A Diskussion about "regenerative health" in horror games.

[Serena]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_%28...culture%29
"Hipster refers to a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers that appeared in the 1990s. The subculture is associated with independent music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility, and alternative lifestyles."

The use of hipster in this context is valid. Being a 'hardcore gamer' qualifies as a subculture and 'alternative lifestyle'.

[Kman]

Your friend seems to be under the assumption that all games should be focused on purely gameplay, and that everything must be as hard as possible for it to be enjoyable. Let me let you in on a little hint, frustration and death/failure in horror games actually tends to break immersion more than it aids to it.

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010...games.html


Amnesia is a story based game, so why the hell would they change it so you had to focus on the gameplay more? Not all games have the same focus, some are made to offer you a great story, some are made to show off innovative and interesting gameplay, some are just for fun, etc. Putting the main focus on making it as hard and frustrating as possible ends up taking away from all of these, unless the purpose of a game is to be frustrating. In Amnesia, making health not auto-regen would result in you paying less attention to the story and your surroundings and more attention to the gameplay. Very hard gameplay can work though, but only in certain genres. For example, in platformers, very hard gameplay can be a great thing (Super Meat Boy), but that's because that style of game focuses purely on gameplay. Now, in Amnesia, if they made it so it was incredibly hard not to die at every single monster (which he seems to be suggesting) then you'd spend less time focusing on the story and more time raging at how outrageous the monsters are.

If you really need an example, look at Cry of Fear. I personally loved that mod, but, the coop is kind of shit. Why? Cause it's fucking IMPOSSIBLE. they spammed incredibly tough enemies in almost every map, including ones that can instant kill you. By your friends logic this should be terrifying, right? Wrong. I lost any sense of immersion I had, I was SO FRUSTRATED with some of the levels in it that I ended up almost quitting. I wasn't scared by it in the slightest, and the devs even said themselves that coop wasn't supposed to be very serious and it was more just for fun.

How hard a game is, whether it be how scarce medkits are or how hard it is to beat a level or how tough escaping a certain enemy is, has no bearing on how scary it is. All "fear of frustration" does is kill immersion, it makes it so you are no longer afraid of the enemies but rather afraid of having to redo parts, which is basically the games way of screaming in your face "HEY YOU REMEMBER YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME RIGHT? RIGHT?!".

Anyways, I think you get my point. I could go off on little tangents on all the other things from that letter (this part especially made me laugh)

Spoiler below!

o to me, although Penumbra and Amnesia are DAMN Frightening, I have actually, played SCARIER! Titles from the 2d ERA, now, if they took penumbras first person horror, mental anquish and torture, and made the main character a clumsy, innocent teenage girl and used non regen health that is gone VERY quickly, then you would have a game that would be HEART ATTACK inducing.

But damn it's super long.

[Your Computer]

The term hardcore gamer is used loosely, even though the topic starter would have me to believe that a hardcore gamer is one who actively seeks a challenge, and when there isn't one, try to make it hard the best way you can given the game mechanics. Would i consider myself a hardcore gamer? Only in the sense on the amount of time i waste playing games, and so is my definition of a hardcore gamer.

Following from that definition, why would i or anyone spend a lot of time on any one game? While i cannot make the same claim for everyone, i do so 'cause i enjoy the game--i find entertainment in it, whatever it may be. Perhaps i am under the wrong impression, but i consider games a form of entertainment. If i actively seek ways to frustrate myself, i would be contradicting my search for entertainment.

Of course, i do not mean to say that a challenge is not wanted. I don't mind a challenge so long as the mechanics aren't clunky. If, for example, a game is to put me in situations where speed is required, character handling better not be slow. In the case of health regeneration, this would allow for a greater challenge, whether through more accurate AIs or more intelligent AIs. When you have health which you can heal at any time, the challenge is reduced. The only thing making it difficult, then, would be inventory space, and perhaps the amount of time that needs to pass before reusing an item of the same type. For what kind of a challenge would you have if you are allowed 1000 health potions that can be used at any given time? Wouldn't you then be complaining about this instead of health regeneration?

Then there are situations where both health regeneration and health potions are found in the same scenario. How much less of a challenge would there be? If a challenge, therefore, can only be achieved by the removal of game mechanics, what's the point in investing in games if you're going to be getting less and less of what would have otherwise provided for a better experience? Surely you would limit your purchases of games if you didn't think you would get your money's worth.

I am not one who submits to the price tag upon release of a game, unless i feel i would be getting my money's worth. And as stated, i am one who seeks entertainment from the medium known as games. An increase or change in game mechanics towards health regeneration isn't going to put me off as a consumer, per se. The issue isn't in the health regeneration itself, but the situations involving the game mechanics present in the game. You may not be able to satisfy everyone, but a game "works" because it complements itself.

[Ghieri]

If the mechanics don't get in the way, then the game has done it's job well. That is given that I enjoy the experience.
I personally have never waited for my health to go up, because I always have a spare laudanum. But not everyone does. It's a system that allows anyone to adapt to it, because the developers want you to make it through all the way. It doesn't require challenging gameplay to be a good game.

[Damascus Rose]

Googol's friend is clearly stuck in a "superioristic" mindset, no use in arguing with someone like that. Just reading his message, I honestly think it's "an troll" (actually, after he said Clock Tower is superior to Penumbra or Amnesia, I'm 100% sure it's a troll.). Either that or he has some sort of mental issues.

I definitely didn't get the impression that he was trolling, because he seemed to be passionate about what he was talking about and he typed so damn much. I think he just perceives horror in games very differently (or doesn't have very much knowledge) because of what he says about dying being the main horror. Dying isn't the main driving horror, it's just a pain in the ass. Fear of dying maybe, but when you die it's like "Oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought. Time to respawn and try this again!" Then immersion is gone. Health regen, no health regen won't change this, health regen is besides the point.

I also don't like how in the OP he kept talking about 'casual' features in amnesia. Not every game should be looked at as a challenge.

[spukrian]

Honestly, when first replying to this thread, I didn't read all of what Googolplex' friend had written, because I thought it was a bit tl;dr, but today I read all of it, because I have some extra time to spare.

System shock is NOT a horror. Never advertised as one,. You seem to be of the logic that “it has monsters, so it must be made more horrific”. No, just because a game has monsters, it doesn’t mean its horror. System Shock was ALWAYS advertised as a “Sci FI RPG with FPS elements” same as its sequel “bio shock” and its spiritual sequal (and about the only game to stand up to half life)

Two things:
1. I assume he actually talking about System Shock 2, as the first System Shock doesn't really have any RPG elements. Of course, I don't actually know how either of the SS games were advertized.
2. He's wrong about BioShock though, I remember quite clearly that they emphasized the scary aspects of the game from the start.

in "No One Lives Forever 2", there is a brilliant, if rather less than credible (but as the nolf series is a SPOOF of 1960s spy-fi and is not meant to be realistic, I don’t think credibility really counts all that much) level called "ice station evil"

That level scared the pants off of me the first time I played it. It still made me quite tense when I replayed it a couple of years ago.

2. The main character, rather than being a grown up male is a TEENAGE GIRL so you feel “protective” towards that character

I don't really like this. In a horror game you're supposed to identify with the protagonist, and if you feel the need to "protect" the protagonist instead of feeling that you ARE the protagonsit then clearly the game doesn't really aim for immersion. It would be making the same mistake as the new Tomb Raider.

3, your character is not only DEFENSELESS but is also CLUMSY, as a result, were as in penumbra or amnesia, you can get the hell away from a confrontation by running for it, you cant run for the hills in “tower” because “Jen” will fall over, and then she has HAD IT!

This sounds interesting. I would like to see something like this implemented in a first person horror game.

[Bridge]

I hate heads-up displays and if the game is playable without an HUD I almost always disable it. So I wouldn't even notice, or care for that matter. That's one reason I love Penumbra and Amnesia, because both games have a minimalistic, almost non-existant HUD.

[PixelHurricane]

health regens quickly? bad
health regens slowly? good

this is my viewpoint

[HateSolstice]

I don't really care how new to the forum I am, but I'm just going to point out that damn near every single post Googolplex has made on this board has been horribly illiterate and ignorant about the subject matter at hand. This topic just puts it further into perspective. He and his friend(especially so) have serious ego issues. I'm not even going to bother lowering myself enough to debate the whole "CoD iz fer nubz!!!1!lol!" train-wreck discussion.

[Hunter of Shadows]

Not another goddamn Googol rant thread

People, seriously DO NOT RESPOND IN ANY WAY




Seriously, just follow this, it's not that hard