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[Kinaetron]

I personally despise other enemies attacking you during boss fights. It always come across as either lazy or just giving up designing an actual engaging boss.

[Torchkas]

I dislike difficulty settings, in general. I think it's better for a game to look for alternative design solutions for less skilled players (eg low scores, alternative routes) rather than hamfisted damage boosts or different AI behavior.

I personally despise other enemies attacking you during boss fights. It always come across as either lazy or just giving up designing an actual engaging boss.

On the other hand, a lone boss doesn't test the player with challenges you'd normally get in a level. I dislike it when a boss requires me to relearn strategies.

[Sik]

Minimaps. I know, they are usually useful. But sometimes they are too useful, to the point where 100% of my attention is on that 5% of screen space and all the rest of the screen, where all the millions of dollars of development money went, becomes useless.

Incidentally, this is why Doom doesn't update the automap while you're in it, because otherwise players spent all their time playing in the automap (making one wonder why bother with the 3D graphics =P).

[s0]

I dislike difficulty settings, in general. I think it's better for a game to look for alternative design solutions for less skilled players (eg low scores, alternative routes) rather than hamfisted damage boosts or different AI behavior.

i agree with that. i also think each game has a "correct" difficulty that arises out of its design. very often in games with difficulty settings you have the problem that no setting feels exactly right.

[s0]

On the other hand, a lone boss doesn't test the player with challenges you'd normally get in a level. I dislike it when a boss requires me to relearn strategies.

not a "pet peeve" but i think boss fights in general are overrated, esp when gam designers start neglecting level design because of them.

[Tuba]

Many games have bosses just because they are games and they feel the need to have a boss. Those are usually bad.

[Crabby]

Boss battles can be exciting when there are multiple ways to combat a boss. My worst type of boss is the boss where only one attack will work to hurt it by a small amount while the boss can deploy a ton of powerful attacks.

[Tuba]

IMO bosses should be like the ultimate test for the player.

I like puzzly bosses that test the player with every skill that's important in the game. I think Portal does a great job on this with Glados making you use portals in a different way but not different enough that you have to learn anything new.

[Photon]

I dislike difficulty settings, in general. I think it's better for a game to look for alternative design solutions for less skilled players (eg low scores, alternative routes) rather than hamfisted damage boosts or different AI behavior.

i agree with that. i also think each game has a "correct" difficulty that arises out of its design. very often in games with difficulty settings you have the problem that no setting feels exactly right.

Star Fox Zero has an "invincibility mode" so that inexperienced players can "see the game:"

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/03/14/star-fox-zero-includes-an-invincibility-option-for-beginners

Honestly, I've always leaned towards the whole game-wide difficulty level thing being silly with few exceptions. Like, how am I supposed to know how hard your game is before I start playing it? Do I get halfway through and realize "Well shoot, I need to start over on an easier difficulty?"

Personally, any time a game offers me a difficulty choice I often crank it up to the highest setting possible and don't look back, for better or worse. I don't screw around.

I think the core issue here really boils down to one of accessibility. I mean, an invincibility mode definitely makes the game more accessible on a certain level, but what part of the experience do you lose in the process? It seems like a super tasteless way to implement an "easy" mode. On the other hand, there are several human factors that affect the accessibility of a game, many of which are addressed in some modern games (closed captioning for the hearing-impaired, colorblind options, etc.) Perhaps things like invincibility mode are just catering to the lowest common denominator. Still feels kinda lazy to me, but I don't have any major physical problems holding me back from enjoying video games.

[s0]

Honestly, I've always leaned towards the whole game-wide difficulty level thing being silly with few exceptions. Like, how am I supposed to know how hard your game is before I start playing it? Do I get halfway through and realize "Well shoot, I need to start over on an easier difficulty?"

well, that can be remedied by letting you select difficulty ingame.

to be clear: i have no beef with difficulty levels as long as there is one difficulty level that the game is balanced around and the rest are either easier levels for bad, inexperienced or disabled players or extra challenges for veterans. basically "normal" should actually be normal. xcom EU is one game i would cite where each of the difficulties has its own flaws and none feels like the "correct" one (i love the game, mind you!).

[Torchkas]

yeah it came to mind because I was playing silent hill and it just felt really unsubstantial

[Tuba]

In the specific case of Star Fox, games developed by Platinum are always designed to be played more than once, with the first time being almost a tutorial and with the higher difficulty being unlocked only after the player manages to finish it once.

My guess is that Nintendo wants Star Fox to appeal to everyone, from new players to Platinum fans and they might have thought that even the easy mode on a Platinum game may still be too challenging to new players. So, I think adding an invincible mode allows even those players to play the game "the right way", "mastering" it on invincible, then moving to easy, and so on...

[s0]

ya i don't see a problem with this mode.

[Photon]

In the specific case of Star Fox, games developed by Platinum are always designed to be played more than once, with the first time being almost a tutorial and with the higher difficulty being unlocked only after the player manages to finish it once.

My guess is that Nintendo wants Star Fox to appeal to everyone, from new players to Platinum fans and they might have thought that even the easy mode on a Platinum game may still be too challenging to new players. So, I think adding an invincible mode allows even those players to play the game "the right way", "mastering" it on invincible, then moving to easy, and so on...

I understand what they're going for, but it just sounds a bit extreme. But maybe its the polarizing nature of it that makes the decision easier for each individual player. There's no vague "slighty easy" and "slightly less easy," so to speak.

Even so, what irks me about this is that I think it puts too much pressure on the player to make an otherwise linear game their own. More or less, when you are entering the game for the first time blind, you can't expect the player to fully recognize all the consequences of their actions up front. There are many factors that drive the enjoyment of a game, including difficulty, and that should be by design. My concern is that something like an "invincibility mode" takes it to the extreme and unnecessarily divides the factors into two separate camps, like on one playthrough you get the story and discovery and on the second you can get the challenge. Was this the original vision of the game? Would it have been better to experience it all at once? I suppose that's a decision the player can make, but again, they are trying to determine what kind of experience they want with what little prior knowledge they've been given to start out.

Even at a more hardcore level I don't particularly like those decisions and that's why I typically just go all out at the highest setting. I don't want to "spoil" half the game then realize I'm bored because I set it things too low. And a mid-game difficulty adjustment is not always feasible either.

[JWK5]

The necessity of difficulty modes really depends on the complexity of the game and how much it forces the player to think about.



If we were talking card games, chances are Concentration (in which you flip over two cards a turn in order to find a pair) isn't going to require much instruction and really doesn't demand a whole lot of mental juggling on the part of the player. Something like Yu-Gi-Oh! on the other hand is going to require some decent instruction and there is a lot to think about each turn.

For Concentration, about as far as you could go to add or reduce difficulty is shuffling the cards on the table (making it random) or increasing or decreasing the number of cards to search through. Difficulty really isn't a major factor to the game overall.

With Yu-Gi-Oh!, assuming you were just playing against the AI even, you need to know what your cards do, how to build a deck, etc. and depending on what cards you have versus what cards the opponent has the difficulty can vary greatly. Difficulty is a major factor, and having difficulty modes is practically a must or your player is going to spend a significant amount of their time locked in hopeless frustration while they wait for decent cards to put in their deck.




Rather than looking at it as "difficulty" at all, it is better to think of it as the overall "mental load" of your game, that is how much strain you will be putting on your player's reflexes, concentration, awareness, logical thinking, etc. collectively. Thinking of it as a "mental load" you can then find ways to either increase or decrease the load making the game more or less taxing on your player's mental resources.

That is another thing to consider, it is "mental resources", your player does not have infinite attention, reflexive energy, time, etc. so playing your game is costing them mentally (they essentially pay a mental upkeep as they play). The heavier the "mental load" the more "mental resources" your game is costing them meaning you can burn out your player very rapidly if you are constantly inflicting a heavy "mental load" on them. By periodically lightening and increasing the load you can create periods where they can recuperate some of those lost "mental resources" or at the very least stagger and slow the rate at which they might burn out (get tired of the game or just tired in general and need to take a break or do something else) while still keeping the pressure on and the engagement going.

Looking at it purely as "difficulty" is kind of pointless, really, because what is difficult for one person is easy for another. Also, difficulty becomes less difficult with practice and learning. When you think of it as a "mental load", your are instead focusing on what you are mentally asking out of your player rather than trying to second guess how difficult you are making things for them. Eventually they will learn to manage the load (and most things will be committed to muscle memory) but realizing the mental load better informs you of where in your game the player is going to have to commit more effort.

Even something seemingly simple can have a hefty mental load. Take for example the character in a platformer is trying to jump across a gap and land on a tiny platform in the center. Outwardly it doesn't seem like much, just jumping to the platform, but it may be demanding that they balance their acceleration, guage the distance as they move, time their jump, manage their air control, and time their landing in the split second before it happens (all while fighting reflexive urges like accidentally moving forward or erratically hitting the jump button again, if you've played Super Mario Bros. you know what I am talking about). It is actually significant mental load which can cause a hefty "difficulty" spike in the level.

Not accounting for that and just making an overall assumption about the difficulty of the level as a whole can create a very uneven play experience. If you are going to create difficulty modes, it is much easier to gauge them based on how frequently they demand heavy mental loads. "Easier" modes demand lighter mental loads, "Hard" modes demand heavier mental loads.

[zombieonion]

"Romance options" that really have nothing to do with how romance works in reality in certain RPGs.

[s0]

Most romance games are wish fulfillment fantasies for self proclaimed "lonely nice guys". Doesn't mean they can't still be enjoyed as long as u realize they depict romance about as realistically as call of dooty depicts war.

[Tuba]

Problem with romance in games is that is treated like a reward. You get the girl/boy, you're both happy, the end!
Games never explore what comes next, can't remember any games where the player is into a relationship from the beginning or that talk about the end of one.

Closest I can think of is Silent Hill 2 but everything is so metaphorical that I think that most people don't even realize what the game is about.

Heavy Rain starts with a divorce but that's never addressed in the game.

Related:

[JWK5]

Romance is like playing the Souls games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne), everything you worked so hard for always hangs in peril and any moment you can lose it. Desperately trying to get it back makes you belligerent and puts you at risk for losing it for good, and if playing badly one of you is bound to rage-quit. Unless you have the patience of a saint you will lose it a few times while you learn to navigate all the potential peril, but if you navigate carefully you get through, you get farther, you grow stronger, and you have an amazing experience. If you ever get stuck, remember you have an ally all to willing to help should you summon them to your side.

And thus, the Souls games are the perfect romance games (especially when you play them co-op with your love-interest/partner).

[Torchkas]

what if they like the way your penis feels?