Do You Have Any Unpopular Gaming Opinions?

[Sarge]

It's just suddenly become a buzzword for indie titles without much else going for them, especially ones that want to make their lack of level design look like a positive.

Nailed it there. I'm sure there are a few games that can make it compelling (like 4X strategy games; Master of Orion 2 is the bomb), but if it's a shooter or a platformer, I'm generally not going to like it because I feel those games need to be crafted a bit more carefully to be compelling.

[dsheinem]

I have no doubt, actually, that there have been at least a few good discussions in the 400+ pages of this thread. There's a core group of regulars who post here that typically add much to any discussion, so I'd expect that here, too. My experience has just been, when I peak in, I typically see stuff that seems bleh. Might just be me, though. Carry on!

[Exhuminator]

I think there's a lot of room in game design for implementation of procedural generation. I mean .kkrieger is a work of astounding genius using the method. Definitely plenty of room to grow in game design and programming using these techniques.

Unfortunately a lot of games use PG badly, such as barfing up incredibly boring dungeon layouts or worlds that are utterly vapid to explore (lookin' at you Daggerfall). And in that regard I totally get what Sarge is saying.

[prfsnl_gmr]

In The 7th Saga you can get boned during your first enemy encounter.

The first goomba in Super Mario Bros. can also kill you, but the player has a large degree of control over whether it does so. I feel like this "agency" is missing from some RPGs with a reputation for difficulty, and I feel like the "difficulty" in these games is, to a certain extent, manufactured.

BTW, I absolutely loved Demon's Souls because of the agency it afforded to me. The game was consistently challenging, but if I died, I was certain it was entirely due to my own negligence (i.e., it never felt like I was killed "randomly").

[Sarge]

I beat it a few days ago, and I am currently finishing up the challenges and working my way through the Plague of Shadows expansion. It is very good; it is a lot of fun; it reminds me of my favorite NES platformers; and the pixel art is fantastic. It is not very difficult, however, and I think I cold "1CC" it with a bit of practice. The optional challenges make up for this a bit, however.

By the way, how many deaths did you have in the end? I'm trying to remember my total, and I'll probably boot it up tonight to check.

I think you're right that it's 1CC material, but definitely not on the first go. It would take a fair deal of practice. To me, the difficulty was somewhere in the Mega Man 3 range. Tough, but surprisingly easy once you know all the surprises and proper strategy.

[Cronozilla]

Procedural =/= random.

Patterns can be randomized to many degrees, but they can also be very specific to result in the same thing every time. (No Man's Sky does this)

Procedurally generated just means it's creating assets at run-time. It has no designation to the type of pattern being used.

Thanks Marketing teams for making real terms into puff words that lose meaning for the general public.

[Gunstar Green]

The first goomba in Super Mario Bros. can also kill you

That was my father's first and last experience with post-Pong gaming.

[marlowe221]

I think that's a major part of it, yes. Dice rolls remove quite a bit of player agency. In an action game you generally want to depend more on your skill than statistics.

But then again maybe I'm wrong. I only recently started poking at the Borderlands games and that seems to have a lot of dice roll dependence.

I think the people that really get into RPGs are really into the mechanics of those games. I know that on the message boards of Diablo-style games it is not uncommon to see detailed mathematical equations on how damage is calculated for a particular skill or how buffs stack with each other.

People really get into that kind of thing (not me).

[prfsnl_gmr]

I think you're right that it's 1CC material, but definitely not on the first go. It would take a fair deal of practice. To me, the difficulty was somewhere in the Mega Man 3 range. Tough, but surprisingly easy once you know all the surprises and proper strategy.

20-30 maybe? At least half of those were in Propellor Knight's stage, however, when I was goofing around for my children's amusement...

I agree the game is in the Mega Man 3 difficulty range. The challenges are in the Electronic Super Joy difficulty range, however, and they force you to really learn some of the game's mechanics. (IMO, the base game does not require this, which, in light of their depth, is kind of a shame.)

I think the people that really get into RPGs are really into the mechanics of those games. I know that on the message boards of Diablo-style games it is not uncommon to see detailed mathematical equations on how damage is calculated for a particular skill or how buffs stack with each other.

I understand that completely, and I loved that aspect of Demon's Souls. I had to plan very carefully for each section of the game, and IMO, it increased the level of player "agency" tremendously. (In other words, I was solely responsible for things going well or ending poorly.)

In other RPGs with a reputation for difficulty, however, no amount of preparation, planning, or skill can save you some "random" failure. Some people praise these games on this basis, and believe that conquering any such game is a display of incredible gaming prowess. IMO, however, conquering any such game only demonstrates persistance, and I think that gameplay mechanics that result in "random" unavoidable failure would be intolerable in any other genre.

[Sarge]

That's pretty impressive, then. It took me more than that, but I definitely hemorrhaged the most in Propeller Knight's stage. You should go take on Holy Diver or Battletoads now, if you were on that kind of roll.