Rule: If I need to go to GameFAQs to fully experience your game...

[Bat Vader]

I use strategy guides when I need to. If I am trying to find something that is difficult to find I will usually use a strategy guide to look it up and see where it is. I like using strategy guides. I used a guide to find all the pigeons in GTA IV for the 100% percent achievement.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

However forcing you to go on a completely arbitrarily random quest of running around in a vain hope you find the exact combination required that a developer aribitraily decreed with the gamer receiving no help, has nothing to do with attention spans, nothing to do with hands being held.
It's completely and utterly poor game design, and a terrible way to extend the half baked crap the developer has released.

I realise people enjoy the sense of accomplishment of finding and completing quests on their own, but I myself find it horribly manipulative to expect a player to invest multiple hours simply finding the next progression of the game in order to finish the emotional investment. By all means make it difficult to get to a person, wade through enemies, or provide a difficult puzzle, but I draw the line at quests which state "Find " and no clear way to find them, basically relying upon process of elimination.

EXACTLY, couldn't have said it better myself. By no means do I encourage using a guide just because you're too damn lazy to figure something out on your own, but there is no reason you can't use a guide when you've been stumbling around for three hours with no idea what your supposed to do next. But there are other reasons to use them, too. I don't really like scouring every inch of an open world game to find the collectibles, for example. At the very least, I will keep a guide handy and cross out any collectibles I find so I know I've gotten it. The last thing I want is to have only one item left while having no idea where it could be.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

It is not like there are two extremes and no middleground here. It isn't either "Find this guy, somewhere in this 70 square miles big world" or "Go here to talk to this guy."

Personally, I like it if the main quest doesn't force me to scour my journal, every dialogue option available with every NPC available and every item description in the game and sending me searching through every town in the game just so I can figure out where I should be using the "Mysterious Key of Mystery" ("Right, I am supposed to use it on the chest in my grandmothers house so I can get the 'vitality orb' and thus get a 5% increased jump height so I can jump over the logs in the 'river of doom' at the other side of the world"). That being said, I don't want games to spoon-feed me everything either.

Take a look at say, the Resident Evil games. It is fairly obvious where you should be headed and not too hard to get back on track. But if you just follow the marked path you'll miss a lot of hidden items and secrets. The case of the Broken Butterfly in Resident Evil 4 is an excellent example of how a powerful weapon can be hidden without having the casual player tear their hair off in frustration because they NEED the weapon to progress.

Besides, what's with the elitism in this thread? Just because I don't like to walk around every area in a game thrice looking for clues on what to do next, that doesn't mean I want to be led by the hand the entire time. It just means I am not a sucker for punishment.

 

[Henrik Persson]

I don't think people are being elitist, they're just being defensive about a type of game they enjoy.

What I truly hate in these types of games is the T-crossings, where one turn leads to the über loot of DOOM!!! and the other leads to a path of no return. "Oh, you took a left turn? Tough shit, no loot for you. You should have realized we wanted you to go right first, that's why it's called 'right', right?."

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Adventure games from the 90s are the serious offenders here. Since progressing through the game required the ability to match the exact "rational" reasoning the developers held, I'm honestly surprised the genre lasted so long, especially since GameFAQs wasn't the beast it is today.

I'm not sure how anyone managed it either. Whenever I get stuck on one of those and feel the need to look up what to do next, my reaction is almost always "I never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever would have thought of doing that. Thank god for the internet or I would have been forced to use every item on every object in the entire game before I would have gotten that by myself.

I remember playing monkey island2 when it first came out. My couple of my friends had it at the same time and every morning when we met up we'd ask how the others were geting on. Sometimes we wouldn't want to let the others know so as not to ruin their game and other times would be, "hey you know that stupid waterfall thing? I got it running! you just have to dig out the..."

Puzzles don't have to be solved on your own or even by you at all to be fun if done socially, which is how a lot of people played these sorts of games. They were things you chatted about at work or school solved slowly over a couple of weeks. As a single player trying to rush through in 5 hours or so then yeah their bloody frustrating it's just an example of how gamings changed.

I can't think of a single game that I was forced to get hints just to finish a play-through other than Rama. Gods that thing was ridiculously nails.

In recent years the only issues I've had in games is poor level design forcing me to miss spotting an exit or backtracking further than I'd like; irritating but not guide forcing.

And hopeless bastard wasn't being elitist some people really do like sitting and thinking for a bit.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Tomb Raider games

Tomb Raider was about exploration. You're in a tomb, theres something there, now explore. If you don't like that, don't play it. Unless you were one of those pathetic individuals who succumbed to peer pressure and played it just so you wouldn't feel left out.

exactly, me and my uncle beat those games with no guides just out of sheer love of the exploration

im not a person who has to complete every game on 100% or am a person who has to have their hand held the whole way, so in some games i love being able to just figure it out myself, you brought up fallout, and personally i hate that game, its so boring its just "go to point A, found place, shoot the one thing that is alive their, run to next bleeping point and kill the one thing that is alive their, oh look, you killed everything else that was alive in this world", enough of that though

so OP, i dont agree, and their is nothing wrong with looking up for help anyways, seriously if your that proud and ignorant about it then maybe jrpg's aren't your thing

 

[dmase]

I found DQ4 pretty linear as far as DQ games go. It usually tells you where you need to go. I thought it was a weak game because of it. I beat it pretty damn fast compared to other DQ games, and the short little chapters, except for the last, usually have only a few possible locations to go. Sometimes you have to work and wander a bit, but usually it's really easy to see where you need to go next. You may just have to dig around a bit.

If you think this was hard try DQ8 on the PS2. DAMN good game, one of my favorites, but it could be hard to figure out exactly what you needed to do at times.

Now Dragon quest 7 for ps1 was incredibly hard to figure out and find your way in. You could walk right over any shards or completely miss them if you don't go down this well or something like that, but it was still the best game in the series. Thats how i got my rpg thought process down(idk what else to call it). I search everything open every drawer, break every pot, search every house, and talk to every npc. When i bought DQM for the ds i was disappointed that they didn't let you search pots and stuff like that.

The only time i went to the guide for help was a puzzle that confused the hell out of me and i didn't see any way to beat it. You had to walk in a circle counter clockwise so many time around a huge room then turn around and walk a certain number of time then repeat until the hidden door opened.

 

[Icecoldcynic]

I disagree. Plenty of games have incredibly complex things that really can only be found out using guides, or simply never found out at all. For example, getting the ultimate weapons in Final Fantasy games. Without a guide, the average player would NEVER attain them, but does it make the game suck? No.

 

[Katana314]

The OP is pretty much right; which unfortunately means many old adventure games really suck a lot more than people realize.
King's Quest 1-6? If they were arcade games where you put in a quarter for each death, Sierra would be on a higher plane than Activision right now.
The Dig? Old classic, but since it's an alien planet what the heck do you have to base all your puzzle-assumptions off of?
So many adventure games depend on former knowledge or just plain guesswork. It's ridiculous.

Conversely, I will say that I absolutely DESPISE games that constantly remind, or just tell, you what to do. Take GTA4.
"Pick up the C4."
"Fight your way to the inside of the bank."
"Walk into the yellow light to plant the C4."
(cutscene)
"Kill the cops"
"Find a car" (massive arrow appears over the car)
"Hide from the cops" (massive arrow appears over a covert barn)
That's just following instructions. You don't quite feel like you pulled off a heist and outsmarted anyone. It wasn't your idea; it was the game's. And you're just lucky enough to have been pulled along for its ride.

What's better is simply implying the correct path while giving more obvious, believable, in-game hints to what exactly you should do.
"Get away clean with the bank's money"
You walk in. A businessman is commenting to another how he doesn't think his money is secure here; how only the safe door itself is protected, and any wall on the sides could be blown apart easily. You go there, blow up the wall, and the doors behind you lock down, whereas a nearby hole offers a way out. You kill some police in your way before finding a shiny red car under a streetlamp. *score*! While being chased, you constantly hear anything from the police about their line of sight with you being broken, seeing you on a certain street, etc. When you go in a tunnel, they say "I lost him!" By following the cues, you find a secluded spot off the road to hide.
That way, it's the player's ideas and decisions, even though they're really not.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

If you need to go to GameFAQS to fully experience your game, you're probably not that good a player.

Unless you're just totally rejecting the idea of getting help from another source while playing a game.

ZING!

OT: But yeah, I played through DQ4 (not the sixth chapter, though, I had enough). For the most part I could figure out where to go without using GameFAQs (aside from several instances both in and out of the fifth chapter). If anything, I'd be citing its generic storyline as a bigger weakness for the game than "omg so vague must use gamefaqs." Maybe you shouldn't just breeze through NPC dialogue?

 

[QueenWren]

I try to never use a FAQ the first time through a game, unless its FF but that's mainly cause I tend to give up and then return months later with no clue where I am or what I'm supposed to be doing. However, I like using them the second time through cause then I get to find all the little extra bits and treasures etc. I missed the first time round. And then kick myself so hard for being that oblivious!

Maybe I just have a wierd brain but I never found Tomb Raider that hard from an exploring point of view, I found it hard from a oh-dear-they-shot-me-again-and-I've-no-medi-packs-left point of view, only with more swearing.

 

[deth2munkies]

I generally get through games without guides then use Gamefaqs for my second, completionist runthrough.

Also they should re-name it Dragon Warrior again, I only played 1-3 (I had 1 for the NES and 1-2/3 for the GBC).

 

[Meggiepants]

I agree. I can excuse older games that haven't been revamped because they were made before developers began to realize that what may seem obvious to them is not necessarily obvious to someone else.

But, in this day and age, for a game not to have some sort of quest journal that you can easily use to get back on track is simply bad game design. You shouldn't have to backtrack and redo everything you did the last time you played just to move forward in the game.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Adventure games from the 90s are the serious offenders here. Since progressing through the game required the ability to match the exact "rational" reasoning the developers held, I'm honestly surprised the genre lasted so long, especially since GameFAQs wasn't the beast it is today.

I'm not sure how anyone managed it either. Whenever I get stuck on one of those and feel the need to look up what to do next, my reaction is almost always "I never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever would have thought of doing that. Thank god for the internet or I would have been forced to use every item on every object in the entire game before I would have gotten that by myself.

I remember playing monkey island2 when it first came out. My couple of my friends had it at the same time and every morning when we met up we'd ask how the others were geting on. Sometimes we wouldn't want to let the others know so as not to ruin their game and other times would be, "hey you know that stupid waterfall thing? I got it running! you just have to dig out the..."

Puzzles don't have to be solved on your own or even by you at all to be fun if done socially, which is how a lot of people played these sorts of games. They were things you chatted about at work or school solved slowly over a couple of weeks. As a single player trying to rush through in 5 hours or so then yeah their bloody frustrating it's just an example of how gamings changed.

I can't think of a single game that I was forced to get hints just to finish a play-through other than Rama. Gods that thing was ridiculously nails.

In recent years the only issues I've had in games is poor level design forcing me to miss spotting an exit or backtracking further than I'd like; irritating but not guide forcing.

And hopeless bastard wasn't being elitist some people really do like sitting and thinking for a bit.

These days it's pretty rare when one of my RL friends owns the same game I do, especially since most of them are mainly part of the FPS crowd, which I'm not into that much anymore. Also, it's not HB's preference that irritates me, it's his condescending manner that makes me call him elitist.

 

[Twad]

If you need to go to GameFAQS to fully experience your game, you're probably not that good a player.

Unless you're just totally rejecting the idea of getting help from another source while playing a game.

Or perhaps the game didnt do its job at correctly giving you the information you need. Or the element you are looking for is really obscure. Or as a player you just got confused/lost/forgot. It goes both ways.

The thing with gamefaq is that is probably available RIGHT NOW and free, and not everyone can help you get the info you need in the time you need it if you look elsewhere.

 

[SturmDolch]

@SimuLord:

Wow, [user]SimuLord[/user], you really hit a wrong note with the crowd here. I agree with you, though. If the game doesn't make it clear what you have to be doing, it's most likely doing it wrong. Map markers aren't necessary, just tell me where to go. I found this in Pokemon Gold recently. Didn't know what I was actually supposed to be doing. I should be able to call Professor Elm for help, but he just told me to watch the egg. That kind of vagueness pisses me off.

 

[Carnagath]

If you think this was hard try DQ8 on the PS2. DAMN good game, one of my favorites, but it could be hard to figure out exactly what you needed to do at times.

Really? I only used a crafting list FAQ on DQ8, I never got lost once while playing the game. There's always some massive dialogue telling you where to go next, and every "next" location is conveniently a few minutes right down the road from where you came. Didn't get that feeling at all there.