/vr/ - Retro Games

Being hard doesn't make a game fun. Being fun makes a game fun. There are plenty of brutally hard games that you couldn't pay me to play.

>>5808910
Being hard isn't sufficient for fun-factor, but it is necessary for fun in the long term. Of course you need more than just pure difficulty, but you need difficulty at least.

Easy games aren't fun once their gimmick/novelty wears off, no substance, no pressure, no challenge, no reward for replay.

>>5808912
If you say so.

>>5808924
a game for babies.

Because your brain is organically wired to feel good when you overcome a challenge. Easy games can still have value as a therapeutic activity, you can compare them to a low stakes challenge with no real threat of failure like hidden word grids or even real autopilot hospice shit like paint by numbers. They let you turn your brain off to deal with stress which is probably the biggest draw for casual gamers

high difficulty makes good games great and mediocre games insufferable

I don't think it's possible for bullet hells to be fun though, it's basically special olympics for trannies

This is literally all it is

watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It_YJH0up2c

watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4fyC-do788

>>5808925

>>5808907
Because the sense of fun comes from overcoming adversity. If there is no challenge, there's nothing to strive for and it's just a meaningless time sink.

>>5808907
Because of the reward factor. You have to be engaged otherwise you're just staring at pretty trinkets.

>>5808907
I hate how people expect games to be "just the right amount of hard to them". I just want to tell them "shut the fuck up and start learning, bitch". God damn the snowflaking triggers me.

>>5808934
>I don't think it's possible for bullet hells to be fun though
They're addictive and hypnotic once you get the hang of things.

>>5810924
Video games are never addictive. That's just an excuse for binge gamers who hate themselves.

>>5810940
>it's binge not addiction
Binge drinking is a sign of a drinking addiction since they have so many overlapping characteristics (diminished self-control, continued use despite negative consequences). binge gaming is a sort of gaming addiction.

>>5810940
I used to think this but I know too many people who have played for days at a time and legit almost fucking died. I think people like us (mmhmm gentlesir fedora) just like games themselves and arent vulnerable to the hot new dopamine treadmill of the week.

>game is addictive!
That's just a way people compliment a game, meaning it will engage you and soak up a lot of time. They're not saying it's literally like heroin and you'll suck dick to get more.

>>5810956
Alcohol is a poison though. That's why it makes you addicted. Video games are not any kind of poison or whatever. It's just simply fun. Just because you do something a lot which is fun to do, doesn't mean you are addicted.

Alcoholics can go through hell when they try to stop drinking. That's nothing you can compare to fucking video games.

>>5810964
That's not because they are addicted, that's because they simply they have no motivation to do anything else.

>>5810978
>Alcoholics can go through hell when they try to stop drinking.
>That's nothing you can compare to fucking video games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Petric

>>5810967
Except there are many people who still think games can make you addicted. They treat this like gambling or whatever, which is fucking retarded.

>>5810979
Those are rare cases of some maniacs.

>>5810979
God I hope someone rounds up gamers before they kill again

>>5810979
He probably also would kill you if you took away his favorite food or whatever. this has nothing to do with games, it's just a twisted person doing twisted things.

>>5810987
He was playing halo 18 hours a day. Sure the rage-murder part is rare, but the addictive-habit part isn't given the appearance of online games where you are constantly motivated to "keep up" with other players in terms of rewards or skill or tournaments, etc.

>>5810989
>He was playing halo 18 hours a day
And body builders make sport 18 hours a day and can also kill themselves with it.

Does this mean we should treat sport like a drug now? No.

>>5810992
>And body builders make sport 18 hours a day and can also kill themselves with it

You mean professionals? That's their full time job. And they don't train 18hours a day, Dorian Yates would train 4x a week, 1 to 2hour sessions.

>>5811005
Doesn't matter if they earn money with this or not. Fact is that basically EVERYTHING can become a "drug" if you want it to be that way.

Artists also often draw the whole day, barely eat and sleep anymore, because they want to finish their works.

>>5808907
>>5808910
>>5808912
Overall, hard games are funner than easy game.

>>5808924
That's trash.

>>5811013
>anything can become an addiction
Addiction comes with self-control problems and negative consequences.

>>5811030
Everything has negative consequences. If you do nothing but art anymore, then you won't be able to do much else.
Same goes for playing video games. If you want to clear every shmup outthere, you won't have much time for anything else.

You call it "self-control problem", but for the people who do this, it's just simply what they want to do at that moment. If you do what you want to do, then this is not a self-control problem.

>>5811038
>If you do nothing but art anymore, then you won't be able to do much else.
It depends on the purpose behind the action and what fruits it bears. Someone who is very talented might be able to justify spending years pursuing art because they create something very positive and beautiful, like Shakespeare or Michelangelo, and they are still able to live a good life while dedicated to their craft.

While someone with no talent or direction might spend 20 years drawing 10hours a day, making Chris-chan tier buttfuck doodles, never creating anything of value, and also sacrificing a potentially decent life in the process.


>If you want to clear every shmup outthere, you won't have much time for anything else.
If you want to masturbate 12hours a day then you won't have much time for anything else, doesn't mean you should do it or that it's worth it.
The whole "if it feels good, do it" yolo mentality is retarded modern garbage.

>You call it "self-control problem", but for the people who do this, it's just simply what they want to do at that moment
Most people aren't conscious they have an addiction problem until they are forced to face reality somehow, either their habit stops making them high, or they are separated from their habit and all they can think about is going back to it. That's why junkies and alcoholics have a hard time holding jobs or enjoying the little things in life, they keep thinking "I'd rather just be shooting drugs or getting wasted in my basement than be here"

guwange is shit

>>5811038
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your general point (not the guy you're responding to) but I think it's pretty shaky ground to compare opportunity costs to the negative consequences of drug addiction

>>5808910
This. People who equate difficulty with fun are masochists. There's definitely a sweet spot in difficulty, but if a game is just way too hard, it's not fun anymore. See: >>5808948

And as an aside, the tryhards who think difficulty and fun are the same thing are usually the same people who also don't understand the difference between a game being difficult yet forgiving (hard stages but infinite lives/continues, plentiful checkpoints, doesn't waste your time) and games that are difficult and punishing (hard stages and you only get a few tries to get any given part right before you get kicked back to the start of the game and have to spend an hour doing it all over again, no respect for your time).

All in all, it's not good for a game to be either too hard or too easy. The idea of too hard being better than too easy is just a meme. A meme literally made up by no-life autists who have absolutely nothing else to do with their time and who look down on you if you don't want to spend disproportionate amounts of time memorising levels and enemy layouts in order to beat games that are far more frustrating than they are enjoyably challenging.

>>5811072
Good job proving you have no taste.

But I'm not going to fall for this sort of bullying anymore.

I don't find it funny when people attack games I'm into. What about it turns you off? Nevermind.
I bet you find this funny because you are a bitch. And /vr/ is full of people like you.

I am not a bitch, but you are, that's why you target perfectly decent games like Guwange.

>>5811095
I think he was just trying to see if it was you or not kraut

>>5811070
>It depends on the purpose behind the action and what fruits it bears.
So in other words, "stop liking what I don't like"? Lol

>>5811098
That's not even me you fucking retard.

>>5811093
There no sweet spot in difficulty because players vary in their experience level, tolerance of frustration and tastes by quite a lot. Where you see a "waste of time" others see an exciting test of consistency and endurance, where you bitch about a lack of extra lives others like the demand for perfectionism. If we're talking about an individual's sweet spot, it's usually just this >>5808948

Nobody says that challenge is the only thing that matters for fun, literally nobody. Challenge is a very important component of fun though, and if you think otherwise I doubt you have a very good definition of what fun is.

>>5811102
>if it feels good do it!
I just want what's best for you.

>>5808910
Tautological descriptions aren't descriptions. You're basically trying to circumvent breaking down the factors that make a game fun by claiming that "it is what it is". That's not how analysis of game design should be conducted, and you should feel ashamed of yourself unless you were deliberately pretending to be retarded.

>>5810940
>Video games are never addictive.
>never
Such a strong word coming from someone who barely knows anything outside of their bubble.

>>5811110
You phony hypocrite just want to look down on people to feel better about your pathetic self.

>if you're goal is to clear all the shmups you won't have time for anything else
Don't do this.

>>5811115

Hey kbr its cee, just checking in to see how you're doing and wishing you all the best with guwange and your life in general, all the best mate.

>>5811138
DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS, also my favorite game is Streets of Rage 2

>>5811141
wat? go back to romania.

>>5810979
He did nothing wrong. I take that back, actually; he should have finished off his dad then killed himself so he wouldn't suffer the consequences.
>>5811038
I'm trying to play every single JRPG to 100% completion. I don't want to do it. There are dozens of other activities that I dream of doing but I feel compelled and hurt myself if I don't plug away at my useless goal of fully completing every JRPG. By the way, my standards of measurement change arbitrarily week by week and I will often delete my progress in a game halfway or more through it because I didn't satisfy a new criterion. I neglect my health and social life to accomplish this task by spending 14 to upwards of 30 hours per session (only in hypomanic moods), haven't brushed my teeth in months and shower once a week. I haven't been outside since late June and before that, once in April and once in January.

I used to live in a group home where I wasn't allowed to play video games and guess what? Every symptom went away. I stopped neglecting my body, became social and learned coping mechanisms to combat by deep-seated self-loathing. Then I turned 18 and was sent home to rot in my self-imposed prison of video game madness. Am I an extreme case? Sure. But in a world with our population, there are many extreme cases. A kid at my group home was even worse than me and he was only 13 at the time, playing WoW for days at a time and binge eating until he ballooned into a monster.

>>5811154
Yes, my life is in much the same condition except I play shmups and belt scrollers instead. This is a sincere post that contains facts!

>>5811160
defensive

>>5811141
Good taste, SOR2 rocks.

>>5811160
I'm glad you understand. I don't know if you could call certain behaviors in certain individuals "gaming addiction" but it matches a lot of criteria. When I was sent to my group home, the "withdrawals" from having to actually go to classes and therapy and do sports instead of playing games made absolutely feral. I got violent and cursed and threatened everyone there to just let me go home and play my god damn computer games (at the time, a mix of WoW and emulated JRPGs from the SNES era, like Tales of Phantasia). But slowly I realized I didn't need to play games, the voices and compulsion in my head faded and I just accepted my lot in life. Going back home to an alcoholic dad, of course I escaped back into the sweet embrace of self-imposed lunacy. I'm keenly aware of how wrong things are. I desperately want to limit my hours to even 5 or 6 a day. But I just can't because the voice screams at me that I'm not productive enough, that I will NEVER finish my task of completing all JRPGs if I don't pound the hours in.

imagine what you could be doing instead of cope posting in this thread

>>5811026
cope

>>5811169
>>5811154
kill yourself schizo, no one cares about your mental illness

>>5811112
Regardless, if you honestly take issue with the first sentence, you are a nematode.

I only play the hardest of hard games. Some call it masochism, I call it a lifestyle choice, I'm not going to be like everyone else playing normal games.

>>5811169
Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that genuine full on crazy retards like you are regular posters here.

>>5813282
damn, that's one ugly hipster

>>5813451
I bet you're even uglier lol

>>5811154
>I'm trying to play every single JRPG to 100% completion. I don't want to do it.
Ok, but that's no reason to project your illness on everyone else.
I have respect for people who play games skillfully. People like Daigo worked their asses off to be able to play like they do.

But of course, those people are an exception rather. I can understand why you think people who play nothing but MMOs the whole day are somewhat "addicted", but it's not always like this.

>>5814057
Didn't Daigo give up games for a while and he said it was pointless and unfulfilling... But now he's back. Game Addiction is real.

>>5811093
Way to point to the graph without even understanding what it's trying to tell. Skill as a variable is tied to the individual, everybody's sweet spot lies on a different part of the curve.

>>5808907

Diffrent games have diffrent kinds of appeal. In the same way someone watching a shakespear play, vs a super hero movie are after diffrent things.
A Game that is challenging, is enaging by nature. You're more likely to remember "that one boss", the frustration he caused you, and the high you got from beating him, then you are the breather level that comes after. But this challenge is hardly the only way for a game to be engaging or entertaining in general.

>>5808907
Challenge is one of the ways to engage the player, and pleasure requires engagement.

Not all challenging games are fun though. Jungle Book for SNES is a pain in the ass, but isn't fun in the slightest, for just one example.

>>5814486
Treating games like stories was a mistake.

>>5814634
It would make more sense to compare games to playing music (naive 3-chord songs vs. virtuosic classical pieces)

>>5814634

It's an analogy not a comparison. If I say Jack is fast like a car, I'm not calling Jack a car. I'm saying games have wide and varied appeal, beyound pure challenge.

>>5814634
Not really, stories and games have timeless appeal going back to our earliest history as man. It's natural we would start telling stories in video games.

Different gamers seek different forms of engagement. That's why different genres exist.

Is this another /shmupg/ thread?

>>5814854
That is a better one but still way off.

>>5815238
No. While it's true both are ancient, they're separate for good reason. Their intrinsic natures are polar opposites.

>>5816365
Yeah, I'm thinking we're back
>>5811072
Based

>>5816464
Their nature is different but not mutually exclusive, they are forms of play, or playfulness.
Not unlike an opera singer singing, or an actor playing a role on a live stage. A story is being transmitted but the actors involved are also playing and executing a performance, sometimes well, sometimes poorly.
So it's totally legitimate to mix stories with games because both are playful things.

>>5816585
No. A game is about the player making decisions and story is about relaying a narrative. They are opposed.

>>5816637
Actors in plays make decisions, perform sequences of events, improvise yet also convey a story. To them it's a play and a story.

Another example is a D&D campaign. It combines gameplay and story telling.
You have a problem of dialectics, not our problem, these two things (games and stories) have been successfully combined already so your empirically wrong and theoretically wrong. Another example is a D&D campaign. It combines gameplay and story telling.

>>5816678
D&D is the only semi good example and that only works because the DM lays out the scenario. It can lead to an interesting story but it is a game. Actor example is riddiculous.

>>5808910
"Being fun makes a game fun",
This making no fucking sense, makes this a nonsense

>>5816957
You've never been in a play, a dance or music show? You memorize a pattern of routines and then perform them. It can go well or you can crash and burn. Its like a shmup. The audience just sees a story, the actors are players and performers displaying skills.

>>5817017
I'm an avid theatre goer, actors are not playing a game.

Man, shmup players really think they are better than others for memorizing bullet pasterns.

>>5817148
Ironic isn't it?

>>5817148
Noone says this, you sound insecure

>>5817170
Lol I don't think you've ever been into shmups thread.

>>5817179
Are you the Shinobifag? Dont be so touchy lad.

Everyone knows the real chads are high level puyo puyo players.

>>5817185
Who? Why do you insist there are only your friends using 4chan.

>>5817193
Some random guy that gets really insecure in shinobi/fighting game/arcade threads on /vr/ when his gamer cred gets questioned.

>>5817202
You sound like a crazy person constantly accusing everyone in the thread of being part of your circlejerk

>>5817212
Yeah well you sound like a FAG, how about that

>>5817185
Lol no but nice try at deflecting

>>5811103
That was definitely you kraut, lmao.

There's no hope for spics.