The Hot Topic Returns

[one-armed dwarf]

Yea I know but I wish the choice also was answered with consequence, because without that it sometimes feels like it's less about multiple choice and more about how much of the stuff you're willing to do. That distinction might not seem significant but it gets to the sense of malaise I've felt with these games where the worlds are more like an amusement park now. It's actually for me the biggest thing in a choice driven game or narrative, that there are consequences which might not be immediately rewarding. Cause stuff like that makes the actual rewards even more special, in my opinion

 

 

I don't think the answer to it is to engage in a self-limiting exercise and finding that experience yourself all the time, though I have tried this multiple times and there's a big thread on here all about doing that with Skyrim. It's more that sometimes even failure can be a really interesting outcome in a video game and I'm starting to see that become more of a trend now with stuff like Disco Elysium, where making an absolute haims of a part of that game can generate some really thrilling and hilarious situations

 

The thing with choice is I don't just want the reward, I want also the punishment of that choice. It doesn't even have to be something like 'you cant join the mages guild now', but maybe getting entry into it becomes a much more complex thing if you're with the Dark Brotherhood, you know? However I do think this is asking a lot for a game as massive as a TES one but it's the main reason why I don't like them anymore. I don't feel like I'm playing a role in them, I feel like I'm on a conveyer belt to play all the roles one after another. Oh and sometimes somebody will say something tailored to my choice of Khajit as playable race, but it rarely goes beyond this kind of thing.

 

[shinymcshine]

Yes, that sounds reasonable, and would deliver a decent experience.

 

Oblivion had a time mechanism, in terms of more gates appearing the longer you took, but their impact was, mostly, negligible - so you could still rather ignore the world crumbling into chaos whilst you collect nirnroots

[Nag]

 

Quote

Readers discuss games they’ve always wanted to get into but never managed to enjoy, from Monster Hunter to Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was inspired by Futterman, who asked if there are any games or franchises that you’ve tried to play but you just couldn’t get into? What exactly was the issue and how much time did you spend playing it?

 

Almost every classic game you could imagine got mentioned at some point, with the biggest frustration being games that take a while to get into or have very complex systems.

 

[mfnick]

Another I’m sure we’ve covered before and there’s loads on my part but what here are recent ones I can immediately think of. 
 

Dark Souls (series) - It’s the bullshit checkpoint system that does it. Making you repeat the same parts over and over when you die on a boss is just bad design. 
 

New Hitman (series) - I love watching other people play this but I just can’t get into it. I haven’t got the patience or imagination to make the most of it. 
 

Assassins Creed (Series) - Dull open worlds and missions. With so much loot in the recent ones nothing ends up having any value.

 

Zelda BotW - Fuck the stamina meter. 

[one-armed dwarf]

This seems like a bit of a dishonest answer cause I actually put a ton of time into the game but Hades. I think it plays great, has great VA and looks great. I beat the last boss on 16 Heat Extreme Measures difficulty if anyone needs evidence of my 'minerals' (I have the video of the whole run somewhere but it's 20GB, too big to upload).

 

But man I just hate the RNG and how an entire run can hinge on something like that, and how you are either forced to slog sometimes with a really fucked up unoptimal build or just lump it and start again. I still don't understand why a game is built in such a way. Well that's not quite true, I do understand it, but I think it's a terrible way to do it IMO. I'm not looking for someone to reply to this with a defense of the rogue-like design paradigm because I understand it. But I am unable to see a bad run with no knowledge gained as anything other than a game aggressively wasting your time and patience and at least I know now I shouldn't play Returnal

 

But hey because I can tell this thread will be used to dump on games I will reiterate that I actually think the game is excellent, it's just psychologically a poisonous experience for me. Now Guilty Gear Strive? That gives me everything I like about Hades and much more without that feeling of time being wasted. So turns out that's the game I was looking for, not Hades.

[mfnick]

5 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

hate the RNG and how an entire run can hinge on something like that, and how you are either forced to slog sometimes with a really fucked up unoptimal build or just lump it and start again.

This is one of the reasons I usually hate Roguelikes so much - not all suffer from it but a lot do. 
I adore Dead Cells but I still think it’s pretty shit how easily poor RNG can make a run utterly pointless. 

[one-armed dwarf]

The defense I heard about Hades wrt that is that they tell the story in between failed runs, but it's dripfed like a Persona social link so for me it was too slow to even begin to get invested in. So it never worked at all and I feel the game was sort of misold on that particular aspect with people saying a failed run isn't annoying. It's not true, it's extremely annoying.

[OCH]

Street Fighter - That's the big one. I played SF 2: Whatever version on the SNES, with friends, back in the day. Even bought Vanilla SF 4 day one. Unlocked everyone upto Gouken (who required a bit of BS to unlock), so I did try. But I just don't enjoy it. I've played some terrible fighting games upto the greatest fighting games. Most at least had a hook. But SF just doesn't do anything for me. The story, the character designs. None of it.

[OCH]

6 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

it's dripfed like a Persona social link so for me it was too slow to even begin to get invested in.

Oh yes, that's another one - Persona. More or less exactly for those reasons too.

[shinymcshine]

A weird one for me is FIFA (or actually any footy game post FIFA 96) - where they became more button learning skill based, than the straightforward 'arcade' soccer games of the late 80s-90s - and when I play I just want a quick kick about, rather than invest time in learning how to play 'properly' - so I rarely play single player beyond semi-pro, and clearly get hammered when I play people who love & learn the series.

[Maf]

The latest game that I just can’t get in to is Doom Eternal. I’ve played it three times, I’m halfway through level 2, and I just kind of hate it for no real reason. It looks great, plays well enough (Guns are still a bit soft), I don’t have any major issues with it. There’s just something in the DNA or personality of the game that puts me off. I don’t really know why. It kind of doesn’t matter how well made the game is, as long as the game is what it is, I’m not sure I’m ever going to come around on it (Which I have done with games in the past that I didn’t like straight away. It’s why I keep giving it a chance) 
 

If there is 1 thing I would pick on it for specifically it’s that it’s always flashing I’m on low health all the time and I find it annoying. I know the game is supposed to be like that to some degree, but I’m so trained to think “Low health, playing poorly” that the constant flashing is this nonstop siren of you’re doing bad, you’re doing bad. Even if it’s meant to be like that it’s just so negative. 
 

Quick thing about Hades is it would be boring if every run is good. Sometimes it all has to go bad and you need to struggle with some lousy shit to make the good runs better. If it was a good run all the time then what would be the point? It would mean good runs wouldn’t exist. I agree about the story, though. I just buttoned through all of it. I didn’t care at all. 
 

Extra thing, it’s not a series but as soon as someone describes a game as deck building or has cards in I’m out. I should probably actually try play a card/deck building game and see if I like it but currently all I need to hear is those words for me to immediately disregard the game. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Doom Eternal is a weird one cause it's actually a blend of my two favourite genres I think: character action and MMOs. The MMO bit might seem like nonsense but actually the combat loop in that game is very MMO cause of all the cooldown management. The bit where you mention flashing health, what is meant by optimal play in Doom Eternal is you're constantly replenishing resources by spamming those cooldowns on cooldown. Your chainsaw and your ice grenade and all the other nonsense they throw at you. You can't stay in the fight if you're leaving your CDs idle all the time and that's why you feel that possibly. I dont think I need to explain the character action bit, it's pretty obvious

 

But what I found mostly was that cooldown management in intense action games is something I really dislike, it was one of my issues with GoW 2018 as well. Because all that possibility space is crushed a little by the fact you have to toss out some fluorescent nonsense every now and then to keep yourself active. Having to maintain uptime all the time like that, it's a thing I ended up not liking and I think less would be more with Doom Eternal. I think you can have the same intense and high level of action without having flow dictated by how often you use your grenades and super powered punch attack (I'm totally cool with the chainsaw mechanic though, I think that one is great)

 

Ultimately what pushed me from it was its shit platforming though, it made the game way too boring.

 

But my issue with a bad run in Hades is there's often just nothing to get out of them, it's not like losing a match in Guilty Gear. I know the game has a progression system but when you have a main weapon it stops mattering anyway. I get very focused on the difficult challenges in games like that but trying to pursue that in Hades bored me senseless cause of all the time wasted on doing the boring stuff before the real stuff occurs again. I think roguelikes are terrible, won't change my mind on it I think. Maybe if the runs were like, 10 or 15 minutes. But Hades is 40 minutes if you actually record an entire run

[mfnick]

20 minutes ago, Maf said:

Quick thing about Hades is it would be boring if every run is good.

How about if it came down to skill level instead of RNG? Wouldn’t that be nice? 

[OCH]

18 minutes ago, mfnick said:

How about if it came down to skill level instead of RNG? Wouldn’t that be nice? 

But then it wouldn't be a rogue-like, no?

[Maf]

27 minutes ago, mfnick said:

How about if it came down to skill level instead of RNG? Wouldn’t that be nice? 

It is skill based. Everything in Hades works and if you’re good at it you can make it all work. And some harder weapons, tougher power ups, can still be used if you have enough skill. 
 

The knowledge gained through runs builds in to a skill as well. You start being able to figure out this power + this power would actually work well together. Which comes in handy when having a bad run, because you can think and skill your way out of it. The amount of runs I had which were bad up to the halfway point and I managed to figure something out and make it work. It’s a great feeling. 
 

Sometimes it goes the other way too. But if the dice can roll one way they should be able to roll the other. 
 

RNG is a factor but it’s not the deciding factor. It’s a very skill and knowledge dependant game.

 

I feel like gamers don’t always understand drama. Like the stamina meter* in BotW, team games in Fall Guys or RNG in Hades. Things have to be limiting for the player to have something to fight against.
 

I was listening to Mike Bithell (Game designer) on a podcast once talking about how easy it would be to make a game that played itself. Where all the roughness could be smoothed out and all the things they know gamers will hate can be removed. But then you have no game. The way he makes games is he builds a ‘perfect’ game, and then adjusts it and adds these things back in because ultimately games are all about problem solving. If you remove the problems, then there is no game. 
 

Now I’m not saying you have to like these examples or sometimes the dials and adjustments can’t be made to over extreme measures. I think weapon degradation in BoTW is another one people hate. Could be toned down? Sure. But if they removed it you’d be removing a large part of what makes the game interesting. 
 

Same thing with RNG in Rouge Likes. When it doesn’t go your way, and it pushes you to the edge, and you win anyway because you skill your way out of it, it’s really fun. Then sometimes you lose anyway and it sucks but what are games if not winning or losing. 
 

Not to say you have to like these games just sometimes I see these criticisms of games and it comes across that people aren’t thinking about this drama aspect. That overcoming challenge isn’t just about using game mechanics to make you feel good, sometimes it’s about fighting against them and overcoming anyway.

 

*This is not a dig at @mfnick since he bought up BotW stamina earlier, I just use it as an easy example because it comes up a lot. 

[DANGERMAN]

I suppose something like Total War. granted I've never really thrown myself in to one of them, but I suppose that's the point. I think I'd really like it, and I had the same reaction to Civ for a while, but it requires a level of focus to learn that I just don't seem to have nowadays. Same with something like DOTA I guess, I'm not desperate to play it, but I think I'd enjoy it if I ever put the effort in to it

[one-armed dwarf]

16 minutes ago, Maf said:

I feel like gamers don’t always understand drama. Like the stamina meter* in BotW, team games in Fall Guys or RNG in Hades. Things have to be limiting for the player to have something to fight against.

Well I think you're wrong on that, I would not take to GG so much if I didn't understand drama and I don't think Mfnick would have seen Sekiro through either. Sekiro in particular offers a kind of drama where your offense is your defense, it's like the ultimate form of combat drama I've seen in a game in recent years (despite me very much not liking it at all)

 

The thing is said I understand the tenets of the genre so the thing you're describing is something I understand, but I'm also just putting out there that in my opinion it doesn't always succeed in making failure an interesting outcome like in the other stuff I've mentioned. Because once you get to a certain level in Hades, in terms of skill and knowledge, if you want to keep at it you turn the heat up. But there's a diminishing returns with how you can push the challenge and still have something to take out of a failed run, and I definitely believe I spent enough time doing that to feel like there's a tremendous waste of time to be had with it once you get to that plateau I'm talking of. Even on my first clear I had this and eventually I just cheated to get that clear because the game doesn't even let you upgrade weapons until you do, which was a terrible design idea by them

 

Games are not just about winning or losing but parts of Hades are the closest a SP game has come to giving me the frustration of being in a terrible raid group in ffxiv or something, where it can turn into a waste of time. But at least you can easily quit a SP game and not let people down.

 

and look it's just my opinion I'm not trying to tell others to agree with me on it, but it's definitely not cause I don't understand what the game is trying to do. I just don't think it works for me cause of these reasons

[Maf]

Fighting a boss and fighting against the mechanics of a game are two different things, though. The boss fight is never limiting you, you are as mobile, agile and tough every time you fight. 
 

That’s different than struggling with RNG because it’s limiting the player in what they can do, and sometimes powering them up beyond what they could before.

 

A limiting factor like Stamina, RNG, or team mates is different to boss patterns and adds it’s own kind of drama. I feel like a lot of gamers get frustrated when they’re limited and think the game is bad. Where it isn’t that is just the game. You might not like it and you don’t have too, but these are different. I also think sometimes people get frustrated or annoyed and stop being able to tell the difference. 
 

This is also just generally reading comments all over the internet not specifically from this forum. 

[OCH]

I can't speak for Hades, but I know from Isaac and Rogue Legacy, there are some runs you have to be Extremely good to win. Wherein every weapon or upgrade is bad. It reminds me of those Mad Lads that can do level 1 Souls runs. Those runs are more a test of patience than regular ones and not everyone has the necessary level.

[mfnick]

I just want to clarify regarding stamina in BotW - ive no problem with stamina in battles, climbing etc. Its entirely to do with it draining during just running around. But I’ve gone into it before so I’ll leave it. 
 

As for RNG in rogue games, you can come up with all the reasons in the world I just don’t find it enjoyable. In Dead Cells for example (since it and Isaac are the only ones I’ve enjoyed), some weapons are just objectively a lot worse than the majority of the others. I’ve put dozens of hours into it and there’s a few which if I get even after that many hours of play I may as well just kill myself and start again. There’s some positivity to be gained from the fact I ended up loving some weapons I wouldn’t have tried otherwise just because I had to but I’m not sure it’s worth it. Or at least after ‘X’ number of hours, let me pick some items to cycle out of what appears. At least then the psychos who make those games their lives can do those extra challenging runs if they want to.