148 réponses à ce sujet

[CoffeeHolic93]

I like to work for my victories.

[bussinrounds]

Axdinosaurx wrote...

When the game is too easy it becomes boring 

Modifié par bussinrounds, 26 décembre 2013 - 04:25 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Il Divo wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

In Exile wrote...

It's interesting, becaue I never felt anything like this. The Deep Roads was a slog, but only in the boring sense because there were so many completely powerless mobs to just curbstomp and little in between to fill the space. I never felt threatened, and in fact, kind of didn't take the threat of the Blight seriously after that point because it felt like my four-person party could probably carve a bloody swath all the way to the archdemon and beat it alone. Which, funny enough, is pretty much what DA:O ends up as anyway. 

Also, agreed with this.

Do you two often read Codex entries immediately upon getting them? Or try and stop and pause whenever an ambient conversation pops up? Or spend longer than a few minutes poking around each Level Up screen?

I'm just trying to think of activities I engaged in my first time through these areas that would have given me a perceived break in these areas outside of pure slag combat. I found quests like the Cross Cutters Cache quest a lot of fun, because  I stop the action and  read Codex entires as soon as I get them, which mean I was searching around some of the a Deep Roads maps for a little while after I had cleared out the enemies, before I moved onto the next screen. 

Just curious. I guess if combat was the only experience you had down there, broken up by an occassional conversation like with Ruck, that could get boring, I guess. I, personally, felt there wS so much going on and to do that it was a lot of fun. 

Yes to all of the above, except for the level up screen. Even with my first playthrough, I know exactly what I want by the time I reach the spell screen. But then, Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage combo is fairly OP.

Exploring the Deep Road maps (for myself at least) kinda compounded the problem, since it simply extended the amount of time I spent down there. The lack of diverse encounters certainly didn't help by that point.

Really? See, I felt completely different. 

Darkspawn encounters are plentiful, for sure... but then you also have critters like the packs of brontos, darkstalkers and, of course, giant spiders, which all have different tactics and approaches. Then you also have areas with demons, undeadand ghosts, which have different resistances and abilities than your more standard fare. You have golems as well, which account for the highest concentration of this type of enemy than you see anywhere else in the game. 

Throw in some rather unique encounters, such as the darkspawn encampment that is trapped and has a ballista, along with some cool set pieces like the Ancient Darkspawn and the Blacksmith, and you've got a pretty diverse set of encounters. Not including the main story line encounters as well, such as the Bridge scene where you cross along with the Legion of the Dead, the run through the Gauntlet area outside the Void, the showdown with Caridain/Branka and, of course, the trademark creepy "Broodmother" scene.

I guess I just don't see it - the areas are filled with lots of different quests, encounter setups, enemy types, objectives and storylines. For being, basically, one GIANT set of cave levels, it shows a remarkable amount of thought, care and content.

And the Fade, while arguably less dynamic, still has lots of enemy types (dream states let's you throw anything you want in there, honestly), some "set piece" encounters (the twisted version of the Fade where all Mages are crazy not only had possibly the most amount of magic user enemies in an area, but also had some rather hilarious, if macabre, ambient dialogue between the mages). And, though the puzzles were a little obtuse (how would I seriously know that I had to turn around and completely leave a level just because I encountered some flames that I didn't have the shapeshifting fire immunity to walk through when I didin't even know shapeshifting was really the key to the puzzle section?), they still introduced some rather cool mechanics, such as being able to play as a golem character or a mouse.

Were the backsets of both areas a little drab? Sure. Intentionally so, I'd argue (after all, you are supposed to be in a cave deep underground and a murky dream world), but I can see the conceit there. But the aestethics can't be the only thing that makes people call out for "no more Deep Roads/Fade sections in futuer games!" that we see in threads so often on the DA side.

I'd argue that maybe while the encounters in these areas are rather varied, the tactics that can be used to take them down are not REQUIRED to be very difficult. In fact, I'd say that applies to DA:O (and the DA series as a whole). The game accomodates many different playstyles, but makes the optimal path very easy to follow for nearly every single encounter. The Fade and Deep Roads probably are the most extensive of areas where combat is the sole activity (outside of exploration) for the longest period of time, so maybe it simply makes the underlying system's flaws show a little more clearly?

After all, it doesn't matter if there are tons of different enemies in different spots on the battlefield playing different roles... if the player uses the exact same actions to take them all down, then they may as well be fighting the same enemy. But that still brings the discussion back to difficulty - having to change your tactics depending on the enemies you fight or the types of characters you have is a part of difficulty.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 26 décembre 2013 - 05:19 .

[Fast Jimmy]

The problem with that is what you might call "learning curve" difficulty and "real" difficulty. Let's take XCOM:EU which I was just playing. A lot of the diffiicutly in that game is pure learning curve. Getting a sense for how abilities work, how to calculate compounding buffs in your head, etc., that's all stuff that you just get better at by playing the game more. Same with knowin exactly what research path to run through to be able to get the right kind of upgrades (e.g. in terms of fighting off UFOs).

The first time I played through I couldn't manage anything above casual not because the fights themselves were hard - I never had a hard time with the turn-based strategy portion (the only exception being those save the civillians missions, which IMO are just crazy hard in a very fun way) - but because I couldn't work my way through the upgrade/base design/panic-management side.

If the game prompted me to up my difficulty 200% over in the mid-game... it'd still have a much easier time that if I tried the next leve over at the start, because at that point I had an ovewhelming material and experience advantage.

Well, I'd argue that a game like X:COM would, be virtue of its setup, be much harder to provide an adjustable difficulty level for, given how many different facets of the game they have going. In all honesty, it might be a game that benefits from different types of difficulty levels, such as one that let's you adjust how simple/difficulty the base building/research avenues work, while another that tests your ability to handle combat alone. You may be an excellent encounter manager, but simply not know to build satellites as soon as possible due to inexperience. Or maybe you just want to explore different base-building tactics, such that you don't get bulldozed if you don't take over South America as soon as possible, but then still want a very hard actual fight when the instance scenes pop up.

But that's getting ahead of things... I think DA would be a rather simple game series to add a scaleable difficulty setting with prompts to, simply because difficulty only affects combat encounters alone.

[AventuroLegendary]

When a game is too easy, there's no real struggle or drive. When a game has too much artificial or luck-based difficulty (lol Lunatic+ Fire Emblem), it can burn me out.

Games that are known for their difficulty are usually "fair" in that it's the player's fault most of the time (Super Meat Boy, Dark Souls).

Modifié par LegendaryAvenger, 26 décembre 2013 - 05:56 .

[Mr.House]

What's appealing of playing a game that handholds you?

[Hainkpe]

I like progression. I like it when a game gets harder and harder because then it's an accomplishment . Then you feel good about finishing it and look for the next achievement.

It's fun figuring mechanics out then winning.

[Milan92]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

What's appealing of playing a game that handholds you?

Enjoying something that's easy and satisfying at the end of days that are usually full of struggling with school work or a job. Really, if I want a challenge, then I can walk out the door or look at my bills. Games, to me, are supposed to be fun and enjoyable, not time consuming and strategic, like my school work. 

So, if that means that I have to play a hand holdy game sometimes, then that's what I'll do.

If I feel that I am getting absolutely no challenge and am auto-piloting myself through a game, then I'll turn the difficulty up to keep myself engaged.

That's honestly the most condensed way I can explain why I enjoy extremely simple games from time to time, and it explains why I do not like to be pushed to my limits in a video game the majority of the time.

This.

[Mr.House]

Hainkpe wrote...

I like progression. I like it when a game gets harder and harder because then it's an accomplishment . Then you feel good about finishing it and look for the next achievement.

It's fun figuring mechanics out then winning.

Well said.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

lol @ people who think if it's not hardest, it's too easy.

------

> 2D game with bad controls
> You have almost finished the game
> You fall into a trap because you're tired
> There is no save/load
> GAME OVER
> You punch the table and swear loadly

Sometimes there is no challenge and it is as dumb as above.

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Enjoying something that's easy and satisfying at the end of days that are usually full of struggling with school work or a job. Really, if I want a challenge, then I can walk out the door or look at my bills. Games, to me, are supposed to be fun and enjoyable, not time consuming and strategic, like my school work. 

I understand what you mean. Imagine after a hard day full of struggles you come to your house and want to play three Fifa matches. It should be challenging or you're called a rookie. So you set the difficulty on Legendary and play. The results are 4-1, 2-0 and 3-0 and you lost three times. You're filled with anger... you want to punch some meatbags or you are too depressed that's bad for your own health.
Or you could play it on the "right" difficulty and actually enjoy the game.

Modifié par Kaiser Arian, 26 décembre 2013 - 07:32 .

[CrazyRah]

Hainkpe wrote...

I like progression. I like it when a game gets harder and harder because then it's an accomplishment . Then you feel good about finishing it and look for the next achievement.

It's fun figuring mechanics out then winning.

Very well put!

[Fawx9]

Because beating Deathstroke without the counter hints makes it so much more satisfying when you realize you not only learned the indicators by yourself but succesfully timed the fight correctly without flashes going off telling you what to do.

[Raizo]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

What's appealing of playing a game that handholds you?

Enjoying something that's easy and satisfying at the end of days that are usually full of struggling with school work or a job. Really, if I want a challenge, then I can walk out the door or look at my bills. Games, to me, are supposed to be fun and enjoyable, not time consuming and strategic, like my school work. 

So, if that means that I have to play a hand holdy game sometimes, then that's what I'll do.

If I feel that I am getting absolutely no challenge and am auto-piloting myself through a game, then I'll turn the difficulty up to keep myself engaged.

That's honestly the most condensed way I can explain why I enjoy extremely simple games from time to time, and it explains why I do not like to be pushed to my limits in a video game the majority of the time.

Well said. As I've gotten older I find that I have other responsibilities and I don't have all that much time to spend playing video games. And since my favourite genre of games are rpgs ( which more often than not are lengthy by nature ) as one could imagine I am very protective of my spare time. The last thing I want to do is hit a brick wall and be forced to replay a section of a game 20+ times over and over again in the hope that I will eventually make some progress.

Even though it is my preference to play easier games I have nothing against games that offer a decent challenge provided that said challenge is fair and I can learn something from my defeats, having said that often than not a lot of the 'challenging' games that I have recently played realy on lightning fast reflexes or the abiliy to memorise lengthy sequences. Just today I was playing Killzone Shadowfall and I finally hit the point in that game where I feel as if I'm putting more into it than I am getting out of it, needless to say I won't be playing it again ever again, that free fall section in chapter 8 is just to much for me. I don't enjoy feeling like I'm being kicked repeatedly after someone has already knocked me down on to the ground.

[TheChris92]

What is important about challenge in a video game is that the game will always make you utilize its mechanics to a certain degree - I feel that if I play a game on anything less than Normal difficulty then I'm cheaping myself out a of potentially good experience, which I paid a lot of money for. 20 years ago games were all about challenge and usually this would mean I'd end up spending more time with it. Games aren't something that needs to be completed in a jiffy -- I like to spend a lot of time with the games I play and try to solve my way through which makes the reward of the effort all the more sweeter. What is important to remember though is that a lot of games seems to have different ideas of what a challenge is supposed to be. What I perceive to be a challenge is the kind of game that offers a tough experience, through its combat/gameplay, where if you've mastered all of the gameplay mechanics you have the opportunity to progress and beat it. Not the kind of challenge where the game pretty doesn't give you much of a chance through unfair quicktime events like in Witcher 2 or some bollocks like that. Playing Dragon Age Origins on Normal or higher requires the player to at least get the hand of the tactical system, be prepared with potions, and the right party set up for it. Anything less and it becomes a hacko-slasho-button-o-masho with no depth and I find that to be a shame, personally.

[SlottsMachine]

Fawx9 wrote...

Because beating Deathstroke without the counter hints makes it so much more satisfying when you realize you not only learned the indicators by yourself but succesfully timed the fight correctly without flashes going off telling you what to do.

Well beating Deathstroke is satisfying regardless. 

[Isichar]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

What's appealing of playing a game that handholds you?

Enjoying something that's easy and satisfying at the end of days that are usually full of struggling with school work or a job. Really, if I want a challenge, then I can walk out the door or look at my bills. Games, to me, are supposed to be fun and enjoyable, not time consuming and strategic, like my school work.

I kind of get where your coming from. But for me if I come home and I am too mentally tired or frustrated to deal with a challenge in a game I will usually just turn it off and either play another game or just watch a movie. It seems to me once you remove the challenge aspect of the game then you may as well just go watch a lets play on youtube. I play games because of the satisfaction you get when you beat the game, if you remove that then I literally feel no different then when I am watching a movie or a tv show.

Modifié par Isichar, 26 décembre 2013 - 10:52 .

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Do you two often read Codex entries immediately upon getting them? Or try and stop and pause whenever an ambient conversation pops up? Or spend longer than a few minutes poking around each Level Up screen?

I read the Codex entries, but I read fast. Depending on the length of an entry, it takes me anywhere between 15-30 seconds to read it? I'm not sure what you mean by poking around on the level up screen - by the time I'm actually ready to be challenged by a game like DA:O (or X:COM, or BG, or Fallout) I know how the leveling mechanics work so leveling up is automatic. 

I'm just trying to think of activities I engaged in my first time through these areas that would have given me a perceived break in these areas outside of pure slag combat. I found quests like the Cross Cutters Cache quest a lot of fun, because  I stop the action and  read Codex entires as soon as I get them, which mean I was searching around some of the a Deep Roads maps for a little while after I had cleared out the enemies, before I moved onto the next screen. 

Just curious. I guess if combat was the only experience you had down there, broken up by an occassional conversation like with Ruck, that could get boring, I guess. I, personally, felt there wS so much going on and to do that it was a lot of fun.  

I am a very results oriented person. That extends to how I enjoy things. I don't get doing things for the sake of doing them. That's not a motivation that works for me. So I can get an exploration quests, or I can explore, but the exploring itself isn't a reward - it's just a means to an end. It's why I like dialogue heavy roleplay - because that's always results oriented interaction. 

So I was searching for stuff, but that didn't feel like a break or a reward - it felt like a chore. But thinking on it, I dislike exploration because it's really just searching and wandering. If it was exploring in the sense of being like research - having to read different books and puzzle out a solution to some, well, puzzle, I think that would be fun. But wander from A to B to find trinket X? The wandering isn't fun, and the trinket I care about only becuse of whatever incidental purpose.

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Well, I'd argue that a game like X:COM would, be virtue of its setup, be much harder to provide an adjustable difficulty level for, given how many different facets of the game they have going. In all honesty, it might be a game that benefits from different types of difficulty levels, such as one that let's you adjust how simple/difficulty the base building/research avenues work, while another that tests your ability to handle combat alone. You may be an excellent encounter manager, but simply not know to build satellites as soon as possible due to inexperience. Or maybe you just want to explore different base-building tactics, such that you don't get bulldozed if you don't take over South America as soon as possible, but then still want a very hard actual fight when the instance scenes pop up.

Yeah, I've learned a fair bit about base management in the interim. Things like focusing on satelite builds - that's they key for me. There are encounter-heavy research styles, but preventing countries from leaving XCOM is a much better deal for me. One thing you don't learn, for example, is how important it is to allow alien invasions to happen and push out countries in your base's location first (at least in EU) because that doesn't lose you the bonus. 

But that's getting ahead of things... I think DA would be a rather simple game series to add a scaleable difficulty setting with prompts to, simply because difficulty only affects combat encounters alone.

Yes, that's true. I wasn't trying to say DA:O was like XCOM. I just meant that any RPG has a lot of learning curve difficutly which is very different from encounter difficulty. I think a game like BG is a great example of learning curve difficulty because of D&D. Whereas I think Fallout 1 (as a contrast) as a lot more 'real' difficutly because it's not hard to figure out special + the scant skills you have. 

[SlottsMachine]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Ehh, I feel like there's a little bit of a misconception in this thread that I don't want any challenge in my games at all. This isn't necessarily true. I just don't want to die over and over and over and over again on a game, no matter the circumstance. Nothing about that is fun to me, not even when I get past it. I feel like I wasted my time more than I feel like I accomplished something.

Well we seem to have failed to define what exactly a challenging game is in the first place. If a none gamer were to read this thread they would probably think all games are either super hard or are so easy a dog could play them.

Modifié par General Slotts, 27 décembre 2013 - 12:15 .

[bEVEsthda]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

Ehh, I feel like there's a little bit of a misconception in this thread that I don't want any challenge in my games at all. This isn't necessarily true. I just don't want to die over and over and over and over again on a game, no matter the circumstance. Nothing about that is fun to me, not even when I get past it. I feel like I wasted my time more than I feel like I accomplished something.

The most satisfying games, to me, are those where you don't have to die, again and again, in order to learn how to beat it.
For example, remember old Tomb Raider number 1?
You could tiptoe your way through the game, carefully observe, think and sneak, and beat it without dying often.
The sequel, Tomb Raider 2, starts with a series of deathtraps. No other way to learn how to beat them, other than dying, experiencing them. I hate that. It trivializes death and thus removes much of the enjoyable tension. Trial and reload, I call such games. I don't appreciate them much.
Another good example, Far Cry, the first game again. Only in the last levels did you need to die, in order to figure out a method to beat it. For most of it, you could crawl around in the grass and figure it out.
Baldurs Gate, same. Morrowind, same. Skyrim, same. I suppose that has a lot to do with why I like them so much.

[SlottsMachine]

Games like Origins and Mass Effect at least have difficulty settings, while other games do not. I am a terrible DAO player, that really didn't have any desire to learn the mechanics (just not my genre) and I sailed through most of the game on casual.

Also, am I the only person that cannot watch playthroughs on Youtube? I'd fall asleep.

Modifié par General Slotts, 27 décembre 2013 - 12:35 .