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I absolutely hate this, and it's a big part of why I don't play Assassin's Creed and most other mainstream action-adventure games unless I'm really interested in the story, despite loving the genre. The mainstream titles just seem absolutely terrified of the player losing that it removes any real feeling of danger. If I can't lose, what does it mean to win?
My favorite games don't seem to hold any punches:
- Europa Universalis IV - yeah, sometimes you'll get back-to-back 99% siege ticks; sieges shouldn't use this mechanic, but at least they're fair
- Ys - especially older titles like Ys 1&2 and Ys Origin - if I die fighting a boss, the boss doesn't get easier, I just have to "git gud"
- Mount & Blade: Warband - at higher "difficulty" settings, the game is absolutely brutal
I guess I don't like the "flow" aspect the author is describing here, because it means the game isn't challenging enough. I largely play indie games these days, probably because they don't have as much of this BS.
If games had an option to disable this nonsense, I'd probably play more AAA games. But when everything feels like its holding my hand, I'll find something else to play.
You can lose. Some games are better about hiding their lies than others, but I can't think of one that actually makes failure impossible. My favorite lie, from a Twitter thread years ago, was a racing game from the PS1 where all the cars had different stats and such on the select screen, but under the hood, they all behaved exactly the same. Your indie games probably lie to you too; the author of this video works on Rainworld.
I'd be interested in some kind of database where I could check if games lie to me. I feel like I'm good at detecting that, but maybe I'm just good at picking the more subtle games.
And yeah, driving games are total BS. I played Horizon Chase Turbo with my kids, and the only reason I kept playing is because my kids liked watching. It definitely felt like there was a ton of BS in it because I could still win pretty much any race whether I got the optional upgrade or not. So I don't play many driving games anymore, because they all feel like they use a ton of rubber-banding.
They always have. Rubber banding has been common in racing games for as long as I can remember. We complained about it then too, but it's not like developers didn't try the game without it first.
If you want to find out if/how your game lies to you, you'll have to either ask the devs or expose more information via mods or Cheat Engine.
True, which is why I very rarely play racing games. I play Mario Kart with my family and friends, but that's about it. I'd much rather lose a race than have the game keep giving me second chances, just let me fail if I screw up so I can learn.
If you enjoy a game, but later find out that the game had some internal check where it auto-adjusted difficulty, will you stop liking it?
Again, not all games should have it. And not every dev implement it properly, that doesn't mean a feature is inherently bad. There are places where it should be used, and where it should be used.
will you stop liking it?
No, but I'd certainly feel cheated, may hesitate to recommend it to others, and I would certainly think twice about buying another game from that studio, unless they had really good writing and that's what I was there for.
For me, a game either needs really compelling gameplay or a really interesting story, and if it has both, I'll buy every game in the series. That's how I feel felt Ys: I loved the "git gud" feel of Ys 1 (Ys 2 was a bit of a letdown), and that continued in Ys Origin, so I've been dutifully playing through the series. I'm less excited about the later games, which have added group combat (difficulty feels nerfed), but Ys 1 and Ys Origin are two of my favorite games of all time.
I love a good challenge and I love a good story, and I'll put up with a lot if I can get either. And that's why I'm not playing anything after AC: Brotherhood, the gameplay is kind of boring, and the story completely fell off a cliff. The same goes for most other popular action-adventure games, they just don't appeal to me because they feel too hand-holdy. I really like Dark Souls though.
That's understandable. Everyone has their own preferences, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I can't think of one that actually makes failure impossible.
Cookie Clicker. If it qualifies as a game.
But the way that you can't lose has nothing to do with adaptive difficulty, IIRC.
Sure. Just thinking about games with no loss condition at all. It's kinda rare.
First off, I think you're absolutely right about your right to disable "this nonsense". I support you in that.
But "this nonsense" is what makes games fun for me.
I'm not about struggling and finally overcoming.
I'm about having an adventure. It's the interactive version of a book, where I engage my brain a bit more and explore or solve puzzles, instead of the book just telling me the answers immediately. I enjoy gun fights in games, but I don't want to play them even twice. I want to win them and move on to more content. Losing a scenario doesn't make me feel even better when I win. It just drags me down.
I have enough things in my life that I've accomplished by struggle that I don't need it from games, too.
But again, if that's what does it for you, I think you should have it, too. There's no good reason you can't disable it, IMO. (Other than the devs just not providing the option.)
And that's what difficulty settings are for. If you just want to explore the story, puzzles, and some action, set it to easy. Or maybe they could have a "dynamic" option, which adapts to your ability if easy is too easy.
I want a consistent, challenging experience. Often "hard" is less fun than "normal" because it often pumps the HP of enemies, limits my resources, and allows the AI to cheat a little, which might be fun for a second playthrough, but not a first playthrough. I want a consistent experience as the devs designed it, and if that means I need to replay a segment a dozen times because I'm just not getting it, I'm fine with that, as long as I know it's fair. Perhaps after a few tries it should ask me if I want to switch it to easy, but it shouldn't automatically switch it.
I want a consistent, fair difficulty, and I'm happy to disable a difficulty scaling option in the settings to get it (ideally it would be an option at the start though).