed more in Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, it's that it makes your deaths count... you lose your experience and your humanity and the game saves it like that. In other games, I'll throw my character's life away rather than waste one sniper rifle bullet or break my perfect sneaking streak or fire so much as one more shot than I need to. There are no strings attached to rewinding the game and trying over, and in comparison those gaming experiences are devoid of any kind of tension compared to playing a Souls title. Yeah I want to make my headshot count so I can quit retrying this section and get on with the story, but I don't *need* it to count so I don't have to deal with the horrible consequences of what happens if it doesn't.
The "difficult" thing about the Souls games isn't that you get killed a lot. I think I get killed more in Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, it's that it makes your deaths count... you lose your experience and your humanity and the game saves it like that. In other games, I'll throw my character's life away rather than waste one sniper rifle bullet or break my perfect sneaking streak or fire so much as one more shot than I need to. There are no strings attached to rewinding the game and trying over, and in comparison those gaming experiences are devoid of any kind of tension compared to playing a Souls title. Yeah I want to make my headshot count so I can quit retrying this section and get on with the story, but I don't *need* it to count so I don't have to deal with the horrible consequences of what happens if it doesn't.
I might be on the minority here, but for me the gratification is mainly in beating the challenge. When i was younger it wasn't so, i did expected some kind of extra gratification, then I played WoW and after years of raiding learnt to play for the joy of playing.
Nowdays i almost only do games that have engaging gameplay, and playing the next level is the reward. That is the reason i have problems ending AAA games, grow bored far too soon in most of them.
Also, i concour with previous posters, this week's post is too long just to basically say:
"challenge is a balance."
Nowdays i almost only do games that have engaging gameplay, and playing the next level is the reward. That is the reason i have problems ending AAA games, grow bored far too soon in most of them.
Also, i concour with previous posters, this week's post is too long just to basically say:
"challenge is a balance."
Yeah, this is exactly right. The same thing has happened to me with a lot of the games I've played, which is why I have so many half-complete games on my list. Devil May Cry 3, for example, is infamously difficult (at least the initial western release was, due to a cock-up making the Japanese version's 'hard' difficulty setting into the western version's 'normal' and I'm too stubborn to go down to 'easy') and I got stuck on the famously annoying double-boss fight against Agni and Rudra. After trying several times to beat them I gave up for a while, intending to come back to it later- and never did. DMC3 has been sitting in my uncompleted pile for YEARS now, despite the fact that I ostensibly enjoyed it up to that point.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
On the flip side, the "gratification for overcoming a challenge" is perfectly accurate. When I was stuck for ages on a particularly difficult song in Guitar Hero, you can only imagine my thrill when something just "clicks" and I work my way past that particularly agonising guitar solo and play the last note. Once, when I was playing Guitar Hero 2, I had a go at 'The Beast and the Harlot' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnHrhaZI4xg] just so I could show my brother how ridiculously hard it was and how I would probably never be able to beat it- and went on to actually beat the song for the first time ever. That was when I knew that nothing could ever stop me as long as I persevered. At least until I got to the last set of Guitar Hero 3 on expert, which is another example of BAD challenge balance as 'Raining Blood' and 'Cliffs of Dover' are just RETARDEDLY difficult and shut me down completely, preventing me from ever completing that game.
The concept of "Gratification" as one of the three measures is pretty clear to me, but how to re-define it might be helped by an observation I have that I think holds water:
The more a game's bits work work together in unexpected and interactively cool ways, the greater the game's Gratification is likely to be.
These are things that make you unexpectedly go "Whoa!! Ahahahahaaa that was awesome!" and want to keep playing to try it again or see more. For example, the first time you jump off a motorcycle in motion in a GTA game, and it just happens to plow into the enemy who was shooting you. You know it's plain old Gratification when even if you die as a result, it doesn't dilute your fun.
The more a game's bits work work together in unexpected and interactively cool ways, the greater the game's Gratification is likely to be.
These are things that make you unexpectedly go "Whoa!! Ahahahahaaa that was awesome!" and want to keep playing to try it again or see more. For example, the first time you jump off a motorcycle in motion in a GTA game, and it just happens to plow into the enemy who was shooting you. You know it's plain old Gratification when even if you die as a result, it doesn't dilute your fun.
The same could be said for games that are inherently easy. Maybe that games design focus wasn't challenge, but rather fun.Kahunaburger said:
Ninja Gaiden 3 fails here though because although it's satisfying to rip someones limb off, it can't carry the game on this merit alone.
See, now my problem is that Dark Souls isn't important- and it certainly doesn't represent anything new. In order to provide the lofty challenge adult gamers got used to when they were kids, it was purposely designed like an old, archaic NES game. Think about it, lack of instruction, or purposeful orientation (oh, you wanna go into the graveyard first because you figure that skeletons have got to be the most piss-weak enemies in the game? Have fun with that.), useful items (such as the drake sword) that would be almost impossible to find accidentally, and game lengthening tactics such as forcing you to start from the bonfire after losing to a boss, rather than getting to attempt it again immediately- these are all hallmarks of older games. I see these traits as quite a bit like old movie techniques. Is it understandable why these traits might be somewhat endearing? yes, but that does not make them superior to newer techniques, snappier direction, and more well explained mechanics.
While I would be the last person to defend games like modern warfare, notice that another developer, namely valve, has created some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, and almost all of them make sure to never kill the player unfairly. The player should fail due to their own mistakes, not because this is their first run through this area and there is practically no indication that crossing that bridge will cause puff the magic jackass to light them on fire. Is it possible to survive a half-life 2 without dying? Absolutely. If you pay attention, the situation always has some sort of foreseeable solution. Is it possible to survive Dark Souls without dying? Unless you have perfect reflexes and your name is Professor X, then hell no. It feels more like I was a clever person when I was able to read the clues laid out in front of me and survive than when I fight the same machete-wielding asshole for the fifth time and win simply because of trial and error. There, that was my rant for the day. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam
While I would be the last person to defend games like modern warfare, notice that another developer, namely valve, has created some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, and almost all of them make sure to never kill the player unfairly. The player should fail due to their own mistakes, not because this is their first run through this area and there is practically no indication that crossing that bridge will cause puff the magic jackass to light them on fire. Is it possible to survive a half-life 2 without dying? Absolutely. If you pay attention, the situation always has some sort of foreseeable solution. Is it possible to survive Dark Souls without dying? Unless you have perfect reflexes and your name is Professor X, then hell no. It feels more like I was a clever person when I was able to read the clues laid out in front of me and survive than when I fight the same machete-wielding asshole for the fifth time and win simply because of trial and error. There, that was my rant for the day. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam
^ Gadjo: But you're operating under the assumption that dying is "failing." And it's not. Dying does not equal failure in Dark Souls. It's why it's integrated into the core gameplay loop. It's why it's bound up in the entire plot and theme of the game. This is a land where dying is as everyday an experience as going to sleep, or breathing.
And as I said above: Valve and some other companies have made it their core philosophy to make games as hypothetically close to this sort of Platonic Ideal Game: a game that anyone on earth could pick up, without ever having played a videogame in their life, and enjoy, and complete, and have a fulfilling experience. Portal 2, Angry Birds, etc, these are all games developed with this philosophy in mind. And it's commendable, and they've been commended for achieving it -- but THAT'S NOT THE ONLY WAY!
It would be easy to mistake the design decisions in Dark Souls for incompetence. But they're not. They're really, really not. You know why the NPC's don't tell you where to go and/or barely acknowledge you for the first twenty hours of the game, except to mutter something about bells? So that, when you've gone to ring those bells and come back, you can be lauded and praised by a big ol' Sean Connery -sounding snake monster, who is overjoyed that you completed a trial no one has overcome in 1000 years, that you didn't even realize you were taking -- despite no one helping you, and despite the world itself resisting you every step of the way. So that it feels good, and completely organic, that YOU unraveled that puzzle yourself. You didn't just play a character passing a cryptic test and fulfilling an ancient prophecy -- YOU DID IT.
And then he very explicitly tells you where to go, and what to do, because now, rather than a random nobody, you're The Chosen Undead, and you have A Holy Mission That Must Be Fulfilled.
Dark Souls is not for everybody. There are some people who won't like it. There are some people who will never be able to complete it -- like there are people who will never read Lord of the Rings, or War and Peace. And that's okay. The game is what it is, purposefully and intentionally, and almost never waivers from that vision.
And then you beat the game, and the whole dang story gets flipped on its head, and every single line of dialogue in the entire game starts taking on double meanings.
Now I'm not saying it's perfect. There are "puzzles" whose answers are a little obtuse, or, even more egregiously, doors and ladders and staircases to very important places that you can actually just fail to see, because they've been designed poorly, or hidden behind a wall. There are certain rare enemy attacks that feel "cheap" -- mostly vertical swings that re-orient to track you around, or enemies stabbing you through one another, or through scenery.
The game is far from perfect. But it's absolutely important. And it absolutely has some new things to say. You're right to compare it to an NES game. It's like an NES game writ large. Dark Souls is like someone wrote a thesis on old-school games in the form of a game. It's the apotheosis of trial-and-error games, action-adventure games, openworld RPG's, dungeon-crawlers, you name it. It's like a neat and tidy and well-polished package of everything we've done so far in games. And it makes me excited for the future.
And as I said above: Valve and some other companies have made it their core philosophy to make games as hypothetically close to this sort of Platonic Ideal Game: a game that anyone on earth could pick up, without ever having played a videogame in their life, and enjoy, and complete, and have a fulfilling experience. Portal 2, Angry Birds, etc, these are all games developed with this philosophy in mind. And it's commendable, and they've been commended for achieving it -- but THAT'S NOT THE ONLY WAY!
It would be easy to mistake the design decisions in Dark Souls for incompetence. But they're not. They're really, really not. You know why the NPC's don't tell you where to go and/or barely acknowledge you for the first twenty hours of the game, except to mutter something about bells? So that, when you've gone to ring those bells and come back, you can be lauded and praised by a big ol' Sean Connery -sounding snake monster, who is overjoyed that you completed a trial no one has overcome in 1000 years, that you didn't even realize you were taking -- despite no one helping you, and despite the world itself resisting you every step of the way. So that it feels good, and completely organic, that YOU unraveled that puzzle yourself. You didn't just play a character passing a cryptic test and fulfilling an ancient prophecy -- YOU DID IT.
And then he very explicitly tells you where to go, and what to do, because now, rather than a random nobody, you're The Chosen Undead, and you have A Holy Mission That Must Be Fulfilled.
Dark Souls is not for everybody. There are some people who won't like it. There are some people who will never be able to complete it -- like there are people who will never read Lord of the Rings, or War and Peace. And that's okay. The game is what it is, purposefully and intentionally, and almost never waivers from that vision.
And then you beat the game, and the whole dang story gets flipped on its head, and every single line of dialogue in the entire game starts taking on double meanings.
Now I'm not saying it's perfect. There are "puzzles" whose answers are a little obtuse, or, even more egregiously, doors and ladders and staircases to very important places that you can actually just fail to see, because they've been designed poorly, or hidden behind a wall. There are certain rare enemy attacks that feel "cheap" -- mostly vertical swings that re-orient to track you around, or enemies stabbing you through one another, or through scenery.
The game is far from perfect. But it's absolutely important. And it absolutely has some new things to say. You're right to compare it to an NES game. It's like an NES game writ large. Dark Souls is like someone wrote a thesis on old-school games in the form of a game. It's the apotheosis of trial-and-error games, action-adventure games, openworld RPG's, dungeon-crawlers, you name it. It's like a neat and tidy and well-polished package of everything we've done so far in games. And it makes me excited for the future.