Time-wasting respawns/progress loss seems like a very blunt tool with which to motivate the player to keep playing. It’s some 1988 arcade coin-op shit that we really ought to leave in the past.
Time-wasting respawns/progress loss seems like a very blunt tool with which to motivate the player to keep playing.
Tried playing a game of tennis with my friends. 0, 15, 30, 40, Point. Then if you’re two scores ahead the game resets. Wtf! Why did the game reset? I was 30-40 and now I’m back to 0? I should be allowed to keep my 30 into the next game.
Now I’m being induced into playing more tennis! I hate this.
And tennis has so few maps! Almost everywhere I go is concrete. Very luck to find a clay court anywhere. You need to buy the DLC to find grass, and only if you’re really lucky.
Its repetitive. Its exhausting. The rules barely make sense. And the match-making is completely fucked. I’m either playing people I trounce or getting my ass handed to me almost every time I go to a court.
I think I’m going to try and pick up chess instead. Does anyone know how I can upgrade my pawns to queens, though?
My favorite part of playing tennis is the commute back to the court after every time my opponent scores. I really get to savor and look forward to the next time I’ll get to swing my racket. It also makes victory that much more meaningful knowing that not only am I an expert at swinging the racket, reading my opponents moves, and responding, I’ve also memorized every crack, crevice, and nuance of conversation along the route to the court. That meaningless repetition of unrelated action is what makes games fun!
It’s not quite the same though, souls still keeps the items you dropped, its just up to you to retrieve them.
You can’t claim you climbed a mountain, if each time you fell you just resumed from where you lost grip. Falling and reclimbing with renewed tenacity means that when you finally conquer the mountain, the view is all the more sweeter for the huge experience you’ve gained along the way.
I think soulslikes are appealing to a certain type of player. Personally I love Dark Souls it’s my favorite game.
But I like playing with stakes. I remember stumbling around in the forest, down to my last scrap of health, with no more heals, desperately trying to reach the next bonfire. That for me is fun. Is it frustrating to lose your progress? Sure. But the only “penalty” is you have to try again or change your approach and try something else. And really, is being forced to replay a section inherently punishing? If the game itself is fun, you should still be having fun fighting and exploring even if you aren’t progressing.
It can be the only way to punish people in certain games.
If there’s no punishment for failure, there’s no reason to respect any dangers the game presents.
In Minecraft, what should happen if you walk north for an hour and die? If you respawn with your inventory, why not just do that again and die as a quick way to get back? Why even bother with equipment or food at that point? Suddenly, half the game mechanics have lost their meaning, and there’s a lot less to do for the player.
For millions of people, having to try again when you die IS enjoyable. Many people don’t like being treated like a baby and have everything handed to them, they want to earn it.
Being sent back to try again is not wasting time, its giving the player the opportunity to learn and grow.
Video games are the only medium where someone can be denied progress based on their skill. That is their major draw. If you don’t like this, you probably don’t like video games and I recommend you try movies and books instead of trying to turn video games into them.
Being sent back to try again is not wasting time, its giving the player the opportunity to learn and grow.
I think a large part of why so many people think that some games punish the player by wasting their time is because for lower skilled players (like myself), getting hit is a death sentence, and so we focus our efforts on not getting hit. But then, because we’re focusing more on not getting hit than we are hitting the enemy, the fight takes an eternity. And because the fight takes an eternity, the enemy has that many more opportunities to get a couple hits in, and now that 20 minutes that I’ve just spent dodging Lady Maria’s attacks have been wasted. I didn’t learn anything in that attempt, because I was busy trying not to get hit. It’s basically impossible to break out of that mindset on your own, because by default the game trains you to avoid getting hurt at all costs.
This is also why I love Sekiro so much. That instinct to not get hit can be expressed through deflecting. Deflections move the fight along just as much as attacks, and also I’m sitting right next to the boss so I’m able to get attacks in more easily without putting myself at risk. Altogether, this means boss fights don’t take an eternity.
Video games are the only medium where someone can be denied progress based on their skill. That is their major draw. If you don’t like this, you probably don’t like video games and I recommend you try movies and books instead of trying to turn video games into them.
This is an incredibly Fromsoft Fan attitude. There’s a reason you never hear people make these complaints about games like Dying Light or Mass Effect. Are most games just too movie-like for you?
I know OP is joking (at least I hope he is), but it reminded me of this thread about Soulslikes:
https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/oc1w7g/separating_difficulty_from_drudgery_or_why/
Time-wasting respawns/progress loss seems like a very blunt tool with which to motivate the player to keep playing. It’s some 1988 arcade coin-op shit that we really ought to leave in the past.
Tried playing a game of tennis with my friends. 0, 15, 30, 40, Point. Then if you’re two scores ahead the game resets. Wtf! Why did the game reset? I was 30-40 and now I’m back to 0? I should be allowed to keep my 30 into the next game.
Now I’m being induced into playing more tennis! I hate this.
And tennis has so few maps! Almost everywhere I go is concrete. Very luck to find a clay court anywhere. You need to buy the DLC to find grass, and only if you’re really lucky.
Its repetitive. Its exhausting. The rules barely make sense. And the match-making is completely fucked. I’m either playing people I trounce or getting my ass handed to me almost every time I go to a court.
I think I’m going to try and pick up chess instead. Does anyone know how I can upgrade my pawns to queens, though?
My favorite part of playing tennis is the commute back to the court after every time my opponent scores. I really get to savor and look forward to the next time I’ll get to swing my racket. It also makes victory that much more meaningful knowing that not only am I an expert at swinging the racket, reading my opponents moves, and responding, I’ve also memorized every crack, crevice, and nuance of conversation along the route to the court. That meaningless repetition of unrelated action is what makes games fun!
It’s a very funny comment but also tennis is only the gameplay of tennis. People don’t play tennis because they Iike the story so much lmao
People don’t play dark souls for the story either. We are there for the gameplay.
Speak for yourself. I think many soulslikes have fascinating stories, and they’re wasted on players who don’t pay attention to them.
Go for ping pong if you want to get roped in because of the plot.
Maybe tennis 2: pickleball
So your claim is souls likes are more like tennis than say, Fortnite is.
Fortnite is just baseball with extra steps
All games are just stick and hoop with extra steps
It’s not quite the same though, souls still keeps the items you dropped, its just up to you to retrieve them.
You can’t claim you climbed a mountain, if each time you fell you just resumed from where you lost grip. Falling and reclimbing with renewed tenacity means that when you finally conquer the mountain, the view is all the more sweeter for the huge experience you’ve gained along the way.
Sure you can; it’s called redpointing.
I’m not inviting you to any parties, but you can join my DnD group
Thanks. My preference is intersectional second ed. I don’t mind conflict as long as it’s not derived from lazy racist tropes.
Well, good thing games are better than real life. Or they would be worthless.
I can think of at least two things wrong with those statements there
I think soulslikes are appealing to a certain type of player. Personally I love Dark Souls it’s my favorite game.
But I like playing with stakes. I remember stumbling around in the forest, down to my last scrap of health, with no more heals, desperately trying to reach the next bonfire. That for me is fun. Is it frustrating to lose your progress? Sure. But the only “penalty” is you have to try again or change your approach and try something else. And really, is being forced to replay a section inherently punishing? If the game itself is fun, you should still be having fun fighting and exploring even if you aren’t progressing.
It can be the only way to punish people in certain games.
If there’s no punishment for failure, there’s no reason to respect any dangers the game presents.
In Minecraft, what should happen if you walk north for an hour and die? If you respawn with your inventory, why not just do that again and die as a quick way to get back? Why even bother with equipment or food at that point? Suddenly, half the game mechanics have lost their meaning, and there’s a lot less to do for the player.
If the punishment for failure is wasting time, then I’m just going to play something else.
Games are supposed to be enjoyable.
For millions of people, having to try again when you die IS enjoyable. Many people don’t like being treated like a baby and have everything handed to them, they want to earn it.
Being sent back to try again is not wasting time, its giving the player the opportunity to learn and grow.
Video games are the only medium where someone can be denied progress based on their skill. That is their major draw. If you don’t like this, you probably don’t like video games and I recommend you try movies and books instead of trying to turn video games into them.
I think a large part of why so many people think that some games punish the player by wasting their time is because for lower skilled players (like myself), getting hit is a death sentence, and so we focus our efforts on not getting hit. But then, because we’re focusing more on not getting hit than we are hitting the enemy, the fight takes an eternity. And because the fight takes an eternity, the enemy has that many more opportunities to get a couple hits in, and now that 20 minutes that I’ve just spent dodging Lady Maria’s attacks have been wasted. I didn’t learn anything in that attempt, because I was busy trying not to get hit. It’s basically impossible to break out of that mindset on your own, because by default the game trains you to avoid getting hurt at all costs.
This is also why I love Sekiro so much. That instinct to not get hit can be expressed through deflecting. Deflections move the fight along just as much as attacks, and also I’m sitting right next to the boss so I’m able to get attacks in more easily without putting myself at risk. Altogether, this means boss fights don’t take an eternity.
This is an incredibly Fromsoft Fan attitude. There’s a reason you never hear people make these complaints about games like Dying Light or Mass Effect. Are most games just too movie-like for you?