Why do God of War's Characters Keep Spoiling Puzzles?
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 22. 05. 2024
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Players have complained that God of War's companions keep spoiling all the puzzles. Let's look into the reasons this might happen.
=== Before you watch ===
Disclosure: God of War Ragnarok review code provided by Sony.
=== Sources ===
[1] God Of War Ragnarok Companions Are Solving Puzzles A Little Too Quickly For Some Players | Gamespot
www.gamespot.com/articles/how...
[2] Playtesting 'God of War' | GDC on CZcams
âą Playtesting 'God of War'
[3] Zoid Kirsch | Twitter
/ 1591553432573579264
[4] Dishonored Interview: Arkane on stealth, AI, player choice and much more | Games.on.net
web.archive.org/web/201302090...
[5] God of War Sales Pass 23 Million Copies | IGN
www.ign.com/articles/god-of-w...
[6] Only 20% of players will finish Hitman: Absolution, reckons IO | Eurogamer
www.eurogamer.net/only-20-per...
=== Credits ===
Music by Lee Rosevere
leerosevere.bandcamp.com - Hry
Thanks for the positive comments! I made this video in one day (what?!), so it's a bit of a scrappy production. But hopefully not too far off normal GMTK. In future I'll use this format to comment on newsworthy game design discourse, in between the bigger videos.
Edit: I just wanted to add that I apologise if the comment on ADHD came off as "people with ADHD are stupid and need hints". This is not true, and not what I meant. I've removed this part of the video and will be more careful when discussing neurodivergence in the future!
Definitely a good video format and still has your typical polish despite being such a quick job (a day is madness!)
Might be a good idea to recc any of your longer videos at the end like an "If you want to find out more about puzzle design I did a longer video going into XYZ over here" kinda thing too?
Great video covering my single complaint for the new GoW. Wish you had a dedicated subreddit to discuss each video like some other youtubers have. Reddit's comment section is far better than youtube's for following a conversation/replies/etc
But doesnt it make sense from a world building standpoint? Children will always say what they see and inform their parents. And the head is like the wisest non stopping speaking waterfall.
@@majormononoke8958 I think this is a case where realism could be sacrificed for a quality of life thing. I also don't think it's a massive sacrifice as well tbh
Love this new format, but to be honest, the content on this channel is always so well thought out and informative that I'd be happy with either format. The more regular the better really!
My problem with how often the characters tell you how to solve a puzzle is that usually I haven't even *started* the puzzle. When I find a puzzle room in God of War my instinct is "look for hidden treasure and collectables first and then work on the actual objective".
Yeah, it was just WAY too fast. They're hinting at things I haven't even started looking at yet. Literally not even had the time to get stuck. I wish they'd turn it down a bit.
actually it is kinda funny because the characters are actually aware of this. Whenever you go along with someone on a main quest and go off the main path the characters will actually comment on you going somewhere else. Like an example is a companion telling kratos this is the right way, and atreus saying oh he's just like this while you're solving an optional puzzle
Glad we have six better games until a good Norse game comes out.
I don't play these kinds of games but are these even real puzzles?
@@i-am-the-slime Why would he have even made this video if they weren't real puzzles?
I wouldnât mind as much if they didnât give the answer away within the first thirty seconds before I even have time to look around the environment
If they just waited 2 or 3 minutes itâd be fine
Same! I look around and before I have seen everything to understand the puzzle someone says "oh you should throw your axe at that thing"
Yeah I feel like 2018's God Of War didn't have the same problem. I only remember getting stuck on one puzzle, and I feel like it was at least 5 minutes before I was given a hint. I could be remembering wrong though.
Luckily when the game progresses the puzzle thing almost completely goes away (except for like 1 puzzle 15 hours in for some reason). An option would have been nice.
@@braxtonwise9897 Yeah, some of it is tutorial ("in case you haven't played the previous game, or any other major videogame from the last decade, here's how things work").
Atreus saying "That was close" would be alright. "That was close, try again." Is what sends the line over the edge.
Or maybe. Atreus could say "Hey, you wanna let me help you?" And if you press Square. Atreus would give the hint. But if you don't press square. He won't talk.
@@DiaomBayet Or I dunno, add a fucking timer, if after two minutes you didn't do anything they will give you a hint. At least make it FEEL like they are trying to understand how to solve the thiing WITH you, not that they already know it instantly.
The fact that you get to a place, and instantly get a hint, that annoys me SO DAMN HARD.
its not just spoiling the puzzles, its also just general environmental detail and atmosphere too. I noticed in Horizon Zero Dawn that Sony games tend to never "let the world speak for itself"
They are always chatting out loud to nobody and rarely am I allowed to bask in a world's environment and atmosphere for myself. Every detail is pointed out for me, every mystery is something my hand is held through.
Makes me appreciate silent protagonists more and more
also because of this odd behaviour you get less immursed into the world. as it tends to feel like im following along rather than exploring it myself.
makes you feel like you had no agency in finding it, the game did it for you. Takes the wonder out of everything
I mean Ghost of Tsushima does a pretty good job in letting yourself be immersed in the world.
That's definitely a pet peeve of mine in general, not just when it comes to puzzles and hints. It just distracts me when characters start randomly talking as I'm doing nothing, because that's usually when I'm paying attention to either the environment itself, or something going on in real life, and it's stressful knowing that I might be missing out on exposition by not listening.
You're saying "Sony games" and then just describing Aloy in Horzion which they also updated to reduce the frequency of some of her voice lines that were annoying people.
The fact that people really didn't go to the higher floor in Lady Boyle's mansion because the guard told them not to is just so bizarre to me. The whole game revolves around you going into places you aren't supposed to.
This is the first area of the game that does not require you to stay out of sight. Suddenly switching from a Dishonored ruleset to a Hitman ruleset is very jarring and it throws people back to the tutorial mode of thinking.
Thatâs because gamers are conditioned by games like GoW where they tell you what to do at all times. âBreakingâ the rules is so immersive and itâs a shame most games donât dare to do that.
Yeah, incredibly so. I'm guessing that, since it can be tricky to find your first opening to get up there without making a disturbance, some players - who happened to not be the sort to stick around until they've seen the whole map - just saw a Boyle alone, took the shot, and beat it when they saw their objective cleared, mistaking it for a gameplay-light story mission.
It might be because the level was playtested individually, not holistically, with testers getting only that level and not the broader context, but that's honestly pure speculation on my part
yeah, same
i'm yet to play this gem but it would've been the first thing i try, literally
What annoyed me more than getting hints too soon was that many of the puzzles would be avoidable if Kratos could either jump freely or just step over a small rock.
Young kratos would literally just jump like 8 feet in the air instead of solving it lol
So true! Not a puzzle but the mine section was ridiculous. You pass your destination at the very beginning, just meters away, and Kratos and Atreus even say so!! But oh well, no way to stop here, guess we'll have to see where this is going lol.
Man, this irks me beyond words. There was a part later in the game in which the character needs to burn a small bush to progress, because he can't jump a knee high obstacle. YOU ARE A FREAKING *GOD* WHO MURDERED A WHOLE PANTHEON for chrissakes!
True. The ludonarrative dissonance is quite strong in this one, in a bad way. Ragnarök's structure is too visible at times, notably in those traversal / exploratory moments.
@@fernandofaria2872 Not to mention, even in the new series Kratos still has scenes where hes jumping insane heights, but gets stopped by a bush. Like what? Its not even just "kratos is old" cause we still see him do amazing feats of agility even in 2018 and Ragnarok. And I doubt the child would have issues following either, considering hes quite agile too.
I remember playing a point and click adventure game which has a hint button that will only give hints if the player clicks it, gradually from subtle to explicit. Why don't these games have that feature too? Like in God of War, if players get stuck, maybe they can choose to interact with other characters to get a hint.
There is no game: Wrong Dimension?
That's even how Uncharted does it, although I have seen people then get confused with what the 'L3 button' (the stick) is.
@@simpleton7 Reminds me of Razbuten's wife. Where some games don't illustrate the stick buttons very well and not figure it out. Which is important if you are a new player trying to get into video games. My sister is still at the "looks down at the controller" phase.
@escalinci was my idea, too! Like "press triangle if you need help" or something. It was already a pain to search how to deactivate the constant onscreen hints
In the Tex Murphy adventure games (it might just be Under a Killing Moon, I forget) you gain points for each puzzle you solve yourself, and then if you get stuck you can use those points later on to buy hints to other puzzles.
It really is a problem with these big games that the goal of design seems to be to create a zero-friction experience for 100% of players. But that goal ends up being antithetical to certain modes of play, like puzzle solving or missions with open ended structures. You end up sacrificing rewarding engaging play for mindless busywork that just looks like gameplay at the surface level.
This is the key thing for me. If you can't add puzzles without hints because it breaks the flow of the game, maybe instead of adding the hints, just remove the puzzles. As an example, Doom 2016 was pretty much non-stop action and therefore the gameplay just flowed. Doom Eternal introduced puzzley/jump puzzle sections which, although not difficult to find the solution, nevertheless served to slow down the action.
@@TheDelinear Genuine question. With the way you've framed it, can't that be a good thing? Like a "calm before the storm" moment before going back to action?
@@leithaziz2716 the point is doing it well. these puzzles are just padding the time because you're always given the solution, and they're not even difficult without them.
@@TheDelinear The point of puzzles in GoW has never been to just slow the action. Itâs to provide a different sort of _challenge_
If they arenât challenging, and donât encourage lateral thinking, theyâre shitty puzzles. If people canât solve puzzles, donât play games where 20-50% of all gameplay has historically been traversal and puzzle-solving. At the very least, just give the rest of us who want an actual challenge more than 10 seconds before Mimir and Atreus spell it out for us, or an option to get rid of their comments altogether
@@TheDelinear Never played the original doom huh?
I really love the concept of requested hints. I think people would have been more tolerable of the God of War companions if you had to interact with them to get a hint. That way, players who want/need the hints can just as easily get them, but the players who want a challenge can opt out.
I think that's pretty much a perfect solution if triple-A games - and particularly Sony games currently - continue with player characters or their companions giving out hints/spoilers.
Hell, Nintendo were already doing that in the late 90's with Navi in OoT.
Shame about SS though.
Absolutely. It's up to the player to resist temptation if their conscious so decide.
I just wish all AAA games didnât cater to a subsect of people who donât want to get better at thinking and gaming, and forced players to actually use their brain.
The legend of Zelda companions acted in this way for yearsâŠidk how we are regressing
The retention aspect is really the core issue. Devs tends to underestimate the intelligence of the players and overestimate their likelihood to abandon the game because of a puzzle. Most people don't complete games because they're long and life gets in the way, not because of a puzzle.
Unless it is an unbelievably stupid puzzle.
@@bestaround3323 God now you've reminded me of one of the sidequest puzzles from Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous that was so obtuse that even after players datamined the answer they still couldn't figure out how you were meant to actually come to that solution.
I think you're the one overestimating the intelligence/attention span of the average player. Most people who start games that are as long as GOW know how long it'll take to finish. A vast majority of those customers will game long enough throughout the next year to finish the game, yet 4/5 of them won't finish it. This isn't because life gets in the way; if life was the cause, they wouldn't play any other game besides GOW until it was over. It's because they chose to play something else, for one reason or another. There's a reason GMT is calling it the risk free route to creating a game, that's because it is. They are plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into these games, and companies don't see value in risking that money on creative innovation that may just flop. They'd rather see a good ROI than anything else, and player retention is the way to make that happen, so they run extensive play testing and figure out the best way to keep players interested. Just to give an example, I play games a lot more than the average person. I bought bloodborne soon after release and I killed Rom, then I got stuck. I didn't know where to go and I didn't put in the effort of learning, so I stopped playing the game for a whole year before picking it back up and realizing it was probably my favorite game ever. If I gave up after that little effort, what do you think the average person, who only heard about GOW from their friend at work and wanted to try a new game, would do if they got stuck on a puzzle?
@@nothanks6784 Look up the solution?
Especially in a game like god damn Godnof War-which has *always been* an action-puzzle game. Like come on. Itâs one thing to keep the story moving in different directions, but changing the core mechanics of the games? Imagine if Navi pestered you endlessly and patronized you every step of every puzzle in Ocarina of Time. It would change the entire focus of the game. Canât call it a puzzle game when you donât have to actually **solve** any puzzles.
Thatâs what this is, and itâs absolutely mind-numbing.
I was shocked at how quickly Atreus and the others would tell me what to do before I even had a chance to acknowledge the puzzles. I thought it was an early release bug
Some were clearly a bug for sure, I had a few moments where they would shout solutions before I even gained control. Overall, it was annoying as hell though, easily the games worst aspect
I have half a mind to drop the entire game because they wont shut up
Yeah, right? I was like "Jesus guys, give me a chance to look around for a second."
@@orangesoda4535 just play the originals instead. Good story, much better gameplay, and better puzzles as a whole
Might be a bug! The characters interrupt themselves and captions suggest it's not intentional. The cues seem wrong.
If you want your game to be an action cinematic narrative game AND you're going to tell players how to solve puzzles immediately, why would you put puzzles in it at all? Fill in the "low energy" and build-up parts with other things. Or emphatize on teamwork between the player and the NPC. I read some comment here that someone didn't even notice the spoilers, because it felt like they were working together with the player. That can actually work really well for the gaming experience AND for the bond between the characters! Character building and such :)
100% agreed. The only thing making a puzzle fun or interesting is solving it. If you take that away, then it's just busywork padding out the time needed to progress through the area. Which, from a developer perspective, seems like you wasted a whole lot of time and resources on something that was... kind of pointless?
One of the reasons I didn't like God of War (first of new series) was how clunky and on rails it felt to me. The ouzzle sections were particularly egregious in that regard. They're not stimulating, they're handheld too much and even when they're not, you're so used to it all being handheld that when you actually reach a puzzle, even if it's simple you tend to have turned your brain off so much that you can't figure it out. At least in my case. It's like I 1) don't care about the puzzle and see it as more of a stupid roadblock in my way rather than engaging gameplay and 2) expect it to be so simple that I can barely actually think straight when it comes to them. I'm just not in the right mindset because of how the game is structured
The "opt in to a hint" thing is exactly what I think the solution should be, at least in most cases. If you need the hand-holding, you can have it, if you want to figure it out yourself, you have that option too, and you can decide for yourself, per puzzle, if and when you need the hints. It really bothers me in games when they hand you the solution while you're getting a cursory glance at what the pieces are, before you've had a chance to start thinking of a solution, let alone get stuck.
Exactly. I really personally appreciate the way Tomb Raider did it in that interactable elements would be highlighted if you turned on a certain vision mode (and you could choose to not use it or even turn it off entirely) and Lara would give vague or more specific hints if you had the setting put for either.
It's definitely something games need to do a lot better with.
It should not be called "opt in to a hint" but "I am a dumb ass mode".
I think opting in to hints is probably the best solution as well, but it does also have a similar problem to lower difficulty settings in games - there's a subset of people who simply refuse to use them even if they are having a bad time, because they have some level of pride wrapped up in the idea of being "good at video games" and having to explicitly ask for help diminishes that. I feel like a lot of AAA design is very defensive in this way, essentially trying to save players from their own worst instincts.
I still think the Companion Hint's should also tell you incorrect hints half the time. there's NO WAY this dumb kid has figured every puzzle out instantly.
The game should give you the option to go to NPC and ask for tips instead of just giving it to you all the time.
My first thought was: this game should have the option to talk to your companions to get hints. The NPC can stand there silently until the player prompts them to talk, and then their dialogue explains the puzzle. That gives the player complete control in the moment if they want to figure the puzzle out on their own, get hints right away, or try their best and request a hint when they feel stumped.
(Also I loved the format of this video. You did a great job at summarizing a huge issue with the state of video games right now without stretching it to an hour long deep dive).
As mentioned in the video, Fallen Order did that, and I thought it worked really well. Your robot companion would sometimes stare at something important as a relatively subtle clue, but if you wanted something more you'd have to ask.
That's brilliant!
The problem with "opt-in" is that we are conditioned against it - just think about how many people would rather go looking for a specific item in a shop for an hour instead of just asking for help. Good game design protects players from themselves, and that wouldn't be it. I'm not saying that this makes it a bad idea, but I just wanted to add something into consideration.
@@DrZaius3141 You have a point. But I can imagine that that varies from culture to culture and from person to person. Where I live most people are comfortable asking for directions.
@@3333218 Oh defintely. And you could also argue that "teaching" people to ask for help is a positive influence as well. And then you get into the toxic parts of gaming culture that tries to gatekeep on what difficulty levels you're supposedly allowed to play.
And the bottom line is that even if only a third of people would be too "shy" to ask for help, that would still follow the argument mentioned in the video that it would mean too many people that stop playing out of frustration.
I think my favorite example of hints in video games is Chicory where you can call your parents at phone booths to ask for help. Your mom gives you the more vague hints (ie: have you checked out x yet?) but you can ask to put your dad on the phone after your mom gives you a hint if your really stumped and donât know the answer to the puzzle. The game even warns you beforehand that your dad tends to âtalk in detailâ so if you ask him, he will tell your the answer if you really need it. Iâm not the greatest at puzzle (which is funny cause I play a lot of puzzle/mystery games) so having that option was very helpful. Plus itâs also characterizing your parents and itâs also just a cute scene.
One thing i noticed aswell in ragnarok was that you get actual tutorial pop-ups very frequently. For example, if you don't parry an unblockable attack, it will immediately tell you "Press L1 the moment an enemy's attack lands to block it". I would understand if it happened only in early game, but it happens in post game aswell! It was so frustrating when the game was constantly giving you tutorial pop-ups for things that you've already learned and mastered throughout the game, but just because you forgot to do it one time or missed it, the game thinks you don't know what to do anymore.
Thankfully you can at least turn off the non-important tutorial pop-ups, but i noticed if you do that it doesn't seem to give you any pop-ups at all anymore. For example, in niflheim, you aren't able to see how many ravens you need for a chest anymore if you turn off the tutorials, which is so stupid, since it's not even supposed to be a tutorial.
I had this problem in Ghost of Tsushima with the stances - the game will literally pause until you switch stances to the "correct" one, and it's frustrating. There is also no way to turn it off.
And this is in a game that 99% of the time does a really good job at being immersive and letting you do things how you want to. But for some reason, it must make you use stances "properly"
Every time Mimir says "Why have a shield if you're no going to use it?"
I think part of the problem is how AAA shoot'em ups/beat'em ups approach puzzle design as a break in the action because they want a bit of a wait before their next set piece, rather than as an integral part of the game.
90% of the âpuzzlesâ in ragnarok are âsomething is blocking the way and I need to get a different viewpoint to blow up a barrel.â Like, donât even put that shit in there if itâs not gonna be interesting, itâs just wasting time.
@@MmmDoggy This is how I feel about climbing sections in any game that isn't Assassin's Creed
@@negative6442 what about climbing in original GoW games? It was good there and also Uncharted
@@rogoznicafc9672 Didn't play the original GoW, and I don't like it in Uncharted
Exactly
There was one set of hints I really appreciated and that was the "I don't think we can do this yet" hints. The ones that told me I didn't have the tools or abilities unlocked for a puzzle and so I shouldn't waste time trying to solve them yet.
The rest were just annoying, mostly because they were stating the obvious. Sure, a hint for the first time I encounter a type of puzzle might be good incase I don't understand a mechanic (though I still find that annoying), but on the 5th iteration of the same puzzle design? No, that's just annoying.
Another helpful hint for me was when Atreus said, "I think we got everything." In any specific side mission. Of corse, if he did it every time it would be annoying. But he did it a bit and It was helpful to know I didn't miss anything.
I agree! I thought those lines saying I didn't have the right material or weapon for that moment was super useful.
Sometimes they were so basic and repetitive it hurt.
Mimir, I have played through every realm, completed most of the side quests and am on my very last fight with Thor. I KNOW I have a shield, AND I am pushing the button so pls stop reminding me.
But Yh I was thankful for the hints that made clear not to bother with later on puzzles
Yeah those can stay, because it is much harder to tell when you just straight up can't do them
4:45 "Publishers don't like it when money is being spent on content most players will never see."
Shunning this idea is the entire reason WHY Elden Ring was so successful. You're not SUPPOSED to find everything, and they put the player in near-complete control over where they went, with nothing more than a hint on the world map as to your next critical path objective. The fact that you won't find everything, and that people will take different paths to reach their goals, made the game that much more interesting, and even more so when talking to other people who found items or dungeons that you had missed. Any time you found something on your own, there was that sense of joy and wonder that you can't get when the game tells you where and how to find something. (Plus, the open-world design and addition of crafting made the game easier for less experienced players, but that's another issue entirely).
I had an experience like that recently. I replayed Elden Ring and in the Volcano Manor area I suddenly noticed a corpse on a ledge with an item that I had missed before. With no obvious way to get up there I searched around, eventually dropping down to a lower area, entering a door I had not noticed, fighting a mini-boss like enemy and finding a helmet before ascending a ladder to the item I had initially noticed (which were just some runes).
It was a small new section I had never explored before and that felt nice.
true, the teleporter chest for instance was a slap in the face but an incredibly fun challenge to overcome, its like a horror bit in an exploration game, everything kills me, i'm lost, i do not know where to go or even how to, but ffs i will manage somehow.
And the nicest thing is that it only happened to those who wished to explore, its out of the main path and it pretty much says "well, you went looking didn't you? so here it is enjoy".
Those who wished to follow the grace pointers were unhindered by it, so ultimately its the player's choice whether to wander of or not. I or instance actively went the other way "if the grace is pointing there then i will explore this other place"
I liked the idea of playing the game without a guide or even quest markers.
As helpful as they are, the whole point of some games is the exploration and finding something on later playthroughs.
Like that one Oblivion puzzle that involves books, I felt so smart after figuring it out and so should every player.
Same with Skyrim's treasure maps and forcing the player to remember landmarks well or else no treasure to be found.
@Dracas42 Elden RIng gave you as little freedom as the other games actually. You can mess around in the progression wise unimportant zones all you like but the important ones are locked behind doing mandatory content.
Leyndell is locked with requiring two main boss runes and every zone after is locked behind doing the next zone's content so you can get to the other ones. Mountaintops? Leyndell. Farum Azula? Fire giant. Haligtree? Castle Sol.
It's got no more variety than DS1 pretending you have choice when it turns out you have to do the linear path and that the other paths were blocked off with walls until you did the main thing.
Only DS2 gave the player choice, only locking the castle behind doing bosses OR having souls. It gave you a choice in the matter.
@@icebox1954 You missed the point of my comment entirely. I'm not comparing Elden Ring to Dark Souls, I'm comparing it to other open world titles and how they populate said worlds. I'm not talking about the order you progress in, I'm talking about the exploration once you get there. I'm talking about how this game does not care if you miss content, and is perfectly fine crafting dungeons, bosses, items and secrets that you may NEVER find. I went back to the first castle on a second playthrough and found entirely new areas with items and enemies I had never seen before, and in my first playthrough friends were telling me where to find dungeons I had missed. That was the point I was making.
Whether it's a game, movie or book, the rule of thumb applies across the board: don't treat your audience like idiots. Frustration is not a bad thing, it's a challenge to be smarter. People love that feeling of discovering something for themselves.
Hence why the souls series is so loved
That rule of thumb is being steadily eroded, unfortunately.
@@christophcookit6334 Excluding Elden Ring of course. I can't say I was too thrilled exploring 90% of the content only to realize that 80% of it is reused assets and dungeons that are lazily and uncreatively put in the world to fake abundance.
Random caves with worthless loot and generic enemy "bosses" isn't good design.
Ironically, NG+ is actually both awful and much better in Elden Ring.
Most of the game is reused filler content so skipping it actually makes the game better on second playthroughs. Granted, you have absolutely no reason to do it the first time either except for the ones with upgrading stones.
@@icebox1954 always a problem with open World. You can't lead the Player how He is supposed to play.
@@christophcookit6334 That's not an excuse to make bad and lazy content that reuses the same designs and places generic bosses in that environment.
If you do more than two caves the magic has already worn off as you realize there's nothing really unique to experience.
How about making less content but better quality? How about just trying instead of making an "open-world" in name only?
You get 3 to 5 seconds to solve a puzzle in Ragnarok before a character points it out. An option was required because having the puzzles spoiled nearly every time is an insane approach to game design
Love these shorter videos btw!
I may be exaggerating that's fair and I agree that the game is factoring in some input from me that makes it seem like I don't know what to do but what's frustrating about that is the game thinks I'm confused because I didn't immediately park myself in front of the puzzle to solve it when really I'm exploring the environment and looking for secrets. Why is the game rushing me thru that?
@fealow this is anecdotal, but in every playthrough I've watched of the game, the obnoxious hints have taken as little as 1 second and as much as 35-37 to appear (that is from the moment the player focuses on the puzzle). Whatever the flags for it are, there's no justification for breaking whatever engagement the player had with the game, much less doing so with the 2022 edition of fucking Clippy
just long enough for the money
I think there is some kinda error in the code that leads to in game characters repeat hints and answers to the pazzle in very short period of time. I watched Cohhcarnage playthrough and played myself. At times you can spend 1-2 mintues on pazzle and games gives you only couple of hints. Other times you get stuck in the loop where characters repeat answers to pazzle every 5-10 sec. Same happens on Cohh's stream. So, give devs benefit of the doubt. This is somewhat complex system of checks with elaborate timings, most likely it has logical errors in the code, than just devs thinking that players are dumb.
@fealow I've not played the game myself yet, but watching moistcritikal play, it will very often spoil the puzzle before his even explored the full puzzle area.
Meaning before he's even seen all the pieces, they are telling him what to do.....
Not great, tbh.....
As a person with ADHD I can confirm that these hints make the game LESS accessible, not more accessible. ADHD doesn't make me stupid. It doesn't make me need hints to solve simple puzzles. But it does make my train of thought easily derailed by an NPC shouting "HEY MAYBE YOU SHOULD TURN THAT WHEEL OVER THERE" while I'm in the middle of trying to figure something out.
@@ChaosLord5129 dude, wtf?
@@kintrix007 I reported him. Unfortunately this is precisely the reason why ADHD is a really tough neurodivergence to experience and live through: it doesn't have the recognition, the public appeal or receive the same empathy as say autism for example. People will say shit like "everyone has ADHD" or "it isn't real" not even understanding the the most basic facts about it. ADHD is a stupid name to be honest, it's practically like calling it "Stupid and obnoxious disorder". The name should include the dopamine deficiency and executive dysfonction
@Choas_Lord_512 you're a mug
Yes you are stupid because if the npc tells you a hint that means you took too long time dumbass.
@@bastienmillecam3183 maybe if you ate your veggies, you wouldnt be crying rn
Thank you for this. The constant handholding was easily my biggest complaint about Forbidden West, it was so incredibly obnoxious. I'd often have the puzzle spoiled before I even had a chance to move my camera up to look at it. Just started Ragnarok and having the same frustrating experience, though admittedly not as bad as FW (so far). I've been saying for ages that there should be an option in the accessibility settings that tune this "feature" to where you want it, and I can only hope it gets added in a patch or something.
You mentioned outer wilds at the end, I really love its approach to the issue. Outer wilds tells you essentially nothing about anything before the fact. But after youâve learned something, the game maps it all out perfectly in your ships log. So the whole time it feels like itâs only you figuring everything out, but you still have this very useful tool to review what youâve learned and clue you into possible places to go investigate next.
I did notice that the Ragnarok characters ONLY aggressively help you with puzzles that are part of the main quests. In all the optional side puzzles they're essentially silent, which was a relief
all the hardest puzzles and encounters go unhelped
This makes sense. I came down to comments to ask if there was a patch or something because I am not recalling a lot of spoiled puzzles, but it could just be that I have mostly been doing side content recently
That's just stupid though, they can hold your hand through all the main quest puzzles which they obviously don't know they're in a game but if you walk down a path to the left they're as silent as a ghost....
that's not entirely true. if it's a bigger sidequest and not just a hidden area with a few chests and maybe a miniboss, they will also spoil everything just like in the main quests.
Got to let the daft people finish the main game I guess
It's an underrated artform when developers manage to draw your eye to points of interest with convenient lighting or the composition of the scene.
Now, far too many games are just resorting to holding your hand through it.
Ive been playing a plague tale recently and while the puzzles are hardly the most intricate, it does have the option to give hints quickly, slowly, or not at all. Options like that should be standard
oh yea it was nice. i forgot there was. did put it to not at all.
Ha! I am always asking myself "which hallways is lit?" then going to other way to do the side stuff because it's never the critical path.
Left 4 Dead does this wonderfully. They use light to guide you, and exploration feels natural, because the way ahead is subtly indicated.
Great video, I loved GoW, just finished it yesterday on No Mercy. But I was seriously fuming at times when I was told a solution WHILE I was still looking around for stray Loot or interactables.
Another gripe I had were the Followers pointing out mid-combat that you are on fire, bifrosted, that you should shield slam or why you weren't blocking.
By the end of Muspelheim I was sick of my allies constantly saying: "You're on fire! But you probably already know that..."
I don't know why, but Mimir only ever said "You're on fire Kratos! If will pass." during the most difficult fights in the game, making every time I heard it make me want to throw my controller at him. I never had problems with npcs spoiling puzzles, but god mid battle wit neeeds to be optional.
Thank you for voicing your opinion! I certainly agree that many games handhold us too much. I really would hate it if someone kept 'splaining at me before I get a chance to try the flippin' puzzle!
This was such a huge flaw in Horizon Forbidden West too. They might as well remove the puzzles completely if they're not giving us the option of solving them on our own.
They should. Puzzles are padding for length in AAA games usually.
@@BlueAizu_ Yep! I tried to get into these AAA blockbusters that people endlessly praise (GoW, Horizon, etc) and I couldn't fathom just how stupid the developers must think the average player is. My respect for Nintendo and FromSoft only went up after that experience; they KNOW how to design and craft mechanics that don't require in-game characters that literally tell you what do to. Navi in Zelda was ok imo, Fi was inexcusable though, but BOTW and Mario Odyssey clearly trusted the player to understand what's going on, and that's clearly the way go. Hard pass for Horizon and GoW from me. Ghost of Tsushima was definitely great though; not culpable of the things mentioned in this video.
I watched some people trying to stream this game and you could tell they were getting frustrated by how often the characters would interrupt them with inane dialog and spoilers.
@plasmatic24 I absolutely adore the Horizon games... but the way they ruined the puzzles gave me gamer rage like I haven't experienced before.
This stood out immediately when I started playing. The biggest issue to me is that even while you're working it out and actively solving it they would but in midway and give a hint. Like solving step 1 and 2 but messing up on 3 and a second later they go "Maybe if you tried over here?" and didn't give me a second to even think about it. I understand that they need to make AAA games as accessible as possible but yeah just as subtitle options are becoming a standard I think puzzle hint frequency should too.
i recall solving multiple puzzles (and seeing it happen in other's gameplay) where the hints are coming so fast that they're telling you the step you just did. Even quickly spotting the solution and solving it as you walk up is too slow for the companions.
As someone with cognitive disabilities, this design is not accessible, just patronising. True accessibility doesn't make the game worse for other players and doesn't make the disabled ones feel stupid.
So glad you made a video pointing out this flaw in Ragnarok, it seriously bugged the hell out of me when Mimir or Atreus gave me hints before I even had a chance to look at everything. That and the backtracking through large portions of a level to get to a fast travel point were my two biggest gripes with an otherwise amazing game.
Jolly good! You can easily pack more information in the time given, for your narration style is super descriptive anyway :D
Keep on posting!
Really enjoyed this video, and the format overall. Additionally, it's really cool seeing how points and analysis from GMTK videos of yore apply to the current state of gaming. Some points still ring as true as they first did, others take on extra meaning. This format feels like checking the pulse of game design. I dig it.
I'll admit, one of GoW's puzzles in the AppleCore stumped me for a few minutes, and I mentally said to myself "I'm surprised Atreus or Mimir hasn't called it out yet" - I wasn't really aware of how vocal they were being until the once instance where they weren't.
-B
Oh... HI BLUE, YOU GUYS ARE MY FAVOURITE CONTENT CREATORSđ
Also really great point about noticing how much they talk when they aren't there
Glad to see you guys here love your videos
One thing that I've noticed a lot in how I approach games lately is that, the most dumbed out the puzzles of a game are usually, the less receptive I am to the raise in complexity, cause I just entered a mode of "braindead" playing that makes me not want to be challenged again by that game.
Not reeeeally a problem per se but I feel like those are not necessarily the games that make me the most engaged with and are also not usually the games I finish, they just get bland and boring after a while and, if it's an AAA game, it's probably so jam-packed with boring stuff to do that I can't bother getting to the end.
And it's not even about the difficulty or things being repetitive, Persona 5 for example has easy and repetitive stuff to do outside the Palaces but it still was quite engaging since social life was all about time management so it took a degree of well-thought decision-making, eventually repeating the same actions for building skill points do get annoying but overall it's a different view on something easy and repetitive that I quite like.
I agree with it being most notable in the one moment, when in GoW they weren't vocal about hints and back then I realized how much of a characterization of a noisy, better-knowing son these hints actually formed in me.
They helped me in noticing things I oversaw, made me irritated and by the latter actually provided characterization.
On the other hand I do love indie games like Tunic though, that make "understanding the game via a manual" part of the experience and lore.
Did you ever watch GDC?
I think if games just gave an extra 30-60 seconds of leeway before having characters chime in that would help a lot. Even if it's a menu setting where you can change the hint timer from short, medium, long to completely off, along with the usual accessibility settings. I would personally much prefer a system where you have to press a button to get a hint, or maybe specifically go talk to Atreus to get a hint, but I understand that it's not likely.
I think Last of Us did it best. While I was rarely stuck, sometimes it's hard to see the specific thing you're looking for, so it's good to be able to get a hint when needed.
The issue is the game keeps telling me how to solve puzzles before I've even spotted the puzzle.
lmao that happens to me all the time too
The weird thing is this is so easily doable, it's boggling why it's not already there!
Yup, almost every time I got it just about the same time that they said it, or seconds after. And it's so annoying, like yes can I... can I think for myself? Sometimes they even say it right after you complete one step. 'good job in opening the door, now try pulling that hidden lever there'. Can I get a minute to look for myself, please?
Really liked this short-form video: I love your deep dives and more "thinky" pieces, please don't stop doing these, but I love the GMTK take on these more timely topics. If you can do more in this format, I'd welcome it.
One thing i loved about the old GoW was the puzzles. I remember me and my dad being stuck in the room where you need to put a body down on a flowing water to do something for weeks, and when i figured it out i felt like the biggest genius around
I think the whole "make the game more accessible" to not lose player retention is only making them lose more retention by patronizing the players in the long run. If the game gives me the option, I turn off hints. If I get stuck, that's on me. Let me get stuck. After all, a game is something with fail state and a win state. If you are taking my fail states away from me(The ability to get stuck on a puzzle) you are also taking my win states away. A game without enough win states, is a boring game which will make me drop it.
Also like the bite sized mini episodes. Doesn't give you much time to ramble on but they can be concise.
Well put!
If I get stuck, it's the devs job to make sure I'm not, they are not paying me to play their games.
@@hydrocy.9165 what kind of game is a game that plays itself?
@@hydrocy.9165 Have you tried being smart?
@@Fabelot1 A game which knows games are also called video games and not just games
It's my first time playing BOTW last month and I appreciate how quiet Link is. I don't get how devs don't know how much more satisfying it is solving a puzzle by yourself, or how annoying it is that characters never shut up
I came to comments to raise the question of BOTW too. That game gives preciously few hints and is beloved for it? (Iâll admit, the game bounced off me the first two times I tried.) I wonder if itâs a challenge for those with disabilities.
@@the_blakerson it was not. This was mostly due to the sheer variety of ways to solve problems and how the overall tone of the game encourages you to take it at your own pace. And most of the puzzles are confined to their own predetermined area, like a Shrine or Divine Beast, so you mostly don't need to worry about "oh do I need to row across the bay real quick to hit some switch?".
Of course, I can only speak for my own personal experience. For those with different categories or intensities of neurodivergence, they may have different perspectives.
@@ShermTank7272 yeah botw is like, almost unexpectedly beginner friendly because it's simultaneously so simple and straightforward, and open-ended and intuitively complex
SEGA is unable to understand that with SONIC.
if it is about puzzles than yes , i hate when they help you solve it , but i really love it when you are exploring while they are talking , especially Mimir and his stories , it make want to take the boat instead of teleporting
Do you think there is some merit to say that 'Playtesters who are taken into a small room and watched by big brother may be too afraid to play as they normally would and the data found about how people would approach these puzzels is incorrect' When I play games and I know someone is watching me I definatly find myself in more combat than I normally would take on and also I tend to rush in trying to brute force puzzels rather than solve them.
As someone who has been a playtester a few times, I would say yes, even though I wouldn't necessarily call it 'afraid'. Even though they tell you to play as you normally would, it just feels completely different than playing on your own. Doubly so if you can look around and see the other testers' screens, and compare your progress, at which point you have to suppress thoughts like "I'm lagging behind, I need to rush to catch up" or the other way around where you're further ahead and start wondering whether you're rushing and maybe aren't playing the game as intended.
It doesn't help that sometimes they just drop you in the middle, or you play the beginning/tutorial and then some other completely different section later, so you don't always have the same kind of learning curve a normal player would have at that point.
There's definitely elements of "I'm screwing this up a lot more than I would if I wasn't being watched", which a lot of people are familiar with even outside of games.
Also, you know that after the play session you need to fill out a survey or have an in-person talk with someone who asks you questions about the game, often both. So with that in the back of your mind, your entire perception of the game changes. You start thinking about what is easy and what isn't, why you're doing the things you're doing this way even while you're playing, which can in turn influence how you play and how you perceive elements of the game.
Or even if you do solve something, you might say something later like "I got stumped at point X for a second but then I got it", and if enough people say that, the devs might concentrate too much on the "got stumped" part and think the "but then I got it" part isn't enough.
I'm sure someone knowledgeable in psychology could write an entire essay about this situation. But TLDR: playing in a playtesting environment is definitely different than playing on your own.
Really good way to expand on your content you make I will definitely be looking forward to your miniâs just as much as the larger videos especially as it doesnât take a chunk of my free time to watch them :)
Since Metroid Prime got a mention when it came to its Morph Ball tunnel design, I think it's also worth pointing out that it had a hint system that could be completely disabled. And that was 20 years ago.
Return to Monkey Island probably has the best hint system I've seen in any game, though. It's 100% opt-in, always accessible, and lets you get granular hints so the game doesn't spoil more than necessary. Plus, as I just noticed a moment ago, it'll offer you a recap if you load a save when you haven't played for a while!
The problem with this approach of course is that it ALSO turns away players. It's just that the frustration isn't keyed at specific points of challenge, but at the attitude the game has towards you.
It's a deeper and more fundamental frustration. I don't put away games for momentary frustration like a difficult challenge. I sure do when a game appears to think I'm an idiot.
If you don't trust your players to be able to solve puzzles, just don't put them in.
DO they really tho ?
I always found it hyperbole, I have never heard someone say, 'well, it was a great game but I left it midway because it was giving me too many hints'.
@@the_crypter People won't say it like that, but that's just because gamers don't tend to think in depth about that stuff (which is fine, it's not their job). They _will_ however say stuff like 'the game was just too boring' - and if you ask them what they mean they'll say the puzzles were too boring, and if you ask what that means they might have trouble articulating exactly what it is. When the answer of course is that the 'puzzle' sections are boring because they play themselves and the 'puzzles' are just Simon Says exercises where the game tells you what to do and then you do it with no thoughts or skill required.
@@the_crypter I have literally just quit Ragnarok for this very reason. It couldn't trust me to learn how to fight Heimdall. Not even 10 seconds in and Mimir told me what to do.
This game is rated M for Mature. Stop treating the audience like we're watching an episode of Dora the Explorer.
@@the_crypter Having seen footage of the game I'm really put off by it.
The guy in the video clearly said that as a toggle to turn on or off
One of my favorite lines in ragnarok was when i reached a puzzle and atreus said something like "how are we supposed to get passed this?" and kratos responds "there is always a way". After i solved the puzzed, kratos says "see?" and atreus was like "wow, I guess you were right." II don't know if that voice line is a one time thing or happens whenever you solve a puzzle fast, but I only ever experienced it once and it just felt so satisfying to solve the puzzle before an npc had the chance to spoil it for the umpteenth time.
I am so glad you mentioned more recent games are putting in settings to turn down hints. I adored Psychonauts 2 but there were multiple puzzles where the solution was explained before I'd even fully seen the puzzle. Diagetic hints are really cool, but the pendulum has swung much too far in the easy direction - at least if I'm stumped with a puzzle after trying it myself I can look up a walkthrough.
What I really liked about the new Tomb Raider series is that the self-narrated hints are tied to a temporary vision mode that you can activate yourself, and that also highlights interactible objects (and enemies during combat). So I don't get bombarded with them straight away, but if I feel stuck I can get Lara to say something that she sees that I evidently missed.
The only problem is that the visual design just doesn't try at all with games that have this detective vision. So I end up slamming the button constantly to see if the pile of coins on the ground is something to interact with or just another flavor piece.
@@Beakerbite this
@@Beakerbite maybe just get close to the thing to see if you can interact with it then. its not hard
@@Gabe413 Except spaces are so dark or filled to the brim with cluster / detail that you're just not supposed to find without the highlight mechanic. I appreciate levels being designed and presented as a believable location, but if there's stuff to collect, item placement and identification need a little work.
I really appreciate this formula, gives everyone an opportunity to talk about recent game design events while these games are still fresh. A full video on the topic would take at least one month to actually release from what I presume, and then the topic would have already dried.
Full on GMTKs are great but sometimes doing one of these minis when something pops up is an amazing idea
That's exactly the idea, yep! If I did a full GMTK video, the discourse would have moved on :P
Great video! I agree, would be nice to get an option to choose the frequency of help tips, even if it's excessive by default.
7:24 lmao that is the ONE part where a hint wouldn't have pissed me off and Brok said NOTHING! I was there wayyyy too long đ
This game has so many accessibility options but not one to tell your companions to wait longer before giving hints. The problem is never that these things exist, its that sometimes there aren't options to turn them off or adjust them.
They allow different inputs for touch pad sweeps, a great idea could be to assign hints to that too maybe?
The problem is that accessibilty options are developed thinking how to make the game easier for less skilled people, so adding an option to make the game harder dosen't came up in the mind of the developers, and that's a shame.
I mean, it's so that the morons that smoke a kilo of weed a day can't complain that it doesn't take into account their "ADHD and Neurodiversity", so they keep feeling special.
I came here to see if this comment existed, so true.
I shouldn't need to scrounge through menus to make their game good.
I remember Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People letting you choose not only whether SB would give you hints but how specific they were. It was a character-focused point & click adventure game, so environmental and inventory puzzles were the main gameplay. The main voice actor was also the main writer, so it was frictionless for him to add or remove dialogue and options for it.
Indeed, difficulty categorization is fractal, and it would be nice if more games recognized it. Sub-sliders for combat and puzzle difficulties, exploration assistance, social bluntness, and how much/detailed information the player sees is could all help fine-tune gameplay experience. Being able to expand sub-sub-sliders all the better.
To some players, replacing map markers for nearby undiscovered points of interest with a spell that simply says whether there *are* any nearby would make exploration all the more immersive, while others would feel frustrated at the extra hassle. Hide item weights, instead showing an un-numered progress bar, and put a soft-cap where movement speed starts to fall off past 95%, and by hiding information you've made deciding what vendor trash is cost-effective to lug around into an interesting minigame that'll only appeal to some players. Doubly so if value doesn't show up for each type of item until you've spoken to a merchant with one in your inventory, or remains hidden entirely when not actively trading. Whether to give puzzle hints is only the beginning once you trust the player to fine-tune their own experience, and sadly it tends to fall to community-made mods only available long after release, often with a limited toolset full of workarounds.
Getting stuck isn't fun, but it's not great to get hints immediately. Ragnarok has some hints that amount to 'close but not quite' which is about where it should be, even if the tone is annoying.
A toggle or slider would be great. It's when they repeat the hints that I get annoyed.
One thing I do appreciate in it is that characters will let you know if you don't have the right gear for something yet. I always try to grab collectibles ASAP, so I have wasted a lot of time in other games when the answer was to come back later.
This would just make me want to be able to kill Atreus lol. It doesn't help that he has the annoying young teenager voice either.
@@XTSonic I couldn't get through GOW 2018. EVERY 5 second the boy is just screaming in my ear. FATHER NISTA every five seconds. He won't shut up just like Nathan Drake.
â@@hazelcrisp He's a child what do you expect when they are literally in a battle?
@@dewolf123 To not shout every five seconds. Don't think I am asking for much.
@@hazelcrisp Fair enouh
One time I had Aloy shout the same line 8 times in a row because I kept leaving and re-entering a specific quest area. Glad to hear you discovered her chatty side as well.
I was just pushing a mine cart into position so I could climb onto a roof, yesterday. The INSTANT I let go of the mine cart, Aloy says out loud "I wonder what that switch does."
"What's that, Lassie? I should pull the lever so the cart moves down the other track instead? GOOD GIRL!"
"Shut the hell up, Aloy" should be that game's subtitle.
I enjoyed this short format for smaller things, and I'm sure many do. But don't get discouraged from making longer videos where you do some deep dives every now and again, those videos are what made me fall in love with you and your channel.
However, if it helps your mental health, reduces some stress, or plainly feels like you need a break, go for it. It's better to have you gone for some time and then return rather than have you go full blown into a wall and crash completely.
Normal GMTK episodes definitely aren't going away! This is just a different format if I want to talk about something newsworthy :D
@@GMTK It's a great format!
great video! Very happy to see a short form analysis of current issues/ topics in gaming. Would love to see more, THANKS GMTK!!!
I found the hint dialogue in GOW4 to usually be subtle and helpful. Two instances stand out to me:
1. On a tricky puzzle, Atreus was complaining about it not being possible. Kratos told him to be quiet, which told *me* that I was near a solution.
2. There was a puzzle that required inputting symbols in reverse order from a song. The order used in the song is given to you. If you put the symbols in the same order as the song, Atreus remarks on that, and comments that it didn't do anything. This reassures me I put in the symbols as I intended, and that I need to use a different approach.
But in the Muspelheim trials, Atreus wouldn't stop reminding me of a shortcut I could take, and would recommend improving my gear no matter what if I failed a challenge. Very annoying.
It always drives me crazy that games will hold your hand through an entire puzzle, but if you're getting rekt in a fight, you're on your own.
Yeah, as someone who tends to avoid combat in a lot of games when possible, I find it really frustrating when so much care and attention is put into making other aspects of a game enjoyable and accessible, but the combat is just this sacred thing that absolutely must be done a certain way. This kind of killed Breath of the Wild for me. Why give players so much choice in how to approach situations for much of the game and allow them to avoid combat when they're going to HAVE to deal with at least one ridiculous boss fight that doesn't have those workarounds to various situations as options?
Lower the difficulty.
Haven't played a AAA game in a while that didn't have a difficulty slider that, at the lowest levels, basically turned it into a walking simulator. Bethesda titles even let you change difficulty mid-fight. Did you have a game in mind that fits your criteria? Hand holding through puzzles but no way to make fights easier? (I think one of the newer Assassins Creed games had this problem, but I hopped off that bandwagon a decade ago, so I'm not 100% sure)
@@ghostderazgriz but that's the entire point. You're telling me I can toggle a mode where enemies react faster, are more aggressive and deal more damage but the game still treats you like you're a 5 year old with puzzles like "throw axe into water to freeze" "hey maybe throw the axe into the water?" What kind of crap is that?
@@kubev I personally think it's kinda artsy, no matter what you're going to have to fight eventually, that I found kinda interesting but I get your complain of the game not teaching you combat correctly
Sometimes you need a little frustration to make overcoming a challenge or a puzzle more rewarding. There is a balance to it. It depends on what game you're making, and who your audience is.
imo there's no point including a puzzle in a game if there's no "ah ha!" moment that follows the resolve
it's like AAA developers think audiences have zero grasp of game mechanics, or even basic human logic for that matter...
Zelda approach:
1. Give player something confusing that doesnât block their way
2. Special item discovered later recontextualises previous confusion, inspiring âahaâ insight (provided player remembers the confusing thing)
3. Player returns to use new item to solve puzzle
Ps the puzzles are often actually simple, but initially perplex the item-less player
Imagine making a video this well put together in one day. I wish I had your experience and work ethic, excellent job!
Well said! Not only does it ruin the characters for me (making Atreus and Mimir seem unbearable Karens speaking to a child), but I also havenât been allowed to have fun and solve the puzzles yet. There are some clever puzzles in this game. I wish I could try a few of them.
This was a big problem in God of War 2018 as well and was one of the reasons Atreus became such an aggravating character. For most of the game he feels like little more than the modern day Navi from OoT only instead of "Hey! Listen!" it was always "You're freezing that object!" (after you deliberately push a button that freezes objects).
Even back then, Navi didnât always completely spell out what youâre supposed to do, she would nudge you in the right direction so you wouldnât get lost, but never really help during actual puzzles.
I can't engage to that character. For me he just can peacefuly die.
Sadly Navi was always the better "press button IF you need help" type
Honestly, while i definitely heard people say Atreus spells out the obvious, this is the first time i saw someone call him aggravating ( or compared to Navi).
Definitely love your long form videos as well. But this was a great snack while we wait for your other video essays. Would LOVE to see more!
Great new format! Was looking for a short video to watch and this was a great length!
Glad you brought up Outer Wilds and Tunic, especially in this video. I've played both of them in the last year and I can confidently say that there are few other games that entice me more to explore the world while also keeping it challenging and engaging. Outer Wilds has this elaborate tree of clues to the lore that have you both go to new planets and revisit ones you've already been to, while Tunic has you literally find the pages to the game's guidebook in game, only the pages are written in Tunic's fictional language, so you have to determine the next step in your quest based on what you can gather from the pages.
A breakdown of the structure of outer wilds would be a great video. Thereâs hints of metroidvania in the way the various paths are gated; but theyâre unlocked by key information, not key items or abilities.
Tunic was a beautiful love letter to Legend of Zelda, wrapped up in a neat little Souls-like package
@@panampace was totally gonna mention this! A player can technically beat the game within a few minutes of getting the launch codes, but you can only logically get to that point by exploring and piecing together the story hidden in the game.
@@panampace
Talking about Outer Wilds would be quite the challenge without spoiling it in any major way.
...Not that GMTK has any issues with spoiling games that is.
In which in referring to a video about a game called "The Witness"
Loved the shorter format!
Borderlands 3 does this as well. The level design is pretty open and promotes exploration, but if you take more than two seconds to interact with something, the characters pretty much nag you
Very good. Love this style of shorter video. I love the in-depth stuff too but unless Iâm sitting down to lunch or something while watching it I donât always have the time to focus on a 20 or 30 minute video so I tend to put off watching them for weeks and weeks
I really liked the video and the format as well :D
I really like puzzle games, although I'm not the best in them it really gives me a big boost when I figure out the answer to a hard one by myself, without the game telling me the answer right away.
I get bored easily of those games that have everything spelled out for you - markers on the map for everything, lists of things you need to do etc. I really love exploration in games and markers are good, but when I've already been to the place, as a reminder where it was. It really kills my joy for exploration when I start a new game with a bunch of markers telling me where I need to go straight away.
Your comment reminds me of assassins creed odyssey (and i think that this was in origins too), where you have the options of having a maker in the map showing you exactly where to go in the missions or a be told more or less where the mission may be, something like "to the north of the temple" and then you need to find the mission as it wouldn't be indicated where It is
I was just replaying GoW 1 and I kept turning to Atreus and saying "Boy! I don't remember asking you a GODDAMN THING!" It was infuriating. Just put an option to not get hints. We've had these forever.
You mean God of War 2018/God of War 4. There's no Atreus in God of War 1 (2005).
I think you mean God of War 4
There's an awesome game called Heaven's Vault where you are an archeologist finding scraps of ancient hieroglyphics scattered across the cosmos, and you have to assign a meaning to different sections of glyphs. The cool thing is that the game allows you to be wrong about the translation of a word, but after a few times of you using that word, it will either confirm or disprove your guess. I wish there was an option to remove that handholding entirely, and just have the game allow you to be wrong without any saftey nets, so you'd have to use your own wits to notice if one of your translations is correct or incorrect.
I remember the tutorial for golden sun 3. They used grownups to tell the tutorial. A memorable moment were when you could run ahead of the grownups. Then you got to a obstacle.
Now what happens?
Imagine if the tutorial only presented the explanations if the grownups caught up to you, but allowed you to run ahead and try for yourself until they reached that point.
Instead the game immediately paused. A text box popped op with a clear instruction on how to do it with arrows pointing at each step. It completely removed every possible hint of a puzzle and slowed down the game.
I liked the new format! It's a nice convenient bite-sized video to analyse something that's interesting but doesn't require a huge amount of depth. Great editing and script as always so I'm perfectly happy with it.
Itâs a shame it happened in Psychonauts 2 especially, remembered being particularly ticked off at the mental connection puzzle where you had to connect the right two thought bubbles among a little maze of alot of them. And the funny part is when you get the puzzle wrong, you get a special bit of dialogue that does infact relate those two thoughts. I quite simply wanted to get all the wrong ones just to appreciate that detail, but Raz HAD to just spell out the right answer before I was getting to that
For me, that was probably the hardest puzzle, outside of the three times it was just me being an idiot.
Absolutely this, it drove me crazy and the wrong solution dialogue was often funny.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this about God of War. I kept thinking this game should have an option to turn off npc hints
"games that play themself" yes a perfect description of the problem!
Loved the mini! Keep up the good work!
It feels like these games have become like guided tours. Itâs about quickly moving through the experience with little deviation.
Games have become "Ghost Train Rides".
AAA cutscene game has been a thing for a long time, as media keeps increasingly revolving around self inserts and marvel like storytelling its becoming even worse than before
They want to offer the Netflix experience. Play for an hour without hurdles or hiccups and then move on. That's why Kratos slides towards the enemy. Casual players get "frustrated" if hits don't connect.
I'm calling those the "Press X to" games. The devs boast about their shit being narrative and cinematic, but in the end, you just go through the motion and it's boring. Everything's on rails. No thanks.
Always insightful keep up the great work. I just mute the sound when I get into those puzzle rooms. See a cog, hit mute. See a wheel, hit mute.
Doesnât help when you have subtitles.
@@11clocky turn them offđ
Good, I like the short form videos as long as you keep the content focused and interesting. Also +1 for the Immortality nod, game deserves a lot more recognition.
I think what I find most fascinating is there are certainly people out there that really do want a game to play itself. Often when Iâve talked gaming with random people irl, Iâve noticed the ones with incredibly tight schedules tend to favor heavily linear games. Turns out people search for enjoyment in not only their preferred tastes, but also in the tiny cracks of free time that life allows
But is that because they have tight schedules, or because all the non-linear games seem to follow the same utterly unfun Ubisoft open world formula? I could have a whole weekend to do nothing but play games and I'd still play nothing but linear games. The open world genre has become 100% generic trash.
The problem is that even god of war has a story mode. I can't think of a single reason to make them spoil puzzles on normal difficulty before a 2-3min timer of set arena has counted down... Make it an accessibility option.
I understand wanting to just relax and take things easy but...at this point it's just going through the motions? Escaping tedium by participating in more formalities?
At that point just watch a movie.
@@mjc0961 generic lead by hand open world is not the same as an easy linear game.
I like puzzles in a game like Breath of the Wild or any of the Zelda games. The art style is so clean and crisp, it's very easy to see distinguishing features. I rarely get stuck in these games.
But I remember playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and there were definitely a handful of minor treasures I spent 25 minutes trying to get because I just didn't see something I needed to among all of that environmental detail. The puzzles are really basic - a lot of has to do with "Can you see the thing we want you to see?" That's 99% of the puzzles in this game. After awhile, you start to see patterns that optimize your search, but it can be rather frustrating the first time you encounter something new.
I think Assassin Creed's Labyrith's in Valhalla that housed the Fallen Hero armor and Blazing Sword were really great though. Some of them were tricky, but they were satisfying and I never felt completely flustered.
But in general, I think high-detailed, life-like environments need to lay off the puzzles, unless you embrace some true physics system where I can burn anything etc. rather than find your "developer sanctioned solution".
Yea I deffo feel that the increased level of detail and a sort of 'realism' makes puzzles harder because you don't know what to look for rather than actual difficulty. Once you've seen it once, it's okay as long as you remember.
The communication required for the player to read the environment is tied to the graphical style, but that applies to a lot of things aha
True. There have been several times in GoW:R where I've found valid solutions to puzzles that didn't work because the developer didn't want it to.
For example, in Svartalfheim, there was a puzzle where you needed to freeze a gear for a lift, but view of it was blocked my a big boulder when operating the chain that brings the lift down to you. Of course, upon entering the situation, my companion immediately said something like "too bad that big boulder's in the way!", but I was already working it out at that point. I thought "hey, I have these sigil arrows. I can balloon them up with multiple shots. Maybe if shoot the gear, and make a trail along the rocks, I can leave a sigil bubble in view from the chain, and freeze the gear around the cube!" Didn't work. Not due to any fault of my own, but because the axe simply didn't interact with the sigil arrows like it normally does. The actual solution, made obvious to me at this point by the chatty companion? "Blow up the rock!"
BOTW's puzzles were embarrassing for a game where puzzles are supposed to be essential though. 95% of the shrines were so short and easy likely due to the same reason of not creating friction for the average AAA player.
That being said I agree that too much detail with graphics create needless visual noise that makes it hard to read the objectives. Though in God of War Ragnarok all the puzzle and interactable elements very much stand out and easily distinguishable.
That âno guests past this pointâ sounds so much like a âturn around, that area doesnât really exist and you canât really go thereâ that Iâm not surprised people obeyed it. Iâd probably still try it, but I would be thinking the whole time âthis wonât workâ.
Like the format. Love this channel but shorter formats from time to time are good. See your video on keeping players engaged, the varying pacing is nice refresher ;-)
I appreciate the shortened format! Still a clear communication of your key points, but I definitely hope it doesn't discourage more long-form content. Thanks for the quality work!
One of my biggest pet peeves with modern games is the games themselves being impatient with the player as demonstrated here. Sometimes I just want to take time to appreciate a breathtaking environment that you can tell artists painstakingly agonized over details for only to have in-game companions relentlessly urging you to keep moving forward. When it comes to puzzles, as long as the solution isn't annoyingly obtuse, I actually *like* being stumped and having to take time away from the game to really think about it. Nothing beats the satisfaction of finally working out the mechanical logic of a complex obstacle.
I'm plagued with ADHD myself but I wholeheartedly resent this age of instant gratification. People just trying to consume as much as possible in as little time as possible and getting irrationally upset and frustrated at any difficulty whatsoever. I will never remember the majority of these linear hand-holding titles that rushed me onwards, never allowing me to appreciate the efforts of the design teams. On the other hand, I will always remember having to take a week to get through some of the final puzzles in both Portal titles and how good I felt figuring that shit out for myself.
That reminds me a bit of Stray. You're actively encouraged to take a break and do cat things once in a while.
It also doesn't tell you much about where to go, other than a description of the current quests. And one skill you have to learn is how to get around the area as a cat. You're small, fit into gaps, can jump and walk on narrow ledges and beams, and you can just walk past many barriers. But for the most part, you have to figure it out on your own.
Whats more, instant gratification and lots of stimuli *cause*, or *worsen*, ADHD. I donât get why hints canât be a button prompt. Iâve played a few games that after a few seconds prompt you to hit a button if you want a hint. Donât just shove it on my face within 10 seconds! That just takes agency away from the player, no wonder so many people 30 and under canât work things out by themselves
"People just trying to consume as much as possible in as little time as possible and getting irrationally upset and frustrated at any difficulty whatsoever."
You've actually got that a little backwards. It's not that people are trying to do a lot in a short time but that publishers are trying to shove as much on us as possible. Think about movies. Did anyone actually _ask_ for a new Star Wars movie every year?
Publishers know that if we finish their game in a couple of weeks, and if that game was a "AAA" experience, we'll be ready to buy the next release as soon as it comes out, convinced that the extreme production values indicated a high quality game.
On the other hand, I'm sure most people don't beat all the gyms in each new Pokemon game they play, and fewer still even concern themselves with completing the Pokedex. The player is allowed to tailor their own goals in the game, even as the game itself points them where to go. I think that's a good thing.
@@AnotherDuck And then there's the NPCs of Elden Ring who just tells you to go somewhere to do something for someone đ
@@alvareo92 That's not just games, but helicopter parenting and society assuming kids should be allowed to be "just kids". Children like to be challenged and have responsibilities and they should be for them to become strong adults, but our society is failing in that altogether because there is a general favor towards projecting our insecurities instead of our talent and whining about everything being wrong and out of our control instead of what's going right and how we can work together to make it better. It's amazing how easily you can let go of these neurotic attitudes by simply surrounding yourself with an environment that trusts and supports instead of scrutinizing every step of the way.
Great video. The most frustrating thing about this is that it really wouldn't have been that much development effort to allow for turning those spoilers off with a setting, or make them optional.
It really shows that more serious players who don't want to be handheld are at the bottom of a studio's priority list
The analogy with movies is even more accurate than you think : while playing Ragnarok with a friend, we just couldn't believe how eager the game is to constantly take the controller away from you for more and more unskippable cutscenes ( and coming from a Persona fan, this is saying a lot ). Or worse, when it treats you with false gameplay, like picking fruits with Angrboda.
Sometimes i'm wondering if triple A games aren't just trying to turn themselves into actual movies rather than letting you play. I mean if i wanted to watch movies, i'd just watch a damn movie.
I brought this up to my roommate who is playing the game and he brushed it off. I think most players don't care and treat it as background noise.
It doesn't ruin the game for me personally but it actually does verge on it when characters will tell you before you even see there's a puzzle lol. I walk into an area and they immediately go maybe you could move that platform... I ain't seen the platform yet..??
I wasn't bothered at first by it as well, but after a dozen hours it did struck on my nerves
Because they just go through the motion of what the game tells them to do... Why even bother then.
Agree 100%. I hope more games start to find that balance between adding accessibility and essentially playing the game for the player. I can sympathise to some degree, but I think the success of Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild indicates there's an appetite for more free form games. Games where the player is making decisions and feeling jeopardy, not the character.
The new format is great btw, I'd love to see more!
True, it isn't accessibility-related when it's included by default and mandatory rather than opt-in
Well yes there is a market for free form games, but as he said, GoW has a bigger budget than both elden ring and BotW, and the bigger the budget the more pressure for more people to finish the game. And even though elden ring has a bigger completion rate than other fromsoft games, it's still at 40%. Idk what the numbers are for BotW
â@@goudenso8618 If the only way to get someone to complete a game is to play it for them, then that statistic is a hindrance. It leads to games that are 'terrified of letting the player think for themselves'. I understand the motive, and I'm not suggesting Ragnarok should be like ER or BOTW. Just give the player some room to breathe and leave the more egregious handholding as an option at most.
Would love to see more videos like this as long as they don't replace the longer ones. I love the longer breakdowns of design philosophies and tropes in video games but I would also like to see the shorter bite sized videos about more niche aspects.
I am incredibly bad at solving puzzles in games and picking up any kind of subtle clues within them. In the tomb raider sliders and jedi fallen order example you showed, I played tomb raider on the lowest puzzle difficulty and in fallen order I still needed video tutorials at multiple points on top of spamming the hints. Personally my favourite way to play ragnarok would likely be with as much hint input as possible, but this certainly shouldn't be the default, or at least optional. Enjoyed hearing you speak on this.
The 1% right here ^^
@@victorprati7908
For what is worth, I really love this video format. We get more GMTK content, which is always a plus, and, as you comment yourself in the video, you are able to tackle more trending games.
About the hints, I appreciate them in certain games where the puzzles are not the focus. But I certainly prefer that the developers give me ample time to figure them out on my own.
Literally had this exact complaint yesterday and was looking for the option to turn it off in the menu. Was surprised not to find it.
Same
The same!
Those four games that are mentioned at the end of the video are absolutely fantastic btw, I highly recommend you guys give them a try: Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds, Immortality, Tunic.
Big fan of the short form video here. I got stuck on a puzzle in Kena: Bridge of Spirits today and felt bad that I had to look up the solution. It must be really hard to design these puzzles to feel new and interesting while also being clear enough to solve without needing hints.
I was JUST chatting with some friends about this. You did a great job looking at it and echoed a lot of my concerns as well. Makes things like Elden Ring really stand out from the crowd of most big games.
i was playin Elden Ring almost constantly in offline mode (even no palyer signs) and it really felt lots of times like goin back to olden ages of games. was nice.
Love this format! Great way to have your input on things that are being talked about without having to spend weeks putting together a full episode and throwing your schedule too far out!
When you mentioned tunic it made me spark with joy đ Iâd love a video on itđ
The breaking point for me was when I was on a mission with Brok, and *he* started solving the puzzles for me. If there's one guy who I expected to let me do the thinking, it was him!