The bits I used gamefaqs guides for (btw I love they are still there ^_^) are rarely fun anyway. Mostly, it’s achievement grinding or 100%ing. If the game itself needs a guide to navigate it, I usually just drop it. If it fails at informing me about it’s mechanics that much it’s not for me.
I played with cheats almost all the time when I was a kid, but I was rarely doing it for difficulty reasons. I just got used to the idea early on of game engines just being digital sandboxes and loved seeing how far I could push things.
I don’t really understand using cheats as a difficulty bypass unless you’re there just to get the story/explore.
I use ChatGPT similarly. If I want to explore an idea without consequence, I can use it to brainstorm, but it’s not going to be how I lay out an entire project.
Man, I was recently working with another senior. The guy has been in this job like ten years longer than me. And to be fair, we were working with a language that he isn’t familiar with, but I had a problem which wasn’t language-specific (basically, I had a user-provided timestamp and needed to guesstimate whether that’s winter or summer time).
And yeah, his first thought was to ask ChatGPT. On some level, it is a wrapper around Bing and I did a web search, too, so sure, let’s do another web search in case I missed anything.
But ol’ Chappity G spat out the same solution attempt, which I had also found initially, which wasn’t actually applicable there. So, we told it what the problem with that was, and it generated another attempt, which didn’t cover edge cases. The next time around, it generated a solution which used an entirely different time library. And so on.
The guy was absorbed for ten minutes trying to explain to the Magic 8 Ball what our problem was precisely and why its solution attempts were bad.
I’m not saying ChatGPT should’ve been able to solve this problem. Date/time handling is one of the hardest computer science problems.
It was more just that he was constantly pulling the slot machine, hoping it would suddenly spit out the perfect solution, when even just five seconds of independent thinking should’ve made him realize that there is no easily web-searchable solution and the spicy autocomplete cannot do the reasoning to come up with a solution of its own.
The analogy makes a lot of sense to me. Once you have an “easy button”, it’s hard to not use it. It’s sort of like when you’re at work and see the “quick workaround” effectively become the standard process.
Or when you’re diving somewhere, and drivers thinking there’s an “easy button” gets people killed.
The point, I think, is that society seems to encourage “what can I get away with” while discouraging any consideration of “what should I do”. Which, well, seems pretty ass-backwards don’t you think?
Then again, we’ve never truly removed from power the progeny of those that decided beating the shit out of someone else was preferable to doing their fair share of the labor. “But what if someone tries to kick your ass? Then you’ll be glad I’m here.”
Uhh, like fucking hell I will. That kind of sociopathic fuckery has always been, and will always be, nothing but a drain on the collective effort of any society.
Tldr: I totally agree with you
Oh, and as an aside, part of me kinda hates that Re-Logic added “Journey Mode” to Terraria; I haven’t put any significant time into even one classic mode playthrough since.
This is exactly it. I definitely used a lot of walkthroughs as a kid. I also feel like games in the 90s and early 00s were just plain harder, or sometimes poorly designed.
These days I only look something up when I have got to a point of near rage over how much of my limited gaming time has been wasted, and I need to know if I am just a moron, or if it’s a bug, or bad game design. Of course, then I get mad that I can’t find it written out, and have to skim around in some fucking YouTube video to figure it out.
For me it’s the opposite. I remember getting stuck in a game for days or weeks in the 90s. I would get to a point where I would just try to click everything on the screen, use every item with everything else, try all possible item combinations, etc. These days, if I’m stuck for more than an hour or two I’ll just Google it. I’d rather move on faster and get to play more games in the limited time I have for such things.
I haven’t played rtc in 20 yrs, but I remember completing every park task except for dinky Park. I got really close one time, but was just short when the time ran out. Just a few months ago I randomly came across a video on how to beat it, and now I want to play it again but can’t find it.
I replayed it recently and the hidden mechanics are just bad game design. Not docking the game but there’s no way to tell the reasons for certain scenario failures, even when addressing all the customer thoughts and using all existing information.
I’ve fallen into this exact trap when I played the HD remaster of Suikoden 1&2 a few months ago. The games still hold up pretty well but are a bit too dated to my taste to have more than a single playthrough, so I followed guides to get the perfect ending, which involves recruiting all 108 characters into your army.
At first I was just looking at a very light guide that told me which characters were missable and approximately when to get them. Then I got impatient and looked up their location and recruitment conditions. And then I ended up following a complete walkthrough step by step to make sure I wasn’t making any mistake.
That completely took the fun out of the games and I burnt out halfway through the second one.
Running Steam games on Mint, I don’t think I’ve ever run into a game that flat-out didn’t run. Usually they work out of the box. The most I’ve ever had to do was select “Force the use of a specific compatibility tool” and try out a different version of Proton from the dropdown list.
Weird, I love problem solving. Its why im so upset with people complaining about computers when all they have to do is tinker with them or google about it. Walkthroughs are for when you need it, if you have an urge to use the walkthrough only instead of actually playing the game, then thats a you problem.
I mean, I guess, it was their realization that the walkthrough skips the fun problem-solving part. That it shouldn’t be a tool you use during the problem-solving.
One time I used a GameShark mid game for a Zelda game, I saved my file and came back later to find that by maxing out, I had ruined my save file and lost all my progress. I cried my eyes out and it took days to get back, boringly replaying the game.
I always wondered if that was an intentional lesson by the GameShark devs… ChatGPT seems designed to make you act against your best self interest.
I’ve had a similar train of thought. I work with a lot of people that have been doing their jobs for many years and know what they’re doing. They might benefit from an LLM since they already have the expertise to tell what to take or leave. A novice would benefit more long term from learning the hard way.
Continuing with that train of thought though, if someone has been learning and growing for years, is there really a point where it’s okay to stop, say “I don’t need to learn more,” and start relying on the easy method while their skills stagnate?
We were so bored back in the day we spent hours, days, months finding out how to get by stupid things in point&click games, it was better than not playing them but it was also not like the best time ever either.
Being bored was the healthy part, developmentally speaking.
Not that there weren’t overstimulating games back then, or healthy problem solving games today. But with enshittification, the shit is drowning out the gold.
As a horny teen, Leisure Suit Larry was the closest thing to smut in a game that I could get. There was no internet walkthroughs. You wanted pixelated boobs and innuendo? You had to try every item in your arsenal and every dialogue choice to get it. But damn was it fun!
Later, going back to the games and using walkthroughs, some of the solutions seemed rather silly.
Im playing a bunch of soulslikes for the first time now. You gotta exhaust everything you can think of, then check a walkthrough just for the hint youre missing.
The process is the fun part. Looking it up is just a way to minimize frustration because you can’t find the goddamn ladder.
I think souls likes are just not for me. I just want a cool story told in a relatively linear fashion. I’d take a linear 15 hour game over an open world 150+ hour game any day.
Most of em are pretty linear, really. Elden Ring is the exception. But like Bloodborne for instance, youre gonna go pretty much in the same order till you have to return to earlier areas to finish stuff. You’ve gotta explore a lot though.
Not trying to be like “LOVE THE THING THAT I LOVE DAMN YOU”, theyre totally not for everyone.
Only the most braindead of gamers has a chance of bouncing off a single Souls fight more than maybe a dozen times. Two dozen if you’re especially thickheaded.
The thing about Soulslikes - and Fromsoft games in particular - is that they teach you new things primarily by killing you with them. Once you know whatever the thing is that this encounter is trying to teach you, you can blow through the entire thing at level 1 and people do it all the time. And I do mean “people” and not just professional streamers. SL1 is a popular challenge run for souls fans, specifically because once you know all the rules of the game it becomes very easy.
But there is no easing-in to learning new things in Dark Souls. You will get flattened into paste by some bullshit without warning, and it is up to the player to figure out a) why they died, and b) how to prevent that. Throwing yourself at the same brick wall 200 times with no change in strategy is a losing prospect no matter what game you’re playing, souls or otherwise.
The essence of “gitting gud” is literally just stopping for 10 seconds to think about why you failed last time. If you’re capable of that - and 99% of gamers definitely are, it’s a core component of game design - you’re capable of not only completing but excelling in Soulslikes.
People have been jerking off how difficult Souls games are for a decade and a half now and it’s never been true. Souls games are just rhythm games that don’t give you the rhythm onscreen. Find that rhythm (through observing patterns, and especially through listening to the boss fight music) and you’ll first-clear every single fight.
Thing is I do enough of problem solving already so this just isnt my jam.
And if you like that genre/game series I wish you the best to getting more :)
I’m sorry, I just can’t stop myself from launching into this spiel every time I hear a comment like your first one. There’s a huge swath of gamers that I feel like would actually love my favorite game if they weren’t scared away from it by gamer circlejerk. It’s not my mission in life to defend Dark Souls to people who don’t care about it, but I often assume that mantle despite myself.
At the end of the day though it’s just a game about self reflection and personal growth, and I like that.
Very. I would recommend only playing it on controller. And it runs pretty well on Steam Deck. There’s an fps unlocker/resolution fix that makes it play better, but not necessary.
A lot of people will say it’s harder than other souls games, but it’s really just different. The combat is amazing once you get the timing down. It can feel like a rhythm game at times when you’re in the zone. And the feeling you get when you beat a difficult boss is second to none.
Look, it’s like my favorite game ever, but it’s pretty hard and it’s not for everyone. I hope you enjoy it, but the game only ever seems to go down to $30, so I don’t want someone to waste money on a game they don’t like on account of me.
I guess it can refund it in Steam, though I’m not sure if 2 hours is enough time for it to gel. I’ve seen people say that the early boss, “Genichiro Ashina” is the first real test, and indication of what’s to come. That one will be tough, but it’s all about learning the attack patterns.
Sounds good to me.
I am not against a challenge.
But it’s good to have different viewpoints to get a general idea what to expect (and as you said, not to waste money) ;)
Yeah this is absolutely true start to finish. Once you slow down and stop spamming buttons, and think, it becomes really surprisingly easy. Mostly. Some bosses are just gonna ruin your day for a bit. Till you figure out what youre doing wrong and adjust. Sometimes easier said than done.
Then, by the time you’ve finished like a single run of any game, youre totally ready to crush the entire genre catalog. You’ve got months of dungeons to explore if you want.
Sigh. Im so grateful for these games lol. Theres so much love and creativity in their DNA.
Oh yeah that boss music tip made a world of difference with Bloodborne. Once someone pointed it out on a flame-themed hunter boss that was giving me pause, i was amazed. Like, how the hell does that work so well??
I made it all the way through Dark Souls 1 and 2 and about half of 3 before I even knew that was a thing. I was getting curbstomped by Dancer of the Boreal Valley and went online looking for discussions about her. Lo and behold:
Tl;dw - Dancer’s song is in 3/4 time instead of 4/4 and she dances with her music. This gives her a crazy pattern that people always get got by because what feels like an opening actually isn’t. In order to defeat her you have to listen to her song and learn to dance with her.
Once I learned that it opened up an entire new world of understanding across every soulslike game I played and immediately halved my average number of boss attempts. No joke. Not every boss can be beaten blindfolded by just listening to their OST but it’ll give you good timing cues for the fight more often than it doesn’t.
I’ve bounced off some fights way more than that. It’s not even about not getting what to do, my concentration just dies and I also get greedy (or in the case of margit in elden ring was insanely underleveled on top of that). Playing claire obscure on the highest difficulty while ignoring defense isn’t very different in terms of dodging difficulty, but since I couldn’t really get greedy and my brain can go off on a journey on my own turn it was pretty smooth and much less frustrating for me.
I do agree souls games aren’t super difficult, but they are unforgiving and if concentration isn’t your strong suit that will fuck you relentlessly. I still enjoy them personally though I’ve never completed one, there’s always some area that just annoys me too much to bother after a bit.
Or the third option: someone enjoys games differently than you.
I rage quit the final boss of Sekiro (Sword Saint Isshin) after hours of trying, on and off, for days. Came back after a break of a couple of days, and beat him on the first try. The feeling was unmatched. I felt like a god lol
Soulslikes are great if you're looking to scratch an itch for mechanical mastery, discovery, exploration, etc., but stories are not their strong suit. I'm not saying the stories are bad, just the delivery of them, unless you're the type of player who wants to play detective.
First few games were delightful to me precisely because they didn’t beat you over the head with a story. It’s up to you the player to make your own meaning of the understated story.
That’s not just Souls-likes though. And only Elden Ring is really open world in that way (I think, haven’t played much of any of them). What you’re meaning is that open world games aren’t for you, which is a lot more games than just Souls-likes.
I generally love open-world games, but really don’t like any of the Souls or Souls-like games. The whole thing of always being so focused on the enemy, having to time dodges and parries just isn’t how my brain works, and I lose interest and/or give up very quickly. I have no issue with hard games, but I feel a lot of people who love those kinds of games have some kind of masochistic trait that makes them keep exposing themselves to the shit those games drag you through. I don’t get super happy or feel like I’ve overcome something big with these kinds of challenges, it’s just “fucking fuck, it’s finally dead, I feel like shit and have used up all my consumables, that was not fun in any way. I need to go do something else because I almost had a panic attack from all this crap”. The story just ends up not mattering because there’s always this burden of forcing yourself to get past every millimetre of the game. I love really hard puzzles though, and stuff like platforming and so on, almost anything except that very Souls-specific soul crushing style.
I dunno, I feel like I wouldn’t use a walkthrough on souls like games until the second play through. Part of the fun is the discovery, and its fine if you miss shit the first time.
I just mean when youre banging your head against the wall and need a hint where to go. I do this less and less now though, I’ve still only beaten one of them.
I agree and don’t typically worry so much about getting 100% in games, if i miss something that’s on me and fine.
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