Hard Mode: Would make every final fantasy a million times more fun and addictive.

[kriminal99]

Seriously? What the heck is your problem? So sorry Gaddafi, I thought intelligence was relevant to engineering psychologically addictive video games...

[fire_of_avalon]

Problem is the fact that two members are arguing instead of debating and taking things to a personal level. Also that you're being pretty heavy handed with your ideas that most people suck. Generalizations don't make for very good reasoning.

If you want to discuss intelligence vs. game programming that's okay. If you want to talk about intelligence in general, make a new thread. Otherwise please drop it.

Also, really? Comparing Wolf to Gadhafi? Let's be a little more realistic, Wolf is more like the UN in this situation.

[kriminal99]

Winning a debate vs someone who falsely fancies themselves some kind of authority does not = Arguing or heavy handed tactics. Nor did I take it to a personal level.

I am sorry I know so much more than an ex forum moderator who is arguing not based on any kind of knowledge but on a belief that people will agree with her on the desire to see the world in terms of rainbows and lollipops.

It's really sad how the vast majority of human beings when given any amount of power over anything think then they are free to reinterpret reality so that anyone who disagrees with them and/or especially wins an argument with them has done something immoral and wrong. All power over anything is given to better handle some responsibility, and the need to best deal with that responsibility precludes any such absurd claims that anyone who disagrees with you has done something wrong.

No subject can be resolved when artificial boundaries are constructed regarding where the discussion can head. Every topic has dependent issues, which themselves have dependent issues, and nothing can be resolved until everything a topic rests on has been resolved first.

[qwertysaur]

Some people just play games because hitting a goblin with ultima is fun in their opinion.

You don't need to have a hard mode made into the game for it to be fun, you can just make your own restrictions. Like no using espers in FF VI for example.

[NeoCracker]

NeoCracker: Its not the only thing that makes P3 hard but it is something that makes you think and forces the player to not stick to one strategy, instead actually branching out and trying all the other characters. I would argue though that switching out one party member for another in order to prevent the computer from exploiting their innate weakness is by definition strategy.

We agree, I just think it's a relatively small part of the reason those game are hard, and the the switching of character is such a simple thing to do it's not exactly a heavy level of debpth.

Don't get me wrong, it's definately a good Idea to add that into the systems of other games, definately a step in the right directions.

But the last thing I want is for people to get the Idea that is so massively important to difficulty to the point it becomes a major focus, in which case it will either become massively easy to abuse or just straight up not fair.

Persona relegates it to a small and fairly easy to manage part of the difficulty on it's own, and they are wonderful for it.

Some people just play games because hitting a goblin with ultima is fun in their opinion.

You don't need to have a hard mode made into the game for it to be fun, you can just make your own restrictions. Like no using espers in FF VI for example.

I'd argue that is when a game developer has failed. One should not be required to make their own restrictions to make a game challenging. It is their job to entertain us, not for us to entertain ourselves.

Mind you, I don't like games being to easy though, so it's an issue for me, not so much for others.

[VeloZer0]

I'd argue that is when a game developer has failed. One should not be required to make their own restrictions to make a game challenging. It is their job to entertain us, not for us to entertain ourselves.

I agree and disagree with this statement. Yes, if you are forced to handicap yourself on your first playthrough to make it fun then the game developer has failed. It is complete BS for people to say "maybe you just shouldn't have done 'x' and you would have had more fun."

However I don't see how this can apply to future playthroughs. Once you have already mastered the game and beaten it one or more times the difficulty curve will obviously be completely different for you than a first time player. So you might want to spice it up a little.

[Depression Moon]

It is complete BS for people to say "maybe you just shouldn't have done 'x' and you would have had more fun."

I don't agree with that. I remember seeing a review of VIII from someone and he complained about having to sit and draw magic from enemies for minutes upon minutes. Drawing that much isn't necessary for that game. He was purposely making it less fun for himself by just sitting there and drawing from 2 enemies for 5 minutes. I won't blame a feature of a game that's not that detrimental in the first place. I only draw every once in a while when I play the game and do fine.

[VeloZer0]

But you have to understand that for some people having to pass up 'treasure' is also un-fun and detrimental to the game experience. In that case it becomes a lesser of two evils question. And when your player is choosing game paths based on which they will dislike least I don't think you can claim success as a game developer.

This is the closes real world example I can think of. From time to time I will be presented with a extremely difficult physical task (lifting something heavy, new workout exercise, you get the idea). I just about always take on the task, often times inflicting some sort of minor injury (soreness, bruising, etc..) upon myself. Of course people say I am stupid for doing this, but what they don't understand is that if I didn't try I am going to be upset about it all weak. So the fallout from actually doing it is the lesser of two evils. Not performing the task isn't going to make me any happier. I hope this makes things clearer and not less.

[TrollHunter]

Some people just play games because hitting a goblin with ultima is fun in their opinion.

You don't need to have a hard mode made into the game for it to be fun, you can just make your own restrictions. Like no using espers in FF VI for example.

Or an all freelancer / solo run in ff3. FF12 is full of self challenges, like a low level game, no license board etc. I like challenges like this but on games like final fantasy tactics A2 where I have to actually make obvious mistakes on purpose to give myself a challenge, now thats BS. (I like A2 but the AI is stupider then a bag of bricks)

[NeoCracker]

I'd argue that is when a game developer has failed. One should not be required to make their own restrictions to make a game challenging. It is their job to entertain us, not for us to entertain ourselves.

I agree and disagree with this statement. Yes, if you are forced to handicap yourself on your first playthrough to make it fun then the game developer has failed. It is complete BS for people to say "maybe you just shouldn't have done 'x' and you would have had more fun."

However I don't see how this can apply to future playthroughs. Once you have already mastered the game and beaten it one or more times the difficulty curve will obviously be completely different for you than a first time player. So you might want to spice it up a little.

I should be clear that I'm meaning soley on the first play through. Future play throughs are not at all an issue with me when it comes to difficulty. Otherwise I wouldn't have beaten Chrono Trigger as often as I did.

It is complete BS for people to say "maybe you just shouldn't have done 'x' and you would have had more fun."

I don't agree with that. I remember seeing a review of VIII from someone and he complained about having to sit and draw magic from enemies for minutes upon minutes. Drawing that much isn't necessary for that game. He was purposely making it less fun for himself by just sitting there and drawing from 2 enemies for 5 minutes. I won't blame a feature of a game that's not that detrimental in the first place. I only draw every once in a while when I play the game and do fine.

If you refer to 'The Spoony One's' review, he did that because 1) He got a tone of requests to do a video of him Drawing, for some reason, and 2) He did it for laughs.

He even admits in the next part of the review you don't really need to draw that much, as there are other ways you can obtain the magic and faster to boot. His complaint was it still amounted to little more then Busy work to do it.

I also take issues with games giving you a system, and you can just out right ignore it and achieve the same results. It makes me wonder why the hell the system is there to begin with. But that's a topic for another time and place.