IT'S ALL ABOUT DEM MIND GAMES

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post=152652
post=152473
-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.
this paragraph in particular stuck out at me. i am something of an atypical player in this sense, i suppose, but i love grinding. consciously, even. i make the conscious decision to grind, and find it highly enjoyable. the reward of busting out two or three levels on a couple of my pokemon just running around in the grass- the excitement of finally being high enough level to equip my pimped higher-ranked equipment i've had for the last 10 levels and haven't been able to use in that MMO that i play occasionally- the rush i get from WASTING a boss in a final fantasy title when i've taken the time to severely overlevel myself doing random crap... i get off on all of that hugely. i want to say it appeals to the completionist in me- getting to unnaturally high levels is like finding that last fucking skultula in Ocarina of Time- completely unnecessary to just enjoy the game casually, but really really rewarding. to me at least. in the pokemon games, it takes me forever to get a playthrough of whatever the latest formulaic main storyline is in because i'm spending all my time between gyms/towns grinding like crazy. not because i need to, not to achieve any real goal, not to beat the next doods or whatever- because i enjoy it. i guess it could be that in some cases, i'm subconsciously adding 'challenge' or longevity to an otherwise easy/short game. i encountered a scenario like that when playing the (extremely under-rated and highly entertaining!) GBA Medabots titles- i went through those games and got every single medapart for my little robot dudes. took me fucking forever- the gameplay clock that displays on the save screen is maxed out. i literally played the game for longer than it could count.

moral of this long, rambly, directionless paragraph: grinding/monotony isn't always a bad thing! some of us really like it! that said, i like grinding best when i don't have to do it. i love it most when it's a self-imposed challenge. balance in any genre of game is tricky business, but as has been said before, i'd tend to err on the side of making things a bit on the easy side. if you're determined to make a hard game, strive for that kind of hard that's present in the Castlevania series- that 'oh fuck you' level of hard that's just easy enough that you can gradually make progress, but just infuriating enough that it keeps you playing after every senseless death because you know you can do this shit mang fuck it.

on a kind of similar note, i'd like to sidebar mention EXTREME GRIND-LIKE EXPLORABILITY as seen in the DQ series/Hero's Realm/games that emulate the DQ series. does every chest and night stand need stuff in it? do you like going through and trying to fine-toothed-comb your way through every nook and cranny of every insignificant house in every town? i certainly do, but i find i don't like it when there's tonnes of shit everywhere. then it just gets a little pointless and i feel like a dick for taking all of these peasant's worldly possessions. magical acorn hidden in that chest that's a little puzzling to get to in the back of a house? totally awesome. tease chest hidden high above me somewhere? awesome. three dressers in one room that all give me 4gp or a miscellaneous useless herb? not awesome.

tardis you are the only one who understands me
post=152621
Strategy: Die.

OT -- but holy shit. He never did that the two times I fought him.


The MegaTen games are the kings of trail-and-error gameplay. When you enter a boss fight, it's pretty much expected that you'll die on the first match.

Not that I mind, of course<3
post=152473
-The 'stuck boss' phenomenon. People dislike games that are too easy, and they dislike games that are too unforgiving, so what is it about a game that that has that one boss that suddenly stonewalls your progress? I've noticed that many people will quit right away at the sign of a game being really, really hard from jump street, but almost no one quits a game when a boss suddenly comes outta nowhere and puts your balls in a vice. I think some of the most memorable 'can't get past this boss' bosses are when; the player has already invested a significant amount of time into the game (I'VE ALREADY BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LIKE 20 HOURS I AIN'T QUITTIN' NAW SON FUCK DAT"), or right in the middle/before an important plot twist, and you're pretty much emotionally blackmailed into beating it. And you do! And you enjoy it! Interesting, yeah? Legend of Legaia is a great example of this.


I really wish there was more of this nowadays. The last time I felt something like this was in Tales of The Abyss on my first playthrough in the Largo, Legretta, and Arietta boss battle. We were on multiplayer and we were all down to no life. I was about ready to go 'FFFFFFF NOT ANOTHER LOSS!' and then bam, Mystic Arte, boss battle won. It may sound ridiculous but we actually celebrated like we just saved the world at that moment.

Ah, memories...

-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.


Now this I usually can't stand but...for some reason I've been grinding in Tales of Innocence by doing quests and leveling up my styles and building money to get the best available equipment since the last dungeon has been killing me. It's been 2 hour sessions over the past week. It's not like it's even all that fun, but...I'm just doing it. Everyday. I could probably take on the last dungeon now, but I haven't bothered to. I suppose that subconsciously all the reward that comes out of grinding is satisfying, but...I can't really fully explain myself on this matter. :(
I really wish there was more of this nowadays. The last time I felt something like this was in Tales of The Abyss on my first playthrough in the Largo, Legretta, and Arietta boss battle. We were on multiplayer and we were all down to no life. I was about ready to go 'FFFFFFF NOT ANOTHER LOSS!' and then bam, Mystic Arte, boss battle won. It may sound ridiculous but we actually celebrated like we just saved the world at that moment.


I went through roughly the same thing in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne when fighting Lucifer.

45 minutes had passed, I had run out of healing items, my demons were low on MP...the next round would've surely had been the end of us. As a last ditch effort, I had the MC hit the boss with a physical attack and viola, he died.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this post was.
post=152473
-The 'stuck boss' phenomenon. People dislike games that are too easy, and they dislike games that are too unforgiving, so what is it about a game that that has that one boss that suddenly stonewalls your progress? I've noticed that many people will quit right away at the sign of a game being really, really hard from jump street, but almost no one quits a game when a boss suddenly comes outta nowhere and puts your balls in a vice. I think some of the most memorable 'can't get past this boss' bosses are when; the player has already invested a significant amount of time into the game (I'VE ALREADY BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LIKE 20 HOURS I AIN'T QUITTIN' NAW SON FUCK DAT"), or right in the middle/before an important plot twist, and you're pretty much emotionally blackmailed into beating it. And you do! And you enjoy it! Interesting, yeah? Legend of Legaia is a great example of this.

I do not enjoy bosses that are way to hard. I put up with it because the rest of the game has been enjoyable and I assume the enjoyment will return as soon as I beat that boss, meaning beating said boss is a form of investment. I accept some boredom in return of a lot of enjoyment later. That said, if a boss is a plot important character that is supposed to be powerful, then I will approve of it being harder than both previous and later boss fights, but there is a limit to it. If a boss is much harder than other bosses, then either that boss is to hard or the previous ones were to easy.

I do often quit if I notice the game is to hard from the get go. In this case there's only the pain and no promise of something good coming if I put up with it. Also, chance is the challenge is for the wrong reason. In games where I control my character directly instead of giving them orders, I can counter enemies doing more damage by dodging/blocking/whatever better and that way get hit less. When it comes to RPGs, there's often mandatory damage. Alternatively, there's damage that can be avoided, but doing so relies on the RNG being in a good mood making the damage luck based. If the difficulty in an RPG comes from the mandatory damage being jacked up to unmanageable levels, then there's no way to deal with it except to grind. If the mandatory damage can be manageable, but the mandatory damage plus the maximum luck based damage isn't, then getting by means either grinding or relying on luck. As far as I'm concerned, any challenge that you can't get past by just playing the game better is challenging for the wrong reason.

At the beginning of the game, almost all damage is mandatory or luck based. Few RPGs give you the skills needed to avoid or mitigate damage from the get go. You take the least amount of damage by using the most powerful skills and choosing the right target. Any damage you still take cannot be avoided by using better tactics. If a game is hard under those condition, I see it as a bad sign.

This wasn't maybe what the topic is about, but the point is, I don't see and mind trick here. The decision to quit if an RPG is to hard from the get go, but stick to it if later an uncomfortable hard boss emerges, seems rather rational to me.

-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.

I define grinding as overdosing on one activity until you can do the activity you want to do. So, if getting the cool armor in the optional dungeon is what you want to do, then that's not grinding as far as I'm concerned. However, if what you really want is to progress the plot, but you need to armor to get an edge over the upcoming boss, then that's grinding. Also, if you want the get the armor, but doing so requires you to first level up a bit to tackle the dungeon, then leveling up is grinding.

Now, I don't think that's your definition of grinding. However, if you don't use a definition for grinding that necessities grinding being boring then there's no surprise if you do find a situation where grinding isn't so bad.

As far as making you definition of grinding enjoyable, I think others have already covered it, grant the player small goals that are reachable within a reasonable time frame, but make reaching all of them taking a long time. More players will put up with 10 half hour grind sessions that each grants a small boost than a 5 hour grind session that by the end of it grants the same boost, but you get nothing prior to that.

-The entire phenomenon of an RPG being about putting virtual stuff on a virtual dude to make numbers go up, to produce bigger numbers to make sure that other guys numbers don't reduce your numbers to 0. This is the beauty of it all.

We play to be stimulated and I assume that most RPG players find figuring out ways to improve the numbers stimulating. The methods to improve out numbers which we view as stimulating varies from player to player. There is as we noticed the whole grinding business which we have a lot of disagreement about. Here's however a trick I think works for stimulating the majority of the players; give the player a choice of how to improve the numbers. I believe that more people find improving the numbers stimulating if there's multiple methods to choose between than if there's only one method available, even if the available method is the one they would have chosen anyway.
This wasn't maybe what the topic is about, but the point is, I don't see and mind trick here.


The 'mind trick' isn't difficulty itself, it's where to place it. Extremely challenging boss at the very beginning of the game? Can be a turnoff. An extremely challenging boss at the middle of a boring fetch quest? Can be a turnoff. An extremely challenging boss when you're just about to find out that plot reveal that you've been waiting for, for like, ten hours? Hell yeah.

I don't seem to be alone, either, a lot of posters in this topic miss those kinda bosses that every one in a while put your mettle to the test. Nowadays games seem so easy; bosses kinda consist of finding a tactic that will either annihilate them instantly, an easy pattern, or just regular enemies with more HP. Whatever happened to the boss that was difficult and challenging no matter what you did?
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
A suddenly difficult boss that forces the player to change his strategy and explore his options is blatantly negative?


Difficulty is great. But there's a thing called a difficulty curve. If the boss is difficult, you should be gradually ramping the player up to face that level of difficulty - not jumping from enemies that take away 3% of your HP to ones that take away 75% of your HP. Seriously, it just makes people stop playing the game.

I don't think grinding is an inherently bad thing, either. HAVING to grind, maybe. But the option? Nah.


Encouraging the player to do something is not really better than forcing them to do it. Either way, it results in them doing it. And I don't want them to do it.

I strongly dislike the ability to optionally make yourself retardedly strong via grind. Grind is insanely boring, and the only reason you'd ever do it is to make yourself stronger than your supposed to be. This is a mental compulsion - we want to be stronger, it's how our brain works. There are goals with rewards, so we want to do them, no matter how boring they are. But, the fact is, if you're stronger than you're supposed to be, the game is a lot less fun. All the challenge disappears, replaced by grind. It's lose-lose, and makes the game less fun in every way, but we do it anyway because that's how we're wired.
Really? I actually like grinding to make myself a bit stronger. For me the option to do that is almost a requirement. I would probably be really turned off from a game that didn't allow you to grind. First time when I played FFT I thought there weren't any repeatable battles so I ditched it and didn't come back to it for months.


The ability to train to make your characters stronger is fine. It's basically the definition of an RPG (unless you think the definition of an RPG is something else, in which case you can argue in a different topic). What I want to know is why that training needs to be boring and repetitive. Why do the same exact battle 20 times in a row? If you've done it once, shouldn't that be proof that you can beat it? It seems like battles should all present some sort of challenge and should all be fun and engaging. Why make the player repeat non-fun, non-engaging tasks exactly the same way, over and over? There should be a better way. A way to let people build their power, but without any repetition.
Difficulty is great. But there's a thing called a difficulty curve. If the boss is difficult, you should be gradually ramping the player up to face that level of difficulty - not jumping from enemies that take away 3% of your HP to ones that take away 75% of your HP. Seriously, it just makes people stop playing the game.

sounds like some pussy shit to me
post=152748
Difficulty is great. But there's a thing called a difficulty curve. If the boss is difficult, you should be gradually ramping the player up to face that level of difficulty - not jumping from enemies that take away 3% of your HP to ones that take away 75% of your HP. Seriously, it just makes people stop playing the game.
sounds like some pussy shit to me


Real men have difficulty stairs
For me, the kinds of boss fights that I really like are the ones with "gimmicks" incorporated into them, because those are just so much more interesting to play against than your standard "one enemy that is just 10x or 100x stronger than any other normal enemy, with the same exact dumb AI" kind of boss. In terms of RPGs with turn-based or ATB battles, I imagine coming up with different gimmicks may be a little harder than, say, doing so with MMO-games such as World of Warcraft, or adventure RPGs like Secret of Mana and Zelda, since you are limited to what you are able to do in order to make your battles less..."monotonous" (for the lack of a better word - such as no dimensional space for PCs to maneuver in for those systems).

Level grinding, maximizing your characters' equipment and stats, etc. can of course make those gimmicks somewhat less useful in the long term - nevertheless, I would still enjoy fighting bosses that require me to think about more than how well-prepared my characters are.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Level grinding, maximizing your characters' equipment and stats, etc. can of course make those gimmicks somewhat less useful in the long term - nevertheless, I would still enjoy fighting bosses that require me to think about more than how well-prepared my characters are.

And this is exactly why I hate grinding, right here.
I enjoy difficult boss battles, because they should be the pinnacle of a game's design. I think there are lots of factors that go into that "I can do it" mentality, though. Sometimes it's more than just a difficulty curve or an HP dealing issue.

One thing that can do this very well is to incorporate "tiers" into a boss battle. Lots of games have different tricks with this. For example, fighting Death in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. He is broken up into two tiers; a form with his cloak on, and the form where he takes it off. Beating the first form gives a sense of satisfaction and rejoice (you can even LEVEL UP from the first form), but then all of a sudden the real battle starts, and you take on his second form. Another example is from the SNES game Treasure of the Rudras. As you gradually deal damage to the boss, they begin to tint into shades of red. A light shade of red means the boss is probably more than half dead, while a dark shade of red means the boss will die in literally two hits. Chrono Cross does something similar, a boss will begin to kneel when it's low on health. You can also do this tier thing with boss skills, a simple "Potion" skill or deadly attack can indicate you're close to victory. You could even be cheap and tack on a health bar, that also can help a lot.

This really helps with the mentality of the person playing since they now have a clue on how they're doing. They know they can beat the battle, they just have to switch their strategy up. Graphical indications are very helpful in a boss design.
post=152764
I enjoy difficult boss battles, because they should be the pinnacle of a game's design. I think there are lots of factors that go into that "I can do it" mentality, though. Sometimes it's more than just a difficulty curve or an HP dealing issue.

One thing that can do this very well is to incorporate "tiers" into a boss battle. Lots of games have different tricks with this. For example, fighting Death in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. He is broken up into two tiers; a form with his cloak on, and the form where he takes it off. Beating the first form gives a sense of satisfaction and rejoice (you can even LEVEL UP from the first form), but then all of a sudden the real battle starts, and you take on his second form. Another example is from the SNES game Treasure of the Rudras. As you gradually deal damage to the boss, they begin to tint into shades of red. A light shade of red means the boss is probably more than half dead, while a dark shade of red means the boss will die in literally two hits. Chrono Cross does something similar, a boss will begin to kneel when it's low on health. You can also do this tier thing with boss skills, a simple "Potion" skill or deadly attack can indicate you're close to victory. You could even be cheap and tack on a health bar, that also can help a lot.

This really helps with the mentality of the person playing since they now have a clue on how they're doing. They know they can beat the battle, they just have to switch their strategy up. Graphical indications are very helpful in a boss design.


On the other hand the "tiers" design can very easily go wrong. I remember plenty of fights where I've had to snooze through the first forms over and over when dying to a boss's final form which is where all the REAL fighting happened. I have quit a game due to this as well.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
post=152688
I really wish there was more of this nowadays. The last time I felt something like this was in Tales of The Abyss on my first playthrough in the Largo, Legretta, and Arietta boss battle. We were on multiplayer and we were all down to no life. I was about ready to go 'FFFFFFF NOT ANOTHER LOSS!' and then bam, Mystic Arte, boss battle won. It may sound ridiculous but we actually celebrated like we just saved the world at that moment.

Is this the one in the snow field with the six minutes of voiceovers or whatever? That's one of the absolute best battles in the game.

tardis: I agree completely about the tonnes of shit being annoying, but DQ getting it right (if that is what you were saying). DQIX is perfect in having both the bags of 4G and "FINALLY I FOUND FRESH WATER YESSSS" (because of course you just have to do all of the ridiculous(ly fun) sidequests). DQIX is game about making the grind fun - you're not grinding scarewolves, you're immobilizing them with fear before you kill them to get Cool Points/new pants. Also because every character on your team should be able to combo the bitchslap move (Clap Trap) together every turn.

post=153021
post=152764
I enjoy difficult boss battles, because they should be the pinnacle of a game's design. I think there are lots of factors that go into that "I can do it" mentality, though. Sometimes it's more than just a difficulty curve or an HP dealing issue.

One thing that can do this very well is to incorporate "tiers" into a boss battle. Lots of games have different tricks with this. For example, fighting Death in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. He is broken up into two tiers; a form with his cloak on, and the form where he takes it off. Beating the first form gives a sense of satisfaction and rejoice (you can even LEVEL UP from the first form), but then all of a sudden the real battle starts, and you take on his second form. Another example is from the SNES game Treasure of the Rudras. As you gradually deal damage to the boss, they begin to tint into shades of red. A light shade of red means the boss is probably more than half dead, while a dark shade of red means the boss will die in literally two hits. Chrono Cross does something similar, a boss will begin to kneel when it's low on health. You can also do this tier thing with boss skills, a simple "Potion" skill or deadly attack can indicate you're close to victory. You could even be cheap and tack on a health bar, that also can help a lot.

This really helps with the mentality of the person playing since they now have a clue on how they're doing. They know they can beat the battle, they just have to switch their strategy up. Graphical indications are very helpful in a boss design.
On the other hand the "tiers" design can very easily go wrong. I remember plenty of fights where I've had to snooze through the first forms over and over when dying to a boss's final form which is where all the REAL fighting happened. I have quit a game due to this as well.

I'm glad somebody brought this up. New moves, tinting red, angry quotes, music changes, flashing white lights - when you're fighting a boss, you want to know how you're doing. The idea behind Demon Tower/Diablocide was almost entirely based on "I want the victory music to play when the boss is at 20% HP." I am not kidding. You guys hated the techno, but you loved the techno subconsciously.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
That is an awesome idea, Craze... not only does it a sense of epicness, but I always freak out when I don't know how damn close I am to killing the boss. If you can't see Max HP, you need some sort of indicator to encourage the player he's getting close.
I do like the idea of showing when a boss is about to die. Usually I fight as I do in every other round. The healer heals, the mage refreshes a buff, the fighter charges up for a massive attack the next round and the thief pokes the boss with his dagger. However, the boss only had 50 hitpoints left and dies from the poking. If I knew the boss was near death, I probably would have skipped the buff refreshing and also had the fighter attack immediately instead of setting up for a massive attack the next round. Granted, even if I go all out (except for the healer) there's still the chance that the boss falls to the weakest attack. It still feels better if the boss falls during an onslaught instead of a casual blow during a round where I'm mostly preparing for future rounds.
life bars 4 lyfe

Totally agree with everybody above supporting knowing how well you're doing against a boss
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
post=153265
life bars 4 lyfe

<3
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
One of the things that makes me sad I started my current project in RM2k3 :(
Next time, though. I'll probably go crazy and add a million scripts.
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
slashphoenix
Next time, though. I'll probably go crazy and do it all wrong.
Wanton addition of scripts is not the way.
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