Challenge

[StormyFire]

Do you like to be challenged by games, or do you like it when games make it easier for you to beat them?

I would prefer to be challenged by games so that they are playable for a longer time.

[Boblee]

I don't have anything for easy games, they are no fun for me at all. Even if the game is short one, it must be very difficult to play. 

[Justin11]

I am simply in for the challenge, I don't like the idea of playing too easy games, I love it when the game is pivotal for my moral boosting and AI given me stern challenge. 

[Boblee]

On 11/26/2021 at 12:26 AM, Justin11 said:

I am simply in for the challenge, I don't like the idea of playing too easy games, I love it when the game is pivotal for my moral boosting and AI given me stern challenge. 

Some gamers love to play their games on an easy level and if you ask me, there is nothing wrong with it. 

[The Blackangel]

I like a challenge, but a reasonable one. I don't like games that are designed to not be beaten. That is just ridiculous and cruel to the player. If you think I'm bullshitting you, then go out and buy a copy of Zelda: Goddess Of Wisdom, and see how well you do on it. It's a ROM-hack on SNES, so it may be difficult to find. But that game is literally designed to not be beaten.

[Justin11]

5 hours ago, Boblee said:

Some gamers love to play their games on an easy level and if you ask me, there is nothing wrong with it. 

Their is no disagreement on that, because everyone's video game playing style is different. I like it hard, but not too hard. And when I'm learning I learn from the medium level and gradually move the difficulty level up. 

[Boblee]

17 hours ago, Justin11 said:

Their is no disagreement on that, because everyone's video game playing style is different. I like it hard, but not too hard. And when I'm learning I learn from the medium level and gradually move the difficulty level up. 

It is actually why I don't really find it very okay when a lot of people trying to impose a way of gaming to other people who are still struggling to find their way.

[m76]

I like a challenge, I don't like games that are deliberately made to annoy the player. What I hate most is when games make you repeat long sequences because you made one tiny mistake at the end of that sequence. The only thing that is challenging is my patience, not my skill. If I do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and then fail at H, I only want to retry H, not the whole shebang. Why don't you make me restart the entire game while you at it? Yeah I know there are some games with permadeath modes, but as long as they are only optional gameplay modes I Have nothing against them.

[Shagger]

This goes back to one of my earliest post on this forum on this thread.

 

On 12/29/2019 at 11:48 PM, Shagger said:

I'm about to speak negatively of the Souls games.

 

Before you read what I have to say, let me make something perfectly clear. If you're a fan of these games, I've got nothing against you. This is a re-telling of my own experience combined with what is only my own opinion, nothing more, nothing less. These games have appeal, just not to me. If you like them, good for you. I'm glad that you managed to find fun and satisfaction in them where I could not. So if you simply can't take negative critique of these games, I'm not responsible for how you feel if you choose to read on.

Sorry, but I felt compelled to say this little disclaimer because some fans of these games are so sensitive and unable to take criticism they rally round to kick me off message boards and gaming communities just for expressing my opinion. I'm not kidding, it's happened before.

 

I gave up on Demon Souls, not because it was hard, but because it was crap.

 

Basically, the game's "challenge" is a lie. Enemy behaviours and patterns are cryptic, nonsensical and unfairly prey on one's natural instincts as a gamer, so you can't use strategy, not to mention the blind traps in the environments. The controls are cripplingly and deliberately sluggish and slow to respond, so you can't rely on skill. All you can do is tediously go through a frustrating gauntlet of trial and error to figure out those cryptic patterns and trap placements, so all you really need to beat it is time. Time that the game just flat out doesn't deserve. I'll need to take a brave pill before I say this, but because of that the game isn't even challenging, at least not genuinely so anyway. You're even discouraged you from taking on enemies at a higher level for, well, you know,  a challenge because you earn almost no XP from them. What other RPG has you earn no experience for taking on tougher enemies? I discovered this because the game deliberately misleads you into entering the wrong level at the start, that's how much an ass hole this game is. I get the mechanic of when you die, you have to try to fight back to where you were to get some of your XP back, I don't have a problem with that, but that's still very harsh in a game where you pretty much have to die then employ trial and error to progress.

 

All that might have been fine if the rest of the game had something to offer, in fact no, nothing can absolve the bullshit this game throws at you, but the point is I think that game hides behind it so-called difficulty to distract players from its other issues. The graphics are horrible even by the standards of the day, cliché in its design and art style, has no story worth telling and the online component is pointless and only means the game can't be paused (In a single player RPG, that is just ludicrous). That "trial and "error" approach also makes the game more repetitive than it needed to be. I've never played a game that managed to be both this frustrating AND boring all at that the same time. I want an RPG to test my skill, reflexes and strategy. This game and it's inexplicably popular brethren are only good for testing your patience.

 

I know in the minority with my view on this, but I don't care. Soul's fanboys always say I hate the game because I need to "Git Gut" and I'm just don't like a challenging game, but that's not true. That "trial and error" style of difficulty that these kinds of games employ is cheep, lazy and I'm even tempted to call it padding. So it's not that the game is hard, it's why it's hard that makes me hate it.

 

To be clear, I have not played any of the Dark Souls series (Demon Souls put me off for life), but from what I hear a lot of the problems like the storylines, blind traps and control issues are gone or greatly lessened, but that "trial and error" approach to difficulty is something that will always be a pet hate of mine, so I'm not interested in playing those types of games ever again.

 

Thank you for reading. Can I ask that you at least sterilize your pitchforks before you use them? I don't want to get an infection.

 

That, for me, is an example of how Demon Soul's is difficulty done wrong. It's the same reason I hate games like Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey as well. It's all about that "trial and error" approach. It's a false, yet more frustrating way to make a game hard. You try, and the game by design decided you die. You try again, die again until you do what the game, and only what the game, wants you to do. Most likely something cryptic and nonsensical. I hate that philosophy to difficulty because the only thing about the player it really tests is thier patience.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Shagger

[Justin11]

10 hours ago, Boblee said:

It is actually why I don't really find it very okay when a lot of people trying to impose a way of gaming to other people who are still struggling to find their way.

When teaching others video game, you don't have to impose it hard on the learner. I wouldn't learn in such circumstances, I'll learn when the gaffer is taking it gradually with me. 

[Boblee]

On 11/25/2021 at 9:45 PM, StormyFire said:

Do you like to be challenged by games, or do you like it when games make it easier for you to beat them?

I would prefer to be challenged by games so that they are playable for a longer time.

Getting to play challenge games is the only way to learn something new in the game that you're playing, otherwise if it's cakewalk game, you don't learn at all.