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PS5 has hints built into the interface (Gaming)

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:01 (1261 days ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:07

So PS+ members on the PS5 get a built in tips and hints system in the interface. The example I saw was being able to pull up videos showing locations of collectable items.

This is bad.

We are at the point where enough players are expected to look up solutions that they put it as a part of the interface. Maybe it says something about the fact that the 'challenge' of things like collectable items just isn't that fun to begin with if people don't even want to do it themselves. Maybe it says something about players and game designers who aren't even expecting to play the game and discover themselves but be told along.

And yes you wrote the Portal 2 guide you're one to talk blah blah. The very first thing it said was that Portal was a puzzle game, and you really should do it yourself because that's where the fun is. Don't use the guide unless you are just hopelessly stuck. And even then, the hints were tiered such that they might help with one particular piece of the puzzle that doesn't click rather than spoiling the whole thing. And even THEN you had to go to the trouble of buying the guide in the first place. I tried really hard not to make it lame.

I get right now that everything is available on the internet and people look stuff up, but that was 'outside' the game. To put solutions IN the game is just… that doesn't sit right with me. If you think enough people are going to look a thing up that you put it IN THE GAME INTERFACE then maybe your puzzle is shit? Maybe don't design your game around something a sizable chunk of people clearly don't even want to DO themselves?!

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hard agree with you here

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:20 (1261 days ago) @ Cody Miller

- No text -

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by squidnh3, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 10:24 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Easter egg hunts represent an unusual example of this issue. Personally, I like the idea of them but rarely bother to take the time to do them. I figure I will eventually find them all with how much I play the game - but I almost never do and will ultimately break down and watch videos on where to find them. Presumably someone gets some value out of them. It's cool when you do find one un-aided.

Puzzles, yeah the point of puzzles is to do them yourself, but if you don't like puzzles you're like," why is the puzzle in my FPS?"

As far as basic gameplay, well, learning tips and tricks from others is basically the fundamental human experience. Who learns how to shoot a basketball without any guidance?

This coming from someone who definitely trends toward the, "I want to figure it out myself" side of things.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 10:33 (1260 days ago) @ squidnh3

Regarding Easter egg hunts.

What would be more satisfying:

1. A member of the community figuring out outbreak prime and then sharing it with everyone on the forum?
2. Watching a video from the interface.

Even if you don’t want to do them yourself, the first option is beneficial to the community and socially.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 10:44 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Where do you imagine the PS5 hint is coming from? Because I guarantee you that Bungie is not going to build the answer to Outbreak Prime into the PS interface.

This is just . . . do you do this deliberately? That example is so far out of the realm of possibility that it damn near doesn’t even make any sense.

PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Claude Errera @, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 10:53 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Regarding Easter egg hunts.

What would be more satisfying:

1. A member of the community figuring out outbreak prime and then sharing it with everyone on the forum?
2. Watching a video from the interface.

Even if you don’t want to do them yourself, the first option is beneficial to the community and socially.

Do you think that's what's happening today?

I suppose that occasionally, puzzles/secrets in-game are solved by people on our forum, and then shared... but the vast majority of that sort of thing happens elsewhere, and when we hear about it, it's from people we don't know in communities we're not necessarily part of.

In that context, I see no difference between your 1. and 2.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 11:34 (1260 days ago) @ Claude Errera

Regarding Easter egg hunts.

What would be more satisfying:

1. A member of the community figuring out outbreak prime and then sharing it with everyone on the forum?
2. Watching a video from the interface.

Even if you don’t want to do them yourself, the first option is beneficial to the community and socially.


Do you think that's what's happening today?

I suppose that occasionally, puzzles/secrets in-game are solved by people on our forum, and then shared... but the vast majority of that sort of thing happens elsewhere, and when we hear about it, it's from people we don't know in communities we're not necessarily part of.

In that context, I see no difference between your 1. and 2.

What do you think the Destiny Reddit is? A large forum.

PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Claude Errera @, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 12:22 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I suppose that occasionally, puzzles/secrets in-game are solved by people on our forum, and then shared... but the vast majority of that sort of thing happens elsewhere, and when we hear about it, it's from people we don't know in communities we're not necessarily part of.

In that context, I see no difference between your 1. and 2.


What do you think the Destiny Reddit is? A large forum.

That I don't know anyone from.

Again: I see no difference between your options. Well, that's not true. One's more convenient than the other if I decide I need the info.

I vote for option 2, if I have to choose.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by squidnh3, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 11:24 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Regarding Easter egg hunts.

What would be more satisfying:

1. A member of the community figuring out outbreak prime and then sharing it with everyone on the forum?
2. Watching a video from the interface.

Even if you don’t want to do them yourself, the first option is beneficial to the community and socially.

Personally, I find the jumping puzzle portion of Zero Hour to be fairly tiresome, probably mostly because I had to watch a video to learn it. I might have enjoyed figuring it out, but I didn't get around to it those first 2-3 weeks.

I'm not really sure what the difference between 1 and 2 is, except that I don't need a second (or third) screen, which I already have anyway the whole time I'm playing Destiny. Somebody in the community made the video.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 10:41 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I don’t know, I can’t really get behind this sentiment.

Different people want different things out of games. Something like Horizon Zero Dawn had a good amount of collectibles hidden in the world. It didn’t feel excessive, but the game itself offered maps you could buy (with game currency, not real money) to show you where they were of you couldn’t find them.

Destiny has plenty of them between the lore entries in Forsaken and finding Savathun’s Eyes this season and the Urns in the dungeon to even where the fuck is Xur this weekend?. Lots of people like looking for those things. Lots of people don’t like looking for them, but they still want whatever trinket finding them all rewards, so they look up where they are.

This seems like such a nothing thing to spend even a single second thinking about, much less getting upset about.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by stabbim @, Des Moines, IA, USA, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 12:48 (1260 days ago) @ cheapLEY

where the fuck is Xur this weekend

I'm honestly kind of disappointed that I stopped playing before I found out about that.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Chappy, Arlington, VA., Thursday, October 15, 2020, 11:07 (1260 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Sounds like the "TrueAchievements" app on the XBox; at least back when "Snap" was a thing. You could snap the app open on the side of the screen and read solutions and watch videos while playing a game. Definitely useful for collectible hunting; I think I used it that way for a Gears of War game.

Microsoft killed the "Snap" feature with an dashboard update though, so I don't think this is possible on Xbox anymore.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, October 19, 2020, 09:26 (1257 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Kermit, Monday, October 19, 2020, 09:32

Basically agree. Twenty-first century citizens love their conveniences, but to the extent it makes us devalue challenges, it becomes a problem. Not to get overly broad or pretentious, but life will challenge us regardless. Challenges faced in the context of play is a form of training.

Disclaimer: I say this as someone who spent a good part of the weekend looking at Braytech maps, so I guess I'm a hypocrite. Having it in the interface, though, does seem a step beyond. I mean, good game designers include hints in the game regardless.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 17:21 (1255 days ago) @ Kermit

Disclaimer: I say this as someone who spent a good part of the weekend looking at Braytech maps, so I guess I'm a hypocrite.

I'm not against the idea of hints or looking things up. Maybe the game is forcing you to do some kind of puzzle or challenge you have no desire to attempt yourself. Maybe you HAVE tried to do something yourself and are just hopelessly stuck, perhaps overlooking something that you'll never discover.

It's up to you to make that determination, because everyone is different, and a designer can't know where a given individual person will have trouble. Which is why it should be up to the player to seek out a hint, and not the developer's responsibility to give them one.

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PS5 has hints built into the interface

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 20:12 (1255 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Kermit, Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 20:28

Disclaimer: I say this as someone who spent a good part of the weekend looking at Braytech maps, so I guess I'm a hypocrite.


I'm not against the idea of hints or looking things up. Maybe the game is forcing you to do some kind of puzzle or challenge you have no desire to attempt yourself. Maybe you HAVE tried to do something yourself and are just hopelessly stuck, perhaps overlooking something that you'll never discover.

It's up to you to make that determination, because everyone is different, and a designer can't know where a given individual person will have trouble. Which is why it should be up to the player[/i] to seek out a hint, and not the developer's responsibility to give them one.

Games often involve challenge, and everyone has a different set point for what is too hard. People also want different things out of video games. At this point I feel like I have a good idea of what you look for. It's not exactly what I look for, but I share your concerns about making games "frictionless" and how this intersects with game design and ultimately affects the capacity for fun. Following an instruction manual doesn't usually get you into a flow state.

It's related to why I was against in-game raid matchmaking. To believe that that would routinely lead to a satisfying experience was to fundamentally misunderstand what the activity was intended to be and what it required.

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