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The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

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Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#51

Post by throwatdem12311 »

cubefox wrote: post #47
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #46

This article had me until it said the pacifist run in Undertale was more difficult. Anyone that has attempted a “genocide” route where you kill everyone will probably tell you that that boss is probably one of the hardest things they ever done in a videogame - if they can beat it at all.

The article didn't say that a pacifist run was more difficult than a genocide route.

I never even considered one might play Undertale where you only kill some people but not others, the game doesn’t really ever incentivize you to do a “mixed” run.

Pacifist is more like a puzzle game, and I didn’t find it all that challenging at all.

If you go the “kill only some people” route, I don’t think you would ever really be strong enough for this to be fun due to not levelling up enough to keep up with later stage enemies. So you’re going to be heavily incentivized to go full pacifist to bypass levelling entirely or genocide to get enough levels. Then of course you’ll hit the wall at the end…

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#52

Post by Tade0 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49
rootlocus wrote: post #13

> Before the encounter with the first Troll, the dumbfounded mythical character, Atreus, asks: “We’re going to fight that?!?” Kratos, the main character, answers: “We have no choice,” in a matter-of-fact, almost resigned way, as if shruggingly accepting the design conventions of the game itself. I didn't see it like that. Atreus thinks he and his father are normal humans, even if he saw his father perform incredible…

That segment of the game does take a bit of suspension of disbelief though - it's like Atreus was born yesterday, instead of growing up there. I may have missed or forgotten the explanation behind that though. I suppose he was always stuck in the safe area around their house? That aside, the new God of War games are great, and the whole franchise is a good example of how they took a fairly straightforward character -…

> suppose he was always stuck in the safe area around their house?

"Don't go there - there are mines there" is what my mother would say occasionally back when we were living in Kuwait in the mid 90s.

I guess it's a similar situation.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#53

Post by Jensson »

myfonj wrote: post #23
pprotas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game developers (mostly... hopefully?) try to optimize for the "fun" aspect of a game, not the "realism of the flight/flight instinct" aspect

Sure, but I don't think they must be mutually exclusive; on the contrary: in the late stages when your character is a tank, swarms of minions that posed a challenge in early stages become just a nuisance, mostly. You are walking legend slaying dragons for breakfast, everybody and their dog knows about your invincibility … but instead of giving you some respect, they try to bite your heels on the first sight. I guess…

> I guess the "fun aspect" of seeing them flee and not restraining your movement at all could be slightly more satisfying than taking them down in a single hit one-by-one for the thousand time.

Chasing enemies is much more annoying than them coming to you, so that would be a punishment to the player.

Players don't like when you punish them in that way, they want to kill the monsters they don't want an upgrade that makes you more powerful make it harder to kill monsters since now they start running.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#54

Post by lukan »

myfonj wrote: post #23
pprotas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game developers (mostly... hopefully?) try to optimize for the "fun" aspect of a game, not the "realism of the flight/flight instinct" aspect

Sure, but I don't think they must be mutually exclusive; on the contrary: in the late stages when your character is a tank, swarms of minions that posed a challenge in early stages become just a nuisance, mostly. You are walking legend slaying dragons for breakfast, everybody and their dog knows about your invincibility … but instead of giving you some respect, they try to bite your heels on the first sight. I guess…

Some games did that(in part).

The original Gothic for example. When you were high level, other low level NPC would rather run.

I also thought hard about the concept, how to make FPS games still fun, but a bit more realistic. The thing is, in most settings this means reducing lots of enemies - as realistic would be, once you start shooting, they all come for you. Not 3. And then maybe another 2. And so on.. and then you would not have a chance, unless you get special powers (or quick save and quick load part of the mechanics)

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#55

Post by keybored »

leoc wrote: post #34

Odd that it doesn’t mention Metal Gear Solid, which was casting doubt on the morality of the player character’s actions and painting boss fights as tragic affairs back in 1998, even though it does mention MGS love letter Spec Ops: The Line (and even though MGS is a media darling and probably significantly overdiscussed in general).

Slaying people is optional in MGS2 and higher, gameplay-wise. There’s not even a dilemma as long as you can handle hand-to-hand combat and a dart gun.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#56

Post by Cthulhu_ »

bob1029 wrote: post #25
myfonj wrote: post #12

> As a result, the game offers no easy satisfaction of hacking and slashing through weaker opponents. Besides the questionable morality of kill=experience=progress in typical hack'n'slash or roguelike, what started to irritate me in there as I grew older as well, was the stupid mechanics where crowds of enemies described as intelligent humanoids (i.e. not animals or robots) facing clearly overpowered high-level PC (f…

It sounds like you might be interested in the idea of a PvP multiplayer game. I've never found myself concerned with the morality of camping/flanking/wiping an entire squad in BF6 without mercy because I know they urgently wish to do the exact same thing to me.

But one where death is permanent / seriously bad; in Battlefield you just respawn so dying is not a major issue.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#57

Post by 59percentmore »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #43
jjhfarmer wrote: post #10

The first game I thought of upon reading the title of the article was 'Shadow of the Colossus'. There's a particular boss about half-way through the game who resides in a small secluded garden and the process of defeating them involves tricking them in to ramming over columns etc. until they are trapped. I have a strong memory of being 12 years old, lying awake at night with the melancholic feeling this article descr…

Shadow of the Colossus came out around the zeitgeist of when people really started earnestly debating if videogames were art. After that game there was no more debate.

Yes, it confirmed that the key was conveying a complex and intentional artistic vision through the gameplay. If a game is effective, but removing the gameplay makes it ineffective, then, as a game, it's art.

Ikaruga and Journey should be mentioned in the same conversation. More recently, Undertale and Death Stranding, pick up similar conceptual throughlines ("choice" and "connection", respectively), albeit in less elegant ways, owing to their expanded scope.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#58

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ionwake wrote: post #31

If you are young "shadow of the collosus" is a game I highly recommend you dig up and play, it set a special unique tone for the 2000-2010 era

If you are old and haven't played it yet too though. There's a few games that are a pretty unique experience like that, Bloodborne is another, but also consider Journey and probably a list of others.

Re: The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

#59

Post by leoc »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #50
leoc wrote: post #34

Odd that it doesn’t mention Metal Gear Solid, which was casting doubt on the morality of the player character’s actions and painting boss fights as tragic affairs back in 1998, even though it does mention MGS love letter Spec Ops: The Line (and even though MGS is a media darling and probably significantly overdiscussed in general).

I think the article is intentionally focused, if it were to mention every game that is related we'd be here for a while. That said, this is a common thing in articles about e.g. video games - "I wish they mentioned X". I too wish that but at the same time, one needs limits.

MGS (and MGS2) are prominent enough, and directly relevant enough, and predate Shadow of the Colossus enough, that not mentioning them is a conspicuous omission, and not just something it would have been nice to add. In fact not mentioning them makes the article somewhat misleading, especially when at the same time it chooses to highlight Spec Ops: The Line.
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