Unwinnable Battles

[Maria Caliban]

Unfortunately, that breaks the fun for folks like Llyranor and Maria.

 

I'm trying to understand what conclusion you've made about me that led you to this statement.

[Hell Kitty]

I don't agree with the idea that the player must triumph over every situation they find themselves in. I thought Ms Caliban's examples of SH and CoC were good ones. When encountering Pyramid Head in SH or getting out of the hotel in the beginning of CoC, the only option is to run, and the player who reloads 5000 times because they feel the need to "win" this particular battle should be put into a rocket and flown into the sun.

[Rosbjerg]

Have any of you played Freespace2?

 

You are this pilot in the Human fleet against an endless mass of superior aliens - there's no winning in the game - every battle you lose a little more, even though you "won" by the games term (able to advance to the next scenario) the game is just a series of retreats and withdrawls and uneven battles. An extremely good game for it's time, where you really felt that you were pushing your luck everytime you survived (by fleeing) or fought of a few Shivans.

[Cantousent]

Unfortunately, that breaks the fun for folks like Llyranor and Maria.

 

I'm trying to understand what conclusion you've made about me that led you to this statement.

 

 

Because the player would have to reload the battle every time until he finally realized that he can't win. Of course, now that I think about it, it was Tale who didn't want reloads.

 

Have any of you played Freespace2?

 

You are this pilot in the Human fleet against an endless mass of superior aliens - there's no winning in the game - every battle you lose a little more, even though you "won" by the games term (able to advance to the next scenario) the game is just a series of retreats and withdrawls and uneven battles. An extremely good game for it's time, where you really felt that you were pushing your luck everytime you survived (by fleeing) or fought of a few Shivans.

 

Freespace is a cool game, but not my idea of a good CRPG.

Edited April 8, 2007 by Cantousent

[Rosbjerg]

But I used it as an example of an unwinning battles done in a way that was believable. Not as a portrayal of a good Crpg.

[Cantousent]

But I used it as an example of an unwinning battles done in a way that was believable. Not as a portrayal of a good Crpg.

 

That's true. Not only that, but there's nothing that says that something that works well in one genre cannot be tweaked to work in another.

[Maria Caliban]

I don't agree with the idea that the player must triumph over every situation they find themselves in. I thought Ms Caliban's examples of SH and CoC were good ones. When encountering Pyramid Head in SH or getting out of the hotel in the beginning of CoC, the only option is to run, and the player who reloads 5000 times because they feel the need to "win" this particular battle should be put into a rocket and flown into the sun.

 

You're awesome because you agree with me and because our avatars are cousins.

 

I believe that in CoC, you don't even have a weapon at that point. In SH, you first see Pyramid Head in a cutscene where he's raping a manikin demon. You hide in a closet while he passes by dragging its body.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that these are both horror filled games. As the PC is 'weak' instead of a rogue 10/fighter 2/ranger 4 with a +5 cold iron sword of flame, the player cares more about surviving than beating opponents.

 

The earlier point about interface is important as well. A FP game or the behind the shoulder of CoC and SH makes running, climbing, sneaking, and other environmental interactions pleasurable. A party based game (unless it was party in a pocket) or a isometric view is great for strategic battles, but not so good for environmental interactions.

[metadigital]

I would like to avoid situations where the PC is clearly stronger than the opponent but, due to the narrative arc, the opponent has to win (I'm looking at you, KotOR, and the battle where Bastila is captured ..! ), because that is just frustrating.

[Sand]

Its not frustrating. Its just stupid.

[Amentep]

I

 

I think there are actually nice uses for "unbeatable" characters, but its all a question of storytelling, ultimately, and how specifically the issue is handled. In the Lady of Pain's case its clear that her position requires her to be unbeatable of else it makes no sense, and she's generally not supposed to be an opponent unless a character specifically sets out to antagonize her in which case they get their just desserts, IMO.

 

Perfect use of unbeatable characters (in both the PnP and the PS:T game)

[GreasyDogMeat]

Some may have mentioned it, but a great example of an unwinnable battle is Quake IV.

 

About mid-way through the game you are trapped in a battle with the Makron, a huge commander alien. The Makron is unbeatable and will eventually grab you in an energy beam.

 

This is one of the most confusing parts in the game though, as one of the most common questions in the game is 'how do I beat the Makron? It grabs me in a beam and I die!'.

 

The problem is, that people end up hitting escape, or pressing their quickload button before the next level loads in which you are chopped up and converted into a strogg, but rescued by earth forces. From that point on, you are half-man, half-alien with extra powers.

 

I think the idea of unwinnable battles is interesting. Handling them can be difficult though because, lets face it, the average gamer doesn't like to lose and will often immediatly reload if it appears they have lost. 'I keep falling down this pit, how do I continue?' This character always beats me!' - Well, it is supposed to happen.

[LadyCrimson]

lets face it, the average gamer doesn't like to lose and will often immediatly reload if it appears they have lost. 'I keep falling down this pit, how do I continue?' This character always beats me!' - Well, it is supposed to happen.

 

Unwinnable battles in general remind me of puzzles in adventure games that are completely random (ie, no way to actually logically figure them out). There is NOTHING so annoying as thinking you have a problem set before you that you're supposed to solve, and then realizing that there's either no way to solve it, or the only way to "solve" it is stupid trial and error and 50 re-loads. Sure, I've put up with it/done it to get through an otherwise good game, but I don't find it fun.

 

I don't have to win a fight to get through a goal - perhaps you may finally realize if you can't win the fight, that the solution is you have to somehow sneak by/trick the baddie instead of defeat/kill him to move on - kind of like getting by Humfrey's moat defenses in the Xanth novel series - but fighting the same battle/reloading for a couple hours before realizing or being told by the game that it was supposed to be unwinnable and there's no other solution would really tick me off. Waste of time I don't really have anymore.

[Pop]

I thought a good instance of an unwinnable battle takes place in Metal Gear Solid 3, wherein what resembles a battle is actually more of a puzzle. The PC "dies", this is unavoidable. But he doesn't actually die. Most people whose first instinct would be to reload as soon as the death animation kicks in would miss the solution. It's not entirely fair, most people probably stumble over the answer in frustration, but MGS isn't really a series that makes everything obvious and easy (I know people who are still pissed off about the Meryl radio frequency from MGS1)

[Tigranes]

All you need to do is give clear hints that there are other ways of getting through the battle, and for example an NPC saying "let's run" actually means let's run, not "let's run, but I know you wont because its' aa computer game!". And not stupidly blatant either, like the guy having 999999 health on your interface screen.

[Pop]

All you need to do is give clear hints that there are other ways of getting through the battle, and for example an NPC saying "let's run" actually means let's run, not "let's run, but I know you wont because its' aa computer game!". And not stupidly blatant either, like the guy having 999999 health on your interface screen.

If a guy has 999999 health my first instinct would be to find the magic switch involved in killing him, ala destroying Yaga Shura's heart, or using the silver sword on the portal.

 

But that's a given, I think. In my MGS example, if you listen to the baddie he gives you hints on what exactly is going on and how to get out of the situation. I think Kojima really enjoys ****ing over people who don't have the patience to sit through his cutscenes or listen to his dialogue.

[LadyCrimson]

As has already been alluded to, many instances people give as unwinnable battles aren't unwinnable - they're just artifically inflated difficulty situations, perhaps relying on button-mashing speed and reflexes or the memory/brain to remember spoken puzzle hints from an act or three ago.

 

If there are big hints that you're not supposed to win a fight, would that then ruin it for those that seem to want the fact a to be a surprise? ie, that if you know you can't win early on, it becomes less desirable to continue fighting? And if not, then it seems to me if you then choose to fight anyway, you're just doing it for fun of the battle, which has nothing to do with winning the 'game'.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the thrust of this thread? If people want to be able to do quests/win the day without having to fight a 'boss', that I can see. Or more battles that end in cutscenes of supposed death and new acts. But again, that's not "unwinnable" - just different programmed strategy solutions or plot twists.

 

The quote from the original post: "I've become more and more intrigued with the idea of the hopeless battle. What I see as the biggest obstacle is that the majority of players would not catch the idea that it is impossible to win the battle and therefore would end the game at that spot because they could not finish it." doesn't sound like alternate solutions to win the day was the point, but rather a fight that one could choose to battle even if you knew it was hopeless.

[Tigranes]

The point is that in a battle situation, there are many outcomes that need not require you to defeat everything the game throws at you by force in order to accomplish your objective - or, indeed, survive.

 

In 'optional' dungeons and so forth, let's say there is an 'undefeatable boss', and behind him is a pile of gold. Some games do give ways to outwit or sneak past this boss and avoid combat, but still get the gold - or just turn away. However, they at the same time give a way to defeat this boss, by just being damn good or by using tricks such as Yaga-Shura's heart. But what if you could not, say, kill Yaga-Shura? There was no convenient, ready-made, deus ex machina method to find the witch and the heart and render him vulnerable? There could be any number of ways to defeat him then - destroy his army while avoiding his invincible wrath? Incite dissent within the ranks? Use magic from afar to nip people off? Destroy his army's supply lines?

 

Of course, sometimes we can do that already in games. But we never get to find that out ourselves. You'd get a cutscene of everyone sitting in the war room. "Yaga-Shura cannot be defeated." "Alright, we'll try and hit the supply lines." Thus you are yet again performing another linear role given to you. It would be more challenging and immersive if they simply said, "stop Yaga Shura somehow", and you could search for various ways to do it - and in the end, perhaps, Yaga Shura destroys Saradush ANYWAY. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't stop everything and you can't make everything happen. I think that's particularly the sense we lack in games. Then the actions you had taken before would decide how many lives you saved, and stuff like that.

[LadyCrimson]

I don't think such methods are going to be implemented in games much, if at all, until virtual reality or some such makes gaming feel more like you're actually in a real world - and thus feel more intimately involved in consequences. It's one thing, imo, to try to implement more realistic actions/consequences during in-person roleplaying, say, and another to put it into a video game. I can understand the idea and some people's desire for games to reflect reality more, in the ways you mention, but trying to retrain the general populace to it, when it comes to videogames, would be difficult and likely not profitable. It's too much of a niche thing.

 

It's true I personally don't like to be 'led by the nose' and do enjoy some puzzle/figuring things out, but I also like games to give me some sense of direction - "one of the wizards in the southeast continent town of Boolah might know something about that". I'd still have to explore a lot and talk to a lot of wizards/other people to find 'the one' and to me that seems realistic enough. Even in real life, most of the time you'd likely have built up enough information/clues/advice to know what things to try first.

 

In terms of not surviving & realism - I don't see how that's possible to do in a video game, since if you don't survive, the game is either over, or you have to reload? Or the story has to have some "your party carried you to a priest and now you're alive again" cutscene, which in a video-game is usually just silly and breaks immersion right there. For me anyway.

[Rosbjerg]

but I also like games to give me some sense of direction - "one of the wizards in the southeast continent town of Boolah might know something about that". I'd still have to explore a lot and talk to a lot of wizards/other people to find 'the one' and to me that seems realistic enough. Even in real life, most of the time you'd likely have built up enough information/clues/advice to know what things to try first.

 

Problem is most time that's the only clue you get (which is then added to your "to do" list, which in turn means it's important).. in real life you have like 10 leads and then you choose which ever you find the most likely to be fruitful. So you are still being 'led by the nose' very much so.

[Walsingham]

I'm struggling at present with these mutated creatures in Far Cry. My reaction speeds are very slow, so I tyically trade distance. But I'm now in a bunker and these damn beasts keep jumping me, and at teh difficulty I'm at they can kill in three punches. And there are many of them.

 

I don't know if I will keep coming back indefinitely but I am likely to. I hate quitting.

[LadyCrimson]

Problem is most time that's the only clue you get (which is then added to your "to do" list, which in turn means it's important).. in real life you have like 10 leads and then you choose which ever you find the most likely to be fruitful. So you are still being 'led by the nose' very much so.

Depends on how it's done. If no name is given and no other hint person is given, I don't consider that being led by the nose, since I don't even have a name. Many books and movies have plots based on this premise, with lead character running around asking people "where are the wizards in this town?" or "what do you know about this past event/crime?" and so on.

 

And actually many situations may have multiple ways to look up/investigate a lead (books, questions, exploration) - which then may lead to other avenues to follow up the lead further - but not every situation has multiple initial leads itself.

[Rosbjerg]

everything depends on how it's done.

 

I'm just saying that due to the rather restricted gameplay of games you're always hinted quite heavily in certain directions - so as to make it feel natural for you to take that decision, since the game doesn't allow for you to have total freedom.

[LadyCrimson]

True enough, lack of freedom in games. And of course lack of realism, particuarly in the battle areas. But sometimes it can be the other way around too - where our belief of what's realisitc isn't really accurate, either, as for most of us that's defined by other mediums besides actual experience. I guess I just look at things this way: if I was looking for my birth parents and the records people said their name was a very common one and their last known address was here (and they weren't there now), I wouldn't feel like my having to go to Korea and run around asking strangers stuff as unrealisitc or easy.

 

So what I'm hearing is that games often lack not so much reality (since reality isn't usually what they're about anyway) as missing a complicated investigative process of the initial clue; not enough option paths for the original directive. Developers not having enough time to plan/place so many different program paths, maybe.

 

Not battle oriented, but I'd personally like it if rpg games would more often lack the 'universal translator' effect - so somethng that dealt with language a bit more realistically - particularly if I actually had to learn some of the language to be able to spy on conversations to get info, say - would add to immersion a lot for me. But most people would probably find that tedious ...

[Cantousent]

You give some nurishing food for thought, LC, but some of your responses clearly show that you don't understand my overarching point. ...Or at least that I did not convey my point properly. I'm going to try to come up with an example that clearly shows how I think of this, but I want to address one thing up front. I don't see unwinnable battles as a way to punish the player or push them in a different direction. At heart, I want to provide for the player an overall goal but it's hard, in the current trend to get players to think outside the box of "battle! I. must. win." I want to provide several possible alternatives to accomplishing a goal, none of which include charging and defeating an entire army single-handedly. Indeed, the point is that the only option might be to withdraw and come at the objective from a different angle. You say you hate that, but I wonder if it's really the way that we've been conditioned to approach these games more than the underlying idea. The point is to come up with a way to implement this plan into a fun gaming experience, not punish the payer with it.

[Walsingham]

I think it is a ... not a straw man... what's the word? I dunno... bronze goblin.

 

I think it's a bronze goblin to suggest that freeform is more possible in pnp. With the exception of a very few, players in pn like things even more formulaic than in a game. They bitch far worse when they die.