Topic: Help Feature Confirmed for New Super Mario Bros. Wii

[ShyGuy]

I think I know why they are introducing this Help Feature with NSMB Wii. It's a 2D game, so it is easier to make a friendly AI for it, rather than a 3D game. Here's a quote from Will Wright in GFW magazine article called Three Wishes:

Good pathfinding. It's surprising. You'd think that pathfinding's a solved problem, yet even to this day, with incredibly powerful computers and software, pathfinding still ends up being the biggest pain in the a** imaginable. That's where many, many games have the worst bugs and the biggest frustrations. Aside from that, I think general A.I., which is probably even more solvable than pathfinding.

[NWR_Lindy]

Knownothing/Broodwars - kill the personal attacks, please.

With my "Pussification of Gaming" statement I was being facetious, but I do think that games have gotten easier.  Games were harder in the 80's because they were made with the "arcade mindset": games were short but purposely difficult in order to to pull quarters out of people.  A lot of NES games (Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man, anyone) were part of the hangover of this design philosophy, which was to ramp up the difficulty to artificially extend the experience.  As hardware matured and it became easier to make games longer, retaining that same level of soul-crushing difficulty no longer made sense if designers wanted games to be fun.

As a generalization, games have moved from shorter and harder to longer and easier over the last 20 years.  There are exceptions (Ninja Gaiden II, for example), but they are few and far between.

JUST RAMBLING: I remember back around 2000 I was discussing the Zelda franchise with a buddy of mine.  We were talking about how the old 2D Zelda games (Zelda, Zelda II, Link to the Past) were more arcadey and actually required some skill to beat, but 3D Zelda games are more about putting the time in than anything else.  Anyone can beat them if they devote 50+ hours...they don't require you to master anything, or really hone much skill at all besides puzzle-solving.  I really wish Zelda had bosses more like the Metroid Prime games...for example, the final boss in Metroid Prime 3 is EPIC and DIFFICULT.  Beating that boss actually meant something to me, because I had to figure out his patterns and get better as a player to succeed.  Victory required patience, perseverance, and skill.  I can't remember the last time I played a boss in any Zelda game that I didn't beat on the first or second try.  Even the final battles against Ganon don't stick out in my mind as notably difficult; heck, in Twilight Princess hardly any of your special attacks are even required to beat Ganon, rendering them pointless for the most part.

MORE RAMBLING: For me personally (I realize that I'm old-school and look at most things through that lens), most games today don't give me a sense of accomplishment because I feel they're too easy...that anyone can beat them, so doing so is nothing special.  This is probably why I gravitate towards first-person shooters, because increasing your skill makes them more fun.  If you dominate a particular deathmatch it's because you're probably better than most of the other players there, and that's a good feeling.  On the flip side, getting a royal beat-down sucks and it's frustrating, but that makes me focus on getting better.  It's this reward/punishment loop that many games are lacking today, in my opinion.

[UncleBob]

Everyone who wants hard, old school gaming, go download Birds and Beans.  That game rocks.

[Stogi]

I agree, Lindy. Games are getting longer and they are getting easier. I, however, believe that developers like Nintendo do want to make games difficult and challenging but that it isn't sound business. That would be betting on the few, like broodwars, and not the masses, like the little 7 year old girl.

But that is what I find truly fascinating; first with the patent, and now with its inclusion in NSMB Wii. Is there a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

[KDR_11k]

MORE RAMBLING: For me personally (I realize that I'm old-school and look at most things through that lens), most games today don't give me a sense of accomplishment because I feel they're too easy...that anyone can beat them, so doing so is nothing special.  This is probably why I gravitate towards first-person shooters, because increasing your skill makes them more fun.  If you dominate a particular deathmatch it's because you're probably better than most of the other players there, and that's a good feeling.  On the flip side, getting a royal beat-down sucks and it's frustrating, but that makes me focus on getting better.  It's this reward/punishment loop that many games are lacking today, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's the impression I've been getting too, that online multiplayer is the last refuge of jump-in-and-play gaming that requires skill and I see more and more games attempting to undermine that with experience grinds in multiplayer to unlock any gear (most notoriously Killzone 2). Well, okay, there's also casual gaming but most veteran gamers are looking for something else.

[broodwars]

I agree, Lindy. Games are getting longer and they are getting easier. I, however, believe that developers like Nintendo do want to make games difficult and challenging but that it isn't sound business. That would be betting on the few, like broodwars, and not the masses, like the little 7 year old girl.

But that is what I find truly fascinating; first with the patent, and now with its inclusion in NSMB Wii. Is there a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

That's probably the last frontier of gaming: adaptive AI that tailors the game to fit the skills of the player in real-time.  Maybe one day we'll have a console powerful enough and programmers capable enough to create such a thing flawlessly.

[stevey]

I don't like this because there are countless times in games where I have been stuck on a puzzle or boss for hours on end, wishing I could just skip it; then after so many hours, days, and years I finally beat it with the greatest sense of accomplishment. Yeah, say you never will use it now, but sooner or later you will give in to the temptation when a puzzle or boss just really pisses you off and you will loss the sense of victory. As time goes by the skill level of gamers will keep dropping as well as game difficult as people just keep skipping over and over again.

What makes this horrible is that game developers might not bother anymore to spend months making a game challenging when most gamers will just skip that hard part missing out on their genius. Worst, game developers will go the lazy route and when they need to make the game difficult by cheaply placing in a bunch of 'one hit undodgeable kills' and 'unlogical and loosely explained puzzles that solution don't make any sense' knowing that everyone will skip them and the hardcore will put up with it until they get lucky....

[Kairon]

I'm almost as much of a Blizzard fan as I am a Nintendo one. And you know what? I cheat like HELL in Blizzard games. I use god mode and resource cheat codes because I just can't beat their story modes. But I love the RTS gameplay, and I love the map-making, and I love the Use-Map-Settings experiences, and I love their story and fmvs.... I just need to cheat to get to the end of a game I love. (Except in WC III, which only required that I play the last level on easy mode)

With that in mind, I have absolutely ZERO qualms about a feature like this. I am perfectly willing to accept that I'm not as good at games as someone else, that I can never say that I "beat" X game or Y. But hell... at least let me keep playing somehow! I'm loving the game until I get my face smashed into a brick wall of difficulty.

[GoldenPhoenix]

For me personally (I realize that I'm old-school and look at most things through that lens), most games today don't give me a sense of accomplishment because I feel they're too easy

Wait a second, Lindy beats games? Megaton!

Also am I the only one that finds it pretty sad when someone condemns an option feature because they may not have the will power to not use it? So since they don't want to be tempted with it NO ONE CAN HAVE IT!

[NWR_pap64]

Time for me to be honest...

I play games to have fun. I lack the uber hardcore skills to get the high score or get a hard achievement. I never have and never will. I care more about completing a game than about being the best. So I will confess that if the game gets too hard I will lose interest. Like I already mentioned I play games to have fun, to relieve stress and forget my troubles. If I get too frustrated then why bother?

Everyone's complaining about this since...

- It's Nintendo
- Its a feature aimed at the new audience
- Its making games simpler for everybody.

But the truth is that things like these have been around forever. Game Genie, for example. The device allowed you to cheat like crazy. Did that tempt gamers into buying it? Some yeah, but I didn't see gaming fall to its knees. Remember the Konami code in Contra? It gave you 30 lives. Did that make the game even easier? Of course not.

Gaming is personal. It molds itself to the wants and needs of the player. Want a really hard game that busts your balls? Go ahead. Want something simple? Sure. Just because a game gives you the opportunity to tone down its difficulty it doesn't mean it will ruin the experience because in the end the one that makes the experience is YOU, the player. The player is what gives value to the game, not the company or the developers.

So why worry?

[Mop it up]

Remember the Konami code in Contra? It gave you 30 lives. Did that make the game even easier? Of course not.

I actually would have never even played that game if it weren't for that code. And even with that I could never beat it solo...

[broodwars]

Well, after completing Psychonauts tonight for the first time and slogging my way through that horrid platforming HELL that is the Meat Circus final area of the game, I do have to retract one of my earlier statements: yeah, we still have companies making old school "Nintendo Hard" games besides Team Ninja.  Unintentionally through really crappy platforming, yes...but that's how it usually was in the past as well.   

[KDR_11k]

I agree, Lindy. Games are getting longer and they are getting easier. I, however, believe that developers like Nintendo do want to make games difficult and challenging but that it isn't sound business. That would be betting on the few, like broodwars, and not the masses, like the little 7 year old girl.

But that is what I find truly fascinating; first with the patent, and now with its inclusion in NSMB Wii. Is there a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

That's probably the last frontier of gaming: adaptive AI that tailors the game to fit the skills of the player in real-time.  Maybe one day we'll have a console powerful enough and programmers capable enough to create such a thing flawlessly.

I don't like that either, adaptive difficulty tends to mean that when you encounter an obstacle you'll have to train yourself to get past you can't train because the obstacle is lowered with every attempt and will probably end up being a total pushover before you get any real training done.

How much difficulty can be tolerated strongly depends on the game though, some games have MASSIVE overhead where you spend like 20 minutes driving to the location for the mission every single time you attempt it and that makes failure suck REALLY hard. Generally a game that wastes your time while you're trying to overcome a hard obstacle will probably not make for an enjoyable experience. However in my oppinion a game that lets you retry fairly easily and lets you see your skill improvements even before you're good enough to succeed is usually encouraging to get better at. Designing a hard game properly isn't trivial though and especially the whole movement towards cutscene and visual heavy games makes it harder to do right since impressive visuals or great cutscenes wow only once while difficulty usually requires many attempts and really shows the game mechanics, making the bells and whistles that seem to be the only differentiator between games these days fade away.

[broodwars]

I agree, Lindy. Games are getting longer and they are getting easier. I, however, believe that developers like Nintendo do want to make games difficult and challenging but that it isn't sound business. That would be betting on the few, like broodwars, and not the masses, like the little 7 year old girl.

But that is what I find truly fascinating; first with the patent, and now with its inclusion in NSMB Wii. Is there a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

That's probably the last frontier of gaming: adaptive AI that tailors the game to fit the skills of the player in real-time.  Maybe one day we'll have a console powerful enough and programmers capable enough to create such a thing flawlessly.

I don't like that either, adaptive difficulty tends to mean that when you encounter an obstacle you'll have to train yourself to get past you can't train because the obstacle is lowered with every attempt and will probably end up being a total pushover before you get any real training done.

I've already mentioned this but I  thought the Sly Cooper games are a good example of how to do it right.  In Sly 1 everything that hits you is a one-shot-skill, so as you can imagine this can make boss encounters really hard.  What the developers put in, though, is that after dying a certain number of times in the same spot you'll respawn with a lucky horseshoe already attached to your character, which gives you a free immunity to one hit.  If you continue sucking, they'll give you just one more for a maximum of 2 free hits.  When you get through the area you were having trouble on, the horseshoes are removed and it's back to business as usual.  This allows the designers to do some pretty sadistic things while making the game just a little easier (but still not easy) for players who are having trouble so they don't get stuck.  When the series went to life bars in Sly 2 and 3 they did something more subtle: everytime you die in boss encounters, the game slightly decreases the amount of damage you take with each hit and increases the damage enemies take with each hit.  The effect is so subtle I didn't even notice it till late into Sly 3 when I got beaten into the ground by a really hard boss in a bamboo forest battle, and slowly through the course of my many deaths I noticed that I was getting better at hurting him until finally I barely beat him.  These systems are great because you still get that feeling of accomplishment: the game didn't just hand you your victory.  You still had to earn it, but the game just made it a little more reasonable to obtain.

So long as the effect is subtle and not as blatant as "flip a switch, now it's EASY instead of NORMAL or HARD!", I don't see the problem.  GoldenPhoenix brought up a scenario earlier about how an adaptive AI would handle pits, but haven't we seen games where if the player falls into a pit they get magically pulled out of it just once for just long enough for the player to recover to their starting location?  There are so many possibilities for gracefully handling variances in player skill.

[Deguello]

If people did their game history homework, you'd know features like this were already in video games for a long time.  Which doesn't mean this particular use of the concept from Nintendo isn't innovative.

FFXII had that gambit system that literally sucked the last part of combat interaction out of the series, possibly forever.  You know where you would "program" your character to attack automatically and heal when injured.  I remember a little kerfuffle about, but nobody said Square Enix was "pussifying" games because of it.

As mentioned before Ikaruga has some videos of high score champs playing.  SMB3 not only had warp zones, but also that lovely cloud that you could skip whole levels with.  F-Zero Max Velocity on the GBA has a demo mode on the title screen by pressing, with on-screen buttons showing exactly when and how they are at being pressed.

Remember when like, NFL Blitz, an arcade game would flash information about how to do special tricks before the game starts?  And madden does the same thing?  Shouldn't they have to have earned it the hard way in blood and sweat and tears in the battle trenches of having to figure it out?  I just don't see how this is making games "easier" or "pussified."

[broodwars]

FFXII had that gambit system that literally sucked the last part of combat interaction out of the series, possibly forever.  You know where you would "program" your character to attack automatically and heal when injured.  I remember a little kerfuffle about, but nobody said Square Enix was "pussifying" games because of it.

SMB3 not only had warp zones, but also that lovely cloud that you could skip whole levels with.

There, I single those 2 games out because you are wrong in using these for comparisons:

1.  In the truly-horrible Final Fantasy XII, the gambit system did automatically handle tasks for you during combat.  But YOU still had to program them in, meaning YOU had to anticipate situations where certain responses would be needed and anticipate any corrections those responses would require down the road (for example, you could program a hefty healing gambit in so your character cast Curaga every time they got below a certain HP, but if you didn't anticipate that your character would eventually run out of MP during long battles you didn't program it correctly).  All it did was take micromanagement of battle and turn it into macro-based pre-battle strategizing, no different than what you'd do in many strategy games.  The game played itself for you, but only following your instructions so it was essentially doing things you'd be doing anyway.  Hell, it wasn't even all that great a system, since the gambits had to be programmed in exactly the right way and in exactly the right order.  Plus, you had to constantly be writing and swapping out and activating/deactivating new gambits to keep up with the current situation.  It's a far cry from this.

2.  Mario 3 did have warp zones and the cloud, but exactly what benefit were they to you if you couldn't handle what was on the other end of the pipe/level?  You could use the warp zones to go to World 8 from as early as World 2, but if you didn't have the skills to handle World 8 you didn't do yourself any favors.  If you use a Cloud to skip a level and fail on the next level, you get skipped back to the previous level anyway.  So once again, if you don't have the skills anyway, there's little good the Cloud can do you.

[EasyCure]

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

[broodwars]

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

I actually stopped arguing the main argument some time ago.  And for the record, I've never claimed to be an exceptionally-skilled gamer...just an experienced one who grew up with the NES and respects a fair challenge, and often wonders why that's apparently beneath the new generation of gamers.

[Deguello]

1.  In the truly-horrible Final Fantasy XII, the gambit system did automatically handle tasks for you during combat.  But YOU still had to program them in, meaning YOU had to anticipate situations where certain responses would be needed and anticipate any corrections those responses would require down the road (for example, you could program a hefty healing gambit in so your character cast Curaga every time they got below a certain HP, but if you didn't anticipate that your character would eventually run out of MP during long battles you didn't program it correctly).  All it did was take micromanagement of battle and turn it into macro-based pre-battle strategizing, no different than what you'd do in many strategy games.  The game played itself for you, but only following your instructions so it was essentially doing things you'd be doing anyway.  Hell, it wasn't even all that great a system, since the gambits had to be programmed in exactly the right way and in exactly the right order.  Plus, you had to constantly be writing and swapping out and activating/deactivating new gambits to keep up with the current situation.  It's a far cry from this.

So that automatic game-playing feature takes a little bit more skill to use than NSMBWii's?  I'm not sure what your point is.

2.  Mario 3 did have warp zones and the cloud, but exactly what benefit were they to you if you couldn't handle what was on the other end of the pipe/level?  You could use the warp zones to go to World 8 from as early as World 2, but if you didn't have the skills to handle World 8 you didn't do yourself any favors.  If you use a Cloud to skip a level and fail on the next level, you get skipped back to the previous level anyway.  So once again, if you don't have the skills anyway, there's little good the Cloud can do you.

It was still level-skipping and it still applies.  We still don't know if the whole game will utilize this and not just the first three worlds and such.  IF you really want to ramp up the difficulty of Mario, make the game stop throwing a gazillion 1-ups at you, particularly SMB3 where you were basically guaranteed at least one 1-up every three levels.  With all those 1-ups it makes the game more time-invested than skills-needed.  Game Over after 1 death, please.

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

Well, I suppose so.  I just think all this hoopla about this is totally unnecessary and a projection-like overreaction.  It seems there will be no headway gained when the simple existence on an option menu is such a great offense.

[EasyCure]

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

I actually stopped arguing the main argument some time ago.  And for the record, I've never claimed to be an exceptionally-skilled gamer...just an experienced one who grew up with the NES and respects a fair challenge, and often wonders why that's apparently beneath the new generation of gamers.

Its not just a new generation of gamers ya know. I grew up with the NES too and remember all too well the Contras and the Ninja Gaiden difficultys but when i look back to that time, i don't know how i had any fun with those games at age 5! Yes i beat them and felt accomplished when i did, but going back today those games aren't as fun as they were when i was a kid and didn't know better (because there wasn't much else). I wouldn't say that a fair challenge is "beneath" me in my eyes, what we get know is much more of a "fair" challenge than what we used to have. Imagine playing Gears of War in a Contra mode with only 3 lives.. I don't see anything fun in smashing my controller on the floor, but hey thats just me.

All i know is I like to enjoy my games, and whether its difficult or not doesn't matter as long as its an enjoyable experience. I see your fears about devs taking the easy way out in creating their games because "demo play" might give people the incentive to just watch the game instead of play it but ya know what? If that day ever comes, you'll see that lazy mindset shine thru reviews of other battle hardened gamers that KNOW they're playing a cheaply designed game with cheap AI and it'll get scored appropriately and you'll know which games NOT to buy. Combine that with the fact that you personally will never ever touch the demo-play button, and you're set!

Really, it just seems like you're making mountains out of molehills with this. Call me optimistic but with this feature implimented in their games, I really do feel like Nintendo can raise the bar on challenge while still making their own games accessible to everyone else. As far as 3rd parties go, we'll see because they're always hit or miss when it comes to doing anything right. Still, i don't see this as a dumbing down of games in general because this is an OPTION not just for you but for the developers. Nintendo might not have to include "demo-play" programming into all their games (ie; you'll never see this in WiiSports 3: Xteme) and surely 3rd parties won't bother putting effort into making a quality wii game, right? ;P So really, there's nothing to fear here.

[broodwars]

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

I actually stopped arguing the main argument some time ago.  And for the record, I've never claimed to be an exceptionally-skilled gamer...just an experienced one who grew up with the NES and respects a fair challenge, and often wonders why that's apparently beneath the new generation of gamers.

Its not just a new generation of gamers ya know. I grew up with the NES too and remember all too well the Contras and the Ninja Gaiden difficultys but when i look back to that time, i don't know how i had any fun with those games at age 5! Yes i beat them and felt accomplished when i did, but going back today those games aren't as fun as they were when i was a kid and didn't know better (because there wasn't much else). I wouldn't say that a fair challenge is "beneath" me in my eyes, what we get know is much more of a "fair" challenge than what we used to have. Imagine playing Gears of War in a Contra mode with only 3 lives.. I don't see anything fun in smashing my controller on the floor, but hey thats just me.

All i know is I like to enjoy my games, and whether its difficult or not doesn't matter as long as its an enjoyable experience. I see your fears about devs taking the easy way out in creating their games because "demo play" might give people the incentive to just watch the game instead of play it but ya know what? If that day ever comes, you'll see that lazy mindset shine thru reviews of other battle hardened gamers that KNOW they're playing a cheaply designed game with cheap AI and it'll get scored appropriately and you'll know which games NOT to buy. Combine that with the fact that you personally will never ever touch the demo-play button, and you're set!

Really, it just seems like you're making mountains out of molehills with this. Call me optimistic but with this feature implimented in their games, I really do feel like Nintendo can raise the bar on challenge while still making their own games accessible to everyone else. As far as 3rd parties go, we'll see because they're always hit or miss when it comes to doing anything right. Still, i don't see this as a dumbing down of games in general because this is an OPTION not just for you but for the developers. Nintendo might not have to include "demo-play" programming into all their games (ie; you'll never see this in WiiSports 3: Xteme) and surely 3rd parties won't bother putting effort into making a quality wii game, right? ;P So really, there's nothing to fear here.

Well, I'll agree with you on this much: let's hope for the best and that this feature doesn't get abused.  If it doesn't, all well and good.  Argument over.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

I actually stopped arguing the main argument some time ago.  And for the record, I've never claimed to be an exceptionally-skilled gamer...just an experienced one who grew up with the NES and respects a fair challenge, and often wonders why that's apparently beneath the new generation of gamers.

When we were young gamers, we had to walk to the store... uphill, both ways.... barefoot, in the snow.... just to get the latest gaming magazine.
Gamers nowadays got your internets with online help and free shipping....  Hey Demo Play!! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

[Ian Sane]

Here's the thing.  Nintendo is going to cater to casuals and non-gamers no matter what.  They're going to make their games more accessible.  Now how would you prefer they do it?  You want it being damn near impossible to die like in Wind Waker?  You want the unskippable hint system of Metroid: Zero Mission?  Or do you want this optional mode that you don't have to use?  When Nintendo was talking about making their games more accessible the immediate assumption I made was that they would dumb it down.  That *I* would find the game boring because it was too stupidly easy.  With THIS we're getting a pretty decent compromise.  It's a lot better than dumbed down non-games.  This is a way for Nintendo to truly make a game accessible to everyone with no one's game experience being compromised.

Now I do have concerns.  Nintendo might still make their games really easy and offer blatant hints even with this in place.  There is also the problem that it may raise future generations of gamers that literally just watch their games.  This may have no immediate effect on us now but may bite everyone in the ass years from now when "gamers" that have always used this feature are the majority.  It may breed even wussier gamers and thus make future games easier as developers feel the need to cater to a market of wimps.  But then I think even marketing towards non-gamers will do this.  The bridge has already been crossed.

Though I'll admit that there are several games that one particular part just frustrated me to all hell and made me give up on the game.  If I could skip that part I would.  I would likely use this feature as a last resort "**** this" button if it came down to losing interest in the game or skipping a part that's tearing my hair out.  If I was a game designer though I would enforce a finite amount of "skip aheads" to make it a last ditch emergency item and not a crutch.  If you had only one it would become part of your strategy.  "Do I use my deux ex machina device now or should I save it for a potential harder part?"

These days you CAN watch complete playthroughs of games on YouTube.  If you want to watch a game you can.

[KDR_11k]

Some games like World of Goo have a "skip this level" button, the help feature lets you decide exactly how much you want to skip.

As for a future with gamers who only watch their games, remember Nintendo patented it so non-Nintendo games won't have the feature anyway.

[BlackNMild2k1]

You know what I think would be a good HELP feature, for beginners and for veterans?

You know how Mario Kart has Time Trail Ghost that you race against, I think the games could have a Ghost that goes through the level that you could follow. It might show you a route that you didn't notice, but it would still make you have to perform the action. A good way to implement it would be that you only get 10second ghost, but to replenish your ghost bar, you have to progress through the level without using the ghost. That way you can use the ghost all the time, but you have to play to continue to "cheat". You can't just let the game play itself.