Your Least Favorite Place in Gaming
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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There are a lot of… places in gaming. A lot of spaces. But the one space that I think is so often thought about but rarely talked about is the space between the respawn point and the boss or even where you are currently stuck at. Today on Psych of Play, let’s dive into that gap and talk about how our minds handle when that space is small and when it is vast.
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▶Games Shown
Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) - Rockstar Games
Hollow Knight (2017) - Team Cherry
Metroid Dread (2021) - Mercury Steam
NieR:Automata (2017) - PlatinumGames
Undertale (2015) - Toby Fox
Dark Souls (2011) - FromSoftware
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) - Nintendo
Ghost of Tsushima (2020) - Sucker Punch Productions
Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) - Square Enix
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (2021) - ILCA
Control (2019) - Remedy Entertainment
Persona 5 (2016) - Atlus, P Studio
BioShock (2007) - 2K Games
Firewatch (2016) - Campo Santo
Florence (2018) - Florence
Mario Golf: Super Rush (2021) - Nintendo
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) - Eidos-Montréal
Deltarune Chapter 2 (2021) - Toby Fox
Metroid Prime (2002) - Nintendo
OMORI (2020) - OMOCAT, LLC
Pokemon Ruby (2001) - Game Freak
Gris (2018) - Nomada Studio
Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) - Guerilla Games
Magic: The Gathering Arena (2018) - Wizards of the Coast, Digital Games Studio
Resident Evil Village (2021) - Capcom
Control (2019) - Remedy Entertainment
Astral Chain (2019) - Platinum Games
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020) - Omega Force
Celeste (2018) - Matt Makes Games
Super Mario Bros (1985) - Nintendo
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019) - FromSoftware
Cyber Shadow (2020) - Aarne Hunziker
Elden Ring (2022) - FromSoftware Inc.
Dead Cells (2017) - Motion Twin
Hades (2020) - Supergiant Games
Monster Hunter Rise (2021) - Capcom
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (2015) - The Coalition
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (2017) - Nintendo
Returnal (2021) - Housemarque
Dandara (2018) - Long Hat House
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006) - Nintendo
Super Mario Galaxy (2007) - Nintendo
Eastward (2021) - Pixpil
Ghostrunner (2020) - One More Level, 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks
Axiom Verge (2015) - Thomas Happ Games LLC
Shin Megami Tensei V (2021) - Atlus
Final Fantasy XIII (2009) - Square Enix
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011) - Nintendo
Super Metroid (1994) - Nintendo
Demon's Souls (2020) - FromSoftware
Undertale (2015) - Toby Fox
Super Meat Boy (2010) - Team Meat, Edmund McMillen
Dead Space (2008) - Visceral Games
Dark Souls 3 (2016) - FromSoftware
▶Other Media/Clips/Considerations:
• Playlist
▶Music Sources:
Shops - Persona PSP OST
08 - Your Vibe - R4 / Ridge Racer Type 4 / Direct Audio
Elegant Summer - Melty Blood Actress Again OST
Coasting - Transistor OST
Darkmoon Caverns - Diddy Kong Racing OST
Through The Trees - Shantae: Risky's Revenge OST
The Street Corner at Sunset - Wild ARMS 5 OST
Clock Tower - Dead Cells OST
Starjump - Celeste OST
Silence Before the Storm - Final Fantasy X OST
Birdman - Pilotwings 64 OST
A Rusted Scar - Wild ARMS 5 OST
Tension - Persona PSP OST
▶Research Articles Cited
(1) Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find
www.sciencedai...
(2) How Do Work Breaks Help Your Brain? 5 Surprising Answers
www.psychology...
(3)On the need for attention-aware systems: Measuring effects of interruption on task performance, error rate, and affective state (106% MORE ANNOYED STUDY)
www.sciencedir...
(4) Recently published OHIO study reveals humans are impatient, even down to seconds
www.ohio.edu/n...
psycnet.apa.or...
discovery.dund...
#PsychofPlay
Okay. Enough time has passed. I feel like I need to clarify the checkout line thing from 2:44 lmao.
It seems I am the only one that's like this, but for whatever reason it has weirdly irked me for years when people do this to me. It's always felt like a passive aggressive "um you forgot to put the divider down asshole" which I realize is 100% my problem. I guess I just all at once feel embarrassed for forgetting to put it down and also feel like people are cleaning up my mess which makes me upset at *me*. I suppose in the past, I deflected those feelings and interpreted them as someone else being passive aggressive.
But you should know that I have since gotten over this, and nowadays I both use the divider in every line AND have absolutely no problem with other people using them if I forget. Thank you for reading and understanding. This is by far the strangest thing I've ever had to explain on the internet. 🤣
Redemption arc
lmao
I just had to delete a comment about the divider thing after seeing this comment. Hilarious.
No, no. You don’t need to feel embarrassed. You were 100% correct.
I did the same thing
As a bard once wrote, "The space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more."
Dave Matthews
That’s incredibly wholesome
For which? More laughter despite the tears, or more tears, ultimately, because of the laughter?
@@thegreenmage6956 A surprisingly philosophical question.
Honestly proud to know that's Dave Matthew's Band
Bug Fables is one of the games that best manage this "gap" by making you choice whether you want to start the battle all over again or go back to your last checkpoint. And you can even change your loadout and then try again right away too, if you so feel inclined. So it's the player's choice if they want to jump right back into the action or take a few steps back to reflect on things before trying again. The catch is that this only happens during important fights, so if you die to a random encounter then it's back to the last save point, so it's not really coddling you, either. It's just quality of life.
YES! I have such a struggle with RPGs because there's an inevitable save point before the two minutes of dialogue before the boss fight. It's not an experiential walk back, it's not reflection time, it's just me mashing through menus. More RPGs need to do that Bug Fables thing and just give the option.
Heyyyyy someone else mentioned bug fables!
Almost sounds like Elden Ring with the Sites of Grace and the Stakes of Marika. Not quite but it has almost the same effect of giving you the choice to jump right back in or wait a bit to breathe and think.
@@xantishayde-walker4593 people hate Malenia but the fact her boss door is RIGHT next to the stake for me made me rage much less. The time I spent fighting her VASTLY outnumbered the time I spent getting to her.
This made me not feel too frustrated with each death knowing I could be back at it in a bit.
And I choose when I hit that "I need a break" moment not the game. I know when I need to quit the game doesn't
I have a much simpler expectation: the walk back must allow me to exercise the skills I need for that boss. It's lower pressure practice of parries, dodges, or whatever.
If there is a disconnect between the adds on the way and the boss's moveset, and thus it doesn't help me, then I hate it. Otherwise, I respect it.
I definitely experienced that fading in focus with repetition during Celeste. I reached the summit segment super late at night and was pushing through to try to finish since I was so very close, but there was one extended segment that absolutely stopped me. I was locked there for 30 minutes of continuous deaths over and over, until I eventually gave up because I knew I wasn't gonna make it. So I stopped, headed to bed, and then tried again in the morning. Did it first try. Later stuff killed me a bit, but I blazed through the entire rest of it with minimal issues. It just goes to show that sometimes a break really is all you need.
Another notable thing is how that gap is populated. Fromsoft has been getting better at this with their boss shortcuts, most notably in Bloodborne from my experience. Getting to Ornstein and Smough in DS1 is a pain in the ass both due to the sheer length of the gap but also because there's a non-negligible threat along that path, meaning you could be killed and lose the souls left in their room or just have to make the trek all over again. A huge pain in the ass for minimal benefit because you don't get a "break" during the traversal back, you have to fight your way there. And that can be valuable as well, for what its worth, as mentioned with roguelikes, but it's tedious when combined with the length of the trek there. Compare Bloodborne, where I found basically all of the treks to bosses once you found the areas core shortcut to be decently lengthy but rarely especially treacherous, and I would appreciate the short break for allowing my mind a bit of time to chill. It allowed me to think about and anticipate the boss I was about to face, without adding much in the way of extra stress to the experience of getting there.
To me the most frustrating part of dying and having to walk back is not the walk itself, unless it is absurd. To me, the most offensive part is when games basically laugh at you by chaining an extremely long death animation, followed by potentially the boss taunting you, then kicking you back to a loading screen, a respawn animation, etc. All that just so you can even put your hands back on the controller and even **start** making your way back.
It definitely allows for heightened stakes. whenever youre in the boss and realize "oh god if i die now im going to have to redo the huge section prior" it really makes you on edge
I'm not much of a gamer. Yet this was really interesting to me. Maybe it applies to things like taking a Driver's license exam multiple times, or taking the Bar Exam to become a lawyer, or getting in the wrong line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It can drive you crazy if you don't change your headspace. It's also explains why I smoked for 30 years. In real-life frustrating situations, going out to have a smoke was really calming, and made it easier to get back into a groove.
Maybe NES/SNES era platformers like Megaman had the correct idea by giving you a checkpoint before the boss that you'd go back to as long as you had lives, but once those were gone, it was all the way back to the beginning. A good mix of letting you practice and giving you time to process things (or just go to a completely different level altogether.)
The game I feel did this the best for me was Megaman X4. You have a limited amount of lives you can use against the boss from a checkpoint one room before them. Once you run out, you start at the beginning of the stage's second half. This gap not only provided a nice breather from the boss that simultaneously makes every boss attempt matter, but also challenges you to master the challenge that the gap section presents. You learn to do it faster, taking less damage, losing fewer lives and mastering your resources. Before you know it, you're blazing through the level with great speed and efficiency, and you've earned every resource that you can now use against the boss
It is so weird to me that Furi, being a game that only has boss fights, doesn't have spaces between but also DOES because you could see each phase as a walk back to where you died last.
14:30 i really feel this bit. as annoying as the run ups can be, snapping right back into things can be a bit jarring, even on the side of getting back in to the action you tend to want a LITTLE bit of time to at least recognize you died. coming into doom eternal from doom 2016, the extra lives mechanic is really offputting. like, i get that the game is overall more challenging and they want to throw out some freebies to help in the real head meets wall moments i guess but... it just feels out of place. i got torn apart and died, i just want to try again, let me take the L and get better. in eternal's case you can just say not to pick up the lives or turn on armor mode or whatever it is but cmon, you expect me not to want to pick up collectibles? again, its a case by case basis of course but as much as some of dark souls' run ups irk me they didnt stop me from wanting more, ultimately. its almost in the same vein as "do you want to change the difficulty to easy?" prompts, dont patronize me, im trying here! doubly so when it IS unprompted. at least in the right-outside-the-fog bonfires in dark souls i know that that is where im operating from instead of it just being a snap point that i dont know about until its in use, or i can make the choice wether or not to change to easy when presented.
I am generally team let me back in right away. Typically it's important to learn a boss's patterns to be able to succeed against it and sometimes this takes several attempts. Nothing is more frustrating to me than losing to a boss over and over because I have to spend 40 minutes getting back to it forgetting those patterns so I can die again and do the trek all over again.
All that said, it does kind of depend on the game as this bothers me less in some games than others for reasons I'm not entirely sure of.
I will say that while I recognize that breaks are necessary to keep yourself from burning out, I don't need a break every. single. time. I fail on a boss.
The purple circles literally disappeared _as_ you said the word "disappearance" for me which was kinda wild timing lol. I had to go back to make sure it was just the optical illusion cuz the timing was just too perfect
I usually despise gaps because I want to immediately go against the bosses to prove to the game and myself that I'm capable of defeating them. So a faraway checkpoint is something that prevents me from my actual goal, as if the game is trying to hinder my progress. But if it was just a small walk I'd be ok with that. The real dealbreaker is when I have not just enemies along the way to fight, but stuff to collect again and again (especially if those are essential). That's when I just quit the game and start doing something else.
I don’t usually comment on two-year old videos, but your discussion on the vigilance decrement made something click for me that I’ve been wondering about for years: I never understood the phenomenon where, after some initial good runs against a boss, my later attempts actually get worse if I keep attempting it.
It seems counterintuitive to how learning and attaining mastery are supposed to work, and for a while I wondered if it was something about my temperament that made repeated tries detrimental. Over time I have naturally begun taking breaks if a sequence was making me frustrated because my ability to focus and perform well takes a nosedive in that state. Now I know there’s a psychological phenomenon at play, which is kind of a relief. It’s not just me lol.
I witnessed the power of taking breaks in real time today: I’m playing Hollow Knight and had bounced off the Gruz Mother several times (much as she bounces around the arena). I took a break to explore other areas, then when I booted the game up tonight I beat her second try.
Thanks for this video!
I had the same experience in Animal well this week. I was beating my head against an optional post game platforming challenge when all my progress just started regressing. I couldn't do it until the following day.
If you're early in the game just walking around can also help with getting the controls automated so you can focus on when to do something rather than how to input it.
I recently replaced Hollow Knight. Even though it was a couple of years ago that I beat it, I've watched a bazillion let's plays and speed runs since. I know where everything is, so I thought I could just go from a to b. But nope, all that knowledge wasn't enough, I needed the exploring to work up the muscle memory to actually execute it.
@@plutus2559 Yeah, muscle memory is so key and there’s really no good replacement for executing on it yourself. Let’s Plays and streams can help you remember where things are but not how to reach them or complete a given sequence.
Hope you liked Animal Well! That one’s on my “to play” list.
@@caitlindemarismckenna3932 Animal well is up there right next to Hollow Knight as one of the best games I've played. I just love games that let me figure things out for myself.
@@plutus2559 That’s what I’ve been hearing about Animal Well, and I love that too. I saw it garner a comparison to Outer Wilds in how it lets you put the pieces together, so I’m excited to get to it.
Nioh and its sequel/prequel (Nioh 2's events happen both before and after the events of Nioh) handle the walk of shame in a rather interesting way: As one goes through the main missions, they will find various doors and whatnot that can be opened from one side that serve as a shortcut to cut past many of the enemies and allow them to more quickly return to the areas they were having trouble with. In particular, Nioh 2's first mission has a shortcut right after its second checkpoint that once opened, cuts about half of the level's environment out of what's needed to get to the boss from said shrine. This allows the player to skip past ten human enemies, including 2/3rds of the archer enemies, as well as both of the most armored humans in the level.
Though as far as walking back to the boss for each attempt, there's quite often a shrine right before the boss with many cases having only a handful of meager enemies or enemies that are easy to kite past between the final shrine and the boss, with at least one notable case where the last shrine was directly outside the boss arena.
I can get behind something like a 1-2 min elevator ride to cool your head and think. What I don't like is having to wade through enemies I already know I can beat because I already have. I would rather have time to cool off or figure out how to beat the boss than focus on beating enemies that I know shouldn't be a challenge or God forbid, potentially getting more annoyed because something I should be able to do is now tougher because I'm mad and enemies that wouldn't be a problem are now mini-bosses.
i think especially while i was learning the game still, a short but minorly stimulating walk was usually ideal. i offer a case study:
hornet in greenpath: the walk from the 2nd nearest bench (bc i was to noob mode to realize there was a stagway right there) was still not that long and had a few enemies to deal with and a few that could be avoided. it only took a minute, it was stimulating, and the point where i started being able to do it thoughtlessly was a nice barometer for me that i was finally getting the game down
soulmaster: only had to do it maybe a dozen times? but each attempt felt like torture bc the soul sanctum is not a cakewalk when youre still learning, especially if i died in phase 2
nightmare king: took less than 30 seconds to start him over and i definitely did it in fewer tries than hornet but i still got so damn tired of it. the complete lack of a break helped me learn the patterns but made me so sloppy at executing it that it still hurt every try. plus, i was already done with basically everything but the trial of the fool, so i couldn't even just do something else for a bit. which is my current mood w the radiance lol
makes sense, i think sometimes it depends on how far and how bad the loss was too like if you barely lost but have to go really far back that's probably more frustrating than if you lost bad and realize "yea I might be missing something" during a relxed break. I think the worst is death loops, when you are saved into the situation you're losing at and can't go back, you maybe will eventually get out but not if you really needed something from outside that space. I never defeated one of the Spyro games as a kid because I got locked in a permanent boss fight, for instance.
"It depends" is such a great answer for so many situations
I absolutely love your channel and your videos man, im glad youtube recommended me your stuff, learning interesting things on each video i've watched from you so far!
I think that the difference between a good walk back and a bad one is challenge. In something like a roguelike, where everything leading up to the boss has difficulty, then the walk back is part of the challenge of the boss. On the other hand, when the only things between the respawn point and the boss are a few easy enemies and a long walk, it gets annoying and repetitive.
I dont mind a walk back to a boss that i died to. However, when that walk back is FILLED with enemies that ive already dealt with before, then i find it more tedious than anything.
When the walk backs are long and involved, I truly feel like it is enhancing the experience. For example, Seath being not in the achives and instead being in this underground crystal cave far away from his books, coddling the primordial crystal really is a PART of the seath fight. O&S feels a bit more random, just dodging past a giant dude who always seems to hit you every other try. Thematic walk backs are a boon to the game, especially on mechnically simple fights like seath, but bosses like O&S or Gael or any other fight where it is a 100% execution based skill matchup, give me a short runback. Gael is the best example of a nonproblematic but still *there* runback, no enemies but you get empty time where you can calm down.
The main things that bug me the most about the walk back to the boss are CUTSCENES that are unskippable and loading screens that take up too much time. Had those in FFX as well as Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, first campaign. In the DK campaign they let you skip cutscenes.
The Hollow Knight soul sanctum is the definition of true pain. I could not even put into words how frustrating the walk from the bench to soul master is.
i don’t mind the walk , it’s the enemies that get in ur way and drain ur hp that annoy me . u get 2 options : ur hp is low for boss battle so then u die, or u use a potion to restore ur hp to normal , but then the potion is probably wasted anyway cos u die even with full hp
I completely agree with Team Cherry that the gap is part of the boss, especially because yeah you can improve boss mechanics to win... but if you're always showing up with half your Masks gone and no Soul? You can also master the gap and have a higher shot at that boss
I feel like when it’s a long space between a respawn point and something you’re trying to farm it loses the benefit.
For instance I’ve been playing borderlands 2, and Flint, one of the first bosses, has a good legendary drop for my build, but the time it takes to go back after beating him and getting the wrong drop makes it not worth it.
Also if you die you respawn right before him
The entire time I'm watching this I keep thinking something along the lines of "Okay yeah Dark Souls boss, but what about the walk back to revenge kill the enemy player in a FPS". I'm sure there's other examples too, that one just became prominent.
This is what usually happens for me in Souls games:
1. Have kind of an idea what boss is coming up the first time, die
2. Get really excited for the 2nd and 3rd times because maybe I got close or found a strat I was confident in
3. If I don’t kill the boss within 4-5 times, I will usually hyper speed die like 10-20 times with various levels of failure. Maybe get REALLY close once or twice and a bunch of attempts where I shit the bed as soon as the fight starts
4. Stop all together if I’ve been gaming all day or play something else for a bit
5. Come back the next day or after a few hours and beat the boss after 4-5 times
Thats why i love stakes of marika xD you can just choose where you wanna spawn
I know how you feel with regards to the difficulty completing Souls and Soulslike games. I love them, but I keep just getting distracted by other things, because they eat up so much of my focus and life when I allow myself to once more sink into my role as a Chosen Undead or Tarnished.
I don’t want the gap but I need the gap to chill out. I get so fiercely determined that I won’t stop if I’m not given a gap.
I've only in the past year gotten into roguelikes (people deal with covid in different ways - I became a masochist apparently).
What I've learned from this exercise is that starting over with retained knowledge is optimal for me; the grind in rpg's that I'm so used to is just so infuriating to me now, it feels like time wasted because it's me collecting intangible numbers on a screen to make my stick hit harder. The roguelike genre rewards me for my own skill and ingenuity, which feels like a concrete reward for having tried and failed because I'm now better because my mental and physical reflexes are faster. I've always had issues with failure and suffer from perfectionism a lot; roguelikes have taught me the lesson of the long checkpoint - it's the journey and what you learn along the way that matters.
Also, as a veteran rpg player I know the unending torture of having saved in a dungeon beside a boss to realise they sorely outmatch you, you've limited resources so grinding will be difficult, and if the game in question doesn't have escape ropes you're screwed!
I think you missed a crucial point: Player Choice. If the player wants to work on the boss, and they are forced to wait for a 40 second long elevator, it's infuriating. In a linear game like Dark Souls this is horrible because you HAVE to get past the boss to progress. Whereas in an open world game like Breath of the Wild, you can simply go do something else, like find better gear and come back to it later.
It's not that I'm impatient, but like you said the trek back is a hindrance, not a break. Nobody likes when their intended choice is being taken away by being forced to wait. Waiting is the worst game mechanic.
2:49
Dude. We don't want the cashier getting confused.
And here I thought that divider was on par with such non-verbal staples as the head nod. I had no idea it could be interpreted as anything passive-aggressive!
yeah i have no idea what he's on about. the separators are a courtesy, not a slight.
my opinion:
if there's a distance between me and the boss that is nothing but empty space with an enemy or two to chip at you, i'd rather just respawn closer, just running for 5 minutes or more to get to the boss while ignoring all the enemies is just a waste of time and it's not even a "risk" frustration, but a worthless time sink to pad out the game.
if there's something to actually be gained by the gap then I'm fine with being thrown back a bit if it means I actually get something from it, like getting a few kills up to get a boost so I go into the boss room with a bit of a buff even though i may have lose some health along the way
So, for me the difference between pro break and pro immediate respawn, is more down to the feeling the game is going for, than whether it's tactical or tactile. If a game wants to go for an action, power fantasy vibe, getting you straight back in the game makes you focus less on your deaths, they become forgettable compared to the amount of time spent winning. On the other hand, a game going for a feel of horror, or at least some sense of vulnerability on the players part, wants to punish death more heavily. The way I think about it, it's like the time you're walking back to the boss is time you're "dead", or at least "not currently winning". The longer you spend not on the way to the win, just timed out while you wait to get to try again, the weaker you'll remember feeling after you put the game down.
How did this get recommended to me right after I alt+f4'd out of Elden Ring for this exact reason... Like 2 min walk with an elevator without a single enemy and only "obstacle" was kind of narrow walkway at one point. If there was enemies dodging them would at least keep me warm but nothing... Other is those bosses that only spawn at night, you need to spawn at the nearest grace (not the stake of marika) rest at the grace, pass time to night, leave the grace, rest AGAIN and only then do you get the boss to spawn again... For me these gaps take me right out of the zone and kill my immersion in the game, frustrate me to no end and often make me rage quit before I even get to properly learn the boss. When I can get right back to the boss dying doesn't annoy me nearly as much and I can focus on the challenge and take breaks on my own to internalize what I'm learning. I want to focus when I want to focus and take breaks when I need them. I don't want the game to force me to take breaks without actually taking a break walking back to the challenge.
The only time I really hate the space in between in souls games is when you are just before the boss after the big gauntlet of enemies and you get invaded by angry naked man with big stick that will one shot you
the worst to me are either unskipable dialoges/cutscenes or easy/long boss phases before the final form of a boss.
I've definitely had points in games where I got so used to repeating the same thing and failing that I stopped noticing. There was a study awhile back that said if you're ever failing at something repeatedly, the best thing you can do is just stop. Come back to it 2 days later. Your mind will be refreshed. This has worked countless times for me across various games. I had to do this in Assassin's Creed, Starcraft 2, and for numerous raid bosses in Borderlands. That said, I still prefer having no wait time. With all due respect, if you want to wait, that is your choice as is my choice to want to be immediately back in the action. The difference is, only one of those choices hinders the other. If people want to be masochists and keep pushing forward with a brain that has literally turned itself off...let them.
21:02 I think it is safe to asume that most of the playerbase of games like dark souls and hollow knight WILL take death as personal and the gap as intrution.
Now this is completely theoretical as the armchair designer I am, but let me offer this strategy at going about it. Put a shortcut to the boss behind a gate that you need to go a long way around and complete a challenge to open. If you're confident then you can choose to skip a long and difficult challenge in and of itself, but you might pay for your overconfidence. If you decide to go around and you beat it, you'll be rewarded with another checkpoint and a MUCH faster respawn.
Its funny to see what parts in videos are most viewed and you see the general patience of people with longer videos.
sometimes when grinding out a section in clone hero over and over, where restarting the section takes a single button press, sometimes I feel like I need to take a step back and either reevaluate my fingering or the way I’m reading the chart. If I get into a flow state, I may keep messing up the same way over and over. Having to wait for an elevator in dark souls is annoying, but sometimes you need to slow down a bit ya know?
EDIT: watched further, he talked about this lol
And that's why I love Marika's stakes in ER instead of respawning at bonfire
Terraria kinda does this with it's bosses
lots of bosses require a rare resource or time of day to challenge them
in a way it's annoying, but on the other hand, the stakes are raised, because most of the time
you can't just re-match them right away, and have to take a time-out to rest or prepare more.
Alright then. How about a dynamic break time? Or that's what I asked myself. What if you had a few tries for flow and then you get sent back out.
Till I remembered - Hey, that's just basically lifes in earlier videogames. You may get to bowser's castle and try a couple times, but ultimately run out and be ported back to your last safe location.
In Hades, in a way, that was the dialogue for me. Everytime you came back, something changed a little bit and encouraged me to take a look around the calming hub.
I love all the Hades references in this one since to me it's a game that exploits the space between really well. The gameplay during each run being considerably different to keep you from losing focus is a major point, but I think there's lot of story driven in the respawn space and that brief change of focus helps immensely in making you reset with (almost) no frustration. I'd imagine the small skill-less tasks after respawning do work in making sure you do take that break.
I don't play roguelikes much, but it's definetely a very different vibe from Binding of Isaac for example.
Is that small little "106% annoyance" bit a reference to attempting to 106% Crash Bandicoot 4?
Thats why u step on the elevator pad once its down once at 7:37 so u save tons of seconds there xDD
That 30 second death timer give me time to reflect in why i died to a god damn bat
we're curious how much ADHD affects the whole flow state thing... our anecdotal theory based on what we're seeing here compared to our own experiences is that it's the same effects but just... a bit more severe? It's still an "it depends", but the feeling is often very strong whichever way it goes.
since when is the divider at the grocery store rude? it's so the clerk doesn't get the items confused!
I always think about Castlevania in these situations. Usually the boss is difficult but the challenge is getting to the bus with a full health bar and then beating the boss. Anyone can take down death if you give him enough tries. But making it from the checkpoint to death with only three tries before your shot back to the beginning of the level that's a much bigger challenge and thus offers a much more satisfying sense of accomplishment. Similarly if you have ever played emulators you know that you can use save states at any point but if you use them too much it can take all the challenge completely out.
I do find that when my attention begins to fade I begin to stumble more on the path and it gets more annyoing
Honestly as long as the walking speed isn't too slow, and the enemies aren't too annoying
It's fine
Would be nice if there's special "walking back to the boss music" that's different from the areas normal soundtrack
That Ichigo 100% is never not gonna be frustrating and painful :(
If the walk to the boss is a challenge in it's own right, I really like it. Usually it forces you to master a skill beforehand, and what might be really difficult initially becomes easy. You see this a lot in platformers, obviously and sometimes souls-like. Even if you lose to the boss, you are improving at something and it gives you some time to reflect. Jump Academy gave me this feeling during the pogo challenge.
If the walk to the boss is easy, I hate it. It is just wasted time. Might as well respawn me in the boss room. If the walk is easy, I feel like I am being punished for not instantly knowing what to do on the first time, as in the game is mocking me.
I react the same with a gap or no gap. A couple seconds of hells fury and a contemplative thought of fastballing a controller into a wall and then…..ok back to gameplay.
ouh thought first you would talk about that crossroads feeling when your bored with your latest favorite game and dont know what to play while wanting to play everything xD
I feel like there's some other break related phenomenon that you could have mentioned: Attempting to beat a boss for hours just to beat it first try on the next day ;)
There are many times for me where the space between becomes to unbearable to continue for the day. It forces me to step away and take a breather.
I believe that the gaps in Dark Souls are somewhat meant to be discouraging. The frustration building up until the player gives up or beats the boss and releases all the pent up frustration and therefore comes out stronger and more patient at the end.
As per the message the game throws our way "Neither of us want to see you go hollow". That's not just André showing kindness, I believe that's the developers themselves saying "don't give up". The more the player dies the more the player will go hollow as it's even shown in the game until you beat the boss and humanity returns.
Neon moon always comes in clutch in times of sadness. Good choice
did not expect to see ichigo 100% in a video essay about video games lmao wtf
I think that gap is require for the boss to feel...correct? Or rather, the walk is there to make you feel you're doing something significant and to add some weight to death. For example, many Elden Ring Bosses have a Grace immediately outside of their chamber. When you die, you respawn, walk for 5 seconds and try again. When the gap between attempts are so short, it feels like my death was meaningless. Oddly enough, that makes me feel MORE like my time is being wasted than the long run because the long run bring emphasis to my death and makes it feel significant but when I respawn so close so quickly the death feels meaningless.
Not to mention that walk gives you time to breath, your heartbeat to slow, and your hands to relax. That way you don't run into the boss still all sweaty and worked up from the last attempt resulting in sloppy play and getting you killed.
I would be interested in a souls-like experience where, when you encounter a boss the first time, the boss music is as normal -- bombastic, a total departure from the music in the run up to the boss. But when you die and respawn, the music is notably different. Like the hall of the mountain king, it's quiet but intense, and **different** than it was when you were last in the area. The music progresses, getting louder and more intense as you get closer to the boss (attempt 2) and then when the fight starts, you realize the music seamlessly transitions to the boss music. Keep the surprise of finding the boss, but then recontextualize it, just like I do in my head, as part of the challenge of the boss. I think that could go a long way to improving the feel of the pacing of these gap sections.
2:50 I’m sorry what??? Who gets mad at this?? Why would you get mad as this? Does this actually make people angry??
"Do you feel your shirt on your back?"
Me, not wearing one: huh?
Seriously, though, on occasion I _do_ quite acutely feel my shirt, along with *everything* around me that I'm touching or hearing or even seeing. I call it a stim attack and it's awful.
Alternate: let player wake up instantly right before the boss as if it all were a dream, then when the player's performance gets worse, give him a minigame before waking him up
This video is very timely. I just started my first real attempt at Demon's Souls last week. I say last week because I'm forcing myself to take a break every time I beat a boss and then pick it back up next weekend. I choose to believe this is reason that this is the first time I've been able to beat The Tower Knight on my first try.
Well demon souls is dumb so I don’t think that’s a good example
I feel like 1/4th of every Dark Souls playthrough involves unnecessarily long treks to the boss.
I'm a pretty patient person, but I almost didn't finish Dark Souls 3 because of that long walk back to the brothers. I knew I could get better with enough tries, but the time it took to get to each try just sucked any fun out of that improvement.
On the other hand, Hades, Hollowknight, and Celeste are some of my favorite games. Celeste and Hollowknight made moving around fun and responsive enough to cut most of that frustration, and Hades made even your worst failures a minor progression, whereas Dark Souls just felt like it didn't respect my time.
Just yesterday I finally passed chapter 8 in Celeste. Got stuck on so many levels but I was in a good mood and determined, the instant respawn was nice so I can keep my groove.
I started chapter 9 but at that point I was tired from FINALLY getting pass all those levels in chapter 8. It was really early in the chapter but I just couldn’t do the jump.
In chapter 9, I spent way less time trying than I did in some levels in chapter 8 on their own. I think it’s because my mood changed, my mindset went from “let’s finish chapter 8, I can do this!” to “let’s see what kind of bs this chapter has to give now”.
At that point, the instant respawn was annoying because it didn’t give me a change of pace. Before that I enjoyed the instant respawn because I kept my groove, but now I disliked it because it didn’t change my groove. I had to give up and try out one of the B side maps so I can think about something else and refresh my mind.
It really does depend. Some games and stages will have the intent of being “easy” for the player to spawn next to the boss, others will have the player spawn away so they can change up the pace and intentionally or unintentionally change up the player’s pace
Well you got me. Time to binge all your videos now
These spaces are the reason I don't play many difficult games these days. When a game it's making me repeat parts I've already mastered, it feels like it's actively wasting my time and it just isn't fun anymore.
And to borrow the words of Reggie Fils-Aime: "If it's not fun, why bother?"
This has to be my new favorite episode next to the one on helplessness.
I really hate the walk of shame after getting Ornstien and smoked.
I have enough trouble memorizing a boss's movements, I don't want to also memorize every fucking enemy's location on the map.
I’m generally for the long respawn point cause it gives you time to refresh your mental state, BUT I definitely think some games feel wayyy better than others.
Hades is the only rogue-like I’ve ever played and enjoyed, and I didn’t mind having to go through EVERYTHING to get another chance at beating a boss because there was always something waiting for me after death. New dialogue, the ability to upgrade my mirror abilities, etc.
On the other hand, I specifically remember struggling with the Crystal Sage in Dark Souls 3, and the run-up to that boss was endlessly frustrating to me cause I hated the area and the enemies that would spear me in the back as I tried to bolt past em…in a case like that, I wanted to just get through it as fast as possible and I definitely wanted a closer spawn point.
I can see (and have experienced) both sides of the argument, but I can also say for certain that I appreciate the ‘walks-of-shame’ significantly more now!
17:34 MWA HAH AH AHAHA HA ! talking about feeling the clothes on your back. I'm autistic. I've learned coping mechanisms but I'm the type of autism where I feel everything all the time, I hear the sound my clothes make as they walk, feel them on my skin, pick up sounds and smells sometimes blocks away that most people ignore. So much and so often that it feels like the world is screaming and I just wanna scream or cry back. Again. I have coping mechanisms, some days it's worse than others. Perhaps this though is why most games, any game I can usually only sit there for a while before needing to get up and have a cup of tea, and meditate. Cause so many games throw EVERYTHING at you in your face.
And of course then there's games like stardew valley which make a nice relaxing change.
Now excuse me while I try to grind a few more rooms of Celeste's farewell chapter.
They are using the divider as intended.
I love seeing some of my favorite games and my undergrad degree in crossover videos. If you haven't heard of multiple resource theory, give it a look; it's my favorite of psych theories.
19:30
Supposedly that even as little as 30 seconds of pause can have a significant effect in attention and focus maintainability.
The goal is to unload the cognitive load by doing something that is not related to the current behaviour.
Let's say someone is reading a verry heavy research paper, taking up a guitar and playing a few notes just for the sake of it should, in theory, unload a significant amount of cognitive load.
This, as said in the video, could explain in part the previous issue mentionned with celeste where you could not proceed as far as before in the level.
The gameplay is the same, the parts of the brain used are almost identical if not identical. No unloading is being made.
By the way, unloading the cognitive load as mentionned is a big recommandation in helping retain information and continously being able to understand it while studying.
30-ish minutes of study for couple dozen of seconds of anything else than what said study imply cognitive-wise, if I recall.
0:15 if thats you in that shot... You're handsome, I don't see a loss of hair changing that. and with how smart and passionate you are.... even if you don't look good bald your still gonna be a keeper!
This is why I love Elden Ring, millions of marikas and graces
Hmm. I think this is what's been affecting my art for some time now. I'll try to shake up my workflow and also will make time for breaks. Thank you
Maaaaaan, Team Cherry grinded my gears with MANY respawning routes in Hollow Knight. The stupid route to the Crystal Guardian in the Crystal Peak killed me so much more than the boss(ta) itself
P.S: I'm kinda with you about rogue-likes, in general I hate them, HOWEVER I still not only plted and loved it, but I completed the vast majority of the achieviments
I've found that a great way to bypass this frustration is to mute the game and listen to a podcast or a RUclips video while I make my way back to the boss.
I'm fascinated with game design as well as psychology. This was an incredible video, very thought provoking and it just goes to show everyone is different and no one answer fits all. I would like to think the space between is indeed important, but as many said, (including myself); it depends. Just as there's a time to speak and a time to listen, there's a time to have that 'walk of shame' and a time to get right back to it. Finding where each belongs is as if not more difficult than your struggle with O&S.
I think the "walk back" for Hades never felt like a chore to me because dying in each run is its own reward. It feels less frustrating failing when I know I'll get to go back to the House of Hades and experience new pieces of story or be able to spend collected resources to unlock/upgrade new weapons that will make the next hike to the boss a different experience. It makes the process of dying to a boss an opportunity for experimentation and story progression.
In comparison I've never played a souls game because the idea of basically being punished for failure against a boss by being forced to do a 3 minute walk of shame on the way back doesn't sound fun. I wouldn't get to feel like I'm making any progress during the walk back, I'd just spend those 3 minutes feeling frustrated and probably perform worse in the end as a result.
There its another videogame gap thats different and you didnt talked about, Im refering to League of Legends, a very frenetic game that when you die it punish you with a gray screen and not letting you play the game, not only that but while the match progress the time you must wait to respawn grows to reach even an entire minute at late game, you go from frenetic non stop motion and action to be just an spectator until going back.
It feels like the I get worse after the first few tries. I feel like the gap takes me out of that automatic state. Games like doom, that respawn you right next to the level are the most frustrating for me. Like in doom eternal if I don’t beat the level the first 3 times I will take forever to do so. Once, I played on the second highest difficulty. There was a fucked up level that I spent about three hours trying to beat, so I rage quit. One great night of sleep later, I went back and beat it on my second try of the day. What a euphoric feeling.
Anyway, I’m pro gap.
3C celeste is pretty much a classic
What about the cost/price tag at what point do you think people would say even AAA games are not worth the price tag? is there a genre bias where some genres are in the minds of gamers worth more then others? this could be an interesting topic
Is that a real thing, putting that thing at the store down? In Germany I oftentimes hear people thank the other. It means: I only need this much space, go ahead, it's your turn now.