Topic: What happened to games letting you figure things out for yourself?

[Snail]

Over the past five years or so, a lot of games have started treating us like idiots.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was a great little game (RIP Lance Riddick). Not perfect, but great. Then Forbidden West comes out, and Aloy is now the most annoying person on post-post-apocalyptic earth! “Maybe I should use my focus”, “hey it looks like you haven’t solved this puzzle in five seconds flat, allow me to GIVE YOU THE ANSWER”.

God of War 2018 was a great little game. Not perfect, but pretty damn close, and I loved it. Ragnarok comes out and Mimir / Atreus will not shut the fuck up, there’s Marvel-style “he’s behind me, isn’t he” quips everywhere (when will this trend die), and again - if the game thinks you’re stuck at all, it’ll just go ahead and hold your hand whether you want it to or not.

It’s driving me insane. I actually waited a while to get Ragnarok but I had some spare money last month, so I bought it. I managed a few hours before I switched back to Elden Ring to do the plat, and I haven’t gone back to Ragnarok since. So, in fairness, it may improve as the game goes along but it was annoying enough for those first few hours to make me not want to go back to it.

Since I’ve mentioned Elden Ring, it does tend to go too far in the other direction - good luck finishing Millicent’s quest line without Google, or Nepheli, or Sellen, or Latenna… you get the drift - but I love it because it lets you make your own way and you really do have total freedom without annoying arse sidekicks making shite jokes every 30 seconds.

Basically, this thread is about how Elden Ring has absolutely broken gaming for me.

[Wolverine]

Elden ring was a chore I just don't get this massive love in , the story was shit and the lore was confusing and you spend 200 hours in the game not understanding what to do most the time can get frustrating, you have to be a complete gaming nerd to enjoy something like that which is fine but that will not appeal to a lot of casual gamers.

The so-called revolutionary open world felt boring and empty with endless tedious grinding.

I just don't see it with Elden ring it's talked about the greatest thing ever. I prefer linear tight driven narrative games not games dragged out for 100's of hours for the sake of it.

The game is boring and so repetitive. I do not know how it got the reviews it did. I thought we played games to enjoy ourselves? Not to torture ourselves like it's a trip to the dentist.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Over the past five years or so, a lot of games have started treating us like idiots.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was a great little game (RIP Lance Riddick). Not perfect, but great. Then Forbidden West comes out, and Aloy is now the most annoying person on post-post-apocalyptic earth! “Maybe I should use my focus”, “hey it looks like you haven’t solved this puzzle in five seconds flat, allow me to GIVE YOU THE ANSWER”.

God of War 2018 was a great little game. Not perfect, but pretty damn close, and I loved it. Ragnarok comes out and Mimir / Atreus will not shut the fuck up, there’s Marvel-style “he’s behind me, isn’t he” quips everywhere (when will this trend die), and again - if the game thinks you’re stuck at all, it’ll just go ahead and hold your hand whether you want it to or not.

It’s driving me insane. I actually waited a while to get Ragnarok but I had some spare money last month, so I bought it. I managed a few hours before I switched back to Elden Ring to do the plat, and I haven’t gone back to Ragnarok since. So, in fairness, it may improve as the game goes along but it was annoying enough for those first few hours to make me not want to go back to it.

Since I’ve mentioned Elden Ring, it does tend to go too far in the other direction - good luck finishing Millicent’s quest line without Google, or Nepheli, or Sellen, or Latenna… you get the drift - but I love it because it lets you make your own way and you really do have total freedom without annoying arse sidekicks making shite jokes every 30 seconds.

Basically, this thread is about how Elden Ring has absolutely broken gaming for me.

Play Noita. It literally tells you nothing. You have to work every single thing out (I've 'finished' it three times so far). Even when you 'finish' the game, you are maybe 1% into it. There are hundreds of secrets that you have to work out yourself and even when you finish every single secret in the world, there are infinite other worlds that are linked that you have to start again to work out as they all work with different rules. Then when you've sussed all that, there are hundreds of other side quests, wands to work out, spells to master, potions to mix and even other secrets behind the secrets which only unlock when you accomplish other goals and it generally doesn't even tell you when you've unlocked stuff.

If that wasn't enough, then even surviving past the first few levels is nigh on impossible until you work out all the mechanices of the enemies and dangers and even then insta-death is always around the corner.

I've played more than 600 hours and I'm probably about 2% into the game.

[meady1981]

I’m not getting GoW myself. Have zero interest in the story and the gameplay is a varied as frogger.
JUST MY IMHO OPINION THOUGH.
RDR2 ruined all games for me to be honest.

[JerseyKloppite]

Get Tunic. Charming Zelda-like game which explains absolutely nothing to you. As you explore you collect pages of an instruction manual (which is in the style of a 90s SNES game with handwritten annotations).

Found it to be a lovely balance difficulty-wise. If you can get the best ending without resorting to Google then you have my ultimate respect.

[rowan_d]

Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn are brilliant games that make you engage your brain, though the former became a little too obtuse and fiddly for me in the end stages.

Both have great atmospheres and soundtracks too

[meady1981]

Get Tunic. Charming Zelda-like game which explains absolutely nothing to you. As you explore you collect pages of an instruction manual (which is in the style of a 90s SNES game with handwritten annotations).

Found it to be a lovely balance difficulty-wise. If you can get the best ending without resorting to Google then you have my ultimate respect.

Haha I was bored rigid of Tunic after looking forward to it for so long.
I played for a few hours and didn’t encounter any ‘puzzles’, just some hope hidden passages.
Funny how we all experience things different.

[Malaysian Kopite]

According to the Ragnarok director, during the game's intensive play testing no one brought it up. He said if he knew there was going to be backlash, they'd have fixed it so I assume moving forwards we'll see less of this.

https://www.thegamer.com/god-of-war-ragnarok-devs-unaware-chatty-companions-until-launch/

[Schmidt]

Big publishers like to play test these games with focus groups, identify where people might get stuck and then put these "helpful" hints in. They're designed to make sure the average pleb doesn't get stuck early on and give up.

I'd bet plenty of developers noticed it but the emphasis would have been on the playtesters and their feedback.

[Red Viper]

I think the bigger more frustrating trend is these big open world games that give you loads and loads of choices that ultimately don't matter or alter your playing experience at all.

Last open world game I remember your choices actually making a difference was Witcher 3

[AndyMuller]

Elden ring was a chore I just don't get this massive love in , the story was shit and the lore was confusing and you spend 200 hours in the game not understanding what to do most the time can get frustrating, you have to be a complete gaming nerd to enjoy something like that which is fine but that will not appeal to a lot of casual gamers.

The so-called revolutionary open world felt boring and empty with endless tedious grinding.

I just don't see it with Elden ring it's talked about the greatest thing ever. I prefer linear tight driven narrative games not games dragged out for 100's of hours for the sake of it.

The game is boring and so repetitive. I do not know how it got the reviews it did. I thought we played games to enjoy ourselves? Not to torture ourselves like it's a trip to the dentist.

Hang on, you still put 200 hours into it?

[Wolverine]

Hang on, you still put 200 hours into it?

No I gave up after a few hours but reading online the game is a chore of endless grind it does not get any better if I carried on playing.

[Snail]

No I gave up after a few hours but reading online the game is a chore of endless grind it does not get any better if I carried on playing.

See for me, from what I played of Ragnarok and Forbidden West, both of those felt far more like chores but I think maybe I’m just getting burned out on semi-open world semi-linear AAA RPGs that aren’t really RPGs. But that’s what opinions are for!

[JerseyKloppite]

See for me, from what I played of Ragnarok and Forbidden West, both of those felt far more like chores but I think maybe I’m just getting burned out on semi-open world semi-linear AAA RPGs that aren’t really RPGs. But that’s what opinions are for!

I've felt the same about massive AAA games recently. Got Zero Dawn, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk and Far Cry 4 all sitting there waiting to be played but I feel like they're huge time commitments, whereas so many of the games on the Switch are easy to pick up and play for 20 minutes and fit around family life etc.

[Wolverine]

See for me, from what I played of Ragnarok and Forbidden West, both of those felt far more like chores but I think maybe I’m just getting burned out on semi-open world semi-linear AAA RPGs that aren’t really RPGs. But that’s what opinions are for!

No worries, I completely respect different opinions people will like different things. I have a short attention span and it gets worse as you get older so games like Uncharted and Last of Us are easy to digest whereas these Elden Ring type game require you to give a lot to truly appreciate them which won't work for some people.

I'm just done with open world games full of fetch and collect quests with endless grind by the end of it you have committed 150-200 hours for not enough pay off.

[has gone odd]

Games start great and tend glide along nice, the player is guided carefully and the game is kept interesting. They then get extremely boring, repetitive and shite, but will be too late to get your refund off steam (in the case of PC games) .. call me cynical and all that.

[S]

Couldn’t agree more. Ragnarok is a joke in that regard.

Nothing will top Skyward Sword though. It’s the only Zelda game I gave up on, simply because it told me everything.

[Flaccido Dongingo]

God of War is just another of Sonys revolutionary cookie cutter 3rd person exclusives, file alongside Horizon in the "bored inside an hour" category, same with Last of Us 2 (TLOU was fantastic) with the fucking dull unskippable cut scenes, I just want to play the game for fuck sake!, Returnal is class though, as it doesn't hold your hand either.

[classycarra]

Been getting into Returnal the past few days and thought it might be a good recommendation for Sian, as it's noticeable they jut let you get on with it and learn things. It seems daunting first time but quickly becomes intuitive. Bit like Hades too. Then I see it's recommended in the most recent reply, so let me second that.

[Hedley Lamarr]

I Completely agree with Sian, Elden Ring ruined gaming for me.  The Dead Space and Res Evil 4 remakes are great, but the Elden Ring experience will probably never be matched. RRD2 is brilliant but its linear.

[ToneLa]

Play different games

Footie Manager in a shit club or do one of the community challenges like never sign players only use academy graduates

XCOM 2 is an all timer of difficult but moreish

Civilization 6 is at a point where it is a timesink and you'll forever have to work out a good strategy

You also have this thing in games of accessibility. I have seen firsthand (as in my job) Sony making a huge push to make things better for people with different capabilities.

There is a common complaint that your progress getting stuck makes a game a waste of money - this doesn't happen in films or books.

I would expect a further change to allow skippable sections for this reason (I actually think every game should have such things as an OPTION as to suit anybody)

Unskippable cutscenes is one of the modern sins of gaming

See also: controls that can not in any way be altered

Games often also have a backend for the devs of how players progress. You might wonder why we are treated like idiots - it is because there ARE idiots. Metrics might back a decision up. (Like only 5% of players getting to Act 3 implies something, no?) If you made explosive barrels yellow instead of red, a portion of the userbase would never figure it out.

Take it as a sign you're not an idiot. One of the prices you have to pay

[AndyMuller]

I like both types myself. I love Bloodborne, Sekiro, Demons Souls, Elden Ring and those type of figure things out yourself games and I also love the linear like TLoU, both Spider-Man games and so on.

Just depends on the mood I’m in at the time.

[BER]

Only time I've encountered it is GOW and I didn't mind as the puzzles were just tedious filler for me anyway, The fights are the challenge and what I'm there for.

[Snail]

Been getting into Returnal the past few days and thought it might be a good recommendation for Sian, as it's noticeable they jut let you get on with it and learn things. It seems daunting first time but quickly becomes intuitive. Bit like Hades too. Then I see it's recommended in the most recent reply, so let me second that.

I gave Returnal a quick hour or so the other week and it was dead good, will defo go back to it properly soon.