Space Spoons said:
PhiMed said:
Space Spoons said:
PhiMed said:
As for the argument that fighting games require more thought than puzzle games: There's a lot of thought, strategy, and forethought that goes into a professional game of tennis, but if someone tried to assert that it was more of a "thinking person's game" than chess, they would correctly be labelled a contrarian idiot.
This analogy would make more sense if Portal were a game that pitted you against real, thinking opponents, which it doesn't. Again, there's no arguing that you have to be clever to do well in Portal, but at the end of the day, there's only one solution to each puzzle; once you've found it, all you need to do is implement it.
In fighting games, much like in chess and tennis, finding a strategy that you think might work isn't nearly as difficult as finding a way to implement it against an opponent that is constantly shifting and re-evaluating to meet your challenge.
Incidentally, there's no need to resort to name calling. This has been a fairly civil discussion so far, don't take it down to the level of a common forum shouting match.
Are you implying the developers at Valve are artificial, or incapable of thought? I can't tell.
Certainly not. I'm implying that solving a static puzzle by oneself is less complex than competing against an active, thinking opponent. It's the difference between doing a crossword puzzle and playing chess.
Depends on the opponent, and it depends on the puzzle. Tic-tac-toe is a puzzle played against an active, thinking opponent, but pretty much any differential equation imaginable would require more thought than a game of tic-tac-toe. Chess is a pretty complex game, but if you're playing against someone who's never played before you'll find much more thought-provoking content in a game of sudoku.
In your discussion of static puzzles vs. competitive games, you're making a few assumptions that I can't really sign on for:
1) The hypothetical player of the static puzzle game we're talking about has seen the static puzzles in question before.
2) All, or even a majority, of the hypothetical players of the fighting game are proficient enough to even begin to think about strategy.
I don't think either of these assumptions fit in with this discussion.
The first playthrough of a static puzzle game is the only one really worth considering, as subsequent playthroughs the player already knows the solution. Thus, the static nature of the puzzles doesn't have any bearing on the puzzle's difficulty. If it's your first time seeing it, the design of the puzzle is the only determinant of difficulty, and that depends on the cleverness of the designer (your actual opponent in these games).
Most people who play fighting games never transcend the level of button mashing. This is not because they lack the intellectual capacity, but because they have things to do that are significantly more important than perfecting the inputs. You know, like jobs.
