They’re both going to be dead in less than like 2 years because they are both PvEvP Extraction Looter Shooters. Combining the top 10 playercounts on Steam in this genre adds up to only like 10k more than the peak player count of Helldivers 2, which is a PvE Extraction Shooter. This genre of game, without a PvE only mode, is dead. Its only good for streamers and content creators, because it is fun to watch someone crash out after losing gear they grinded to get for 50+ hours, but the viewers don’t want to play the game because feeling that themselves is not fun.
This genre of games is basically a wet dream for toxic people. Because the PvP players know that the PvE players dont want to fight them, and take advantage of that to camp, grief, etc. What other genre of game rewards a player intentionally ruining someone else’s gaming experience?
I am grateful the toxic sponge exists so I dont have to deal with those players in other games, but these development studios keeps trying to make this genre popular, and it literally can never be popular.
As an old game player. If I stop and think about it, I really hate that I get frustrated /bored if I’m playing a game that doesn’t tell you what to do / where to go at every moment.
To me I’ve feel like I’ve lost my sense of adventure.
Maybe it’s also a time factor too, I don’t have the same amount of time to play when I was a kid.
Having said that, game design certainly has improved over the years and lessons learned in what not to do when it comes to level design!
Yeah I wonder how much of it is we’ve gotten used to having quest markers all over the place to tell us where to go and just need to have the option of turning them off and rewiring ourselves… Or I just don’t have the patience anymore? Haha
My ass repeatedly reset games I had beaten or got close to beating, especially if I was stuck. I was especially guilty of this with Pokemon games, where I would just reset if I couldn’t get past a certain point (didn’t find the strength TM in BW so couldn’t fight Team Plasma), I beat PMD Gates to Infinity like 4 times lol. I grinded so hard on Platinum Victory Road in an attempt to beat the elite 4, that I found my first ever shiny from ruining the local Rydon population.
I’m far too tired to do that shit now, I felt depressed going from Octopath I to Octopath II because I have to grind again and I’m broke 😅
Gonna add Kingdom Hearts to this (cause Sqenix), because I was playing 1 as a preteen, beat Cerebus, got in the Gummi ship, and promptly got lost on where to go after. Bonus for stopping the game for months, picking up again, and being lost so I just never beat it. I plan to finish KH1 this summer after beating Metaphor Re:Fantazio, but I probably will reset to get that full experience factor 😅
I had tried a few times before, but the first time I actually completed Metroid 1 was just after its remake, Zero Mission. The original game was included (also as a bonus in one of the Metroid Prime).
The thing is, the map structure is the same (just with extra levels, more puzzles and ability gating). Power-ups and bosses that already existed in 1 are at the exact same spots. Helps a lot if you can just remember where important stuff is supposed to be.
Turok 1? Cause IIRC there’s only a couple areas where I feel you can get stuck unless you really think about things. For the most part you just explore all parts of the map until you find the right place to go.
The one that first comes to mind is the level where you’ve got to find a bunch of switches to raises “stairs” over a pit of lava. Again, IIRC. The other one is a place where you’ve got to know that falling off the cliff won’t kill you. But IIRC you can see the tree tops in that area which you wouldn’t see in an area where falling will kill you.
Yeah, the maze with button platforms is catacombs, that was definitely the one that had me stuck the longest time. Partly because of the maze-like structure and partly because it relies on a few climbable walls that are a lot less obvious than the usual and a very missable teleport tile.
There’s also plenty of places especially in treetop village where I was like “how the fuck am I supposed to go there?”. Turns out none of them is really necessary (and some might just not be normally accessible, even though they have items?) but that’s still confusing.
And even though I didn’t get lost too bad in it, Final confrontation surprised me. From the name I went into it expecting maybe a short level and the boss fight. That thing took forever to go through. I even had multiple moments where I was like, “lots of ammo, music is becoming ominous, here we are, boss fight”… And… No. Just another room full of enemies.
I think a big part of this sentiment has to do with Bungie burning a lot of bridges with their fan base in recent years. I'd played Destiny 2 for several years (from Shadowkeep through The Final Shape), and in that time Bungie had made a lot of very unpopular moves. From things like the "Destiny Content Vault" (where old content was removed from the game to make room for new content), expansions getting delayed by several months, massive studio layoffs, apparent mismanagement of an entire expansion (Lightfall), more studio layoffs... It's just really hard, as a player, to back a Bungie project right now. I no longer feel like their priorities line up with mine.
Meanwhile, I've also been a huge fan of Embark's previous game, The Finals. It's a totally different type of FPS compared to Destiny, yet they managed to capture my interest by doing correctly all the things Bungie did wrong. They nailed the monetization of the game and it doesn't feel predatory, they listen to their community, and they constantly show a commitment toward making The Finals into the best game it can be (and not necessarily the most profitable game it could be).
So while Marathon looks like it's got all the makings for an amazing game, I just don't feel like Bungie fans have enough faith left in Bungie anymore. For a lot of people, myself included, The Final Shape was the "end" of Destiny; not because Bungie stopped making it (they're still releasing content), but because we got the closure we wanted out of Destiny's story and we're just done with Bungie's antics.
That said, I just don't like extraction shooters. I played a bit of Arc Raiders to see how it is, and it's just not for me. Honestly, I hope both games do well, because it's clear that both studios put a lot of heart into these games and I'm interested in learning about both games' stories. But right now, Bungie has to overcome their reputation if they want Marathon to succeed.
This sounds similar to another game I’ve seen (never played) that you are trapped in a security closet and trying to assist another person in both freeing you and escaping the dungeon you both find yourselves in using the door locks and CCTV cameras and things of that nature that you have access to in your prison. I think it even came before Five Nights at Freddy’s, but I don’t remember the name of the game.
In a way, the game play ends up being like Lemmings or ICO, where you’re solving a puzzle indirectly for another character to get beyond.
If you want to produce the sensation of being trapped you have to use the feeling of power and loss. It stems from the sense of ‘If I could just…’ If I could just get out there, I could defeat that henchman for him. If I could just get out there, I could solve that riddle for him. If I could just escape this box, all would be fixed.
Now, the trick is, because this is a video game, players have a reduced sense of agency. The player’s sense of capacity is ‘what happens when you hit the button.’ Mario, before more modern adaptations, had a capacity to move left and right, jump, run, and ‘use ability.’ The player never had the ability to do anything else, so it never feels like a limitation. No one ever said, ‘playing Mario makes me feel trapped because I could beat Bowser if I could just access the cannon that’s right over there.’
So, to produce the feeling of confinement, one must create the sense of power, and then take it away. Give the player enough power that they could even defeat the dragon, but then take it from them so they feel limited. If you can find a way to make it feel like it’s not even forced, as in they feel like they could have won the game in Act 1, Scene 1, but their lack of skills as a player were what made them lose, all the better.
Would that be your classic ‘meant to lose’ fight, usually against the big bad, which is technically winnable but the vast majority of players will lose and progress the story as planned? The example that comes to mind is Ghost of Tsushima, but it crops up in plenty of games.
It can be that. Never played Ghosts so I don’t know about that one in particular. Some games do other things with it, but that sort of thing is absolutely usable to create that ‘trapped’ feeling.
Abiotic Factor, survival in a facility like Half-Life with crafting, survival and exploration. Really great game and it’s pretty hard understanding where to go
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Aktywne