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On March 19 2013 21:58 Yacobs wrote:
So, the console versions have leaked already and, thanks to that, there are some people that have been streaming the game (at least until they get shut down).
After watching for a while, I can say that the game looks worse than I could ever have imagined. This Elizabeth character is basically equivalent to mandatory God Mode. During gunfights, whenever you need anything, she just throws it to you from an infinite supply (is that why this game is called Infinite?). She'll give you infinite amounts of health, mana, and ammunition. To make matters worse, if you're so bad at the game that you still manage to die with infinite resources, Elizabeth instantly revives you right then and there. Even if you jump off a ledge into the abyss, she will just revive you at the edge of the platform like nothing happened. You quite literally CANNOT DIE in this game.
Now I know why there's this "1999 Mode" in the game -- because apparently Ken Levine believes that 1999 was the last era when video gamers could possibly stand the thought of not winning a game with no effort. Also, this 1999 Mode requires you to beat the entire game once before you're even allowed to access it. This shows you how dumb Levine believes his consumer-base to be -- he's so afraid someone will accidentally activate it, it's tucked away as deep into the game as you can imagine.
Further evidence the game believes you are clinically retarded. There are several scenes where things like this happen. You come upon a ledge and Elizabeth says "THIS IS A GOOD SNIPING AREA!" and she just tosses you a sniper rifle, conjuring it out of thin air, and it replaces whatever weapon you were holding at the time.
What a huge disappointment.
After all the hype this game got, if it does turn out to be like this, then I'm giving it a skip for sure. Seems like most "big titles" these days fall under this category of having amazing hype with mediocre deliverance.
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I loved Bioshock because of the setting and story, not the difficulty. I don't see how this changes in Infinite. Infinite is looking grim because of that post? Give me a break.
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On March 21 2013 09:46 Yacobs wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 08:54 Dracolich70 wrote:
PPS Your complaints about being respawned by Elizabeth when jumping off a cliff to your death, seems a bit odd in gaming sense, since it is incredibly common to respawn after you fail. Or reload from a saved option - again when you failed. If the game does not have these, then the difficulties lies therein and cannot provide you with tasks that are of mammoth proportions, else the game fails as well, as it gets too frustrating. Saving/respawning/medikits/ are somewhat God Mode in some sense, yes? Dying in games should cost time and/or resources. I guarantee dying in Infinite will not cost meaningful resources (since they never bother to balance money in these games to be meaningfully scarce), so that means the only resource you can lose by dying is time. If the game respawns you right where you died, dying doesn't cost any time either. Which means there is no consequence whatsoever of dying. Since you seem to be a fan of streamlining, why didn't they just remove dying entirely from the game?
So wait...you think a game that takes place in a completely wide-open sky with no handrails anywhere and a lot of emphasis on midair rail movement should punish you severely for falling off a cliff? That's probably the stupidest idea anyone could come up with. You'd either have everyone bitching about how an FPS is a platformer with bottomless pits everywhere, or you have most players avoiding anything near ledges.
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On March 21 2013 11:34 Dracolich70 wrote:
lots of stuff
Nice post, I agree. My first reaction to reading Yacobs' post was "god damn it, another cool franchise sacrificed at the altar of casual gamers' wallets", but after reading your take on it I think you're right. The point of a game like Bioshock is to (1) immerse you in the world the art directors created and (2) make that experience fun. This isn't Dark Souls where the point of the game is to learn from your mistakes and improve your skills. Difficultly in a game is good when it directly contributes to the atmosphere, as in Dark Souls, or when it provides a competitive environment, like Starcraft. Nobody's going to be competing in Bioshock; nobody cares how good you are at a single player FPS. All a single player FPS is designed to do is make you enjoy hitting some buttons and watching the pretty pictures on your screen.
Being resurrected immediately on death reminded me of the recent(ish?) Prince of Persia game, where if you fell off a cliff, Elika would pull you back to safety, costing you maybe 5 seconds of playtime. Was the game trivially easy? Absolutely, but I still like the game quite a bit because it's not trying to be a difficult platformer that tests your reflexes, it's just trying to toss you into a beautifully designed world and let you enjoy exploring it. If anything, that sort of "forced god-mode" is preferable to frequent saves/checkpoints because it doesn't break the immersion the way a loading screen would. Anyway, yeah. Not all games need to challenge you to be fun.
If this game were a movie, it would be a summer blockbuster that looked awesome in trailers, turned out to be pretty shallow but was fun enough that you don't regret buying a ticket, even though you probably wouldn't bother watching it a second time. It's not going to be winning any film festivals, sure, but it's not trying to and that's fine.
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I think you got most of my points, while emphasizing others, particularly with the immersion part. Very good.
However, I see no correlation between game difficulty and length of DT from a singular failure. There simply is none. That you need to rekill/redo what you had already done, is not difficulty per se. Respawning with all the ammo you had left in your failure can of course provide great difficulty, but I have not seen a FPS that does that, but rather gives you full ammo, once again, so in some cases death can even be preferred to restock.
I did not try to project that removing the resource gathering, equals a game is easier, rather that such help with unlimited resources usually means the difficulty is cranked up significantly somewhere else providing other challenges. So I am sure you will be challenged in Bioshock Infinite. That is usually how it goes. As an analogy, if you are able to use the textbooks during an exam, then the test itself is harder, since they are aware you have this help. If you are not allowed to use the textbooks, then the test itself is easier, as they know all you have is your memory to cling onto.
Of course, all you said could be true, when it comes to Bioshock Infinite, that difficulty was sacrificed for immersion. But I try to project that it doesn't mean that it is in itself by those design decisions. They are actually just removing all the useless things about death, I think. Removing the need for massive F5 saves, loads of running back, perhaps redoing what you had already done once oft times feel inflexible, and odd game decisions, and never a part I have liked. Checkpoints is just horrid. Just like I never have liked rewriting something that I had already written, it getting erased so I had to redo it to get to the point where I was. Unfun parts, not difficult.
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If I hadn't gotten me my self a copy of XCOM when it was released I would preorder via steam for sure. XCOM alone is worth the money 
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With the amount of special offers for pre-ordering, this whole thing doesn't surprise me one bit.
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"Ultra-babysitter Elizabeth" is ok, but only if the ultra-babysitting can be turned off somehow. Via difficulty settings or game-modes that don't have to be unlocked.
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Iranon and Dracolich70, you both seem to have slid so far down the slippery slope that you'll probably never return...
It's kind of mind-boggling that you're attempting to convince me that a FPS can have challenge without death. An FPS game is not a point-and-click adventure game. It's not a puzzle game. The point of an FPS is to shoot people while avoiding getting shot yourself. If getting shot yourself is meaningless then ALL COMBAT in the game is meaningless, which means that the entire GAME portion of the "game" is meaningless. There's no such thing as difficult FPS combat where you can't die. Sorry, but you can't summon a paradox because your argument demands it.
If you cannot lose a game, then it is not a game but an interactive movie. If you are happy playing interactive movies where you walk through nice-looking environments, watch cutscenes/listen to story dialog, and get to indiscriminately slaughter supposedly dangerous enemies with no effort then that is fine. Knock yourself out. But don't even start to pretend that this sort of design is actually FOR THE BETTER. That's complete and total nonsense.
So wait...you think a game that takes place in a completely wide-open sky with no handrails anywhere and a lot of emphasis on midair rail movement should punish you severely for falling off a cliff? That's probably the stupidest idea anyone could come up with.
Yes, god forbid you actually have to look where you're going while playing a video game. It's much too much effort to actually use your eyes and brain between those moments where you're jamming the trigger to watch all the enemies disintegrate with ease.
Even beyond the silliness of a game with no game, if there is literally ZERO consequence of falling to your death off of a ledge -- why do they even let you fall off in the first place? It seems pretty obvious that they should just put invisible walls around all the platforms. Apparently inconveniencing the player's drive to "experience" the storyline as quickly as possible is the ultimate no-no, so why not save those two seconds of insta-respawn entirely?
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I wish they would add some sort of punishment if you fell off from the ledge or rail. I remember the unlimited resurrection in the last few games kinda ruined the fun for me at some parts.
It just feels weird and out of the place where you can just keep coming out and die again and again lol
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Not being able to lose is not the definition of an interactive movie... Also not being able to die is not the same as not being able to lose, but hey. You have some points but please don't call their argument delusional while presenting hyperbolic statements yourself.
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I agree with what Yacobs is saying for the most part.
but remember that death in Bioshock 1 only cost you very little as well (sometimes you could get in a real jam if you ran out of ammo, medkits, and money). But I agree that making death "painless" removes a great deal of the challenge and makes it closer to a movie then a challenging game. and im not gonna drop $60 for a game that doesnt pose a challenge or makes me beat the game on 10 y/o mode just to access the difficulty I want to play.
I also totally agree that games these days (especially shooters) are just too easy. death should either have some consequences, or it should just make you restart the level from a savepoint with all enemies/ammo/everything reset.
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This is a game I would rent but never buy. Bioshock games are fun but short and easy, not worth $60.
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On March 21 2013 11:34 Dracolich70 wrote:
I assume that removing this part of resource gathering, means more focus and challenges somewhere else. Maybe in time you will too, if the game succeeds in doing well with these game design decisions. Maybe it will be part of the charm of Bio-Shock, and something that will be copied, since medikits/ammo looting/DT is really not all that great ideas. You think?
I am not sure if not dying at all, would be a good streamlining. There needs to be some indicator of failure, when you do. However, I do not think DT is a good measure of consequence for not winning a battle. Not winning is the main punishment.
Just want to say this is a pretty interesting view, its difficult to conceive of a game that removes resource gathering, and has instant respawn, but which is still fun to play. It would be nice to see some good examples of this, but at least so far, I think Bioshock: Infinite is probably an example of a game that didn't successfully implement this idea, just because the difficulty didn't scale proportionately.
And in some sense it is impossible for difficulty to ever scale proportionately with a vita chamber, or instant respawn while the enemies you killed before you died are still dead. In that case, even if the game were more difficult, it would just become a very tedious process of dying and killing, with no real challenge. The only way to save the player from this is through artificial restrictions (i.e. loading your game, not using vita chambers or equivalent resurrection mechanisms), in which case you run into the same problem as before.
Combined with the fact that you lose a lot of realism, and thus immersion, from respawning after you die (while your enemies are still dead, and with a new clip in your gun), it may be that the old method still works best.
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On March 21 2013 22:21 Yacobs wrote:
Iranon and Dracolich70, you both seem to have slid so far down the slippery slope that you'll probably never return...
It's kind of mind-boggling that you're attempting to convince me that a FPS can have challenge without death. An FPS game is not a point-and-click adventure game. It's not a puzzle game. The point of an FPS is to shoot people while avoiding getting shot yourself. If getting shot yourself is meaningless then ALL COMBAT in the game is meaningless, which means that the entire GAME portion of the "game" is meaningless. There's no such thing as difficult FPS combat where you can't die. Sorry, but you can't summon a paradox because your argument demands it.
If you cannot lose a game, then it is not a game but an interactive movie. If you are happy playing interactive movies where you walk through nice-looking environments, watch cutscenes/listen to story dialog, and get to indiscriminately slaughter supposedly dangerous enemies with no effort then that is fine. Knock yourself out. But don't even start to pretend that this sort of design is actually FOR THE BETTER. That's complete and total nonsense.
I think you suffer from tunnel vision. Of course I can't convince you, like I did Iranon, because you do not have an open mind, and I even highly doubt you even actually spend time to read and ponder about what I write.
Your argument of "If you cannot lose a game, then it is not a game but an interactive movie" is like saying that all FPS games are like an interactive movie, since checkpoints, F5 saves/reloads, respawning are all there to decrease the time to something you cannot lose eventually - if at least you stick with it. It doesn't mean the game can't be challenging or fun.
The time you argue for, is waste time of death, rather than playing the actual game. You think instantly respawning is easy mode, but all you cater for is doing something trivial with your DT to get back to the point you were. Even respawning/reload/check points are things that were created to hinder frustration. Maybe instant perma death, and need to restart from the beginning would be prober. How about that? You know, games that are usually easier, but with harder punishments of failure. It is all about balance. Ultimately all games finest mark, is their ability to capture you into the world with immersion, and gives you a good experience. If you value a game by the punishments, then games balanced around hard economization of resources, permadeath or the like is more in your vein, since the punishments are part of the game design - just like Eve-online for instance.
Time spent is not something more difficult. Spending time on mechanics that someone back in the day thought was a good idea, and it becoming the way of thinking how it should be is exactly the same reason why the gaming industry is so timid with innovation. Finding medi-kits and ammo is only hard in a few games, and only on the hardest levels.
If you do not like it, then this is not the game for you, or you are jumping to conclusions. I think the decisions seems fresh to a genre that hasn't progressed very much since Doom.
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Nonono, Dracolich, just no.
No gg- no skill, no death in fps= boring. I rest my case.
I wouldnt worry too much though as there is the 1999 difficulty mode. I know you have to unlock it by beating the game first but im definitely gonna wait for some mod/ hack/ cheat/ patch that lets you play on 1999 on first playthrough. Im pretty sure thats gonna happen (how STUUUUUPID of them to not enable it from the start i cant even believe it lol).
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As far as I know this game series is about creating a great story with immersion, not a survivalist game.
You think respawning/saving-reloading actually takes skill? Interesting. You could have died a thousands deaths to your completion of a game, simply because you lack skill, but have determination to complete. That is not skill.
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Not skill exactly but it gives you a greater sense of satisfaction when you beat a particular hard section. Its a mechanic thats necessary to keep you engaged. I think its very very important. THere might be other ways to acchieve that but nobody has found them yet, but im pretty sure that just taking away the punishement is NOT the right way.
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On March 22 2013 00:46 herberck wrote:
Not skill exactly but it gives you a greater sense of satisfaction when you beat a particular hard section. Its a mechanic thats necessary to keep you engaged. I think its very very important. THere might be other ways to acchieve that but nobody has found them yet, but im pretty sure that just taking away the punishement is NOT the right way. Who says the combat will be easy just because there isn't focus on timewasting, when you fail? As I have said, it is very likely the game is balanced around you having these powers.
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The problem with difficulty, and why I think even if Elizabeth babysits your character a ton it won't be a problem, is that FPS single player experiences have for a long time stopped being a challenge. It's not about the difficulty anymore, it's about the cinematic feel of battles, with more emphasis on the ambience, sounds and epic feeling of big fights more than the difficulty itself.
Mind you, I enjoy difficult games, which is why the first option I change on every game is go to the options menu and set difficulty to its highest setting, but just churning out more enemies or merely increasing their health isn't enough to make it more than marginally interesting. The greatest offender is clearly Dragon Age 2, a game that in Nightmare difficulty destroys the need for tactical combat present in the first and pretty much just goes for more.. more.. and more enemies in a ridiculous fashion, it's ridiculously boring.
This basically means developers need to find other ways to make games engaging, in the FPS case, since we already have quick saves, checkpoints, etc, the games are already pretty damn easy from the death punishing perspective. I think it's fine for a game to take a different approach. Because difficulty in FPS genre is already reduced and the genre is getting pretty stale.
The difficulty I've enjoyed the most so far is clearly Dark Souls' concept. This involves, rather than a difficulty setting, a difficulty that varies with the skill of the player and the type of character and gear he's using, with many different ways of solving the same problem. I find it so amazing that the first time I played the undead burg I got killed plenty of times by the regular hollow soldiers, but after going into blighttown and back to firelink I could just go through them effortlessly, even if I hadn't spent a single soul on stats. I feel the difficulty design in DS was genius, and few games replicate this.
That said, not all games have to be tough as nails, I'm fine with Bioshock infinite being more about the experience than difficulty.
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EPT
