Which is your opinion about Trial and error in videogames?

[Duraframe300]

in this thread. Git gud.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

My biggest complaints about one-shots in Dark Souls are mostly environmental hazards. Mimics, Seath's ambush, Kalameet before Gough, the Hellkite Drake, and, while not really a "one-shot" (in some cases more painful, Reah getting ganked. Things that just bone the player once and then are never an issue, completely solved by meta-knowledge and offering no substantive gameplay afterwards, or on subsequent replays. A crappy way to do instant death attacks compared to Nocturne, which took a much-maligned mechanic and made interesting enough gameplay out of it.



"Decently protected" is pretty nebulous. Even a tanky, well-armored character is probably going to take a lot of damage from Vendrick's swings; guy hits like a truck. Ancient Dragon will pretty much one-shot any character with sub-80% fire resistance if it scores a double hit on its flying firebreath attack (not too uncommon an occurrence). And Manus' dark magic can deal serious damage. An SL120 with ~30VIT and 40 END and wearing Artorias' armor (fully upgraded) lost about 70% of their health through block with a high-tier medium shield (Silver/Black Knight) against one of his magic attacks. That a lot of damage to a decidedly tanky build.

Point is, the Souls games have a habit of making some (optional) endbosses into damage-bloated freaks because, I dunno, scrubs need to gitguder?

Then again, this is a point I'd be mostly willing to concede or drop. Bosses with one-shotting attacks aren't really my biggest bugbear.



I agree that not every boss needs to be challenging on the Nth replay. I do expect them, however, to at least be fun on the first one, which most of the bosses I listed as examples weren't, mostly due to how linear they are. There's one right way to fight them and, maybe, some terribly boring wrong ways to go against them.

Beating Ceaseless Discharge with the hilariously obscure one-shot trick is mostly painless. Looping its tentacle slam as you slowly chip away the demon's health is a goddamn chore.

Or what about the Hydras? Try fighting it at a distance; it's not going to be easy and it certainly won't be fun. But fight it the "right" way, by running up close to bait its ineffectual head slam attack, and tons of opportunities for safe. easy punishment crop up.

Woe betide anyone who enters the Moonlight Butterfly's fog gate without a ranged attack. Those unfortunate enough to do so will be subjected to one of the most stupefying battles ever in which they dodge for ~4 minutes before the Butterfly deigns to land and be beat upon. This is doubly painful if the player hasn't significantly upgraded their weapons, making the battle into even more of a dull, repetitive slog.

And then there's Dragon God and Bed of Chaos, two-entirely linear shitbosses. I think enough virtual ink has been spilled on these marvels...

In all of these bosses the player's still penalized heavily for a lack of metaknowledge. Even if the player is skilled/savvy, and can avoid death through strong core skills, they're still punished with an awful play experience. And in some ways, this a lot worse than cheap deaths are.



Oh, for sure. Metaknowledge tends to overpower any challenge that isn't sufficiently randomized or rooted in player reflexive skill. That said, Nocturne's bosses (mostly) have numerous solutions, and can be taken apart in different ways. While they can easily be thrashed by the power of GameFAQs, there's still a lot more fun that can be gleaned from them than a lot of shitty bosses that infest the (Muhzaki) Souls games.

PD: Bed of chaos is shit. The rest of bosses you mentioned... highly debatable.

 

[Ulminati]

I don't mind trial and error, but I think there are good and bad ways to implement it.
Good trial and error is letting me run into a new kind of hazard I've never seen before. Make me die to it, but also make it abundantly clear what happened. That way I can avoid it in the future. (IE: make me aware of what to look for to spot the hazard next time).

Bad trial and error is the kind of thing where you get hit by a random trap out of nowhere and the only way to avoid it is knowing it's coming ahead of time. The very worst are the sections that were popular in old arcade games where you're racing someplace or whatever and you have to select the right brances to take in the level. Those usually see you die on a wrong turn with no indication ahead of time which one you should take.

The most recent section that sticks out for me was this part of Ori and the blind forest. I think it took me 60ish tries to time all the jumps correctly and I was quite fustrated by the end.

 

[Durandal]

A trial and error system can only be effectively used if the player can actually learn from their mistakes, and apply that knowledge to future situations.
However, the player should be able to figure out a challenge on their first try without having died. If you need to pass a minefield, there's usually a sign of a skull, bits and pieces of human remains, or the mines make some beeping noise and are very visible. This should tell you that the area you are about to pass through is fairly dangerous, and thus you'll be on your guard. If you walk through a minefield without there being any signs that say so, you'll probably die a painful death and be forced to reload your previous save. You now know that place is a minefield, but there would be absolutely no way to know that the first time you went there. If you died despite the obvious signs, then you should learn to pay attention to your surroundings for hints.
While not every challenge needs a tutorial, an explanation how to best it, or some really obvious hint, you should be able to look back when you died, and realize the signs were there to prevent such a death. Ultimately you will learn to look for these signs in the future, and prevent deaths in future different challenges.

 

[Sjukob]

Make me die to it, but also make it abundantly clear what happened

Bad trial and error is the kind of thing where you get hit by a random trap out of nowhere and the only way to avoid it is knowing it's coming ahead of time

How are those different things ?

 

[Ulminati]

How are those different things ?

Good trial and error makes you realize there is a tell of some sort to look for. Like "When the monster glows red, don't get into melee range because it's about to eat you" or "if the chest moves a little every 10 seconds or so it's a mimic" or "cracked floor tiles fall down".

Bad trial and error is you walk down a corridor and a rock falls on your head out of nowhere from offscreen. Or you're racing down a road. turning left sends you over a cliff, turning right sends you to safety and no way to know which is which ahead of time.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Well, as I said at the beginning of the post, I bought Rare replay for the Xbox ONE (Yes, I bought that console and yes, I'm playing nineties gaems on it instead of new games. God bless Killer instinct) and I started to replay Perfect Dark. Completed it last night. And the only thing that I can say is: Are games journalists fucking stupid or what? I read a lot of reviews of the remastered version of Perfect dark released on 360 in 2010, and a lot of them say that the game has a lot of Trial of error (Bad Trial of error, trying over and over again until success). WTF man. I mean, the game have in each mission a briefing that explains you in detail what things must you do in that mission. There's no need of trying things over and over again, the only thing you must do is follow the fucking instructions. It's that hard for today standards or what? I'm imagining the situation:

The gaem: "Don't kill Cassandra de Vries, cuz necklace keys only works if the owner is alive. Leave her unconscious instead.
The player: *shots Cassandra de Vries in the head, she dies. mission failed* "OMG Trial and error, fake difficulty!!!1111"

As I said, I completed the game and the only "unfair" things that I found are:

- Alarms: There is two levels where the guards can activate two alarms, which will finish the mission in failure. The levels are the G5 and the first of Air force one section. In the G5 one the alarms is a bit below, so restarting the level could feel bit heavy. The Air force one one is at the beginning of the level, so who cares.
- Mines: In the first level of Area 51 there is one part where an invisible mine is between an heliport and a broken gate. The player can survive the explosion, but I think there is no way to discover that there is a mine placed here without trading it.
- Grenade launcher: In the final level if the player wastes all the four ammo of the grenade launcher, the mission will fail and a message saying "mission failed. Cannot go further in the ruins" or something like that will appears. That because the player must use the grenade launcher for breaking some walls in the level to continue. It is told on the briefing, but it doesn't specify that the item that the player must use is the grenade launcher.

That's all. Are enough these moments to trash more than well designed fifteen levels? I don't think so.

 

[murloc_gypsy]

I like games with no hand-holding. At the same time, I also think save-scumming should not be frowned upon. In most games with no hand-holding you won't have any idea what sort of chances you have with a particular enemy (mob or challenge) until you've tried.

Also this video cracked me up:

Spoiler

tried playing Dark Souls 1 - it was shit

Also, it's "WHAT is your opinion [...]"

 

[Jack Dandy]

There are some kinds of trial & error games I love, and some I fiercely hate.

Stuff like Super Meat Boy and other "sado" platformers? Can't stand 'em.

Games like Ys where you need some trial and error to learn the boss' patterns? I love 'em. Even when you figure it out, it's an entirely seperate challenge to actually beat the pattern even after you've mastered it.

Savescum is for faggots

 

[CryptRat]

I really don't get this thread.
It's normal that in a good plateformer or shmup you need to know the level and the patterns entirely in order not to die, it is not a holiday trip. That probably doesn't apply to strategy games, but Dark Souls is much more an action-based RPG than a strategy-based one ; the game would be much worse for me if I couldn't suddenly die skewered or eaten by an apparently weak enemy or crushed by a boulder ; that's the meaning of exploration and discovery in that kind of games.
It is a different from apprehending the game as a whole, but it's also fun.

 

[DraQ]

A trial and error system can only be effectively used if the player can actually learn from their mistakes, and apply that knowledge to future situations.
However, the player should be able to figure out a challenge on their first try without having died. If you need to pass a minefield, there's usually a sign of a skull, bits and pieces of human remains, or the mines make some beeping noise and are very visible. This should tell you that the area you are about to pass through is fairly dangerous, and thus you'll be on your guard. If you walk through a minefield without there being any signs that say so, you'll probably die a painful death and be forced to reload your previous save. You now know that place is a minefield, but there would be absolutely no way to know that the first time you went there. If you died despite the obvious signs, then you should learn to pay attention to your surroundings for hints.
While not every challenge needs a tutorial, an explanation how to best it, or some really obvious hint, you should be able to look back when you died, and realize the signs were there to prevent such a death. Ultimately you will learn to look for these signs in the future, and prevent deaths in future different challenges.

This.

 

[stray]

Trial and error is kind of.... essential to me. Games should about recognizing patterns (or rather, failing and failing until you recognize them). The definition of casual gaming to me is just rote actions and having shit handed to you. A lot of it seemed to start in MMOs, but it's everywhere now. And it's probably why housewives think they can speak for gamers too. And why hipsters peddle walking simulators.. they don't know what a game is either.

 

[DefJam101]

How is it not? You learn the pattern and the timing, when you don't know those things you get brutalized. Some of the attacks have huge wind-up times but the dodge window in terms of timing and location is extremely precise and you can only learn it by trying, and likely failing.

I was able to beat Dark Souls, on my first playthrough, having not played Demon Souls, with about ~15 deaths, most of which came from the Capra Demon. The Souls games are only "trial and error" if you rush forward carelessly — exactly the sort of modern play style they were designed to punish.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I was able to beat Dark Souls, on my first playthrough, having not played Demon Souls, with about ~15 deaths, most of which came from the Capra Demon. The Souls games are only "trial and error" if you rush forward carelessly — exactly the sort of modern play style they were designed to punish.

Question: Did you play online with those warning hints from players plastered everywhere?

 

[DraQ]

Bad trial and error is the kind of thing where you get hit by a random trap out of nowhere and the only way to avoid it is knowing it's coming ahead of time. The very worst are the sections that were popular in old arcade games where you're racing someplace or whatever and you have to select the right brances to take in the level. Those usually see you die on a wrong turn with no indication ahead of time which one you should take.

The most recent section that sticks out for me was this part of Ori and the blind forest. I think it took me 60ish tries to time all the jumps correctly and I was quite fustrated by the end.

That's a necro on my part, but I just needed to stress that Ori really goes out of its way to avoid trial and error by telegraphing stuff, it's just that it's rather unforgiving.

 

[DalekFlay]

The reason Dark Souls annoyed me was the combination of "have to try it and die a few times to learn the method of victory" and save stations. With quicksave that stuff doesn't bother me much, but when you're surprised by new backstabbing enemies who kill you before you even know what's happening and that requires redoing 10+ minutes of shit? No thanks.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The thing is, with the exception of the mimics (and even those do technically have a tell, it's just way too subtle) souls games pretty much never outright cheapshot you. An enemy will drop from the ceiling, but you could have looked up. Something will gank you as you walk through a door, but you could have looked to the side before entering, etc. Your reaction to such things shouldn't be 'the game is cheap, it should give me a do-over' it should be 'I'm shit for not having seen that coming, I'll try to do better.' And honestly, if you were playing online, you'd have to be blind to not see all the bloodstains and warning signs around every fucking hidden thing in the game.

You're probably the type of player that blames his opponents for 'cheating' or being unfair in competitive games.

 

[Norfleet]

Or you're racing down a road. turning left sends you over a cliff, turning right sends you to safety and no way to know which is which ahead of time.

But the BEST kind is when turning left is actually survivable and gets you a better time if you can pull off some crazy Dukes of Hazzard type shit.

 

[DalekFlay]

The thing is, with the exception of the mimics (and even those do technically have a tell, it's just way too subtle) souls games pretty much never outright cheapshot you. An enemy will drop from the ceiling, but you could have looked up. Something will gank you as you walk through a door, but you could have looked to the side before entering, etc. Your reaction to such things shouldn't be 'the game is cheap, it should give me a do-over' it should be 'I'm shit for not having seen that coming, I'll try to do better.' And honestly, if you were playing online, you'd have to be blind to not see all the bloodstains and warning signs around every fucking hidden thing in the game.

I'm not sure how serious you're being here. Everyone and their mother, including the people who love the series, know that Dark Souls is about learning enemy patterns and attacks so you can eventually overcome them easily by "getting good." You trying to present it as a game series where you can beat everything on the first encounter is frankly delusional. Normally I would want to "get good" in that way, and have done so for many games, but again it's the repeating content over and over I can't get into. I have limited gaming time, and grew up playing save anywhere PC games. I've never been one who ever enjoyed repeating stuff I already completed to get back to what I didn't. And no, I didn't play online.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Of course nobody is actually going through the game deathless on the first run. Nobody is that fucking good (or tedious and obsessive) But you could, if you were paranoid enough and had great reflexes and so on. Again, with the exception of a handful of things, like the mimic or the bed of chaos (maybe? I forget how the floors fall out the first time) everything is avoidable either by intuitive foresight or reflex. There's never the sort of bullshit that was in old NES games where a death pit is literally invisible and gives no warning whatsoever. So avoiding death is something you can realistically strive for if that's your bag. I'm okay with being reckless and dying in exchange for a faster pace myself.

And take your 'limited gaming time' and fuck off. That's the excuse you hear from people that like Bejeweled. It's got nothing to do with being punished for failure. There's no difference between being sent back 10 minutes or being sent back 10 seconds when the boss was a sliver away from dying when you fucked up when it comes to 'repeating stuff you already completed.' If they saved before every boss but made the fight itself take 10 minutes longer it'd be the same result time wise, you'd just be able to run between bosses like a retard until you got lucky before you actually had your skill tested.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Lmao, my english writing has not improved even little bit in the last five years.

 

[Citizen]

Bad trial and error is the kind of thing where you get hit by a random trap out of nowhere and the only way to avoid it is knowing it's coming ahead of time. The very worst are the sections that were popular in old arcade games where you're racing someplace or whatever and you have to select the right brances to take in the level. Those usually see you die on a wrong turn with no indication ahead of time which one you should take.

The most recent section that sticks out for me was this part of Ori and the blind forest. I think it took me 60ish tries to time all the jumps correctly and I was quite fustrated by the end.

That's a necro on my part, but I just needed to stress that Ori really goes out of its way to avoid trial and error by telegraphing stuff, it's just that it's rather unforgiving.

I actually liked this level (Ginsoo Tree) a lot. It took me 20+ tries to finish, but I never felt stuck in any particular place, and usually after passing some tricky jump I rarely failed at it in the following tries. So despite dying a lot, I always felt like I was progressing, even if by a small step. Very cool design, it was the best moment of Ori for me

On the other hand the later escape levels were much worse in that department, especially the last one where the owl kills you when you slow down in the open. The owl's attacks were badly telegraphed and dying to them over and over was frustrating

 

[DraQ]

Bad trial and error is the kind of thing where you get hit by a random trap out of nowhere and the only way to avoid it is knowing it's coming ahead of time. The very worst are the sections that were popular in old arcade games where you're racing someplace or whatever and you have to select the right brances to take in the level. Those usually see you die on a wrong turn with no indication ahead of time which one you should take.

The most recent section that sticks out for me was this part of Ori and the blind forest. I think it took me 60ish tries to time all the jumps correctly and I was quite fustrated by the end.

That's a necro on my part, but I just needed to stress that Ori really goes out of its way to avoid trial and error by telegraphing stuff, it's just that it's rather unforgiving.

I actually liked this level (Ginsoo Tree) a lot. It took me 20+ tries to finish, but I never felt stuck in any particular place, and usually after passing some tricky jump I rarely failed at it in the following tries. So despite dying a lot, I always felt like I was progressing, even if by a small step. Very cool design, it was the best moment of Ori for me

On the other hand the later escape levels were much worse in that department, especially the last one where the owl kills you when you slow down in the open. The owl's attacks were badly telegraphed and dying to them over and over was frustrating

Ginso was iconic, there is no doubt about it, but the idea during the last escape is that there is this huge, unstoppably badass owl out for your blood (or whatever Ori has as his juicy filling) and you are not supposed to ever slow down or try to dodge any individual attack. You are supposed to go as fast as you physically can because Kuro will swipe you if she ever gets a chance, just like she did if you tried to cross Valley of Wind or just make a run for it during that stealth section. There's no dodging Kuro so she doesn't need to announce herself.

There were a few things during ruins escape that verged on meta but they were still avoidable without no prior information.

 

[Citizen]

There were a few things during ruins escape that verged on meta but they were still avoidable without no prior information.

Yes, I think in ruins escape there was a falling rock that, quite counterintuitively, can only be avoided by flying up to the cave ceiling and hiding in a hole. That obviously required some meta info (getting smashed by the rock a few times) in order to realize. It didn't feel that bad, maybe because the level itself wasn't as hard as the rest

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I don't mind it overall, especially in games like shoot 'em ups such as Contra or Metal Slug where you have to figure out boss patterns and such. It's part of the fun for me.

It can be a bit bullshit in RPGs but it depends to what extent. I always hated one shot mechanics in RPGs for example because it goes against the concept of character growth and it intentionally feels like a cheese tactic because the developers couldn't be bothered to think of some more fitting way to bring difficulty to your character.