Informed Rage

[kristus]

Jorto just sent me a link to a "game" that when I saw it I thought it was an interesting addition to this discussion. Enjoy. :p
http://www.tetris1d.org/tetris.php

myk said:

It may have been brought up by someone who may be called a moron, but it did start somewhere :p

Keep in mind the two topics are somewhat related, though, in the sense that people who think playing with saves is the same as playing without them won't mind having quick saves or a similar feature stuffed in their face automatically each time they die or the like.

Yes, but they're arguing for something that no one is really arguing against. All I said for instance was that I don't use it. But I have no issues with it being there because it doesn't play any role in my gaming experience unless I want it to. I don't mind cheats being in games either, but I doubt anyone want them on by default.

It's interesting how it shifted from me being absurd for complaining about forced handicaps being added to Rage, to people defending their beloved Quicksaves.
But I suppose that goes together with what you just said.

[Gez]

kristus said:

Jorto just sent me a link to a "game" that when I saw it I thought it was an interesting addition to this discussion. Enjoy. :p
http://www.tetris1d.org/tetris.php

And on the other hand, I could look for a "frontier.org"... (Try reaching the status of Admiral/Prince/Elite without ever using saves because they're like cheating and kill the challenge yadda yadda yadda.) Comparing Rage to Tetris makes about as much sense as comparing it to Sim City.

My previous point was that quicksave == save. If you can save, you can save, period. Whether you have a shortcut key or must pass through the menu changes nothing as far as the feature is concerned.


Now for the other fancy-schmancy features like health regen, multiple lives, continues and what-have you... Really, generalizing and saying "it's bad all the time" is being obtuse. You have health regen in Portal, for example. It is completely okay there. It's a puzzle game foremost. In situations where you start taking damage, you either back away quickly and try something else, have calculated your trajectory so as to reach cover real fast, or die. Given how in a more typical FPS you'd have plenty of time to graze upon turkey diners and medikits by stomping on them and get back on full health, and given how enemies don't chase you around making a trip back to a stash of health more tedious than entertaining, it's a very good design decision for that game.

Even games that "adapt themselves to the player's skill" can be good, potentially -- if it means that they use some funky AI system to learn the player's methods and ramp up the challenge accordingly. If it's used to make it easier, it's more debatable; if it's too hard the player should swallow his pride and select a lower difficulty level himself.

[kristus]

Gez said:

And on the other hand, I could look for a "frontier.org"... (Try reaching the status of Admiral/Prince/Elite without ever using saves because they're like cheating and kill the challenge yadda yadda yadda.)

I don't play Frontier, so I have nothing to say about it. But how about you pay a little bit of attention? I don't mind saving a game. Unless I am out to speed-run SS2 for instance, I am pretty much required to use saves to make it through since the game will take an awful lot of time to beat. But since you don't appreciate the difference between saving at key junctions instead of every time you killed something. I can see how you get confused.

Gez said:

My previous point was that quicksave == save. If you can save, you can save, period. Whether you have a shortcut key or must pass through the menu changes nothing as far as the feature is concerned.

And still, no one cares. If you want to save often. go ahead and do it.

Gez said:

Now for the other fancy-schmancy features like health regen, multiple lives, continues and what-have you... Really, generalizing and saying "it's bad all the time" is being obtuse.

I've never said that. I play lots of games without health all together. But those games aren't FPSes where it's about the action, so why should I compare them to Rage?

Gez said:

You have health regen in Portal, for example. It is completely okay there. It's a puzzle game foremost. In situations where you start taking damage, you either back away quickly and try something else, have calculated your trajectory so as to reach cover real fast, or die.

Portal is by your own admission a puzzle game, not a shooter. You know Myst, that's first person too. And some of them are even in 3d. And in some cases you can even shoot in them. ZOMG FPS. You can't die there for the most part. I still love them, Portal is a nice little game. Not at the level of Myst as far as Puzzle solving goes. But it could be with custom made maps. I would't normally compare it to Myst, but I wouldn't compare it to any FPS games either.

Gez said:

Given how in a more typical FPS you'd have plenty of time to graze upon turkey diners and medikits by stomping on them and get back on full health, and given how enemies don't chase you around making a trip back to a stash of health more tedious than entertaining, it's a very good design decision for that game.

It's interesting how you and Zaldron only can think about bad level design when you speak of health packs. There are many ways to use health packs in maps. Some are static, some are collectible. Some are purchasable, some are convertable (System Shock2 for instance). All of them I prefer over having regenerating health. As I said before though. I don't mind the way they did it in Max payne where the last bit of health can regenerate so you won't have to peak around that corner with 1%. But I really don't think it's an important feature.

Gez said:Even games that "adapt themselves to the player's skill" can be good, potentially -- if it means that they use some funky AI system to learn the player's methods and ramp up the challenge accordingly. If it's used to make it easier, it's more debatable; if it's too hard the player should swallow his pride and select a lower difficulty level himself.[/B]

Anything can be good potentially. I don't really like stuff like auto adjusting game play. I saw in one game once that I don't recall, the game would pop up a box asking if you wanted to lower your skill level when you had died a few times in the roughly same spot. I much rather prefer that method to the game patronizing you and deciding it's too much for you to handle.

[Gez]

kristus said:

But since you don't appreciate the difference between saving at key junctions instead of every time you killed something. I can see how you get confused.

I never said anything about saving after each fight. And anyway, you can do that even with a save menu. Quick save == menu save.

kristus said:

And still, no one cares. If you want to save often. go ahead and do it.

It's not what I'm saying. I do not say I save often, I do not say I save rarely. I say that arguing that quicksave is bad, because it makes a distinction between quicksave and menu save that is spurious.

kristus said:

I've never said that. I play lots of games without health all together. But those games aren't FPSes where it's about the action, so why should I compare them to Rage?

For the same reason you compared Rage to Tetris?

kristus said:

It's interesting how you and Zaldron only can think about bad level design when you speak of health packs. There are many ways to use health packs in maps. Some are static, some are collectible. Some are purchasable, some are convertable (System Shock2 for instance). All of them I prefer over having regenerating health.

I was still talking about Portal here. Going back to retrieve health in a deserted, completed part of the level is what is more tedious than entertaining. In a shooter at least you might have enemies chasing you while you do so, so if it's well made it can possibly be entertainingly challenging.

Anyway, a health pack that goes in an inventory and can be used whenever you feel like it, combined with a level design that leaves you enough of them for you to never run out of health packs, is the exact same thing as health that regenerates. So one system is not necessarily better than the other. You've got to take the game as a whole. What about a vampiric attack where you regenerate when you kill enemies? You've got that in games as different as Heretic and Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

kristus said:

I saw in one game once that I don't recall, the game would pop up a box asking if you wanted to lower your skill level when you had died a few times in the roughly same spot. I much rather prefer that method to the game patronizing you and deciding it's too much for you to handle.

I'd agree with you except that after Oblivion I hate popup boxes. Anyway, adjusting the difficulty down is annoying. I suppose in some game types it can be justified -- take an old Sierra/LucasArt-type adventure game, like Monkey Island, where you could have NPCs giving clearer hints if you stay stuck for too long -- but in most cases you'd want the difficulty going up instead so it stays challenging. Take some strategy game, if you always apply the same tactics, it'd be nice of the AI to learn from it and use tactics appropriate to counter it. Some chess games already do that. Or in other words, if you're winning too easily, the game should try harder.

[myk]

Gez said:
Comparing Rage to Tetris makes about as much sense as comparing it to Sim City.

I think he posted it as a joke about games doing it all for you :p

It's also about whether a game will have aspects one likes, and considering action, whether it's really doing something worthwhile in there.

[Jodwin]

Zaldron said:

A problem that doesn't actually exist. Have you ever really have gone through a big fight you couldn't win on account of there not being enough health? What happened to avoiding damage anyway?

I guess you never played that game called Doom?

Unless we're talking about sneaking games based on suspense, big fast paced fights are something that every action game should have. Whether they're the focal point of the game or used sparingly for climatic fights, they should still be there. A health regen system either forces the level designers to make climatic fights as hard as regular encounters, or then they have to expect the player to find a safe closet to sit in to regen their health. Both of those options are great for killing the tension in what's supposed to be an adrenaline-filled fight for life.

Health pickups are different: They give you some room for mistakes by providing some healing without actually slowing down the actual action: Just run and grab the medikit. If the fight happens to have hundreds of medikits lying around just waiting to be picked up, that's a problem of crappy level design rather than a flaw of the system itself. Still, it's a much better choice than the health regen which doesn't even give an option for good level design, as that simply forces only bad options on the designers.



...and lets not forget about that using health regen in tension-based games and levels also kills the tension perfectly, as you'll lose the whole aspect of "Oh fuck shit, I'm sitting in these shadows with 20 % health left, looking at that juicy medikit on the other end of hallway knowing that there'll be zombie guards sitting somewhere there" and instead you get "Well I'll just wait and sit here and then go beat them with a wrench and get back to these shadows to regen my health."

[lain iwakura]

Jodwin said:

I guess you never played that game called Doom?

"Deus Vult II" is a very odd way of spelling Kama Sutra.

[Kaiser]

I guess I know why they're calling it Rage lolz.

[gemini09]

I prefer regeneration to health items, myself. Difficulty is more part of game design, than level design.

It's highly variable the amount of damage you take throughout the many fights. The player always looks for health before and after a fight. This simplifies it for the better, and makes it easier to balance the difficulty.

Now you won't be forced to fight 100 monsters with 47% health in the middle of a map in the middle of the game.

[Craigs]

I don't really have any problem with quicksaves. I actually find them rather convenient in games like Far Cry where almost every step you take could potentially get you killed. As for controllers, the thing I really hate about console games is that for most games you can't really change the controls around. The most they ever seem to do is give you a few preset controls to choose from.

[myk]

gemini09 said:
The player always looks for health before and after a fight.

The idea is that if the level design is good, it leaves more possibilities for finding it during the fights. Arguably, having the difficulty depend more on level design does demand more time from the designers, and this may count in a commercial game if the designers already had to wait for assets and programming to be fleshed out to really start working on the details. It's easier to set up a game that generalizes things, but it also gives less importance to tactical level design. To one point or another, you can even make up for that with additional design work, which goes back to the time constraints problem, this time without a concrete framework that pretty much demands a solution from the level designer.

Now you won't be forced to fight 100 monsters with 47% health in the middle of a map in the middle of the game.

That's where splitting the game into levels that can be playable by themselves comes in. The game will be encouraging you to face death, but giving you suitable "stopping stations" during progression so that dying doesn't frustrate you and encourage you to arbitrarily use saves to progress. If a game focuses more on the plot-based, cinematic or progressive element that might seem out of place, and if it focuses on action, it is suitable.