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Games and intuitiveness
SimBen
Hodor?Hodor Hodor.Registered User regular
Hodor?Hodor Hodor.Registered User regular
I'm a completionist. I have an obsessive-compulsive tendency to want to get EVERYTHING in EVERY game I play. So these past few days I'd been playing Kingdom Hearts 1, and I'm at the part near the end of every RPG ever where things slow to a crawl and you have to spend X hours doing side-quests to gear up your guys to magnificence. So I'm doing the ol' "kill thousands of enemies to get enough parts to synthesize every item so I can get the Ultima Weapon", and I'm starting to wonder, what the hell. If it wasn't for FAQs, I would never have known that you need to synthesize everything to get the Ultima Weapon, and I would have no idea which enemies drop what. Even then, suppose I did for some reason decide I wanted to synthesize everything even without knowing of the carrot at the end, and I spent hours fighting random enemies everywhere in the game hoping they'd drop what I need, even then, I'd STILL need to head to the final area of the game to fight the only two enemies that drop Gales, and I'd need to play charades with White Mushrooms for Mystery Goos, both of which are very counter-intuitive things to do.
And it's not just Kingdom Hearts; I could go through my entire library and list over half of the games where you have to do inane things to unlock stuff. It seems that today's games are built around the idea of looking up FAQs on the Internet (or ideally, I suppose, buy the strategy guide). Squeenix's RPGs in particular (FF8 had a nearly-identical "hours of killing monsters" to upgrade everyone's weapons to their best). Even if you own the strategy guide (and I do for Kingdom Hearts and most of the FFs, because they're nifty collector's items, again, obsessive-compulsiveness), there is no index in the guide of all the droppable items and which enemies drop them. The best I could do without the Internet would be to comb the monster lists and list all the monsters that drop the item I'm looking for, which would be extremely tedious. And don't get me started about the stupid-ass FF9 guide.
Since when do single-player, offline games require the Internet for maximum unlockability (lol Half-Life 2 amirite)? It's not like it's not possible to put just the right amount of hints in the game to point the player towards the solution (the Zeldas are particularly good in that aspect; it's usually pretty easy to know in which areas you still have stuff to do).
And it's not just Kingdom Hearts; I could go through my entire library and list over half of the games where you have to do inane things to unlock stuff. It seems that today's games are built around the idea of looking up FAQs on the Internet (or ideally, I suppose, buy the strategy guide). Squeenix's RPGs in particular (FF8 had a nearly-identical "hours of killing monsters" to upgrade everyone's weapons to their best). Even if you own the strategy guide (and I do for Kingdom Hearts and most of the FFs, because they're nifty collector's items, again, obsessive-compulsiveness), there is no index in the guide of all the droppable items and which enemies drop them. The best I could do without the Internet would be to comb the monster lists and list all the monsters that drop the item I'm looking for, which would be extremely tedious. And don't get me started about the stupid-ass FF9 guide.
Since when do single-player, offline games require the Internet for maximum unlockability (lol Half-Life 2 amirite)? It's not like it's not possible to put just the right amount of hints in the game to point the player towards the solution (the Zeldas are particularly good in that aspect; it's usually pretty easy to know in which areas you still have stuff to do).
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God Hand is awesome.
...TLDR?
I'm of the belief that nowadays there are always insanely difficult things to get because it makes the actual obtaining of said items a challenge or even a secret that "you're not supposed to know about" because it's not told in-game. There is a faction of gamers that secretly relishes the monotonous tasks required to 100 percent a game because then 100-percenting the game is a badge of honor.
I get this feeling from people who can play a game, 100-percent it on their first runthough and then bitch because "there's nothing left to do" or "the game's too shallow."
I don't know what TLDR means...
God Hand is great, because every second you are playing it (or at least so far) it feels like it is training you to be better. Stuff that was hard at first is now second nature, and I can still tell I am just scratching the surface.
Its basically RE4 + viewtiful Joe + a load of other crazy awesome stuff.
Clover is dead, long live roots is all I can say.
TLDR means Too Long, Didn't Read. Because dude, you didn't read the OP being that you're here posting about totally unrelated stuff.
At least, I think.
Yeah, exactly.
(Most) Games are built around having documentation to assist one in playing them. Discuss.
Yeah, I suppose that's inheritance from the days when people would figure out the moves and spread them through word of mouth. Though I find that today's 3D fighters mostly circumvent the problem by having most moves flow together seamlessly and having no set "moves" but rather chained combos in the context of the gameplay engine. If that makes sense.
Lifes to short to grind. Far, far to short.
A game should be no longer than it's ideas can last. Take Rocket Slime. I rescued all 100 slimes and completed the game in 16hrs. I only died once - and that was the final battle.
That sounds bad. But it isn't. It had 16hrs of splendid, joyous fun and novel ideas taking up 16hrs of my time.
Not spread out over 40hrs over grind so they can boast about the length of time it takes to complete on the box. Screw that shit.
I normally get to play games in 1 or 2 hour chunks or so. Something pretty spectacular better have happened in that hour, thats given me a sense of achievement or I'm not playing anymore. Spending 2 hours walking through a field with random battles pinging here and there so I can collect enough bollock-yams to unlock a path to unlock a element that unleashes a good weapon in 20 hours time because I checked on game faqs for the first 20 mins of that hour isn't what I call fun.
tl;dr intuitiveness is lost because of all the padding required to make the game seem "good value" to morons.
Scholar and a Gentleman? Critical of bad science and religion? Skeptobot - Is for you!!
Right now, I'm having a great time playing through Crimson Skies for the first time. I can play for 45 minutes and complete two exciting, satisfying missions and progress the story a bit. For my taste, that's solid pacing.
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Is it shameful to admit you had to look at a FAQ to figure out a specific thing in a game (ie. how to do a puzzle in Prince of Persia or where certain collectibles are in a level)? On the flip side, should you be proud or brag that you beat a game without the help of a FAQ?
Is someone a better gamer than you if they don't have to use a FAQ?
Is a game poorly designed if you have to look up solutions frequently throughout the game? or is it simply that people are too impatient and if they can't figure something out in 30 seconds they just look it up?
I can't help but feel it's a little of both. Sometimes I'll be playing a game and get frustrated really quickly, and look up how to solve a specific puzzle, other times I'll be in a mood where taking as long as it takes to figure out seems fun.
In my opinion, playing through a game without ever using a FAQ is a much more rewarding and satisfying experience, and is worth being proud about. And while playing through a game word for word using a FAQ or strategy guide can still be fun, I think it takes some of the magic out of the game, and in some cases completely takes away the point of playing the game in the first place. Like playing a game of chess but instead of thinking of strategy and moves, you just read your next move off a piece of paper... what's the point?
I think if a game stumps me many times, and I keep having to pause the game, go into my room and look up what I have to do, then the game was poorly designed (generally speaking).
So how does everyone else view the use of FAQs? Should you be ashamed if you had to use one to beat a game? Can you make fun of your girlfriend for looking where to go next in Breath of Fire?
Most recently I've had to use a FAQ for the original Splinter Cell, a precursor orb location FAQ for Jak and Daxter and finding out where the hell I had to go next in Tales of Symphonia. I'm not ashamed of using them, I just wish I didn't have to.
Also, there are other instances in which it's justified. My friends and I have been playing horror games together. None of us have much time, though. We'll solve most things ourself, but if a puzzle is holding us up for more than a half-hour, or through many, many reloads, then we check out a FAQ for that one puzzle.
Life is too short to put up with bullshit. And if the game isn't bullshitting, then you usually don't even think of a FAQ.
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Yeah, but there's still a leap between "digging into the game" and "doing fucking ridiculous bullshit repeatedly", with no in-game indication that the repeated bullshit will even yield a reward.
In all honesty, you know enemies drop items.
You know that the game keeps track of every synthesis item you make.
Therefore you would try and make each synthesis item, and then once you made them all Ultima Weapon would come out.
Then it would be a matter of finding the enemy that dropped the items you need.
Like, there's no way you could have known you needed to dodge hundreds of lightning bolts for that one weapon aside from forums or FAQs.
You know you get rewards for dodging them.
It's possible to do it without an FAQ. But instead of it being "Let's get Lulu's weapon" it's "Let's see how much I can dodge"
Okay. When do you decide to stop? How do you know there isn't some reward in the game right now for dodging it a million times?
It is a little obscure, but the game does tell you that you can dodge the bolts, and that you can get rewarded for doing it enough times.
Then there's the can of worms, do I replay it getting everything that I didn't get, and I can see just how easy I can make this game? Or do I just enjoy it for what it was. Few games get me to replay them immedietly. Most get set aside into a "boss defeated, but game not beaten" pile and when I'm up for some nostalgia, I grab one of those, and replay it, getting everything I forgot to or didn't know to get the first runthrough.
I have to say though, it DOES give me more of a reason to playthrough games more than once. NSMB was one game where I got everything, first run through, and I haven't touched it since I beat it. I know for a fact I'm not missing a thing, and I've seen all there is to see. If I want mario nostalgia, I'll turn on my SNES. Still stuff I haven't done in some of those games. I think having some stuff be completely random is cool to an extent. Ultimate weapons and stuff SHOULD have weird things required to be done to get them, that unless you're weird from the get go, you'd never try.
Would you have any reason to play the same game over and over if it was the exact same experience over and over? Maybe once and a while, but probably not time after time after time just cuz you love it so much.
Click image for my huge backlog
On actual intuitiveness: I was once playing Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for the first time. I used the all weapons cheat and was on the first level. I came up to a fork in the path, stopped, and pondered life for a moment, nade launcher in hand. Then I turned around to the path from whence I came and bounced a shot into the fog. It blew up. Moments later, a tribesman's corpse could be seen flying out of the fog.
Anyway, FFXII seems to be the worst offender with needing FAQS. I refer to a certain spear.
Mind you, Teranigma needed FAQS for the simple reaosn the single player game never told you where to go next. Great game otherwise, though.
I can't remember now.. do they ever tell you that you need 200 to get the item for the (lulu's?) weapon? Because I remember checking how many you had done broke the chain, and 200 takes a looooooong time.
I am a freaking nerd.
I've thought about this quite a bit and I disagree. There is no in game indication that you shouldn't get those chests, but there is also no in-game indication that the spear even exists, so the only way your going to know it exists to go after it is if you delved into a guide in the first place.
I agree that there should be logical ways to discover unlockables on your own, but sometimes it can be hard to do without being cheesy. For instance, in FF VI advance, there is some random dude in a random down who says "I heard four powerful monsters were released! I bet if you find them they'll give you their power!" Because, you know, it's reasonably for someone to walk around town saying things like that to random people, and it's logical that finding a powerful monster will result in the lending of said power.
Or they could just put it in a book that reads, "According to legend, there are four powerful animals, each with a specific power. It is said that the animals will grant a hero their power if he defeats them." It would also give people a reason to look at the bookshelves in RPGs.
Here is another way they could do it.
Trader: I'm a trader, but I am currently jobless because of some monsters have made it unsafe to travel. A few idiots are saying that the monsters are four legendary monsters. This is a load of crap. I'm sure it is just a bunch of bandits or something like that.
Player: What did you say about four legendary monsters?
Trader: Oh, *insert explanation.
I think if it's something that you'll inevitably need to advance the plot, things like this should be in the game. Some way of knowing that such things exist, maybe even a way to get at it. If it's not integral to you beating the game or advancing the plot, fine, hide that stuff. It'll give me a reason to come back to it, maybe even replay the game. In fact, most of the FF games have stuff like this, but I can't remember any of them being important other than a cool-factor.
Pokemon is a pretty big offender once they got past the originals for the gameboy. There were just so many in the world, and some were so strange, that it got away from being able to fit everything in the game to let you know. If the colect-a-thon games were console games, I'm sure there would have been more info in them about every pokemon, and where to get/catch/evolve, but they were pick-up-and-go games, on handhelds. I'm kind of glad the screen wasn't more cluttered than it already was.
Click image for my huge backlog
It would be more like playing nothing but platformers and then going, "How the fuck was I supposed to know to jump there? I couldn't see that platform I was supposed to land on until after I fell."
Except they didn't say monsters, they said Espers, and in the plot of the game, it makes sense that you would gain thier power after finding them. Actually I think the new sidequests were pretty reasonable in FFVIa, generally they are referenced by multiply NPCs on what you have to do to get them, and thats pretty much the only way you ever got info in the SNES games.
I am a freaking nerd.
But, like you just explained, you don't have to do all the grinding to get that stuff if you don't want to. That's the thing; yeah, there's these ridiculous goals that you don't even know you need to do. But they're there to get things you don't even need to finish the game. It's just padding for people who REALLY get into the game, the ones who want to dig into FAQS and whathaveyou trying to find the secret stuff.
That's one of the dumbest comparisons I've ever seen.
I don't think it's even possible without a FAQ.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I could see someone doing it on accident, but having no frigging clue how they managed it. But yeah.
I am a freaking nerd.
It's on the license board.
I'd quote the directions, but its too fucking long.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/psp/file/931113/44047
This isn't actually the only way to get the ending, merely describes a sequence of events that will *always* result in the best ending.
I am a freaking nerd.