This thread is about insanity being way too easy if you're an above average shooter. Nobody wants BioWare to try to create an impossible game mode because we'd just end up resorting to gimmicks to beat it. If they did it to Mass Effect 3 for example, we'd just exploit Nova for damage immunity.
Saying video games "are not really about skill" is just silly as we have competitive tournaments for many PvP games. If it were all about luck, then any random idiot could win a League of Legends tournament rather than the top tier being basically all Koreans.
Skill isn't just limited to athletic ability only. Even a game like Mass Effect relies on hand-eye coordination and reflexes for being able to quickly and accurately shoot enemies, which is a skill a person can be better or worse at. That's why on Overwatch my accuracy with the sniper hero is in the top 5% on the Americas server, because I'm more skilled at sniping than most players playing the game.
Although I will agree a game like Mass Effect ought to be played for fun above everything else, I do also find overcoming challenges in video games with personal skill and the ability to build a solid character to be fun. That's why I would like insanity to be more challenging that it has been, because it hasn't provided me with that challenge that I want out of the game(especially in ME3).
If insanity proves too hard for people, there is always the option to tone down the difficulty.
Come on - Video games are not about actual physical skill... the only physical skill regardless of the game involved is "button pushing" (reflexes); therefore, the challenge has to be largely mental - i.e. strategic (which has a great impact on the "eye" part of eye/hand coordination). Otherwise, it's mostly about the relative "skill level" of the charactet (not the player) vs. the enemy... which also has very little to do with the player's skill. For example, at the beginning of ME1, all players basically could not hold an SR still but after assigning enough points, all players could... very little of it had to do with how well the player themselves can manipulate the control stick. Any other games with skill trees I've played also operate on improving the "programmed stats" in the same way - making the camera steadier, the mathematics of force stronger, etc. as the player inserted points into those skills. The character gets better even though the player does not (... and building that character is a mental challenge, not a physical one).
So, to make a level more challenging, without making the enemies into bullet sponges, I find it more fun if the designers add in some strategic elements to it... something that makes the player have to think their way through the level. In my experience, games with stealth components do this better than those with just straight up combat.
As for the line that "this thread is about insanity so don't mention easy" - I AM TALKING ABOUT A WAY TO IMPROVE INSANITY... If you leave a way for players to opt out of combat (i.e. a combat-less mode), you can make the overall combat more difficult and, as a result, insanity more difficulty as the top end of that combat. Also, for some players who complain about ME insanity not being hard enough... I wonder, have they turned off the squad powers completely? or turned of the aim assist? or tried playing through with only the Level 1 weapons and armors? or don't assign the level skill points at all (then the game would be all about your own fabulous reflexes, wouldn't it?) There are lots of things players can also do to tune up the difficulty beyond the basic settings in the game.
So now, let's move on to why "programmed luck" is not such a bad thing. Any level that is difficult initially that is repeated over and over again gets to feel very prredictable and very easy. In Mass Effect, the spawns are really extremely predictable - virtually the same in every playthrough regardless of difficulty. IMO, making spawns more random would help keep combat fresh and less predictable... meaning that players would have to genuinely react to a changing situation (as opposed to being able to predict the entire battle ahead of time).
... and I still wouldn't mind a "permadeath" level (above the current insanity) level. I don't think it's that hard to program it into a game to make the game wipe the save if a "critical mission failure" occurs... and that's the only change that would be needed above and beyond the normal insanity mode. UHC is popular in Minecraft... why not in other games?
Retour en haut
