What's your tolerance for replaying difficult sections of a game?
With games I am lukewarm about failing once or twice and having to replay a section feels like a disaster. My thoughts tend to be along the lines of, 'Nooooooooo!! I don't want to have to go back and play the last few minutes of this damn game!!!' If I'm having fun I don't mind so much but, around the tenth time, I'm starting to get a frustrated. With a game I love playing, such as Amped 2 (my new favourite game) or Halo single player (hey, it'd be a dull world if we all liked the same things) then I can replay the same section of the game endlessly until I crack it. Infact, with Halo legendary, I'm often secretly pleased when I lose a fight because it means I get to go back and do the fight again.
How many times are you willing to replay part of a level and what stories do you have of being stuck on a brutal section of a game?
... herald of Piggledy 'Destroyer of Worlds'
Take 2 Ninja Gaidens and call me in the morning.
I spent an entire weekend fighting just ONE BOSS in Ninja Gaiden Black. Of course once I beat him something had clicked and I was able to recognize patterns in the game much like Neo sees the code in the matrix. Totally worth the weekend of frustration.
892 condescending Certis quotes out of a possible infinity - Elysium scores Torchlight lower than expected.
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Xfire/Xbox Live: StylezXP
It really depends for me. If I can tell that the reason I am failing is my own fault and I just need to adjust my tactics then I'm more willing to replay the sections. However if it comes to to either randomness and pinpoint precision (I'm looking at you platformers), then I get frustrated extremely quickly.
XBL: Tkkyl | Steam: Tkyl
High. I'm very stubborn, and cut my teeth on the 2600 and NES.
A lot of people are proud of hardcore they are, but I see it as more like stubbornness. Especially since I have poor reflexes-- I'm not actually that good at video games. I've replayed difficult sections over and over for two hours or so, making myself angry; that is not having fun with my leisure time.
I am really glad for selectable difficulties, which offsets the cheapness of poor balance. (Don't you dare tell me that the final bosses of God Of War and Heavenly Sword don't make the preceding sections of the game look like a cakewalk by comparison. And I can't believe anybody finished the original Mercenaries without cheating on the last mission.) No More Heroes had some difficult final battles, but they actually felt balanced, with a gradual ramp up in difficulty for each boss.
I don't know if this counts, but one day when I was home sick from work, I beat Yiazamat in Final Fantasy XII with a somewhat underlevelled party. It took about ten hours of hit-and-run.
Very low. I play games to escape the frustrations of everyday life, not add to them. When I can tell that my old dude reflexes ensure that there's no way for me to proceed, I'm done. It's either headed back to GameFly or thrown on the sell/trade pile.
The only exception would be a game that I really love and know there's a way that I can eventually succeed at, like King's Bounty or WoW.
You'd think that game designers would take this into account and, after a few failed attempts, pop up a box asking if you'd just like to skip to the next section. Teh hardk0rz can just ignore it and keep smashing their heads against a wall, and normal people can actually enjoy the game they've paid for.
Twitter: ohsotwitty
I think the key is the quality of the game-player dialog. I always go back to Devil May Cry when I think about this topic, which is one of the handful of games where I feel like I'm getting more out of it by cranking the difficulty up higher. I think the reason for that is that it's not just asking me to work harder as the game gets more difficult, but it's asking me to pay more attention to what's going on. If the game feels like there's more to see the closer you look, then each level of difficulty that demands that you look closer feels more fun than the last. If the dialog is broken somewhere on the line - if the game feels like it's not telegraphing what it's doing well enough for you to read it, or not responding to your inputs fast enough, or not giving you enough input options, that's where frustration sets in.
Like the time that precedes words, there are colors but no rules
I have a very high tolerance for that sort of thing. I don't mind trial-and-error, a good grind before a boss fight, or a cheap boss in a fighting game (to an extent...Seth...).
I played the bejesus out of Mirror's Edge again recently, doing all the Time Trials and Speed Runs, and those speed runs...sometimes I'd miss a run by tenths of seconds and have to do the entire 5-20 minute level again. Did it pretty happily, in most cases.
Well, I finished Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear which (if I remember correctly) doesn't have an option to save mid-mission and Operation Flashpoint (one save per mission) back in the day. Other hard games I finished: Resident Evil 4 on professional difficulty, ArmA, Call of Duty 4 on veteran difficulty. I probably had to replay some sections of the games I listed at least 20 times before I got through.
I'd say my tolerance for replaying difficult sections in a game is quite high.
edit:
However, now that I think of it, I'm not as stubborn when playing an RTS game or Star Wars: Rebel Strike.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I'd say I was joining the winning team, but that'd imply there existed a time when I wasn't on team evil."
For me it all depends on how invested I am in the game. For instance, probably the most frustrated I've been with a game in recent memory was pulling down the star destroyer in Force Unleashed. The 2nd and 3rd times I did it I had no problem whatsoever but for some reason I just didn't get it on the first go-around and it took forever and it was soooo repetetive. I rarely get upset at anything but that one really had me steamed. I kept going though because I wanted to see the next part of the story.
And as for giving up? Most recently I was playing Mirror's Edge. I was in the last third of the game and I missed this one jump several times in a row. It didn't really frustrate me that badly but combined with how many prior jumps I'd had to do over, and over, and over, I just decided it wasn't worth it any more. I didn't care about the story at all and I felt like I'd gotten the experience. It just wasn't worth it to me to sit around and waste an hour to complete what should've been a 30 second run across a building. I packed that one up, sent it back to Gamefly, and never thought twice about it.
Extremely high. If I like the game (and especially if I intend on playing it through to the finish), I will replay a section until I pass it. That might not be in the same sitting but I will do it.
Steam: fyedaddy | XBL: fyedaddy
Back in the day? High.
Presently? Less than zero. I barely have time to play anything as it is, much less pound away at a single challenge over and over, ultimately to get to an ending that's probably going to underwhelm me anyway.
The last game's shenanigans I put up with was God of War (yeah, it's been a while). Climbing those towers with the blades was beyond ridiculous.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
Difficult or broken? Case in point.
I often replay the 3 turret puzzle in Half-life 2 several times to get the positioning right and find the flow of enemies. That is difficult. Or finding the right potions for a boss encounter for The Witcher. Certain platforming segments in the PoP trilogy also come to mind.
I also recently found out in Half-life 2 that if you throw those bladed robots at guards, it is a one hit kill. And much more manageable than trying to shoot everything.
Broken is The near blind platforming on the Albatross in Bionic Commando. Anything designed to steal lives or quarters, making it in to my game, or just plain obtuse and horrible designed like the Jumping in Zen.
I have zero tolerence for broken, I will spend days on a difficult part in a really good game.
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I played Ninja Gaiden on 'Ninja dog' difficulty. After suffering through the ritual humiliation that came with accepting that difficulty level I found it to be ideal.
When Playing Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear I got stuck on the level set in a theatre. A group of hostages were on stage with two gun men and there were patrols of gun men all over the building. I had to work my way around the theatre killing all the outlying terrorists and then rush the stage, killing the last two men before they could shoot the hostages. I must have played that level over thirty times (I glad I don't know the precise number.) When I finally beat it though I raced through the next four or five levels because my skills were so well honed. There is definitely a way in which lots of monotonous practise on a difficult part of the game can teach you a lot about the games mechanics.
... herald of Piggledy 'Destroyer of Worlds'
Very high, I'd say.
I actually enjoyed Stuntman Ignition, which is nothing if not endless repetition of the same run... over and over and over again, til you get it perfect. If I can't get five stars on a run after trying ~10 times, I move on and return later.
For games where you can't progress until you finish a certain difficult section, I will either a) give up temporarily after failing 2 or 3 times, and come back in a day or so, or b) do the encounter over and over again until I know the enemy / boss pattern inside and out, and start figuring out what my strategy should be. I'm far more likely to become enraged by a nonintiutive puzzle segment or 'dead end' in an adventure game than I am by failing reflex or action challenges.
By the time I get around to most games, I already know one or two people who've beat it. My pride won't let me fail where others have proven that prevailing is possible!
XboxLive: Clemenstation
"If all of those guys get into that tiny little tent, I am gonna lose it."
Pretty low. I gave up on Ninja Gaiden because the repetition got frustrating.
After a number of retries I start to think it's more like monkeys and typewriters than skill - I just have to keep hammering away at the buttons long enough and I'll win by chance eventually.
PSN: benruk | Steam: zelos
I also cut my teeth on the NES and 2600
For me it depends on why I'm failing and how much I am enjoying the game.
If I am enjoying the game I will smack into the brick wall a little more, Than If
I am playing the game because someone just suggested the game and I am
giving it a shot.
But I have to admit that all bets are off If it is the end of the game. And it
is the last step before I am put it on the shelf that is an acheviment that I
want to get.
A big factor for me is if I am playing a Co-op game and do the other people
playing want to keep going. If they want to keep on going and I am the
only person that wants to quit I will just buck up and keep on going. So
We can just get it done.
Ha ha ha... ninja dog. I love games that know they're so hardcore that they can get away with calling you names for choosing an easy difficulty. id games (Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake) do this too. I managed to get through Ninja Gaiden II on normal difficulty, but it was pretty tough... I'd say equivalent to the second-hardest difficulty level in most other action games. One step below Insane. Then I tried the second-hardest difficulty in Ninja Gaiden, made it halfway through, and realized that the continual ass-kicking to my self esteem just wasn't worth it. I probably could've made it through by judiciously spamming on-land-charge attacks, but it got pretty boring playing that rigidly.
Stuntman Ignition has this thing where if you fail a run too many times in a row, it'll ask if you want to turn on EASY MODE in big huge letters. Kind of a diss, really.
XboxLive: Clemenstation
"If all of those guys get into that tiny little tent, I am gonna lose it."
What's my tolerance? Throw the joystick at the wall...
Oh... wait... how long am I willing to undergo self-torture?
Depends on the game/challenge/interest.
I was playing Kingdom Hearts 2 last night and I got into a particular boss fight (Demyx) where there was NO save point anywhere close (like within 5 minutes of walking distance gametime and that included monster respawning points). I was already drained resource-wise getting to that point so I spent a pointless hour trying to defeat him. Now, the game designers were nice and let me start from the entry point into the battle after I died. But with only 3 health potions I wasn't able to survive the lengthy battle. So I ran around and found a store (and a save point) and then ran back... except that now the continue entry point was one room back and required me to fight some heavy duty guys, so the patten became:
1-Fight boss
2-Die
3-Respawn one room before with fully stocked party
4-Fight horde of enemies
5-Spend a minute going through and reequipping the party with potions and such for the battle.
6-Goto 1
After 2 hours of this I was ready to toss the game altogether. If it weren't for the fact that I had already invested 17 hours into it and I know the Square Enix games "payoff" in the end with a decent ending so I know there's something to look forward to.
On the other hand, I've invested about 10 hours in Blue Dragon and stopped after one boss battle that killed me and haven't gone back to it because I'm just... too...bored... with the storyline.
For another example I spent 2 YEARS trying to get the survive 1 million achievement in Geometry Wars but on Geometry Wars 2 I haven't gotten the pumpkin face achievement (whatever that was) because... I just don't care...
I just remember playing Mega Man for the gameboy over and over ad nauseum since there were no save points in the game. Run out of lives after playing 90 minutes? Guess what, you get to start right back at the beginning! Luckily I was 12 and had ample free time. I still think my threshold is fairly high evidenced by my recent playing of the same Rock Band song over and over until I get a full combo.
"The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train." - Robert Lowell
"Boy exchange is a fun pain in the ass." - LiquidMantis
Xbox Live - Trainwreck GWJ
He he. I'm glad I have my tag already.
... herald of Piggledy 'Destroyer of Worlds'
This.
Though it does depend on the game. If the game has been overall really fun, I can slog it out through a tough section. But I'm certainly not above just quitting before the frustration gets too high (I'm looking at you, Ninja Gaiden).
I do like the latest trend of on-the-fly difficulty switching. The last battle in Red Faction 3 was really pissing me off, so I just knocked the difficulty down to casual and completed it. At that point I just wanted to finish the damn game, and I'm decades past the time where gaming was some kind of competitive dick measuring contest.
Live: Boot Stackhead
PSN: AcidCat-
I played Conan (the action game by THQ) and was loving it until all of a sudden, ANY enemy was giving me a beating. It felt like artificial difficulty. The same type of dudes who, 30 minutes earlier I was giving an asskicking to could now block all my hits and were hitting 5 times harder than before.
I put it on the shelf for good and I don't regret it. I had fun while it lasted.
FedoraMcQuaid wrote:
XBLive: Interstate 78 / PSN: Interstate78 / [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/I
Depends on the game. The Commandos games are almost nothing but try, fail, re-try, re-fail, repeat until success, save. Somehow, the difficulty in the first game and expansion felt right so I never minded having to replay levels or parts of levels. But I never got far in the second game because it was so ridiculously difficult (I had to consult a walkthough to complete the tutorial).
Lower than it used to be.
I've been trying to play along with RebelFM's game club in Hitman:Bloodmoney. Yesterday I decided, screw it. I simply don't have the patience to keep retrying this mission and the game simply wasn't fun enough for me to keep trying. It's been a long time since I gave up on a single player game without finishing it but I refuse to keep banging my head against that wall.
I hate you soo much Phil Collins!
Duoae wrote:
Pharacon wrote:
PSN = AmazingZoidberg
I recently played through Metroid Prime 3 on Hyper Difficulty. Lots of times I would get so pissed because I would just die and felt there was nothing I could do about it. I would still go back to it because I never thought I couldn't do it. There was a pattern I didn't recognize, or a clue to help me time my movements better. Each time I would get better even if it took me weeks to beat 1 boss. By the time I got past any of those frustrating parts, I was a force to be reckoned with. It felt good to have my butt kicked and then turn around and dominate!
bnpederson wrote:
I'm pretty stubborn, but it depends on how much I've been enjoying the game up to that point. If I'm really into it, there's no telling how long I'll try. If I'm lukewarm, it'll probably make me shelve the game and just forget it.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
This is my red-flag. Once I feel myself getting angry at a video game, my brain triggers the phrase "I'm just not having fun right now," and I put it down for a little while and/or switch to something I know I'll be having fun with.
Usually, though, some things happen:
a) The previous game nags me because I set it aside, and I do[i] come back to it sooner than I'd hoped;
2) Whatever other option I choose after setting it aside starts to absorb me and I forget about the earlier game;
or
Delta) Whenever I [i]do inevitably return to the game, whatever strange all-thumbs difficulty I was facing before magically goes away and I beat that section.
So far, though, Delta hasn't happened with some games -- looking at you, Alone in the Dark and GTA IV.
To answer the thread question, I'd say moderate with a chance of walking away and coming back days later.
LouZiffer wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
I'm generally pretty tolerant if it's not an absolutely cheap section. I really get annoyed, though, when you have to replay a tough section of a game that includes an unskippable cutscene. ("Look at all that juice!")
XBox Live/X-fire: firesloth
I put in at least 20 attempts to finish the motorcycle chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. I'm not quite sure whether that indicates a high tolerance for repetition or a disturbing lack of self-respect.
Sometimes, if you wanna save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
-Bernard
I stop playing games as soon as I stop having fun. I'll gladly replay sections of a game or throw myself against a puzzle any number of times, but if I stop having fun then the game and I are finished. I might come back to it later, or I might give it up entirely, but I refuse to play games when I'm not enjoying them. I have much better things to do with my time.
trueheart78 wrote:
Amoebic wrote:
I finished the first one as well.
I just remembered that I still haven't finished the final fight against Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2 (wrong weapons and characters). I must have tried that one at least 30 times spread out over a few years. No, I won't lower the difficulty.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I'd say I was joining the winning team, but that'd imply there existed a time when I wasn't on team evil."