Do you think modern games underestimate the intelligence of their players?

[Arslan Aladeen]

Do you even really need an answer? I mean, yes of course. I remember Riddler in some Batman comic saying something to the effect that a riddle everyone knows the answer to is worthless. A game that gives you the answer to the puzzle your doing just makes it that much more pointless to do. I'd rather they just take it out if they're going to do that and let me wander around or shoot monsters in the face, or jump on some things. I feel Egoraptor's sequilitis episode on Mega Man sums up a lot of what I feel on this topic quite nicely.

 

[gargantual]

Perhaps they are not underestimating the audience's intelligence so much as their attention span. We're living in an age of abundant distractions, adding a complicated puzzle to your game wouldn't help.

THIS. They don't even pace their content reasonably they try to consolidate all the fun so folks can have it out in 5 hours and multiplayer gets redundant.

They could make games elaborate and paced and thick with smart content. If they're worried about busy working adult gamers, then reintroduce our little friend....the quicksave.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Reminds me of this:


Yes, I think most AAA game puzzles have gotten a lot easier, and there is a lot more hand holding, and it does make me annoyed since you usually get the coolest level designs and interaction from the strangest puzzles.

Getting a videogame used to be a real proper investment in time. It took me years to beat Super Mario Bros because of the strict timing and level knowledge needed to pass the higher levels. It took me a full year to complete Medal of Honor Frontline because - even though I played on easy - the difficulty wasn't linear, but increased as you progressed through the game. halo CE took almost 2 years!

The difficulty with those games wasn't necessarily tricky puzzles, but that you needed to be a certain skill level to get through the game even on the easiest difficulty: It increased enemy health, accuracy and numbers as the game progressed to make sure you were improving in your own accuracy, speed, and knowledge of the game/maps.
I completed both COD: Modern Warfare 2 and the Medal of Honor Reboot on hard difficulties in less than 6 hours each - in one session - the very first time I ever played those games, and neither had any levels as challenging as the later levels of Frontline or Halo CE.

It's good that developers are moving away from the old infamous 'Nintendo hard' logic puzzles that made no sense whatsoever or limited lives with insane stepbacks on death, but having some level of actual challenge would be nice.

man is videos like that, that make me feel alone liking biofinite, still funny tough


anyways i think youve just gotten better man, halo 1 wasnt hard at all

as for games nowadays i do say puzzles are more dumb and stupid, tough i did have to look up that skyrim puzzle where you had to rotate the thing in your inventory, that was pretty clever

 

[MXRom]

The guy has taken the original video down, but he is the ultimate example of what devs think the average gamer is. He fails horribly at XCOM Enemy Unknown. He would then go on to push the blame onto the devs saying they were stupid for not making their instruction so blatantly obvious so he could understand.


If the gaming community has people like this, you can start to see why devs try to really dumb down their content.

 

[Bad Jim]

Perceived difficulty and actual difficulty can be very different things. Portal 2, for example, is actually very easy for everyone except iJustine, but it seems hard enough that you feel like you have accomplished something when solve a puzzle. It's a bit of an arcane art, but it can be done.

What I object to are puzzles where the solution is immediately apparent and you cannot imagine anyone failing to see it. Except iJustine.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

The saddest thing for this gaming generation is developers claiming that gamers are "afraid of numbers". Developers of Dragon Age, and Elder Scrolls have each talked about streamlining and/or skipping character creation because people get scared off by all the numbers.

 

[Smooth Operator]

They don't underestimate the average at all no, you may not realize hanging around here but most people who buy games really have no desire to put the slightest bit of effort towards progressing in a game. If there was an option to have the games play themselves I promise you that would be preferable to the average consumer.
Also it's really not intelligence in question only effort, most just really come in for the moving pictures and dislike doing anything for it.

And the answer to this problem is the same as it has been from the start of this interactive medium, options. I do not at all mind someone putting in an auto-play option, but I will hate their guts when they decide that will be the only way a game can work.

 

[MrBaskerville]

The guy has taken the original video down, but he is the ultimate example of what devs think the average gamer is. He fails horribly at XCOM Enemy Unknown. He would then go on to push the blame onto the devs saying they were stupid for not making their instruction so blatantly obvious so he could understand.


If the gaming community has people like this, you can start to see why devs try to really dumb down their content.

Atleast i'm pretty sure he's some kind of parody of a stereotypical internet person, just watched his Dark Souls 2 video and he's obviously trolling so hard, nobody could be THAT stupid.If he is that stupid, and he's the face of all focusgroup members, then it would explain everything.

 

[3asytarg3t]

What I find interesting about this thread is how most of it centered around puzzle difficulty discussion. I've never thought puzzles were a prerequisite for RPG or in some way synonymous, yet it's amazing it's so pervasive a paradigm gamers don't even get outside of it to consider its just one way to approach game design for that genre.

As for difficulty, it would be a lot easier for devs to tailor the gaming experience to the different ways their customers want to experience them (to put it in the most simplistic binary terms: those who want a challenge vs those who just want to mindlessly blast through the experience) if the AI could be made to keep up with the task of accomplishing this. So far it hasn't.