SHADOWTEXT'S PROFILE

author=Karsuman link=topic=3052.msg60077#msg60077 date=1233556000

author=Shadowtext link=topic=3052.msg60075#msg60075 date=1233555730
So to those of you who have a problem with providing an easy game for those of your players who might not be up to the challenges you offer, let me pose this question:

Why?

Everyone has their own agenda. Not everyone wants to play a game with no challenge either.

Just accept that.

Geez, If I had known "why" was such a controversial question, I would've tried to figure out a less offensive way to ask it.

The thing about TWEWY that you can't get from simple questions about the genre or the plot is what a novel experience it is. It's set in Shibuya (as in, the real life shopping district), uses real indie music from acts that play the Shibuya area, with monsters based on tattoo designs, and character stat/ability management based on clothes and food. And then there's your magic, which comes from pins which "evolve" over time (in fact, the time between your save and when you load it can provide different types of experience for your pins than other stuff), and from battles and even from your DS "talking" to another DS running TWEWY in "mingle" mode.

In battles you have two characters that you control simultaneously (The computer will control your second character if you don't want to try to invoke schizophrenia in yourself, but it won't do it as well as you could, of course). There's a lot of different settings you can change to throw additional challenges on yourself that will result in better returns from battle, like better item drops or increased experience....things like fighting a bunch of enemies in a row without a chance to heal, or fighting them at higher levels. And about a billion other things that make TWEWY such a fantastic experience.

It's like spitting in the face of people who call jRPGs stale and same-y. But since no one bought it, we're probably not going to see something this daring again, at least from Squenix.

Also, while I don't hate Nomura the way the rest of the RPG community seems to, his designs seem to work better in a modern environment than they do in the Final Fantasy / Kingdom Hearts types of games he usually does.

author=Orig link=topic=2773.msg59892#msg59892 date=1233474903
The World Ends With You earlier today for about 24$, after being pressured by RPGamer telling me over and over how awesome it is.

It is. In fact, you should've insisted on paying more for it.

I'd go with MIDIs unless you can find instrumental MP3s. Something about the graphics format in RPG Maker games makes it very difficult for lyrical music to work as background music without breaking suspension of disbelief for the player. Even modern professional games have some trouble with it. The only games I can think of that have used it off the top of my head have been Star Ocean 3 and TWEWY. And TWEWY's was a lot more effective.

author=Max McGee link=topic=2790.msg53066#msg53066 date=1230680709
Not a lot of people do it and I have been around a really long time. Before it was possible to use real band music I was using Mdis of it. We're talking like the year 2000 here.

I've been doing it since RPG Maker 95, AND hunting down the MIDIs for them so that I didn't have the suspension of disbelief issue mentioned above going on. You haven't done serious music hunting until you've found MIDI versions of Van Halen's "Cathedral" for your mystical otherworld-y thing level!

Also, you may be surprised to know that Boston's "Piece of Mind" makes one of the best battle BGMs ever.

A lot of the arguments I get into in other threads seem to come down to a basic difference in game design philosophy than some of the other people on the board. I thought I would dedicate a thread to it instead of letting it keep coming up in other threads. So, once again, I've decided to show off my basic incompetence vis a vis brevity, and drop a stream-of-consciousness-dump on you.

So there seems to be recurring philosophy in the mind of game makers that basically boils down to your players being your enemy. The line of thinking seems to go that you are in direct competition with your players, and that you should pull out every stop to make sure that they do not have an easy time beating your games.

Now I love a good challenge, and in fact some of my favorite games are fiendishly difficult--I'm a huge fan of Treasure shooters, and almost always go after the insane things that RPG developers expect you to do in the postgame.

Problem is, a lot of the difficulty that I find game developers falling prey to isn't legitimate difficulty. It's not clever AI that's difficult to outsmart, or an infernally difficult puzzle to be solved. It's 1980's arcade bullshit, like limited numbers of continues, or puzzles that the game has given no indication of the nature of, or clumsily used rubber band AI, or randomly changing the game's genre or the rules of how the game is played. These are not fun challenges or real challenges. These are the challenges of lazy developers. The same sort of developer who makes a "difficult boss" in an RPG by just doubling the HP. (Which, by the way, is part of why I haven't brought up multiple difficulty levels. Generally speaking, especially in RPGs, they do little more than changing certain constants to decrease the damage the hero does or increase the damage enemies do, or both, which tends to feel artificial and stupid.)

So anyway, when challenge can be made fun, I enjoy a good challenge. But here's the thing: I recognize that not every gamer is like me. There are plenty of people out there who just want to get through the game, either to get to the next step in the gameplay evolution (this especially applies in RPGs and Adventure games), or because they've only got a limited amount of time to finish the game, or in some cases even because they want to see the next plot development.

So the issue here is this: you have an audience made up of both people who want to be challenged, and people who just want to have fun. By making a game challenging in such a way that the second group can't do what they want to do, you are actively alienating a significant portion your audience.

Okay, so maybe you're okay with that. "My game is significant, and only the truly elite will recognize its greatness." That's fine--it's not like the size of your audience is all that matters. But to my mind, there's nothing more affirming about the making of games than the knowledge that you're entertaining as many people as you can, even if you've never met them. If there is ever a time when you can reach more people without alienating the people you're already aiming for, it's crazy not to take advantage of that opportunity.

Which is why I feel that the majority of problems of this nature can be dealt with in a very easy manner: stop punishing your players, and start rewarding them. Taking things away from your players, like items, powers, or even just their time is basically biting the hand that feeds you. These people are deigning to play your game (never think you're the one doing them the favor. If you're an amateur, chances are you haven't earned the right to think that way yet, and even if you have it's probably a good way to evolve into what psychologists refer to as a "total dick."), so it's pretty counterintuitive to throw rocks at them like that. When you force them to sit through tedium (for example: cutscenes they've already seen, puzzles they've already solved, maps they've already been to that haven't had some pretty major changes made to them, Mr. Resetti...), you're punishing your player. When you take away something they've already earned, something that might very well be the reason they play the game, you're punishing the player. When you start flashing colored filters on the screen and play annoying noise to induce epileptic shock, you're punishing your player. And possibly assaulting him.

And the thing is....none of that is necessary. You do not have to punish your player for making mistakes, or not overcoming all the hurdles you've set for them. Instead, why not reward them for their victories? Stop taking things away from the bad players, and start giving bonuses to the good players. Everyone gets to get through the game, face the monsters, see the puzzles, hear the music, whatever it is that's the "draw" for your game. But the ones who do it best get some extra stuff.

To give an example, XBox 360 and PS3 both have Achievements these days (And I think Steam has something similar, on PC), which provide a great way to reward players who do challenging things without punishing players who don't. Tales of Vesperia's a good example of how RPG's can use this sort of system. The game itself is not very difficult at all. But pretty much each boss fight has some "Secret Mission:" special criteria you have to fulfill to get an achievement for having beaten them. On top of that, for people who don't care about achievements but still want some sort of reward for going above and beyond the call of duty, you tend to get better drops from the bosses when you pull these special missions off.

The player who doesn't wish to challenge himself and pull off these things is able to keep playing the game without really losing anything significant. Maybe the players who are taking the challenges are getting a few weapons earlier because of synthesis or something, but that's about it.

There's no reason our games couldn't implement something similar. I mean no, it doesn't show up on your Gamer Card or anything, but it still feels good to look back on a record of some of the cool stuff you've accomplished, even if you don't really have a chance to lord it over anyone else.

In the end, positive reinforcement means you're not alienating either audience. Hardcore gamers get their stuff to be proud of, more casual gamers get to just play the game.

tl;dr: Stop punishing your players, reward them instead, and for god sakes don't be proud of how difficult your game is unless it's because the puzzles are incredibly elegant or your AI is too clever by half.

Or unless you're making bullet hell shooters. I will forgive ridiculously unforgiving bullet spam that relies on memorizing levels in that case.