"Beating" a game vs. the game letting you win

[Lheticus]

I wonder if this angle as to why I hate level grinding and using hugely effective cheese strategies will be any more helpful than what I've already discussed...

Basically, I now believe I hate beating a game through level grinding, ridicucheese strategies, and things like doing all side quests to get the Infinity+1 Sword because I don't feel like I BEAT the game...more like the game allowed me to win--in the vein of "I let you win." With grinding levels, using ridiculous strategies, and getting ridiculous equipment, I feel that the method of beating the game comes from the GAME, and I want the way I win to come from ME.

Does that...make any more sense than how I've come at it before? >_<

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It makes sense to me. It sends the message "spend enough time in this game, and you'll win", which is a scummy tactic used by a lot of social media games with the intent of getting time investment. Because the more time you spend in those games, the likelier it is that you'll spend money in them.

You're interested in games where, no matter how much time you spend in them, you still have to play well to win. You don't want to be godmoded into winning, even if it's a payoff for time investment. Which honestly does make sense to me.

[Lheticus]

It makes sense to me. It sends the message "spend enough time in this game, and you'll win", which is a scummy tactic used by a lot of social media games with the intent of getting time investment. Because the more time you spend in those games, the likelier it is that you'll spend money in them.

You're interested in games where, no matter how much time you spend in them, you still have to play well to win. You don't want to be godmoded into winning, even if it's a payoff for time investment. Which honestly does make sense to me.

EXACTLY. YES! YES! YES! YEEEEEESS! I'm FINALLY getting the message across that I've been trying to basically the entire dang time I've been discussing these issues! The problem is I'm not dealing with social media games here--I'm dealing with full fledged, ACCLAIMED even, games like Bravely Default, the Persona series, even the Kingdom Hearts series in terms of the bonus bosses. Though in KH, it's really a mirror image of the problem--the bonus bosses like Sephiroth are totally unfightable unless you pay into the leveling time sink far more than you need to to beat the game. In their own way, they're guilty of supporting that message just as social media games are. And I view this as a real problem! I'm worried that at the rate things are going, player skill will only remain a true factor AT ALL in games like Madden, Starcraft, and COD/TF2/Halo/whatever--at least in terms of the mainstream. Just how small a niche IS it in the gaming market these days that truly values getting gud, here?!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I sorta think of those types of games as "roadtrip games", largely because of what I enjoy in them: roadtrip games are about going cool places and seeing the scenery, and the game part is about engaging the tactical parts of the brain in some way. I don't think there's a coincidence that these games are usually the games which also have story and/or are RPGs: the typical arc of an RPG is "do stuff, get cool loot, unlock neat powers", and the logical outcome of that is "unlock enough powers, and you win everything".

I'm hesitant to point to them as a "trend" in gaming, because games tend to be much more diverse than we give them credit for. (For example, there was an article recently wondering "do we even need characters in games?", with the gist of "too many games are focused on characters' stories and not on being games about systems", despite the fact that Firaxis and Paradox are both putting out high-quality games in that vein.) I think competitive gaming definitely still has a hefty niche, even though it's limited to some arenas (mostly Capcom-style fighters, FPSes, MOBAs, and RTSes).

Though it's true that within each niche, there's very few competitors in terms of games taken seriously as competitive games. Arcade fighters are probably the most diverse group, as evidenced by events like Evo. FPSes have, well...Counterstrike, whatever the hot new FPS is, and maybe Halo for name recognition. MOBAs have LoL and (sorta) DotA, and time will tell if Heroes of the Storm winds up being another competitive staple. RTSes have Starcraft (wow, there really was an RTS boom and bust a decade back). Oh, yeah, you bring up a good point with Madden.

I wouldn't say that games outside of the seriously competitive sphere eliminate player skill, and I think player skill will remain--Nintendo in particular is good about this, but puzzle games are another sort of game that highlights player skill over stats advantage.

[dragonsamurai77]

EXACTLY. YES! YES! YES! YEEEEEESS! I'm FINALLY getting the message across that I've been trying to basically the entire dang time I've been discussing these issues! The problem is I'm not dealing with social media games here--I'm dealing with full fledged, ACCLAIMED even, games like Bravely Default, the Persona series, even the Kingdom Hearts series in terms of the bonus bosses. Though in KH, it's really a mirror image of the problem--the bonus bosses like Sephiroth are totally unfightable unless you pay into the leveling time sink far more than you need to to beat the game. In their own way, they're guilty of supporting that message just as social media games are. And I view this as a real problem! I'm worried that at the rate things are going, player skill will only remain a true factor AT ALL in games like Madden, Starcraft, and COD/TF2/Halo/whatever--at least in terms of the mainstream. Just how small a niche IS it in the gaming market these days that truly values getting gud, here?!

I don't think Kingdom Hearts is the best example; he's easily beatable in both 1FM and 2FM at Level 1; no grinding needed. In 2, you do need a tiny amount of Drive Form leveling (DHA can't be interrupted without High Jump + Aerial Dodge), but not nearly enough that I'd consider it a "time sink".

[Lheticus]

I don't think Kingdom Hearts is the best example; he's easily beatable in both 1FM and 2FM at Level 1; no grinding needed. In 2, you do need a tiny amount of Drive Form leveling (DHA can't be interrupted without High Jump + Aerial Dodge), but not nearly enough that I'd consider it a "time sink".

I've never played final mix. In the original, I remember trying him at like in the 50s of levels and dying from like 2 hits half a dozen times before going "okay, screw this" after I actually got ONE hit on him before dying and it didn't reduce his life meter.

Was final mix even RELEASED in the US, anyway?! Oh and by the way, beating anyone like that at level ONE implies to me that you need a very specific method--this fails my SECOND peeve about beating the game rather than the game letting you win--using a ridiculously effective strategy.

[dragonsamurai77]

I've never played final mix. In the original, I remember trying him at like in the 50s of levels and dying from like 2 hits half a dozen times before going "okay, screw this" after I actually got ONE hit on him before dying and it didn't reduce his life meter.

Was final mix even RELEASED in the US, anyway?! Oh and by the way, beating anyone like that at level ONE implies to me that you need a very specific method--this fails my SECOND peeve about beating the game rather than the game letting you win--using a ridiculously effective strategy.

Yes, in the 1.5 and 2.5 ReMIX compilations. I mention Final Mix only because there's no option to stay Level 1 in the originals.

As for dying in 2 hits, that, to me, is the brilliance of it. Yes, things kill you extremetly quickly, but everything is avoidable, especially with Limits.

EDIT: Actually, no; just dodging and counterattacking, with knowledge of his pattern, is enough to get through both iterations of Sephiroth, even at Level 1.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Monster Hunter is a game that's becoming more popular outside of Japan (where it's been huge for a while) which avoids this, I think. You don't have levels, only equipment, and while equipment helps (and is necessary to a certain extent - go at something sufficiently late with a starting weapon and you'll run out the timer on the hunter, but you'd never even try outside of personal challenges anyway), you could be wearing the best suit in the game and even the early monsters could crush you if you aren't any good. It's a bit of a newbie-unfriendly series, though the newest installment, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (for the 3DS) is apparently a bit better (I'm still playing 3 Ultimate for the moment but I'm planning to get 4U when I can), and there are all sorts of guides online to get you from failing because the game hasn't told you what you need to know to failing because the game isn't easy.
AI companions and co-operative multiplayer are available but optional, and there aren't so much "cheesy strategies" as knowing how to use your weapon(s) of choice - all of which are viable in their own ways, just find one that's right for you. I think the series is worth a shot if that (and the premise of low-story, hunt monsters because it's frickin' cool) interests you.

[tonberrian]

Why shouldn't games have optional bosses outside the normal parameters of the game? They're optional. Your are entirely within your prerogative to ignore them if you want them. And the best bonus bosses require a level of player skill above and beyond getting your stats past the "you must be this tall" signs, something that a lot of final bosses fail to accomplish.

[Lheticus]

Why shouldn't games have optional bosses outside the normal parameters of the game? They're optional. Your are entirely within your prerogative to ignore them if you want them. And the best bonus bosses require a level of player skill above and beyond getting your stats past the "you must be this tall" signs, something that a lot of final bosses fail to accomplish.

All right, sure. There seems to be a bit of an excessive fixation here on something I intended to be an example in a group of examples. Sure, it's a weak example. Strike it from the record if you must. But I'd really like to get back to talking about the tendency of many games well beyond mere social media games to reward time spent over skill acquired that DOES exist.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

All right, sure. There seems to be a bit of an excessive fixation here on something I intended to be an example in a group of examples. Sure, it's a weak example. Strike it from the record if you must. But I'd really like to get back to talking about the tendency of many games well beyond mere social media games to reward time spent over skill acquired that DOES exist.

You probably want to clarify that.

I suspect you're thinking primarily of games where time spent = stat accumulation = winning the game.

Because it's also true that you need to invest lots of time into a game in order to acquire skill at it.

[SowZ]

I've never played final mix. In the original, I remember trying him at like in the 50s of levels and dying from like 2 hits half a dozen times before going "okay, screw this" after I actually got ONE hit on him before dying and it didn't reduce his life meter.

Was final mix even RELEASED in the US, anyway?! Oh and by the way, beating anyone like that at level ONE implies to me that you need a very specific method--this fails my SECOND peeve about beating the game rather than the game letting you win--using a ridiculously effective strategy.

My old roommate actually did a level 1 run through of Kingdom Hearts. It's tough, but with enough skill you can beat that game. Other games that are purely numbers and no active combat are impossible without some leveling much of the time, yeah.

[Lheticus]

You probably want to clarify that.

I suspect you're thinking primarily of games where time spent = stat accumulation = winning the game.

Because it's also true that you need to invest lots of time into a game in order to acquire skill at it.

Yes, this, only it's more stat/ability/equipment accumulation, not just stat. And what I'd want for games in genres where such accumulation is readily available, is that time spent = accumulation /= winning the game AND NOT accumulation /= NOT winning the game.

[GloatingSwine]

Basically, I now believe I hate beating a game through level grinding, ridicucheese strategies, and things like doing all side quests to get the Infinity+1 Sword because I don't feel like I BEAT the game...more like the game allowed me to win--in the vein of "I let you win." With grinding levels, using ridiculous strategies, and getting ridiculous equipment, I feel that the method of beating the game comes from the GAME, and I want the way I win to come from ME.

Did you do all of that without looking any of it up?

Because most of the games which are designed with those elements in are also designed such that they are not immediately obvious, and the intended skill is investigating the possibility space sufficiently that you find the winning strategy and/or equipment.

[Lheticus]

Did you do all of that without looking any of it up?

Because most of the games which are designed with those elements in are also designed such that they are not immediately obvious, and the intended skill is investigating the possibility space sufficiently that you find the winning strategy and/or equipment.

Yeah well, since it's so easy TO look things up what with the internet and all, it's not really a valid way to promote skill anymore imo.

[Hytheter]

I'm dealing with full fledged, ACCLAIMED even, games like Bravely Default, the Persona series, even the Kingdom Hearts series

The thing is though with most games with levelling systems (mostly RPGs) is that grinding for levels and gear is only one way to beat the game. It's usually quite possible to beat the game using skill, strategy and whatever experience and equipment you pick up incidentally along the way. Having both options is a good thing because it allows a wider variety of players to get their money's worth. Unskilled players can brute force their way through the game by grinding, while skilled players develop skills and tactics that let them get through the game without excessive levelling.

Personally, I fall somewhere in between.

[Eldan]

Yeah well, since it's so easy TO look things up what with the internet and all, it's not really a valid way to promote skill anymore imo.

I don't know... I still enjoy point and click adventure games, even if I could just look up all the puzzles online.

[Hytheter]

Yeah well, since it's so easy TO look things up what with the internet and all, it's not really a valid way to promote skill anymore imo.

Wait, hold on, are you seriously looking up ideal strategies on the internet and then complaining that the games are too easy to win?

That's not the game letting you win. That's you using external tools in lieu of players skill, and then getting annoyed about it! You might as well say Battletoads is too easy because you can make yourself invincible using a game genie.

Maybe you would like these games more if you didn't actively sabotage your own enjoyment of them.

[Lheticus]

Wait, hold on, are you seriously looking up ideal strategies on the internet and then complaining that the games are too easy to win?

That's not the game letting you win. That's you using external tools in lieu of players skill, and then getting annoyed about it! You might as well say Battletoads is too easy because you can make yourself invincible using a game genie.

Maybe you would like these games more if you didn't actively sabotage your own enjoyment of them.

Now hang on, that's not exactly it. I don't look up the ideal strategies. It's not a matter of them being on the internet making a game too easy. I would prefer NO strategy being truly close to surefire--the sort of game where pre battle planning only gets you so far. So even if you come up with something really good there STILL needs to be an in battle skill component or you'll still lose. But in JRPGs "in battle" seems to be where skill is a factor the LEAST.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

There might be another factor here: the existence of ideal strategies period.

I'm gonna link an article that David Sirlin wrote (IIRC his book Playing to Win got referenced on an earlier Lheticus thread) called Solvability. It's a great read, but here's the intro paragraph (which is basically like an abstract...):

Designing competitive strategy games is a constant fight against solvability. It's a struggle to make a system simple enough to understand, yet complex enough that players can't figure out the best way to play and then always play that same way.

In a solved game, there's one optimal strategy, and it no longer becomes something you have to constantly wrestle with. Just execute that strategy correctly, and you can win the game. It becomes an optimization problem, and an efficiency problem: how efficiently can you execute the ideal strategy?

In a mixed solution game, you have to actively evaluate the game and also take a few risks. Knowing when to take those risks becomes part of playing the game effectively. Of course, this becomes much more viable in a game where you play against actual intelligence opposition, because then you can out-think it. The biggest problem facing computer games is that, for most games, competing against the computer just means out-optimizing it, because a computer's skillset lies in optimization, not in thinking. Mixed-solution games can boil down to random guessing, since AI doesn't work like human intelligence.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Monster Hunter is a game that's becoming more popular outside of Japan (where it's been huge for a while) which avoids this, I think. You don't have levels, only equipment, and while equipment helps (and is necessary to a certain extent - go at something sufficiently late with a starting weapon and you'll run out the timer on the hunter, but you'd never even try outside of personal challenges anyway), you could be wearing the best suit in the game and even the early monsters could crush you if you aren't any good.

Uh, no. Gear is your level. There is a HUGE difference between low-rank armor, high-rank armor, and G-rank armor.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Uh, no. Gear is your level. There is a HUGE difference between low-rank armor, high-rank armor, and G-rank armor.

There is, but you can "punch beyond your weight" a lot more than some other games. And conversely, all the armour in the world can still have you losing if you're not any good. By the end of Bravely Default, my team had a chance of reviving at the end of every turn, could be healed pretty much to full in one of the four(-to-sixteen, technically) actions I had each turn, performed their various attacks to hit the damage cap or approach it against a group in one action each (or more efficiently with more costly combinations). Failing a fight would involve failing to guard the few enemies capable of wiping the whole party at once (generally bonus bosses) or deliberately doing nothing turn after turn. By comparison, even middling monsters in Monster Hunter can crush you with little care for what armour you're wearing if you don't know how to dodge, or attack recklessly. I'm not the best at the game, and frequently get caught out for being cocky. Having seen Lheticus' threads about trying to find games a few times, I thought I'd chime in quickly with a game that seemed to not fall into the idea of rewarding time spent with "too little" regard for skill, noting that that's a hazy notion by itself.

(Personally, I have no problem with games rewarding time spent in addition to or in lieu of other factors. People have different things that they give up to play games, and it's not a bad thing to allow progression on raw time over learning the game (which will usually come along with time spent anyway), or finger coordination or whatever else a game might gate progression through. Provided that doesn't become a monopoly on game design, but since there is the entire field of multiplayer competitive games that does not and would struggle to do this, I doubt that's a serious concern.)

That said, I typed that post quickly and it's a series that seemed to me - as someone who's always played solo and never gotten to G rank - to fit the idea. I'll defer to greater experience. And I've probably overstayed in this thread already, so I'll go back to lurking now.

[Mando Knight]

The biggest problem facing computer games is that, for most games, competing against the computer just means out-optimizing it, because a computer's skillset lies in optimization, not in thinking.

This includes optimizing into exploiting the computer's weaknesses, in case one finds a flaw in how the computer determines optimization (i.e. exposing a point that the computer considers "weak" but is actually strong, like building a Tower Defense-like deathtrap out of walls in Age of Empires II against the original AI).

[Rodin]

Of course, the designers of the game also know the AI's weaknesses, and design the difficulty around that. Take Fire Emblem - a human player can easily overcome the AI. As compensation, the AI gets the map heavily weighted in its favor to begin with. A human player could pick the opposing side in most Fire Emblem maps and wipe the floor with a human opposing player simply because they have 3-4x as many units. You may have legendary weaponry, but quantity has a quality all of its own. The only way a human player could win in that situation is by having units that can solo the entire map (not an uncommon occurrence in Fire Emblem, I admit).

But the point of the AI design isn't to beat the Human player in that case. Heck, it isn't even to challenge them sufficiently to force them to win with a single super unit. The point is to make them play well enough to win with NO casualties, and as any Fire Emblem player can tell you, that quickly becomes super difficult.

I don't expect an AI to be able to out-think me on a level playing field. I expect it to cheat its ass off and provide a good challenge for me while hiding the fact that it's cheating.

[Lethologica]

RPGs are balancing conflicting impulses. On the one hand, they want to challenge your ability to beat the game. On the other hand, they want to tell you a compelling narrative, which requires letting you reach the end eventually, and also not throwing so much difficult gameplay at you that you lose track of the plot between steps. Different RPGs balance these impulses differently.

[BeerMug Paladin]

As someone else suggested, puzzle games generally don't hand you the solutions outright. I like the genre in concept, but feel most are usually too easy to provide much decent challenge. So your basic complaint could hold for me, but directed exclusively at puzzle games.

Part of the problem you have may be due to the fact that most people with money to burn on games don't have great amounts of time to invest in playing games. So repeating the same challenges over and over again in order to get good may be a dealbreaker for many of the people games are marketed to.

Especially if one sets down the game for several days after playing for only a couple hours in a go. So there simply won't be the kind of investment needed with a very twitchy game in order to train the skill needed for it. If that's the type of experience a game is offering, many might just skip it entirely, regardless of whether it's good or not.

So timesink level-grinding components in games can have an appeal since an hour spent with the game can pretty much always guarantee tangible progress of some kind. Eventually, you'll be guaranteed to see new content even if you don't bother to learn the nuance of the game's finer details or train your reflexes to be super-twitchy.

Oh, and when I play games like Neverwinter Nights or Fallout, I typically make zero effort at disciplined optimization in favor of making a concept character level up as the character would want. So my two-weapon fighting dragon disciple or the clumsy vault nerd who thought guns were cool were fun characters to play as, but rendered my actual playthroughs more difficult/impossible as I progressed.

I'd suggest trying something like that out, as it makes the game harder in general, but that may be the type of thing that few people besides myself would find fun.

[endoperez]

Why shouldn't games have optional bosses outside the normal parameters of the game? They're optional. Your are entirely within your prerogative to ignore them if you want them. And the best bonus bosses require a level of player skill above and beyond getting your stats past the "you must be this tall" signs, something that a lot of final bosses fail to accomplish.

Here's an cRPG designer explaining it:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.fi/2010/0...rs-is-bad.html

Difficulty In a Game Should Have a Curve With As Few Bumps As Possible

When you are supposed to enter an area, you should be able to handle all of the encounters and quests in that area. Want to put in something tough? Save it for the next area. Seriously.

He does give a well-made counter-example, so it's not like that's the only way to do things, but it's a good reason to not make optional, tougher area bosses a habit.

Also, here he agrees with the OP (I think):

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.fi/2009/1...it-easier.html

When a player is on the default difficult level, has built his or her characters poorly, and is playing straight through the main storyline with mediocre tactics, that player should almost never be killed.

Note that that is the DEFAULT difficulty, and the hard modes can still be hard.

[DodgerH2O]

Just to chime in with a sort of counter opinion, I'm the type of person who plays RPGs for storyline and specifically to optimize then crush the challenges. FFXIII really really really angered me. I actually never beat it. Why? Because it's the only one so far (that I know of) where the game itself limits your progress to keep things "challenging".

I don't play Final Fantasy for a challenge. I play because I want to overlevel my party and then steamroll through the storyline. If I spend 4 hours grinding levels and unlocking abilities and get an hour of storyline out of it before I have to grind again, that's perfect.

Random battles are not fun for me, I want to be able to beat them with as little effort as possible. FFXII was amazing for this, later in the game if I set things up properly I rarely had to touch the controller once the battle started.

[tonberrian]

Here's an cRPG designer explaining it:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.fi/2010/0...rs-is-bad.html



He does give a well-made counter-example, so it's not like that's the only way to do things, but it's a good reason to not make optional, tougher area bosses a habit.

Also, here he agrees with the OP (I think):

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.fi/2009/1...it-easier.html



Note that that is the DEFAULT difficulty, and the hard modes can still be hard.

The thing Jeff is arguing against is not what I'm arguing for.

[GloatingSwine]

Just to chime in with a sort of counter opinion, I'm the type of person who plays RPGs for storyline and specifically to optimize then crush the challenges. FFXIII really really really angered me. I actually never beat it. Why? Because it's the only one so far (that I know of) where the game itself limits your progress to keep things "challenging".

I don't play Final Fantasy for a challenge. I play because I want to overlevel my party and then steamroll through the storyline. If I spend 4 hours grinding levels and unlocking abilities and get an hour of storyline out of it before I have to grind again, that's perfect.

Random battles are not fun for me, I want to be able to beat them with as little effort as possible. FFXII was amazing for this, later in the game if I set things up properly I rarely had to touch the controller once the battle started.

On the other hand, FFXIII only has about five challenging battles in it and they're hard no matter what "level" you are.

I don't mind gated progress in the levelling mechanics, but I do think it should be tied to something other than or as well as story progression. If unlocking new levels of the crysterium was possible by completing side activities (if there had been side activities) and was therefore part of the game rather than just an arbitrary power gate it would have been better.

When a player is on the default difficult level, has built his or her characters poorly, and is playing straight through the main storyline with mediocre tactics, that player should almost never be killed.

If the player has built his characters poorly and is using mediocre tactics you did a terrible job communicating what good builds and tactics would constitute in your game.

It's entirely valid that a player should be expected to learn to play the game properly in order to win on the default difficulty, but the game should communicate well enough for them to learn how to do that and not make them make irreversable decisions in a vacuum.