What's a more powerful feeling in gaming: Feeling Powerless or Gaining that power back?

[tjbond911]

I finished Amnesia: The Dark Descent recently and I absolutely loved it! I loved the almost constant feeling of danger and helplessness I felt during the game. It made it feel so rewarding when I accomplished a task. I'm also a big fan of the Fallout series, mainly the new one's (I tried the first two and they weren't my cup of tea). One thing I love about Fallout is that you start out pretty weak. You don't really have any skills, you have very few weapons and the one's you have aren't very powerful, and you know almost nothing about the world. So you spend a good chunk of the game getting the shit kicked out of you constantly. But over time you become more powerful and knowledgable and you're obliterating all of those monsters that were kicking your ass before. I think this is also an awesome feeling. So my question is, which feeling do you think is more powerful and why? Thanks!

 

[Mezahmay]

I'm just going to cop out and say it depends on the individual player and the game they're playing. For example, I don't play survival horror games because I can't stand the feeling of powerlessness and mechanics/controls largely rooted in real life. I play Fallout because through effort I can become a badass with far fewer restrictions to mechanics and controls.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I personally prefer gaining the power back. That drive to reach back up to that power you tasted before is just immensely satisfying. It is so effective and can be seen in so many games, where they start you off at full power and the game finds an excuse to knock you back down.

However, there are places where powerlessness must remain a big part of the experience. Survival horror needs a sense of powerlessness or the tension may not hold. That is why I only ever felt truly scared at a few points when I played Dead Space, as I felt pretty confident most of the way through that I could handle whatever the game threw at me.

 

[Rayce Archer]

The most empowered I've ever felt is finding the Elder Things' lightning gun in Call of Cthulhu. I know a lot of people felt like the game became a dumb shooter at that point, but I feel like I'd earned it by spending the last 90% of the game armed with nothing but a crowbar, a mostly useless rifle, and drugs.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I prefer the feeling of starting week and getting more powerful as you go, and generally hate it when they nerf a character and then say "oh well now you need to get all your powers back!". That's one reason I loved Prototype: it felt like your character was continuously evolving and getting stronger and stronger as time went on.

To me, the game that did it best was Far Cry 3. You start out as this fairly regular guy who barely even knows how to shoot a gun, and then over the course of going through combat and letting go of his humanity, he's Rambo on steroids by the end of it. It makes the gaining of power feel very organic and smooth.

 

[Adam Lester]

I feel like I'd earned it by spending the last 90% of the game armed with nothing but a crowbar, a mostly useless rifle, and drugs.

That's going on my tombstone.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

I'd say the latter. In, say, Gothic 2 for example, at the start you are so weak that even a small wolf is a massive threat, and getting into a fight with one is a tense life or death affair. But by the end of the game, you're going toe-to-toe with entire armies of orcs. That is immensely satisfying, every time you level up you feel yourself getting that bit better.

 

[Kerethos]

I enjoy gaining power far more than feeling powerless, which seems to reflect in my games library.

But starting out powerful and losing that power kind of feels like treading water. You're going from 0 to -X and back to 0 again at that point, and it's just nowhere near as satisfying as starting out at 0 and going up from there.

I'll gladly start out weak and helpless and then gain power, and knowledge, throughout the game. In fact I think that's possibly one of the best mechanics in games, at least according to me.

There's just nothing more satisfying to me than starting out in a game where I can barely defend myself, and then gradually grow in power to be able to make a stand and eventually become the thing everything should run from. Which means games that start you out weak, and eventually allow you to become really strong, are usually to my liking.

I mean I love Skyrim, Fallout (especially 2) and Far Cry 3 was the most fun shooter I've played in years. I just love games where I can get utterly destroyed at the start and then grow in power and ability to become the games top predator.

Been having my first go on Dark Souls lately, and I'm not really getting the same level of satisfaction that some of my favorite games give me. Though, it's still quite enjoyable (if you're a hateful masochist ). God damn I hate Blighttown...

I've also recently started playing Outlast (seemed fitting to play through it now), but I can't really tell, at least at this time, if I enjoy feeling that powerless. I mean I'd pick up, well, anything blunt or pointy after I ran into that crazy priest guy (I'm like 10-15 minutes into the game atm).

So I think Alien: Isolation might be more to my taste already. Sure, you can't actually kill the alien, and you pretty much remain prey throughout, but at least you're not defenseless.

 

[the December King]

Great question!

Feeling powerless in a game rattles me. That is to say, having a certain ammount of power stripped from my character at a set point. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing- it can be used to great effect, even in cutscenes and QTEs (rarely, admittedly), but I do often react negatively if I feel as though I SHOULD have had agency or ability at a particular time.

Gaining the power back, if it follows a loss of power event, rarely negates my feelings of frustration at having lost the power in the first place- it often only serves to remind me that, most of the time, someone's narrative is overriding any personal goals in a game I might have.

Ultimately, I'd say the loss of power effects me more.

 

[jamail77]

I don't want to say I'm so extreme as to want total powerlessness. I do lean that way though. I prefer challenging games. If I'm overpowered the game tends to be less fun because I'm just plowing through enemies/puzzles/obstacles/whatever the game wants me to get past. If getting a challenging game means constantly dying to the point of frustration then so be it.

If I'm going to get a power fantasy game on the other hand, it has to really balance out for the easiness. So, it has to be damn fun. So far the only games I've found that satisfy me in the power fantasy regard are the Arkham games and Devil May Cry on lower difficulties.

As for gaining power back when I was powerless before, see my 2nd paragraph lol. I mean, if I gain power the game becomes easier and the appeal of the challenge is lost. Yeah, there's the benefit of making your former "torturers" suffer and feeling good for getting revenge and finally succeeding for once in the crummy world that is that game's universe. Buuuuuttt, that's not as great of an appeal to me as a good challenge.

 

[Guffe]

ZombiU did this great!
They gave you the most powerful weapon from the start, only to make you believe that the new weapons you gained were better, I noticed about halfway through the game my first weapon was the best one, at least if facing only 1 or 2 zombies, if there were more it was time for a cocktail and if in masses it was just to run away and hope for a machinegun on a vehicle or something closeby

But generally I don't mind the losing ones power, MetroiPrime Corruption did this and it didn't bother me.
But I guess I like the start low and get stronger, like Pokemon

 

[FenchurchSt]

Well, i think it depends on what you want from the experience at that moment. Like, sometimes you want to have a powerfully emotional experience where you feel legitimately scared either for yourself or even for a character you've come to love and would hate to see succumb to whatever hostile environment the game takes place in. Other times you want to start out with nothing but fists and become king of the diamond block floors or start out with a rusty sword and eventually max out all your skills, whatever they may be.

The first scenario is often best in horror and heavily story-based games. The latter, I think, is often better in basically any other sort of game experience (not counting the ones that rely on your personal skill like a fighting game). Even in Pokemon you start out with one level five creature and you feel good about yourself when you train it up and it has the optimum move set (for you) and is finally at level 100.

I dunno if I could definitively say one is "better," but one is better for one type of experience rather than another. I mean, think about if amnesia gave you a sword and you had to go find a better sword and make your health meter bigger as you go on... it wouldn't really be that fun. It'd just be a haunted house with no real gravitas-- just something that surprises you sometimes before you smash its face in. You get the adrenalin rush from knowing there's nothing you can do but hold still or run. You still get an adrenalin rush from gaining power and totally wasting enemies, just in a completely different way for different reasons. I can say one thing for CERTAIN though: they aren't things that mix well or easily... I mean, you can try, it's sort of worked before, but most likely you'll just end up with another Resident Evil 6.


Overall I think it depends not only on the TYPE of game, but the competency of the execution. If you have a really crappy horror game that makes you feel powerless, the rush only lasts long enough for you to remember how terrible the story/gameplay/puzzles really are. The other scenario where you constantly gain power doesn't always have to rely on story and all that... sometimes it's just fun to beat things up [but if the gameplay is bad, it's AWFUL]. I have a Japanese copy of a Sengoku Basara game and I think it's just as fun to collect the strongest weapons and destroy waves of troops even though I don't speak Japanese.