PAYING FOR PATIENCE

Minecraft makes people work for their gratification. Perhaps Craze you should make something worth having that people are willing to go through work for it. That's where story comes into play I guess...

FFIV DS falls into that last category for me.

from LockeZ
you should be guiding them into a more fun experience than they would choose for themselves.

Hold that thought. Just how hamster-brained do you think players are? There's a difference between 'guiding' and 'forcing'. You argue that playing all the content made available in a game may render it dull later due to a decreased difficulty curve. Okay, that's understandable. But what about the players who skip the optional stuff? You have to keep in mind that there's not just one way for a game to be played, and what occurs naturally to some does not occur naturally to others. The problem you're describing really only afflicts players who want both a challenge and to see all the game has to offer. If they really are so keen about the game, it's likely they wouldn't mind playing it a second time to give themselves a greater challenge, skipping past what they did not before.

from LockeZ
Except it's never presented as a self-controlled way of managing difficulty for the player.

Regardless of how it's presented, players can still think for themselves. They can choose to grind and/or explore sidequests, or they can choose to move the game forward at whatever pace they're comfortable with. You gripe that this creates the possibility the game will be dull later, but that's the tradeoff. It's called replay value. Heck, a well-designed game probably wouldn't get dull in either scenario.

The thing that bothers me about what you said and the whole reason I posted in the first place was that you've basically argued in favor of limiting the player's options.

from LockeZ
Tactics that the player can use, but can win without using, translate as "totally unnecessary" to me, and make a game no different than if they didn't exist at all. If the player can win by just attacking and healing when hurt, he or she basically almost always does.

The idea here is that those tactics get the job done more efficiently. Sure, the player could win by sticking with attacking and healing, but they could win more quickly and easily if they put more thought into it. Requiring the player to need tactics to survive limits the options they have available to them, and that can be very stifling in a video game. You're better off letting the player play the way they're comfortable with; let the lazier ones attack/heal/attack and let the more serious ones form their own methods. There should never just be one solution to a situation, and you'd have to be a hardcore video game connoisseur to prefer it otherwise.

from Craze
You're an idiot.

Compelling argument. Allow me to attempt to redeem myself.

Are you not having fun playing those quests and exploring the game's content? You're trading fun now for boredom later, assuming the game is designed badly. If the extra gains from the exploration you did render the later parts of the game stupidly easy (and therefore, boring), I'd say it was a failure on the developer's part. Perhaps one should find a way to make the whole game compelling regardless of how much or little of the content the player explored??? What a novel idea! Too bad I'm an idiot.

Craze read my wall o text comment on page 1.

from Craze
You were an idiot for a bad idea, now you're an idiot for attacking me for criticizing your past idea.

Yes, and you are so much better for provoking me in the first place. Alone, yes, it was a bad idea, which was why I elaborated on it. My past and present opinions are one and the same; the former just lacked clarity. If you find further fallacious thinking in my arguments, I am more than willing to continue revising them until we see eye to eye.

But that's assuming you can stop insulting me long enough to explain your reasoning.

Man, I am sick and tired of games which coddle the player like an infant. "Oh please play me, please play me! I have a fishing mini game and auto saves!" Come on! Final Fantasy VII? A toddler could finish that game without breaking a sweat. Final Fantasy XII? A game that plays itself seems like the ultimate convenience, doesn't it? Give me a break.

Now you might be saying, "But Lucid, a game should be fun and accessible for anyone." NOT WHERE I COME FROM! If you want a game that anyone can pick up and play, stick to Pong! That's my motto! As far as I'm concerned, if you pick up a game, you'd better be prepared to follow through. Get into the level grinding, get into the hair pulling battles, get out a pen an paper and DRAW THAT MAP! There should be blood and tears. A game should beat up the player, challenging their worth as a human being. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the fire. Hang your head in shame, because the game BEAT YOU! BEAT YOU LIKE A RUG!

Okay, enough of that. Obviously, anyone can make a game difficult for the wrong reasons; imbalanced challenges, dull repetitive gameplay, poorly thought out mechanics, etc. Making a game that is well designed, challenging, AND holds the player's interest from start to finish is no easy task. After all, many commercial games do fail at some or all of these goals. As independent game designers, we don't have to worry about sales or a target audience, unless one wants to win a popularity contest, so our games will generally reflect whatever combination of the above traits we like.

Personally, I like a good-looking difficult game with a lot of depth (though not as difficult as my earlier hyperbole would suggest). I use Atlus games as a modern-day model. Digital Devil Saga, my favourite console RPG, has difficult and at times punishing gameplay, but it's story is so interesting and its gameplay is so challenging that I couldn't help but want to see things through to the end. To me, it's not too important to make things easy for the player, as long as the player feels like what they are doing means something. If a player grinds off of monsters to gain a cool new skill so they can finally best a powerful boss, that to me is fun. On the other hand, if the game hands me everything on a silver platter and sends me one easy battle after another that requires little or no effort on my part, my enthusiasm for the game is going to waiver no matter how well paced or polished it is.

I'm not saying this design philosophy and style of gameplay is for everyone, and there are plenty of other ways to keep player interest besides the occasionally punishing challenge. It is, after all, your game set to your tastes, and there is no wrong way to design a game as long as someone finds it fun.


....LIKE A RUG!

Better yet, a LOT of obscure sources!

I am a patient person by nature so I don't really care how fast or slow anything is as long as I enjoy it. But that's just my preference and that's all it boils down to.

If you've noticed, Craze isn't one who cares about what others think, if there is a small chance to be trolled, halibabica.

I agree with not forcing people to play exactly how you want them to play. It's impossible to force them to have fun, and in an RPG, that's why a lot of them go on for so long, with many optional side quests and the like. Definitely if it's part of an RPG Series.

Most, if not almost all people who play an RPG, go for the fact that they can chose how to level, when to level, what fights to fight, and what quests to take, halibabica.