The Way The Game Is Meant To Be Played™

Something I've recently noticed is the phenomenon that you can play the game wrong, yet still manage to complete it, and feel like the game has nothing to offer.

During the Vanquish episode of Previously Recorded, Jack mentions he thought it was a GoW clone that was nothing special despite the constant hyping by Rich, to whom Vanquish is the best shooter of all time. Rich could already tell that Jack was playing the game 'wrong', namely by playing it as a bog-standard TPS, despite the many powers and abilities letting you play aggressively. Jack mentions he did try to do play really fast, only to get constantly slaughtered after which he just stuck behind cover because that way he didn't keep dying all the time and managed to actually proceed with the game (even though this is not all that possible in God Hard given the massive amount of grenade spam by the enemies), and that he saw no incentive in the game to play aggressively.

I'm mentioning this because it's the perfect example what this thread is about. Some normalfag tries their hand at a singleplayer game with quite a decent skill ceiling where you can play like a scrub or like a god, but because he can get through playing the scrubby way, he feels no incentive to get good. Some games try to alleviate this with a ranking or scoring system which grade your performance (whereas Vanquish does have scoring, but doesn't attribute a rank to it), but most Western players don't see much value in scoreplay until there is a reason to do so, like killing with skill in Bulletstorm where score also doubles as upgrade points, or the only method of regaining health being getting a high score. Getting good for the sake of getting good is a thought which usually falls on deaf ears, since not many have the time or motivation to try and get better at a game aside from just beating it, resulting in games being called too hard (imagine if Vanquish had World At War levels of enemy grenade spam), or completely misunderstood.

So my question is, how do you encourage players to get good? The obvious first answer would be to make a fun good game, but how would you really encourage someone to replay and get better at a game?

Since a lot of people play for the sake of story and want to feel like they've completed something, my initial idea was to lock a good percentage of the game off from every difficulty aside from the one the game is balanced around (that one usually being the highest). You'd reach 50% of the game on Normal mode, only to get one of several (bad) endings, so you have to play the game on a higher difficulty to see what happens next, preferably without locking higher difficulties on clearing the game once so you can avoid complaints of having people forcibly replay your game and padding out content, since you could always play the game The Way The Game Is Meant To Be Played™. The thing is that you still need to take in account the learning curve to be doable for first-time players who aren't complete scrubs, which is possible if you balance the game first around a certain difficulty like Nightmare difficulty in most Ys games, instead of higher difficulties being much like a second or third loop in an arcade game like you see in Platinum games. Another option would be to ditch difficulty settings entirely like in Dark Souls.

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The second approach would be to emphasize The Way The Game Is Meant To Be Played™ through several systems where you can't only play defensively, but are actively encouraged to play aggressively. I've already mentioned that handing more upgrades to the player if you play better works for gaijins since they're attracted to unlocking upgrades like flies to shit, but it can also be done in several other ways. For example, games like Shinobi III, Castlevania Bloodlines, and even fucking Mario have power-ups which give you increased strength and let you dish out double damage, but the power disappears if you get hit once. And why would you play defensively when you can get hit twice as hard? With such a power-up you're meant to maim and destroy. Other options are stuff like chaining systems where you need to kill things quickly in order to keep up something, like a power or speed bonus. Also of note is that nuDoom constantly gets praise for letting you play aggressively for Glory Killing, where staying close to enemies and finishing them off nets you bonus health, a simple carrot on a stick which will get through to even most of the casual players.

Even though designers can think of the most deep and skill-intensive videogames which will always be loved by a certain niche, their intentions may not always reach people. It's not just reddit either, I've seen it happen here plenty of times as well. Basically, I think designers should try to make their intentions and how you're supposed to play the game more obvious, which can be done without ruining or dumbing down your game just fine. Though it doesn't make a game worse otherwise, it's still a deciding factor whether you 'get' a game or not, since communicating important information to the player is an important part of game design.

Yeah sure, I got one for you. Undertale

Now recall that when it was released as a demo around what, 2010, 2011, Holla Forums was all over it. And fair enough it was pretty refreshing at the time. Showed it to my normalfag friends who are into Skyrim and all that other shit, figuring they'd enjoy it.

Nope. It was too "clever" for them. I told them it wasn't like a regular RPG and the first one fucking killed everything in sight and said it was boring, not realizing that it becomes more challenging and different if you try and befriend the monsters instead. He didn't even try to pacifist Goatmom. His brother refused to even touch the game because he "doesn't like bullet hell shooters", even though the patterns enemies use on you are easymode at best.

And then of course we all know what happened with the game once it hit release.

Not quite 100% ontopic, but

Didn't happen here but it really pisses me off when they do that.

There's a part of my brain that responds very positively to being rewarded with big dumb fake trophies. Getting the high score doesn't mean a lot to me, but earning a platinum trophy means everything.

you may as well watch DarkSydePhil or GameGrumps if you want to watch two suck at games and then pretend to be knowledgeable about game desgin
>>>/reddit/

The reason why games that can be played in more than one way (I'm thinking on the typical Stealth vs Doom) is because both ways can be fun. Many people never completed the main quest in Elder Scrolls because they got fun in some other way.

If you played the game that you should've liked (i.e, it's a genre you like) in a non-orthodox way and didn't got anything from it then it's the dev's fault.

Try to finish reading the posts you're replying to. Else you might overlook the point someone was actually trying to make.

The example that immediately comes to mind are JRPGs.These days, most of them have options that minimize grind or remove it entirely, but you always find people bitching about how they have to grind to some ridiculous level because "JRPGs are all about grind, how stupid". Even fucking Neptunia, a game no one claims is deep, can be beaten with minimal grind if you just pay attention to the game system.

Game design can be defined by the phrase "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". As pointed out, even a simple game like Undertale is too much for people to bother experimenting with.

That's an issue that always bothered with me, aggression is not something that's native with a lot of players, especially in competitive videogames. The easiest way is to have a lame tutorial showing the developer showing you how to beat a boss, but that's pretty fucking lame.

This is the entire problem with Kindgom Hearts 2. Well, aside from the plot starting to go completely off the rails into retard land. People think it's a mash X to win game because literally every boss aside from the Organization XIII and various bonus bosses are the easiest shit ever and pretty much give free combos if your press triangle at the right time. In reality it's baby's first cuhrayze game, but it's still got a decent skill ceiling and allows for some interesting play. The game is way too fucking easy for anyone to even bother with it though unless you're speed running, doing a level 1 run, playing on the Final Mix exclusive Critical mode, or any combination of the above. The game never requires you to get good, never teaches you how to get good, and just expects you to do whatever. I saved you having to watch a half hour long video about exactly this topic.

I like games that offer a lot of mechanical depth, which can be played in various ways. Play through it once blind, have a good time, play it again with knowledge of mechanics and powergame and min/max as hard as you can, play it a third time and do experimental/weird builds that challenge and alter gameplay. It's great.

Now keep in mind that while you can play alternatively, not every game is designed with that in mind. You also get some games that put an emphasis on a certain playstyle (eg, Metal Gear Solid games are a lot easier if you play stealthily, but you have the option of playing lethal and loud). Some games are just better at offering multiple styles of play than others.

If every playstyle is balanced, it can feel samey. Look at a game like say, Path of Exile. You have STR, DEX, and INT as your main stats, and there's a guaranteed 8 tiers or so of gear for every stat pair combination. It's forced. (although each skill group does manage to offer different tricks)

Oh yeah, the main point I was going to make was regarding your >main quests point.
I heard a lot of people preferred FO3 over NV because it felt "good" to go off the rails and explore; whereas in NV the main quest pretense is dropped and you're expected to explore, which makes for a different feeling.

In OP's example probably the easiest way would have been for Vanquish to have the same ranking system as other games of the same type. If you play Devil May Cry and consistently get C ranks on each chapter, or play Bayonetta and consistently get silver or bronze medals, it's a good indication that you're not playing the game very well and would be a good slap on the wrist for casual players. For Vanquish all you'll see is a number with little context, I suppose unless you go out of your way to check your position on the leaderboards.

Lock rewards behind varying degrees of difficult objectives that require you to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

You can get through a level by playing it like a cover shooter or cautiously taking your time, but if you make it to a room near the end of the level within 10 minutes of alerting the enemy then you can find a stat point locked inside. Now you can play through it the easy way, or you can play it as a rapid race to the exit (and the bonus room) or you can play it as a grueling stealth mission where detection means failure (or you can mix the two together, playing hard stealth then rushing ahead once they're alerted).

Even something as simple as "Killing an enemy nets 10 points but killing an enemy without being spotted then hiding the corpse without leaving a blood trail behind nets 30 points" works, assuming you can eventually trade those points in for something worthwhile down the line like new weapons (points as currency) or stat boosts (points as EXP).

I still think that most games shouldn't allow you to just let you cheese through without making it painfully obvious that you're being a jobber through doing so. If a meathead casual is bound to walk away from a game with a negative impression regardless, then it should be an impression of "it's too hard and I don't understand it" instead of "I believe I understand the game but I don't get what people think is good about a game you can simply cheese through". At least with the former he can acknowledge that the fault lies with him (unless he believes that there's no fun at all when high difficulty is involved in which case he's beyond saving), whereas the latter is usually a case of playing the game wrong.

That could motivate some players, especially those who wank over score/grade or like seeing flashy shit. But ever notice how recent games now advocating for multiple playstyles? I always thought that kind of stuff usually devolves into sandboxes without any direction.

Sounds a little like the fighting game issue where developers will do things like try to simplify motions to appeal to people who don't like doing motions, but what they don't understand is that those players don't want motions simplified, they want them gone.
If you hate grinding you don't want to hear that grinding has been streamlined, simplified, or that there's almost none of it in the game. You want to hear that it's gone completely.

Put in "skill gates" part way into a game that kicks the chair out from under the scrubby players. You can either do this in a series of steps if you want to be be kind or in one big "fuck you" leap. Do it after the average 2 hour mark for new players so they can't refund and so reviewers won't get to that far and try to trash your game.

Some games back in the NES AND SNES era made the "easy" mode just be a demo/tutorial mode that only gave you a hand full of stages and significantly easier and fewer enemies and bosses. I think some of them even removed the story text form easy mode.

I have friends who cannot do a dragon punch input consistently. Like, I could understand having issues with 360 inputs without practicing, or maybe input buffering, but this is like the most basic level shit

that vanquish issue easily solved by just instakilling faggots that think theyre playing GOW

even in gears sitting behind cover is boring compared to just bumrushing with a torque bow

Lack over direction in favor of muh playstyles (usually in the form of RPG-lite skilltrees) is a cancer that has been eating at Western games for a long while now. I heard in a nuDoom developer interview that they thought adding in upgrades for everything was a good means of letting the player express themselves, but it ended up being a pointless system since you could end up with all the upgrades you could need near the end of the game, kind of ruining the point of having to choose between upgrades if you're bound to get all of them eventually. Makes you wonder why you can't master a moveset which is slowly expanded upon as the game progresses through different challenges and obstacles anymore. It's not like it's impossible to express yourself with a static set of abilities, just look at fucking Quake 3, but once again it's developers trying to artificially create a feeling of player growth.

The only solution is the one you mentioned already. Its to remove difficulty. Have harder difficulties be unlocked by completing the game and just to a damn good job at designing the game to teach the player the mechanics by forcing them into scenarios where each system is needed to be understood to overcome the obstacle. By the time the player is finished the first play through if they don't understand you systems then you failed as a designer. No unnecessary in your face tutorials should ever exist if you game is properly designed. The player should instead learn a new tool with each challenge. First you introduce the challenge without a concrete fail state, then you iterate on the same challenge to introduce a penalty. Then the final iteration of the same challenge is instant death (like a bottomless pit). Each new system should be introduced similarly. Even cuhrayze games are not exceptions to this general rule but the difficulty ark is much more gradual over the period of several playthroughs as the enemy AI is slowly ramped up and more sophisticated systems are necessary.

Have the game constantly make fun of you for sucking. Also lock entire levels or even the end of the game behind a get good wall where you can only access them with a certain ranking.

To use an example of this with a Platinum game, Wonderful 101. First, the highest difficulty available at the start is Easy, because Hard and on mix up enemies a lot and basically require you to have weapons you got later in the "story". Second, usually they introduce new enemies either on their own, or with an enemy of the same type to teach you how to deal with them in a general sense. They don't tell you all the secrets about how the enemy works though, and let you solve that for yourself. For example, while the turtle enemies are introduced right after you get hammer, and are dealt with well with that, they have a fire attack which means you can use the hand to absorb that. If you know that their stomp can be blocked with the blocking move, they can be put off balance. Hammer just knocks them back down, but if you still have hand out you can knock them over and get some free hits on them. A lot of enemies have similar things, although less so than the turtles.

Don't you mean Normal?

W101's a fine example since it's a high-skill game and the combat is so intricate it would take a full hour to explain, but I think if Platinum REALLY wanted players to get good and take the game seriously they would have made the continue system work differently.

The problem is that developers aren't brave enough to simply make a game for specific genera or series fans, usually because the bean-counters are pushing for maximum shekels.
They're too scared that "potential customers" won't be attracted to their product that they are willing to ruin it for actual customers and fans.

Yes, Normal, I'm a fucking retard. But yeah, starting off exactly where you died with full health is kinda odd, but at least it tanks your rank even more. Not like dirty casuals care, even when you get a shitty bottle cap statue and Nelson asks what the fuck is wrong with you. I need to play W101 more, it's pretty great and everyone should go out and buy a used Wii U to hack it and pirate the game.


Mark Brown the gay tool put it best in his video series on Dead Space, they need to make less games they think everyone will like and more games some people will love. Look at how Dark Souls and Neir Automata turned out. Well, less Dark Souls since aside from maybe Bloodborne the games in that meta-series haven't been good since Dark Souls itself.

But user, think of the reviewers!

Platinum once explained at GDC that they build their games around multiple difficulty settings in order to avoid becoming a niche for dedicated players only, which is simply not profitable enough given the average budgets required to keep making their kind of games. Some people just want to marvel at the experience of the game and the cool action QTEs instead of getting good at the game. While it's certainly a compromise, the dedicated playerbase for such skill-demanding games can't financially support Platinum alone. It's not exactly like Dark Souls either, where its massive success was largely a fluke due to its difficulty more or less became a badge of honor for all kinds of people and doesn't necessarily mean the mainstream audience is always ready for superhard difficult games.

I'd have to say Assault Android Cactus is one of the most successful at doing that in recent times, game just draws you in nice and soft by not really pushing you that hard until the end and then you start getting into having good ranks and little by little it draws you towards mastering the game in it's entirety.
I'm even surprised most of my scrub friends went for S+ on every level, which isn't exactly that hard but still take a couple dozen hour of somewhat serious playing if you wanna do it.
The main issue is I think the ways it achieves that are inherently incompatible with non-arcade game design, the game grades you often and with a system that is easy to understand and that still allows for flexibility on your end, it also actively shows you whee you stand among other players by showing your current leaderboard ranking at the end of every level.

Back in the day locking small and fun things behind a hard **or hard at first* challenge was enough to motivate people but I'm not sure it still works that well nowadays, S ranks in RE come to mind.

Shmups do that and it drive casuals insane, it can also be construed as "I'm too lazy to make good content so just grind what you get until you're good at it" but I personally wouldn't mind a shmup extending a bit on the "1CC or bust" thing and not with loop faggotry either


But Neptunia is pretty much all about drawing you into the grind, or it wouldn't specifically give you things to do that will put you massively over level if you do them whenever you get them.
I fucking ended over the vanilla level cap on my first playthrough without even specifically grinding levels outside of the early parts to unlock EXE drives early on

Exactly this. A game needs to advertise itself in the first minutes of gameplay exactly like how a movie needs to advertise itself in the few minutes of a trailer. You can't lock all the best stuff behind a difficulty wall or hours into the game; it'll never SELL that way!

Going back to Undertale, entire legions of people dismissed it as being "too easy", because they never played the few hours required to get to Undyne or Sans, and thought all the combat was going to be like fighting the first enemies in the game.

/thread

Hell the same thing happened with Revengence difficulty when fighting helicopters.


One of the morals of the story is Platinum can't program or balance for shit. They've only had success with the masterpiece that is Bayonetta. Every game afterwards is them desperately attempting to recreate the situations that made Bayonetta good.


A lot of people are forgetting that one of the main complaints about these allegedly difficult games is the mind numbing tedium they force players through. I don't mind a challenge if the game is actually fun, but if it's "no fun allowed" tier bullshit, why bother?

I'm used to mindless grind – but I have my limits.

Depends on which Neptunia games.
The first two Neptunia games were absolutely nothing like the ones that followed in terms of grind and difficulty. Just clearing the first 4 dungeons in Neptunia Original was a casual filter. There were people who beat the game without even getting Noire or Vert in their parties.

In the remake of Neptunia 1, they're just giving STATS to you for fucking nothing. Plans make the game an entire joke and you don't even have to really work hard. Don't even get me started on that Bethseda tier stat system they shoved into Victory, Fairy Fencer etc.

Jack skipped the entirety of the Berserk Musou cutscenes, WITHOUT any knowledge of the story beforehand. He just depreciates anything outside his limited set of interests (shitty movies).

Forcing the player to pay attention to basic game mechanics is probably the only way to get them to even care.

I'm talking about the remake of 1. The game is entirely based around getting you to grind- it's clearly built for people that enjoy it- but you can still finish it if you don't. That's a choice built in by the devs, but a lot of people ignore that and whine about grinding all day instead.

By making games so fun to play, that players actually give a fuck.

The wrong strategy, instead, is to make a shitty and difficult game that demands enormous attention, practice and playtime to be finished. Why should people do that? There's so good games from the past to be played, that you can't just waste someone's time like that.

TL;DR: you need to earn the respect of the player.

Thanks for the clear up, you're absolutely right about that.


Fun Fact: In Original Neptunia, you had to make your healing items and couldn't even control when you used them,only suggest the amount of remaining health said item would be used and HOPE the Ai used it then.

I don't mind this. If there's a babymode option casuals can use to get the illusion of being good at a game, I don't mind if they re-balance the single-player as a casual filter.

I think some people play games the wrong way simply because they're allowed. Like if there's one insanely broken item you can pick up or one insanely broken combo you can perform, some people will exclusively use that combo or item, then complain the game is too easy. I shouldn't have to if the game is well-designed, but I don't mind handi-capping myself for the same of getting more enjoyment from a game.

Easy modo humilation
make the game difficult
Reward skill, like having achievements for high skill feats and have it unlock stuff
Another game that I think can be finished by a total scrub and see it as a meh game is DMC. Seeing someone like DSP play through the game by doing nothing but spamming the shotgun is depressing.

We need more of this. I remember Serious Sam's games had a baby face for the easiest difficulty. Or in DMC it offers to drop the difficulty if you die to much (should be there only way to change difficulty during a run as well)

Nobody wants to admit it but yeah, nah, you have to force players to learn mechanics and reach a skill level after a certain point, otherwise you'll have them scrubbing it out.

Also forgot to mention God Hands amazing way of doing difficulty with getting harder as you dodge attacks and act stylish.

I liked the risk of rain approach of having the difficulty ramp up with time, so you're gonna git gud or you're going to die.

Let me throw a situation at you.

Let's say game X has drop in and out Co-op and PvP multiplayer that cannot be seperated from the single player.

There is a move, that is considered cheap and bullshit for the multiplayer.
BUT, the move is essential for single player and story mode due to excessively overpowered enemies at a point in the game who's only weakness is said move.

More information: Pure physical builds are weak to this move as it repels damage and stuns physical attacks. The enemies that are weak to this move will swarm you and stun lock you to death, 100% guaranteed if you do not know this move. No other move can repell these enemies nor slow them down all their attacks have hit armor and i-frames upon start up.

The move has a start up of 2 seconds, lasts 3 seconds and when used, the character who preformed it is stuck in place for 4 seconds.

What do you believe is the right course of action?
Should the move.
A) Be nerfed for both, crippling it's effectiveness in multiplayer and single player.
B) Left alone and PVP players should develop a strategy around said move.
C) Should the enemies that require the move be nerfed or removed, therefore changing the base game experience?
D) Should the developers simply developed multiplayer as a completely separate mode?
E) Should the move removed from the game completely?

So you faggots will argue that you are playing the game wrong if you dont use all the casual bullshit like cover, slow-mo, wall hack, bird vison, etc. And its the devs job to dont even put that bullshit so casuals will buy the game in the first place

But you will say that Vanquish isnt a Gears of War clone because its made by moonrunners

Fucking weebs

Honestly it's funny because the game almost fucking flaunts it in your face that you can be a pacifist, but it seems like no normalfags I showed it to even attempted that on their first try.
Every passing moment I doubt the intelligence and humanity of my peers.

You're playing vanquish wrong if you aren't going fast.
Just like you're playing Warframe wrong if you're playing Warframe in the first place you treat it like a popamole shooting gallery.
Or as a better example, you're playing Max Payne wrong if you're playing it as a cover shooter that also includes MP3.

bump quality thread

There should be separate talent trees for both PvP and PVE. This seems to be the easiest fix and of all the games I've played not one of the developers ever does this.

Isn't it stupid bullshit?

In Vaquish's God Hard, you would use more cover, stick your neck and your ass is gonna get killed.

Fucking wot?

Dark Souls 3 is good though, even better than Dark Souls 1 even.

Show me some MP3's max difficulty (if you die you restart the whole game) without using cover, please.

That'd be the first thing most people do and you'd certainly be using cover more often regardless since you can't just walk up to everything anymore, but it's still possible to play aggressively on God Hard with the use of cigarettes and (EMP) grenades

So in short, using cover is still more rewarding?

What the fuck is OP's talking about then, fucking nonsensical ass blaster.

Not if you're going for the max time bonus.

Hugely debatable, but beating God Hard alone is an achievement.

user who actually played Undertale on release date.
Can confirm that everything user has said is horseshit, especially the "more challenging and different if you try and befriend the monsters instead" bit

Playing Devil's Advocate, I think it's a good bonus if the game somehow manages to be fun for everyone without sacrificing the core design. When I played Doom for the first time, I treated the shotgun like a generic CoD assault rifle since I never understood how important the other guns were back then. Of course there were times where I had to use other weapons if I ran out of slugs but it was still fun for me back then to just camp and shoot from cover like in CoD. Eventually, I started to experiment more with other weapons and I enjoyed the game even more. The point is that you don't have to punish people for playing the game wrong or deprive them of general fun, but just give them a taste of what they're missing out. They're gonna keep coming back to your game if they like it and they'll continue to learn more about the game.

This has always been a problem. Think about Nier, a pretty good game with an interesting narrative that takes a turn for the fucking mental with multiple playthroughs. The proper way to play Nier is to get at all the endings to get the most complete story.

How game Journos played it was to play ending A and say "dis gaem is shit nevuh explan anythin 2/10 shit gaem". And it's similar with lots of games that require multiple playthroughs to fully understand and enjoy.

That's not even not playing the game the way it's intended, that's not finishing the damn game.

Some people don't understand that some games have multiple, continuing endings and just think that once the credits roll that's the end of the game. I bet there's more than one Automata review out there saying "THIS GAME WAS REALLY SHORT, I BEAT IT IN LIKE 6 HOURS, HOW SHIT IS THAT?".

Meanwhile they'd complain that 6 hours is too long for an FPS or something stupid like that.

Some people are incapable of getting better, but those people can still have money. Companies don't run on making their customers better.

It isn't the devs fault though, both Jay and Rich fundamentally misunderstand the point of Platinum games. They play them to get to the end and finish the game when they should be playing them to get the highest score possible. If you're getting anything less than a silver medal in Bayonetta turn the difficulty down until you can consistently Platinum, if you're getting low scores in Vanquish because you have to sit in cover often then turn the difficulty down until you don't have to. They refuse to touch the difficulty setting because they think it will make them casual but the casual part here is ignoring the scoring system. You explicitly lose points for using cover and taking a long time to kill enemies yet they say the game encourages you to hide behind cover.

What Platinum really ought to do is remove the health bar from their games so it becomes more obvious that you're supposed to just play for the score. They could replace it by saying if your style rank ever gets below a bronze then you die or something (and have an easy mode where you never die and can practice).

Faggot

Test

Or do what Drakengard 1/2 did and gate healing to performance.

Could I just point out that both SA titles and Heroes solved this problem by having a message pop up after the credits saying "You have unlocked the final story" once you completed all of the stories for the individual characters/teams (Who where available from the Get-go, with the exception of SA1). So, why not have a message after the credits roll stating, "Congratulations on completing the game. Why don't you see about playing through it again? Things could turn out differently this time.", and also provide the player with some (It can be small) bonus to encourage another playerthrough?

That's good too but you have to be encouraged to go fast instead of play cautiously, if you wanted to keep it simple like that you could just have degenerating health which would effectively be a simplified style meter if you gained health when doing cool shit.

I haven't watched the anime. Is that tongue canon?

Watching DSP to see him fail is kinda enjoyable, like rage on demand

its assburger tier

I'll burger your ass

get a load of this faggot

Woooooooooooooooooow

i ain't reading all that

DMC tended to do an easy one by just having those lantern-wheel things that lit up as you raised your combo score. It was just a simple little way of letting the player know that using many different moves in succession was a good choice to make. Vanquish on the other hand never truly requires you at any point to run and gun or not get past an area. They could've just thrown in a few timed gates or something that would encourage players to get out of their comfort zone.

At the same time, I think the design of the game was mad sloppy anyway. Putting in so many chest-high walls, catwalks and corridors gave many players the wrong idea when it really should have had open areas. At least, they needed to change the overheat system. Many people saw that happen when they first started getting into combat and just decided to not bother because they felt punished for messing it up even slightly. Dante doesn't squat down and rest for a several seconds because you used Devil Trigger too long, it just ends it. The punishment for using it too much is not getting to use it, not having your entire movement system get crippled and fucking with your health.

I've seen videos of the genocide run and it's grindy but easy as shit with the exception of two bosses designed to be royal cunts to chastise you for killing all the musli-uh… I mean, all the monsters.

And it's still harder than the other routes

You are literally more likely to get a bad end playing a VN like F/SN than you are to die in Undertale.

When even a VN has more challenging gameplay, that's pretty sad.

The worst thing is that the two times where the game actually decides to challenge you are pretty fucking good. Hell, I'd say Sans is one of the best bosses I've fought in years.

The demo showed more than what we were given in the end. The pacifist route wasn't ever meant to be so damn easy, but thanks to tumblr influencing him in development, it came out all fucked up.
t. demofag

Everything past the demo and the ending is an absolutely maniacally rushed mess that shows he was way in over his head with fucking Game Maker, and even the rushed and fairly shoddy project he ultimately put out has an absolutely inane amount of help credited at the end. Guy's a ROM hacker (via pre-made tools like PK Hack), not a game developer, and I'm pretty sure even he realizes it.

Rushed and unfinished, likely to never be. I just wish he knew what he was doing, could have gotten an amazing game out of it instead of what we got.

I see this alot with the elder scrolld games too. Most people, if not all at this point, go into them expecting this open world rpg when its mean to be a dungeon crawler with a huge overworld. Even bethesda lost touch with this and its why skyrim was so shit, and why oblivion isnt the worst elder scroll game.

the game wasnt meant to be played like that

The way the game is supposed to be played is the way in which the player has a lot of fun

BONUS: Name the game.

LOL
kids.yahoo.co.jp/games/sports/013.html

It's exaggerated but she does have a long tongue IIRC

Assaultcube.

Good job nigger!

not all games are satisfying if you arent willing to learn them. thus, you can be playing a game in a certain way but not having fun because you dont really know whats going on.

I have completed Vagrant Story as a kid completing the game by hitting everything in damage sequences done via combos like:
Usually hit 13-14 before I miss and restart the same sequence again.

I then replayed the game and understood the mechanics and was able to breeze through the game much better and faster. I enjoyed it a lot more even and it cemented it as my most favorite game.

So for your post, I think that rewarding the player AT THE RIGHT PACE to learn the mechanics is the most important thing for them to want to learn it in the first place. When players feel accomplished because they can see that they are getting stronger, getting gud and getting a lot more loot, then they will want to succeed a lot more. Ragnarok MMO had this, but the progression felt really slow. Add the min-max and metagame competitiveness, which probably wasn't just for me because I just like to have fun, so a lot of people strive to be the very best that no one ever was.

I don't actually have an image for this.
Restricting a map editor is kind of pushing it, I agree.

Quoted wrong

I'm a fucking casual when it comes to DMC and Platinum style games. I can't get good. In all other genres I will wade through the slog of learning the game, but in the case of crazy beat-em-ups I can't muster up the interest to bother improving. I have two options when I inevitably hit a difficult wall and that is either lower the difficulty and try again or get irritated and quit entirely.

Basically, I fail to enjoy the elegant combat systems of Bayonetta and its ilk. I continue to play games in this genre because the idea of enjoying them is interesting, but the execution is lacking. I will forever buy each of Platinum's games in a desperate attempt to understand them, hoping that one day a game will come along that will click for me despite any evidence to the contrary. Platinum makes solid games that I want to enjoy but can't.

In regards to the topic, I played Bayonetta "wrong". I played W101 wrong. I have done nothing but play an entire genre incorrectly because I just don't find the gameplay interesting enough for me to continue playing in the event of a decent challenge. Meanwhile I will painstakingly detail the levels of any game that offers the option of stealth just to try my hand at it. I have autistically ransacked both Dishonored games because despite being easy as hell are potent games for self-inflicted challenges and I'd like to say it's because we're in a stealth game drought but honestly I will pick apart any game that allows me to go in without guns blazing.

In my experience, the lack of interest in getting good isn't generally frustration but rather a lack of interest in the game itself. I'll piece together a cogent game out of an abortion like Dishonored just because I want it that bad, but I'll fail to appreciate well-done and interesting games like W101. There's no accounting for taste.

Perfect game for tumblr, so piss easy they can pretend they'd actually have to be determined to beat it and the actual fun part actual fun parts of the game (all 2 of them) punish you in the end.

I played demon's souls and dark souls wrong my first time through. My friend lent me his PS3 and Demon's Souls after I heard how good it was. I played it wrong. I went with the best shield I could find, took the game super slow, and stocked up so hard on grass. I didn't really enjoy the game at all and I was just relieved that the game was over. I had no fun.

Same thing with Dark Souls. Big shield, lots of armour, use a spear because I can attack with my shield still up, and grind like shit for level ups. I made it to anor londo and gave up. I figured the series just wasn't for me.

When bloodborne came out, my brother got a PS4, and I had a go. I couldn't play with a shield anymore, I had to dodge or parry. I had so much fucking fun. The game was more difficult, but it was a thousand times more engaging and rewarding. After I finished it, I went back to Dark Souls and had a blast. I ditched the shield and started using light armour and heavy two-handed weapons. The game is a lot better once you are willing to come out from behind your shield and rely on your reflexes to dodge and parry. People get so used to hiding behind their shield, they think its the only way to play.

Video essays are cancer, but here's one that might help your outlook on the situation user, long story short *git gud but the game is designed to be played at intermediate levels, you'll get there eventually, their games are short enough to let multiple playthroughs teach you the mechanics properly.

Metal Gear Rising is actually a really good one to start with.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE PLATINUM

On what basis? I find their content is only as good as whoever's writing it. What intrinsic flaws does the format have?

It kinda is, compared to most Platinum games the required technical knowledge and execution required for high-level play is minimal. You don't really have to memorize any combos, as it mostly comes down to knowing how enemies work and restricting yourself anyways. If you're going for S-ranks as a measure of skill, all you have to do most of the time is to simply not take any damage at all, and I suggest you watch some S-rank video walkthroughs (TheSeraphim17's guide on this was particularly useful). There's no shame in watching other replays to see how other players do it.

Though MGR is like a 6-hour long game, according to Steam I've already spent 64 hours in the process of getting the Stormbringer cheevo, which involves S-ranking each chapter on Revengeance difficulty. Minimal Ripper Mode, minimal items, and Muramasa+subweapons only were used. Sometimes I replayed the game just to get a feel for the new difficulty mode, without autistically hunting all S-ranks. They're games you have to put effort into if you want to see fruit. Though a developer can never make games with the guarantee that everyone will play with maximum effort.

Audio takes far longer to communicate the same message as text. Part of why voice acting will always be detrimental to games.

Sweet jesus, way to fuck up an opportunity

This is true, but the video essay offers unique advantages, such as allowing visual supporting evidence and counterpoints to be displayed with the core information simultaneously. The next most effective option would be to post it on a website, with each piece of supporting evidence embedded within the essay as it becomes relevant.
What nonsense. There are lots of circumstances where it is detrimental to games, but it can elevate games as well. Many games are infinitely more emotionally engaging and memorable as a result of their voice work, even when it's cheesy as shit, or outright shit. See MGS and Ace Combat.
Fine, but that doesn't mean that it's always going to be the wrong choice for you, either. Ace Combat is also an example of a game in which voice is a more effective method for information delivery than text. Not that it does it correctly 100% of the time. RPG games usually don't need voice work, and it may even become an active detriment to your ability to play the character you want, but it's simply false to say that all uses of voice acting are bad for all video games. You're essentially retreading the argument that "talkies" ruined the medium of cinema.

Actors on screen generally have the capability to talk. Meanwhile a computer game model doesn't and it requires more budget to hire a voice actor to act out the lines. A game company may base their potential dialog options in a game around a feasible budget for voice acted lines.

Vocalizations in game can be helpful since it would be instead of text on screen, where additional text risks cluttering up the HUD in a multiplayer game (after repeat hearings, the player can recognize the what the first sounds indicate without waiting to interpret the whole clip). But I don't agree with your analogy of video game voices and talkies, which at the time had low quality audio and may be difficult to understand speech.