If a game feels or appears challenging, but there actually is no challenge, then does that make it a bad game?
For example, in Undertale, the final boss of the Neutral Route gives you a lot of health, though it doesn't visually represent that. Instead, you lose less and less health with each hit, making you seem to edge closer and closer to death. You can die, still, but if you were to dodge through and not die once, without being aware of the consequence of failing, is it still a thrilling challenge, or is the challenge not existant?
An easy game isn't necessarily a bad game
>>318161982
Okay, then I'll rephrase.
If a game feels or appears challenging, but there actually is no challenge, then does that make it an easy game?
I'm sure many people who've played the game, having their save file being threatened, and going through the motions, tried their very best to survive and win. Was it a thrilling challenge, or not?
It matches with the theme of the game of not giving up when you are losing though.
>>318161909
I think the fight with Asgore was quite good.
These bosses made me think the fight with Sans wasn't actually a proper fight, I didn't think the game had the balls to do that.
I understand that for story reasons, Flowey couldn't actually kill you. However, they could have at least put the challenge of getting to a certain point to progress
>>318161909
Flowey was not really meant to be challenging though. If you want challenge fight undyne the undying or sans
>>318162137
It's still a thrilling challenge as long as the illusion that you're being hand-held isn't ever unveiled
if you start realizing, "wait, the game is clearly going easy on me by making me take less damage", you are taken out of the current moment as you realize the programmer wanted you to win this without all that much effort, even though flowey was suppose to be the near god of this universe
>mfw I thought flower was an unkillable bad-end boss and uninstalled it
After dealing with all the other shitty bullet hell bosses up to that point I was done. Glad I pirated it
Crysis works like that
>>318162137
If you didn't realize this until AFTER you played the game then I'd say yes it was in fact challenging.
Thats the real artificial difficulty
>>318162861
>there are people this bad at videogames
wew lad
>>318162137
consider it a challenge to get to the point where you don't realize the game is dealing less damage to you and still beat it
it's basically as if you were playing with 50% health, no?
>>318162861
I havent uninstalled but I havent touched the game since. Was pretty boring honestly.
>>318162137
>If a game feels or appears challenging, but there actually is no challenge, then does that make it an easy game?
Yes but there is nothing wrong with playing an easy game
>>318161909
When you realize the game is changing the rules on the fly it kind of invalidates any notion of challenge.
>>318162137
games are challenging to make them exciting to play, if you feel excited even if there is an invisible handicap then... whatever, that's still good
It's not bad design, in fact it's great design if it works as intended, but it is risky. Flowey starts doing less and less damage the closer you are to death and also (I've heard, not sure if true) the more you keep dying to him. It ensures that nobody will get frustrated at the boss fight if they suck at it, but if you do manage to avoid the bullets and avoid getting to that point where the boss starts going easy on you, you'll still feel like you accomplished something. Even low-skill players will feel like they've gotten better after a few repeated attempts.
The risk is that if the players catch on to what's going on, the whole fight will feel like a charade. However, Omega Flowey is designed to be such an assault on the senses that players are probably less likely to pay attention to how much damage he's actually doing than they would be in other boss fights. I'm okay with there being one fight like that in a game.
I watched a streamer die several times against this boss.
I beat it on my first try so I didn't even know you could die.
True Ending boss would be a better example, as there's no way to get a game over on the fight.
>>318164402
>one
Thats the problem, there are several.
>>318162861
See here folks.
This is what you become when you lack DETERMINATION
>>318164582
You can't get a Game Over, but it still resets you to the beginning of his current phase, doesn't it? At that point of that game, having an actual Game Over screen or a another fake crash wouldn't fit at all. You still have to do-over from a checkpoint, so why does it matter that it doesn't give you a formal Game Over?
Neutral/Pacifist are more for story.
Genocide is for actually dying if you're bad (Undyne being the casual filter, and you know who being the finale (fucking fun boss, too)).
My only disappointment is that all the major bosses die in one hit on Genocide aside from the two.
Why not just have them be regular fights? Why must you instagib them?WHY CAN'T I FIGHT METTATON NEO
>>318164701
Name another.
>>318164701
Which ones? Asriel sends you back three or so patterns every time you die but I don't recall him doing any less damage.
>>318165040
Asriel
Souls games.
The challenge is getting the hang of the controls.
Once you do that, they play themselves. More or less, it's impatience that gets you killed.
>>318164969
It doesnt reset shit.
>>318161909
The point of the boss isn't to be a challenging skillfest for you to sperg out on. It's meant to keep you barely on the edge of death while you desperately try to dodge stuff and fight back. It's storytelling through the interface, trying to get you to feel what the character is feeling.
Like anything, once you deconstruct it, it no longer has any weight.
>>318162598
But they're behind a really boring, dull, and half-assed route as far as gameplay.
It just feels like a shitty creepy-pasta that Toby officially made.
Undertale is just a bad game in general.
>>318165073
Asriel does full damage. That fight simply doesn't game over you (you always start where you left off).
>>318165119
>Once you get good at the game, it's easy!
No shit
>>318165037
Well, from a gamer perspective, I 100% agree. But lore wise, isn't that supposed to be real? Humans are supposed to be SO much more powerful.
>>318166528
Well yeah, but still, annoying gameplay wise.
>>318161909
Omega Flowey and the Pacifict ending were the biggest flaws of Undertale for me. Not having a fail state removed all the tension and thus emotion from those moments
Asgore is still the best fight in the game
>>318166660
Agreed. I'll never understand people who grind for days before each boss fights in rpgs to basically one shot them. I like the challenge.
Undertale doesn't serve as a good example of what you are talking about, OP, as it is a game that makes use of the idea of narrative through gameplay. For example, Toriel does not want to fight you in the ruins and, as an example of narrative through gameplay, when you are low on health, her attacks will always miss you. This shows what the character is saying in a text box is actually having impact on the game, just as you're told you don't have to kill anyone and can find a way out of every situation. Most games talk about not hurting people or sparing them but, you actually cant when it comes to gameplay.
The final battle essentially represents the main characters determination and, to reflect on the story of human souls in Undertale, you cant/wont give up.
I get what you're saying though.
>>318162137
>if there actually is no challenge, then does that make it an easy game?
Jeez whizz I dunno OP
>>318166761
That's all nice and well but without being able to fail, all tension of the moment was lost. It worked for Toriel, but for the final bosses of the game it was really anticlimatic
>>318166516
I don't 100% agree with >>318165119 but a lot of the "dark souls is hard" memery came from the game starting off with very little introduction into the controls. Once you get the basics, the game becomes much easier, compared to say, Super Meat Boy, which has super simplistic basics but then has you pushing to the absolute maximum of those controls
>>318161909
just play genocide fuccboi
>>318166746
>Pacifist endingAsgore just clipping bushes on the surface like he didn't murder 6 fucking people.Alphys getting to have lesbian fish fun when she made a bunch of horrible mutants by injecting them with soul material. Doubly so since about half way through she abandoned any sort of rational planning or experimentation and just started injecting them and hoping for test best.
Fucking infuriating.
Asgore was the best fight though.
>>318162509
this, I thought Asgore was the hardest pacifist run boss because flowey and asriel both didn't really allow you to lose
>>318166746
Seems like you didn't pick up on some stuff in the game.
>>318167352
>Alphys getting to have lesbian fish fun when she made a bunch of horrible mutants by injecting them with soul material
Their families don't seem to mind. Endogeny and maybe Lemon Bread seem to be decently functional too.
>>318166915
At that point game overs would just be annoying, they just cut out the tedium of having to load and you immediately start the battle over. It helps keep pace when you're already so close and determined to win. The players themselves already know at that point they want to win no matter what and the gameplay reflects it.
>>318167352
The Amalgamations all live happily with their families.
>>318167737
>>318167737
that is a weak excuse. Asgore was a fantastic fight and it had failstates, so were the genocide fights.
I'd even argue that no failstate took away from the message of undertale's final fights, as it's the determination of the player that makes them refuse to give up; if you lose, you restart and try again because you want to see it through to the end. I don't need to be determined to beat the final boss if there's no way for me to fail at it
>>318161909
yes the game is bad
>>318167612
>>318168135
I'm glad those horribly fused mutants got to return to some semblance of a life afterward, but that doesn't excuse what Alphys or Asgore did.ENTRY NUMBER 12: nothing is happening. i don't know what to do. i'll just keep injecting everything with "determination." i want this to work.
Fucking tip top science there.
>>318161909
All games are easy after you play them for a while.
>>318168435
As long as there is no way to kill Alphys, Undertale will never have a truly good end
>>318168435
They were basically dead anyway, who fucking cares.
>>318161909
I dunno. Kirby's epic yarn had no challenge at all but it was pretty engaging.
>>318168649
I bet you'd be all kinds of thrilled to "fall down" and wake up soul stapled to a bunch of other people Human Centipede style.
In my opinion, unless a game is focused on challenge, the final boss should always FEEL more challenging than it actually is.
Losing at the last boss can kill momentum badly, the player should generally be able to do it in one go.
The second-to-last boss is free to be the biggest challenge of the game, though.
Also fuck Tumblrtale.
>>318168751
I'm not a monster so I wouldn't know desu.
>>318161909
>>318162137
it's artificial challenge
>>318168881
A weak final boss always feels anticlimactic though. On the other hand, there is no worse feeling than getting stuck on the final boss/level of a game
I think designing the final boss/sequence of a game is the most difficult part to do since that's what most people will remember it by.
>>318169350
It doesn't need to be weak, you just need to be able to complete it. That's why I think something that feels harder than it is is a good way to go. I'd like to see something along the lines of adaptive AI, where it tries harder if you are doing better.
Flowey fucking with savegames and the whole scenario in general was much more scary than a hard fight could ever be.
Nothing worse than niggers who break the rules.
>>318170015
relevant image (not calling your post bait)
>>318161909
>Hopes and Dreams has the dating music in itThe Asriel fight is just an elaborate dating sequence.
The way undertale did this fight was neat. In the heat of the moment you felt like you were doing an impossible bullethell but the game secretly held your hand without even telling you. It's the kind of thing that when you beat the boss you're so hyped up and think you're so good, only to find out the next day on the internet that the mechanics always work in your favor behind the scenes.
Undertale wasn't really meant to be challenging save for Genocide run. Genocide run is for people who like traditional JRPGs with difficulty and Pacifist run was for people who like JRPG stories about friendship power.
>>318173974
>genocide run
I'm still fucking stuck on undyne holy fucking shit it's been nearly 3 weeks
i know sans is the final boss but that's about it. I don't want to imagine how fucking hard he is
>>318174517
>3 weeks on undyne
>>318174517
>>318173974
You get the plot dump between the 2 fights.
>>318174735
that is some quality right there
>>318174735
it's some touhou bullshit
at least the music's nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqDJwG81lkw
>>318161909
The flowey and asriel fights are interesting because they're heavily focused on the narrative, and creating an emotional response in the userbase. The problem is that it's impossible to do this to many people over a large spectrum of skill without someone falling off. Ideally God Flowey would adjust his damage based on the player's previous performance through the game. The inability to die during soul warning segments is objectively awful though.
I admittedly died twice to God flowey, the first time due to the sudden surprise of the bullet spam and the second time because I accidentally pulled out my controller cord like a retard.
I think they're good fights but the gimmick can very quickly wear out its welcome.
I didn't find a Lisa general on /vg/ and I don't see a thread right now on /v/ so this will have to do.
How does such a handsome, well adjusted normie like Dingaling manage to produce such a depressing, heart-wrenching story?
>>318175635
Is that a good game. I'm considering picking it up.
>>318175635
There was a LISA general a year ago.
>Dingaling
>well adjusted
>normie
he's just a fit as fuck guy but he's never had a girlfriend in his life and always said he's never had much friends becaucse of his morbid and offensive sense of humor and beliefs, lad. he's a fullblown autist
All he does is play in drunken sword dancing tournaments and play vidya,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSud7WAVhcw
>>318175981
It's great if you want to play a quirky RPG with emotional gut punches that make you feel like human garbage
>>318175635
Dingaling posts on {8]chan and he's a kissless virgin, there's no way he's a normie senpai
>>318176169
Ehh. Is there anything else the game has going for it?
>>318176398
12 hours long, better gameplay than undertale and 30 party members
>>318161909
>tfw I let myself die the first time because I thought you were supposed to lose
>>318162137
I realized halfway through the bossfight that I was being handheld, so no. Even if I hadn't, the illusion of challenge is not real challenge, no.
Philosophy 101 Is closed due to the holidays. Thread over.
>>318176398
Plenty of side content and party members. Choices that have immediate gameplay consequences. Special hard mode that allows save points to only be used once
>>318165595
There's like an hour and a half of non-boss gameplay after you figure out how the encounter system works. Yeah, it's still boring, but no more so than the random encounters in the other runs.
>>318168881
This, for the most part. A narrative based game needs to have a final boss that feels challenging, not actually is challenging.
>>318162861
>all the other shitty bullet hell bosses
There is not a single challenging boss on the neutral run. Maybe Asgore if you've literally never played a shmup before. Are you actually retarded?
>>318174517
For all the cheating he does,Sans fight is less bullshit than Undyne one.
>>318161909
Flowey doing less damage is kind of the whole thematic thingy of determination. It's just not dialed up to 100 like in the true pacifist final boss
>>318161909
>If a game feels or appears challenging, but there actually is no challenge, then does that make it a bad game?
Yes
This is the sort of design philosophy that ends up with rubberbanding in racing games that literally play themselves
>>318167352
the souls are technically still alive. they just dont have bodies anymore. A better ending would have been Alphys making them bodies like mettaton
>>318177882
>This is the sort of design philosophy that ends up with rubberbanding in racing games and games that literally play themselves
whoops
It depends on what the game designer is going for.
I like to use MGR:R as an example. I remember when I first played that meme game and wis fighting Metal Gear Ray, the part where you run down the falling clocktower. I was so fucking hyped fighting that boss, with the music and everything, it was fucking great. And then I died. Stupid mistake on my part obviously because that section is super easy, but it killed all of the momentum in that section for me and playing that same part for the second time wasn't really the same.
That's an example of gameplay interfering with the experience.
But the last fight of MGR:R against Senator Nanomachines is the opposite. I died so many fucking times there, and then even had to replay the level leading up to it to collect the health power ups to help me out, and so on, so it became a huge deal for me. Beating that really felt like an accomplishment. The "fuck yes I finally did it" really enhanced the experience.
So that's an example of challenge actually adding to the experience.
The neutral final boss in Undertale was a great heat of the moment thing. It appears so much harder than it actually was because of all the bullshit on screen that made it look worse than a touhou game. I died once or twice because I couldn't tell what the fuck was going on and the "difficulty" came from the sheer absurdity and shock of the game taking a sudden turn into horror. Without emotions getting in the way the entire Flowey fight is ridiculously easy.
The pacifist final boss wasn't even hard, but it worked well. It's disappointing that you could never die, but it was pumping to die once only to see "But you refused" and then be dropped back into where you left off.
On the other hand, the genocide route final boss was legitimately difficult and fit the theme going of how the final boss knew you'd just reset and try to fight him again whenever you lost, so he just tried to kill you over and over again so you lose any motivation to continue and destroy the world and sell your soul.
It's disappointing that two of the final bosses were easy and only used flashy effects or narratives to make the illusion of being hard, but the genocide final boss was neat for working the absurd difficulty into the narrative.
