What is "consolisation" and why does it exist? Or Simulated Skill v Player Skill - by SubJeff
Sulphur on 7/2/2011 at 17:23
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Errr, no hook points mate. I'm talking about aiming it like Batman would in real life iyswim. You'd have to aim at points that the hook would work on and sometimes it wouldn't hook on just like sometimes you waste rope arrows in Thief by missing/hitting something they can't stick into.
Aiming at Batman: AA's hook points would be a trivial exercise because they're all large and virtually unmissable surfaces unless you're really, really bad at aiming. What you're proposing is the random chance of the hook not catching just like in real life, which doesn't make the game better or dependent on player skill, just frustrating.
Thief's arrows took a little skill because of the ballstics model and the lack of crosshairs, plus they weren't inexhaustible unlike Batman's supply of grappling hooks and rope.
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You don't need a platform specific game to compare these concepts, just examples of the concepts alone. After all it's entirely possible to have a PC game that suffers from Simulated Skill bias or a console game that has Player Skill bias.
This isn't about consolitis at all, is it.
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Sorry to bring that back but this had gone under my radar - You shouldn't put words in my mouth. "By my own admission", I was raised on computer gaming. However, the sheer amount of console games I played at friends' places or on my Gamecube does not make for an "extremely" (OMG so extreme) stilted or limited experience. I played games from start to finish on most platforms since the Megadrive - I know the games, the consoles and their limitations. My experience with PC gaming is broader, and has been consistently more immersive for the perceived reasons I cited.
That was an assumption I made, and a poor one; my bad, sorry.
I think we'll have to keep it at this: we have differing opinions. Your opinion is that consoles are more social and PCs are asocial, which changes the culture of the two immensely. My opinion is that your opinion is wrong, because I've played alone in front of my TV, and I've played alone in front of my PC. And the environment that either are usually in does not preclude interruptions/social calls unless your computer is in the middle of Siberia.
Furthermore, your opinion is that the culture of console gaming makes its games easy to put aside and PC games are less easy to do the same with, and once again my opinion says you're wrong because I've spent plenty of hours on both all my life and had to almost literally tear myself from certain games on both platforms.
We can't objectively argue opinions - and what, really, at the end of the day, is personal preference - out, so we'll have to agree to disagree here.
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Still, the interface is everything but a non-issue because it impacts how the same information is provided to a player which can both be sitting 3 metres from the TV with a gamepad or 50cm from the screen with keyboard & mouse.
Apart from bigger fonts and terrible examples of inventory/journal design (Oblivion, Fallout 3), tolerance of which is largely dependent on personal preference and doesn't change gameplay (except for larger crosshairs), there are games that convey the same information just fine through a HUD/dialogue screen/whatever on both platforms. Oldschool PC RPGs and RTSes translate the worst to consoles, I'll admit, but they're only a small part of the entire spectrum.
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Consolisation is
not an excuse however for the trend of making everything explicit (and more generally tailoring the experience and contents to an 'ideal' player response rather than making a knowingly flawed game based solely on your vision and expecting the player to bend it somehow). Maturity in the videogaming economy is more to blame here.
Well, we're definitely in agreement with that.
SubJeff on 7/2/2011 at 18:45
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Aiming at Batman: AA's hook points would be a trivial exercise because they're all large and virtually unmissable surfaces unless you're really, really bad at aiming. What you're proposing is the random chance of the hook not catching just like in real life, which doesn't make the game better or dependent on player skill, just frustrating.
Thief's arrows took a little skill because of the ballstics model and the lack of crosshairs, plus they weren't inexhaustible unlike Batman's supply of grappling hooks and rope.
I'm not actually "proposing" anything, I'm just saying that it would have been very different if you had to aim it and give it the right amount of power. I liked the game fine and this is just an example of the difference in methods a game might use.
And it is absolutely about consolitis because you are much more likely get enhanced Simulated Skills in console games.
Sulphur on 7/2/2011 at 20:14
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I'm just saying that it would have been very different if you had to aim it and give it the right amount of power. I liked the game fine and this is just an example of the difference in methods a game might use.
I don't see how. Like I said, there's little to no actual skill involved in aiming that grapple hook at the surfaces it needs to get to in B:AA, because they're usually huge in terms of surface area and always designated by the UI in detective mode, never mind being automatically locked on to otherwise.
And using the right amount of power? That doesn't change anything because unless you change the design of the game's 'hookable' surfaces, you could hook onto anything you're supposed to just by aiming at it and using the maximum possible power all the time.
I'm not contesting whether you liked the game or not. I know it's a fine game. I'm saying you're focusing on the player control aspect when it's not the real problem here, it's the fact that the game's design in itself is horrendously simplified.
Player/Simulated skill is a nice thought, but consolitis isn't around just because of control/controller limitations relegating complex actions to a single button press. That doesn't allow for the stuff staring you in the face, like the fact that console/PC devs make things simpler for their demographics by lowering the overall intelligence curve of the game and make everything hugely obvious to players.
SubJeff on 7/2/2011 at 23:10
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I don't see how. Like I said, there's little to no actual skill involved in aiming that grapple hook at the surfaces it needs to get to in B:AA, because they're usually huge in terms of surface area and always designated by the UI in detective mode, never mind being automatically locked on to otherwise.
But there would be. In B:AA you just have to see the highlight in your periphery, press a button and bingo you're up there. It makes the stealth sections much easier and arcadey than they would have been. And they aren't designated in detective mode, at least not at the hardest difficulty, but you always get the highlight. Actually try to imagine the game without this. There are bits of it that would have been much more challenging.
Bakerman on 8/2/2011 at 05:00
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Aiming at Batman: AA's hook points would be a trivial exercise because they're all large and virtually unmissable surfaces unless you're really, really bad at aiming. What you're proposing is the random chance of the hook not catching just like in real life, which doesn't make the game better or dependent on player skill, just frustrating.
I think you can give SubjEff a little more credit than that. The idea of simulated skill goes deeper than the surface mechanism of either aiming and firing a grapple or pressing a button to auto-grapple, and it includes concepts such as the gargoyles being huge and obvious features of the level. If you made the player aim at grapple points, but once they'd done that you gave them a free ride, you're making a step away from simulated skill. But, like you said, a pretty trivial and annoying one.
When you start to take bigger steps like adding more grapple-able surfaces, making the gargoyles less obvious, requiring the grapple to hit a specific location, adding ballistics to the grapple, then you're heading towards the pure player-skill end of the spectrum.
And this isn't always desirable... for example, we don't require FPS players to perform complex mouse-waggles when reloading, we automate that process because it really wouldn't add to the experience if you had to guide the clip right into the gun.
Some level of simulated skill is necessary. I think that's been said already but meh :p.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
and I've played alone in front of my PC
Out of curiosity, have you played much with other people in front of your PC? This is slightly devil's advocate, since I've certainly done so (hot-seat Wrecking Crew in Red Faction Guerilla anyone? Great with college friends), though those experiences are in the minority of my time spent playing PC games.
Phatose on 8/2/2011 at 05:45
Eh. I think there's more to the Batman insta-grapple lock-on then is being letting on here. Having them automatically highlighter makes them serve as more then just a strategic option, they're a strategic suggestion.
If there are gargoyle's around, the game expects you to grapple, and goes out of it's way to show you it.
Simply removing that highlight changes the character of a stealth mission quite a bit. The option is still there, but it's not as immediately obvious there is 1 optimal solution the game expects of you. Even if it is an illusion, it still gives the section a much more 'sneak' feel then a 'puzzle' feel.
It goes further then that in a lot of games though. The auto-cling to cover scheme in Gears of War for example - it's really not all that much simpler then "Run behind wall and duck" - but it turns all waist-high walls into dead giveaways of impending combat.
Sulphur on 8/2/2011 at 07:15
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
But there would be. In B:AA you just have to see the highlight in your periphery, press a button and bingo you're up there. It makes the stealth sections much easier and arcadey than they would have been. And they aren't designated in detective mode, at least not at the hardest difficulty, but you always get the highlight. Actually try to imagine the game without this. There are bits of it that would have been much more challenging.
Without colour-coded hookables in Detective mode? Sure, I can see what you mean. I haven't played it on the hardest mode, but if what you're saying is true, that'd be a perfectly fine way of making the game more player skill dependent.
Quote Posted by Bakerman
I think you can give SubjEff a little more credit than that. The idea of simulated skill goes deeper than the surface mechanism of either aiming and firing a grapple or pressing a button to auto-grapple, and it includes concepts such as the gargoyles being huge and obvious features of the level. If you made the player aim at grapple points, but once they'd done that you gave them a free ride, you're making a step away from simulated skill. But, like you said, a pretty trivial and annoying one.
I agree that the idea can be inclusive of this, but the argument originated with SE stating that consolitis/'I win' buttons started exclusively because of controller limitations in the past, which is a bunch of hoo-haw.
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Out of curiosity, have you played much with other people in front of your PC? This is slightly devil's advocate, since I've certainly done so (hot-seat Wrecking Crew in Red Faction Guerilla anyone? Great with college friends), though those experiences are in the minority of my time spent playing PC games.
Yes, pretty much since the beginning. After-school sessions were all about kicking my friends' asses in Mortal Kombat, or showing them the latest, newest and coolest video game I got. One of my friends used to regularly call me over to show off his rig (he always had the latest and greatest at the time, first guy in the neighbourhood to get an SB32), and subsequently spoil the endings to new games I hadn't even gotten yet. I played games with my brother watching, and me watching my brother. And of course, there's multiplayer. Hell, I even snuck a copy of Halo into work once and we had LAN parties late into the night.
SubJeff on 8/2/2011 at 09:39
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I agree that the idea can be inclusive of this, but the argument originated with SE stating that consolitis/'I win' buttons started exclusively because of controller limitations in the past, which is a bunch of hoo-haw.
Errr, I never said it was exclusively because of controller limitations. You've had similar in Spectrum/C64/Amiga/ST/PC games too. The trend on consoles is towards it though and the trend is spreading.
Sulphur on 8/2/2011 at 10:08
Here's what you said:
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Until now the nature of controllers has meant that the mapping of actions across different platforms has been quite varied. The keyboard and mouse combination offered so much that the early D-pad controllers, like the NES ones, just couldn't.
For this reason console games never even tried to be like PC games, for the most part anyway. The gaming ethos was quite different. But with the current console controllers (all the way up to Move) being so close to being K&M equivalents we shouldn't see such a difference anymore.
The ability to action Simulated Skills was much rougher, more raw, before this generation of controllers and, I believe, led to the "I win" buttons. And
this is why I think dumbing down was/is the fault of consoles - hence "consolitis".
That reads as 'consolitis -> controller limitations' to me.
SubJeff on 8/2/2011 at 10:26
It's an important factor, yes. "I win" buttons will have existed on other platforms of course, and that creates a specific type of gaming ethos. It's enhanced in consoles because whereas on PC/Amiga/whatever developers had the choice with console controllers they didn't. So more games on console will have had those types of features. To say it's exclusively because of console controllers is misleading though because it's perfectly possible to do the same elsewhere and it happens.
