Crossing from fun to frustrating by design.

[Badmojo]

I have been playing X-Com enemy unknown lately and I think its a great example of problems caused by designing *solutions* to non existent problems that end up making the game unfun and frustrating. For example, they set up an automatic save function to save the game after each characters death, to overwrite the save game of that level. They argue that its so characters will feel more important if you lose them (can't reload save) and make you feel good when you over come a challenge. Sounds good right? WRONG! It is the most frustrating game ever, your characters die, not from lack of skill but because of stupid luck on the enemies part (not to mention the host of bugs and other screwed up design features). You end up replaying that level A LOT till you finally pass it, am I happy I passed? Am I glad of the challenge? Do I feel like I accomplished something? Hell no, I am so frustrated and pissed that when I finally got through, I just felt emotionally drained and seriously thinking of stop playing if this is what the whole game will be like. Many forums are flooded with people complaining about this, I could understand if this was for normal or hard, but even easy and no option to turn it off? That went to far.

 

Ok, now the reason I brought this up is because I am a bit worried about some of the design decisions that have been mentioned by the devs they have been thinking about. Some of them sound like its to fix a playing style problem (like spamming resting or getting xp from killing monsters, etc) than actual real problems or putting something in to make the characters feel more important (like no healing spells/medicine..and only able to rest at certain locations...thats a bit extreme and does not sound fun to me). The issue is, some of the ideas sound like it will lead to frustration instead of fun like what is happening with X-COM EU. I could understand if this was a multiplayer game, but worrying about how individual people play in a singleplayer game?

 

 

All I ask is to step back from looking at it from a mechanical solution and ask the simple question "Is this fun?", will players have fun with this or will it make them frustrated? I have faith in the devs, but xcom eu has shown me a worst case scenario. This isn't demon souls, this is supposed to be a FUN game.

[Hellfell]

You should have bought a pc version of this game

 

Oh and think of stamina as the second (first?) hp bar. Suddenly 'stamina restoring' spells and abilities become 'healing spells'.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Hellfell

[Joukehainen]

You can just reload an autosave from a turn previous to the character's death. Or make hard-saves during combat.

[rjshae]

Ok, now the reason I brought this up is because I am a bit worried about some of the design decisions that have been mentioned by the devs they have been thinking about. Some of them sound like its to fix a playing style problem (like spamming resting or getting xp from killing monsters, etc) than actual real problems or putting something in to make the characters feel more important (like no healing spells/medicine..and only able to rest at certain locations...thats a bit extreme and does not sound fun to me). The issue is, some of the ideas sound like it will lead to frustration instead of fun like what is happening with X-COM EU. I could understand if this was a multiplayer game, but worrying about how individual people play in a singleplayer game?

I understand your concerns, but I see a problem with your statement about what players want. Not every player is looking for the same features in a game; some of the elements that have you concerned are the same features that others find very appealing. Personally I'm taking a wait and see approach; I like a lot of what the developers have detailed thus far. Their general philosophy matches the type of experience I enjoyed in the IE games, but they are also adding in some gaming features that have been introduced since that time. Hopefully it will become an enjoyable blend.

Edited October 26, 2012 by rjshae

[Tamerlane]

Um.

 

Are you playing on Ironman mode?

 

Because nothing you said made any sense otherwise. And if you are playing on Ironman... stop playing on Ironman?

[Grotesque]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

[Badmojo]

You should have bought a pc version of this game

 

Oh and think of stamina as the second (first?) hp bar. Suddenly 'stamina restoring' spells and abilities become 'healing spells'.

 

I am playing the PC version, it is set to easy(which I think the devs do not understand the meaning of the word). When one of your character dies, the system overwrites the save game of that level, when you load up that level, it is changed to the point after the character had died. The devs said they set it that way so people would be forced to actually earn their online achievment. It...it is stupid honestly, I do not care one iota about online achievments, I want to play for fun, not frustration. I would be happy for an option to turn off the autosave at the cost of turning off online achievments. I am hoping they will patch it up from all the complaints about it.

 

You can just reload an autosave from a turn previous to the character's death. Or make hard-saves during combat.

 

Actually you can't those get overwritten also. You have to load up one from all the way back at the base, basically reloading the whole level.

 

I understand your concerns, but I see a problem with your statement about what players want. Not every player is looking for the same features in a game; some of the elements that have you concerned are the same features that others find very appealing. Personally I'm taking a wait and see approach; I like a lot of what the developers have detailed thus far. Their general philosophy matches the type of experience I enjoyed in the IE games, but they are also adding in some gaming features that have been introduced since that time. Hopefully it will become an enjoyable blend.

 

We all have different play styles and sometimes they are incompatible with one another. I was just expressing some concerns from what was mentioned on some of the updates, it might work beutifully..or it might end up being a frustrating mess. Like I said, it wasn't until xcom eu showed me one extreme of design over fun. It would be nice if we had a toggle to change the play styles to our liking. I know they said some stuff will be toggable, but others sound like it might not. More choices the better.

 

Um.

 

Are you playing on Ironman mode?

Nope, easy. I have only a few hours here and there, I can use to play because of my commute and work. Still, easy is not really that easy.

[Badmojo]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

 

its not ironman, it set on EASY. This feature should NOT be in easy mode.

[Jasede]

Today's gamer's need to man up.

And if they don't "have time" for this sort of hobby then they should stick to the billions of casual games already available rather than corrupting the few difficult games that still remain.

[Badmojo]

Today's gamer's need to man up.

And if they don't "have time" for this sort of hobby then they should stick to the billions of casual games already available rather than corrupting the few difficult games that still remain.

 

Um, what? Sorry but I love a hard game as much as the next person, but if there is multiple play types like insane/hard/normal/ and EASY, then you kind of expect easy to be..um...easy? Have you played the game? I know quite a few who said the same thing before they played it and after they played it their attitudes changed quickly.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Badmojo

[Grotesque]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

 

its not ironman, it set on EASY. This feature should NOT be in easy mode.

 

You can start the game on easy and select ironman mode. ironman=save&exit ONLY

Let me guess, you couldn't decipher how to start a new game and someone else configured it for you.

I don't even....

Emotionally drained you said?

 

 

 

Excuse me, but I am glad PE its not forced to cater your needs as a gamer.

[Pshaw]

I like the challenge of X-com (only playing on normal though) I do admit it can be disheartening to lose to some cheese though. I don't mind how easily characters die but some of the choices that cause them to die easily I do dislike.

 

I dislike that it's not entirely clear when you'll be able to shoot around cover and hit an enemy. If it's going to be as vague as it is I think you should be able to take back your move so long as you didn't preform any other actions between moving that character and attempting to fire. Also I find the line of sight to to be a bit too shallow and when combined with enemies getting free movement when noticed can lead to some really absurd swarming situations later in the game. So I disagree with those design choices as 1 is simply a matter of clarity and the other kind of makes the game feel based on dumb luck.

 

I do agree with the majority of the posters here though and saying the problems you're experiencing are mostly on you. Not because you're bad or anything like that but you just need to save more often. I know that I save after missions before I start doing things in the base. Before leaving my base to go on a mission and during the mission as needed. If you do this you'll find yourself able to go back to a desirable restarting point if you lose too many people. Also if you find your troops dying too often be sure to research better armor and focus on purchasing them. Having a huge amount of health goes a long way.

[Badmojo]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

 

its not ironman, it set on EASY. This feature should NOT be in easy mode.

 

You can start the game on easy and select ironman mode. ironman=save&exit ONLY

Let me guess, you couldn't decipher how to start a new game and someone else configured it for you.

I don't even....

Emotionally drained you said?

 

 

 

Excuse me, but I am glad PE its not forced to cater your needs as a gamer.

 

Um, no, ironman mode has a SINGLE save file only, and no, I did not have it enabled. Have you played XCOM EU? If you got it (pc version), go in a game, go to a battle, save, let one of your men get killed, load the save and see what happens. ALL I asked is that they step back and look at what they are making and ask if it is FUN. Bad/frustrating design that seems like a good idea, can ruin even an excellent game.

[Badmojo]

I like the challenge of X-com (only playing on normal though) I do admit it can be disheartening to lose to some cheese though. I don't mind how easily characters die but some of the choices that cause them to die easily I do dislike.

 

I dislike that it's not entirely clear when you'll be able to shoot around cover and hit an enemy. If it's going to be as vague as it is I think you should be able to take back your move so long as you didn't preform any other actions between moving that character and attempting to fire. Also I find the line of sight to to be a bit too shallow and when combined with enemies getting free movement when noticed can lead to some really absurd swarming situations later in the game. So I disagree with those design choices as 1 is simply a matter of clarity and the other kind of makes the game feel based on dumb luck.

 

I do agree with the majority of the posters here though and saying the problems you're experiencing are mostly on you. Not because you're bad or anything like that but you just need to save more often. I know that I save after missions before I start doing things in the base. Before leaving my base to go on a mission and during the mission as needed. If you do this you'll find yourself able to go back to a desirable restarting point if you lose too many people. Also if you find your troops dying too often be sure to research better armor and focus on purchasing them. Having a huge amount of health goes a long way.

 

have you loaded at a point right before a character dies on that level? every save gets overwritten at that level when a character dies. I did not have ironman enabled so maybe I have a bugged game (and boy, does this game have a lot of bugs). :/ still, the fact that I have an alien an inch from my character and I shoot it with a 90% chance of success only to have it mostly miss, while an alien all the way across the map can shoot my character most of the time with pinpoint accuracy is BS.

[Gorth]

Real men don't save their games, they just put their PC's in hibernate mode between gaming sessions

 

I've never played a game in 'ironman' mode *), but I do have a habit of not saving mid-combat in games like the old x-coms and ja2. If things turn sour or a gamble doesn't pay off, it sucks to be me and I replay the encounter from the beginning.

 

I would like such things to be *my* choice though, because I agree that a developers fun may be a players nightmare. Now where is the switch that disables Mini Games and QTE's?

 

Edit: *) Except old roguelikes that deleted your one and only save after loading it, but it wasn't known as 'ironman', it was just the way it was.

[Joukehainen]

You find the game hard on easy? Dude...

[Gyor]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

 

its not ironman, it set on EASY. This feature should NOT be in easy mode.

 

You can start the game on easy and select ironman mode. ironman=save&exit ONLY

Let me guess, you couldn't decipher how to start a new game and someone else configured it for you.

I don't even....

Emotionally drained you said?

 

 

 

Excuse me, but I am glad PE its not forced to cater your needs as a gamer.

 

Wow are you rude, PE isn't just for hard core gamers so cut the arrogent attidude. Its for people of varying abilities, people who also donated.

 

Thankfully for those of us looking for fun instead of frustration there different modes, base line is maimed instead of permadeath, plus you can save when you wish. The hard stuff like ironman and the other two modes is optional.

 

 

 

 

[Tamerlane]

Yeah, either you're playing on Ironman without knowing it or your game is ****ed up or you're doing something terribly wrong or... I have no ****ing idea.

 

You should be able to load an earlier save no problem if you didn't check the Ironman box. That's the way the game is designed.

 

EDIT: Are you just... like, loading the wrong autosave? Every single time?

 

EDIT2: And seriously... Enemy Unknown is hard on easy? Daaaaaaamn, bro.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Tamerlane

[Nomine Vacans]

Wow are you rude, PE isn't just for hard core gamers so cut the arrogent attidude. Its for people of varying abilities, people who also donated.

 

Thankfully for those of us looking for fun instead of frustration there different modes, base line is maimed instead of permadeath, plus you can save when you wish. The hard stuff like ironman and the other two modes is optional.

Let's all just lower our standarts so "people of varying abilities" (btw, thanks for new euphemism for "rеtаrd", dude) can play with us. Don't you think that this is one of the reasons why modern games are soo ridiculously boring, sad and unchallenging?

Edited October 26, 2012 by Comedian

[Badmojo]

Yeah, either you're playing on Ironman without knowing it or your game is ****ed up or you're doing something terribly wrong or... I have no ****ing idea.

 

You should be able to load an earlier save no problem if you didn't check the Ironman box. That's the way the game is designed.

 

EDIT: Are you just... like, loading the wrong autosave? Every single time?

 

EDIT2: And seriously... Enemy Unknown is hard on easy? Daaaaaaamn, bro.

 

 

Ok, found it, the developer decided to make permadeath mandatory.

 

The older features like permadeath are seeing a resurgence in popularity – has this helped, or made it easier to adapt because people are already striving for these types of experiences?

 

 

I think there’s a bit of a renaissance with challenge and permanent death – games like Demon’s Souls and Minecraft are very challenging and it shows there is an interest as millions of people are buying these games and they want this sort of challenge.

The original XCOM as you know was very challenging and we didn’t want to lose that. Permanent death is a big part of that. There was sort of a change in gaming trends after XCOM in the late nineties and early 2000s where the initiative seemed to be more hand-holding and if the player made a mistake it was ‘that’s okay’ and keep them going on their merry way.

That’s great and all for certain types of gamers, but it’s not what XCOM’s about. We needed to have the challenge there and I’m confident players will like it – there’s much more weight to the success. You know the potential consequences and the odds stacked against you – we had to have the challenge there.

 

I think permadeath is fine to a point, however the way the game is designed, it is WAY to easy to die, at least in the early levels. However, It should have been optional or turned off on easy, because this is really one of those designs some will love and some will be driven to frustration/hate. I am in the later part. I DO get what the developer wants to do, but this is NOT fun for me and a lot of others, there is NO emotional reward for a job well done, it just feels frustrating and that ruins the FUN aspect.

 

Let me make it clear, besides this and some other features, xcom EU IS fun, but it is overshadowed a bit by this frustrating "feature". I am fine with permadeath in PE (I do think it could be put in as a fun way like I mentioned in my necromacy/reserection thread, but its all cool either way), however I think not having healing magic/medicine and only healing by mandatory resting *groan* areas in certain fixed locations (from what I gathered in the update) is crossing from fun into possible frustration territory. It is one of those things that sound good on paper, but will probably suck when actually doing it. Of course it depends on the whole package, there may be some way that this feature is actually "fun" but I do not see it, it also sounds like we are going to have to do a LOT of traveling back and forth to inns/safe rest areas (from what I gather, not resting there but in other places have monster spawn and attack the party), that really, really does not sound fun no matter how I look at it.

[Tamerlane]

That quote has nothing to do with retroactively wiping characters from saves. That's just basic "if you keep going, you can't revive him". Exactly like in the original game. Or in Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics or a gibbed character in Baldur's Gate.

 

You're talking god damn nonsense. Either your game is bugged as ****, you accidentally hit the Ironman toggle (you can play on easy and still use Ironman), or you're doing something catastrophically wrong. I have played the game. I have reloaded old saves. On ****ing impossible difficulty. If someone died after the last save, I can reload it and they will be alive again in the past save. I can go and do that right now if I want.

 

I know the words that you are using; I know the meaning of the words that you are using, and I know how to combine them into combinations that can create logical and reasonable sentences. And yet I have no idea what the hell it is that you are saying.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Tamerlane

[Nomine Vacans]

Badmojo, what part of "old school cRPG in the spirit of Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale" you don't get?

This game's promise was to reanimate good old-fashoned hardcore. So please, do not insist on soften it up just because you feel frustrated when facing some challenge.

[nikolokolus]

So X-Com is hard ... and that means P:E will be too hard and will make you feel drained?

 

Orite ...

[Tamerlane]

So X-Com is hard ... and that means P:E will be too hard and will make you feel drained?

 

Orite ...

It's not even that X-Com is hard. X-Com's easy mode is easy. I mean, I can understand being challenged by it for a while if you're new to the franchise and playing on Ironman - and it reads to me like he's playing some unintentionally self-inflicted, self-enforced form of Ironman - is definitely gonna cause some problems.

[Cultist]

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