Conversation
Notices
-
Changing the subject to something a little less..fraught. I think this is pretty interesting and would like to hear everypony elses views on it: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/02/should-games-offer-more-help-when-we-get-stuck.ars
-
@ceruleanspark I think games need to in general lose their linearity that they have gained this generation first.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:27:32 UTC from web-
@cavatina It's weird that youbecause the franchises I've "Picked up" this generation are mostly open world titles or titles which allow multiple playstyles. I don't know if my experience has been radically different to everyone elses or what?
-
-
@ceruleanspark Only when you ask for it. Otherwise it's really patronising.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:29:19 UTC from web -
@ceruleanspark As long as the game is willing to sit back and let you have a go at it first, then I'm all for it. Maye these hints shuld be timed, not kicking in until fifteen minutes or so have passed.
-
@lilytheamazingfaintingpony It's a really weird example, but Starfox Adventures would let you, if you were stuck, call one of your team mates on the radio for a hint. Not the solution, but an in character suggestion of what you should be doing. That worked well. You could struggle and solve it yourself, or you could get mad and call Slippy.
-
@ceruleanspark That's not a weird example, that's a perfect example.
-
@lilytheamazingfaintingpony I mean Starfox Adventures is a weird example because the gameplay and design elements are clearly designed for a more casual audience.
-
@ceruleanspark What about Metal Gear Solid games? Are they casual? They let you call for help.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:36:23 UTC from web-
@thelastgherkin Yeah but all they do is lecture you about forgetting your imaginary girlfriends anniversary. Is that helping?
-
@ceruleanspark I meant when you call not-pointless characters. Like SNAKE USE YOUR CIGARETTES TO SEE LASER BEAMS or RAIDEN FATMAN IS PUTTING BOMBS EVERYWHERE
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:39:19 UTC from web-
@thelastgherkin (Implying Nastasha Romanenko wasn't pointless.)
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:39:53 UTC from web-
@thelastgherkin She was fascinating! She at least told you what your various weapons were good for. Naiomi was pointless unless you wanted to be passive aggressively condescended to.
-
-
@thelastgherkin Yeah, but that gets ruined when Mr X calls you and tells you to flat out get a mine detector. What would have been better, is if he had told you that there were claymore mines, and you, the player then had to take the initiative and call Snake and ask him about claymore mines, leaving you to solve the problem your own way.
-
@ceruleanspark Who needs a mine detector when you can crawl? But yeah, to my knowledge I never actually made use of the codec other than the mandatory plot calls, since at some point during my childhood I gained almost encyclopaedic knowledge of what to do in that game.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:45:59 UTC from web
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
@ceruleanspark I think it largely depends on what kind of game it is. In the example given by the author of that article, hints would be welcome since as was pointed out there's nothing particularly interesting about the gameplay, it's just an obstacle standing between you and the next cutscene. Speaking generally though, if I miss something obvious I don't think the game should eventually tell me where it is- I want to feel silly for missing it, because I *AM* silly for missing it. This gets a bit tricky though when you bring in what's obvious for one person and what's obvious for someone else- the game designer might think it's perfectly clear when the player might find it incredibly obscure.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:32:50 UTC from web -
@ceruleanspark For me it really just boils down to "if finding the solution to this problem is what the game is about, the game should not directly tell me what that solution is". This comes with all the requisite disclaimers about badly designed problems that can't be solved without knowing exactly what the game designer was thinking.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:36:28 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel Yes. Portal is an excellent example of subtle hinting not ruining the aspect of solving the problems, because problem solving is the ENTIRE GAME. What about platformers, and nintendo's "Super guide" concept, or the "You suck" leaf in the new 3D platformer?
-
@ceruleanspark To be honest I don't really play any platformers these days, so I can't adequately comment there. I think the super guide concept is fine because it doesn't force itself on you and it doesn't actually give you credit for having done it yourself.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:42:38 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel The super guide DOES award full credit if you use it, but it's really only "for" navigating particularly tricky sections. There is the issue that if you use the superguide to navigate a tricky section that is essentially "gatekeeping" a technique you need to progress later, you won't be good enough to carry on after you take control back from the machine.
-
@ceruleanspark You are denied full 100% completion recognition unless you go back and do the levels you used "super guide" on yourself, as I recall.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:46:43 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel I could not for the life of me get the superguide to actually WORK in the last platformer I played, so I wouldn't know.
-
@ceruleanspark The only game I've played that has it was New Super Mario Bros. Wii, where you got it if you died 10 times in a row in one sitting without exiting the level.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:52:44 UTC from web -
@ceruleanspark That game's implementation is a bit cruel though… simply unlocking it was enough to bar you from full 100% completion recognition, and nothing you did would ever restore it even if you didn't activate the super guide- you would have to start over with an entirely new save file and try again.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:55:46 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel At the point at which me and my friend gave up on Donkey Kong Country Returns, we would have taken anything we could get.
-
@ceruleanspark I wasn't aware that game had a super guide feature. My roommate certainly would have appreciated it, for how much he failed at it before giving up entirely.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 12:01:37 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel That would explain a great deal. So much wasted profanity.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
@ceruleanspark Portal is on my top ten list of games that should help me more. I never finished it.
-
@lilytheamazingfaintingpony @ceruleanspark Didja know theres hundreds of subtle hints in the chambers? For example...look for lighter checker patterns on the floor. Thats a hint on where to put a portal. :3
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:44:30 UTC from web-
@cavatina The portal dev commentary remains one of the most interesting things in video gaming.
-
@ceruleanspark troodat!
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:48:27 UTC from web
-
-
-
@lilytheamazingfaintingpony Portal primarily uses subtle visual clues to guide you in portal placement. The trick to it is to follow your "instincts", because it's typically just the developers subliminally manipulating you.
-
@ceruleanspark Tbh, In the end it wasn't the puzzle element that made me give up, it was the cobination of the puzzles and me not being fast enough. Even after figuring out the puzzle, I would need 20+ tries to do what I intended to do. And this was as early as chamber 12.
-
@lilytheamazingfaintingpony Actually that was my biggest criticism of the game, so I understand where you're coming from there. I was like "Ah! What happened to my puzzle game. They've put...reflexy stuff in here! I don't like it anymore!"
-
-
-
-
-
-
@ceruleanspark I say difficulty (when done right) is a large part of the solution in the fact that you can choose and it allows yourself to play how you want ("dole! I can't beat this asldfjgldasjd" or "I am one man army, tralala!") Of course this is also dependent on the game itself. When there's story involved, lots of people want it more or less like an interactive novel. In other cases, they just want to enjoy the game and enjoy the gameplay without getting frustrated. In both cases they call for the "easy" mode, but for entirely different reasons. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are those who want to earn their story, "I didn't just look at *finalboss* and he died, I took him on at the hardest difficulty like it's supposed to be" or those who just want a challenge "If I didn't have a hard time beating this, then I didn't get my moneys worth." Offering tips are another solution simply because they're there but the choice to use them is yours.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-12 11:41:29 UTC from web
-
