Your thoughts on the lives system

[Delta]

While I get that the lives system is there for authenticity I find myself wondering if as a mechanic it adds more than it takes away. It could just be that I have less patience for games now I'm older and have less free time but the idea of having to replay a whole level just to have another crack at a boss I'm struggling against feels frustrating and more like artificial difficulty rather than a proper challenge.

I should stress I'm not saying the game should be easier, in fact a more forgiving checkpoint system would mean you could afford to make things more challenging, all I'm opposed to is having to repeat several minutes of gameplay I've already proved I can do in order to get another try at the bit I'm actually having difficulty with.

Maybe you could get the best of both worlds by making the lives system present but optional, or making 100 rings/1ups award some other benefit so they're still desirable, e.g. a token you can trade for secrets (the way some roguelikes give you points you can spend on permanent bonuses at the end of a run).

[Blackest Knight]

Personally, I don't care. Given how generous the game is with rings and extra lives, I feel like if you ♥♥♥♥ up that much there should be a punishment, and the one they have is fitting to me.

Then again I played the hell out of the older Sonic games so I'm probably not the right person to ask.

[Delta]

Originally posted by Blackimar64:

Personally, I don't care. Given how generous the game is with rings and extra lives, I feel like if you ♥♥♥♥ up that much there should be a punishment, and the one they have is fitting to me.

Then again I played the hell out of the older Sonic games so I'm probably not the right person to ask.

I played them too but I still had issues with the oil ocean boss and its insta-kills the first time through.

As for "there should be a punishment for failure", I'd have said starting a boss from the beginning is punishment enough, whereas making the player spend 5-10 minutes replaying an entire level is just wasting their time and more frustraing than fun.

And if the best thing you can say about a mechanic is "it didn't negatively effect my experience" then I don't think it's doing enough good to justify its existence and any frustration, however small, it causes other players.

[The73MPL4R]

Originally posted by Blackimar64:

Personally, I don't care. Given how generous the game is with rings and extra lives, I feel like if you ♥♥♥♥ up that much there should be a punishment, and the one they have is fitting to me.

Then again I played the hell out of the older Sonic games so I'm probably not the right person to ask.

And even then there are an overabundance of Star Posts in each level because they really want you to play Blue Sphere

[Delta]

Originally posted by 73MPL4R:

Originally posted by Blackimar64:

Personally, I don't care. Given how generous the game is with rings and extra lives, I feel like if you ♥♥♥♥ up that much there should be a punishment, and the one they have is fitting to me.

Then again I played the hell out of the older Sonic games so I'm probably not the right person to ask.

And even then there are an overabundance of Star Posts in each level because they really want you to play Blue Sphere

Star posts don't matter if you run out of lives though, which was sorta the point of my topic.

[NeutroDevice]

Get good.

[Delta]

Originally posted by NeutroDevice:

Get good. :Spurk:

Funny you should mention that meme. I was going to mention that even Dark Souls doesn't make you replay entire levels (thanks to shortcuts, regular bonfires and unlimited lives) because it knows the difference between the fun kind of difficulty and just wasting the player's time with repetition of a task they've already demonstrated they can complete.

[Warrior of Right]

Ya poeple don't seem to realise checkpoints and harder games go hand in hand so you not repeating the same ♥♥♥♥ 50 times cause of 1 BS part at the end you can't practice.....
The Dark Spirits has retarrded an entire gaming generation (not that it already wasn't)

[Kitt 🌟 Stargazer]

The games pretty easy enough as is honestly... I went through 5 play throughs of the game already from start to finish and each one I had around 40 to 50 lives by the time I beat the game. On my Knuckles & Knuckles run I actually had 57 lives stockpiled when I beat the final boss...

This game isn't remotely hard at all IMO to need such a change.

[Doc Holiday]

My thoughts? It should remain exactly as it is. People with your mindset is ruining today's games.

[Shark Bait]

For me I think platformers should always have lives, there needs to be some punishment for failure. As an example in racers, shooters, etc. the punishment for death is losing valuable time that because you died you might not get back. In a platformer the punishment should be the threat of having to completely redo a stage.

[residentleever]

Artificial as opposed to what?

I like it, always did. Lives system adds tension and an endurance element to the challenge, which ideally results in more satisfaction from beating the game. It also makes exploration more meaningful, for more lives or super transformation besides new gimmicks you might've missed. If an entire zone is super easy and you only have trouble with the main boss though, then that part is simply unbalanced. Personally I was only frustrated with the real final boss, as I didn't get a chance to get a feel for the controls and patterns and game over'd on it a couple of times, getting impatient and losing lives in the prior level. But I also liked the final level a bit more after learning it.

Kinda the same deal with the special stages since you normally go fairly long between being able to practice them and learning to use the analog stick and jump in turns (the first isn't hinted at at all, second is only after a few courses IIRC but it's kinda subtle) makes things a lot easier. I liked Sonic Time Twisted's mechanic of letting you buy more tries in them using your lives. Not a big deal if you beat the game and farm the GHZ rings though, but I learned about that through YT and not the game.

OOZ boss insta-kill is a bug and shouldn't be part of the discussion.

Anyway, I'm sure someone will mod lives out of Mania soon and then it'll be optional.

[Hyper Realistic Blood]

Lives are pointless. The game hands you so many, they may as well not even bother.

I have 27 lives in my Knuckles save at Mirage Saloon! 27! I'm not that good at the game, and I haven't been trying to hold on to rings or collect lives, it just kinda happened.

What do I even do with them? I'm probably not going to die 27 times without collecting another life before the end of the game, especially when I only need to collect one ring over and over if I'm having trouble with anything that's not a pit or crusher.

[Raziel]

Git gud

[DONK]

You only have to start the zone over again, back in Sonic 1 and 2 you had to start the entire game over again when you ran out of lives and contiunes so I think it's more than fair,

If you're getting game overs then explore the levels more for 1ups and play till you beat the boss.

[NeutroDevice]

Originally posted by Delta:

Originally posted by NeutroDevice:

Get good.

Funny you should mention that meme. I was going to mention that even Dark Souls doesn't make you replay entire levels (thanks to shortcuts, regular bonfires and unlimited lives) because it knows the difference between the fun kind of difficulty and just wasting the player's time with repetition of a task they've already demonstrated they can complete.

It wasnt a meme, i actually mean it. The game is really forgiving already, with being allowed to grab your rings back to keep going and having a lot of extra lives monitors and rings in the first levels.

You have no patience

Just learn from your mistakes, and you'll get through it. The game is about trial and error after all, you should adapt yourself to the game, not the other way around.

No easy mode 4 u