fattless

Fair, didnt know too much about the celeste options until this recent debate. Dont have too much to add, but thanks for the very well put together argument.

I am very much one for keeping the artists vision as true as possible so maybe that effects my view on this, also haven’t played much of celeste. Maybe I see the brutality as being so core to dark souls that an abundance of difficulty options might feel like reading the spark notes as opposed to engaging with the book. Saw a tweet from a dev I follow who highlighted the feeling of being trapped so far away from safety in the original dark souls and knowing that he has to make the journey back somehow. I cant help but wonder if that feeling might not be as impactful if you know you can just make it easier. Celeste being able to maintain these things is defiantly reassuring, though I cant say I have experiences with it or similar games with these options.

I’m definitely for accessibility options in games, and in many they have been handled very well. I think the hard part though is finding a balance that aligns with the vision and allows the most amount of people to play the game. At the end of the day not every game is for every person. From soft games are built upon the cycles of immense hardship followed by gratifying relief, and if one dosent enjoy it I dont think they will every really enjoy the game.

The inconsistencies bother me the most.

I use it a lot while driving, and have to reach down to swipe the screen to skip a song. This is a pretty mindless, natural motion. Sometimes though (till I found out you can disable it) it would switch into car mode with no warning, meaning I need to look down, see the difference, and push the skip button with some precision, potentially dangerous. Why the car mode couldn’t use the swipes is beyond me, or why it exists in the first place.

I’ve since turned that off but my frustration is now from the lyrics feature. It’s neat, and interesting in very specific scenarios, but I wish I could turn it off. A diagonal swipe brings it up, meaning I have to check it, swipe down, and then try again, too much for a previously thoughtless action.

Yeah I don’t use it for its “intended purpose”, but these are little ux roadblocks that could improve others experiences. I don’t see why it can’t be slightly different.

I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing.

So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way.

A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity

In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way

I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing.

So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way.

A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity

In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way

Agreed. These all seem like problems that can be solved somewhat easily, this seems like a problem that has been solved already and others are trying to cram blockchain into it. Like I said, could be totally missing something though.

As for the last point, plenty of smaller devs, indies, and a number of bigger studios don't fall into the greed and keep that classic simplicity- microtransactions show up in limited ways if at all. I'd say is just slowly becoming more uncommon.

For a triple a game and decent comparison to WOW, Destiny. I would spend time hunting down exotics/cosmetics, with very minor flair items offered for real money. You can buy dlc or battlepass, but usually these end up being pretty big events adding a lot to the game

Yeah I guess my comment was focusing on the biggest budget, AAA titles which usually end up going this way. I'd bet the focus on fps and sports comes down to the mainstream appeal/type of audience those games get.

But yeah the indie and smaller dev scene is going great, I play all those games mentioned and countless more that don't fall to the problems

Fair. Personally I think if their done right it's fine. The master chief collection has one of the best, most consumer friendly ones that I've seen.

The worst part of this trend to me is how many games sacrifice their identity to fit the mold that is now most profitable, it feels so soulless. This is all from my own experience/memory.

Every game needs live service, seasons, and a battle pass. While I appreciate that it can keep the game fresh and evolving over time, I think a lot of times its harmful. Sometimes a relatively simple game is blown out of proportion over time and id almost rather a stagnant game. Furthermore, gameplay can suffer too. In my opinion R6 siege started really strong, but has gone downhill recently, most obviously in operator design. Real power creep is sometimes an issue as well, somewhat recently I remember there were one or two operators added that felt like almost direct upgrades to base game ones. In its case, both the art style and operator design suffered from being stretched out for so long. Or RDR2, who sells most of the content through their premium currency and whose movement between the single player and online is so drastically different that fights online look like smash bros melee matches with frantic strafing and rolling. Compare this to titanfall 2’s design, which has remained stagnant (because it was killed a long time ago), but incredibly successful maintaining a large player base to this day.

Cod and pubg have sacrificed their art style and aesthetic, MW went from “realistic” tactical characters to jigsaw puppets and neon, out of place outfits. It’s like power creep, but for ridiculousness, skins have to get crazier and crazier because sometimes it keeps people buying them because its funny. It fit in fortnite because it was cartoonish and ridiculous from the beginning, but through MW and CW lifespan you can see the art style gradually decay. These game aren’t really meant to be taken seriously, but it always kinda put me off. Not necessarily making an argument about my taste, but rather how the games stray more and more from their original vision, driven by micro transactions.

Battlefield has thrown out their traditional classes for specialists following in r6 and other hero shooters footsteps, part of me always kinda felt like it was to sell skins for each specialist, but I might be wrong here.

This isnt the biggest deal, especially not within the games industry, but frustrating to see innovation slowly be stamped back into the mold. There are many games that hold true to their visions or fill these voids, but the state of AAA gaming and how it molds to the market is a little disappointing to me.

I’ve always said that something like this could be a cool idea, but I don’t get why nft/blockchain is necessary. Speaking about the Ubisoft nft thing (because I understand it the best), Steam marketplace has been doing the same thing very well for years, offering a very similar expirence. Is there something I’m missing?

It was interesting for the meta story, critiquing the endless remakes and reboots. While all the game dev related story was cringy and awful, that one meeting and montage proved to be the most interesting part of it, if pretty on the nose. Everything else was god awful though, makes me think it might have been intentional

Though its talking about video games and not social networks, I think it apples. A somewhat similar thing has been happening in the gaming world, where useful/fun social features are removed for the sake of toxicity and the few bad actors.

Saw a tweet today that captured this really well: “ I'm really tired of companies pretending that removing all social features in games is "addressing toxicity." My friend @sparkie237 put it well. "I've made a car that cannot crash! It has no engine!" "Is that really addressing the prob-" "ARE YOU SUPPORTING CAR CRASHES!?"” https://twitter.com/Raycevick/status/1486187003905339398?s=2...

Perhaps a worrying trend, its endlessly frustrating when things like this happen. Toxicity is often a problem, but especially in the case of YouTube, where the dislike serves an pretty important role in the user experience, this toxic positivity practically only serves yt’s interests.