Poll: What's the maximum effort a game should ask of you?

How much effort are you typcailly willing to spend

  • None. I want to pick up and play immediately

    Votes: 4 6.3%
  • A little. I don't mind learning a controller layout or gameplay mechanics

    Votes: 24 38.1%
  • An hour or three's training to learn the ins and outs of a complex title

    Votes: 24 38.1%
  • I'm happy to spend hours learning before it all clicks and I get to really play

    Votes: 6 9.5%
  • I'll keep slugging away forever no matter how confused I remain!

    Votes: 5 7.9%

  • Total voters
    63
Game dependent. A rich online MP game ment to be played 100+ hours should be deep. Best balance is a game that is accessible, good teaching tools, but doesn't dumb it down. Basic control interface should be understood in 5 minutes and the GUI should be understandable in 15.
 
Any developer worth their salt will make their games to fit with the current standards, so if you've played a similar game, you can easily migrate to it. I know many developers who have admitted doing this.
 
The poll options are a bit odd. For instance, the whole point of Demons' Souls is to keep slugging away, but not because you're confused. No one wants a game that after two dozen hours is still impenetrable, but one where, after two dozen hours you still haven't mastered everything is pretty cool. Essentially what Joshua said about UI as well.
 
I like the "easy to pick up, tough to master" school of game design.

ie. games where the basics of gameplay are easy to pick up, but there are still additional features/ complexities or nuances that give it depth and longevity. A good example of this is fighters like Tekken, SF etc. Anyone can button mash and have a good time but there is still a ridiculous amount of depth for the veteran player (and everyone in between)
 
How much effort I put into the game is pretty much how much fun I get from it. As long as the game keeps offering fun, I keep putting in effort until it offers no more fun. Then I stop and move to another game.

I like 'learn as you play concept' that is transparent, ie I hate tutorial levels and especially one that force me to complete it to move on. If they must do it that way, build in video manual to consult when I need is preferable compare to force tutorial levels.
 
Well I read the question, and I was gonna say have sex with it, but didn't we already do that in GTA:SA? Lol j/k, hmm, maybe a few mins, or 2 hours, depends what type of game it is. I'd say.
FPS Under 15min
RPG 1 hour
MMO 2 Hours
Sports 10 Min-1 hour (UFC2009 2 hours though)
Huge city in the game 1-2 hours
Usually around 10 min-2 hours,
All depends on the game, the scope of the game, the features.
 
Games gotta have replay value, alot of FPS don't have it. Look at it like this. If Modern Warfare was not online, how many people would have bought it? Once you beat the story and ops, whats there to do? Nothin. I think we need more offline replay value in FPS games. We need some old school RPGs 80+ hours, maybe some shenmue 3. (probley not gonna happen, but hope it would) Games just need more side questions, more options, more to do after you beat it, look at it like this make a side quest that when I beat it I get something for it, maybe a new gun, better armor. Dunno, probley not gonna happen. Tell me this who would have won game of the year, if it were totally based on offline only-COD4,Halo 3,RB6V2? Theres more replay value in RB6V2 offline than there is in Halo3 or COD4. I don't know, this form here is confusing me.
 
Well, I chose 'none - I want to play immediately' Then again, one of my favorite games is Civ IV and I prefer it immensely over Civ Revolutions because of the depth.

However, on the easiest levels of Civ IV you can pick it up and play immediately through a tutorial. I got through mid difficulty levels on Civ III without ever understanding the mathematics behind a lot of what I was doing.

So, I guess I'd say - easy to play and get enjoyment from with the ability to provide limitless depth and difficult if the player so chooses.

How about that for an answer?
 
I'm usually quite willing to put quite a bit of time into games before seeing gratification, although it could be said the experience playing (if interesting enough) can be reward enough for continuing.
I think the monster hunter series is where I would draw the line, in that I found I knew what I had to do, but really couldn't see the point of spending the time to learn the specific timings (of weapons/monster attacks) needed to do well in the game.
 
Hi guys.

"I will keep slugging away no matter how confused I am."

That's what I submitted. I like games with all different types of difficulty curves. And sometimes I like a game even before I have begun to surmount that curve. In fact, I am especially enchanted by games whose mechanics evade me at first.

Take King of Fighters 95. I liked this game back nineteen hundred and ninety five (the year) when I read about it in gamefan and they used to many screenshots and they really gushed a bit. Maybe some of you remember. It was at the coin ops of course so i took my wee little teenage self on me wee little skateboard downtown to where I could play it on an MVS box.

NOW then I put in the coins and I select a character because the timer is ticking you see and lo and behold I need to pick three. You see I thought this team battle was and option or something. An extra feature for those who have grasped the basics already. No sir I had to pick three characters. And what's more the characters designs and personalities seemed to communicate something that was all very murky and uncomfortable to my pubescent mind. These were not like the cheeky transparent stereotypes in street fighter. There were no gays in street fighter. Not open ones.

And then the game starts and there's all sorts of meter and announcer yelling. The game starts against the cpu and I flail about. The controls have that peculiar SNK feeling that works like the shifter in an old porcshe and my sexually ambiguous characters drop like little poof flies and soon theres a big pixely portrait of a guy who looks like a petty thug suggesting me to get lost or some such in chunky capitol letters. The shading on his arm muscles doesn't look so much like streetfighter. The bands of color that reflect light and shadow are so bold and deep. The continue timer runs out and the game goes back into attract mode.

I have a deep love for street fighter at the time but as I stood in front of that mvs machine I could see that King of Fighters 95 was an obtuse and impenetrable world to me. I played it more but never achieved even basic proficiency mostly due to the fact that it's never been that popular in the states. The important thing is that I still really like the game while knowing well that I couldn't really play.

Since then I've been through home versions, arcades in Mexico, online thru various emulator clients all trying to crack this king of fighters nuts. Never really go very good at it. :/

Last week I started using the ggpo service. It's an online play client for a limited but healthy selection of fighting games. And Imagine my suprise when I saw that KoF is by far the most popular game!

So I jumped in for the umpteenth time and guess what? I'm getting it now! With the new setting and source of competition I'm getting a real feel for the game and I'm actually enjoying playing it, instead of enjoying the fact that this street fighter alternative simply exists and romping the the single player mode once in a while. It's fun as hell. Anyone here ever remember me giving a game higher praise than that? FUN AS HELL.

Back in 95 I didn't skateboard to that arcade alone. My friends were there. They went with me, excited for the KoF game on the Neo Geo... they wanted to like it. And after we all sampled it, they declared it as junk. Not worth playing. I was the only one who knew that there was a good game under there. I wanted very badly to enjoy it and now I finally do.

This isn't normal but it's normal for me. I have gone thru this protracted lurning curve for several games:

Panzer General - got it. Took a many years of painful revisiting for this to click. And indeed a very good game.

Civilization - not yet. Last time I took a crack at this was about a year ago. That spell was about 20 hour worth of play maybe bringing my lifetime total up to 50. I understand what Im supposed to be doing but I still don't get why it's fun. I know this is one of the greatest of all time tho so I will go back.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 - Not yet. Another fighting game that just moves a little fast for me. A long long time ago a good player tole me I was "hopeless". Despite playing for weeks on end, I remain a marvelously retarded punching bag whenever matched against a human opponent. In fact I was openly heckled by a self professed "8 year old" just a month ago and powerless to talk and smack back (i honestly could back it up) i decided to give the game a little break like I have so many times before.

Virtua Fighter - Got it. After years of trying, I had my break thru with VF a little before four hit the arcades. It has remained one of my most enjoyed series to this day.

Rock Band/Guitar Jerk - Still not there. Okay I played Parappa and I was pretty bad at that. I'm happy to hog the mike but trying to flick that plastic guitar good enough to not assplode the band... ugh another day maybe.

Nectaris - Got it. As soon as I finally figured out why this was fun I ran off to play Panzer General again. I was so excited.


My :oops: Sorry about the rambling.

My moral here is that sometimes you want to a game to be what it is not. You want to jump in and kick ass but that's at odds with what make it a good game in the first place.
 
I'm on the "easy to play, difficult to master" sort of bit, especially in a primarily online game. Fresh recruits will be coming in as well as old veterans that need to refresh their skills, so you always get a nice mix of players, and hopefully evolving tactics with each round you play.
 
Given that I play Eve Online, I chose the last option. It seems to fit. Everyone in this game is a masochist to some degree.
 
I'd agree that it depends on the game. When I first played FFT I was still heavily confused about some mechanics by the 3rd chapter, especially since you're still getting new classes with completely different stategies and uses, but I was happy to continue slugging away because there was a fun element of 'discovery' ;) And in Portal, you're still learning new things by the last 3rd of the game but it's so well presented that I don't mind.

On the other hand Vagrant Story had a very convoluted battle system that is never explained to you. I absolutely hated having to go through the manual or in game menus (within the first half hour) to find something simple. Basic training should always happen in game IMO.
 
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