Next up on Worth Reading: The other team should just fucking let me win when I play baseball.
well this isn’t necessarily a bad point. there are games with great stories and really awful shoehorned fighting sequences. then you also have handicapped/disabled gamers who don’t necessarily have the dexterity to finish a game but would still like to be able to.
optional “cakewalk” modes aren’t that bad of an idea.
what if i want to just see the story of the game and dont want to actually play it? like??
as it is i would never pay for a bioshock game or a fallout game but i am very interested in the story. so i just watch youtube videos of it. they could get money from me if they sold the skip combat mode
i’m a games developer and an avid gamer and i really really think games should let you skip combat
honestly one of my favourite things about la noire was when you failed a sequence twice the game was like “yo do you just wanna skip this bit?”
the gaming industry/community has a huge problem with accessibility tbh. like, thank god for standardised control schemes (although bring back full customisation jfc not enough games have that anymore) but fights require time, literacy in both that type of gaming & in the individual game, you need to be able to navigate the system which can be anywhere from slightly difficult to hellish for people with visual/audio processing disorders. and tbh sometimes you just wanna enjoy the story and not get stressed the hell out doing the sAME FIGHT 700 times. it’s why i always put a game on easy/casual when I’m replaying unless i’m specifically going for difficulty based achievements.
not to mention SO MANY GAMES have either poorly designed battles or fights that have been shoved in for no reason other than to pad out the game (dxhr & da2 come to mind immediately) that sometimes it’d honestly improve the gameplay to just skip them altogether
Imagine if you were a gamer with arthritis or MS or some other disability that took away your ability to click buttons quickly, and every fight became as frustrating as THAT GODDAMN DA: ORIGINS OH FUCK I’M ON FIRE SLIDE PUZZLE.
Yeah. Skipping combat might seem like a not bad idea then.
Mass Effect 3 has this:
[Screenshot from a Mass Effect 3 menu, with title: “Choose Your Experience”, showing the options ‘action’, ‘role playing’ and ‘story’.]
‘Action’ makes most story choices for you and conversations become straight up cutscenes. ‘Role playing’ is the default experience, both challenging gameplay and character/story building. And ‘story’ has the roleplaying but very easy combat, letting you breeze through it. (You also have a ‘casual’ difficulty setting that’s a bit more rewarding but still pretty easy.)
The thing about video games (particularly RPGs or in general games that allow you to explore or direct the story) is that the interactivity is what makes it different from movies or watching LPs on youtube. And I’ve played games that got FAR stronger emotional reactions out of me simply because I had to carry out the actions myself rather than just watching. And that experience should be more accessible.
Because SHOCKINGLY: games aren’t always about winning, or being good at it. It’s about having fun. This is kindergarten education here.
Yeah, it always baffles me when I see people react so negatively to a perfectly reasonable suggestion like this.
Why the hell shouldn’t games let you skip combat if you want to? Why shouldn’t there be a super-duper-easy-peasy mode for everything? No-one is gonna force YOU to play it like that if you don’t want to! Continue to be as hardcore as you like!
I just don’t understand the resistance at all. What we’re talking about is simply having more options for gamers. You’re adding something that would make games more accessible and fun for loads of new fans, and you’re not taking ANYTHING away from existing fans.
Like…do you…not want more people to enjoy these games?? Do you really hate the idea of other people having fun so much that you’ll rile against it even when it literally has no effect on you or your experience whatsoever?? Are you honestly that selfish??
I am *horrifically* bad at gaming, but it’s a genre that I’m intensely interested in and very desperately want to be more immersed in. I would HAPPILY buy so many more games if combat was a skippable option.
Not to mention one of the best indie games out right now is pretty much telling you if you want the best ending, don’t fight.
Yeah, I hate the elitist mentality that only those ~*~*hardcore*~*~ enough should be allowed to enjoy video games. I mean, gaming should be an experience to be had and not just an obstacle to clear, right?
Then again, my poor mental health situation and chronic pain+mobility issues on my right hand means that my gaming options are severely limited nowadays. So I’m all about making gaming accessible for everyone in the first place.
Anyone who thinks gaming will be ruined by making it more accessible need to realize that they have already ruined gaming for many.
Anyone who thinks gaming will be ruined by making it more accessible need to realize that they have already ruined gaming for many.
I’m so grateful for things like story mode and being able to skip if you die a couple times. Like, I have a lot of experience playing games and have no disabilities that would hamper me doing so, but I still really appreciate the ability to skip or make things really easy. Sometimes you just don’t want to play the same mission 50 times to finally beat it. Sometimes folks just need a frickin break. And that’s okay.
I’m just amused that the second commenter is totally confusing single-player with PVP.
Anyway…
Games are for fun.
Games have lots of ways to make playing them be more fun than tedious, starting with the option to save and going on to tutorials, multiple or infinite lives, instant healing, unrealistically large inventories, automatic mission notes, autocompleting maps, in-world GPS, hints, highlighting interactive objects, key prompts, ability to replay dialogue, buffs and power-ups, undiscardable mission items, easy to parse HP bars for the player AND the enemy, blocked friendly fire, selective damage from weapons….the list goes on.
This is all to enable FUN via INCREASING ACCESSIBILITY. Yes, the term applies to everyone, not just the officially disabled. You want to strip your average game of all the stuff I mentioned above?
No, you don’t, because while insanely difficult games with permadeath and no save points used to be the standard and are a valid subgenre, they are not what most people want to be limited to when choosing their entertainment.
So, really, an option to skip combat or puzzles you’re not able or willing to do is not exactly out of line with the concept of making a game enjoyable, is it? Which would be the priority, since it’s…you know…a game?
Skipping gameplay is not accessibility.
So, really, an option to skip combat or puzzles you’re not able or
willing to do is not exactly out of line with the concept of making a
game enjoyable, is it?
Those make playing the game easier, by skipping you’re not playing the game.
And the person above me missed THE ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT.
No, you and people like you are missing the point.
Skipping gameplay is not accessibility, you’re not making the game more accessible, just the cutscenes. True accessibility allows people to engage with the game as a whole.
Too many games nowadays have great methods of melding the gameplay with the actual game’s story or interaction for something as crucial as the gameplay to be cut out or just rendered skippable. Ignoring the gameplay not only makes the game shorter but also robs the idea that the game is an experience for the player to behold, and instead makes it a linear track that the “player”(Or rather movie goer) to just watch. Not only does that make the game static but it basically kills any form of replay value cause instead of a game you got an oddly cut together movie.
and On a personal note, it feels like an insult to the game developer. Put yourselves in their shoes: Why in world would you make this puzzle, gameplay element, or entire gameplay section, that you’ve probably spent months and weeks working on skippable just because a handful of people either; suck at the gameplay part of the game you’ve made, or are too lazy to actually play through it. That's literally months and weeks of work down the drain because they’re just here for the cutscenes
If you, people, want to see just the story & not put effort into the GAMEplay part of the GAME you’ve probably spent nearly forty or more dollars on, then just watch a movie(Its cheaper and giving you the same unadjustable experience) watch a non-commentary walkthrough on youtube(Free and at least you’ll see someone actually playing a game) or better yet just search the bloody cutscenes on youtube that people have been getting posted there since 2012(like the other one its free and cuts the meat out of your meal like you want)
And by the by, this isn’t some “elitist” mindset that you actually have to play the game to a competent degree to get what you want out of it. If you suck at the game and refuse to get better at it, despite the fact that you have an unlimited amount of opportunities to get better at it, then that's just you refusing to play the game as it was intended and feeling as though it should adjust itself outside of its parameters to accommodate you. If you want something out of a game, you’re gonna have to put a little effort into actually playing it.
P.S.: On the stance of accessibility, yes the disabled may find it difficult to play a few games, but that more lies in the console the game are on rather than the game itself.
P.P.S.: Skipping gameplay in the name of accessibility is an excuse and honestly really lazy. If you want a cutscene movie go to youtube, instead of saying the game should skip over most of the work put into it, because someone is either bad at the game, or don’t feel like putting effort into playing it.
If you only want to see the cut scenes, just go look at a YouTube video. It isn’t even a game at that point, it’s just a movie. I can understand anti-frustration methods that can make a certain part of the game easier after it’s been failed a certain number of times and once the player passes it, the game goes back to normal difficulty but this is excessive.
If you want games to be more accessible, put some more work into thinking up solutions instead of just removing any and all combat/puzzles from the game or just play the game on easy from the start.
Have dexterity/mobility issues? Differently designed controllers that are larger and/or have the buttons arranged so not so many finger movements or pressure need to be used in order to achieve the same result as a normal controller.
Only one arm/hand? Controllers that are designed to incorporate all of the buttons into one “side” so you can easily hold and use it in one hand.
If you have mental health issues, perhaps the best thing to do is to just play the game on easy (which is already there in most games) and avoid games that are stress heavy (I.e a lot of QTE, puzzles, etc.). You have to take care of yourself and if certain types of gameplay make your mental health bad, don’t play them. Just go watch the game on YouTube.
Y’all aren’t looking to actually play the game. You’re looking for something/someone to complete it for you so you can say “Yeah I did it” when the reality of it things like just letting you skip combat, puzzles, etc. entirely to the point that they’re basically non-existent isn’t a game anymore. It’s just a movie.
“what if i want to just see the story of the game and dont want to actually play it?”
It’s called going to youtube and finding a Let’s Play you lazy dumbass, holy shit y’all are pathetic.
this website has destroyed my sense of humour, last night i was in bed with my bf and i had a mental image of an egg with the word suspicious written on it and honestly lost my shit
So I just discovered something straight out of a fever dream…
Apparently, from 2014 to 2017 a number of artists from all over the world recreated the Manga Akira with characters from The Simpsons and called it “Bartkira”
and this wasn’t just some “ha ha look at this funny thing” oneshot…
they recreated all 6 volumes with 300-400 pages each
Bart is Kaneda, Millhouse is Tetsuo and Akira… well Ralph is Akira…
I wish I was making this up…
Is this the rumored American Akira remake? We’ll never know…
well the original website doesn’t seem to work properly anymore so I uploaded all 6 volumes here for all of you to enjoy… have fun
