Thoughts on Being Able to Skip Gameplay Sections of Games

[Grahf]

Stemming from but not inherently related the Hepler topic is the idea that she raised -- although I wouldn't say that she's the originator -- in her interview about being able to fast forward or even skip segments of gameplay to get to the story faster.

Being able to skip certain enemies, segments, bosses, etc. would have other applications as well. Everyone here has probably had the experience at one point or another of being particularly frustrated by a certain part of a game that is difficult or poorly designed or tedious. Allowing a person to skip the parts of the game they don't want to would prevent player frustrations in some cases and improve overall enjoyment.

At the same time it's a tenuous balance and something that can easily go wrong or be abused. In games where story is interwoven with gameplay through things like overheard conversation or information related in the midst of battles skipping gameplay isn't really an option, and even in games where a lot of the exposition comes from things like cutscenes it's still a sub-optimal solution because games tend to be interwoven to have experiences that span the course of both gameplay and story segments.

There is one notable title that's tried this approach L.A. Noire which allowed gamers to skip parts that they found difficult after a certain number of failed attempts. As mentioned in the linked article there are also Nintendo games that will play the levels for you if you fail them a certain amount of times.

So the questions include: what do you think of this kind of system in games? Is it justifiable for some games but not for others or is it equally applicable? How can the system best be implemented, and can a compromise be reached where a player who might feel the need to use it isn't cheated out of some of the experience (if it can be said that they have been cheated by making the choice to skip the segment)?

[Muphrid]

I think there can be a place for this sort of thing--for, say, a God mode that makes any gameplay challenge trivial so that one can experience the story.  Whether it can all be boiled down to just cutscenes and such would be more difficult.  A lot of games these days seem to have story presented during gameplay (whether that be combat or something else), so to separate that out would be extra work.  God modes that just change the power of the character are less of an added burden by comparison, and if they get more people buying (and not so many other people refusing to buy out of entitled rage), I don't see why not.

The thing is, Hepler wanted to just skip, and that is more work and thought.  To be honest, I don't see that happening, but maybe someone in the industry is more innovative than that.  In fact, I'm sure someone is.

[thepanda]

The thing is, Hepler wanted to just skip, and that is more work and thought.

The example that she gave sounds more like a quick battle option than a full skip, though. I know there are plenty of games where I'd love to just equip my characters and have the computer calculate if I won or lose. It would make grinding so much easier. Hell, Disgaea let you turn off animations. I know that option alone allowed me to keep playing that series.

Bangaio let's you skip stages. Mario 3d gives you an uber powerup if you're having problems. Certain rpgs let you set the computer to handle battles ( grandia and tales, at least). Some games lower the difficulty or give you other modifying options. Heck, KoF 98'(I think) used to let you chose from a list of things to modify the next battle when you lost.

The concept of skipping or modifying annoying bits of game play isn't exactly new. Sure, you can't do it realistically with all games. Even she says that, but it isn't the travesty against gaming that people are making it out to be, either.

So it might turn an rpg into a glorified visual novel. I've played some of those; this isn't the insult it's made out to be.

[Grahf]

Earthbound had a nice battle system where if you were high enough level enemies would actually run from you on screen, and if you touched them you generally defeated them without a battle and got the EXP and items for doing so. You had to be a fair bit stronger than the enemies in the place, and in some cases you need to do things like attack from the back for the battle advantage, but it's a system that I wish more RPGs would use. It's still sort of a grind, but it's a massively expedited one.

[Dracos]

What exists in dev and what exists in final are often fairly different.

Dev's can skip to dozens of points throughout the game usually, adjust their equipment on the fly, godmode, and fly around the world.  The reason few of these make it in as debug/cheat options in lauch is they tremendously destabilize the game and while a dev doesn't blink if flying through a wall causes a crash from sitting in a non-loaded section, game customers would whine about.

As far as post-launch options, yeah, it's nice when there is some decent options there.  Even better when they're largely unnecessary, but that varies from person to person.

Gameplay is something that's far less easy than narrative to isolate down.   Sure in game series with contained events, you can just declare that event to be a win with min/no damage (RPGs, Tact-Strat), but action, adventure, and blended games, particularly multiplayer situations, it is not anywhere near as easy to even conceptualize a design for, much less get the budget time to implement.  Level or chapter based experiences can give cheats to open up the way, or just give bypass (Often wise when game levels are not necessary associated, as in puzzle or rhythm experiences).  But the more complex and irregular the experience the more difficult it tends to be there, and gamers as a whole tend to reward irregular and complex experiences with money  far more than experiences that are regular and consistent.

[Brian]

I'm going to open with the fact that I like the idea in theory.  I see a few problems with it working in practice, though, some of which are probably minor, and some of which are actually pretty major.

First of all, does this stance/option take into account games where you're judged for things that you do/can do in the field?  Deus Ex -- if you kill people a lot, you tend to get judged for it a bit.  Likewise if you go out of your way and only ever subdue people with non-lethal takedowns.

Those things have minor bearing on the plot -- how does the 'skip combat' option take that into account?  'Skip combat: stealth', 'Skip combat: murder them all' buttons?  What if you're more interested in seeing a more gray-area take on things?  If I play Bioshock: Just The Story, it's pretty straight forward.  I can probably just 'button through' and get only story until the first harvest chance, then I get a decision tree.  'Harvest, or don't'.

In a game with a lot of optional content like Deus Ex, that won't really fly.  I've been playing Amalur a lot lately, and it has sidequests galore.  How are side-quests, which you may be interested in from a story standpoint, reflected in the 'button through combat' take on things?

In an RTS, and many FPSes, much of the story takes place in the combat engine.  While you can, for example, play Starcraft and just watch the cutscenes, this keeps you from seeing a little over half of the content -- the in-engine discussions between characters.  Starting from the introduction of Kerrigan, and moving on to, well, everything else -- does the 'button through' stance just give you a 'no-combat' button to press when beginning the mission that plays the game for you at 10X speed, then slows down so you can watch the exchanges as scripted?  That's more dev-time, even if it's viable, isn't it?

Personally, I'd like a combat-free version of Disgaea, because you would not believe how much I suck at that type of game -- but the story is hilarious to me.  But from what I know of most Disgaea fans, the story is fun, but it's all about playing the system -- and breaking it.  So ... why would the creators care to cater to me?

[thepanda]

Anecdote time.  I know when playing Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 there were many times when I'd beat a stage so fast that the games script took a couple minutes to catch up. This left me reading alerts and listening to the conversations without any further gameplay impute. (So scripted but so fun.)

[VySaika]

I had a habit of TRYING to rack up as many messages as I could and beat the stage just to see how long of a delay I could create. I am entertained by odd things~

[Jason_Miao]

I'm going to repeat a part of what I'd said in the other thread.  If gameplay is not fun to the degree where you want to skip it, then don't play the game.  Find other content or other media.  MSRP on Dragon Age was $50.  Right now, you can get everything that's been written in A Song of Ice and Fire, and with free shipping, have money left over, or a few pay per view products, plenty of movie tickets, or whatever.

Heck, if there are a significant number of people who, like Hepler, wanting to take part in the story without the game, why not sell an accompanying visual novel as a standalone or lump it in for free when you buy the game?   Isn't the parent, EA, always looking to cash in on their IP?  This would seem like an obvious solution that benefits everyone.  Of course, if there isn't a market for it, then there isn't a market for it, which might explain why it isn't happening.

Hepler's wanting to enjoy the content without the game aspect isn't completely unknown.  The fans of Touhou, a doujin bullet-hell SHMUP series, are one example of how this works.  Anecdotally, I've been told that there are more people who are self-professed Touhou fans, yet who dislike SHMUPs and therefore don't play, than the ones who do play the games.  They write and consume fan-made art, fan-made games, fan-manga, fan-remixes, fan-animation, etc.  Maybe this is an untapped market for US companies?

[Dracos]

There's 'is there a market' willing to pay for one question.  There's 'does the dev team have the additional upfront budget and attention to deal with it?' as another.  The latter question often comes up for many AA or AAA games where while they may be spending fifty-hundred mil, employing hundreds of people and delivering on multiple platforms, that still doesn't necessarily mean they have the additional attention to safely orchestrate and manage book deals, comic deals, movie deals, action figure deals, visual novel deals, digital facebook games, digital mobile games...etc.

This goes true even for titans like EA, where resources are largely not a problem.  After a certain point it becomes extremely difficult to add on another media in which the product is being considered into, just by limits of what attention and budget is willing to be devoted to the whole thing.  Is it too much when you have to start dedicating a small team of people just to manage and oversee that the other various properties being developed in concert with the game are working along the same narrative purpose?  It's not too uncommon for big projects to have teams of people dedicated just to managing communication between different sites and partners in these regards as it is, so when you're  the EP looking at budget, you've gotta ask as well if you really have the attention to dedicate to putting another side product on the market.

And answering backwards, I've spent a rather large number of hours on previous games adjusting things to taste.  "Hey, I'd like enemies to be more durable.  Or weaker.  Yeah, this whole instawin thing is getting in the way of me being a twinky badass and killing them.  Man, you know without the card bullshit, this game would be pretty fun.  Let's get rid of that.  Hmm, you know, I don't feel like constantly grinding.  Let's make that a non-issue."  Just twinking it can be part of the fun, as many modders will tell you.

Certainly, there is a truth in your statement, especially when applied as a general repudition of the medium, but there's a lot of other truths in the details.