Should games be frustrating?

[Ommamar]

I was watching an interview with someone who was an animator who worked for Bethesda for seven years. He started on the Shivering Isle DLC and worked up through Fallout 4 Far Harbor DLC. He has also made a documentary called your finally awake where there are 8 other developers he worked with talking about Skyrim. One thing that struck me is a comment he made how when he would go into Todd Howard's office Todd would be kicked back on a bean bag chair playing the latest build. He would give the developers notes on things he thought where hindering the game play, with the idea of make it simpler instead of "make it work".

That image just made me realize the shift I saw from Morrowind (I would say Daggerfall but that was basically a whole different group of people involved that moved on after) to Skyrim. The stripping of things like port (set an anchor use the anchor to get back to the point), levitate, spell making, or even simple things like spears as a weapon type.

So I began to ponder does frustration or difficulty turn me off from a game? I don't mean things like make you do less damage while the enemy does more. Rather how you had to sit and figure things out in older games. Where you could become immensely strong but started out very week just struggling to fight the simplest of enemies. A couple example is I have seen people who have tried the Unity version of Daggerfall not able to make it out of the starter dungeon so they dismissed the game. Or they go into the first little dungeon next to the starter town in Morrowind and a rat or one of those little slug things kill them so they decide the game isn't any good.

Personally I kind of like game where things aren't so clear there are clues and hints but no arrow or actual beam of light showing you the path to follow. It makes it so much more satisfying when I do accomplish something. Maybe it is just the conditioning of being a gamer for some 40 years that make me enjoy it. By the way your party died of dysentery because your dumb ass just hunted deer the whole time<laugh>!

[[TG] zac]

I mean there are definitely things that can be done to limit frustration like having a good UI and good tutorials with clear instructions on how to do things.

Stripping things out is sadly what happens because its faster and easier to strip things out then to improve them and refine the mechanics.

Having played all the elder scrolls & fallouts since Arena & fallout 1 came out in the 90s though I probably won't end up buying 6 when and if it does drop until it is at a heavy discount and after quite a while so it can be heavily modded. if at all unless it brings back a ton of RPG mechanics.

I say this because to me (and quite a few other older players) fallout 4 & skyrim felt more like a shooter & hack and slash then rpg's.

[Ommamar]

Originally posted by TG zac:

I mean there are definitely things that can be done to limit frustration like having a good UI and good tutorials with clear instructions on how to do things.

Stripping things out is sadly what happens because its faster and easier to strip things out then to improve them and refine the mechanics.

Having played all the elder scrolls & fallouts since Arena & fallout 1 came out in the 90s though I probably won't end up buying 6 when and if it does drop until it is at a heavy discount and after quite a while so it can be heavily modded. if at all unless it brings back a ton of RPG mechanics.

I say this because to me (and quite a few other older players) fallout 4 & skyrim felt more like a shooter & hack and slash then rpg's.

I agree I have really fallen into a wait for a discount mode on the newer games, especially a single player game where the experience isn't going to change unless I take steps like mods to change it.

I haven't even gotten cyberpunk 2077 yet but I will the next pay check as it is currently heavily discounted to include the DLC everyone says is a must to get the full experience. I am also leery of the ultimate edition trend that has become prevalent the last 7 years or so,

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Ommamar:

Originally posted by TG zac:

I mean there are definitely things that can be done to limit frustration like having a good UI and good tutorials with clear instructions on how to do things.

Stripping things out is sadly what happens because its faster and easier to strip things out then to improve them and refine the mechanics.

Having played all the elder scrolls & fallouts since Arena & fallout 1 came out in the 90s though I probably won't end up buying 6 when and if it does drop until it is at a heavy discount and after quite a while so it can be heavily modded. if at all unless it brings back a ton of RPG mechanics.

I say this because to me (and quite a few other older players) fallout 4 & skyrim felt more like a shooter & hack and slash then rpg's.

I agree I have really fallen into a wait for a discount mode on the newer games, especially a single player game where the experience isn't going to change unless I take steps like mods to change it.

I haven't even gotten cyberpunk 2077 yet but I will the next pay check as it is currently heavily discounted to include the DLC everyone says is a must to get the full experience. I am also leery of the ultimate edition trend that has become prevalent the last 7 years or so,

I'd say cyberpunk is worth it, especially with mods.
I got it at the last holiday sale and it definitely scratches the itch for the amount of play styles and options it offers.

[Mattee]

What I can tell you personally about me, if you care, is that I love the survival mode mechanics in Skyrim and Fallout 4, Fallout 4 in particular, for the exact reasons that it makes little nuisances seem more interesting. Without survival mode I tend to ignore food items. I just hoard stimpacks and healing potions.

It’s actually something Starfield is missing greatly. I think this approach of “making it simpler” dulls the experience to what Starfield is - which is effectively a fast travel game where you teleport between quests and do dungeons. They even took something like the survival mode and made it just flat buffs and debuffs with the food and drink items. If your character has eaten in the past 30 minutes, you have X more stats. If they haven’t, you have X less. That is too simple in my opinion. I personally loved the way Fallout 4 did the AP meter thing where it gradually closes off more and more of it the hungrier and thirstier you got.

So I do think there is such a thing as ‘too simple’. I want to feel like I’m actually doing things in a game, like the choices I make have meaning. Elden Ring has a great map in which you can put markers on things, different symbols, you can keep track of where you’ve been and what you’ve done but you have to do it manually. The game doesn’t automatically tell you that you’ve cleared something. That little extra step of having me do that myself as the player is a big deal to me. Sometimes these annoyances or nuisances really make a game interesting.

Think about how much cooler and more fun Starfield would be with the scrapped fuel mechanic? Having to actually restock fuel for your ship… Something Todd Howard described as “a fun killer”. I disagree, Todd.