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Hey mark I’m a long time fan and participate in your jams. If I’m being completely honest your videos have recently become stale. It seems there’s no real standpoint or opinion on any of these examples, just a vanilla overview of different ways games handled the subject of the video. Constructive criticism I hope, not meaning to put you down.
Hotline Miami is an interesting game; the immediately high difficulty is a non-issue for beginners due to how forgiving the punishment is; you die in one hit, but each death is only a few seconds lost.
And the fantasy is also delivered immediately with your first kill, first execution, first door slam, first throw. It is very much possible to cheese the basic AI, but I would assume the music and atmosphere will drive every single player forward to better themselves and towards the state of flow.
Haven't played Hotline but Celeste does the exact same thing! It's tough but rarely frustrating (unless you're playing Chapter 9 lol, maybe not too much even then).
Your approach to accessibility is absolutely brilliant. As a disabled gamer who has been repeatedly told games “aren’t for me” whenever I speak out about easily added accessibility options and how they should be included in all games, it makes me feel so heard basically every time you put up a video. Gate keeping people like me out of gaming spaces really sucks. Thank you for continuing to cover this kind of thing in a complex and empathetic way.
It depends on the type of game and the type of disability. However, a good place to start is button remapping and granular difficulty settings that allow the player to tune the game to their needs
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 Makes sense. Are there any places you think game developers should look at for more examples of things to add to make their games more accessible?
@@alu2901 do you mean games that serve as a good example, or are you looking for a community of developers/disabled players who can help? I can give you options for either, I’m pretty well versed in this stuff
The old design axiom "Easy to learn; hard to master" hasn't gotten any less wise. It's just so basic you kind of have to remind yourself about it from time to time.
I mean... if it's a game that does both? I'd say that's a masterfully made game. I hope Spider-Man 2 brings that high skill ceiling towards nee levels for combat and traversal, even though it's easy to get into.
Most days it's a struggle for me to pick between something like a choc chip muffin and a double choc chip muffin. Asking me to put myself into any one game play style category is an exercise in futility
If a game has a narrative focus, I'm probably in the give me the fantasy camp. ...If it isn't... Well, I'm not coming into it with the expectation I'll ever beat it, but - depending on the game - I often don't mind (I... Don't seem to get better at games with practice. Which isn't what caused me to stop playing Nethack after about 15 years of playing it on and off. I just... Grew out of that very regimented style of Roguelike, where all runs are ultimately going to feel fairly similar to each other to the point you can go in with a plan of what you're ascension kit is going to look like if you're actually good at the game, in favour of stuff like Brogue where not only can't you do that, but instead have to respond to what tools the RNG spits at you, but even if you win the run you're probably not going to have seen everything the dungeon has to offer)
That's kind of the thing though-I love rampaging through foes in something like doom 2016 but other times I just wanna see how far until I pull my hair out in dmc 5's higher difficulties. In the end I'm of a mind that if your game is there to just entertain, to pass the time, then it should be as broadly accessible but if you have a statement to make then you should not be derided for that alone.
Exactly. Clear marketing is the real answer here, not normalising every game to the same criteria. The film industry is incredible at this. Games suck at it.
Thinking of Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, where the skill ceiling and the skill floor are the same line. The game starts as hard as it's ever going to be and then just gets easier and easier as you unlock more skills.
This was exactly the game I was gonna bring up as a mild counterpoint to first solution of "allow more skill but don't require it". While you *can* do more complicated attacks, since the game simply refuses to challenge you, I felt no motivation to actually use any of them.
Just sunk 25 hours into shadow of war (free on PS+ this month) and I swear I thought the exact same thing almost the entire way through.. I was almost like I was waiting for the difficulty and then I was done. Great game just kinda easy.
Pokémon has a really weird difficulty curve. The first gym can be hard because you only have one or two mons, then the whole game is ridiculously easy until the last half hour when enemy AI suddenly learns what "super effective" means.
There was a moment in my playthrough of Doom Eternal where all the mechanics merged into one and I flawlessly cleared the room. If a camera had been recording I'm sure it would look like a ballet because at that moment everything was seamless. Stunning work from ID.
I think this is the typical case in which a one-size-fits-all solution just doesn't work. I generally like lower-skill-level games, because I have a lot of work to do and so I don't have that much time for videogames, I want to feel powerfull without the need to spend hundreds of hours optimizing my gameplay. Yet one of the best moments in my gaming experience was killing the Radiance in Hollow Knight. That was a feat I thought I did NOT have the skill to do, yet with time, mastery and a little bit of grinding (that Pure Nail is so valuable when every hit counts) I managed to get there and GOD if it felt good. It felt AMAZING. So, yeah, let game devs craft the experience they want the player to have. It's good to have options, but I also trust them to make the choices that keep the game interesting.
He doesn't seem to get the concept of demographics. You can't make a game that appeals to everyone without sacrafices in other parts. Sure, in bayonetta, the game can appeal to a large demographic of both skilled and new players, but sacrafices need to be made for this to happen. Alot of new players will just mash buttons or rely on one combo while skilled players don't feel like their efforts are rewarded all because a simple trophy system isn't a big enough motivator. And if you try to change the trophy system, you inevitably make the experience worse for one of the demograhics. Like you said, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
@@manspaghetti6351 I think this was more an excersize in getting people to consider how to avoid sometimes unnecessary blocking of enjoyment for a wider range of people with some considerations, but it is important to acknowledge no every game is meant to for everyone to play like how not every movie or tv show us meant for everyone to enjoy. There's only so much you can compromise on before you compromise on what makes a property what it is.
I agree. And also where does it put a game like Resident Evil 4? One of the best parts of that game was how it teetered between action and horror, and it was amazing going through the game being scared and confused with the controls before figuring it out and becoming a badass later on... only for the game to pull the rug out from under you and having to learn new ways to overcome challenges you didn't prepare for.
I will say though on your point. You didn't have to beat the radiance for one. There are more endings than just that and an easier one to achieve that you have to achieve just to fight radiance. So you were given the choice to earn your spot of that feeling of mastery. As well the game gives you upgrades to help you if you need. For example you brought up the pure nail which you used to beat radiance. You took the time to get the pure nail and thus lowered the skill floor to kill the radiance. And it doesn't just stop at nails as you know like with getting mask shards or charm notches to power yourself up for before whatever fight you have in front of you.
@@manspaghetti6351 And yet I’d argue that the fact that Bayonetta is such a beloved series does show that there is some merit to making “one size fits most” games. Edit: Emphasis on “Most”, as there truly is no one size fit all game. As you pointed out, Trophies are not motivation enough for some skilled players, and I know for a fact that some casuals get pissed off being denied these Trophies regardless of how effortlessly they dispatched the Angel legions.
This might have already been pointed out, but the thing with Doom Eternal was that id wasn't only making it more demanding for the sake of making the player earn success, they felt a lot of players were finding their way through Doom 2016 without using and thus without enjoying a lot of the game's options and systems. This is a struggle for a lot of developers, how do you guide the player into learning and taking advantage of more and more complex systems, getting more out of the game, so they don't just fall back on the cheapest and easiest tactics (which XCOM devs for instance struggled with). Eternal's solution was essentially forcing the player into learning all the options. For me it worked well, I had a great time, but for some other players it was too demanding or just not enjoyable.
worked for me as well, i finished doom 2016 a couple of times before i could realize that weapon quick swaps were possible on pc. Such a shame i missed the most fun aspect of modern doom while playing 2016. I can go back to it sure , but its not the same. I think they did a great job with eternal , which would in a way allow people to properly experience both games for a long time
@jocaguz18 Speak for yourself, getting in the Rhythm of a good cycling is an incredibly satisfying experience, and DOOM 2016 is what taught me it was even a thing.
@jocaguz18 if you don't hot cycle in doom 2016 then you don't really have an idea of what the power fantasy is really like. Some of the most powerful attacks in the game rely on it
You forget how good you felt when you discovered weapon swapping. It wouldn't have felt the same if you were forced to weapon swap off the rip imo. And when you played eternal you'd carry the skills learned forward. Hopefully accidentally throwing a grenade into a cacos mouth and finding a weakness! I enjoy games that allow you to figure out cool things you can do by yourself. I really liked the whole 'dont give a fuck' attitude of 2016. Eternal kind of lost the rockstar 'couldnt give a fuck' attitude for the weird kid who wants you to play the fighting game right.
You brought up Hades and the ways the game becomes easier as you unlock more stuff, but more interesting to me are the ways in which the game becomes more challenging as you unlock more stuff, namely via the Pacts of Punishment. The Pacts + bounty system subtly encourage you to make the game more difficult over time (in wonderfully customizable ways), and Skelly's heat challenges outright taunt you to do so: "You beat the game on 3 heat? Try it on 8! You beat it on 8? Try it on ..." etc.
The heat system is awesome! It’s not just a difficulty curve, there are so many options when adding heat and the game doesn’t only encourage you to increase the heat but also to try out the different effects. It’s a super fun system
It seems like most reviewers that have played Hades really just brush over the Heat system in Hades, either due to rushing out reviews or just not playing around with it too much. The game changes so much from jumping around from low heat to higher heat and isnt something you can just over level your progression system over. Plus, Extreme Measures 4 is soooooooo good, but many people seem to never try it out.
Supergiant has used a similar system in their previous games that I think works really well. You unlock modifiers that you can add that make the game more difficult, but slightly increases rewards. The rewards are just enough to encourage skill players to push it as high as they can, but not enough to put players that ignore the system at a disadvantage. I think it's a really good system that lets players tune the challenge in ways that most suit them, but without forcing them to commit to a difficulty option at the start of the game.
@@EpicAccount I agree. I personally like to go for a "vanilla" run the first time around to get used to the game, working my way up to turning all the difficulty options during my final run. Beating all of Bastion's levels this way was very satisfying, but if the options were turned on by default I may have lacked the motivation to ever complete them in the first place.
What I find great about Hades is that it also prepares you for failure. Everyone tells you that climbing out of hell is an impossible task, so you don't feel bad when you fail. And it makes finally reaching that point so much more rewarding. It's the first rogue-like that actually incorporates failure so well into the whole game
There's another like that: Wizard of Legend. The basic premise is of a challenge called the Chaos Trials that are used by wizards of the world as a combination of fair/spectator sport/wizarding Masters Exam/Kobayashi Maru-esque unassailable wall of difficulty that is measured by how many attempts/how far you get. Makes the Endgame twist all the sweeter.
It's the game that finally introduced me to real-time combat instead of turn based. I never got far in such games because I sucked so very bad I died constantly, and after dying 20 times to an overall easy boss or level that kept me from progressing I'd rage quit every time. But with Hades dying just meant I got to talk to the characters and get more lore, which meant my frustration was very low. And I got better and better eventually, and now some of that skill can be brought to other games I play. I still suck but it did help
Such an interesting, well thought out video. Thank you again Mark for the inspiration. Have been subbed for 3 years now, massive congrats to you, so close to the big 1M :)!!
The opposit is also an interesting question: Who gets to feel fearful in a horror game? Some people just need a spooky atmosphere to be creept out, like in gone home. Others need dangers which need to be overcome, like resident evil. But if a game has dangers, how dangerous should they be? Too weak, and they are no longer scary. Too strong and a player is forced to repeat the same part over and over again until the danger is no longer scary, just annoying. A difficult question, to which I have no anwser.
This is a good question and brings up design of those games. It reminds me when I played Outlast 2, I absolutely hated it, wasn't scary at all despite the developers trying to outdo themselves from Outlast 1, it hit the issue of dying over and over so much it became ineffective, with the player thinking less about the horror they're presented and more about adjusting routes based on trial and error to get past a sequence(uninspired designs didn't help either). Frankly the games that set the tone of fear the best for me was Amnesia, FEAR, Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners Of The Earth, Fatal Frame II and recently Lost in Vivo.
Yeah, this is a really hard balance. Some games also tend to nail the atmosphere at first, but then after dying a few times and actually learn the mechanics, you realize that the actual gameplay is crap. Slender comes to mind, as a game it's a total shitshow, and it ultimately takes you out of the immersion. On the other hand, Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning, which is almost like a parody of Slender, has much better gameplay. It's not scary when it comes to the visuals, but the gameplay is pretty hard and engaging so that when you get near the end, you are actually terrified of the joke-y characters and jumpscares when they appear close to you.
I dont think its an opposite but more like a different question. Plus i think your question has to do with personal preference rather than logistics Beacuse after reading your statement it seems like its an issuse if how to execute something and not why. Also its called a horror game for a reason. Its suposed to be scary. The jumpscares and atmosphere barely affect actual gameplay
@@MSDarkspyro What the hell are you talking about? Gameplay is an inherent part of what makes a horror game scary. If Resident Evil made you invincible and allowed you to freely walk around and look at the atmosphere, then it would stop being scary for a large portion of the audience.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making a game give a power fantasy for free, or having the player earn it. I’ve certainly enjoyed games in both sides. I think options are great, but really it just comes down to personal preference, or even your mood. Sometimes, I wanna test my skills to the limit in hollow knight, and other times I just wanna feel like an absolute badass is something like batman Arkham.
@P I think god of war did a really bad job on balancing it, I usually enjoy all my games in the highest difficult that is available, but gow in highest difficult is annoying, not hard but annoying, it feels like the game mechanics are not made for the game to be played in the hardest level. but I think it's nice it works great when going to the easy levels :)
I think the point is devs should try to put in effort to make a game both ways, like bayonetta, where it's accessible, yet deep and challenging for less casual players.
@@louiscorbett3278 I agree and disagree... I understand and tend to agree, but I always remember Celeste, one of the best games I ever played, challenging as hell but with an assist mode so non gamers can enjoy Madeline history which is suuuuper nice, it feels so good that I can recommend such a great game to non hardcore players so we can talk about the narrative and the problems the game bring to light. I really like when they do it right.
Some easy modes really strip the heart and soul out of a game, making the gameplay boring and repetitive, turning it into a grind. Probably the worst example I've felt was Guitar Hero on easy, pushing 3 buttons that are barely in tempo to the music is extremely unsatisfying, it's so braindead you genuinely feel like you're playing a kids toy which looses the fantasy super fast. Challenging can be very entertaining, surprising and give motivation to keep playing to get better or engage in systems like upgrades to make the game potentially easier.
this is why his suggestion for batman is to give the player a way to master or reward the mastery? and to give an entery point (using one of the solutions suggested) to something like doom and let even the casuals to play it
Another approach to this issue, somewhat related to the "prime for failure" point, is to make failure relatively quick and painless. This is part of what I feel makes SuperHOT work so well for a power fantasy sorta game. Celeste and Super Meat Boy are also similar in this way
@@CigaretteCrayon yeah agreed. I never understood what the design choice was behind them. I probably would have turned them off, even if I wasn’t going for a platinum in one go.
Especially in late Superhot, on the original, you can literally deflect bullets, swap bodies with enemies, slow time. Having 1 HP isn't priming for failure, it's a balancing mechanism
With every point you mentioned, I expected Hades to be the example for it. The game is just so accessible for casual players while at the same time having a very high skill ceiling. It gives Options like Hell mode and God mode. It rewards mastery and layers on complexity in such a way I haven't seen in other roguelikes. It primes for failure because you're supposed to fail, and each run is actually canon! And finally you mentioned providing multiple routes for success. Hades has grown a lot since its beta and I'm glad people are picking up on how great the game is.
The one counterpoint I'd put to this is that games don't need to be for everyone. Specifically, the broader you try and cast your net for an audience, the more work and effort is going to have to go into developing the necessary content to do so, not to mention the fact that pumping your game full of accessibility options may make it bloated, with the 'intended experience' unclear. It seems like the better games are quite often the ones that are transparent with the intended level of skill they desire the player to have (especially relative to their budget), not the ones that cast that net as broadly as possible. I wanted to put this out there because while it's always good to identify avenues through which you can improve your game (and many aspiring game designers like myself watch this channel) designers should also be conscious of the scope and budget of their projects, and sometimes making a shallow but punchy or deep but inaccessible title is a compromise that allows for impactful design decisions to take centre stage, whereas aiming for a gold standard of trying to make a game everyone can enjoy will result in other compromises that make the experience diluted and unrewarding.
I definitely agree. Making your game “for everyone” is only really necessary if you want the game to be widely sold and played and appeal to a huge audience (ie large video game companies or titles). And even then, I would still recommend keeping in mind a target demographic for your game, while thinking about ways to make it appeal to those outside the demographic. Although I will say that this was still a pretty good video, because it talked about why we would make those decisions. When he does that it allows us to determine whether taking that advice is a good idea or not based on what we want to accomplish. Personally I think the three main questions of any video game decision are what, why, and how. What do we want to do (in this case what skill levels do we want the players to have)? Why do we want to do it (in this case do we want to appeal to a large audience or make it for specific types of players)? And How do our methods accomplish that (in this case a low skill floor and high skill ceiling would make most players feel satisfied no matter what skill level they get to)?
he's actually done videos on this before period games should be made for a specific audience, but they should also be made to be accessible to as many people as possible. You can still make games that don't reach everyone but could be played and enjoyed by everyone. After a certain amount of work it comes down to taste more than it does accessibility.
I think I'd argue that as many games as possible might want to consider at least AN accessibility option of some sort, even if they cannot reach a gold standard; that said, there is certainly room to understand why that doesn't happen, especially for indie creators. But, I think when we want to try and limit a game's reach to those with certain disabilities, in order to conserve money and resources, we risk saying that we're willing to give non-disabled individuals a better experience an the expense of disabled gamers. And thats just unfortunate. Ultimately, we are lucky to have games and have creators producing games, and its up to them to decide how they want to structure their games and who to market to, but I think leaving some people certain social groups behind in this way is a distressing notion, especially if we can make accessibility options easier and less complicated, time-consuming, and expensive to implement. We'll never have "games for everyone", but we can give a wide variety of people as many experiences with game worlds as we can!
@@OhNoBohNo Can people stop mixing accessibility options with making the game more appealing for everyone?. The former is fine and should be encouraged.The latter can be detrimental to the games by watering it down
What I took away from the video's closing point is not that every game should be for everyone. Rather, developers should strive to to be as flexible in their design goals as possible without compromising the integrity of the experience they want to provide. Sometimes, that flexibility results in highly detailed difficulty modifiers and options. Sometimes, the best one can do (whether due to budget or time constraints, or simply so as not to destroy the game in the process), is putting in simple difficult options or "mercy mechanics" for repeatedly failing levels or challenges. I think he probably could have communicated that a bit better. But that's how I read it, at least.
How are these video essays just so beautiful? Honestly I don't even play a ton of games, and certainly don't design them. But I could just watch these as an example of fantastic communication through well organized scripts and seamless visual aids. The production quality of these is off the charts.
I've seen a lot of people online call that Spider-Man game "too easy" or "for casuals", and yet I personally know so many people who gave up on the game for being too hard for them. I played through it on the hardest difficulty and thought it was a decent challenge. Certainly not the hardest game I've ever played, but also definitely not the easiest.
I remember it not being particularly difficult, but I wouldn't call it "too easy". Now Jedi Fallen Order, that shit was wack. Even on the "medium" difficulty, it's already got a steep learning curve. And then you get to the stupid owl thing that's so frustratingly tough that I had an easier time with the end boss. I actually dropped down to the easiest difficulty just to get past that stupid bird. I didn't do that for any other boss.
I'd also make the point that these are relative values - because it's still possible to feel bad in an Arkham game, if you get punched, or get spotted. The games also ramp up in difficulty, and the more impressive feats do require more skill. The issue is the baseline - in Skyrim, you would easily be dispatched by a group of armed enemies if you weren't careful. In Arkham, you can beat up a small group of standard goons with ease. The challenge in Arkham comes from being better than that - from adapting to new situations, new types of enemies, more enemies, enemies with guns. It becomes harder and harder to deal with the challenges of the game, and you feel cool only if you can rise to meet these challenges. Guns are a good example, actually - two core aspects of Batman's characterisation are that he can handily dismantle a room full of baddies, but he's very much not bulletproof. This leads to an interesting situation where in combat with most goons, you feel in control (within reason) - but when guns become involved later in the game, especially where you are attempting to infiltrate a confined space filled with armed thugs, you are at a disadvantage. You _feel_ it - the game _makes_ you feel it. It makes guns punishing because that is a key aspect of the fantasy of Batman. However, it also gives you a chance to earn another aspect of the fantasy - that Batman is good enough not to get shot, despite his humanity. And when you are able to pull this off, it feels incredible. I think part of the reason that they designed the game in this way - with generally quite hard borders between combat and predator situations - is a difference of time. In combat, the player has to react quickly. It's essential to the flow of the thing, so they can't be made to deal with many complex factors to mimic real combat. Instead, combat is abstracted into a few key mechanics, to maintain the feel. However, in predator sections, the player has the breathing space to assess the situation and take their time - so the designers built the mechanics of these sections thusly, forcing the player to be smart about the way they approach the situation, and thereby allowing them to _feel_ smart if they succeed, thereby earning, as you say, the fantasy.
I agree with your conclusion, and I think that avoiding gatekeeping is even more important for games where a power fantasy is not the main point. Some games have strong narrative, thematic and aesthetic elements that people might want to experience, but if that game decides to stick to action tropes they’ll be frustrating for players who can’t, don’t want to, or don’t have the time to “git gud”. For example, in many ways Control was extremely appealing to me, but I got so frustrated struggling through certain levels, especially unavoidable boss fights, that I nearly gave up several times, and it detracted from engaging with its thematic richness. It also had inventive combat gameplay, so it would be a shame to lose that entirely, but perhaps proving more options for progress (e.g. non-combat stealth or puzzle-based strategies) would enable people who dislike combat-focused games to get more out of the story and atmosphere.
I think another important question to ask is: "Is the fantasy about BEING a badass, or BECOMING a badass?" Spider-man and the Arkham games (mostly) are about BEING Spider-man and Batman, so just giving the fantasy rather than locking it behind a skill gate works (as an aside, Arkham Origins is about becoming Batman proper so just giving the fantasy doesn't really work). This is also why Doom Eternal functions as a good example as the opposite: you're already supposed to be the ultimate demon slayer, not just becoming the ultimate demon slayer, so these skill mastery gates feel even more frustrating. When you talked about making failure expected through story and marketing, I was surprised you didn't mention the Souls games since that's their whole shtick (also they are about BECOMING the "savior" of the land rather than already being the savior so skill mastery as a requirement works)
Doom Slayer may be a badass from beginn with but at the same time the game sets the stakes extremely high you fight under tremendous odds, which is why the game throws hordes of enemies at you I don't think it destroys the power fantasy, since you already are put in ridicilous one sided situation where any human beeing already would have died.
Doom Slayer may be a badass from beginn with but at the same time the game sets the stakes extremely high you fight under tremendous odds, which is why the game throws hordes of enemies at you I don't think it destroys the power fantasy, since you already are put in ridicilous one sided situation where any human beeing already would have died.
@@Ageleszly Exactly. You are still insanely powerful. But you feel even more powerful because there's an actual challenge to over come. If there wasn't, how are you supposed to feel powerful? Are there seriously people who can feel powerful against something that was beginning to end a pushover? I don't get that.
I do agree with you, though I also think that doom eternal introducing the mechanics a bit more slowly instead of all upfront would be a bit better intro
I wouldn't say Arkham Origins is about "becoming Batman", by that point in the game he's 2 years deep into being Batman, criminals are already terrified of him, and he's already humilliated the police at several points. The Origins part is more about the beginning of his relationship with the Joker and other allies he'll have throughout the rest of the games. There's a DLC pack that is indeed about becoming Batman though, "Iniatiation", where he trains in a dojo of ninjas. That one was indeed extremely challenging, they handicapped a lot of skills for each section.
This video was interesting for me the moment I realised the basic topic, about a dynamic I have seen discussed increasingly often as of late. I was expecting just a breakdown of the two styles and their strengths/weaknesses, so seeing you upend the premise halfway through with the thesis that games can both give *and* require the earning of awesomeness was a nice suprise! And I don't know if you intended this or not, but the final shot of that one spiderman slow-mo was a great demonstration of this - throughout the video, that slow-mo has always been covered in the blue tint of the 'give the awesome' side of things, as opposed to the red 'earn the awesome' tint. But right at the end, with the final use of that Spider-man slow mo, you take the blue tint away toreveal the true colours of the image - that is to say, Red and Blue, both in harmony with each other. I'm sure that was at least partially intended because it feels too perfect to not be, but in any case, very good work with this video! ^w^
That red/blue tint was totally intentional, Mark puts a lot of thought into the small details like that. I don't notice the visuals as much myself, but the auditory details are spectacular. In the video, "Why Does celeste Feel So Good to Play?" when he was listing what makes the movement so fun, with each point there was a ding that went up in pitch.
IMO one issue with "low skill floor, high skill ceiling" is that many players will play in a more boring way even if they have the ability to pull off more skillful plays, simply because they don't *need* to
Yeah, it demands scaled rewards. You'd have to let the player feel good enough about playing at a low level, but also let them know that if they do better, they can get even more rewards/xp/whatever.
I mashed through Arkham Asylum and the challenge modes were like they wanted me to learn a whole new game. If you can go a whole playthrough without asking me to engage with the mechanics, I'm just going to assume those mechanics aren't worthwhile.
This is the prime issue with DMC. You can cheese the game and get an S at the end of mission even with low skills. Essentially, it doesn't really reward highly skilled players for doing exceptional combos or defeating enemies more stylishly than others.
@@Dee-Mellow I'm a long time DMC fan but fact remains that if someone like Donguri finishes a level with S rank, he'll get the same pay off as me who finishes a level with S rank albeit with damage and flawed combos. The game simply doesn't reward players who have high skills when it comes to chaining combos. Even completing the game on Hell and Hell doesn't guarantee you're great at combos or even the game. It just means you're extra careful.
Awesome video Mark. Personally, I always loved that in Super Mario 64 Toad tells you that the power of the stars made you more powerful but in reality is that you've become a better player and have mastered the controls and different moves.
Accessibility options can change a lot more than some might think. I'm playing Ghosts of Tsushima, and I was finding dodging the unblockable attacks pretty hard. Looking at the accessibility options, there's one to make the "shine" warning you of unblockables larger. I thought "Man, how would that help?" But turning it on made it sooo much more consistent.
The funny thing about the theme park analogy at 4:30 is the fact that theme parks are one of the least accessible forms of entertainment imaginable. If you're prone to motion sickness, afraid of heights, too short, too tall, too heavy, pregnant, or suffer from a heart condition, you have to sit and wait while your friends have fun. And yet it'd still be an incredible shame to limit the variety of rides in theme parks because you want every ride to be accessible to every guest. That said I do want to commend the point about difficult options at 5:52. I've been saying for ages that an easy mode isn't a real accessibility option.
Not to mention that if the entry fee is too steep for you, that's not really ever going to change. Games eventually drop in price or go on sale (except maybe Nintendo games). Theme parks only get _more_ expensive over time.
Good points, but don't underestimate the amount of people who are happy to enjoy the shows, parades, fireworks, the general atmosphere, or to spend the day with their kids or grandkids.
A few weeks ago I started playing Hollow Knight, and it was first game I played on my computer ever ever ever. I struggled A LOT, I died in spikes, and I even had a nightmare about deepnest. And now I'm here, beating path of pain. I am proud of myself, and I love Hollow knight for letting beginners still have fun and somehow develop enough skill to get through hardest parts of the game and look back and be impressed and proud of themselves :3 (I'm sorry if there are spelling mistakes in this comment (I'm sure, there are quite a lot of them). English is not my native language.)
I would argue that there is a 5th way to give players the powerfantasy without requiring much skill, character progression. You touched a bit dismissivly upon it as "time and effort", but i would prefer to call it "progression". What i mean is ingame powerups for the character, not necessarily new moves like in roguelikes, but rather armor, weapon and resource upgrades. Think of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the powerfantasy here is becoming Link the saviour of Highrule. You start as exactly that, though without any gear or skills yet, but a skilled enough player can even take this initial Link and go and defeat Ganon. The difference is that a novice player can instead choose to progress in the game, go from using branch weapons and taking half their health as damage from a wooden club, to being able to oneshot creatures and only take miniscule amounts of damage from enemies by having stronger armor and weapons. By progressing in the game the powerfantasy is unlocked naturally for the player, and the engagement is kept while the players skill also improves. I would argue that this is the one of the best way to handle this problem, in singleplayer games, instead of having menu options to toggle on and off. The game naturally lowers the skill floor until the player is comfortable enough to handle the game, while keeping the skill ceiling high by allowing for skilled players to see how little gear and health they need to beat the game. It could even be combined with Bayonetta style combos to allow for more skilled play to be more rewarding. This building of the characters powerlevel is the central powerfantasy of many RPGs, but i think Zelda: BoW is the best example as the end boss is not locked away behind quest progression, allowing players to test the true extent of their skill when they have not progressed in the game at all.
_Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair_ does a similar thing. You start the game on its final level, the Impossible Lair, which you're not at all intended to beat on your first attempt. Once you've failed, the rest of the game opens up to you. Each level you complete gives you a bee shield you can take into the Impossible Lair and allows you to take an extra hit of damage. The more levels you complete, the more shields you get and the easier that final level becomes.
This is a really important point! When I was playing Hollow Knight, the most important lesson I learned was when to run away - because most of the bosses have a scalable difficulty which allows you to lower the skill floor until you feel capable of winning. I went into the final boss (the Hollow Knight) at 73% game completion and probably tried twenty times before I beat them. Then, at 101% completion, I tried again - and suddenly I could beat them on every single attempt. Although the DLC expects you to be maxed out on upgrades and adds skill walls that require dedicated practice and mastery to overcome, the main game has a very generous learning curve that rewards skill and talent as much as effort and persistence, and as much as exploration and decision-making.
Idle clickers. They make you feel like you are getting better with fake progression. Nobody is blocked from anything and if you seem to be playing less, cos you feel blocked, they often adapt to keep you engage. They hack your brain. They are hollow empty experiences that allow unscrupulous developers and publishers to manipulate you into spending money. That's what he's advocating for really. Wether he realises it or not.
"Reward Mastery" is also something that the Arkham games do, but it's more in the Kirby vein. You don't *need* to utilise all of your gadgets and techniques in to a combo in order to defeat some goons, but doing so and timing all of your attacks properly without ever dropping your combo can be one of the most satisfying experiences in the game.
Most people don't realize that the challenge isn't to defeat the enemies, but to keep the combo going on. The combat in arkham games, except for the first, are more related to a rhythm game than a senseless button smasher. Unfortunately, the story mode never requires this and very few players give a try to combat challenges.
Exactly! I was looking for this comment. Also, the same can be applied to the stealth sections: it's easy to complete them using always the same moves, but a truly rewarding experience comes from the variety of takedowns and the creativity in play.
Indeed! It can be fun and rewarding and look even MORE BADASS as the extra combo and flow animations get insanely cool further into perfect combat! Love those games!
@@MuriloRiFO i think a good way to fix this would be to have a sort of reputation system where the better you do in fights the more criminals will be afraid of you. or alternatively have an optional expert difficulty where batman's combo meter also doubles as a health bar.
It's honestly an unwinnable situation for a developer. You have a video about how players optimized the fun out of X-COM so in X-COM 2 the devs added mission parameters that forced players to play more aggressively and not cheese overwatch and players got mad. even your example about Forza 4 withholding XP as a way to entice players to get better would probably piss some players off.
They completely killed off a playstyle and forced players to play aggressive that by design results in constant failing just to learn map and enemy layouts. Forcing players to go fast or go home is an awful way to force players to play your game.
Maybe becaue it was a 'hard' enforcement as opposed to 'soft' enforcement such as suddenly ramping difficulty up into impossible through massive reinforcements
I enjoy two things about Forza's difficulty/reward balance. First is the fact that there isn't an inherent ranking in those rewards. You can get more experience by turning up the difficulty, but the comparison is only seen on the settings screen. When you finish a race, the game simply says "you get this bonus from your difficulty." Compare this to the rewards system for games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry where your performance is ranked from S to F. Players who aren't as good or aren't capable of getting S rank are told, albeit subtly, that they aren't good enough, even though they still accomplished the task successfully. Secondly the difficulty bonus in forza is just that, a bonus. You get a flat reward based on your position in a race and then a bonus from your difficulty settings. Players with lower difficulty won't suffer because of their decision to play the game in a way that they enjoy.
The forza games balance this well. Don't worry. You are always showered with XP. But it's always enticing to get a little more a little faster. It's about how it's couched. The games make it look like "bonus" money, and the game is still balanced around if you play on the easiest settings. You won't run into any roadblocks (lol) and never start feeling like the game is requiring you to bump up difficulty.
Kingdom hearts 2 does the whole low skill floor high skill ceiling thing excellently. A lot of people get through that game just by mashing the X button but theres a lot of depth to the combat in that game as the many speedruns of it show.
I want to throw a bone to Kingdom Hearts, with its Tech Exp system. It rewarded you with a few extra experience points by utilising enemy weaknesses, parrying, or blocking.
I think there's one more core point: Guiding the player to BECOME skilled. I emphasize this because most tutorials teach you how to USE the mechanics, but rarely how to use them WELL. Guides are much like intuitive controls in that they communicate to the player what feedback or style of playing they are looking for in order to succeed, and there are several levels between "complete casual" and "hardcore veteran" where we lack anything besides gradually increasing difficulty and the assumption that the player will figure it out. In this manner, a couple of accessibility options stand out as being incredibly helpful for the process. -Rewind, which can most easily be seen in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together let you review just how far back your tactical mistakes were, and consider alternate paths without needing to reset the entire board. -Gamespeed modifiers like in Celeste let players pull off amazing feats of platforming at a speed their minds can keep up with. This by itself can feel like Earning the Fantasy, but it is also validation that the player HAS improved, and they only need to input the commands faster. -Let's not forget input history for Fighting Games either. Those are important enough to be seen in most modern games, and it's certainly been an improvement. Not that it was enough for me to get into them.... I love it when a community provides the materials and support needed to climb from skill floor to skill ceiling, but there's plenty more to do within the games themselves.
After the first 2 categories I thought "true, but Ori does both", but before commenting I watched the whole video because I was 99% sure you'll address it. Awesome work, Mark.
I love how Doom Eternal pushes players towards the “fun zone”, without ever explicitly saying that you should play in that way. Limited ammunition and specific demon weaknesses both force the player to constantly switch between the various weapons in a chaotic dance battle.
Doom eternal is a weird change in gear for me. Doom 2016 incentivized me playing as aggressive as possible, incentivizing a blood rage that only ever faded with the music. Doom Eternal is a much more challenging and tight game, but it's the DMC to 2016's God of War, if that makes sense. And that's neither here nor there, it's about tastes. But I do thing they could at least let you trudge on with the bloodlust approach and they do for most of the game but then they introduce the marauder around whom you HAVE to play skilfully or you don't progress. They're a dead block in the path of a rampaging player, forcing them to switch gears so hard they get hit with whiplash and...well...look at all the hate they get still. I also personally dislike them for bringing forward the cockgobblers who are so smarmy about knowing how to deal with them like you dont get (improperly) tutorialized before the fight. And it could be solved by either making their shield a reduction instead of a complete block or maybe make them vulnerable to superweapons once alone on medium and lower. But then again, a designer has the right to demand a player play their game the intended way so that's neither here nor there.
@@chukyuniqul When you shoot BFG behind marauder he always looks at the BFG projectile until it goes away to shield himself from it. While he does that you can shoot his back with whatever you want. Also I disagree with many things you said :)
I wish I had found demon weaknesses by myself on my first playthrough. Probably on medium cause hard would feel impossible. If they wanted to make you earn strength. They shouldn't have outright shown demon weaknesses.
11:11 Woah. I haven't seen such old overwatch footage in a while. This dates back to between November 2016 and March 2017. Man the nostalgia. Those really were simpler times lol.
I still think that there do need to exist some games that know their target and embrace it. While all you said is true and you give many great examples and options, I just think that there's this fundamental idea behind the discussion that a game should always be for everyone, which to me is wrong. I never liked soulslike games, I tried many of them and I still can't stand that type of gameplay, however I never complained about it, never asked for them to be more rewarding to me as a player. On the other hand, I always play FPS at high difficulty and Doom Eternal proved to be one of the greatest and most satisfying experiences from a shooter throughout this decade. What was really good was that I could feel that the game was made for a player like me, I struggled but never felt discouraged from it and eventually I got into the flow and it all clicked. This moment, when a game clicks, is what I play for, however I'm well aware that not all games click for me, as for every other player in the planet. Knowing that, I'm happy to understand that, as there are games (such as Doom Eternal) that seem they were made for me, there are also many games that I don't fully understand but other people get to play and enjoy to their fullest. Sure, there are games with low skill floor and high skill ceiling, take any Mario title: anyone, even a kid can complete the main adventure, whereas not everybody will do all the secret levels. To sum it all up: while I do appreciate when games can be accessible but rewarding for those who want to master them, I still believe that there have to be even some titles meant for a specific crowd; we can't just pretend that everything should be made for us, we can't understand everything after all. We're 7 billions, with different points of view, I don't think that we should cry if a game isn't made for us, there are many others way more suited to our tastes.
Yeah, it's important to realize there isn't a problem with the game, it's just not your thing. Then move onto something that is. There are so many games nowadays, you'll never play them all anyway.
I feel the exact same way and even with the comparison with a theme park, I know people that pays to go for a theme park knowing there are some attractions that they can't or won't try. It's the same thing with everything, should horror games be made accessible for everyone, even for people that really can't handle horror ? The same question can be asked for every genre of games and I sincerely don't think every game should be for everyone, it's great that some games can cater to a wider audience and the discussion raised by GMTK is very insteresting and shouldn't be put aside but I feel like the conclusion kind of goes toward saying every game should strive to be accessible for everyone...
@Medeiros There is a very real phenomenon of conflating 'This isn't for me' to 'This is bad' i was guilty of this for a long time with FPS games, I only really knew about the dudebro, child on the mic swearing, same game rehashed every year, no to mention how people like that bad mouthed other genres which didn't help my bias, but in recent years I've realized the MASSIVE world of FPS and how amazing and immersive they can be outside of the Call of Field or Battlewars. Granted, I'm still not really interested in playing them at all, but I appreciate the genre and how its meant for a certain player with its own ticks and flavors. It's just the sort of thing I'M into and that's fine so long as its a competent product.
I remember the first time I played the original Assassin's Creed, I was struck by how easy it is. The parkour mostly handles itself, hiding spots are plentiful, and combat is usually extremely straightforward, even if you're hilariously outnumbered. Part of that is the power fantasy, of course, since Altair is supposed to be extremely skillful. But I quickly realized that it also reflected a different design philosophy. In most games, the question is WHETHER you can complete an objective. But in games like Assassin's Creed, the question is HOW you want to complete it. You have lots of tools and options, none of which are outside of your ability. So while you could complete the game simply by sprinting at every problem and hacking at it with your sword, you can also challenge yourself by trying to remain hidden for as long as possible, or by only using the hidden blade, or by picking off every guard one by one until the target is the only one left. There are usually multiple routes through critical areas, and various ways to influence a final encounter. For me, the fun arose when I started using Altair's abilities like toys in a sandbox, and setting challenges for myself. Critically, the game does not punish or reward you for taking different approaches, nor even make you aware that you could or should try something different. It just gives you the tools, and lets you go wild. For example, while it seems at first that the hidden blade can only be used outside of combat, through experimentation, you might find that in fact, you can use the hidden blade to counter attacks for an instant kill if you have extremely precise timing (later games would make this easier). So you could set yourself the challenge to complete a combat encounter using only the hidden blade. Or try to chain together the game's finnicky combo system. Or try and sneak up on Sibrand by crossing the boats, which comes with a higher risk of falling into the water but allows you to get much closer to him. This is a good way to reintroduce fun and challenging gameplay into games with powerful protagonists. If you start out with lots of tools, then the player can choose to use those tools in unique ways to create interesting and challenging scenarios for themselves.
I actually think Spider Man did a great job at rewarding mastery while remaining accessible. It has the accessibility of the Arkham combat system, but the combat can get far more interesting and challenging as you get further and further into the game. I found myself trying to do certain things (like web people to walls or throw them into each other) as I got better, basically achieving the playful version of Spider Man that's portrayed in the character.
This is bassically what Spider-Man's combat system is all about... making you become an acrobatic improviser! It's a *Sand-Box'ish* combat system that has a lot of variety in how you approach enemies acrobatically as The Spider-Man. You pretty much learn to mix and match while you jump around like a beach ball! My only problem with the combat system is that there's not enough mechanics for the system to be far more interesting than it is right now. But i believe that'll be fixed GREATLY in Spider-Man 2! Now we're able to have quick fire gadgets again, have a parry mechanic, a customizable veriety of super attacks that fits a person's playstyle, dodge under enemies in the air, smash enemies down with a powerful attack that'll bounce them back up from concrete, manipulate our "Web-Pull" as we *Push* and *Pull* enemies towards walls (enemies, and other structures), and having a beatdown mechanic made possible by mashing square repeatedly while you are close to a "Wall-Like" structure (hope that works in the air, too). Those are really good things to see, but there are other stuff that still brings a big amount of potential, too! Besides what they've done for R1 and L1, they still have R2 and L2 within their disposal. *Big potential, man...*
While I love that there are games that cater to all sorts of players and skill levels, I have to say that the type of games that ”give you the fantasy” are the ones that frustrate me the most. Not because of their difficulty (or lack there of), but because I don’t feel like I’m in control. The worst example of this to me is Assasin’s Creed. Everything in those games, from the movement that have me effortlessly climbing buildings by simply pressing a direction on the control stick, to the combat where a few button presses have me doing fancy acrobatic combos against multiple enemies at once, to all the UI indicators telling me exactly where to go (even where to find ”hidden” collectibles), it all just makes for an experience where I feel like all I’m doing is triggering fancy animations, like the game would function just the same with or without my inputs. Compare that to another game featuring fancy manouvering on rooftops: Mirror’s Edge. Here, not only do I get to feel in total control of my movement both in terms of button inputs and in the way I choose to tackle obstacles, but the game rewards me for executing those inputs with good timing by allowing me to keep my momentum. So not only do I feel like I’m actually responsible for the actions in the game, but I’m rewarded for it, too. I guess I’m kinda just repeating what was covered in the video, but my point is that even when making games ”less frustrating” by making actions easier to do, for players like me who want to feel in total control of my character, who crave instant audiovisual feedback from my inputs, it can actually result in more frustration instead.
Exactly! And I kind of have the same problem on the opposite end of the difficulty scale. If I press the basic attack button and my character does a sick flip and kills 4 enemies, I don't feel in control, but if I press one button and my character barely starts to wind up an attack and then gets pummeled, I also feel out of control. I only played Dark Souls 2 for a couple of minutes, because I felt like the challenge wasn't going to be in the enemies, but in controlling my character properly (and dealing with wind ups and slow movements and all that jazz). Most of my favorite games all share this sort of immediate and intentional control scheme. I'm okay with aim assist or input delays, but I really prefer when I can feel that everything I did was what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it.
To make a game easier, you'll have to remove control from the player. It frustrates me as well, but giving you more freedom, control and agency means that the skill level increases. This has happened to me in games such as Tales of Symphonia and Phantasy Star Online 2: those games offer you a control scheme in which you press less buttons but the game feels more automatic, or give you more control over your character, but the game's combat becomes harder. In PSO2, you're given the option between using a 2 button or a 3 button control scheme for combat. The 2 button control scheme makes combat easier, but more automatic and gives you less control. On the 3 button control scheme, you have much more control over your chaarcter, but the game's combat becomes less forgiving and more difficult. I chose the 3 button control scheme since I want to feel like I'm in control of every sword swing that my character does and I want to feel like I was able to block an attack by manually using my shield. It makes attacking and blocking much more satisfying, and it makes me feel like a badass. On the contrary, if I had played with the 2 button scheme, I would feel frustrated (just like you) since I would be like "oh, I used my special attack right on time and I defeated the enemy. However, I didn't feel like I earned it. I feel like I watched a mini cutscene." I had the same frustration while playing Kingdom Hearts 2, especially its bosses. I hate that game's bosses since they are style over substance: "just press triangle to win." If you press triangle during the QTE prompts, you'll see Sora perform flashy and over-the-top attacks. However, since you only need to press 1 button to exectue them, and since the QTEs are so forgiving , I never felt any satisfaction out of performing those flashy and powerful attacks. Sure, probably the devs were aiming at a casual demographic, but I personally didn't like KH2's bosses.
When I was playing Assassin's Creed at my friends place and wanted to clibmb a wall, I pressed wrong button and accidentally killed a bypasser behind me. The thought of accidentally stabbing someone when I just tried to climb still amuses me.
It's so interesting to me that Avengers is so prominently showcased when I find that it fails on both aspects of giving the power fantasy and earning it. It seems like they tried too hard to be in the middle and failed at both to me. You feel too weak as Thor and Hulk. You feel too slow and weak as Iron Man. The game isn't particularly exciting or challenging.
It's tries to give you power immediately, by giving you an extremely simple combat system, but it fails to make you feel powerful, with no feedback coming from each hit, which is why I was quite disappointed with it. It also doesn't have much of a skill ceiling either. Black Widow was the most fun to play as, as they manage to set incentives to dodge, with the Shadow Ops bar, and had the best moveset of the game.
My one problem with the Bayonetta solution to the power fantasy is that for many, many people (myself included) the crappy grades are mere slaps on the wrist. "Well, I won, and more importantly I'm onto the next point in the story. Might as well just keep going." DOOM Eternal, by contrast, makes it clear from the get-go: if you want to have fun and succeed, you better get good; when you do, you will enjoy every fight, no matter how challenging. When I finish a fight in Bayonetta, I… finish a fight in Bayonetta. That's it, I'm neither beaten down nor satisfied. I stopped playing because I got bored of the repetitive combat. I found the combat repetitive because I never improved. I never improved because I didn't have to. When I finished a fight in my first playthrough of DOOM Eternal, I barely scraped by and knew that I had to improve or I'd be screwed. The Marauder as a mini-boss was brutal because I had yet to learn quick switching and falter combos and how to bait his melee attack. I knew that there were only two choices: improve, and enjoy the frantic combat, or not improve, and never finish the game. By drawing the line, but making it clear how to get above it, DOOM Eternal drove me toward mastery and Hugo's "Fun Zone". I guess, in simpler terms, both Bayonetta and DOOM Eternal tell the player "you can do some incredible stuff if you take the time to learn the intricacies of the combat system." The problem arises when Bayonetta says "I really don't care whether you actually bother."
Ive had this idea for a metroidvania lately, where when you beat a boss, you get an upgrade item, megaman style. But at the end of the game, you lean that you needed all those bosses alive. The difficulty comes from finding a way to "subdue" the bosses while navigating the world with a reduced set of tools. The player could give in at any point, and defeat a boss to get an upgrade, but the best ending would only come when no boss was killed
You should keep your ideas close to your chest before you can produce something distinctly yours otherwise you just risk giving away good ideas to someone else who might out manuver you and capitalise on it. That being said your idea is a very interesting one and definitely draws my curiosity.
@@akash2853 Not to disagree, but to add to your point: ideas are cheap. I'm glad to see someone sharing theirs because no two people will implement those ideas exactly the same way except in the case of blatant plagiarism.
I was going to suggest that cheat codes are a way to "give" the power fantasy even in games that otherwise make you "earn" it, but maybe cheat codes are just options in disguise. Maybe ones that the devs didn't specifically allow, but options anyway. Whatever Doom Eternal is trying to do, I imagine it's a lot easier to feel powerful on godmode with idkfa (or whatever the modern equivalent is.) Rarely there are difficulty spikes that cheat codes can't really fix (platformers can do this if you just drop to your death regardless of HP) but those tend to be few and far between.
Yeah, it's why I personally like an option for a story mode where you can almost not die. It's just an option for those who want or need it. A pre-programmed god mode. Even better when you can switch halfway in the game, to get past a difficult section, so you can set it back after.
Cheat codes are great. If Dark Souls had an easy mode, it would cheapen the experience, because the world is no longer brutal and apathetic, you just chose the wrong difficulty. But it could easily have cheats, and simply labelling them as such encourages people to play without them if at all possible, ensuring players feel like they earned their success. By making them codes, it makes players seriously think about activating them rather than doing it in the heat of the moment. But by having them available (and making it clear they exist, e.g. "Enter Cheat Code" in the menu) it provides for greater accessibility to people who genuinely don't care about the challenge or are physically incapable of beating it. It can also provide additional challenge, without the balance and fairness concerns that fully sanctioned options would have, like a cheat code that makes you die in one hit, for example.
Cheat codes used to be my go to in the old days of GTA. The power fanatasy of destroying tanks, cars, helicopters was unmatched. It also took away the monotony that usually comes when you have been playing a game for too long.
I think video games are a bit like reading or model building, some are inherently hard or more complex to play some games you need some level of capability with a controller in order to play and some are better jumping off points for concepts in a genre
Yeah, I understand wanting broad appeal but it's ok for a game to appeal to a niche if that's part of the developer's artistic vision. Gaming is for everyone but not every game needs to appeal to every gamer.
@@vancednatha1451 are you kidding me? do you want every book to only use words an 5 year old can read to prevent anyone from missing out? it is just a fact of life that some things aren't for everyone, there is no point watering down a game for everyone to cater for the few, even if you think it should be an additional option it still takes money and time to design and add which adds to the cost of an already sky high monetary requirement to and time investment to make a game. Just boiling it down to gatekeeping is an incredibly reductionist and naive statement
When I was watching this I thought to myself ‘this was a good analysis, on to the next video’ then I realised I was only 5 minutes in. These videos are equally absorbing as they are in-depth and well thought out, and I love it.
Not directly tied to this video (though I did find it very interesting and very articulate) but as a disabled player, I'd just like to thank you for the, at this point, many videos you've made where including players with disabilities is either the focus of the video (the accessibility one comes to mind) or, at the very least, clearly stated inside the script of the video. And that's so great to hear. I'm a video game sound designer and I don't even hear it that commonly inside the damn industry. So thank you, really.
I always feel your videos present a unique perspective on game design, both inspiring and insightful! Thank you for all the well-produced videos educating both players, and game designers 😄
It's very interesting that you bring up Plague Knight and Specter Knight's campaigns as a dichotomous example. I'm fairly confident I understand what you're implying here, but would you mind elaborating a bit for those who may be unfamiliar with the loveliness that is Shovel Knight & co.?
@@grammarmaid Ohh I love this topic. Shovel Knight has four campaigns: Shovel Knight (the original) Plague Knight (first voted dlc) Specter Knight (dlc #2) King Knight (the final story) The plans for the dlc's were simple. They would use the same levels with minor changes so that players would have to master the character instead of the stage. This worked brilliantly for Plague Knight and most people enjoyed it. Unfortunately the other players were discouraged. Like mentioned in this video, they were unable to reach the required skill level or they were demotivated by the massive learning curve. Yacht Club took this very seriously and they made the next dlc, Specter Knight, from the ground up. New levels, easier movement and complete control over which level you wanted to play made the game easy for some, but extra enjoyable for less skilled players. The weird thing is: both of these knights, the EARN- and the GIVE-centered ones share most of their mobility. The big difference that sets it apart from this video is, they made Specter Knight's moves situational whereas Plague Knight could hop around wherever he wants. They put a ton of effort into their dlc and they didn't even charge people for it. To this day people are still debating which character has the best movement. I enjoyed all of them near identically so I can't tell. Yacht Club games managed to nail both sides of the design problem and I love it!
I personally loved handling Plague Knight the most, but his campaign really suffered for the lack of customized level design. The bonus challenges helped a lot, but it still would have been nice if the main campaign levels actually required you to interact with them once you got the basic mechanics down. Flying straight through all the levels makes you feel cool and fast, but not really challenged mechanically.
I've been playing a lot of Sayonara Wild Hearts lately and it does the low-floor high-ceiling thing really well. At any skill level, it's pretty easy to beat each level (and even if you die you only get sent back a couple seconds) and the levels are so well crafted that you'll get that power fantasy just from doing that. If a player wants to go for gold rank on every level, though, the game actually does a really good job of slowly ramping up the difficulty; earlier levels offer just a little challenge, but by the end you'll need to go for as many hard-to-reach hearts, secret squares, risky bonuses, and perfectly timed button prompts as you can. This is great because I enjoy both casual play and mastery, so it's nice not to plunge into the deep end when I want to kick things up a notch.
I absolutely love your videos about accessibility in gaming. I'm disabled and I get very frustrated at how games have handled accessibility in the past, and even now. The fact that most accessibility options just make the game 'easier' rather than getting you to the same level as other gamers frustrates me because its demeaning and infantalising. I want a challenge, I want to feel like I'm improving. I don't want to feel like the game is holding my hand because I'm a toddler.
5:00 I agree with most things mentioned, but an admission fee is not how I think about mastery. To me, the journey is more important than the destination. The learning process itself is a big part of the fun and why I play difficult games.
One problem with this is that I think these fixes are easier to do in some types of games than others. Take Doom Eternal. How do I implement Forza's style of options or bayonetta's skill floor? The game does introduce mechanics overtime as well. Maybe not as simply as Ori, but it also isnt as long as Ori either. Its much easier to point at good examples than it is to use those examples in other styles of games. I can't imagine many will replay doom eternal levels to get a better rank like a bayonetta system. So good video, but could have gone into detail more.
Actually, there's a Doom Eternal style game out there that uses a Bayonetta/Devil May Cry rank system called ULTRAKILL. It's actually really freaking good. More fast paced than Eternal, but good.
Yeah style system is ok but it doesn't add much to the game apart from trophies. I say this as a lifelong Devil May cry fan. All those combo MAD videos are great but at the end of the day a guy who knows all combos and performs all of them stylishly, earning an S rank at the end of the level, and you who beat the level with S rank but with some received damage and not flawless combos, essentially achieve the same thing. To that end, you don't even need to do flawless combos to defeat DMC 5 on harder difficulties, you just need to be quick. The style system is good for showing off to people but other than that, it doesn't really reward player. In Doom when you win a level, you know it is because you're worthy, that you somehow overcame the challenge. There is no handouts. No mid-battle checkpoints like the last of us 2 to save your ass. The payoff in that game is too huge. And I say this as someone who sucks at Eternal.
"Reward mastery but not require it" is exactly what came to mind when I thought of options. Take a game like Mario 3. Every level basically has a second hidden level that you can play when your are running at P-speed. You can divide all the jumps into game "P-speed jumps" and no P-speed jumps" it was a revelation when I tried speedrunning the first time. At the same time, there's plenty of content that a P-speeding player will miss, like hidden power ups. In that sense, there isn't necessarily just a push to become faster, because other styles of play are rewarded too.
I'm glad you touched on how the player's expectation of what the power fantasy will be like informs how it should actually work. In Rain World(my favorite game of all time :3), for example, you do not go into it expecting to be powerful. Even from the store page you are told that you are prey, that you are insignificant and just trying to make your way back to your family. You don't go into it expecting to be powerful, and so you're not frustrated when you die. And then when die again. And again. And again... Rain World is very much a game with a high skill floor, and an even higher skill ceiling. When you look back at the end of the game and see how far you've come, it's a truly magical experience.
I really, really love that you, unlike many others, don't forget sometimes attaining certain level of skill might be impossible, or considerably harder than it is for most people. As someone on the autistic spectrum and with motor issues to boot, I'd like to sincerely thank you.
"games should use design and systems to ensure sure that at every skill level the player feels powerful and masterful but with always room to grow and improve" Counterpoint: Horror games, walking simulators, cheat engine If you have yet to watch Jason Vandenberghe's 3 GDC presentations on player motivation I'd recommend them.
No one ever complains about puzzle games being too hard. Imagine if every Souls fan went to every easy game with no option for difficulty and bitched about it being too simple and not hard enough?
@@yordlejay6820 Puzzle games are a pretty small genre with a couple break outs. I don't have a deep knowledge but I imagine there there are games that are too hard and the audience self-selects against them so they're never heard about. I've seen complaints about games being too easy but the word normally used is "repetitive".
@@Captain1nsaneo That's literally what Soul likes are tho. They're a small FAN MADE Genre with ONE breakout studio that just so happens to have a REALLY loud fanbase.
People be acting like Souls Like are this industry dominating beast of a genre that locks less abled bodied players from being able to play a majority of games when really it's maybe 2 games a year AT MOST and only 1 every few years from the studio everyone wants to see a souls like out of
@@yordlejay6820 Wasn't really thinking about dark souls. It's the poster child for discussions about difficultly in games but that kind of discussion are rarely productive and underestimate the human capacity for overcoming challenges. GMT's video wasn't even explicitly about difficulty as about how to provide the power fantasy in games.
I don't think a compromise works for every game to be honest. I think some games are great with a low skill floor and ceiling, and others are great with a high skill floor and ceiling. In the case of high skill floor, I think the idea of compromising is not good in many cases. For games that are supposed to be challenging, I think the mindset that people should have (That I rarely see, sadly) is that if you don't like the idea of playing a challenging game, just don't buy it. Not every game can be for every person, if you don't enjoy a challenge don't play sekiro, don't play dark souls, don't play doom eternal, etc. The game doesn't owe you anything, you're the one who bought it and you knew what you were getting into, you get what I mean?
I agree with you, but you've also gotta acknowledge how frustrating it might feel to be someone who loves the art style and the concept of a game like dark souls and just wants to be part of that group that has played it, but finds themselves incapable of doing so. You might feel like "why should I be denied from experiencing the story and the art of this game because it won't put in an easy mode?" I dont think they should do it, but I do see how that could be someone's experience because for a while I was worried it would be mine (until I finally beat Gehrman in bloodborne and the rest is history)
@@macmcskullface1004 I have no problem with customizable difficulty, as long as it's clear what the developers intentions with a game are. If dark souls were to have an easy mode, I think it would need to be very clear to the player that this is not the original difficulty, and that they might lose out on the oppressive atmosphere and satisfying feeling of overcoming incredible odds that the games are all about. That being said, I think if something like this eats away at the game's intended experience or costs too much extra development time, I don't think it's worth it. Rather than cater to all people focus on really making sure the people who will love your game will really love it. I also don't really think it's gatekeeping to say if you won't enjoy a game don't buy it. Not every game is for every person and I think that's OK.
i agree with this idea, but i think that the developers should think on what experience they are selling before deciding, taking Doom eternal as an example: They sell you right out of the gate with the trailers and every other piece of media released the experience of being this unkillable god that rips and tears through the armies of hell, but the experience they give will not give you that until you put tens of hours and practice to get mastery. in short many did not pay $60 for the experience they put in the game, they did it for the one they presented. If you want to demand a certain mindset from the player so they come to the game prepared for it to be challenging you should sell it that way, if you are selling me the idea of being an unstopable god, i already paid my entry fee by buying the game, i should be allowed to get the experience advertized, not the gridaton until the game feels i paid a second entry fee in time and effor so i'm allowed to progress and get the experiece advertized. Dark souls as an example never sold itself as an experience where you are the apex predator, it always sold itself as what it was, an up hill battle in which only those who persevere through failure will survive and see victory, that's the experience people are paying for, and with that forewarning comes the preparation and the right mindset to play this game.
I feel like practically, not every game developer can accommodate all players, and I understand. But I think for a game that is challenging, it can at least consider certain accessibility measures as a ground floor for different people, like those with disabilities, to play the game. Now, there's a difference between difficulty setting and overall accessibility measures. But, when considering the range of accessibility options for players, difficulty options may be ONE of those options to consider. I think there's a difference between a player deciding if a game is worth their time to master, and a player who's disability or access needs not fulfilled by a game preventing them from even MAKING that decision because they cannot play the game. I understand that accessibility features for games are up to the game developer to implement, and that as a practical matter, game devs may not be able to do so, but where they can, I think it's worth it for them to at least consider. Disabled individuals would like to play games, and it's never going to be the same range of games, but to exclude a majority of different experiences from them out of a fear of tarnishing the game is, inadequate. A game might not 'owe' a player, but if it's allowing many people to decide for themselves if the game is worth it for them, and excluding other certain social classes, when that doesn't have to happen, that's not ok. At least, if we're going into an age where we really want to support those with disabilities.
The whole point of dark soul is that it's hard. It's graphic is meh. There's no story. Only super hidden lore that most player don't see and a casual player wouldn't even find. (Hell, I speedrunned sekiro and beat the game way too often, but I had almost no idea what the hidden lore was because I didnt spend hours check for it). Yeah, you say dark soul could have an easy mode for the people that want the story and all that. 1. If your not gonna play the game, watch video. Second, If there's an easy mode, it will just break the will of first time player. Players that could have beaten it without it will end up using it way to often. An easy mode would just ruin the game for everyone. No, what DS need is to cut the BS. Allow the players to EFFICIENTLY practice. None of that running for five min to get to the boss, Do the first 3 phase, and die at the 4th phase because of the same goddamn attack that you don't know how to deal with and have to waste 20 min just ro have another try. What it needs is a bossrush option for every enemy and boss ( *with boss phase control* , that can only be used for practice, progress here and ressource dont count. You want an easy mode: Let player during that Animus style boss rush have access to basically cheat codes. God mode, changing attack damage, lvl... Anything. This way, you skip all that BS, can learn quickly and efficiently and your skill actually progress, because it is about practicing something so specific and you learn so fast, you won't lose most of your skill progress between play session. This way, it might take you a long time to finish the game, but anyone can learn to master it. As long as you can put morw then 1h into the game per week. Or maybe a few hour per game sessions once in a while. Also, if you play these games and you are short on time, watch "get gud style" guide. They aren't about cheating or cheesing, but about how the practice the skill necessary to win. And how to deal with the attack bosses dich out. You still have to developp the skills, but now at least, you know what to practice. For me, thats what I find fun about these games, learning to master it. When you die and you know what you did wrong, what you could have and should have done, its fun. Your learning, you see endless possibility before your eyes. But when you die and you don't know why, its frustrating. It feels like bs. And if you've only got a bit of time to play, I would just drop these games.
I think accessibility options and good difficulty options help this out a lot. I would never have gotten good at DMC 5 if I was forced to play on a harder difficulty. By letting me play on easy, and once I was better ramp it up for more difficulty and trying for more combos I was able to experience more of the game and have way more fun.
One of my favorite things to do on this platform is to watch your videos and relate them to the games i play and tie that to why i enjoyed those games. Great job man, thanks for the great content and congrats on 1 mil in the near future!
I’ve have always been fascinated with fighting games but I could never get into them as I struggled to learn the inputs for basic combos and didn’t feel compelled enough to learn them because I wasn’t having that much fun. That was until I played Dragon ball fighterz, you see DBFZ has auto combos embedded into every character in the game where by mashing a single attack button you’ll be able to perform a short yet cool looking combo regardless of your skill level and it got me hooked immediately. That brief sensation I felt with the auto combos compelled me to learn the rest of the games systems and tech and get so good to the point I can now perform a T.O.D (touch of death) with nearly every character on the roster. However after becoming that skilful at the game I now see auto combos as a detriment to the games skill ceiling and some of its design choices damaging to other aspects it’s depth. Overall I think auto combos are a net positive as they allowed someone like me to finally get into fighting and have fun before I became as skilful as I am today but I think it’s better for a game to give you options to make you feel awesome and encourage you to learn everything it has offer overtime.
There's actually three distinct ways of deliviring a fantasy. There's giving it for free, there's earning it, and then there's pretending to let the player earn it, but never give it to him, like the fantasy of being the ultimate survivor in Escape From Tarkov.
i definitely thought you were going to bring up Hades when you started talking about priming the player for failure. the central narrative of Hades really made repeatedly dying and losing progress so much easier to swallow
This is something I really loved about the wingsuit in Just Cause 3. If you want to fly around shooting up baddies, you can do that straight out of the gate. But there are optional skill challenges that really push you to learning precisely how to move through the air and how to combine your wingsuit with your grapple. These skill challenges unlock upgrades to your wingsuit allowing you to pull off ever more precise and flashy moves, but you can beat the game without these upgrades. So you can interact with this system as much or as little as you want, and no matter where you fall on the skill spectrum you can still have fun in the main gameplay loop of tearing up enemy bases.
One aspect I really appreciate in games like Spiderman and Arkham Asylum is the optional challenges available. It's a nice way for skilled players to test themselves, while not limiting casual players from enjoying the story. Similar with the post story content of Super Mario Odyssey
As someone who grew up in the nes/snes/genesis era, I started to despise games in generations prior that started to “dumb things down”. When you start getting responsibilities and a mortgage to pay, working for your fun is not as fun. After a hard day of work, I’d rather relax with a beer and not count frame data this, 60th of a second that. Doom Eternal was an interesting one. Loved 2016, but I find that I have to be in the right mindset(and sober lol) to enjoy it.
I'm a disabled gamer, and I love "earning the fantasy," breaking through the knowledge barrier and being able to be great at what I'm playing, as well as the real-world physical barrier with my limitations.
Does Challenge modes, Global high scores & achievements relate to types of topics? Eg, Halo games, by completing certain missions, achievements, or with turning on certain skulls, we will unlock new skins or helmets. Previous Need For Speed games like Most Wanted 2005 had challenges modes, where the devs gives the player different tracks and races. Like in certain modern racing video games like Inertial Drift reward you with a new powerful Car after completing a challenge. On the other hand, Devil May Cry series always gives their players Bloody Palace mode, where players can get highest combos or highscores. Right after completing the main Campaign. The reason why i say this because, Difficulty in modern video games is just not enough to keep Single-player fan enjoy the game for long-term.
Lonely Downhill has on of my favorite examples of changing an option to match a difficulty level. It's a isometric downhill biking game that earns its uniqueness in part due to a how you steer. You steer left and right in relationship to the character, not to you. But you can also change it to be in relationship to the screen. This makes it so that the same game can be fun and rewarding to both me and my six-year-old daughter.
This was very informative. I may not be a game developer yet, but I've come up with many ideas and I've been recently thinking a lot about games that make you feel awesome but are also challenging in a fun way, but I didn't know how to do that. Just watching this inspired me to go back to some of my ideas and rethink the gameplay to be both fun, challenging, and awesome. Imagine if big-name games brought back those "You'll do better next time!" messages of those older games for kids. Like, if a game showed you the stats of your run at a level even if you died so you can tell if you're getting better each try, or if the narrative was all about overcoming even the worst of odds not because you are insanely powerful but because you're character is just very persistent and likes to persevere (hence, so should you). it also works for more open-ended games to allow you to approach situations different ways each time you try it, depending on your play-style. I know there are some games like this, but I'd like to see more.
Okay, so, Celeste does I think literally everything you mentioned in the video. Assist mode makes the game more accessible, there's the extra room/routes for mastery beyond a casual playthrough with things like wavedashes, berries and B-sides; and a well-distributed learning curve. I don't know how it was marketed, but the difficulty it has definitely reinforces the game's story. But it also does some things I feel like a lot more games can and should do to empower the player you didn't at least explicitly mention as a way to do so. The small level sizes and Chapter 7's boost are the ones that come to my mind immediately. So yeah
@@Madhattersinjeans True, not denying that at all. Albeit I still found that comment funny given how much ridiculousness there is in the yakuza games :)
This is probably among the best GMTK videos you've made so far. It's insightful, entertaining and thought-provoking using well-chosen examples, and struck me as exceptionally well structured in its argumentation. Well done Mark
I am really glad this video exists, there's alot of one sidedness to this conversation (as a gamer, not a developer here). For background, i'm a teacher with a transplanted kidney. I have a difficult job not helped by my health. When i come home and sit down to game i'm often tired, frustrated, and i want to win something. Alot of more difficult games just turn me off because after a real life where i don't always win and my efforts aren't always rewarded i want to escape into a game world and feel powerful. I'm glad this video is balanced and recognises that not everyone wants high challenge games, and not everyone wants to earn a win. Winning and feeling successful, however that's defined in game, is part of the fantasy in itself.
I like that you don't suggest that exclusively hard games shouldn't exist. Since some have to exist, see certain experienced requiere a single difficulty to exist. For example, for many people the fact that doesn't exist an easier mode makes it way more special. Is not the same getting to the top of a mountain by hicking, and then finding many well rested people at the top because they took an elevator, than getting to a lonely top that only people that made the effort could reach. Beating certain games is special because you know the only way to do it without cheating or watching a video is through effort. Another example would be that certain experiences can only exist if there is a roadblock you can't make resist even if you would want to. Everybody remembers their experience versus Whitney in Pokémon because there was no button to make her easier. Because we had to try again and find strategies until we beat her. That made her special. So yeah, I think it is fine for some games to be hard, as long as (like you said) it is made clear so people don't buy something they can't enjoy.
Watching your videos should be mandatory for every person that has anything to do with making videogames. It's everything I've thought summerized and made succinct.
Love the video. I think it’s also worth noting that “Earn your fantasy” and “Give your fantasy” can be in the same game but in different areas. Spider-Man gives you the fantasy of swinging around, but it makes you earn combat prowess. Darks Souls makes you earn your fantasy when it comes to combat, but it doesn’t make you worry about hunger and rest like a survival game does.
@@CarrotConsumer It's a bit of a weird example. But the point they were trying to make was that Dark Souls tries to give you the fantasy of being a downtrodden, undead medieval hero struggling through an unforgiving world. Yet that fantasy only extends to the combat and navigating the world. The game doesn't ask you to worry about food, fixing your clothes, cleaning off the maggots. All the other things a real life undead knight would face in that situation. They only make you work for the 'fun' parts, mastering the combat challenges. (And in later games, they lowered the challenge of navigating and mapping out the world and focussed even more on just the combat part of the fantasy. Despite players of the first game really loving the additional navigational challenges.) Spider Man apparently (haven't played it) gives you the feeling of being an awesome webslinger for free. But makes you work for other parts of the fantasy, the combat prowess. Apparently. So yea, developers can choose which parts of the fantasy to just give you, and which parts of the fantasy you have to earn.
I love this video. To put my two cents into this topic I have to say this is what fighting games such as mortal kombat, tekken, and street fighter really struggle with. The gameplay is so geared to have a very high skill ceiling that it turns off so many casual players. Many people complete the story mode, then go to online play only to get completely destroyed by other players. Naturally it makes sense to have such a high skill ceiling for a fighting game but what sucks is the limited gameplay options besides competitive fighting. PvE gets very bland and boring and many fighting games don't create an environment where players wants to improve they're skills. No casual player will ever want to go into training mode.
The most satisfying gaming experience I've had in ten years is Baldur's Gate 3's Honor Mode. One life. No continues. Just you and the game. It really changes the way you engage with it and forces you to strategize and really learn the systems and interactions.
And this is why health and damage are the most boring ways to adjust difficulty. Changes to make the mechanics more (or less) forgiving are almost always more interesting. Metal Gear Solid did this pretty well - all weapons did the same amount of damage, but where on the easiest difficulty level, you'd regain all your health in addition to gaining a higher maximum upon beating a boss, on the hardest you wouldn't even get the boost to maximum health and it took your radar away. Likewise, how much stuff you could carry depended on difficulty level, as did visibility distance (on extreme, if memory serves, they simply didn't have a limit).
Devil May Cry did this pretty well by mixing up enemy placements and reducing item effectiveness, and Ninja Gaiden Black would introduce entirely new enemies and bosses to the harder difficulties.
@@Aladelicous God Hand is also pretty good in this regard. The dynamic difficulty ensures you are always on the edge. The enemies use different attacks, gang up on you, are harder to knock down and even get faster. In other words, the better you play, the harder it gets.
I always love new GMTK videos, and this one was great as well. But, and I don't want to seem like some random hater, just a huge fan with some constructive criticism, the beginning 5-6 minutes of the video was...kind of bad. Not downright bad, maybe it's because I've watched so many game design videos, but everything seemed painfully obvious and repetitive. Hardly any new information was being added as you went along, but when something was introduced, it was accompanied by most the same things you already said in the video. But I still defiantly enjoyed it after that start, and love your content, and thank you so much for all you've created! Also, I remember you saying once a while ago, maybe on stream, that you were working on a game...anything you'd like to reveal?
@@wallyhackenslacker You mean the Doom approach, where you select Nightmare and it warns you that this difficulty isn't even remotely fair. It cannot be called the "Ion Fury" approach when Ion Fury is just borrowing the idea from a game released in the 90s.
That name is exactly why I disagree with the video here on "the marketing should advertise that it is a hard game to set expectations." I know so many people who, because they believed the game was so impossibly hard due to Bamco's ridiculous marketing, any time they ran up against difficulty in the game, it was a self fulfilling prophecy. They were way quicker to think the game was hard, and to do things the hardest way possible, because in their minds, it was a hard game, and so subconsciously they just morphed to that. I have spoken with countless people like that.
@@chettlar212 This is pretty much exactly the first point HHBomberguy brings up in his “Why I Love Bloodborne” video, it’s why he says removing shields in that game was a brilliant idea.
Another good example of providing players with options is the Blazblue fighting games (excluding Blazblue Cross Tag Battle). On those games, all characters have the "Stylish" and "Technical" modes, the former being basically "mash buttons to do cool combos", and the latter being for those players who truly wish to master the character that they're playing with.
I always felt like the Arkham games actually did a good job of rewarding mastery. If your aim to just survive a fistfight with some thugs, then yeah, you can usually just spam the punch button. That'll get old real fast, though, and the game encourages you to try out all the different tools and maneuvers at your disposal. The ease of Arkham's combat means you have tons of room to explore the many options available to you without feeling too punished if your ideas don't pan out; this also pays off if you decide to tackle the higher difficulties, where simple punch-spamming won't get you very far. The combo system also incentivizes you to exercise better timing and a larger variety of moves; racking up a high combo without a scratch not only feels awesome, but yields more xp. The better you perform, the sooner you get access to all those wonderful toys, and the more you use said toys, the better you perform.
As a person with slow reaction times due to mental disability i can confirm that becoming good enough at games to beat hotline miami and the cod modern warfare campaign (the recent one) on realism mode were the best things that ever happened to me
Since DMC4 there has always been auto combo. I used to use it a lot in 4 when I was 12 and my brain was the size of a peanut. I couldn't pull of combos then, so auto combos was a great way to enjoy the game. That said, it has its own drawbacks. Since you're not controlling the combo, you never know what the next move would be. Sometimes you get damage because of that.
Depends on the map, honestly. There are like, maybe 2 pretty tough ones in Asylum, specifically Rumble in the Jungle Extreme. Arkham City is only really hard in Extreme predator rooms. Origins are the easiest, by far. Knight has a couple tough ones, but they're not even required for 100% savefile completion, so I rarely bother, unless to get the achievement.
The Arkham games are (usually) pretty good at having both a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling. Sure, anyone can button-mash their way through the story, but a pro can go through the game not getting hit once, master the challenge rooms, and so on. The way you get ever-increasing combat ability in a fight by not getting hit directly rewards high-level play, while the difficulty level allows you to progress even if you're not that good.
@@trevorc4413 Good point, another thing to note is that increasing variety in combat and not getting hit rewards you with more XP, though most people don't seem to notice that, further rewarding higher level play and mastery of the game's mechanics. The Arkham games have some of my most favorite combat in any video game I've ever played, it's genuinely addicting.
At around the five minute mark, I began to feel sad because it seemed like the video was wrapping up. When saw that I was not even half-way, I actually smiled. Thank you so much for these videos
It's a very interesting distinction between earned and given power. I feel like I ultimately enjoy games with the higher skill ceilings more, but I've still put put off from some games because of an initial difficulty barrier. I guess it really just depends what you're trying to get out of it, whether you want the more casual relaxing experience or a more the more intense experience of deeply learning and mastering a game. Not really a right or wrong thing, but a preference and I know that sometimes I'll prefer one to the other depending on my mood and how busy I am.
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GMTK was always cool.
I liked this comment before it was cool
Hey mark I’m a long time fan and participate in your jams. If I’m being completely honest your videos have recently become stale. It seems there’s no real standpoint or opinion on any of these examples, just a vanilla overview of different ways games handled the subject of the video. Constructive criticism I hope, not meaning to put you down.
I was here before the thoughts of becoming cool gmtk was cool at I wish it will always be cool
Would you mind doing a video about assasins creed?
the endscreen game recommendations are a great idea,
Indeed.
Agree!
+1
The Architect of Games did it first :o
@@myka_online no one asked
I really like the idea of recommending indie games during the endscreen. Good way to hear about new games
+1
Hotline Miami is an interesting game; the immediately high difficulty is a non-issue for beginners due to how forgiving the punishment is; you die in one hit, but each death is only a few seconds lost.
And the fantasy is also delivered immediately with your first kill, first execution, first door slam, first throw.
It is very much possible to cheese the basic AI, but I would assume the music and atmosphere will drive every single player forward to better themselves and towards the state of flow.
Haven't played Hotline but Celeste does the exact same thing! It's tough but rarely frustrating (unless you're playing Chapter 9 lol, maybe not too much even then).
Hotline Miami is so good, like seriously
i recon the "arcade" feel to it helps.
The quick restart is absolutely essential to the game. It lets you keep your momentum. You just vibe to the beats and keep trying til you get it.
Your approach to accessibility is absolutely brilliant. As a disabled gamer who has been repeatedly told games “aren’t for me” whenever I speak out about easily added accessibility options and how they should be included in all games, it makes me feel so heard basically every time you put up a video. Gate keeping people like me out of gaming spaces really sucks. Thank you for continuing to cover this kind of thing in a complex and empathetic way.
What are some examples of accessibility features you would like to see added to games?
It depends on the type of game and the type of disability. However, a good place to start is button remapping and granular difficulty settings that allow the player to tune the game to their needs
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 Makes sense. Are there any places you think game developers should look at for more examples of things to add to make their games more accessible?
@@alu2901 do you mean games that serve as a good example, or are you looking for a community of developers/disabled players who can help? I can give you options for either, I’m pretty well versed in this stuff
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 I was originally looking for games that could serve as good examples, but both would be good.
The old design axiom "Easy to learn; hard to master" hasn't gotten any less wise. It's just so basic you kind of have to remind yourself about it from time to time.
I mean... if it's a game that does both? I'd say that's a masterfully made game.
I hope Spider-Man 2 brings that high skill ceiling towards nee levels for combat and traversal, even though it's easy to get into.
“A no-nonsense Yakuza”
Albeit one who enjoys a good karaoke performance.
And RC car racing.
@@yordlejay6820 and ufo catchers.
Like an idiot. ;P
Chicken manager
Dame da ne-
Not every player is purely one or the other, either. I can't even nail down my tastes. I enjoy both feelings, depending on the game.
true
Most days it's a struggle for me to pick between something like a choc chip muffin and a double choc chip muffin. Asking me to put myself into any one game play style category is an exercise in futility
If a game has a narrative focus, I'm probably in the give me the fantasy camp. ...If it isn't... Well, I'm not coming into it with the expectation I'll ever beat it, but - depending on the game - I often don't mind (I... Don't seem to get better at games with practice. Which isn't what caused me to stop playing Nethack after about 15 years of playing it on and off. I just... Grew out of that very regimented style of Roguelike, where all runs are ultimately going to feel fairly similar to each other to the point you can go in with a plan of what you're ascension kit is going to look like if you're actually good at the game, in favour of stuff like Brogue where not only can't you do that, but instead have to respond to what tools the RNG spits at you, but even if you win the run you're probably not going to have seen everything the dungeon has to offer)
That's kind of the thing though-I love rampaging through foes in something like doom 2016 but other times I just wanna see how far until I pull my hair out in dmc 5's higher difficulties. In the end I'm of a mind that if your game is there to just entertain, to pass the time, then it should be as broadly accessible but if you have a statement to make then you should not be derided for that alone.
Exactly. Clear marketing is the real answer here, not normalising every game to the same criteria.
The film industry is incredible at this. Games suck at it.
Thinking of Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, where the skill ceiling and the skill floor are the same line. The game starts as hard as it's ever going to be and then just gets easier and easier as you unlock more skills.
This was exactly the game I was gonna bring up as a mild counterpoint to first solution of "allow more skill but don't require it". While you *can* do more complicated attacks, since the game simply refuses to challenge you, I felt no motivation to actually use any of them.
Just sunk 25 hours into shadow of war (free on PS+ this month) and I swear I thought the exact same thing almost the entire way through.. I was almost like I was waiting for the difficulty and then I was done. Great game just kinda easy.
what about ghost of tsushima?
Pokémon has a really weird difficulty curve. The first gym can be hard because you only have one or two mons, then the whole game is ridiculously easy until the last half hour when enemy AI suddenly learns what "super effective" means.
@@ceruchi2084 A difficulty wiggle, as I'd say.
There was a moment in my playthrough of Doom Eternal where all the mechanics merged into one and I flawlessly cleared the room. If a camera had been recording I'm sure it would look like a ballet because at that moment everything was seamless. Stunning work from ID.
I think this is the typical case in which a one-size-fits-all solution just doesn't work.
I generally like lower-skill-level games, because I have a lot of work to do and so I don't have that much time for videogames, I want to feel powerfull without the need to spend hundreds of hours optimizing my gameplay.
Yet one of the best moments in my gaming experience was killing the Radiance in Hollow Knight. That was a feat I thought I did NOT have the skill to do, yet with time, mastery and a little bit of grinding (that Pure Nail is so valuable when every hit counts) I managed to get there and GOD if it felt good. It felt AMAZING.
So, yeah, let game devs craft the experience they want the player to have. It's good to have options, but I also trust them to make the choices that keep the game interesting.
He doesn't seem to get the concept of demographics. You can't make a game that appeals to everyone without sacrafices in other parts. Sure, in bayonetta, the game can appeal to a large demographic of both skilled and new players, but sacrafices need to be made for this to happen. Alot of new players will just mash buttons or rely on one combo while skilled players don't feel like their efforts are rewarded all because a simple trophy system isn't a big enough motivator. And if you try to change the trophy system, you inevitably make the experience worse for one of the demograhics. Like you said, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
@@manspaghetti6351 I think this was more an excersize in getting people to consider how to avoid sometimes unnecessary blocking of enjoyment for a wider range of people with some considerations, but it is important to acknowledge no every game is meant to for everyone to play like how not every movie or tv show us meant for everyone to enjoy. There's only so much you can compromise on before you compromise on what makes a property what it is.
I agree. And also where does it put a game like Resident Evil 4?
One of the best parts of that game was how it teetered between action and horror, and it was amazing going through the game being scared and confused with the controls before figuring it out and becoming a badass later on... only for the game to pull the rug out from under you and having to learn new ways to overcome challenges you didn't prepare for.
I will say though on your point. You didn't have to beat the radiance for one. There are more endings than just that and an easier one to achieve that you have to achieve just to fight radiance. So you were given the choice to earn your spot of that feeling of mastery. As well the game gives you upgrades to help you if you need. For example you brought up the pure nail which you used to beat radiance. You took the time to get the pure nail and thus lowered the skill floor to kill the radiance. And it doesn't just stop at nails as you know like with getting mask shards or charm notches to power yourself up for before whatever fight you have in front of you.
@@manspaghetti6351 And yet I’d argue that the fact that Bayonetta is such a beloved series does show that there is some merit to making “one size fits most” games.
Edit: Emphasis on “Most”, as there truly is no one size fit all game. As you pointed out, Trophies are not motivation enough for some skilled players, and I know for a fact that some casuals get pissed off being denied these Trophies regardless of how effortlessly they dispatched the Angel legions.
This might have already been pointed out, but the thing with Doom Eternal was that id wasn't only making it more demanding for the sake of making the player earn success, they felt a lot of players were finding their way through Doom 2016 without using and thus without enjoying a lot of the game's options and systems. This is a struggle for a lot of developers, how do you guide the player into learning and taking advantage of more and more complex systems, getting more out of the game, so they don't just fall back on the cheapest and easiest tactics (which XCOM devs for instance struggled with). Eternal's solution was essentially forcing the player into learning all the options. For me it worked well, I had a great time, but for some other players it was too demanding or just not enjoyable.
worked for me as well, i finished doom 2016 a couple of times before i could realize that weapon quick swaps were possible on pc. Such a shame i missed the most fun aspect of modern doom while playing 2016. I can go back to it sure , but its not the same. I think they did a great job with eternal , which would in a way allow people to properly experience both games for a long time
@jocaguz18 Speak for yourself, getting in the Rhythm of a good cycling is an incredibly satisfying experience, and DOOM 2016 is what taught me it was even a thing.
I really loved doom 2016, it seemed they ignored everything that made it good with eternal
@jocaguz18 if you don't hot cycle in doom 2016 then you don't really have an idea of what the power fantasy is really like. Some of the most powerful attacks in the game rely on it
You forget how good you felt when you discovered weapon swapping. It wouldn't have felt the same if you were forced to weapon swap off the rip imo. And when you played eternal you'd carry the skills learned forward. Hopefully accidentally throwing a grenade into a cacos mouth and finding a weakness! I enjoy games that allow you to figure out cool things you can do by yourself. I really liked the whole 'dont give a fuck' attitude of 2016. Eternal kind of lost the rockstar 'couldnt give a fuck' attitude for the weird kid who wants you to play the fighting game right.
You brought up Hades and the ways the game becomes easier as you unlock more stuff, but more interesting to me are the ways in which the game becomes more challenging as you unlock more stuff, namely via the Pacts of Punishment. The Pacts + bounty system subtly encourage you to make the game more difficult over time (in wonderfully customizable ways), and Skelly's heat challenges outright taunt you to do so: "You beat the game on 3 heat? Try it on 8! You beat it on 8? Try it on ..." etc.
The heat system is awesome! It’s not just a difficulty curve, there are so many options when adding heat and the game doesn’t only encourage you to increase the heat but also to try out the different effects. It’s a super fun system
It seems like most reviewers that have played Hades really just brush over the Heat system in Hades, either due to rushing out reviews or just not playing around with it too much. The game changes so much from jumping around from low heat to higher heat and isnt something you can just over level your progression system over. Plus, Extreme Measures 4 is soooooooo good, but many people seem to never try it out.
also you can turn on god mode to make it eaiser
Supergiant has used a similar system in their previous games that I think works really well. You unlock modifiers that you can add that make the game more difficult, but slightly increases rewards. The rewards are just enough to encourage skill players to push it as high as they can, but not enough to put players that ignore the system at a disadvantage. I think it's a really good system that lets players tune the challenge in ways that most suit them, but without forcing them to commit to a difficulty option at the start of the game.
@@EpicAccount I agree. I personally like to go for a "vanilla" run the first time around to get used to the game, working my way up to turning all the difficulty options during my final run. Beating all of Bastion's levels this way was very satisfying, but if the options were turned on by default I may have lacked the motivation to ever complete them in the first place.
What I find great about Hades is that it also prepares you for failure. Everyone tells you that climbing out of hell is an impossible task, so you don't feel bad when you fail. And it makes finally reaching that point so much more rewarding. It's the first rogue-like that actually incorporates failure so well into the whole game
There's another like that: Wizard of Legend.
The basic premise is of a challenge called the Chaos Trials that are used by wizards of the world as a combination of fair/spectator sport/wizarding Masters Exam/Kobayashi Maru-esque unassailable wall of difficulty that is measured by how many attempts/how far you get.
Makes the Endgame twist all the sweeter.
It's the game that finally introduced me to real-time combat instead of turn based. I never got far in such games because I sucked so very bad I died constantly, and after dying 20 times to an overall easy boss or level that kept me from progressing I'd rage quit every time. But with Hades dying just meant I got to talk to the characters and get more lore, which meant my frustration was very low. And I got better and better eventually, and now some of that skill can be brought to other games I play. I still suck but it did help
On similar notes, Celeste's difficulty is the plot!
Such an interesting, well thought out video. Thank you again Mark for the inspiration. Have been subbed for 3 years now, massive congrats to you, so close to the big 1M :)!!
Let's see how many I have been subscribed
@Drachma86 best community ever
The opposit is also an interesting question: Who gets to feel fearful in a horror game? Some people just need a spooky atmosphere to be creept out, like in gone home. Others need dangers which need to be overcome, like resident evil. But if a game has dangers, how dangerous should they be? Too weak, and they are no longer scary. Too strong and a player is forced to repeat the same part over and over again until the danger is no longer scary, just annoying.
A difficult question, to which I have no anwser.
This is a good question and brings up design of those games. It reminds me when I played Outlast 2, I absolutely hated it, wasn't scary at all despite the developers trying to outdo themselves from Outlast 1, it hit the issue of dying over and over so much it became ineffective, with the player thinking less about the horror they're presented and more about adjusting routes based on trial and error to get past a sequence(uninspired designs didn't help either). Frankly the games that set the tone of fear the best for me was Amnesia, FEAR, Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners Of The Earth, Fatal Frame II and recently Lost in Vivo.
Yeah, this is a really hard balance. Some games also tend to nail the atmosphere at first, but then after dying a few times and actually learn the mechanics, you realize that the actual gameplay is crap. Slender comes to mind, as a game it's a total shitshow, and it ultimately takes you out of the immersion. On the other hand, Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning, which is almost like a parody of Slender, has much better gameplay. It's not scary when it comes to the visuals, but the gameplay is pretty hard and engaging so that when you get near the end, you are actually terrified of the joke-y characters and jumpscares when they appear close to you.
Gone home is considered horror ? you sir made my day
I dont think its an opposite but more like a different question. Plus i think your question has to do with personal preference rather than logistics
Beacuse after reading your statement it seems like its an issuse if how to execute something and not why. Also its called a horror game for a reason. Its suposed to be scary. The jumpscares and atmosphere barely affect actual gameplay
@@MSDarkspyro What the hell are you talking about? Gameplay is an inherent part of what makes a horror game scary. If Resident Evil made you invincible and allowed you to freely walk around and look at the atmosphere, then it would stop being scary for a large portion of the audience.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making a game give a power fantasy for free, or having the player earn it. I’ve certainly enjoyed games in both sides. I think options are great, but really it just comes down to personal preference, or even your mood. Sometimes, I wanna test my skills to the limit in hollow knight, and other times I just wanna feel like an absolute badass is something like batman Arkham.
@P I think god of war did a really bad job on balancing it, I usually enjoy all my games in the highest difficult that is available, but gow in highest difficult is annoying, not hard but annoying, it feels like the game mechanics are not made for the game to be played in the hardest level. but I think it's nice it works great when going to the easy levels :)
I think the point is devs should try to put in effort to make a game both ways, like bayonetta, where it's accessible, yet deep and challenging for less casual players.
@@louiscorbett3278 I agree and disagree...
I understand and tend to agree, but I always remember Celeste, one of the best games I ever played, challenging as hell but with an assist mode so non gamers can enjoy Madeline history which is suuuuper nice, it feels so good that I can recommend such a great game to non hardcore players so we can talk about the narrative and the problems the game bring to light. I really like when they do it right.
Some easy modes really strip the heart and soul out of a game, making the gameplay boring and repetitive, turning it into a grind. Probably the worst example I've felt was Guitar Hero on easy, pushing 3 buttons that are barely in tempo to the music is extremely unsatisfying, it's so braindead you genuinely feel like you're playing a kids toy which looses the fantasy super fast. Challenging can be very entertaining, surprising and give motivation to keep playing to get better or engage in systems like upgrades to make the game potentially easier.
this is why his suggestion for batman is to give the player a way to master or reward the mastery?
and to give an entery point (using one of the solutions suggested) to something like doom and let even the casuals to play it
Another approach to this issue, somewhat related to the "prime for failure" point, is to make failure relatively quick and painless. This is part of what I feel makes SuperHOT work so well for a power fantasy sorta game. Celeste and Super Meat Boy are also similar in this way
And old stalwarts Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy
Painless failure done wrong: Bioshock.
@@CigaretteCrayon yeah agreed. I never understood what the design choice was behind them.
I probably would have turned them off, even if I wasn’t going for a platinum in one go.
Especially in late Superhot, on the original, you can literally deflect bullets, swap bodies with enemies, slow time. Having 1 HP isn't priming for failure, it's a balancing mechanism
With every point you mentioned, I expected Hades to be the example for it. The game is just so accessible for casual players while at the same time having a very high skill ceiling. It gives Options like Hell mode and God mode. It rewards mastery and layers on complexity in such a way I haven't seen in other roguelikes. It primes for failure because you're supposed to fail, and each run is actually canon! And finally you mentioned providing multiple routes for success. Hades has grown a lot since its beta and I'm glad people are picking up on how great the game is.
The one counterpoint I'd put to this is that games don't need to be for everyone. Specifically, the broader you try and cast your net for an audience, the more work and effort is going to have to go into developing the necessary content to do so, not to mention the fact that pumping your game full of accessibility options may make it bloated, with the 'intended experience' unclear.
It seems like the better games are quite often the ones that are transparent with the intended level of skill they desire the player to have (especially relative to their budget), not the ones that cast that net as broadly as possible.
I wanted to put this out there because while it's always good to identify avenues through which you can improve your game (and many aspiring game designers like myself watch this channel) designers should also be conscious of the scope and budget of their projects, and sometimes making a shallow but punchy or deep but inaccessible title is a compromise that allows for impactful design decisions to take centre stage, whereas aiming for a gold standard of trying to make a game everyone can enjoy will result in other compromises that make the experience diluted and unrewarding.
I definitely agree. Making your game “for everyone” is only really necessary if you want the game to be widely sold and played and appeal to a huge audience (ie large video game companies or titles). And even then, I would still recommend keeping in mind a target demographic for your game, while thinking about ways to make it appeal to those outside the demographic.
Although I will say that this was still a pretty good video, because it talked about why we would make those decisions. When he does that it allows us to determine whether taking that advice is a good idea or not based on what we want to accomplish. Personally I think the three main questions of any video game decision are what, why, and how. What do we want to do (in this case what skill levels do we want the players to have)? Why do we want to do it (in this case do we want to appeal to a large audience or make it for specific types of players)? And How do our methods accomplish that (in this case a low skill floor and high skill ceiling would make most players feel satisfied no matter what skill level they get to)?
he's actually done videos on this before period games should be made for a specific audience, but they should also be made to be accessible to as many people as possible. You can still make games that don't reach everyone but could be played and enjoyed by everyone. After a certain amount of work it comes down to taste more than it does accessibility.
I think I'd argue that as many games as possible might want to consider at least AN accessibility option of some sort, even if they cannot reach a gold standard; that said, there is certainly room to understand why that doesn't happen, especially for indie creators. But, I think when we want to try and limit a game's reach to those with certain disabilities, in order to conserve money and resources, we risk saying that we're willing to give non-disabled individuals a better experience an the expense of disabled gamers. And thats just unfortunate. Ultimately, we are lucky to have games and have creators producing games, and its up to them to decide how they want to structure their games and who to market to, but I think leaving some people certain social groups behind in this way is a distressing notion, especially if we can make accessibility options easier and less complicated, time-consuming, and expensive to implement. We'll never have "games for everyone", but we can give a wide variety of people as many experiences with game worlds as we can!
@@OhNoBohNo Can people stop mixing accessibility options with making the game more appealing for everyone?.
The former is fine and should be encouraged.The latter can be detrimental to the games by watering it down
What I took away from the video's closing point is not that every game should be for everyone. Rather, developers should strive to to be as flexible in their design goals as possible without compromising the integrity of the experience they want to provide. Sometimes, that flexibility results in highly detailed difficulty modifiers and options. Sometimes, the best one can do (whether due to budget or time constraints, or simply so as not to destroy the game in the process), is putting in simple difficult options or "mercy mechanics" for repeatedly failing levels or challenges.
I think he probably could have communicated that a bit better. But that's how I read it, at least.
How are these video essays just so beautiful? Honestly I don't even play a ton of games, and certainly don't design them. But I could just watch these as an example of fantastic communication through well organized scripts and seamless visual aids. The production quality of these is off the charts.
I've seen a lot of people online call that Spider-Man game "too easy" or "for casuals", and yet I personally know so many people who gave up on the game for being too hard for them. I played through it on the hardest difficulty and thought it was a decent challenge. Certainly not the hardest game I've ever played, but also definitely not the easiest.
I remember it not being particularly difficult, but I wouldn't call it "too easy". Now Jedi Fallen Order, that shit was wack. Even on the "medium" difficulty, it's already got a steep learning curve. And then you get to the stupid owl thing that's so frustratingly tough that I had an easier time with the end boss. I actually dropped down to the easiest difficulty just to get past that stupid bird. I didn't do that for any other boss.
If anybody gave up on Spider-Man for being too hard either has a disability or a old man reactions
I'd also make the point that these are relative values - because it's still possible to feel bad in an Arkham game, if you get punched, or get spotted. The games also ramp up in difficulty, and the more impressive feats do require more skill. The issue is the baseline - in Skyrim, you would easily be dispatched by a group of armed enemies if you weren't careful. In Arkham, you can beat up a small group of standard goons with ease. The challenge in Arkham comes from being better than that - from adapting to new situations, new types of enemies, more enemies, enemies with guns. It becomes harder and harder to deal with the challenges of the game, and you feel cool only if you can rise to meet these challenges.
Guns are a good example, actually - two core aspects of Batman's characterisation are that he can handily dismantle a room full of baddies, but he's very much not bulletproof. This leads to an interesting situation where in combat with most goons, you feel in control (within reason) - but when guns become involved later in the game, especially where you are attempting to infiltrate a confined space filled with armed thugs, you are at a disadvantage. You _feel_ it - the game _makes_ you feel it. It makes guns punishing because that is a key aspect of the fantasy of Batman. However, it also gives you a chance to earn another aspect of the fantasy - that Batman is good enough not to get shot, despite his humanity. And when you are able to pull this off, it feels incredible.
I think part of the reason that they designed the game in this way - with generally quite hard borders between combat and predator situations - is a difference of time. In combat, the player has to react quickly. It's essential to the flow of the thing, so they can't be made to deal with many complex factors to mimic real combat. Instead, combat is abstracted into a few key mechanics, to maintain the feel. However, in predator sections, the player has the breathing space to assess the situation and take their time - so the designers built the mechanics of these sections thusly, forcing the player to be smart about the way they approach the situation, and thereby allowing them to _feel_ smart if they succeed, thereby earning, as you say, the fantasy.
Mastering DOOM Eternal is honestly the most satisfying gaming experience I’ve ever had. That’s my honest opinion.
I agree with your conclusion, and I think that avoiding gatekeeping is even more important for games where a power fantasy is not the main point. Some games have strong narrative, thematic and aesthetic elements that people might want to experience, but if that game decides to stick to action tropes they’ll be frustrating for players who can’t, don’t want to, or don’t have the time to “git gud”. For example, in many ways Control was extremely appealing to me, but I got so frustrated struggling through certain levels, especially unavoidable boss fights, that I nearly gave up several times, and it detracted from engaging with its thematic richness. It also had inventive combat gameplay, so it would be a shame to lose that entirely, but perhaps proving more options for progress (e.g. non-combat stealth or puzzle-based strategies) would enable people who dislike combat-focused games to get more out of the story and atmosphere.
I think another important question to ask is: "Is the fantasy about BEING a badass, or BECOMING a badass?" Spider-man and the Arkham games (mostly) are about BEING Spider-man and Batman, so just giving the fantasy rather than locking it behind a skill gate works (as an aside, Arkham Origins is about becoming Batman proper so just giving the fantasy doesn't really work). This is also why Doom Eternal functions as a good example as the opposite: you're already supposed to be the ultimate demon slayer, not just becoming the ultimate demon slayer, so these skill mastery gates feel even more frustrating.
When you talked about making failure expected through story and marketing, I was surprised you didn't mention the Souls games since that's their whole shtick (also they are about BECOMING the "savior" of the land rather than already being the savior so skill mastery as a requirement works)
Doom Slayer may be a badass from beginn with but at the same time the game sets the stakes extremely high you fight under tremendous odds, which is why the game throws hordes of enemies at you I don't think it destroys the power fantasy, since you already are put in ridicilous one sided situation where any human beeing already would have died.
Doom Slayer may be a badass from beginn with but at the same time the game sets the stakes extremely high you fight under tremendous odds, which is why the game throws hordes of enemies at you I don't think it destroys the power fantasy, since you already are put in ridicilous one sided situation where any human beeing already would have died.
@@Ageleszly Exactly. You are still insanely powerful. But you feel even more powerful because there's an actual challenge to over come. If there wasn't, how are you supposed to feel powerful? Are there seriously people who can feel powerful against something that was beginning to end a pushover? I don't get that.
I do agree with you, though I also think that doom eternal introducing the mechanics a bit more slowly instead of all upfront would be a bit better intro
I wouldn't say Arkham Origins is about "becoming Batman", by that point in the game he's 2 years deep into being Batman, criminals are already terrified of him, and he's already humilliated the police at several points. The Origins part is more about the beginning of his relationship with the Joker and other allies he'll have throughout the rest of the games.
There's a DLC pack that is indeed about becoming Batman though, "Iniatiation", where he trains in a dojo of ninjas. That one was indeed extremely challenging, they handicapped a lot of skills for each section.
This video was interesting for me the moment I realised the basic topic, about a dynamic I have seen discussed increasingly often as of late. I was expecting just a breakdown of the two styles and their strengths/weaknesses, so seeing you upend the premise halfway through with the thesis that games can both give *and* require the earning of awesomeness was a nice suprise!
And I don't know if you intended this or not, but the final shot of that one spiderman slow-mo was a great demonstration of this - throughout the video, that slow-mo has always been covered in the blue tint of the 'give the awesome' side of things, as opposed to the red 'earn the awesome' tint. But right at the end, with the final use of that Spider-man slow mo, you take the blue tint away toreveal the true colours of the image - that is to say, Red and Blue, both in harmony with each other. I'm sure that was at least partially intended because it feels too perfect to not be, but in any case, very good work with this video! ^w^
Wait a minute? How? Video was uploaded 45 minutes ago? How??
That red/blue tint was totally intentional, Mark puts a lot of thought into the small details like that. I don't notice the visuals as much myself, but the auditory details are spectacular. In the video, "Why Does celeste Feel So Good to Play?" when he was listing what makes the movement so fun, with each point there was a ding that went up in pitch.
@@jasonalv7436 Check out GMTK's Patreon, $5/month members get early access.
IMO one issue with "low skill floor, high skill ceiling" is that many players will play in a more boring way even if they have the ability to pull off more skillful plays, simply because they don't *need* to
Yeah, it demands scaled rewards. You'd have to let the player feel good enough about playing at a low level, but also let them know that if they do better, they can get even more rewards/xp/whatever.
This is exactly the issue I have with Bayonetta and DMC.
I mashed through Arkham Asylum and the challenge modes were like they wanted me to learn a whole new game. If you can go a whole playthrough without asking me to engage with the mechanics, I'm just going to assume those mechanics aren't worthwhile.
This is the prime issue with DMC. You can cheese the game and get an S at the end of mission even with low skills. Essentially, it doesn't really reward highly skilled players for doing exceptional combos or defeating enemies more stylishly than others.
@@Dee-Mellow I'm a long time DMC fan but fact remains that if someone like Donguri finishes a level with S rank, he'll get the same pay off as me who finishes a level with S rank albeit with damage and flawed combos. The game simply doesn't reward players who have high skills when it comes to chaining combos. Even completing the game on Hell and Hell doesn't guarantee you're great at combos or even the game. It just means you're extra careful.
Awesome video Mark. Personally, I always loved that in Super Mario 64 Toad tells you that the power of the stars made you more powerful but in reality is that you've become a better player and have mastered the controls and different moves.
Accessibility options can change a lot more than some might think. I'm playing Ghosts of Tsushima, and I was finding dodging the unblockable attacks pretty hard. Looking at the accessibility options, there's one to make the "shine" warning you of unblockables larger. I thought "Man, how would that help?" But turning it on made it sooo much more consistent.
The funny thing about the theme park analogy at 4:30 is the fact that theme parks are one of the least accessible forms of entertainment imaginable. If you're prone to motion sickness, afraid of heights, too short, too tall, too heavy, pregnant, or suffer from a heart condition, you have to sit and wait while your friends have fun. And yet it'd still be an incredible shame to limit the variety of rides in theme parks because you want every ride to be accessible to every guest.
That said I do want to commend the point about difficult options at 5:52. I've been saying for ages that an easy mode isn't a real accessibility option.
Not to mention that if the entry fee is too steep for you, that's not really ever going to change. Games eventually drop in price or go on sale (except maybe Nintendo games). Theme parks only get _more_ expensive over time.
Good points, but don't underestimate the amount of people who are happy to enjoy the shows, parades, fireworks, the general atmosphere, or to spend the day with their kids or grandkids.
@@ldsviking That's kinda my point though, theme parks have something for everyone precisely because not everything is for everyone.
A few weeks ago I started playing Hollow Knight, and it was first game I played on my computer ever ever ever. I struggled A LOT, I died in spikes, and I even had a nightmare about deepnest.
And now I'm here, beating path of pain. I am proud of myself, and I love Hollow knight for letting beginners still have fun and somehow develop enough skill to get through hardest parts of the game and look back and be impressed and proud of themselves :3
(I'm sorry if there are spelling mistakes in this comment (I'm sure, there are quite a lot of them). English is not my native language.)
actually, the only spelling error I found looks like a typo.
I'm proud of you man!
Don't worry, we ALL had nightmares of Deepnest.
Spiders spiders everywhere
The only problem I have with Hollow Knight is the backtracking.
The game is seriously like 80% backtracking.
@@utisti4976 that just sounds like metroidvania with extra steps
This is a topic that always interested me. Glad you made a video on it!
Hey, I love your videos @Platformer Game Design!
Oh wow thank you! I just started making them and so far it’s be fun.
I would argue that there is a 5th way to give players the powerfantasy without requiring much skill, character progression. You touched a bit dismissivly upon it as "time and effort", but i would prefer to call it "progression".
What i mean is ingame powerups for the character, not necessarily new moves like in roguelikes, but rather armor, weapon and resource upgrades.
Think of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the powerfantasy here is becoming Link the saviour of Highrule. You start as exactly that, though without any gear or skills yet, but a skilled enough player can even take this initial Link and go and defeat Ganon.
The difference is that a novice player can instead choose to progress in the game, go from using branch weapons and taking half their health as damage from a wooden club, to being able to oneshot creatures and only take miniscule amounts of damage from enemies by having stronger armor and weapons.
By progressing in the game the powerfantasy is unlocked naturally for the player, and the engagement is kept while the players skill also improves. I would argue that this is the one of the best way to handle this problem, in singleplayer games, instead of having menu options to toggle on and off.
The game naturally lowers the skill floor until the player is comfortable enough to handle the game, while keeping the skill ceiling high by allowing for skilled players to see how little gear and health they need to beat the game. It could even be combined with Bayonetta style combos to allow for more skilled play to be more rewarding.
This building of the characters powerlevel is the central powerfantasy of many RPGs, but i think Zelda: BoW is the best example as the end boss is not locked away behind quest progression, allowing players to test the true extent of their skill when they have not progressed in the game at all.
_Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair_ does a similar thing. You start the game on its final level, the Impossible Lair, which you're not at all intended to beat on your first attempt. Once you've failed, the rest of the game opens up to you. Each level you complete gives you a bee shield you can take into the Impossible Lair and allows you to take an extra hit of damage. The more levels you complete, the more shields you get and the easier that final level becomes.
Highrule 😁
@@-Mike- Lowobey
This is a really important point! When I was playing Hollow Knight, the most important lesson I learned was when to run away - because most of the bosses have a scalable difficulty which allows you to lower the skill floor until you feel capable of winning. I went into the final boss (the Hollow Knight) at 73% game completion and probably tried twenty times before I beat them. Then, at 101% completion, I tried again - and suddenly I could beat them on every single attempt. Although the DLC expects you to be maxed out on upgrades and adds skill walls that require dedicated practice and mastery to overcome, the main game has a very generous learning curve that rewards skill and talent as much as effort and persistence, and as much as exploration and decision-making.
Idle clickers. They make you feel like you are getting better with fake progression. Nobody is blocked from anything and if you seem to be playing less, cos you feel blocked, they often adapt to keep you engage. They hack your brain. They are hollow empty experiences that allow unscrupulous developers and publishers to manipulate you into spending money.
That's what he's advocating for really. Wether he realises it or not.
"Reward Mastery" is also something that the Arkham games do, but it's more in the Kirby vein. You don't *need* to utilise all of your gadgets and techniques in to a combo in order to defeat some goons, but doing so and timing all of your attacks properly without ever dropping your combo can be one of the most satisfying experiences in the game.
Most people don't realize that the challenge isn't to defeat the enemies, but to keep the combo going on. The combat in arkham games, except for the first, are more related to a rhythm game than a senseless button smasher. Unfortunately, the story mode never requires this and very few players give a try to combat challenges.
Exactly! I was looking for this comment. Also, the same can be applied to the stealth sections: it's easy to complete them using always the same moves, but a truly rewarding experience comes from the variety of takedowns and the creativity in play.
Indeed! It can be fun and rewarding and look even MORE BADASS as the extra combo and flow animations get insanely cool further into perfect combat! Love those games!
@@MuriloRiFO i think a good way to fix this would be to have a sort of reputation system where the better you do in fights the more criminals will be afraid of you. or alternatively have an optional expert difficulty where batman's combo meter also doubles as a health bar.
It's honestly an unwinnable situation for a developer. You have a video about how players optimized the fun out of X-COM so in X-COM 2 the devs added mission parameters that forced players to play more aggressively and not cheese overwatch and players got mad. even your example about Forza 4 withholding XP as a way to entice players to get better would probably piss some players off.
They completely killed off a playstyle and forced players to play aggressive that by design results in constant failing just to learn map and enemy layouts. Forcing players to go fast or go home is an awful way to force players to play your game.
Maybe becaue it was a 'hard' enforcement as opposed to 'soft' enforcement such as suddenly ramping difficulty up into impossible through massive reinforcements
I enjoy two things about Forza's difficulty/reward balance. First is the fact that there isn't an inherent ranking in those rewards. You can get more experience by turning up the difficulty, but the comparison is only seen on the settings screen. When you finish a race, the game simply says "you get this bonus from your difficulty." Compare this to the rewards system for games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry where your performance is ranked from S to F. Players who aren't as good or aren't capable of getting S rank are told, albeit subtly, that they aren't good enough, even though they still accomplished the task successfully.
Secondly the difficulty bonus in forza is just that, a bonus. You get a flat reward based on your position in a race and then a bonus from your difficulty settings. Players with lower difficulty won't suffer because of their decision to play the game in a way that they enjoy.
The forza games balance this well. Don't worry. You are always showered with XP. But it's always enticing to get a little more a little faster.
It's about how it's couched. The games make it look like "bonus" money, and the game is still balanced around if you play on the easiest settings. You won't run into any roadblocks (lol) and never start feeling like the game is requiring you to bump up difficulty.
Kingdom hearts 2 does the whole low skill floor high skill ceiling thing excellently. A lot of people get through that game just by mashing the X button but theres a lot of depth to the combat in that game as the many speedruns of it show.
I want to throw a bone to Kingdom Hearts, with its Tech Exp system. It rewarded you with a few extra experience points by utilising enemy weaknesses, parrying, or blocking.
I can’t believe no other game brought that simple thing back, not even KH3
^ point
Oh yeah, that was a neat system.
I think there's one more core point: Guiding the player to BECOME skilled.
I emphasize this because most tutorials teach you how to USE the mechanics, but rarely how to use them WELL. Guides are much like intuitive controls in that they communicate to the player what feedback or style of playing they are looking for in order to succeed, and there are several levels between "complete casual" and "hardcore veteran" where we lack anything besides gradually increasing difficulty and the assumption that the player will figure it out.
In this manner, a couple of accessibility options stand out as being incredibly helpful for the process.
-Rewind, which can most easily be seen in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together let you review just how far back your tactical mistakes were, and consider alternate paths without needing to reset the entire board.
-Gamespeed modifiers like in Celeste let players pull off amazing feats of platforming at a speed their minds can keep up with. This by itself can feel like Earning the Fantasy, but it is also validation that the player HAS improved, and they only need to input the commands faster.
-Let's not forget input history for Fighting Games either. Those are important enough to be seen in most modern games, and it's certainly been an improvement. Not that it was enough for me to get into them....
I love it when a community provides the materials and support needed to climb from skill floor to skill ceiling, but there's plenty more to do within the games themselves.
After the first 2 categories I thought "true, but Ori does both", but before commenting I watched the whole video because I was 99% sure you'll address it. Awesome work, Mark.
I love how Doom Eternal pushes players towards the “fun zone”, without ever explicitly saying that you should play in that way. Limited ammunition and specific demon weaknesses both force the player to constantly switch between the various weapons in a chaotic dance battle.
"Chaotic dance battle" i really like that phrase
Doom eternal is a weird change in gear for me. Doom 2016 incentivized me playing as aggressive as possible, incentivizing a blood rage that only ever faded with the music. Doom Eternal is a much more challenging and tight game, but it's the DMC to 2016's God of War, if that makes sense. And that's neither here nor there, it's about tastes. But I do thing they could at least let you trudge on with the bloodlust approach and they do for most of the game but then they introduce the marauder around whom you HAVE to play skilfully or you don't progress. They're a dead block in the path of a rampaging player, forcing them to switch gears so hard they get hit with whiplash and...well...look at all the hate they get still. I also personally dislike them for bringing forward the cockgobblers who are so smarmy about knowing how to deal with them like you dont get (improperly) tutorialized before the fight. And it could be solved by either making their shield a reduction instead of a complete block or maybe make them vulnerable to superweapons once alone on medium and lower. But then again, a designer has the right to demand a player play their game the intended way so that's neither here nor there.
@@chukyuniqul When you shoot BFG behind marauder he always looks at the BFG projectile until it goes away to shield himself from it. While he does that you can shoot his back with whatever you want. Also I disagree with many things you said :)
I wish I had found demon weaknesses by myself on my first playthrough. Probably on medium cause hard would feel impossible. If they wanted to make you earn strength. They shouldn't have outright shown demon weaknesses.
@@Crowbar I can beat them fine enough, I just don't find it fun.
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion though /s
11:11 Woah. I haven't seen such old overwatch footage in a while. This dates back to between November 2016 and March 2017. Man the nostalgia. Those really were simpler times lol.
I still think that there do need to exist some games that know their target and embrace it. While all you said is true and you give many great examples and options, I just think that there's this fundamental idea behind the discussion that a game should always be for everyone, which to me is wrong. I never liked soulslike games, I tried many of them and I still can't stand that type of gameplay, however I never complained about it, never asked for them to be more rewarding to me as a player. On the other hand, I always play FPS at high difficulty and Doom Eternal proved to be one of the greatest and most satisfying experiences from a shooter throughout this decade. What was really good was that I could feel that the game was made for a player like me, I struggled but never felt discouraged from it and eventually I got into the flow and it all clicked. This moment, when a game clicks, is what I play for, however I'm well aware that not all games click for me, as for every other player in the planet. Knowing that, I'm happy to understand that, as there are games (such as Doom Eternal) that seem they were made for me, there are also many games that I don't fully understand but other people get to play and enjoy to their fullest.
Sure, there are games with low skill floor and high skill ceiling, take any Mario title: anyone, even a kid can complete the main adventure, whereas not everybody will do all the secret levels.
To sum it all up: while I do appreciate when games can be accessible but rewarding for those who want to master them, I still believe that there have to be even some titles meant for a specific crowd; we can't just pretend that everything should be made for us, we can't understand everything after all. We're 7 billions, with different points of view, I don't think that we should cry if a game isn't made for us, there are many others way more suited to our tastes.
Yeah, it's important to realize there isn't a problem with the game, it's just not your thing. Then move onto something that is. There are so many games nowadays, you'll never play them all anyway.
I feel the exact same way and even with the comparison with a theme park, I know people that pays to go for a theme park knowing there are some attractions that they can't or won't try.
It's the same thing with everything, should horror games be made accessible for everyone, even for people that really can't handle horror ? The same question can be asked for every genre of games and I sincerely don't think every game should be for everyone, it's great that some games can cater to a wider audience and the discussion raised by GMTK is very insteresting and shouldn't be put aside but I feel like the conclusion kind of goes toward saying every game should strive to be accessible for everyone...
I totally agree with your point, but please, use paragraphs next time.
@Medeiros There is a very real phenomenon of conflating 'This isn't for me' to 'This is bad' i was guilty of this for a long time with FPS games, I only really knew about the dudebro, child on the mic swearing, same game rehashed every year, no to mention how people like that bad mouthed other genres which didn't help my bias, but in recent years I've realized the MASSIVE world of FPS and how amazing and immersive they can be outside of the Call of Field or Battlewars.
Granted, I'm still not really interested in playing them at all, but I appreciate the genre and how its meant for a certain player with its own ticks and flavors. It's just the sort of thing I'M into and that's fine so long as its a competent product.
I agree with this comment and pretty much every reply thus far. Good job everyone. XD
I remember the first time I played the original Assassin's Creed, I was struck by how easy it is. The parkour mostly handles itself, hiding spots are plentiful, and combat is usually extremely straightforward, even if you're hilariously outnumbered. Part of that is the power fantasy, of course, since Altair is supposed to be extremely skillful. But I quickly realized that it also reflected a different design philosophy.
In most games, the question is WHETHER you can complete an objective. But in games like Assassin's Creed, the question is HOW you want to complete it. You have lots of tools and options, none of which are outside of your ability. So while you could complete the game simply by sprinting at every problem and hacking at it with your sword, you can also challenge yourself by trying to remain hidden for as long as possible, or by only using the hidden blade, or by picking off every guard one by one until the target is the only one left. There are usually multiple routes through critical areas, and various ways to influence a final encounter. For me, the fun arose when I started using Altair's abilities like toys in a sandbox, and setting challenges for myself. Critically, the game does not punish or reward you for taking different approaches, nor even make you aware that you could or should try something different. It just gives you the tools, and lets you go wild.
For example, while it seems at first that the hidden blade can only be used outside of combat, through experimentation, you might find that in fact, you can use the hidden blade to counter attacks for an instant kill if you have extremely precise timing (later games would make this easier). So you could set yourself the challenge to complete a combat encounter using only the hidden blade. Or try to chain together the game's finnicky combo system. Or try and sneak up on Sibrand by crossing the boats, which comes with a higher risk of falling into the water but allows you to get much closer to him.
This is a good way to reintroduce fun and challenging gameplay into games with powerful protagonists. If you start out with lots of tools, then the player can choose to use those tools in unique ways to create interesting and challenging scenarios for themselves.
I actually think Spider Man did a great job at rewarding mastery while remaining accessible. It has the accessibility of the Arkham combat system, but the combat can get far more interesting and challenging as you get further and further into the game. I found myself trying to do certain things (like web people to walls or throw them into each other) as I got better, basically achieving the playful version of Spider Man that's portrayed in the character.
This is bassically what Spider-Man's combat system is all about... making you become an acrobatic improviser! It's a *Sand-Box'ish* combat system that has a lot of variety in how you approach enemies acrobatically as The Spider-Man.
You pretty much learn to mix and match while you jump around like a beach ball! My only problem with the combat system is that there's not enough mechanics for the system to be far more interesting than it is right now.
But i believe that'll be fixed GREATLY in Spider-Man 2! Now we're able to have quick fire gadgets again, have a parry mechanic, a customizable veriety of super attacks that fits a person's playstyle, dodge under enemies in the air, smash enemies down with a powerful attack that'll bounce them back up from concrete, manipulate our "Web-Pull" as we *Push* and *Pull* enemies towards walls (enemies, and other structures), and having a beatdown mechanic made possible by mashing square repeatedly while you are close to a "Wall-Like" structure (hope that works in the air, too).
Those are really good things to see, but there are other stuff that still brings a big amount of potential, too! Besides what they've done for R1 and L1, they still have R2 and L2 within their disposal.
*Big potential, man...*
While I love that there are games that cater to all sorts of players and skill levels, I have to say that the type of games that ”give you the fantasy” are the ones that frustrate me the most. Not because of their difficulty (or lack there of), but because I don’t feel like I’m in control.
The worst example of this to me is Assasin’s Creed. Everything in those games, from the movement that have me effortlessly climbing buildings by simply pressing a direction on the control stick, to the combat where a few button presses have me doing fancy acrobatic combos against multiple enemies at once, to all the UI indicators telling me exactly where to go (even where to find ”hidden” collectibles), it all just makes for an experience where I feel like all I’m doing is triggering fancy animations, like the game would function just the same with or without my inputs.
Compare that to another game featuring fancy manouvering on rooftops: Mirror’s Edge. Here, not only do I get to feel in total control of my movement both in terms of button inputs and in the way I choose to tackle obstacles, but the game rewards me for executing those inputs with good timing by allowing me to keep my momentum. So not only do I feel like I’m actually responsible for the actions in the game, but I’m rewarded for it, too.
I guess I’m kinda just repeating what was covered in the video, but my point is that even when making games ”less frustrating” by making actions easier to do, for players like me who want to feel in total control of my character, who crave instant audiovisual feedback from my inputs, it can actually result in more frustration instead.
Exactly! And I kind of have the same problem on the opposite end of the difficulty scale. If I press the basic attack button and my character does a sick flip and kills 4 enemies, I don't feel in control, but if I press one button and my character barely starts to wind up an attack and then gets pummeled, I also feel out of control. I only played Dark Souls 2 for a couple of minutes, because I felt like the challenge wasn't going to be in the enemies, but in controlling my character properly (and dealing with wind ups and slow movements and all that jazz).
Most of my favorite games all share this sort of immediate and intentional control scheme. I'm okay with aim assist or input delays, but I really prefer when I can feel that everything I did was what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it.
To make a game easier, you'll have to remove control from the player. It frustrates me as well, but giving you more freedom, control and agency means that the skill level increases. This has happened to me in games such as Tales of Symphonia and Phantasy Star Online 2: those games offer you a control scheme in which you press less buttons but the game feels more automatic, or give you more control over your character, but the game's combat becomes harder. In PSO2, you're given the option between using a 2 button or a 3 button control scheme for combat. The 2 button control scheme makes combat easier, but more automatic and gives you less control. On the 3 button control scheme, you have much more control over your chaarcter, but the game's combat becomes less forgiving and more difficult. I chose the 3 button control scheme since I want to feel like I'm in control of every sword swing that my character does and I want to feel like I was able to block an attack by manually using my shield. It makes attacking and blocking much more satisfying, and it makes me feel like a badass. On the contrary, if I had played with the 2 button scheme, I would feel frustrated (just like you) since I would be like "oh, I used my special attack right on time and I defeated the enemy. However, I didn't feel like I earned it. I feel like I watched a mini cutscene."
I had the same frustration while playing Kingdom Hearts 2, especially its bosses. I hate that game's bosses since they are style over substance: "just press triangle to win." If you press triangle during the QTE prompts, you'll see Sora perform flashy and over-the-top attacks. However, since you only need to press 1 button to exectue them, and since the QTEs are so forgiving , I never felt any satisfaction out of performing those flashy and powerful attacks. Sure, probably the devs were aiming at a casual demographic, but I personally didn't like KH2's bosses.
When I was playing Assassin's Creed at my friends place and wanted to clibmb a wall, I pressed wrong button and accidentally killed a bypasser behind me. The thought of accidentally stabbing someone when I just tried to climb still amuses me.
I cAnT SEe sOmeOne TaLk sHiT aBouT my AC.
@@shubhamkulkarni964 huh
A question I keep asking myself:
Do I win because the game wanted me to or do I win because I did well?
All game challenge is inherently artificial. Don't overthink it. It's designed to be entertaining.
@@ninjadodovideos unless its multiplayer, then the challenge is less tailored
in tabletop gaming this is when the players ask themselves if the DM is fudging their rolls or not.
The feeling when you play FIFA
If its a game made in the 2010s onward, the game wants you to win no matter what.
It's so interesting to me that Avengers is so prominently showcased when I find that it fails on both aspects of giving the power fantasy and earning it. It seems like they tried too hard to be in the middle and failed at both to me. You feel too weak as Thor and Hulk. You feel too slow and weak as Iron Man. The game isn't particularly exciting or challenging.
It's tries to give you power immediately, by giving you an extremely simple combat system, but it fails to make you feel powerful, with no feedback coming from each hit, which is why I was quite disappointed with it. It also doesn't have much of a skill ceiling either.
Black Widow was the most fun to play as, as they manage to set incentives to dodge, with the Shadow Ops bar, and had the best moveset of the game.
And it's based on the movies instead of the comics which sucks
My one problem with the Bayonetta solution to the power fantasy is that for many, many people (myself included) the crappy grades are mere slaps on the wrist. "Well, I won, and more importantly I'm onto the next point in the story. Might as well just keep going." DOOM Eternal, by contrast, makes it clear from the get-go: if you want to have fun and succeed, you better get good; when you do, you will enjoy every fight, no matter how challenging.
When I finish a fight in Bayonetta, I… finish a fight in Bayonetta. That's it, I'm neither beaten down nor satisfied. I stopped playing because I got bored of the repetitive combat. I found the combat repetitive because I never improved. I never improved because I didn't have to.
When I finished a fight in my first playthrough of DOOM Eternal, I barely scraped by and knew that I had to improve or I'd be screwed. The Marauder as a mini-boss was brutal because I had yet to learn quick switching and falter combos and how to bait his melee attack. I knew that there were only two choices: improve, and enjoy the frantic combat, or not improve, and never finish the game. By drawing the line, but making it clear how to get above it, DOOM Eternal drove me toward mastery and Hugo's "Fun Zone".
I guess, in simpler terms, both Bayonetta and DOOM Eternal tell the player "you can do some incredible stuff if you take the time to learn the intricacies of the combat system." The problem arises when Bayonetta says "I really don't care whether you actually bother."
Ive had this idea for a metroidvania lately, where when you beat a boss, you get an upgrade item, megaman style.
But at the end of the game, you lean that you needed all those bosses alive.
The difficulty comes from finding a way to "subdue" the bosses while navigating the world with a reduced set of tools.
The player could give in at any point, and defeat a boss to get an upgrade, but the best ending would only come when no boss was killed
You should keep your ideas close to your chest before you can produce something distinctly yours otherwise you just risk giving away good ideas to someone else who might out manuver you and capitalise on it.
That being said your idea is a very interesting one and definitely draws my curiosity.
@@akash2853 Not to disagree, but to add to your point: ideas are cheap.
I'm glad to see someone sharing theirs because no two people will implement those ideas exactly the same way except in the case of blatant plagiarism.
This is kinda undertale, almost
I was going to suggest that cheat codes are a way to "give" the power fantasy even in games that otherwise make you "earn" it, but maybe cheat codes are just options in disguise. Maybe ones that the devs didn't specifically allow, but options anyway. Whatever Doom Eternal is trying to do, I imagine it's a lot easier to feel powerful on godmode with idkfa (or whatever the modern equivalent is.) Rarely there are difficulty spikes that cheat codes can't really fix (platformers can do this if you just drop to your death regardless of HP) but those tend to be few and far between.
Yeah, it's why I personally like an option for a story mode where you can almost not die. It's just an option for those who want or need it. A pre-programmed god mode. Even better when you can switch halfway in the game, to get past a difficult section, so you can set it back after.
Cheat codes are great.
If Dark Souls had an easy mode, it would cheapen the experience, because the world is no longer brutal and apathetic, you just chose the wrong difficulty. But it could easily have cheats, and simply labelling them as such encourages people to play without them if at all possible, ensuring players feel like they earned their success.
By making them codes, it makes players seriously think about activating them rather than doing it in the heat of the moment. But by having them available (and making it clear they exist, e.g. "Enter Cheat Code" in the menu) it provides for greater accessibility to people who genuinely don't care about the challenge or are physically incapable of beating it.
It can also provide additional challenge, without the balance and fairness concerns that fully sanctioned options would have, like a cheat code that makes you die in one hit, for example.
Cheat codes used to be my go to in the old days of GTA. The power fanatasy of destroying tanks, cars, helicopters was unmatched. It also took away the monotony that usually comes when you have been playing a game for too long.
I think video games are a bit like reading or model building, some are inherently hard or more complex to play some games you need some level of capability with a controller in order to play and some are better jumping off points for concepts in a genre
Yeah, I understand wanting broad appeal but it's ok for a game to appeal to a niche if that's part of the developer's artistic vision. Gaming is for everyone but not every game needs to appeal to every gamer.
So, gatekeeping then.
@@derekeidum1307 Yep, i agree with more options in games but if there aren't many for whatever reason i don't think it's fair to completely blame devs
@@vancednatha1451 u know full well there wasn't any gatekeeping lol
@@vancednatha1451 are you kidding me? do you want every book to only use words an 5 year old can read to prevent anyone from missing out? it is just a fact of life that some things aren't for everyone, there is no point watering down a game for everyone to cater for the few, even if you think it should be an additional option it still takes money and time to design and add which adds to the cost of an already sky high monetary requirement to and time investment to make a game. Just boiling it down to gatekeeping is an incredibly reductionist and naive statement
When I was watching this I thought to myself ‘this was a good analysis, on to the next video’ then I realised I was only 5 minutes in. These videos are equally absorbing as they are in-depth and well thought out, and I love it.
Not directly tied to this video (though I did find it very interesting and very articulate) but as a disabled player, I'd just like to thank you for the, at this point, many videos you've made where including players with disabilities is either the focus of the video (the accessibility one comes to mind) or, at the very least, clearly stated inside the script of the video. And that's so great to hear. I'm a video game sound designer and I don't even hear it that commonly inside the damn industry. So thank you, really.
I love this channel, this dude is really dedicated to the craft! Also the endscreen recommendations are a excellent idea.
I always feel your videos present a unique perspective on game design, both inspiring and insightful! Thank you for all the well-produced videos educating both players, and game designers 😄
I see we're going back to the Plague Knight/Specter Knight dilemma. I'm surprised that I haven't seen any mentions of it.
It's very interesting that you bring up Plague Knight and Specter Knight's campaigns as a dichotomous example. I'm fairly confident I understand what you're implying here, but would you mind elaborating a bit for those who may be unfamiliar with the loveliness that is Shovel Knight & co.?
@@grammarmaid Ohh I love this topic. Shovel Knight has four campaigns:
Shovel Knight (the original)
Plague Knight (first voted dlc)
Specter Knight (dlc #2)
King Knight (the final story)
The plans for the dlc's were simple. They would use the same levels with minor changes so that players would have to master the character instead of the stage. This worked brilliantly for Plague Knight and most people enjoyed it. Unfortunately the other players were discouraged. Like mentioned in this video, they were unable to reach the required skill level or they were demotivated by the massive learning curve.
Yacht Club took this very seriously and they made the next dlc, Specter Knight, from the ground up. New levels, easier movement and complete control over which level you wanted to play made the game easy for some, but extra enjoyable for less skilled players.
The weird thing is: both of these knights, the EARN- and the GIVE-centered ones share most of their mobility. The big difference that sets it apart from this video is, they made Specter Knight's moves situational whereas Plague Knight could hop around wherever he wants.
They put a ton of effort into their dlc and they didn't even charge people for it. To this day people are still debating which character has the best movement. I enjoyed all of them near identically so I can't tell. Yacht Club games managed to nail both sides of the design problem and I love it!
I personally loved handling Plague Knight the most, but his campaign really suffered for the lack of customized level design. The bonus challenges helped a lot, but it still would have been nice if the main campaign levels actually required you to interact with them once you got the basic mechanics down.
Flying straight through all the levels makes you feel cool and fast, but not really challenged mechanically.
I've been playing a lot of Sayonara Wild Hearts lately and it does the low-floor high-ceiling thing really well. At any skill level, it's pretty easy to beat each level (and even if you die you only get sent back a couple seconds) and the levels are so well crafted that you'll get that power fantasy just from doing that. If a player wants to go for gold rank on every level, though, the game actually does a really good job of slowly ramping up the difficulty; earlier levels offer just a little challenge, but by the end you'll need to go for as many hard-to-reach hearts, secret squares, risky bonuses, and perfectly timed button prompts as you can. This is great because I enjoy both casual play and mastery, so it's nice not to plunge into the deep end when I want to kick things up a notch.
I absolutely love your videos about accessibility in gaming. I'm disabled and I get very frustrated at how games have handled accessibility in the past, and even now. The fact that most accessibility options just make the game 'easier' rather than getting you to the same level as other gamers frustrates me because its demeaning and infantalising. I want a challenge, I want to feel like I'm improving. I don't want to feel like the game is holding my hand because I'm a toddler.
5:00
I agree with most things mentioned, but an admission fee is not how I think about mastery. To me, the journey is more important than the destination. The learning process itself is a big part of the fun and why I play difficult games.
I love this style of looking at two different approaches to game design, and then comparing them. Keep up the great work!
One problem with this is that I think these fixes are easier to do in some types of games than others.
Take Doom Eternal. How do I implement Forza's style of options or bayonetta's skill floor? The game does introduce mechanics overtime as well. Maybe not as simply as Ori, but it also isnt as long as Ori either.
Its much easier to point at good examples than it is to use those examples in other styles of games.
I can't imagine many will replay doom eternal levels to get a better rank like a bayonetta system.
So good video, but could have gone into detail more.
Actually, there's a Doom Eternal style game out there that uses a Bayonetta/Devil May Cry rank system called ULTRAKILL.
It's actually really freaking good.
More fast paced than Eternal, but good.
Yeah style system is ok but it doesn't add much to the game apart from trophies. I say this as a lifelong Devil May cry fan. All those combo MAD videos are great but at the end of the day a guy who knows all combos and performs all of them stylishly, earning an S rank at the end of the level, and you who beat the level with S rank but with some received damage and not flawless combos, essentially achieve the same thing. To that end, you don't even need to do flawless combos to defeat DMC 5 on harder difficulties, you just need to be quick. The style system is good for showing off to people but other than that, it doesn't really reward player.
In Doom when you win a level, you know it is because you're worthy, that you somehow overcame the challenge. There is no handouts. No mid-battle checkpoints like the last of us 2 to save your ass. The payoff in that game is too huge. And I say this as someone who sucks at Eternal.
this channel is extremely underrated. Im hooked!
"Reward mastery but not require it" is exactly what came to mind when I thought of options.
Take a game like Mario 3. Every level basically has a second hidden level that you can play when your are running at P-speed. You can divide all the jumps into game "P-speed jumps" and no P-speed jumps" it was a revelation when I tried speedrunning the first time. At the same time, there's plenty of content that a P-speeding player will miss, like hidden power ups. In that sense, there isn't necessarily just a push to become faster, because other styles of play are rewarded too.
I'm glad you touched on how the player's expectation of what the power fantasy will be like informs how it should actually work. In Rain World(my favorite game of all time :3), for example, you do not go into it expecting to be powerful. Even from the store page you are told that you are prey, that you are insignificant and just trying to make your way back to your family. You don't go into it expecting to be powerful, and so you're not frustrated when you die. And then when die again. And again. And again...
Rain World is very much a game with a high skill floor, and an even higher skill ceiling. When you look back at the end of the game and see how far you've come, it's a truly magical experience.
I really, really love that you, unlike many others, don't forget sometimes attaining certain level of skill might be impossible, or considerably harder than it is for most people. As someone on the autistic spectrum and with motor issues to boot, I'd like to sincerely thank you.
"games should use design and systems to ensure sure that at every skill level the player feels powerful and masterful but with always room to grow and improve"
Counterpoint: Horror games, walking simulators, cheat engine
If you have yet to watch Jason Vandenberghe's 3 GDC presentations on player motivation I'd recommend them.
No one ever complains about puzzle games being too hard.
Imagine if every Souls fan went to every easy game with no option for difficulty and bitched about it being too simple and not hard enough?
@@yordlejay6820 Puzzle games are a pretty small genre with a couple break outs. I don't have a deep knowledge but I imagine there there are games that are too hard and the audience self-selects against them so they're never heard about.
I've seen complaints about games being too easy but the word normally used is "repetitive".
@@Captain1nsaneo That's literally what Soul likes are tho. They're a small FAN MADE Genre with ONE breakout studio that just so happens to have a REALLY loud fanbase.
People be acting like Souls Like are this industry dominating beast of a genre that locks less abled bodied players from being able to play a majority of games when really it's maybe 2 games a year AT MOST and only 1 every few years from the studio everyone wants to see a souls like out of
@@yordlejay6820 Wasn't really thinking about dark souls. It's the poster child for discussions about difficultly in games but that kind of discussion are rarely productive and underestimate the human capacity for overcoming challenges.
GMT's video wasn't even explicitly about difficulty as about how to provide the power fantasy in games.
I don't think a compromise works for every game to be honest. I think some games are great with a low skill floor and ceiling, and others are great with a high skill floor and ceiling. In the case of high skill floor, I think the idea of compromising is not good in many cases.
For games that are supposed to be challenging, I think the mindset that people should have (That I rarely see, sadly) is that if you don't like the idea of playing a challenging game, just don't buy it.
Not every game can be for every person, if you don't enjoy a challenge don't play sekiro, don't play dark souls, don't play doom eternal, etc. The game doesn't owe you anything, you're the one who bought it and you knew what you were getting into, you get what I mean?
I agree with you, but you've also gotta acknowledge how frustrating it might feel to be someone who loves the art style and the concept of a game like dark souls and just wants to be part of that group that has played it, but finds themselves incapable of doing so. You might feel like "why should I be denied from experiencing the story and the art of this game because it won't put in an easy mode?"
I dont think they should do it, but I do see how that could be someone's experience because for a while I was worried it would be mine (until I finally beat Gehrman in bloodborne and the rest is history)
@@macmcskullface1004 I have no problem with customizable difficulty, as long as it's clear what the developers intentions with a game are. If dark souls were to have an easy mode, I think it would need to be very clear to the player that this is not the original difficulty, and that they might lose out on the oppressive atmosphere and satisfying feeling of overcoming incredible odds that the games are all about.
That being said, I think if something like this eats away at the game's intended experience or costs too much extra development time, I don't think it's worth it. Rather than cater to all people focus on really making sure the people who will love your game will really love it.
I also don't really think it's gatekeeping to say if you won't enjoy a game don't buy it. Not every game is for every person and I think that's OK.
i agree with this idea, but i think that the developers should think on what experience they are selling before deciding, taking Doom eternal as an example:
They sell you right out of the gate with the trailers and every other piece of media released the experience of being this unkillable god that rips and tears through the armies of hell, but the experience they give will not give you that until you put tens of hours and practice to get mastery. in short many did not pay $60 for the experience they put in the game, they did it for the one they presented.
If you want to demand a certain mindset from the player so they come to the game prepared for it to be challenging you should sell it that way, if you are selling me the idea of being an unstopable god, i already paid my entry fee by buying the game, i should be allowed to get the experience advertized, not the gridaton until the game feels i paid a second entry fee in time and effor so i'm allowed to progress and get the experiece advertized.
Dark souls as an example never sold itself as an experience where you are the apex predator, it always sold itself as what it was, an up hill battle in which only those who persevere through failure will survive and see victory, that's the experience people are paying for, and with that forewarning comes the preparation and the right mindset to play this game.
I feel like practically, not every game developer can accommodate all players, and I understand. But I think for a game that is challenging, it can at least consider certain accessibility measures as a ground floor for different people, like those with disabilities, to play the game. Now, there's a difference between difficulty setting and overall accessibility measures. But, when considering the range of accessibility options for players, difficulty options may be ONE of those options to consider. I think there's a difference between a player deciding if a game is worth their time to master, and a player who's disability or access needs not fulfilled by a game preventing them from even MAKING that decision because they cannot play the game. I understand that accessibility features for games are up to the game developer to implement, and that as a practical matter, game devs may not be able to do so, but where they can, I think it's worth it for them to at least consider. Disabled individuals would like to play games, and it's never going to be the same range of games, but to exclude a majority of different experiences from them out of a fear of tarnishing the game is, inadequate. A game might not 'owe' a player, but if it's allowing many people to decide for themselves if the game is worth it for them, and excluding other certain social classes, when that doesn't have to happen, that's not ok. At least, if we're going into an age where we really want to support those with disabilities.
The whole point of dark soul is that it's hard. It's graphic is meh. There's no story. Only super hidden lore that most player don't see and a casual player wouldn't even find. (Hell, I speedrunned sekiro and beat the game way too often, but I had almost no idea what the hidden lore was because I didnt spend hours check for it).
Yeah, you say dark soul could have an easy mode for the people that want the story and all that. 1. If your not gonna play the game, watch video.
Second, If there's an easy mode, it will just break the will of first time player. Players that could have beaten it without it will end up using it way to often.
An easy mode would just ruin the game for everyone.
No, what DS need is to cut the BS. Allow the players to EFFICIENTLY practice. None of that running for five min to get to the boss, Do the first 3 phase, and die at the 4th phase because of the same goddamn attack that you don't know how to deal with and have to waste 20 min just ro have another try.
What it needs is a bossrush option for every enemy and boss ( *with boss phase control* , that can only be used for practice, progress here and ressource dont count.
You want an easy mode:
Let player during that Animus style boss rush have access to basically cheat codes. God mode, changing attack damage, lvl... Anything.
This way, you skip all that BS, can learn quickly and efficiently and your skill actually progress, because it is about practicing something so specific and you learn so fast, you won't lose most of your skill progress between play session.
This way, it might take you a long time to finish the game, but anyone can learn to master it. As long as you can put morw then 1h into the game per week. Or maybe a few hour per game sessions once in a while.
Also, if you play these games and you are short on time, watch "get gud style" guide. They aren't about cheating or cheesing, but about how the practice the skill necessary to win. And how to deal with the attack bosses dich out. You still have to developp the skills, but now at least, you know what to practice.
For me, thats what I find fun about these games, learning to master it. When you die and you know what you did wrong, what you could have and should have done, its fun. Your learning, you see endless possibility before your eyes.
But when you die and you don't know why, its frustrating. It feels like bs. And if you've only got a bit of time to play, I would just drop these games.
I think accessibility options and good difficulty options help this out a lot. I would never have gotten good at DMC 5 if I was forced to play on a harder difficulty. By letting me play on easy, and once I was better ramp it up for more difficulty and trying for more combos I was able to experience more of the game and have way more fun.
One of my favorite things to do on this platform is to watch your videos and relate them to the games i play and tie that to why i enjoyed those games. Great job man, thanks for the great content and congrats on 1 mil in the near future!
I’ve have always been fascinated with fighting games but I could never get into them as I struggled to learn the inputs for basic combos and didn’t feel compelled enough to learn them because I wasn’t having that much fun.
That was until I played Dragon ball fighterz, you see DBFZ has auto combos embedded into every character in the game where by mashing a single attack button you’ll be able to perform a short yet cool looking combo regardless of your skill level and it got me hooked immediately. That brief sensation I felt with the auto combos compelled me to learn the rest of the games systems and tech and get so good to the point I can now perform a T.O.D (touch of death) with nearly every character on the roster. However after becoming that skilful at the game I now see auto combos as a detriment to the games skill ceiling and some of its design choices damaging to other aspects it’s depth.
Overall I think auto combos are a net positive as they allowed someone like me to finally get into fighting and have fun before I became as skilful as I am today but I think it’s better for a game to give you options to make you feel awesome and encourage you to learn everything it has offer overtime.
There's actually three distinct ways of deliviring a fantasy. There's giving it for free, there's earning it, and then there's pretending to let the player earn it, but never give it to him, like the fantasy of being the ultimate survivor in Escape From Tarkov.
Make the player chase it but never achieve it, cruel
A favorite of the Olympians...the "Sisyphean method"
i definitely thought you were going to bring up Hades when you started talking about priming the player for failure. the central narrative of Hades really made repeatedly dying and losing progress so much easier to swallow
This is something I really loved about the wingsuit in Just Cause 3. If you want to fly around shooting up baddies, you can do that straight out of the gate. But there are optional skill challenges that really push you to learning precisely how to move through the air and how to combine your wingsuit with your grapple. These skill challenges unlock upgrades to your wingsuit allowing you to pull off ever more precise and flashy moves, but you can beat the game without these upgrades. So you can interact with this system as much or as little as you want, and no matter where you fall on the skill spectrum you can still have fun in the main gameplay loop of tearing up enemy bases.
One aspect I really appreciate in games like Spiderman and Arkham Asylum is the optional challenges available. It's a nice way for skilled players to test themselves, while not limiting casual players from enjoying the story. Similar with the post story content of Super Mario Odyssey
Very much this. An easy game can always include optional challenges, or even if it doesn't, players can impose their own.
As someone who grew up in the nes/snes/genesis era, I started to despise games in generations prior that started to “dumb things down”.
When you start getting responsibilities and a mortgage to pay, working for your fun is not as fun.
After a hard day of work, I’d rather relax with a beer and not count frame data this, 60th of a second that.
Doom Eternal was an interesting one.
Loved 2016, but I find that I have to be in the right mindset(and sober lol) to enjoy it.
I'm a disabled gamer, and I love "earning the fantasy," breaking through the knowledge barrier and being able to be great at what I'm playing, as well as the real-world physical barrier with my limitations.
Does Challenge modes, Global high scores & achievements relate to types of topics?
Eg, Halo games, by completing certain missions, achievements, or with turning on certain skulls, we will unlock new skins or helmets.
Previous Need For Speed games like Most Wanted 2005 had challenges modes, where the devs gives the player different tracks and races. Like in certain modern racing video games like Inertial Drift reward you with a new powerful Car after completing a challenge.
On the other hand, Devil May Cry series always gives their players Bloody Palace mode, where players can get highest combos or highscores. Right after completing the main Campaign.
The reason why i say this because, Difficulty in modern video games is just not enough to keep Single-player fan enjoy the game for long-term.
Lonely Downhill has on of my favorite examples of changing an option to match a difficulty level. It's a isometric downhill biking game that earns its uniqueness in part due to a how you steer. You steer left and right in relationship to the character, not to you. But you can also change it to be in relationship to the screen. This makes it so that the same game can be fun and rewarding to both me and my six-year-old daughter.
This was very informative. I may not be a game developer yet, but I've come up with many ideas and I've been recently thinking a lot about games that make you feel awesome but are also challenging in a fun way, but I didn't know how to do that. Just watching this inspired me to go back to some of my ideas and rethink the gameplay to be both fun, challenging, and awesome.
Imagine if big-name games brought back those "You'll do better next time!" messages of those older games for kids. Like, if a game showed you the stats of your run at a level even if you died so you can tell if you're getting better each try, or if the narrative was all about overcoming even the worst of odds not because you are insanely powerful but because you're character is just very persistent and likes to persevere (hence, so should you). it also works for more open-ended games to allow you to approach situations different ways each time you try it, depending on your play-style. I know there are some games like this, but I'd like to see more.
Okay, so, Celeste does I think literally everything you mentioned in the video. Assist mode makes the game more accessible, there's the extra room/routes for mastery beyond a casual playthrough with things like wavedashes, berries and B-sides; and a well-distributed learning curve. I don't know how it was marketed, but the difficulty it has definitely reinforces the game's story.
But it also does some things I feel like a lot more games can and should do to empower the player you didn't at least explicitly mention as a way to do so. The small level sizes and Chapter 7's boost are the ones that come to my mind immediately.
So yeah
0:22 Yeah, no nonsense at all, dude goes disco dancing before taking on an entire gang of yakuza lol
Disco is no nonsense.
@@Madhattersinjeans True, not denying that at all. Albeit I still found that comment funny given how much ridiculousness there is in the yakuza games :)
This is probably among the best GMTK videos you've made so far. It's insightful, entertaining and thought-provoking using well-chosen examples, and struck me as exceptionally well structured in its argumentation. Well done Mark
Thanks very much!
I am really glad this video exists, there's alot of one sidedness to this conversation (as a gamer, not a developer here).
For background, i'm a teacher with a transplanted kidney. I have a difficult job not helped by my health. When i come home and sit down to game i'm often tired, frustrated, and i want to win something. Alot of more difficult games just turn me off because after a real life where i don't always win and my efforts aren't always rewarded i want to escape into a game world and feel powerful.
I'm glad this video is balanced and recognises that not everyone wants high challenge games, and not everyone wants to earn a win. Winning and feeling successful, however that's defined in game, is part of the fantasy in itself.
I like that you don't suggest that exclusively hard games shouldn't exist. Since some have to exist, see certain experienced requiere a single difficulty to exist. For example, for many people the fact that doesn't exist an easier mode makes it way more special. Is not the same getting to the top of a mountain by hicking, and then finding many well rested people at the top because they took an elevator, than getting to a lonely top that only people that made the effort could reach. Beating certain games is special because you know the only way to do it without cheating or watching a video is through effort.
Another example would be that certain experiences can only exist if there is a roadblock you can't make resist even if you would want to. Everybody remembers their experience versus Whitney in Pokémon because there was no button to make her easier. Because we had to try again and find strategies until we beat her. That made her special.
So yeah, I think it is fine for some games to be hard, as long as (like you said) it is made clear so people don't buy something they can't enjoy.
Watching your videos should be mandatory for every person that has anything to do with making videogames. It's everything I've thought summerized and made succinct.
Love the video. I think it’s also worth noting that “Earn your fantasy” and “Give your fantasy” can be in the same game but in different areas. Spider-Man gives you the fantasy of swinging around, but it makes you earn combat prowess.
Darks Souls makes you earn your fantasy when it comes to combat, but it doesn’t make you worry about hunger and rest like a survival game does.
That's because it isn't a survival game? I don't get it.
@@CarrotConsumer It's a bit of a weird example. But the point they were trying to make was that Dark Souls tries to give you the fantasy of being a downtrodden, undead medieval hero struggling through an unforgiving world. Yet that fantasy only extends to the combat and navigating the world. The game doesn't ask you to worry about food, fixing your clothes, cleaning off the maggots. All the other things a real life undead knight would face in that situation. They only make you work for the 'fun' parts, mastering the combat challenges.
(And in later games, they lowered the challenge of navigating and mapping out the world and focussed even more on just the combat part of the fantasy. Despite players of the first game really loving the additional navigational challenges.)
Spider Man apparently (haven't played it) gives you the feeling of being an awesome webslinger for free. But makes you work for other parts of the fantasy, the combat prowess. Apparently.
So yea, developers can choose which parts of the fantasy to just give you, and which parts of the fantasy you have to earn.
@@RobinOttens I'd say that's more just abstraction instead of earning/giving fantasy
I love this video. To put my two cents into this topic I have to say this is what fighting games such as mortal kombat, tekken, and street fighter really struggle with. The gameplay is so geared to have a very high skill ceiling that it turns off so many casual players. Many people complete the story mode, then go to online play only to get completely destroyed by other players. Naturally it makes sense to have such a high skill ceiling for a fighting game but what sucks is the limited gameplay options besides competitive fighting. PvE gets very bland and boring and many fighting games don't create an environment where players wants to improve they're skills. No casual player will ever want to go into training mode.
The most satisfying gaming experience I've had in ten years is Baldur's Gate 3's Honor Mode. One life. No continues. Just you and the game. It really changes the way you engage with it and forces you to strategize and really learn the systems and interactions.
And this is why health and damage are the most boring ways to adjust difficulty. Changes to make the mechanics more (or less) forgiving are almost always more interesting.
Metal Gear Solid did this pretty well - all weapons did the same amount of damage, but where on the easiest difficulty level, you'd regain all your health in addition to gaining a higher maximum upon beating a boss, on the hardest you wouldn't even get the boost to maximum health and it took your radar away. Likewise, how much stuff you could carry depended on difficulty level, as did visibility distance (on extreme, if memory serves, they simply didn't have a limit).
Devil May Cry did this pretty well by mixing up enemy placements and reducing item effectiveness, and Ninja Gaiden Black would introduce entirely new enemies and bosses to the harder difficulties.
@@Aladelicous God Hand is also pretty good in this regard. The dynamic difficulty ensures you are always on the edge. The enemies use different attacks, gang up on you, are harder to knock down and even get faster. In other words, the better you play, the harder it gets.
I always love new GMTK videos, and this one was great as well. But, and I don't want to seem like some random hater, just a huge fan with some constructive criticism, the beginning 5-6 minutes of the video was...kind of bad. Not downright bad, maybe it's because I've watched so many game design videos, but everything seemed painfully obvious and repetitive. Hardly any new information was being added as you went along, but when something was introduced, it was accompanied by most the same things you already said in the video. But I still defiantly enjoyed it after that start, and love your content, and thank you so much for all you've created!
Also, I remember you saying once a while ago, maybe on stream, that you were working on a game...anything you'd like to reveal?
"Prime for failure"
hmmm...
*Prepare to Die Edition*
AKA the Ion Fury approach. Select the highest difficulty and the game outright tells you you will end up uninstalling it in frustration after a while.
@@wallyhackenslacker You mean the Doom approach, where you select Nightmare and it warns you that this difficulty isn't even remotely fair. It cannot be called the "Ion Fury" approach when Ion Fury is just borrowing the idea from a game released in the 90s.
That name is exactly why I disagree with the video here on "the marketing should advertise that it is a hard game to set expectations."
I know so many people who, because they believed the game was so impossibly hard due to Bamco's ridiculous marketing, any time they ran up against difficulty in the game, it was a self fulfilling prophecy. They were way quicker to think the game was hard, and to do things the hardest way possible, because in their minds, it was a hard game, and so subconsciously they just morphed to that. I have spoken with countless people like that.
@@chettlar212 This is pretty much exactly the first point HHBomberguy brings up in his “Why I Love Bloodborne” video, it’s why he says removing shields in that game was a brilliant idea.
@@chettlar212 So, you're saying "We are Nintendo, you cannot defeat us" is a bad marketing?
Another good example of providing players with options is the Blazblue fighting games (excluding Blazblue Cross Tag Battle). On those games, all characters have the "Stylish" and "Technical" modes, the former being basically "mash buttons to do cool combos", and the latter being for those players who truly wish to master the character that they're playing with.
I always felt like the Arkham games actually did a good job of rewarding mastery. If your aim to just survive a fistfight with some thugs, then yeah, you can usually just spam the punch button. That'll get old real fast, though, and the game encourages you to try out all the different tools and maneuvers at your disposal. The ease of Arkham's combat means you have tons of room to explore the many options available to you without feeling too punished if your ideas don't pan out; this also pays off if you decide to tackle the higher difficulties, where simple punch-spamming won't get you very far. The combo system also incentivizes you to exercise better timing and a larger variety of moves; racking up a high combo without a scratch not only feels awesome, but yields more xp. The better you perform, the sooner you get access to all those wonderful toys, and the more you use said toys, the better you perform.
As a person with slow reaction times due to mental disability i can confirm that becoming good enough at games to beat hotline miami and the cod modern warfare campaign (the recent one) on realism mode were the best things that ever happened to me
Fyi, i usually just play tf2 nowadays, nice and casual experience whilst it has a high skill ceiling
@@Aurelius_unofficial TF2 is a pretty chill game usually, some good fun.
@@eternalfrost1732 yeah totally, i have the conga taunt and i love starting dances
WHAT, there was a automatic combo setting in DMC5 ? i dont think i ever used a combo during that entire game
How did you even miss that?.
It pops up several times as a bubble and it's a pretty common loading screen tip
Here we have a game journalist
haha i don't know bros, still it was fun as hell though
Since DMC4 there has always been auto combo. I used to use it a lot in 4 when I was 12 and my brain was the size of a peanut. I couldn't pull of combos then, so auto combos was a great way to enjoy the game. That said, it has its own drawbacks. Since you're not controlling the combo, you never know what the next move would be. Sometimes you get damage because of that.
"effortless to beat up bad guys"
Tell to that to the combat challenges in Batman: Arkham series. Shits hard af
Especially Joker's Carnival in City.
Optional challenges*
Depends on the map, honestly. There are like, maybe 2 pretty tough ones in Asylum, specifically Rumble in the Jungle Extreme. Arkham City is only really hard in Extreme predator rooms. Origins are the easiest, by far. Knight has a couple tough ones, but they're not even required for 100% savefile completion, so I rarely bother, unless to get the achievement.
The Arkham games are (usually) pretty good at having both a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling. Sure, anyone can button-mash their way through the story, but a pro can go through the game not getting hit once, master the challenge rooms, and so on. The way you get ever-increasing combat ability in a fight by not getting hit directly rewards high-level play, while the difficulty level allows you to progress even if you're not that good.
@@trevorc4413 Good point, another thing to note is that increasing variety in combat and not getting hit rewards you with more XP, though most people don't seem to notice that, further rewarding higher level play and mastery of the game's mechanics. The Arkham games have some of my most favorite combat in any video game I've ever played, it's genuinely addicting.
At around the five minute mark, I began to feel sad because it seemed like the video was wrapping up. When saw that I was not even half-way, I actually smiled. Thank you so much for these videos
It's a very interesting distinction between earned and given power. I feel like I ultimately enjoy games with the higher skill ceilings more, but I've still put put off from some games because of an initial difficulty barrier. I guess it really just depends what you're trying to get out of it, whether you want the more casual relaxing experience or a more the more intense experience of deeply learning and mastering a game. Not really a right or wrong thing, but a preference and I know that sometimes I'll prefer one to the other depending on my mood and how busy I am.
The Sims let me live out the fantasy of how to live outside my mom's basement
Are you Bayonetta? Because that was a perfect username+avatar+comment combo.
Funny, usually i use sims to make people live in hellish basements that make up their entire life