Article: Kids Can't Handle Old-School RPGs Anymore

[theclaw]

I don't mind auto aim itself. What bothers me is the borderline secrecy. Everyone knows already, let's see it handled more transparent! Is a concise disclosure how the particular game handles things really that much trouble to include?

[isiolia]

Depends. Don't the majority of games adjust how they parse input signals in order to get the "feel" the way the developers intend?

Most input devices have compensation built in to make them work better for humans. Keyboards have debouncing, mice often have acceleration, touch devices may deliberately ignore some input, such as a palm on a trackpad when typing, or disabled input when you hold an iPhone to your head.

Devices everywhere would be a lot harder to use if we were relying strictly on the exact input we actually provided to them.

Auto-aim just helps you do what you're already making the effort to do. It's like allowing for a little slop in the execution of special moves in a fighting game, which is also common, and not prefaced with a warning. Allowing you to get 90% there and still have it work isn't the same as mapping fireballs to a button.

If everyone is subject to the same thing, thing drawing attention to it isn't that warranted. It's just how that game is. Now, if the option is there to disable it, then giving additional credit or drawing attention to those that do would be appropriate.

[Erik_Twice]

Most input devices have compensation built in to make them work better [...] mice often have acceleration

Using mouse acceleration doesn't make them work better, it makes them much more imprecise and inconsistent, since sometimes you need 10cm to turn around and other times you only need four. Basic skills as tracking suffer and many PC gamers refuse to play any games that force mouse accel.

Auto-aim just helps you do what you're already making the effort to do. It's like allowing for a little slop in the execution of special moves in a fighting game

Not at all. Aiming is the game. To have auto-aim in your FPS is like adding auto-dodge to DoDonPachi or auto-jumping in Mario. If the game aims for you, what's the point of having an aiming mechanism in the first place?

The comparison with fighting games isn't valid. Fighting games do not have execution as a contested skill, it's only a barrier to the real game, which is about reading the opponent.

Spawn camping has existed in basically every competitive FPS that had spawns. I wouldn't really call it something that's intended, more something people can abuse.

If it's not intended, why do keep making open spawns that allow people to shoot you before you can even move? There's absolutedly no need for open spawns in CoD, it's bad design of the worst kind. And really, creating levels so enemy players can directly put the crosshair where heads are going to appear produces this kind of gameplay, there's no abuse.

I don't know of any competitive FPS with spawncamping. I think Quake III ran into some issues with it because spawning was no longuer inmediate but it was a matter of poor respawn times, not a matter of having a window pointing to the spawn.

[shateredsoul]

hmm

I think kids are used to learning games from playing. Not necessarily having their hand held. Games like link on the nes don't hold your hand, but the game mechanics allow you to learn the controls from a process of elimination and testing.

It's not weird to think that game mechanics have improved over time. Although... I do think some newer games do over do it. Especially when tutorials are required instead of optional. But, even the tutorials in game give you more context than in school learning, so that's still something we can learn from.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Auto-aim just helps you do what you're already making the effort to do. It's like allowing for a little slop in the execution of special moves in a fighting game

Not at all. Aiming is the game. To have auto-aim in your FPS is like adding auto-dodge to DoDonPachi or auto-jumping in Mario. If the game aims for you, what's the point of having an aiming mechanism in the first place?

The comparison with fighting games isn't valid. Fighting games do not have execution as a contested skill, it's only a barrier to the real game, which is about reading the opponent.

For the record I think isiolia was talking about consoles in that specific example. Have you tried, say, Quake 3 for the Dreamcast? The game has no aim-assist, and is nearly impossible as a result. Analog sticks suck for FPS.

Regarding mouse acceleration, yes it sucks in games. I like it on in the OS though.

[isiolia]

Using mouse acceleration doesn't make them work better, it makes them much more imprecise and inconsistent, since sometimes you need 10cm to turn around and other times you only need four. Basic skills as tracking suffer and many PC gamers refuse to play any games that force mouse accel.

Most games don't use mouse acceleration. They do often have smoothing, but it's a different thing. As mentioned, acceleration is generally welcome in non-gaming tasks.

The comparison with fighting games isn't valid. Fighting games do not have execution as a contested skill, it's only a barrier to the real game, which is about reading the opponent.

Why is that true for fighters and not FPS? Unless you're talking about a very simple map and game type, there's more to FPS than aiming. Meanwhile, being able to execute what you want on demand in a fighting game is rather important. It's kind of like saying physical ability isn't what sports are about, but rather smart plays. You need both. Aim assist doesn't mean jack if you never spot your opponent.

If it's not intended, why do keep making open spawns that allow people to shoot you before you can even move? There's absolutedly no need for open spawns in CoD, it's bad design of the worst kind. And really, creating levels so enemy players can directly put the crosshair where heads are going to appear produces this kind of gameplay, there's no abuse.

I don't know of any competitive FPS with spawncamping. I think Quake III ran into some issues with it because spawning was no longuer inmediate but it was a matter of poor respawn times, not a matter of having a window pointing to the spawn.

I don't think Capcom intended corner traps to be the fundamental gameplay of Street Fighter, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. Far as I know, CoD does generally try to compensate for that with most game types. Ones with bases are more susceptible, same as CTF would have flag campers in UT or Quake 3.

The main difference is likely more that people tended to run their own servers. If someone was being cheap like that, they could get booted, rather than causing other people to seek out a different server. That, or people were playing Counter-Strike where you didn't respawn during a match anyway.

[Erik_Twice]

Why is that true for fighters and not FPS? Unless you're talking about a very simple map and game type, there's more to FPS than aiming.

Aiming is a contested skill. Your aim against the opponent's dodging. Aiming is a mechanic of the game.

Having to do quarter circles isn't a comparison of skill, it's a requirement to compete in the real game, which is double-blind bidding. Fighting games are very simple, you have different attacks, which work against your opponent's attacks in a weighted rock-paper-sccisors game and with zoning as an uncertainity mechanism to keep things interesting, forcing players to constantly calculate their choices. Forcing players to learn quartercircles doesn't make the yomi more interesting and games like Smash Bros did away with execution almost entirely. Execution is not a mechanic, and if it were, it's not a particularly interesting one, other games do execution better.

Meanwhile, being able to execute what you want on demand in a fighting game is rather important.

As important as learning a long list of attacks and combos. Which is my point, why is something so boring and uninteresting so important? Why is aim-assit here if it's so boring and uninteresting?


I don't understand your point about CoD and spawncamping. CoD asks you to kill other players to win and camping the enemy spawn, a completely boring thing allowed and even favoured by the game, is a winning tactic. That's bad.

[Vita Mayo]

I think there's notably more dumbing down for instant awesome nowadays, I can't think of any notable games pre-2000 that have that issue.

Anyways, to me one of the best eaxmples of instant gratification is auto-aim. What's the fun of shooting if you don't actually need to do anything? But it tells you how awesome you are so you can brag about how "pro" you are. And it's no mistake, it's like the severe spawncamping issues CoD has. The developers are aware of it, but decide to leave it in so everyone, no matter how unskilled, can get awesome killing sprees. It's instant gratification, but a shallow one.

If auto-aim is gaming paradigm that aims for player's instant gratification, is Syphon Filter (also pre-2000 game) a dumbed down game? I absolutely disagree. Syphon Filter has auto-aim but it compensates with less accurate shots.
This is why I don't generalize gaming generations. It's like comparing music from different decades, no 80's is no better than the 90's. A crappy song from the 80's is as crappy as the crappy songs in the 90's and any other decade.

[isiolia]

I don't understand your point about CoD and spawncamping. CoD asks you to kill other players to win and camping the enemy spawn, a completely boring thing allowed and even favoured by the game, is a winning tactic. That's bad.

At the extreme end, it's not supported, and can get people banned (at least, so the internet tells me). My point there is simply that it's certainly cheap, but so are plenty of other tactics in plenty of other games. Ideally, sure, they should try and prevent it from becoming something you can't get out of...but really, if skill/numbers are too skewed, that's the logical end of it. Even if you weren't getting killed immediately, a much better player could camp your base and kill people as they tried to get out.

Aiming is a contested skill. Your aim against the opponent's dodging. Aiming is a mechanic of the game.

So is knowing the map/routes, where weapons/powerups are located (depending on the game), recognizing your opponents tactics to realize where they'll be, and so on. Aim definitely comes into play, but only if and when you're in the position to try and take a shot.

It's a very similar mechanic to execution in a fighting game. It's not just a matter of memorizing combos, but being able to recognize when they could/should be utilized.

Both styles of game rely on execution in addition to strategy. By assisting with execution, far more players can appreciate the rest of the game. Even games with "relaxed" standards compared to their forebears (example: nearly any Guilty Gear to Blazblue debate) can easily exceed the capability of most players. The "elite" player club might not be quite as exclusive, but it's still the minority.

[J T]

So I fired up Ultima IV for a few minutes. I almost wonder if you had to be around in a pre-Windows era of computing to really appreciate this game. I was noticing how bad the graphics look compared to modern games, but it brought back a rush of memories from the days when you turned on your computer and you simply had a DOS prompt (C:/) and it was up to you to know the commands to do anything from there. Back then, any type of graphical image was a welcome surprise. "Wow! Something other than cryptic letters and symbols!"

I think it's hard to appreciate that if you didn't grow up then. Playing Ultima IV also reminded me of the days before the mouse was a commonly used peripheral. You used to just get by with a keyboard, and Ultima IV plays this way. It felt odd, and familiar, to jump back to an interface that didn't involve pointing and clicking (I felt this way play Wolfenstein3D recently too. I forgot you didn't move your visual field with a mouse in FPS games back then). It's also been a long time since I've typed a command for a character. I forgot about how you used to have to sit and type stuff until you finally figured out how to get the text parser to understand you.

For me, doing these things brings back nostalgia for old computers. I used to be the only person in my family to really understand the PC. It was kind of cool. I could see how if you were so young that you didn't have these kind of experiences that these games would be hard to appreciate.