Too much hand holding in today's games?

[dessertmonkeyjk]

I like the way Valve does it by just saying "Press this to do that" which is usually all one would ask for. Of course, doing the same thing but using solely visuals basically like this [http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/3/10371-sms_wall_kick.jpg] also works. Just have a hologram like hint for a ability of interest needed to overcome the obstacle with the jump button hovering near the walls and it basically sends the message. After mimicking it, the hologram goes away and doesn't show up again. It can also be shown in multiple spots so no need to have a fine-tuned tutorial level.

Who wants to read a chunkload of text or having to actually look at the controls in the manuel/options menu to figure out how to do something basic?

 

[6SteW6]

Back in my days Games used to just let the player experiment and learn how the mechanics of the game worked and gave them challenges to apply their knowledge.

Nowadays it seams that games just slap a big text box on the player's display saying "go from point A to point B by doing this and doing that," "use this to do that," "hit the enemy at this specific point to kill them," and "then do this to complete that."

What happened to just letting players figure things out for themselves?

Well considering the push for digital downloads and after launch DLC, developers probably want you to become invested in the characters, story etc. Can't do that if the games too frustrating to finish. Just my theory

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Also, playing Skyrim with the claw doors. I thought it had to do something with the size of the animals/creatures depicted on the wheels. When it wasn't that, I thought it was the alphabetical ordering of the animals' names. I submitted to the wikia after being wrong many many times. I then realized that the bottom of the claws had the pattern on them. Never occurred to me to look there. So, eh, maybe I'm a bit slow.

I was with you there... I tried everything... looked at everything, but I didn't realise at first that you could view the items in the inv like that! I felt like such a nonce! Especially as that is the way you slve a lot of online escape the room games!

OT: Saying that though, and I agree with you to an extent, older games were nowhere near as complicated... give a kid a jump button and a joystick and s/he can work out what to do, and what to jump on, and strategies... let them loose in Viva Pinata witout any pointers and I doubt many people would know what to do at first at all!? :S

 

[Lunar Templar]

Publishers think console gamers are impatient and retarded.

http://kotaku.com/5893236/christian-allen-wants-your-money-to-make-a-great-old+school-shooter-that-publishers-dont-think-you-want?utm_campaign=socialflow_kotaku_facebook&utm_source=kotaku_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

If you guys keep buying horseshit like COD year after year, your just enforcing those beliefs.

o.o

....

'to stupid' -.- alright anyway to find out who these ignorant sons of bitches are

 

[Waaghpowa]

This was one of the reasons why the complaints about The Witcher 2 annoyed the hell out of me. So many people complained about how the game wasn't telling them anything, when it was all written in your journal and the game was even telling you "Check your journal for more info" or something along those lines.

When I played it through the first time, sure I was a tad frustrated because at first I couldn't figure out why I couldn't block, then I checked the journal and it told me that blocking uses vigor which regenerates.

It's one of those situations where the game actually tells you how to play, but people are just lazy or not paying attention.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Games also used to be press a to jump, b to shoot and RPGs had more in common with spreadsheets than games. With complexity comes tutorials, and there is nothing wrong with that if the tutorials are done non-invasively (ex. Dark Souls). There are plenty of games out there that go out of their way to kick your ass. I promise you'll die more times in Dark Souls than Japan's SMB2. The good thing about games today is that their much more fair. There is no problem with optional hand-holding. There is a whole fucking lot wrong with fake difficulty and making games where there is no possible way to guess what you are supposed to do.

Also, game design was based on the idea that you should die a whole fucking lot so that you have to insert quarters to keep playing. Game Overs were profit. When games transitioned to consoles it took a while for this idea to go away. I think some games are still stuck in the past in this regard, but most have gotten past it.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

When I've friends who complain Dark Souls is nigh impossible because "THE GAME DOESN'T TELL ME WHERE TO GOOOOOOO!", yes, my conclusion is that there is. While I adore plenty of modern RPGS and games, I must admit to yearning for the days where one was given a vague quest with nary a hint and still expected to find there way to the goal.

 

[Lucem712]

Also, playing Skyrim with the claw doors. I thought it had to do something with the size of the animals/creatures depicted on the wheels. When it wasn't that, I thought it was the alphabetical ordering of the animals' names. I submitted to the wikia after being wrong many many times. I then realized that the bottom of the claws had the pattern on them. Never occurred to me to look there. So, eh, maybe I'm a bit slow.

I was with you there... I tried everything... looked at everything, but I didn't realise at first that you could view the items in the inv like that! I felt like such a nonce! Especially as that is the way you slve a lot of online escape the room games!

OT: Saying that though, and I agree with you to an extent, older games were nowhere near as complicated... give a kid a jump button and a joystick and s/he can work out what to do, and what to jump on, and strategies... let them loose in Viva Pinata witout any pointers and I doubt many people would know what to do at first at all!? :S

It just seems like a really bad design for hiding treasure if the password is on the key

I know a-lot of people complain about how Skyrim sometimes holds your hand and leads you to your objective, but honestly. I don't want to spend 3 hours looking for something. I get the appeal, but I don't have to time to search through ever cupboard or talk to every NPC in hopes that they might have information. If that's what you like, you can go ahead and make the HUD transparent. Options, people. Options!

 

[Zen Toombs]

Required link for this discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

Ninja'd! I was just about to post that video!

Excuse me while I embed it:

Spoiler

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Its not always like this and it wasn't always like how you mentioned. Tutorials are useful anyway, even if I wish there was a way to skip them.

 

[Torrasque]

Hmm. Sort of.

These days barely any game allows you to fall into a 'impossible scenario'. I remember back in the old days if you didn't do something right, or didn't pick up something along your path then you were basically screwed.

But you know...that's not necessarily a BAD thing.

I agree with the "sort of" position.
There are games that seem to have most of the game devoted to tutorial, and I have seen games where this hand holding is bad, and games where this hand holding is good.
If you look at Starcraft 1, the campaigns always have a "hey, this new unit is pretty neat, it can do this, check it out!" and then leave you to your devices. Brood War doesn't really tell you much about new units, it just kind of gives them to you and assumes you know how to use them. I prefer the style of Starcraft 1 because the first time I played the campaigns, I had no idea what the fuck was going on. Even when I got a new unit in the Protoss campaign, it would be hard to use them the way that I was supposed to.
In Wings of Liberty, you get a new unit each mission (thats what most of the missions are for) and are told how to use them. On the easy/normal difficulties, this is basically a "so this is what this does if you didn't know". On hard/brutal, this is just a part of the dialogue if you forgot, since the higher difficulties are still hard. For strategy games like Starcraft or Kingdom Under Fire, being told how to use the units is not enough to give you a guaranteed win. It is very nice to have that knowledge there so you know what the fuck is going on.

I have played many games (most of which are "older" games) that let you get into that impossible scenario, and it is irritating as fuck. I like playing my first play through as a "experience everything and anything I want" to get a feel for the game, and have my second play through as a "I know whats up, time to kick ass and chew bubblegum". If I have a third play through, it is usually to fuck around and see what I can get away with. When you play games that demand a certain play style in order to get through it even once, that is so incredibly frustrating. I find myself looking online to see what the fuck I have to do, rather than waste the time trying to figure it out myself.
It is so fucking annoying to play the entire game with a black mage, white mage, red mage, and fighter, only to get to the final boss and realize "hey, if you don't have a ninja that can spam shurikens, you're fucked bro".

Kingdom Under Fire has some missions that can put you into an impossible situation if you don't have the right comp, but skill and luck can usually overcome those. Besides that, calvary are OP as fuck.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

You ever played Call Of Duty on Veteran?

Why, yes I have.

"GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade.""GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade."

You want to know what actual difficulty is? Nothing like that.

 

[Torrasque]

Required link for this discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

Ninja'd! I was just about to post that video!

Excuse me while I embed it:

Spoiler

I just watched that entire thing, and am currently on eBay buying Megaman X.
Thank you Egoraptor! That is why you are my favorite youtubez thing evar.

 

[Waaghpowa]

People actually complained about that? I mean yeah, the spells and combat system were a bit confusing at first but it's not like there weren't mobs around for you to experiment with. Didn't it feel satisfying taking down your first mob with techniques and tricks you learned by yourself instead of having someone hold your hand through the entire process?

A lot of reviews whined about difficulty and how it wasn't in your face obvious how to do things. Some people are just impatient really, and it's not like the first Witcher game was easy either. for all I know, people who complained were the ones who never played the first game.

 

[Torrasque]

You ever played Call Of Duty on Veteran?

Why, yes I have.

"GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade.""GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade." "GRENADE!!!!" *boom* "You were killed by a grenade."

You want to know what actual difficulty is? Nothing like that.

My friend and I just played the new MW3 DLC on Monday night (right when it came out) and we were playing one of the new Spec Ops missions called Negotiation. In this mission, you have to save hostages (which die if you don't move forward fast enough) and a few rooms which you have to breach. Thats fine, breaching is fun.
However, near the end of the level--actually at about halfway, but whatever, I still look at level progress as a "how much of the map is left?"--you have to move through this really open area (its just a big street that looks open, but it is just a hallway) and kill a bunch of enemies. Not only are there a fuckload of enemies that spawn automatically, there are a bunch that drop from a chopper right away. Now, if you're playing on Veteran, they ALL aim at your head and down you in three shots. So as you can imagine, this part is really fucking hard. But thats the thing, this part isn't hard it is just really bad level design. It is not hard to slowly look around cover and kill enemies one by one until there are none left, it is not hard to throw every grenade you have until a bunch of guys are dead, it is just patience and luck. Granted, if you can kill all these guys without being downed once, without abusing cover, then yeah, you are a fucking badass. But their health is so high, and your weapon damage is so low, that you just can't do that. CoD isn't fucking Halo or Doom.

If this was set up to be the same kind of difficulty in Halo, then you would enter a room with like... 50 elites with plasma rifles, you have a fuckload of sniper ammo, and they never advance on you, they just shoot the fuck out of you when you stand up. Not hard, just boring and tedious. Halo is actually difficult, it spawns enemies that rush your position and are tough, but if you are a badass, you can kill these guys before they kill you, or avoid them and then kill them.

That is why CoD fucking sucks, and Halo is better than CoD in every way. I don't even need a flame shield, because I know I am right in this.

 

[thiosk]

It goes back to command and conquer, well, possibly back to the DUNE 2000 before it. This is the first time I noticed it. You beat a mission, get a new vehicle, learn a new skill. Each mission, new vehical/feature, beat it, next mission. This makes the entire game at some level a giant tutorial.

 

[Kestrel-6]

I wholeheartedly agree. Morrowind, move, look, race, chargen, grab stuff, get money, ALL SYSTEMS GO! Hell, like Yahtzee said for Skyrim, you could walk 89 miles in the other direction if you wanted.