Counterargument to "Get Good" When It Comes to Video Games & Difficulty

[heliumlamb]

well there is some good news for a handful of us, the former agricultural productivity software developer has finally decided to themselves, get good* once more.

*develop something other than a fucking dodgeroll simulator for the first time in a decade

[Redneckerz]

All these philosophical arguments on the cause and effect of video games difficulty go away when you stop fantasizing about how your argument in a Pokeargument battle is going to beat all the other argument trainers out there, and actually play (and enjoy! Very much this!) the game, it will all get better.

 

Or, like @TheMagicMushroomMan said: Boil your urethra. (That's gruesome bro.)

[hybridial]

2 hours ago, Arrowhead said:

Yeah, thanks, I know the people saying 'git gud' aren't genuinely trying to help me - I get that - I'm not a complete gullible fool, but it's up to you how you interpret negative criticism / negative opinions - you don't have to let them smack you around until you feel "...visceral feelings of psychopathy..."

You don't think that's maybe a little much? A little over-the-top? We're talking about a difficulties in video games, and you're talking about visceral psycopathy in relation to elitist mouse users. Once again, you don't think that's a little much?

 

No, not at all, not with my experience.  Frustration doesn't care about what's over the top, and those people frustrated to an absolute extreme because it was fucking EVERYWHERE EVERYTIME WITHOUT EXCEPTION EVER AND THESE PEOPLE WERE FUCKING HORRIBLE AND CRUEL. 

 

Most were probably acting out of thoughtlessness but the complete lack of basic understanding crawls under your skin, it really does. I don't like having to admit it but admitting it to myself was the only way to be able to compartmentalise it and start ignoring it but I immediately shut out anyone who starts that because they have nothing of intelligence to say. I am just telling you why I do that, because the impact started to legitimately be on my mental health, and really if you can't see why that can happen then you need to be more open minded to the myriad ways people can struggle.  There was no positive side to it, it just makes you resent other people. And I have absolutely seen that kind of behaviour over game difficulty. Maybe not as common but it happens, for sure. 

 

Which is why I am saying that your idea is a manner in which someone can turn it around in motivation, but that's completely losing the point that other people are being shit. It's not a defence for them. It's also bad advice in as many cases as it would be good. Why do you think Dark Souls attracted a lot of people who were then on forums asking for ways to win, easy outs and the like? No, the advice for them should be to ask "is it worth it, and why do you actually want it?" 

 

Sometimes it's just shit peer pressure that is doing nobody any good because they're pushing themselves to find some measure of acceptance when they shouldn't. I beat Dark Souls 1 and 2, and I never should have bothered because I never enjoyed them and no amount of critical praise for the likes of Elden Ring or the idea playing it is some kind of status symbol or life achievement is ever going to mean I should ever play it. Don't worry, I never will.

 

I still think the git gud people are shit people. 

 

[yakfak]

giggle

i love Dark Souls but I don't think gaming is self-improvement. also you can play through Dark Souls as a wizard and stand just out of many enemy ranges, get the first hit with some kinda soul arrow then kill the enemy as they're running towards you, it's not some sort of cast iron Gamer Challenge Gauntlet that you can only approach with adrenaline. but if it had skill levels it'd be better! I struggled with Celeste, and with a 360 analog stick which sticks in the down position sometimes lol, and in that case I think I beat everything in the game in the intended manner (or one of the intended manners, i mean!), got several golden strawberries and worked out all the secrets, and I think the assist mode is beautiful and that the main game requires you to be too precise lol. having "gotten good" i know i would have enjoyed it more if it was easier

Edited January 25, 2023 by yakfak

[HeatedChocolate]

1 hour ago, Bucket said:

"You know what would make this game better? If my character moved like molasses and couldn't defend themselves."

Noita?

[heliumlamb]

additionally
i have experienced the elusive IRL get goodery (an adjacent relative of it, more or less) about a month ago, at the arcade playing my first credit of daifukkatsu in at least a year. it's always the same type'a folks in the flesh or basking in the illumination of a display. i took a hit during a boss (with bomb type, so it autobombs) and some dude interrupts me while playing and goes "Well I See That You Used A Bomb Right There, Why Did You Use a Bomb" and then they kept harassing me well into the next stage. in hindsight i should have just stood up, walked away from the cabinet mid-credit and told that asshat "finish my credit, bitch". i don't think that person had ever played a single credit of any shooting game. if someone's advice is just "improve proficiency" in some form or another, without any pointers on *how one might be able to improve once proficiency*, the best course of action is ignore it and just assume that they, themselves, are also not proficient.

perhaps this wouldn't be as much of an issue if, with regard to the Demon's Darks, folks went "you've got some invincibility frames when you make a dodge roll, also parrying is cool as heck, try it out and see for yourself" en masse rather than "well you're just bad at the game lol"

Edited January 25, 2023 by heliumlamb

[BGreener]

5 hours ago, Budoka said:

Also, a factor that has yet to be brought up in this is that often the level of challenge presented in a video game is not an element that operates in isolation, but rather interacts with the other components (soundtrack, visuals etc.) to generate a specific mood and atmosphere. To re-use the go to example, Dark Souls made easy would not feel like Dark Souls does. You wouldn't make the experience that fans are going through accessible to a wider audience by making the game cater more to lower skill players, because it wouldn't actually be the same experience anyway.

 

One big thing the director and developers have wanted to get across is that everyone deals with the same initial difficulty. It may be easy for some and harder for others, and that's the point. Since Demon's Souls they've been increasing the amount of options provided to the player when approaching these challenges. They'd prefer not to provide a static difficulty slider, and instead encourage players to use what's in the game to ease up on encounters.

 

This is really good in Elden Ring: As before you can work out to discover enemy weaknesses, cast spells and use (now craft) items to exploit said weaknessess, try progressing in a different area if you're getting stomped in the current one, summoning friends and others for coop is easier than it's ever been, and they've introduced these "ash summons" that are basically "Dark Souls Pokemon" as an alternative to summoning players. It's the most accessible one of their games has been in awhile, which really works out considering how much it boomed.

 

 

[act]

10 hours ago, ZethXM said:

if a dev wants to make effective use of difficulty in their work to serve some greater end, cool.  a lot of the time gitgud pretends to be about that when it's really just shut up and consume product then get excited for next product reddit bullshit.

As much as this statement reeks of certain... other beliefs that I don't agree with, the gist is something I'm fully behind.

[The BMFG]

18 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

 fuck off and boil your urethra

now that's what i call extreme sounding

[ZethXM]

11 hours ago, act said:

As much as this statement reeks of certain... other beliefs that I don't agree with, the gist is something I'm fully behind.

 

The belief is that Reddit is routinely used as a means of directing community sentiment by large companies via astroturfing and nondisclosure of allegiances by moderation and popular accounts.  For example, r/Doom just went through a scandal concerning its moderation (one of whom was an undisclosed Bethesda employee) being party to veiled community manipulation on behalf of Id Software. 

 

"skill issue" and just the general culture war against gaming journalism have great utility in shielding companies from criticism when they do anti-labor or anti-consumer shit like rushing out full-price games with season passes that are poorly tested and/or outright broken at launch, such as Callisto Protocol.  I'm distinguishing between the argument's place discussing thoughtful application of a difficulty structure versus its common use as rhetoric defending anti-consumer practices.

[dasho]

3 minutes ago, ZethXM said:

anti-consumer shit like rushing out full-price games with season passes that are poorly tested and/or outright broken at launch

 

Then consumers should actually stop buying games that do this, and yet here we are. Nobody learns, everyone still falls for empty promises and "footage not representative of final gameplay" trailers. What does difficulty or the fact that gaming journalists are just paid mouthpieces have to do with any of this?

[ZethXM]

1 hour ago, dasho said:

 

Then consumers should actually stop buying games that do this, and yet here we are. Nobody learns, everyone still falls for empty promises and "footage not representative of final gameplay" trailers. What does difficulty or the fact that gaming journalists are just paid mouthpieces have to do with any of this?

 

Nah, companies shouldn't lie about what's in their products.

 

Again, Callisto's a great example, because they're incompetent and desperate and aren't pulling off the strategy too well.  The game was rushed out untested, badly designed, and outright missing features touted in marketing after the game went gold.  What's funny is people actually did what you're complaining they should do and didn't buy the game enough to justify its budget.  That should be the end of it, but these big AAA bastards don't go down that easily.  So the company's PR response is at issue.

 

Krafton's all-in and bleeding investor confidence, and the way to shore up the massive flagship IP's long-term prospects is to shift community sentiment and make a substandard product into a misunderstood masterpiece. So they needed the "misunderstood" part.  Critical journalists and players were blamed for causing the product to fail sales expectations because, you see, their negative reactions to the game's core combat were actually merely a "skill issue".  Funny thing with games journalists, companies are happy to take advantage of peoples' suspicions regarding their ethics when and how it serves them, in this case when the launch day embargo lifted and the "it's ok, kinda mid" reviews dropped, they immediately became incompetent character assassins instead of paid shills.  Whichever jacket is useful.

 

And hey, because everything's the buyer's fault for being scammed, we get to deal with it again and again, because why change your business practices and invest in quality when it's much cheaper to train jackasses to reflexively come out and shit on people for warning others not to buy the garbage?

[dasho]

4 hours ago, ZethXM said:

 

Nah, companies shouldn't lie about what's in their products.

 

Again, Callisto's a great example, because they're incompetent and desperate and aren't pulling off the strategy too well.  The game was rushed out untested, badly designed, and outright missing features touted in marketing after the game went gold.  What's funny is people actually did what you're complaining they should do and didn't buy the game enough to justify its budget.  That should be the end of it, but these big AAA bastards don't go down that easily.  So the company's PR response is at issue.

 

Krafton's all-in and bleeding investor confidence, and the way to shore up the massive flagship IP's long-term prospects is to shift community sentiment and make a substandard product into a misunderstood masterpiece. So they needed the "misunderstood" part.  Critical journalists and players were blamed for causing the product to fail sales expectations because, you see, their negative reactions to the game's core combat were actually merely a "skill issue".  Funny thing with games journalists, companies are happy to take advantage of peoples' suspicions regarding their ethics when and how it serves them, in this case when the launch day embargo lifted and the "it's ok, kinda mid" reviews dropped, they immediately became incompetent character assassins instead of paid shills.  Whichever jacket is useful.

 

And hey, because everything's the buyer's fault for being scammed, we get to deal with it again and again, because why change your business practices and invest in quality when it's much cheaper to train jackasses to reflexively come out and shit on people for warning others not to buy the garbage?

 

First of all, "companies shouldn't lie" and "buyer beware" are not mutually exclusive. Is it the buyer's fault for falling for something once? Perhaps not. Is it the collective market's fault for rewarding companies that do this with their money while simultaneously complaining about feeling robbed? Yes. Your one example of a game not doing well enough doesn't cancel out the many AAA games that do this and are quite profitable.

 

Also, not sure exactly why you're up in arms to defend gaming "journalism", but if you think about it for a moment the fact that a review embargo exists and that these hard-hitting "journalists" actually respect such an embargo should tell you everything you need to know about their relationship with the industry.

[ZethXM]

1 minute ago, dasho said:

First of all, "companies shouldn't lie" and "buyer beware" are not mutually exclusive. Is it the buyer's fault for falling for something once? Perhaps not. Is it the collective market's fault for rewarding companies that do this with their money while simultaneously complaining about feeling robbed? Yes.

 

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm talking about; a company not being rewarded for materially lying about their product, and responding by pitching gitgud-games-journalism-difficulty-amirite rhetoric to weave an image of unskilled reviewers building a bandwagon to tank their game in order to recoup.  It's some hobby horse you care about and thought you could ride because I used the words "anti-consumer" and "games journalist culture war".

 

13 minutes ago, dasho said:

Also, not sure exactly why you're up in arms to defend gaming "journalism", but if you think about it for a moment the fact that a review embargo exists and that these hard-hitting "journalists" actually respect such an embargo should tell you everything you need to know about their relationship with the industry.

 

Who's defending them?  I'm talking about companies using that dependent relationship to their advantage both for misleading promotion and as ablative shielding when necessary.

 

Sorry I didn't qualify all my statements with how evil games reviewers are for you, dude.  I think I'm gonna ignore you now, you're wasting my time with this tedious bullshit.

[dasho]

1 minute ago, ZethXM said:

 

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm talking about; a company not being rewarded for materially lying about their product, and responding by pitching gitgud-games-journalism-difficulty-amirite rhetoric to weave an image of unskilled reviewers building a bandwagon to tank their game in order to recoup.  It's some hobby horse you care about and thought you could ride because I used the words "anti-consumer" and "games journalist culture war".

 

 

Who's defending them?  I'm talking about companies using that dependent relationship to their advantage both for misleading promotion and as ablative shielding when necessary.

 

Sorry I didn't qualify all my statements with how evil games reviewers are for you, dude.  I think I'm gonna ignore you now, you're wasting my time with this tedious bullshit.

 

I didn't understand half of what you're trying to say here, but I like the conclusion.

[Casketkrusher]

"Get Gut" basically sums up the whole Dark Souls community.

[Mr Masker]

17 minutes ago, Casketkrusher said:

"Get Gut" basically sums up the whole Dark Souls community.

Reddit doesn't represent an entire community

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

54 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

Reddit doesn't represent an entire community

Unfortunately it does, for some people. I'm sure plenty of people think r/doom is THE DOOM place. But yeah, there are plenty of people, (mainly on Youtube of all places) in the Souls community who make effortful videos on walkthroughs, builds, lore/development, etc who aren't asswipes. But in today's culture, people think that every game's subreddit is some kind of official representation of its community. It's not. It's just a representation of reddit.

[Jizzwardo]

1 hour ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Unfortunately it does, for some people. I'm sure plenty of people think r/doom is THE DOOM place. But yeah, there are plenty of people, (mainly on Youtube of all places) in the Souls community who make effortful videos on walkthroughs, builds, lore/development, etc who aren't asswipes. But in today's culture, people think that every game's subreddit is some kind of official representation of its community. It's not. It's just a representation of reddit.

To be honest I find this very hard to believe. I mean, looking at it just at a glance, do they even talk about PWADs on there? Surely people must know about doomworld, heck I knew about it well before having any interest in doom, but maybe I just somehow heard of it and most people don't.. I know for fighting games reddit would definitely not be somewhere anyone would genuinely be on, but maybe I really am underestimating how large reddit is just because I've never had to use it..

[act]

3 minutes ago, Jizzwardo said:

To be honest I find this very hard to believe. I mean, looking at it just at a glance, do they even talk about PWADs on there? Surely people must know about doomworld, heck I knew about it well before having any interest in doom, but maybe I just somehow heard of it and most people don't.. I know for fighting games reddit would definitely not be somewhere anyone would genuinely be on, but maybe I really am underestimating how large reddit is just because I've never had to use it..

Oh, you don't understand how bad things really can get when it comes to being considered part of a fandom. Most of these people probably don't like the original Doom - or at least, didn't like it up until the Bethesda port - because they can't be asked to install a source port.

Look, I'm not trying to actively say they're bad people, I'm just saying that it's a bad thing that they say they're fans of Doom but pretty much at least 2/3rds of the series is locked out for them simply because they don't want to put in a relatively minuscule amount of effort.

[DNSKILL5]

That’s how all Reddit communities of games tend to be, though. Reddit is more appealing to general fans and the focus tends to be on the latest entries of the series. The more involved fans are usually found on forums, discords, etc. 

[Casketkrusher]

4 hours ago, Mr Masker said:

Reddit doesn't represent an entire community

Glad I don't participate on there. 

[CFWMagic]

Absolutely agreed. Quake 3 is tough as nails. But it's still beloved, played to this day and Beth even attempted to bring it over to the larger public via QC (which, unlike Q3, was NOT all that good, ironically because it capped the skill ceiling with a hero/class/character system. Also because it allowed CPM physics to play against VQ3 physics, which to anybody who ever played Q3/CPMA, is an enormous "FUCK YOU" to balance).

[Dweller Dark]

I believe that "git gud" has a well-intentioned meaning behind it, but the way it's used is more demeaning than it needs to be. As to the meaning, I think "git gud" translates to "improve at XYZ thing". But, by itself, it doesn't really signify how to do that. There's nothing specific to go off of, no "if you do this, XYZ will be a little easier". By being unspecific, it basically ends up being the equivalent of "just don't be depressed", both of which can seem demeaning and frustrating to someone who genuinely needs specific advice or input to do a thing. For a short answer, "git gud" is a brief but relatively non-constructive way to urge someone to improve. Giving that person genuine, specific advice is a much better alternative, and is more constructive and less vague.

[ClumsyDoomer]

Anyone can judge the game difficulty, AND anyone can judge your performance. But this "judgment", as well as most of everything labeled as opinion in the wildlands of the internet, is mostly an exchange of emotions rather than rationale. There's no argument, no one is listening. It's just a feedback loop of someone getting itchy and someone else gloating. Those who feel successful at the game are to be gloating here and there's no swapping of roles

[IcarusOfDaggers]

On 1/24/2023 at 8:14 AM, Xcalibur said:

 

Other than that, the only time "git gud" really applies is if the game is perfectly well-designed, and the player is just being lazy with a short attention-span. That applies sometimes, but not all the time.

Or if it's moba or any other MO(Multiplayer Online) game with matchmaking.

 

@TheMagicMushroomMan You could essentially say that reddit is the forum version of twitter.

[invictius]

"Get good" is rather dated now.  Zoomers tend to say "Skill issue".

 

Also I have cognitive issues mixed in with horrible reaction time, and things that are complex such as jrpg's are a no-go to me unless I cheat and use a guide.  To fans, they're unlimited customization and enjoyable, to me, it's like a monster with, with fangs and claws. In my nightmares, I am chased by jrpg bosses that require buffs, debuffs and tanks to defeat.  My brain just wasn't built to understand them.  Similar with wads, I'm ok with ones that do e1-style progression, but when every map takes half an hour for a competent doomer to complete, and are the size of all of e1 put together, it's overwhelming.  I never know where to go and there are many wads that make me wonder whether the latest gzdoom left them broken, as I haven't been able to figure out how to get out of the first room.

Edited January 28, 2023 by invictius

[insertwackynamehere]

Just say "sorry I'm not very good at video games :( "

 

You can't successfully berate someone who is humble and not defensive. You can try but it backfires lol

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

On 1/28/2023 at 6:08 AM, invictius said:

Also I have cognitive issues mixed in with horrible reaction time, and things that are complex such as jrpg's are a no-go to me unless I cheat and use a guide.  To fans, they're unlimited customization and enjoyable, to me, it's like a monster with, with fangs and claws. In my nightmares, I am chased by jrpg bosses that require buffs, debuffs and tanks to defeat.  My brain just wasn't built to understand them.  Similar with wads, I'm ok with ones that do e1-style progression, but when every map takes half an hour for a competent doomer to complete, and are the size of all of e1 put together, it's overwhelming.  I never know where to go and there are many wads that make me wonder whether the latest gzdoom left them broken, as I haven't been able to figure out how to get out of the first room.

That's okay, I feel that way about a lot of games. There are some games I'll never play because I feel that I'm too dumb to understand them, and a little too old to be interested in learning how to play them. I don't gave a problem with RPG's at all, but I'll never touch a complex strategy game.

[Captain red pants]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:26 AM, Graf Zahl said:

I have made a Revenant replacement mod that I use increasingly often with modern map sets that treat Revenants as lower tier enemies.

I have no desire to "get gud" at fighting hordes of Revenants - I find them supremely un-fun to fight in general and for me those map sets are more enjoyable without them - not because it's easier but because I find fighting against more balanced enemies more fun.

What's it replaced with?

I find that the most annoying thing about Revenant's is solved by giving the homing fireballs a sound. I know hit and dying by a silent Revenant fireball cluster is a right of passage, but it gets a bit old after a while.