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Rewind Feature


JPDunks4

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I think this theoretical argument is absurd and barely merits a serious discussion because most of you boys don't have more to say about a game than "yup it good" or "lol it bad" and that goes quadruply for the larger gaming community. The argument of a select few games potentially having their difficulty stripped away by accessibility or ease-of-use features somehow limiting narrative or discussion is such a non-issue that it seems frankly insane to think anyone outside of assholes on Youtube comment sections would seriously care, and catering to those twats should be bottom-tier priority.

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52 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Again, you guys are inventing an absurd world where people are going around bragging about beating nintendo games or people are coming up to you and asking about the merits of riding a bike. Nobody is asking these people who play games on easier difficulty levels to be authorities on the intricacies of the game. They likely are not interested in even participating in that. They’re playing the game, enjoying it, and now being told that experience wasn’t as good as it could have been for them. It’s absurd. 
 

Going back to the original tweet,

 

You brought up the fact people don't discuss golf scores or wouldn't.  I don't personally golf, but I had a group of friends that do, and they constantly try to get better personal records on courses. They have Apps on their phones and keep historical records of their performances on courses and compare they regularly.  I mean if its a serious hobby of someone, of course discussing ones own accomplishments and merits are part of a normal conversation for those groups.

 

So again, I simply bring up, if you play a course on your own time, and achieve a new personal record while also using unlimited mulligans, can you claim you beat all your friends records? It might be a matter of semantics, but it's the discussion at hand.

 

When Halo Reach recently came out, I had discussions with quite a few friends about who beat the campaigns on Legendary Difficulty solo/co-op, ect.  Not because we are insulting those that didn't, but its a hobby we are all passionate about and its a "lofty" accomplishment to claim you beat those campaigns on the highest difficulty.  Same goes for CoD4, where when Modern Warfare released, me and my buddies talked about the Mile High Achievement, and which of us accomplished that.  It wasn't some bragging and insulting conversation, but simply discussing previous gaming accomplishments.  

 

I really didn't think it that serious, just an interesting topic. I don't see anyone going around bragging about beating 30 year old Nintendo games anywhere.  I have no clue if the guy Tweeting was talking literally or figuratively.  I took it more on the principle of it all.  If you use cheats to finish a game, did you beat the game? I personally believe beating a game is beating it within the confines of the coding and game mechanics originally intended by the developer.  

 

I personally love that they added save states and rewind and other features into the NES and SNES throwback games.  It will probably get me to try to go through them when I probably wouldn't have the patience to do so without them.  

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8 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

He had the same bullshit elitist opinion about using save states. I like Mike Matei for the most part but he has his head up his ass thinking everybody has the amount of time he does to play old games.

 

I have no idea who he is.  Just saw this shared or whatever on my Timeline and thought it was interesting because reading replies it seemed like he was getting destroyed, which surprised me.  I figured most would feel if you use cheats to finish a game, then you aren't truly beating it.  

 

If he is someone that streams old games a lot, I can see the tweet making a lot more sense.  If you are playing a notoriously difficult old game on stream, and a bunch of people come in chat and tell you that they beat the game, and you ask if they used the rewind feature and they say yes, then its perfectly reasonable for him to believe you didn't truly beat it.  

 

I think I'd have that same response if I were streaming and having people come in to comment on my gameplay of and older game.

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Furthering the discussion of "beating" games, I have never put a single iota of stock into there being any sort of inherent achievement to "beating" a game. I don't consider it an accomplishment or something really worth talking about. Most games are absolutely designed to be beaten, and those that aren't typically require you to get over frustrating or unfair mechanics, or just learning patterns by failing over and over, which isn't much of an accomplishment because humans are absurdly good at pattern recognition. It's like the one thing we're all insanely good at. 

 

Even forgiving that, the idea of overcoming a challenge being the core idea of a game is such an incredibly niche part of actual gaming and game design that I just don't care. When I talk about a game, I can write 50 paragraphs and never mention difficulty once, despite me personally really liking challenge and finding games that are too easy completely off-putting. If you beat a game with cheat engine, with your cocknballs taped to a joystick or on baby difficulty, I don't care. If we're discussing the game, I have faith that you won't simultaneously be using something to make it incredibly easy and then complaining about how easy it is. And if you beat it by making it easy and found it meh and I found it amazing because of its challenge... well, that's fine too. I trust you to know how to best enjoy your entertainment, even if I might recommend you trying it on a harder setting.

 

The RE2 remake can be hard as balls, and I had a ton of fun doing my first playthrough on hardcore, then I had even more fun doing my second playthrough on baby mode, then standard, and then going back to do hardcore to get S+ ranks, and taking those unlimited ammo weapons into every difficulty again and just blasting through the entire thing. Every single time it was absurdly fun for different reasons. And then I didn't feel like dealing with the stress of looking for the Mr. Raccoon things in the DLC while fighting off zombies, so I opened up cheat engine, made myself invincible and cranked up my handgun bullets to basically 100x damage and unlimited ammo, so I was one-shotting everything and laughing my ass off.

 

Difficulty and subverting it was a central theme in why I enjoyed the game, but only because the gameplay itself was so damned fun. I would've had a ton of fun never playing it on hardcore at all. And if you never do, that's fine! It can be stressful in a way that some people might not find fun, and you're allowed to engage me in whatever conversation we're having about it regardless of your own personal accomplishments. There aren't any goddamn stakes here, it's video games we play for fun. That's it. Don't make it more than it is.

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14 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Going back to the original tweet,

 

You brought up the fact people don't discuss golf scores or wouldn't.  I don't personally golf, but I had a group of friends that do, and they constantly try to get better personal records on courses. They have Apps on their phones and keep historical records of their performances on courses and compare they regularly.  I mean if its a serious hobby of someone, of course discussing ones own accomplishments and merits are part of a normal conversation for those groups.

 

So again, I simply bring up, if you play a course on your own time, and achieve a new personal record while also using unlimited mulligans, can you claim you beat all your friends records? It might be a matter of semantics, but it's the discussion at hand.

 

I keep using this word, but that's absurd. 

 

People aren't using the rewind and then claiming they beat all their friends' high scores in a video game. They're doing it to get through a linear video game and then saying they beat the game itself, IE, completed it. Your analogy would fit if you said the person claimed that they made it through the course by shooting...whatever number of strokes it took them to get through it. If they lied about the number of strokes, sure, call them out on it. That's a person who is lying. We aren't talking about people who are concealing using the rewind feature. We're talking about someone using it, getting through the game with it, and then an asshole telling them they didn't actually make in through the game. 

 

It's absurd. 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I keep using this word, but that's absurd. 

 

People aren't using the rewind and then claiming they beat all their friends' high scores in a video game. They're doing it to get through a linear video game and then saying they beat the game itself, IE, completed it. Your analogy would fit if you said the person claimed that they made it through the course by shooting...whatever number of strokes it took them to get through it. If they lied about the number of strokes, sure, call them out on it. That's a person who is lying. We aren't talking about people who are concealing using the rewind feature. We're talking about someone using it, getting through the game with it, and then an asshole telling them they didn't actually make in through the game. 

 

It's absurd. 

 

 

 

But if these people are going into his stream claiming to have beaten the games he's currently playing, and he's simply saying, if you used the rewind feature, you didn't beat the game, that's not being as asshole or insulting to anyone.  It's simply expressing his opinion of what constitutes beating a game.

 

And my analogy fits just fine.  You can't beat a golf course.  All there is are you best personal scores, course records, ect.  So if someone claims to have beaten any kind of record while using infinite mulligans, which is what a rewind feature is, that score is immediately discounted and that round is invalid.   You didn't beat anything.  You played the round for fun messing around, but you didn't beat anything.  It's not about lying about your score.  It's just simply a matter of your score is not a real score for the course. 

 

If you use rewind feature in Forza, your time is invalid in that race for a record book.  All that there truly is in racing games are best personal lap times.  So as soon as you use rewind, you are immediately disqualified from beating any records.

 

That's simply the argument he's making.  If you use a rewind feature, you are disqualified from beating the game.  Why would anyone take that as in insult?  That's the only thing I find absurd.  It's more absurd to be butt hurt by someone saying they don't believe you beat a game if you use cheats than for someone to simply believe cheats disqualify you from beating a game. 

 

If you're simply playing for fun and finishing the games for your own personal enjoyment, why the hell do you care about peoples opinions on you beating or not beating the game?

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41 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

I have no idea who he is.  Just saw this shared or whatever on my Timeline and thought it was interesting because reading replies it seemed like he was getting destroyed, which surprised me.  I figured most would feel if you use cheats to finish a game, then you aren't truly beating it.  

 

If he is someone that streams old games a lot, I can see the tweet making a lot more sense.  If you are playing a notoriously difficult old game on stream, and a bunch of people come in chat and tell you that they beat the game, and you ask if they used the rewind feature and they say yes, then its perfectly reasonable for him to believe you didn't truly beat it.  

 

I think I'd have that same response if I were streaming and having people come in to comment on my gameplay of and older game.

 

He kinda piggy-backed on the success of the Angry Video Game Nerd on youtube. He streams old NES games and such. He's good at them, and beats most of the games that he sets out to, but he plays a LOT. Like, that's literally all he does. I mean, he makes money from it, but it's literally all he does. He'll stream an NES game for four or five hours playing a game over and over and over until he beats it. If the guy manages some kind of social life outside of it, then good for him, but he's living in a bubble where he has the time and encouragement (streaming) to see a game through, but at the same time kind of ignores that 99% of adults don't have that luxury.

 

I actually watch his youtube channel a lot in the background while I'm playing something of my own, mainly because his videos are so long that I don't have to worry about looking for something else.

 

 

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46 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

If you're simply playing for fun and finishing the games for your own personal enjoyment, why the hell do you care about peoples opinions on you beating or not beating the game?

Because nobody asked for his opinion on whether their beating the game "counts." That's also why people are tearing his asshole open. He came out swinging because he takes a lot of pride in having a ton of free time and no one's supposed to push back? Bullshit.

"HEY FUCK YOU YOUR TIME DOESN'T COUNT UNLESS I SAY SO"
5 minutes later

"OI WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT MY OPINION"

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6 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Because nobody asked for his opinion on whether their beating the game "counts." That's also why people are tearing his asshole open. He came out swinging because he takes a lot of pride in having a ton of free time and no one's supposed to push back? Bullshit.

 

It's Twitter, no one asks for anyone's opinion.  But again, the same people claiming no one should give a shit about their definition of beating a game, are crying over his definition of what it is to beat a game.  

 

And he clearly has people coming in his streams probably engaging this subject with him in his chat, which is what made him make the Tweet.  Its a completely valid opinion for someone to have.  Why are people so offended over his opinion.

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1 minute ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

It's Twitter, no one asks for anyone's opinion.  But again, the same people claiming no one should give a shit about their definition of beating a game, are crying over his definition of what it is to beat a game.  

 

And he clearly has people coming in his streams probably engaging this subject with him in his chat, which is what made him make the Tweet.  Its a completely valid opinion for someone to have.  Why are people so offended over his opinion.

Because he came off as an elitist cunt over something so unbelievably trivial that it makes it extra cunty. And please, spare me the "people are offended" line. That's as worthless as his original argument.

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I beat GTA:SA with cheat codes but I don't consider myself to have really beaten the game, but I don't care. It was more fun with cheat codes.

 

When I beat Zelda 1 I used the rewind feature. I didn't plan to, but I wouldn't have stuck through the game without it. I got zero fun out of the game and I was glad to have finally gotten through the game. The whole thing was very tedious and boring, and the controls on the switch felt awful. Playing on my PC with WASD would have been a better experience. I never rewound on a boss as the bosses weren't the issue. I don't think I really beat the game, but I just wanted to get through it. Unlike Zelda 1, there was no reason to use the rewind feature in ALttP. 

 

There were other games I beat first with "cheats" but then went back and actually beat them because I no longer needed them. I first beat RE4 with a NG+ save and used infinite ammo weapons, but I did go back and beat the game for real. I did the same thing with the Tony Hawk's Underground series where I used cheats for perfect balance, but then I went back and beat it for real. 

 

Like, if it was asked if I beat Zelda 1 I'd just say yeah because it is easier and I did progress through the entire game start to finish, but I didn't really beat it. At least that is how I feel. And I don't think save states are cheating unless you use it to cheese a boss rush mode or something like that. Like, yeah you got through the boss rush mode, but only because you saved after each boss and reloaded if you took any damage. But like, dying in Zelda 1 is hella lame and making you start at the very first screen is just wasting your time. But then there are also games that have limited saves or save spots that make surviving until the next save spot part of the challenge so idk. Like, in some RPGs you can only save outside of the dungeon so you have to do the dungeon and the boss all in one go. I don't know how I'd feel about using a save state before the boss. It feels wrong but I also being made to so something tedious and boring. Going through an entire dungeon again because I died on the boss isn't fun. I quit Bravely Default because I couldn't stand repeating the same shit over and over again. It wasn't hard at all. I had a build where I'd have one guy use a move that did 9999 damage and then I'd have the other 3 characters use mimic so they used the same move. That class also allowed you to heal so I was basically unstoppable from a gameplay perspective. What stopped me what the shitty way the devs made the game by having you do the same dungeons over and over again to get the true ending. 

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1 hour ago, Bacon said:

I beat GTA:SA with cheat codes but I don't consider myself to have really beaten the game, but I don't care. It was more fun with cheat codes.

 

When I beat Zelda 1 I used the rewind feature. I didn't plan to, but I wouldn't have stuck through the game without it. I got zero fun out of the game and I was glad to have finally gotten through the game. The whole thing was very tedious and boring, and the controls on the switch felt awful. Playing on my PC with WASD would have been a better experience. I never rewound on a boss as the bosses weren't the issue. I don't think I really beat the game

 I think this is a big distinction for me personally. If YOU think you didn't really beat the game, that's understandable. Extrapolating that out to "If you used the rewind feature you didn't even come CLOSE to beating the goddamn game! Nyeh!" is some middle schooler bullshit we can all live without. In other words, very Mike Matei.


It's a very easy rabbit hole to get sucked down, too. When does your victory actually count? If you cheesed enemies in Dark Souls, does that invalidate your win? How about if you overleveled? Leveled up at all? What if you stocked up on a billion healing items like in Demon's Souls? Summoning a friend? An NPC? Is getting to the credits "within the game itself" the only requirement? Why? Is an inbuilt easy mode a disqualifier? How about if you use a guide? Couldn't solve the puzzle and looked it up? Fuck you, you didn't beat the game you sperg.

 

It's such an obnoxious mentality. And in a world of speedrunners beating games like RE2 without using weapons AND never being hit, what the fuck does your "legit" victory matter at all? Normie ass run, do it without damage on hardcore. There's no end to it. It's why I really don't care what you use, just play the games that you find fun in the manner you find most fun. You owe it to no one to play in any "intended" way because developers are not infallible gods, and you don't need to present your REAL GAMER™ card to participate in a discussion about a game. Multiple perspectives from different experiences are always more interesting than everyone sucking each other off.

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My friend and I were playing resident evil 7 and there is the part out in the docks that was dark as hell and we got tired of dying due to not being able to see shit so we cranked up the brightness til it looked like daytime. Once we got past the part we put the brightness back to normal. I think it’s his TVs fault but we were so fed up we just wanted to move the fuck on. I’d lol if somebody said I “didn’t beat the game”. 

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19 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

 

I agree with you.  Games are not an e-penis competition.

Older games were made harder for a variety of reasons:

1)  They were limited by the amount of content they could contain, so they were made harder so it would take longer to beat. (i.e. adding value for money)

2)  Arcade games were made harder to suck in more quarters.  This carried into their home versions.

They weren't always made that difficult because the designers thought that this would make "the best (i.e. most enjoyable) game".

These are my two thoughts. And I feel like the guy tweeting this knows this already and is just attention whoring. 

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2 hours ago, johnny said:

My friend and I were playing resident evil 7 and there is the part out in the docks that was dark as hell and we got tired of dying due to not being able to see shit so we cranked up the brightness til it looked like daytime. Once we got past the part we put the brightness back to normal. I think it’s his TVs fault but we were so fed up we just wanted to move the fuck on. I’d lol if somebody said I “didn’t beat the game”. 


You didn’t beat the game.

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13 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Because he came off as an elitist cunt over something so unbelievably trivial that it makes it extra cunty. And please, spare me the "people are offended" line. That's as worthless as his original argument.

 

That's my point though.  If its so unbelievably trivial, why get so worked up over how someone else defines what it is to beat a game?  Literally to the point people are getting emotional and upset about it.  Just play the games you enjoy playing and enjoy them however you want.  To get upset that someone believes using cheats or rewind features doesn't mean you beat the game to me is what seems like the irrational thing to do.  The man is as entitled to his opinion as you are to yours. 

 

And its not some absurd opinion either.  In any other activity or hobby we all partake in, if someone states they cheated in something, and people discount their achievement, people don't get all butt hurt and claim they are assholes or gate keepers or cunts.  Why is gaming so different? 

 

Apparently a lot believe using cheats to beat games is fine.  I don't care, do your thing.  I've used cheats or game genies or other things in the past too.  It can be a blast.  I'm not gonna get upset or emotional about it.  But if you came into my stream and told me you beat a game by using cheats, I'd have every right to tell you I don't consider that beating a game.  And by his retweets and likes, its a pretty common opinion to have.

 

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Disagree, and I'll go further and say that with few exceptions, I think resetting a player to much earlier and making them repeat the same content is just plain bad game design and lazy way to make a game "hard." Because it's not "hard" it's just long. Generally speaking when this happens it's because there is a challenge I'm having trouble further in, not the stuff I already passed. So all you're doing is making me repeat stuff I've already mastered and delaying me from playing there interesting part. This kind of design is a lot like having effectively mandatory level grinding in an RPG.

 

Better game design would put the player right back at the part that's challenging them as soon as they die. Take, Celeste, as an example. The game was hard! But it didn't need to make you replay half the level to remain challenging. Quite the contrary, it would immediately start you right back at the part you're struggling to complete and that was a great mechanic.

 

18 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Sigh... First of all, I don't even think they're "Super duper hard" as I said in my post.  Did you just get to that point in my post and stop reading? They are just "harder" than most other modern games because they don't hold your hand and they incorporate real consequence for dying. The games require more patience than anything else... and pattern recognition. The exploration and lore are part of it, but the big appeal of the games is coming up with different builds to suit your play style to overcome the challenges in the game. Do you think for one second that if you took away the "difficulty" of these games they would have caught on the way they did? I would argue they wouldn't, Nobody is playing the Souls games "for the story". I would also argue that Miyazaki has a specific experience he has in mind when he designs these games and part of that experience is challenging the player. If you don't want to experience the game in that way, that's fine but it kinda makes your opinion about the game a little moot. That's my point. I really don't give a shit how people consume their games. I do get irked when people offer half baked opinions on shit when they have no idea WTF they're talking about.

 

Do you think the games would become easy if you added more frequent checkpoints to the souls games? If not, the question isn't really about taking away the difficulty, is it?

 

15 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

First, who is "You guys?" I'm not even talking about the Nintendo game thing... I was mainly talking about the Souls games. Second, if you think folks don't do EXACTLY what you described then go into the Jedi Fallen Order thread... There were guys in the routinely complaining about the combat and lack of depth thereof and then you found out they were playing easy mode or some shit. That scenario I described in my post was a REAL thing that happened that I paraphrased with a co-worker of mine who would buy every game that came out and routinely off his opinions on games that he either didn't play fully or he used cheat codes to get through. He never bothered to actually learn the game play.

 

 

Yeah which is why I was agreeing with you... I even used your exact wording. The Souls games don't have difficulty levels BY DESIGN.

 

Naa, the Fallen Order just didn't have great combat :p At least not for most of the game that I played. I was one of the people complaining in that thread about the boring combat, and it wasn't because I was playing on easy. Quite the contrary, I was playing on hard (Jedi Master?) and still didn't have trouble getting through it. The combat just wasn't interesting to me.

 

As a point of contrast, I later started up Bloodborne for the first time. I actually really liked the combat in that. It felt far more satisfying and reactive than anything in Fallen Order, and it *was* satisfying to feel myself getting better at it as I played.

 

However, Bloodborne just doesn't respect a person's time, to the point that they don't even include a pause button! I got good enough to methodically clear out the early mobs without issue; made a bunch of progress, and then died (just barely) to a new enemy I hadn't encountered before, and all my progress was gone. I could have made it back since I now was good enough to handle the prior enemies, but it just makes the game such a slog. As I said above, I don't want to replay the content I already mastered just to get back to the challenging part: I want to play the challenging part! If Bloodborne had more frequent checkpoints and allowed you to do basic things like pause, I probably would have enjoyed the game a lot, because I did like the core combat mechanics and world design.

 

If From wants to focus all their efforts on only designing games in that way, that's their prerogative, but I find it really boring and uninspired game design and I think their games don't even need that mechanic to make them challenging.

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I have no problems with it. Especially now that I'm old, have limited time, and most games are just too goddamn long anymore. Plus, things were just different back in the NES days. Most of those games once you "got gud" at them could be beaten in an hour or two. If you could have rolled through it that fast on the first try or two, the damn things wouldn't have been worth $50. Plus back then if you were a kid, getting a new game was a rare occurrence saved for your birthday, Christmas, and maybe a good report card or something. The real business was when you could rent a game for a week for $5. So you had limited access to games back then, so they needed to last you. If you were 7 and got a game for your birthday and you had another 6 months to go to Christmas, you'd be pretty pissed if your birthday game was finished the next day. 

 

You should play a game however you want to play it. You're the one who bought it. Enjoy it however you want to enjoy it. If you used cheats, so be it. I'm a Dark Souls player, and no I wouldn't give a shit if you cheated your way through it. That's not how I want to play it. And if you need cheats to beat it, you're only cheating yourself because there are motherfuckers out there beating all the bosses at SL1 in NG+7 naked with a dagger. 

 

Some people go straight to hard mode when they start a new game. Some go straight to easy. Shit most new games literally have modes where they make the combat so easy your cat could play the game. If that's what you want to do more power to you. Play the game however you want to play it. 

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You did not be a game if:

1)      Did not see all of the endings

2)      You played an emulation or “port” of a game (i.e. you have only beat Double Dragon it you played it on an original arcade machine)

3)      You played it on modified hardware

4)      For arcade machines, you used more than one quarter (or token)

5)      You played it using interconnects that were not available for the platform at its original launch in its first market (i.e. all NES games have to be beat using an RF modulator)

6)      You played it on a display that was not readily available when the game was released (i.e. played a NES game on a LCD or CRT that was bigger than what was readily available at the time)

7)      Sat closer to a TV than 8 feet, or closer to a monitor than 2 feet (or played a PC game on a TV, or a console game on a monitor)

8)      Played on a display that had not been calibrated by an ISF certified technician in the previous 12 months (to ensure brightness/contrast setting were correct)

9)      Used a controller that was not included with the console (use of auto-fire, rapid-fire, “premium controllers”, mice with more than two buttons plus scroll-wheel are not allowed)

10)   Used a mod, or cheat code

11)   Read a walkthrough, strategy guide, hint guide or called a tip-line

12)   Talked to a friend about how to play the game

13)   Used more than one save slot or reloaded a game to reverse progress

14)   Did not play at the highest difficulty setting available

15)   Altered the controller sensitivity or button mapping (exception: inverting the Y-axis is required)

16)   Played at lower than the highest graphical settings possible

17)   Played it co-op when it could be played single player

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If all of those are your standards for what it means to beat a game, that's fine.  Post that on Twitter, I'm not gonna call you a cunt asshole gate keeper. 

 

I'll say its a pretty extreme viewpoint but if that' what you deem it required to beat a game, more power to ya.

 

I'll keep my standard of simply not using cheats.

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1 hour ago, legend said:

Do you think the games would become easy if you added more frequent checkpoints to the souls games? If not, the question isn't really about taking away the difficulty, is it?

Again, as I said in the post YOU quoted, I don't think the games ARE hard. The Souls games teach you very early to proceed with caution and patience. Don't rush into a situation against an unfamiliar enemy until you know their attack patterns and even then don't let yourself get into a situation where you're fighting more than one at a time. You don't need more checkpoints for that. Just patience and observational skills. However to answer your question, I think that adding more checkpoints in the Souls games would do TWO things, both of which would severely take away from what makes these games great. One, it would take away the urge to explore the areas... One of the main reasons to explore the different areas in Souls games besides finding secrets and loot is to find checkpoints i.e. Bonfires/Shrines or whatever the motif is for the particular game. The game drives you to seek those things out and in doing so, you explore more of the level than you probably would have otherwise. This is a good thing and is key to the experience that the designers are shooting for. If you aren't driven to explore, then you miss out on one of the things that makes the Souls games standout and that is their often very intricately designed levels filled with secrets and short cuts. 

The other thing you lose with more checkpoints is the tension that is built up when you're low on healing items, filled with Souls hand haven't checked in in awhile. There's a risk vs reward built into the experience that is derived by the feeling of having something tangible that you can lose as a player(in this case whatever progress you could potentially be making to the next character level) Adding more checkpoints in the case of THESE particular games wouldn't necessarily make them easier, but what it would do is strip away key parts of these games' identity and what makes/made them so unique to the point that they've created a new sub-genre. And for what? To make them more accessible? In some cases that's fine... like I said in a game like Jedi Fallen Order it makes perfect sense because the game has a great, straightforward narrative that a lot of gamers or consumers, who don't have the time or patience for a traditional Souls-type game would want to experience. It makes sense to include an "easy" (quotes used deliberately) mode in that case. For the Souls games it makes no sense to me because those games are NOT primarily about a narrative experience. They are about exploration, extremely flexible gameplay in building a character to suit your playstyle and to a lesser extent, PvP and Co-op. So that's my long winded answer to your question.

 

1 hour ago, legend said:

Naa, the Fallen Order just didn't have great combat :p At least not for most of the game that I played. I was one of the people complaining in that thread about the boring combat, and it wasn't because I was playing on easy. Quite the contrary, I was playing on hard (Jedi Master?) and still didn't have trouble getting through it. The combat just wasn't interesting to me.

That's cool and that's YOUR opinion. I'm sure I was referring to you as well as others who were playing the game a certain way... The combat in Jedi Fallen order to me is what you make of it.If you just block attack block, then the shit would be boring I guess. But if you play around with the tools given to you, force powers, different saber attacks and modes, then you can get really creative with the combat and it opens up. You get out of it what you put into it :shrug: I thin @johnny put it best in the Jedi Fallen Order thread.

 

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The combat is SO FUN though. I think of it like Horizon where if you stick to the bread and butter it could be boring but if you really try to incorporate all your skills it is really fun and satisfying. 

 

That about sums it up.

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1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Again, as I said in the post YOU quoted, I don't think the games ARE hard. The Souls games teach you very early to proceed with caution and patience. Don't rush into a situation against an unfamiliar enemy until you know their attack patterns and even then don't let yourself get into a situation where you're fighting more than one at a time. You don't need more checkpoints for that. Just patience and observational skills.

 

This doesn't seem very realistic. The Souls games are notorious for having people die over and over again due to unknowns. I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to avoid dying due to new unknown enemies with unknown attack patterns--and consequently replaying stuff they've already nailed down--by just being "careful." Lots of death in your first run of Souls games seems expected, even by vets who are good at them and know to be careful.

 

Replaying stuff you've already figured out does indeed required patience though :p 

 

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However to answer your question, I think that adding more checkpoints in the Souls games would do TWO things, both of which would severely take away from what makes these games great. One, it would take away the urge to explore the areas... One of the main reasons to explore the different areas in Souls games besides finding secrets and loot is to find checkpoints i.e. Bonfires/Shrines or whatever the motif is for the particular game. The game drives you to seek those things out and in doing so, you explore more of the level than you probably would have otherwise. This is a good thing and is key to the experience that the designers are shooting for. If you aren't driven to explore, then you miss out on one of the things that makes the Souls games standout and that is their often very intricately designed levels filled with secrets and short cuts. 

 

I do like games that reward exploration, so I suppose my response would be: find a better way to encourage exploration than making me retread content.

 

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The other thing you lose with more checkpoints is the tension that is built up when you're low on healing items, filled with Souls hand haven't checked in in awhile. There's a risk vs reward built into the experience that is derived by the feeling of having something tangible that you can lose as a player(in this case whatever progress you could potentially be making to the next character level) Adding more checkpoints in the case of THESE particular games wouldn't necessarily make them easier, but what it would do is strip away key parts of these games' identity and what makes/made them so unique to the point that they've created a new sub-genre. And for what? To make them more accessible? In some cases that's fine... like I said in a game like Jedi Fallen Order it makes perfect sense because the game has a great, straightforward narrative that a lot of gamers or consumers, who don't have the time or patience for a traditional Souls-type game would want to experience. It makes sense to include an "easy" (quotes used deliberately) mode in that case. For the Souls games it makes no sense to me because those games are NOT primarily about a narrative experience. They are about exploration, extremely flexible gameplay in building a character to suit your playstyle and to a lesser extent, PvP and Co-op. So that's my long winded answer to your question.

 

I wouldn't argue that the "for what" is to make it "accessible." I would say it's to make it "fun." Unlike Fallen Order, I enjoyed the combat in Bloodborne and learning how to fight the enemies. I did not enjoy being blocked from doing that because the game thinks I need to replay stuff I've already figured out. 

 

 

I think the ends you're describing: tension and reward for exploration are good aims. I think the way From achieves them via sparse checkpoints has a lot of downsides that consequently makes it feel like a lazy way to achieve it to me. Clearly many people such as yourself don't really mind those downsides, but it's hard for me to believe that there couldn't be a better way.

 

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That's cool and that's YOUR opinion. I'm sure I was referring to you as well as others who were playing the game a certain way... The combat in Jedi Fallen order to me is what you make of it.If you just block attack block, then the shit would be boring I guess. But if you play around with the tools given to you, force powers, different saber attacks and modes, then you can get really creative with the combat and it opens up. You get out of it what you put into it :shrug: I thin @johnny put it best in the Jedi Fallen Order thread.

 

 

That about sums it up.

 

I do believe you that there can be more fun when you get creative with the powers, especially in the later game when you get more. But creative combat and good fundamentals don't need to be exclusive. Plenty of games achieve both. Since I did also like everything else in the game, I am optimistic for what they may achieve in a sequel when they can polish it more.

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