Deathwalk fans

[Tommy]

How many people out there truly loved the deathwalk ability in the game? I think it may be one of the greatest things to happen to fps's in a long time. It keeps you in the experience of the game from beginning to finish and makes the story really flow. The people that complain that it makes you invincible so you can't really die, well doesn't loading a saved game or restarting a level do the same thing? To make a game truly realistic you would have to make it self destruct after you lost in it, so you wouldnt be able to restart. I just really cant stress how perfectly designed this whole game appears to me. The guys at Humanhead and 3d realms really outdid themselves this time.

[FireFly]

The difference is that save games don't change the nature of an objective, they just give the player more opportunities to complete it. So whether it takes you 20 attempts or only one attempt, you're still achieving the same thing.

With deathwalk on the other hand, the attempts are part of the game itself, so the challenge is no longer to make the perfect playthrough, but to do something as many times as is neccesary to complete the task. This means that you could theoretically complete the entire game with a wrench.

Having said that, I really liked having the deathwalk feature in Prey - it meant you could really let go and become part of the experience. And there is a thrill to being immortal, and coming back to finish the job.

[CameO73]

It could use some more tweaking (making it more configurable should accomodate the majority of the deathwalk opposers), but I really liked it. I hope this catches on in other games ... quicksaving/-loading could get tiresome after a while.

[d3ad connection]

I loved it, and I wouldn't want it changed at all from its current version.

[Noam sane?]

Yes I very much liked the way death walk was worked into the plot. It is an actual game feature that gives Tommy an edge that confounds mother and her minions. This feature wasn't as well emphasized in the game dialogue and situations as I would have liked, however, as I found stalker dialogue in the game folders that expressed hunter dissatisfaction at having already killed Tommy and yet having to deal with him again. I didn't encounter (or maybe didn't hear) those portions expressed in the game. It would have seemed even more integral to the game progress if each defeat yielded a customized (or randomized) pep talk from Grandfather and each return of Tommy emphasized yet another frustrating surprise to enemy forces that thought they had solved the problem.

Also, there could have been actual, rare and easily learned attempts by mother to actually expel Tommy from the ship that would have resulted in his actual "death" requiring some kind of special restart. These attempts, perhaps by some special "death portal" easily learned and avoided by Tommy would have "kicked it up a notch" I think. They should have consulted Emeril Lugazi on that one. What were they thinking? Don't they know that pork fat rules?

[Mountain Man]

Deathwalk allowed me to focus on simply enjoying the game instead of having to remind myself to hit the quicksave button every few minutes. It made Prey a very relaxing and enjoyable experience.

[OnyxBMW]

I loved it, since I never had to worry about dieing. I mean, all deathwalk did was take the quicksaving out of the game and replaced it with something fun.

I hope it catches on in other games, since it made the overall experience more enjoyable, as well as made the game better IMO.

[lauwie0]

I haddn't rad much about deathwalk, so i didn't really knew what it was about... until i died. And I kinda liked it, I remember how much i spend on keep loading my savegame over and over in doom so yea, I think its something good

[Foxy]

It was okay, but it took the difficulty out of the game. I'd rather have it the way Halo did: checkpoints regularly so quicksave is eliminated, and some kind of partial health regen out of combat. That keeps the difficulty but gets rid of quicksave.

[wayskobfssae]

I think it would've been better if they changed perhaps not the essence of Deathwalk, but the way it was presented. Instead of winding up in the 'vortex' room everytime you die, the room around you morphs into something abstract, and perhaps, maybe, you have to take the life of an enemy to restore your own. Perhaps that's too intricate though and open to exploitation.

Best innovation in years.

-Maniac

[OnyxBMW]

Originally Posted by Foxy

It was okay, but it took the difficulty out of the game. I'd rather have it the way Halo did: checkpoints regularly so quicksave is eliminated, and some kind of partial health regen out of combat. That keeps the difficulty but gets rid of quicksave.

It didn't take any difficulty out of the game, it just took quicksaves out of the game and made it so you never lost ground in the story.

It made the experience more enjoyable, while still keeping the difficulty.

I mean, if you hit deathwalk, you DIED, but instead of needing to reload your game, you got to kill a few things and come back. The difficulties still there, some people just chose to ignore it.

Plus, if deathwalk didn't exist, the game would NEED to be toned down in difficulty, as I found some of the encounters to be literally impossible without deathwalk, since you'd be hit with so much crap, have next to ZERO ammo left, and you're trying to kill something that is knocking chunk after chunk of your health out with a single blow and you quite literally can't avoid it.

If deathwalk didn't exist, the game would be easier. The difficulty of the game is still there, you just chose to ignore it because you feel deathwalk to be something other than dieing, even though it IS dieing.

[Justintiime]

[QUOTE=Mountain Man;389067]Deathwalk allowed me to focus on simply enjoying the game instead of having to remind myself to hit the quicksave button every few minutes. It made Prey a very relaxing and enjoyable experience.[/QUOTE

couldnt have said it better my self. Good man!

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by OnyxBMW

I mean, if you hit deathwalk, you DIED, but instead of needing to reload your game, you got to kill a few things and come back. The difficulties still there, some people just chose to ignore it.

Yes, and that means you'll never be unable to complete an objective - that's what he's talking about when he says difficulty. The challenge of producing the perfect playthrough is gone, and it doesn't matter how you play, because you're able to progress whatever happens.

[Mountain Man]

Of course, games are made to be beaten.

[FireFly]

When I say unable, I'm using the context of a single attempt. If it's impossible to fail then the game isn't providing any set challenge.

[Zegraphoob]

Originally Posted by Mountain Man

Of course, games are made to be beaten.

If all developers had your thinking pattern, games would be 1/6 of Prey its already unacceptly short length.

[Foxy]

It didn't take any difficulty out of the game, it just took quicksaves out of the game and made it so you never lost ground in the story.

It made the experience more enjoyable, while still keeping the difficulty.

I mean, if you hit deathwalk, you DIED, but instead of needing to reload your game, you got to kill a few things and come back. The difficulties still there, some people just chose to ignore it.

No it isn't. I could shoot like a retarded donkey and still easily beat the game, it would just take a bit longer. There is no difficulty. I don't have to up my game when I'm in a challenging encounter. I don't need to improve my skill throughout the game. Deathwalk is a cakewalk.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Zegraphoob

If all developers had your thinking pattern, games would be 1/6 of Prey its already unacceptly short length.

Why? Length isn't a direct factor in difficulty.

Games are made to be beaten, and developers do design their titles around that dictum. That's why Valve wanted to make sure Gabe's grandfather (who'd never played a game before) could complete Half-Life 2!

Originally Posted by Foxy

No it isn't. I could shoot like a retarded donkey and still easily beat the game, it would just take a bit longer. There is no difficulty. I don't have to up my game when I'm in a challenging encounter. I don't need to improve my skill throughout the game. Deathwalk is a cakewalk.

If you decide that you still don't want to die, then death still represents a failure of sorts, and there is still challenge.

[Foxy]

If you decide that you still don't want to die, then death still represents a failure of sorts, and there is still challenge.

Player imposed goals don't count. Thief is still a challenge even though I choose not to ghost levels.

[FireFly]

They count for the players that are imposing the goals!

Developers may intend for a game to be played in a certain way, but it's the players themselves who define the nature of the experience, who define the benefit of the experience. And from a pragmatic perspective that's the only thing that matters - the benefit people get out of a game.

So if a game is successful purely because there's some unique hook that players have exploited and decided to centre their challenge around, why does it matter if the developers had prescribed a different playing style?

In case of Prey, it's relying on a concept - try to avoid dying - that has been established in a hundred FPS before it. The concept is burnt into people's brains, and I would argue that it isn't possible to have fun in the first place in Prey without some element of player set challenge. So if you want to argue that the game doesn't provide set challenges, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that players don't get challenge out of the game.

[Foxy]

So if you want to argue that the game doesn't provide set challenges, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that players don't get challenge out of the game.

So you're got no counter at all. Righto.

[FireFly]

Counter to what? I'm saying that what matters is ultimately what players get out of the experience, and to assess the challenge Prey provides (to its customers as a whole) you'd have to look at how they're playing the game, what challenges they're setting themselves.

[Foxy]

Counter to the simple fact that Prey is not challenging. User-set goals are irrelevant, a game is supposed to be challenging, period. Prey has no game-over. It does not require me to improve my skill level one jot throughout the entire game.

[FireFly]

I'm not saying Prey is necessarily challenging for you, but that it's challenging for other people, and that you have to look at how other people are playing the game - not just yourself, to assess the challenge gamers as a whole are getting out of it.

I played the game not wanting to die, and it seems that most people did the same, so again what matters is how people choose to the play the game.

User set goals are relevant to the users who set them!

Now whether there should have been set gameplay challenges is another issue entirely and I'm not debating that.

[Foxy]

I'm not saying Prey is necessarily challenging for you, but that it's challenging for other people,

No it isn't! That's the whole point! The game is as challenging to beat for an FPS noob as it is for a longtime player. Both will get to the end, both cannot lose.

and that you have to look at how other people are playing the game - not just yourself, to assess the challenge gamers as a whole are getting out of it.

I played the game not wanting to die, and it seems that most people did the same, so again what matters is how people choose to the play the game.

User set goals are relevant to the users who set them!

No, sorry, they're irrelevant. You don't design an FPS saying "oh we won't bother making it a challenge, we'll leave it up to the players to impose artificial restrictions on themselves!", "Player X will try to complete the game with just the peashooter, so this game is HARD!". I don't give a crap if you tried to not die, fact is it didn't matter at all if you did or not!

Now whether there should have been set gameplay challenges is another issue entirely and I'm not debating that.

No it isn't, what on earth are we discussing if it's another issue? The whole point is that Deathwalk REMOVED the gameplay challenge. Jeez.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Foxy

No it isn't! That's the whole point! The game is as challenging to beat for an FPS noob as it is for a longtime player. Both will get to the end, both cannot lose.

But there is still challenge within each gameplay scenario if players decide that they don't want to die.

No, sorry, they're irrelevant. You don't design an FPS saying "oh we won't bother making it a challenge, we'll leave it up to the players to impose artificial restrictions on themselves!", "Player X will try to complete the game with just the peashooter, so this game is HARD!".

If most players decide to use the pistol then the developer has to take that into account. He can't just say "well they're idiots - they should have used X weapon instead"). The player sets his own challenge to some extent in any game, and what matters is how players choose to play the game, not what the developers intended. In a strategy game, if a certain unit isn't used then it stops becoming part of a the game's mechanics - it's worthless.

In the case of Prey, we have a game that is designed to be played like any other FPS. In every other FPS before, dying is seen as bad, dying is a failure, and the less frequently you die, the more skilled you are as a player, the more mastery you can claim over the game's challenges. The only difference is with Prey, the mechanic isn't enforced. Does that mean these justifications for not dying disappear? No.

So the challenge isn't artificial at all. Players are doing what they've done in every FPS before - trying not to die.

I don't give a crap if you tried to not die, fact is it didn't matter at all if you did or not!

It meant that my experience was challenging. If other people did it then their experience was challenging too. If most people did it, then most people's experience was challenging.

No it isn't, what on earth are we discussing if it's another issue? The whole point is that Deathwalk REMOVED the gameplay challenge. Jeez.

It removed the fixed developer set gameplay challenge. That doesn't mean players didn't get challenge out of the game.

Look at it this way - if 100% of Prey's players played the game not wanting to die and were subsequently challenged, what does it matter if strictly speaking they didn't have to? Imagine you're the only person who played differently (although obviously you aren't) - can you say to those players: "Prey wasn't challenging for you", and be correct? No you can't.

[CameO73]

Originally Posted by Foxy

The whole point is that Deathwalk REMOVED the gameplay challenge. Jeez.

A challenge can be many things. What some call a challenge, others call a walk in the park.
Personally, I liked being able to (somehow) get through the hard parts, without resorting to the dreaded quickload-loop. The challenge for me was finding my way through the story (and trying to avoid Deathwalk).
But I can imagine that other people like different challenges. Fortunately there are mods (the 'disable deathwalk'-mod can already be downloaded from these forums) and devs that are reading these posts. I expect more customizations to suit different tastes (in Prey 2), but I really hope Deathwalk stays in!

[Foxy]

But there is still challenge within each gameplay scenario if players decide that they don't want to die.

Game says: It doesn't matter if you die! End of argument.

If most players decide to use the pistol then the developer has to take that into account. He can't just say "well they're idiots - they should have used X weapon instead").

Actually that's exactly what he should say. If you give a player a rocket launcher in a level, you can damn well expect them to use it. If they don't, that's their problem!

In the case of Prey, we have a game that is designed to be played like any other FPS. In every other FPS before, dying is seen as bad, dying is a failure, and the less frequently you die, the more skilled you are as a player, the more mastery you can claim over the game's challenges. The only difference is with Prey, the mechanic isn't enforced. Does that mean these justifications for not dying disappear? No.

Yes it does. Dying in a regular FPS = you lose, sucker. Dying in Prey = oh dear, I get a full health bar again!

So the challenge isn't artificial at all. Players are doing what they've done in every FPS before - trying not to die.

Yes it is artificial. It doesn't matter whether you die or not. can you not see this? There is no reason to avoid death in Prey at all. It's actually BENEFICIAL in a lot of circumstances. Fear of dying in Prey is a hangover from other games: it doesn't matter one bit in Prey. Not one little bit.

It removed the fixed developer set gameplay challenge. That doesn't mean players didn't get challenge out of the game.

Damnit, how many times do I have to say this? The game is supposed to be challenging. The GAME. It's supposed to be HARD TO BEAT. Am I getting through yet?

Look at it this way - if 100% of Prey's players played the game not wanting to die and were subsequently challenged, what does it matter if strictly speaking they didn't have to? Imagine you're the only person who played differently (although obviously you aren't) - can you say to those players: "Prey wasn't challenging for you", and be correct? No you can't.

I refer to the ghosting example again. If 99% of Thief players ghosted every level, Thief itself would not be stupidly hard. The way they chose to play it made it hard for them. The GAME would still have a reasonable difficulty. Player-set objectives do not excuse a game being fundamentally unchallenging.

It's like saying that a crappy old banger is fast because you can mod it with nitro after you buy it: a ferrari would still go faster! The car's still freakin' slow at the end of the day!

[Foxy]

A challenge can be many things. What some call a challenge, others call a walk in the park.
Personally, I liked being able to (somehow) get through the hard parts, without resorting to the dreaded quickload-loop. The challenge for me was finding my way through the story (and trying to avoid Deathwalk).
But I can imagine that other people like different challenges.

Where's the fail condition? Answer: there isn't one. Cakewalk.

[dessloch]

Originally Posted by Foxy

Player imposed goals don't count. Thief is still a challenge even though I choose not to ghost levels.

Moreover, ghosting a Thief level reinforces in you the belief that you are, indeed, a master thief. In this case, a player imposed goal is enriching an already unique experience. On the other hand, when you ask people to avoid deathwalk if they don't like it, you're only suggesting them to play the way FPSs are conventionally played. How is prey contributing to the experience!

[dessloch]

Originally Posted by Foxy

Player imposed goals don't count. Thief is still a challenge even though I choose not to ghost levels.

Moreover, ghosting a Thief level reinforces in you the belief that you are, indeed, a master thief. In this case, a player imposed goal is enriching an already unique experience. On the other hand, when you ask people to avoid deathwalk if they don't like it, you're only suggesting them to play the way FPSs are conventionally played. How is prey contributing to the experience!

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Foxy

Game says: It doesn't matter if you die! End of argument.

And the player says "it matters to me" and subsequently has a challenging experience, and for that player it doesn't matter what the game designers may have intended.

Actually that's exactly what he should say. If you give a player a rocket launcher in a level, you can damn well expect them to use it. If they don't, that's their problem!

The purpose of game design is to maximise enjoyment. If the designer doesn’t do that because players play differently to the way he's expected, then he’s failed as a game designer. It’s not about punishing players for their perceived stupidity; it's about making the game as enjoyable for as many people as possible.

Yes it does. Dying in a regular FPS = you lose, sucker. Dying in Prey = oh dear, I get a full health bar again!

Dying in Prey means you’ve failed to survive the gameplay scenario, so as a player you’ve failed, to some degree.

Yes it is artificial. It doesn't matter whether you die or not. can you not see this? There is no reason to avoid death in Prey at all. It's actually BENEFICIAL in a lot of circumstances. Fear of dying in Prey is a hangover from other games: it doesn't matter one bit in Prey. Not one little bit.

It matters because you're being tested – that's why you play the game, that's the point of challenge in the first place: to see how good you are.

Damnit, how many times do I have to say this? The game is supposed to be challenging. The GAME. It's supposed to be HARD TO BEAT. Am I getting through yet?

And challenge is dependant on how people play the game. I'm arguing that people can be challenged by Prey, albeit in a more limited sense – is that so hard to understand?

I refer to the ghosting example again. If 99% of Thief players ghosted every level, Thief itself would not be stupidly hard. The way they chose to play it made it hard for them. The GAME would still have a reasonable difficulty. Player-set objectives do not excuse a game being fundamentally unchallenging.

But it wouldn't matter – the game would still have been stupidly hard for the vast majority of the players, so it would have failed. Whether you attribute that to the players or the game isn't important, it doesn’t change the fact.

The purpose of a game is to entertain those that buy it - if does, it's a success, if doesn’t, it's a failure. So if most players find Prey challenging, because they've decided that they don't want to die, then the game has succeeded. Whether or not it's challenging according to a scale that’s based on how players should play the game, isn't important.

It's like saying that a crappy old banger is fast because you can mod it with nitro after you buy it: a ferrari would still go faster! The car's still freakin' slow at the end of the day!

I think the difference is that speed is a fixed constant, where as challenge isn’t.

[ZuljinRaynor]

Originally Posted by Foxy

It was okay, but it took the difficulty out of the game. I'd rather have it the way Halo did: checkpoints regularly so quicksave is eliminated, and some kind of partial health regen out of combat. That keeps the difficulty but gets rid of quicksave.

Ewww. Checkpoints suck. Especially if they are done like in FarCry. Wosrt checkpoint system.

CoD2's was fine except on one level for me. But Deathwalk is fantastic fun also.

[Foxy]

And the player says "it matters to me" and subsequently has a challenging experience, and for that player it doesn't matter what the game designers may have intended.

You really are miles off, aren't you? Because you're clearly incapable of not disappearing off into airy-fairy user-objectives land, I'm going to blow off your goddamn insect wings with a shotgun. BANG!

Now how about we stick to the topic at hand: the designed challenge of the GAME. Not what Joe Moron decides to challenge himself with, what the GAME challenges him by doing. What the GAME does to stop him from winning. What bosses the GAME puts in his path that are so friggin hard he has to fight tooth and nail for hours to win. What is intrinsically challenging about the GAME. What the GAME does to make him LOSE, and see GAME OVER.

Prey has no game over. It's impossible to lose. There is no challenge. You have a version of god mode. Period.

The purpose of game design is to maximise enjoyment. If the designer doesn’t do that because players play differently to the way he's expected, then he’s failed as a game designer. It’s not about punishing players for their perceived stupidity; it's about making the game as enjoyable for as many people as possible.

Right, I've decided that I'm going to play Half-Life 2 with just the handgun. Omg this is too hard! Valve didn't cater for meee! They suck as game designers!

Get real.

But it wouldn't matter – the game would still have been stupidly hard for the vast majority of the players, so it would have failed. Whether you attribute that to the players or the game isn't important, it doesn’t change the fact.

No, sorry. If 99% of the players up and decided to artificially restrict themselves, KNOWINGLY making it harder for themselves, for the fun of it, it's their fault. Not that of the game. Play it without putting stupid restrictions on yourself (like, how you're supposed to, maybe?), and you'll find out how challenging the GAME is.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Foxy

Now how about we stick to the topic at hand: the designed challenge of the GAME. Not what Joe Moron decides to challenge himself with, what the GAME challenges him by doing. What the GAME does to stop him from winning. What bosses the GAME puts in his path that are so friggin hard he has to fight tooth and nail for hours to win. What is intrinsically challenging about the GAME. What the GAME does to make him LOSE, and see GAME OVER.

The game provides a series of objectives. The player has to complete those objectives. Now he can decide how he completes those objectives, he can be the master of his own challenge. He can say "I'm going to go into this fight with a shotgun, or take X enemy out using this weapon, then turn round and take Z enemy out with the same weapon". So within each scenario, every player has his own unique set of failure conditions "damn I missed that shot", "damn he dodged that grenade".

This is why challenge is a property of the player. And in Prey, the same moment to moment challenge applies - it's just there isn't an overall 'fixed' challenge mechanism. If you look at the reviews for Prey, if you look at the forum comments, you'll see players are experiencing challenge within each encounter. They want to kick the enemies assess, they don't want to be killed over and over again.

Prey has no game over. It's impossible to lose. There is no challenge. You have a version of god mode. Period.

Again, I would clarify: the game doesn't set it's own fixed challenge, but people who play the game, may do.

Right, I've decided that I'm going to play Half-Life 2 with just the handgun. Omg this is too hard! Valve didn't cater for meee! They suck as game designers!

Get real.

It's a tradeoff. You can't cater for every gameplay style, but what you can do is try and accommodate the way most people will play the game. And that won't necessarily be the most logicical, the most sensible, or the most effective way. The game designers role is not to judge but to help - to help players have an enjoyable experience, whatever their deficiencies may be. So yes if it's possible to build a safeguard for someone who's made a terrible, and perhaps in your judgement, stupid, mistake, such a safeguard should be built. FPS these days are designed to be watertight, they're designed so the player doesn't reach a certain point and think "damn, I can't progress now because I ****ed up earlier")

No, sorry. If 99% of the players up and decided to artificially restrict themselves, KNOWINGLY making it harder for themselves, for the fun of it, it's their fault. Not that of the game. Play it without putting stupid restrictions on yourself (like, how you're supposed to, maybe?), and you'll find out how challenging the GAME is.

As I said, whether it is their fault or not isn't the issue. It really doesn't matter, because what matters is that the experience has failed.

Assigning blame doesn't change that. It doesn't make the statement "these people found the game hard" any less true. Equally if most people found Prey challenging, saying "they shouldn't have found it challenging for these reasons" doesn't change their experience, it doesn't mean that they really didn’t find the game challenging!

What it comes down to is that if people found the game challenging, then it succeeded, for whatever reason. That's my entire point in this discussion. You can argue about game design, but what matters is what people get out of the experience. Games are aimed at providing people with a certain kind of experience – that's their reason for existence.

[Foxy]

The game provides a series of objectives. The player has to complete those objectives. Now he can decide how he completes those objectives, he can be the master of his own challenge. He can say "I'm going to go into this fight with a shotgun, or take X enemy out using this weapon, then turn round and take Z enemy out with the same weapon". So within each scenario, every player has his own unique set of failure conditions "damn I missed that shot", "damn he dodged that grenade".

This is why challenge is a property of the player. And in Prey, the same moment to moment challenge applies - it's just there isn't an overall 'fixed' challenge mechanism. If you look at the reviews for Prey, if you look at the forum comments, you'll see players are experiencing challenge within each encounter. They want to kick the enemies assess, they don't want to be killed over and over again.

Damn, I shot them off, and they STILL work? When are you going to drop that argument? It's a dead horse you've beaten so badly that there's nothing left but a bloody piece of meat. There is NO CONSEQUENCE for not playing well in Prey. I usually get pissed if I mess up a fight in an FPS. I don't like getting whooped. I will go back and wipe the floor with them. In Prey I don't care because IT DOESN'T MATTER. Can't you understand this? This is not about player experiences AT ALL, it's not about player-set objectives AT ALL, there is a deep down problem: You are NOT rewarded for playing well!

It's a tradeoff. You can't cater for every gameplay style, but what you can do is try and accommodate the way most people will play the game. And that won't necessarily be the most logicical, the most sensible, or the most effective way. The game designers role is not to judge but to help - to help players have an enjoyable experience, whatever their deficiencies may be. So yes if it's possible to build a safeguard for someone who's made a terrible, and perhaps in your judgement, stupid, mistake, such a safeguard should be built. FPS these days are designed to be watertight, they're designed so the player doesn't reach a certain point and think "damn, I can't progress now because I ****ed up earlier")

Wow, so as a level designer I can't drop an uber-cannon at the player's feet and expect them to use it against Big McFatBoss, just in case some moron won't twig that he's going to get smeared if he doesn't use it? Sounds very realistic.

As I said, whether it is their fault or not isn't the issue. It really doesn't matter, because what matters is that the experience has failed.

Er, no, the experience has not failed. What I'm talking about is Joe Player making a concious decision to restrict himself, which he knows damn well makes the game unneccesarily hard. For Thief, it's ghosting. For Prey, it's not dying. Ghosting isn't enforced in Thief, and not dying isn't enforced in Prey. This is fine for Thief because the game is hard even if you don't ghost. It's not fine for Prey because the game is a cakewalk if you don't care about dying.

What it comes down to is that if people found the game challenging, then it succeeded, for whatever reason. That's my entire point in this discussion. You can argue about game design, but what matters is what people get out of the experience. Games are aimed at providing people with a certain kind of experience – that's their reason for existence.

Sorry, but I want to see you get off your airy-fairy user-centric boat and confront the stark logic about Prey's gameplay. Stop dodging the point. If you can't refute the following, you lose. If you go off on a tangent about user-set objectives again to try and avoid it, you lose. I've already beaten that down enough times. Here it is:

Deathwalk gives you an unlimited health pool and makes it impossible to die, and thus makes the game impossible to lose. You are not rewarded in any way for improving your skill. No encounter is a challenge because there is no concept of failure. Therefore, Prey is not a challenge to complete.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Foxy

Damn, I shot them off, and they STILL work? When are you going to drop that argument? It's a dead horse you've beaten so badly that there's nothing left but a bloody piece of meat. There is NO CONSEQUENCE for not playing well in Prey.

Because that is my argument. The entirety of my argument concerns player set challenges. I'm saying they're relevant, they're relevant to the experience players get out of a game, that when talking about the total challenge customers get out of the game, you have to consider both game and player set objectives.

So a statement like "Prey isn't challenging at all" may not be true from a pragmatic perspective. If you want to define challenge in the specific sense relating to 'game set objectives', then yes, you can make a case for the statement.

I usually get pissed if I mess up a fight in an FPS. I don't like getting whooped. I will go back and wipe the floor with them. In Prey I don't care because IT DOESN'T MATTER. Can't you understand this? This is not about player experiences AT ALL, it's not about player-set objectives AT ALL, there is a deep down problem: You are NOT rewarded for playing well!

Again, it may matter to the player because the scenarios are perceived as tests of skill, as opportunities to prove yourself. I agree, Prey doesn't explicitly reward you for playing well, there isn't a game-defined failure condition. Adding these two elements would enhance the challenge.

As I said earlier:

"The challenge of producing the perfect playthrough is gone, and it doesn't matter how you play, because you're able to progress whatever happens."

So I agree that Prey lacks a certain kind of challenge. But clearly players have been getting some challenge out of Prey.

Wow, so as a level designer I can't drop an uber-cannon at the player's feet and expect them to use it against Big McFatBoss, just in case some moron won't twig that he's going to get smeared if he doesn't use it? Sounds very realistic.

If most players don't use the weapon then yes that's correct. I think you'll find though that it doesn't seem realistic because players do generally realise that they need to use the big weapon to take on the boss. However there might be a situation where players don't realise this, in which case the game should remind the player (lots of games have the characters shout "use X weapon").

Er, no, the experience has not failed.

The experience has failed for the players.

What I'm talking about is Joe Player making a concious decision to restrict himself, which he knows damn well makes the game unneccesarily hard. For Thief, it's ghosting. For Prey, it's not dying. Ghosting isn't enforced in Thief, and not dying isn't enforced in Prey. This is fine for Thief because the game is hard even if you don't ghost. It's not fine for Prey because the game is a cakewalk if you don't care about dying.

In the case of Prey, adding a fear of death doesn't make the experience unnecessarily hard, it merely adds the element of challenge, which is entirely beneficial. And yes, for those that decide not to care about dying in Prey, their experience will be affected. That doesn't invalidate the benefits for those that do, that doesn't mean that most players won't care, that most won't have a challenging experience.

All I'm claiming is that:

1.) Players can have a challenging experience in Prey, if they decide they don't want to die.

2.) Therefore it's possible for most players to have a challenging experience, that most players had a challenging experience.

3.) Therefore it's possible that the game was successful because of player set objectives.

Those are the only claims I make. And when you accept these claims, you see that player set objectives are not irrelevant.

Sorry, but I want to see you get off your airy-fairy user-centric boat and confront the stark logic about Prey's gameplay. Stop dodging the point.

Stop dodging my point? I agree that Prey doesn't set any fixed challenge, and that the reward for producing the required, perfect playthrough is gone.

If you can't refute the following, you lose. If you go off on a tangent about user-set objectives again to try and avoid it, you lose.

All I'm claiming is that player set challenges count towards users' experience, count towards the ultimate success of the game. If you remove that, then you remove my argument.

Deathwalk gives you an unlimited health pool and makes it impossible to die, and thus makes the game impossible to lose. You are not rewarded in any way for improving your skill. No encounter is a challenge because there is no concept of failure. Therefore, Prey is not a challenge to complete.

The 'concept of failure' is defined by the player as much as it is by the game.

[Foxy]

Because that is my argument. The entirety of my argument concerns player set challenges.

So you lose. End of argument. I did warn you.

If most players don't use the weapon then yes that's correct. I think you'll find though that it doesn't seem realistic because players do generally realise that they need to use the big weapon to take on the boss. However there might be a situation where players don't realise this, in which case the game should remind the player (lots of games have the characters shout "use X weapon").

In that case the game designer did something wrong, he should have made it more obvious. That's not what you're trying to argue. What you were saying is that the dev should accomodate all playstyles, regardless of whether they could be considered correct. That's a ridiculous thing to say.

Another analogy: In Thief you could sword-rampage through a level. It was damn hard to do. But you could do it if you had the skill. The game punished you heavily for playing like this, and all was well. I did it occasionally for a laugh. In Thief: DS the 'stab-stab rampage' method was made into a legitimate route to victory. It SUCKED. You're supposed to sneak ffs. Why make a fundamentally wrong method easy? It ruins the game.

Stop dodging my point? I agree that Prey doesn't set any fixed challenge, and that the reward for producing the required, perfect playthrough is gone.

Thanks, so this means you lose then? Good.

All I'm claiming is that player set challenges count towards users' experience, count towards the ultimate success of the game. If you remove that, then you remove my argument.

True, but we're not discussing this at that level. People set their own challenges in all games, even ones with very fixed objectives (Thief is a great example). Point is that this is superflous when you're comparing the game itself. The game as an entity has to provide a set challenge, no matter what you as a player bolt onto it. If it does not, it's failed. That's why your argument is irrelevant. It doesn't address the core issue: Prey the game is not challenging like a normal FPS because of Deathwalk. So I do in fact remove your argument: it isn't relevant.

The 'concept of failure' is defined by the player as much as it is by the game.

No, it isn't. Failure is defined very simply: 'Game over'. That's it. Anything more than that and you are getting into the messy world of comparing user objectives, which make it absolutely impossible to compare the instrinsic challenge provided by any two games you could choose.

Game over in an FPS: You die, game over, reload. Nothing more.
It's impossible to die in Prey, no matter how badly you play.

Game over in Thief: You die, you cock up the mission, you kill someone (on Expert), blablabla. Nothing more.
You can very easily be spotted, make a mistake, mistime or otherwise mess it up in Thief if you aren't skilled.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Foxy

So you lose. End of argument. I did warn you.

Lose what? My argument has always been that player set objectives are relevant, and contribute to the challenge a game provides. I was disagreeing with the notion that players don't or can't get any form of challenge out of Prey.

If you look at the top of this thread you'll see me agreeing with you. In fact I think the best compromise would probably be if Prey allowed you to die in deathwalk mode, and the risk was just enough that was a significant incentive not to die, that there was a very real risk that you would die when in deathwalk mode. If done right, the majority of the time you would survive anyway, and there'd be a checkpoint system for you to fall back on.

In that case the game designer did something wrong, he should have made it more obvious.

Oh really! You mean the player isn't just an idiot who should be punished for not spotting the reality of the situation

That's not what you're trying to argue. What you were saying is that the dev should accomodate all playstyles, regardless of whether they could be considered correct.

What I said was: "You can't cater for every gameplay style", which is the opposite. As I said, it's a tradeoff. However, if most of your target audience choose to play the game a certain way, you should do your best to accomodate them. I'm disagreeing with the notion that players should be arbritrarily punished.

The end goal is always to maximise enjoyment. Now in your example, the decision actually takes enjoyment away from the game for a subset of users. So it's a very real tradeoff. However in an FPS the tradeoff isn't so clear. If you allow players to use a certain weapon like a pistol to defeat foes, if you make it viable (lets assume the pistol is a Judge Dredd style side-arm that's so cool everyone wants to use it) then what do you take away from those that want to use another weapon?

So you see the right tradeoff doesn't depend on whether the player has made a seemingly stupid decision - he shouldn't just be punished, full stop. It depends on the right balance of fun gameplay elements. If you look at how the major FPS are made, there's always a huge amount of tester involvement. The developer makes something and then it's tested and it fails, and then it's changed and then it fails again, and then it's scrapped! The developers never say "well all our testers are obviously idiots! They're not playing it the right way, lets ignore them".

True, but we're not discussing this at that level. People set their own challenges in all games, even ones with very fixed objectives (Thief is a great example). Point is that this is superflous when you're comparing the game itself. The game as an entity has to provide a set challenge, no matter what you as a player bolt onto it. If it does not, it's failed.

Failed as what? The purpose of the game is so provide a fun and therefore challenging experience for most players. That's why fixed objectives exist: to develop, to channel challenge. You're defining failure in a binary sense: a game either provides challenge or it does not.

What I'm saying is that there are different types of challenge, and that a game may be challenging for a majority of customers even without any kind of explicit game set challenges. So games can succeed in their objective to generate challenge directly because of user involvement. How are products like that a failure? The users are getting what they wanted: challenge.

That's why your argument is irrelevant. It doesn't address the core issue: Prey the game is not challenging like a normal FPS because of Deathwalk. So I do in fact remove your argument: it isn't relevant.

Can we clarify before we move on? Do you agree with the points I posited? If you do then you agree with my argument, and we can move on to establishing its relevance.

No, it isn't. Failure is defined very simply: 'Game over'. That's it. Anything more than that and you are getting into the messy world of comparing user objectives, which make it absolutely impossible to compare the instrinsic challenge provided by any two games you could choose.

And that's exactly why you can't compare 'intrinsic challenge'. The concept is meaningless. Every user will experience a different amount of challenge, every user will have their own unique playstyle and every user will find different parts challenging for different reasons. Saying "it makes comparison easier" isn't an argument against its relevance. You can't just dismiss something because you don't want to deal with it.