[Volpino]

muteKi, on 30 March 2012 - 11:24 AM, said:

XCubed, on 30 March 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

I used to get Time Overs all the time in the Launch Base Big Arm boss in Sonic 3. The first few times, my heart was pounding so fast because it used to be scary as shit and on top of that I'd usually start the boss with about 7 minutes on the timer. It made me so god damn nervous. I thought I was free and clear....until SECURITY HALL and CANNON'S CORE happened.

There are way too many people who voted "I don't care" and "Yes" in this poll. Timers themselves are ok, but when it causes a death? They make me sick. I love exploring levels and always want as much time as I need to look around. I also hate this feature in arcade racing games. This crap happens even when one ISN'T in last place!

I won't deny, the time limit in the home ports of, say, Virtua Racing is entirely vestigial and probably ought to have been done away with. Still not the strictest time limit in an AM2 game; that probably belongs to Racing Hero, which was arcade-only.

But yes, Security Hall was terrible. Maybe if it had the emerald detection from SADX where you could get alerts for all 3, but like that it was nearly unplayable. What time limit was there in Cannon's Core, though?

In Cannon's Core, you control 5 out of the 6 characters from SA2B in one level and to get the fourth emblem, you have to beat the entire thing in 8 minutes. Like, what the fuck? Anyone who knows what a bitch that level was will understand, although once you get to play as Sonic, you're in the clear.

[ICEknight]

Afti, on 29 March 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

You brought up Super Mario 3D Land earlier; some of the later special world stages are excellent examples of that. You have 30 seconds, which won't get you through the level. Period. You need to get from time pickup to time pickup, and as fast as you can, because each one only adds a measly 10 seconds to the clock.

You know... These might have been their original intentions, with the clock item and all.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 30 March 2012 - 01:52 PM

[TheInvisibleSun]

Volpino, on 30 March 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

muteKi, on 30 March 2012 - 11:24 AM, said:

XCubed, on 30 March 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

I used to get Time Overs all the time in the Launch Base Big Arm boss in Sonic 3. The first few times, my heart was pounding so fast because it used to be scary as shit and on top of that I'd usually start the boss with about 7 minutes on the timer. It made me so god damn nervous. I thought I was free and clear....until SECURITY HALL and CANNON'S CORE happened.

There are way too many people who voted "I don't care" and "Yes" in this poll. Timers themselves are ok, but when it causes a death? They make me sick. I love exploring levels and always want as much time as I need to look around. I also hate this feature in arcade racing games. This crap happens even when one ISN'T in last place!

I won't deny, the time limit in the home ports of, say, Virtua Racing is entirely vestigial and probably ought to have been done away with. Still not the strictest time limit in an AM2 game; that probably belongs to Racing Hero, which was arcade-only.

But yes, Security Hall was terrible. Maybe if it had the emerald detection from SADX where you could get alerts for all 3, but like that it was nearly unplayable. What time limit was there in Cannon's Core, though?

In Cannon's Core, you control 5 out of the 6 characters from SA2B in one level and to get the fourth emblem, you have to beat the entire thing in 8 minutes. Like, what the fuck? Anyone who knows what a bitch that level was will understand, although once you get to play as Sonic, you're in the clear.

The bold text makes this a non-issue for me, because it's supposed to be hard enough to make the player get better at the game. Just like every other last emblem in the Adventure Games. As an extra and a challenge, it can be as hard as the developer wants it to be, because it is not actually required for completion of the basic game.

[Volpino]

TheInvisibleSun, on 30 March 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

The bold text makes this a non-issue for me, because it's supposed to be hard enough to make the player get better at the game. Just like every other last emblem in the Adventure Games. As an extra and a challenge, it can be as hard as the developer wants it to be, because it is not actually required for completion of the basic game.

I feel that games should be easier, at least give a difficulty setting. I'm not a huge fan of making something in a game really hard and then putting a reward (beyond an achievement) that effects the game at the end because that will probably be more work than I'm willing to invest in something in my free time. I've never been a huge fan of players getting some special thing for playing on the hardest difficulty that's impossible to obtain on lower difficulties, it defeats the purpose of playing on lower difficulties. It says to me the developers intended the game to be really hard and basically want to shaft anyone who doesn't play it on "their" preferred difficulty, and I feel they aren't accommodating me properly by doing that.

[FuzzballFox]

Volpino, on 30 March 2012 - 04:26 PM, said:

TheInvisibleSun, on 30 March 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

The bold text makes this a non-issue for me, because it's supposed to be hard enough to make the player get better at the game. Just like every other last emblem in the Adventure Games. As an extra and a challenge, it can be as hard as the developer wants it to be, because it is not actually required for completion of the basic game.

I feel that games should be easier, at least give a difficulty setting. I'm not a huge fan of making something in a game really hard and then putting a reward (beyond an achievement) that effects the game at the end because that will probably be more work than I'm willing to invest in something in my free time. I've never been a huge fan of players getting some special thing for playing on the hardest difficulty that's impossible to obtain on lower difficulties, it defeats the purpose of playing on lower difficulties. It says to me the developers intended the game to be really hard and basically want to shaft anyone who doesn't play it on "their" preferred difficulty, and I feel they aren't accommodating me properly by doing that.

...and why change it for those who WANT A CHALLANGE.
If you find it too hard, either get better or deal with it. It's called a challange. Not a playful event.

[Volpino]

FuzzballFox, on 30 March 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

...and why change it for those who WANT A CHALLANGE.
If you find it too hard, either get better or deal with it. It's called a challange. Not a playful event.

If you want a challenge, you should be able to set it to hard mode and have hard mode only give you a challenge, that's what you want, right?

Also last time I checked, a video game IS a playful event.

[FuzzballFox]

Volpino, on 30 March 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

FuzzballFox, on 30 March 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

...and why change it for those who WANT A CHALLANGE.
If you find it too hard, either get better or deal with it. It's called a challange. Not a playful event.

If you want a challenge, you should be able to set it to hard mode and have hard mode only give you a challenge, that's what you want, right?

Also last time I checked, a video game IS a playful event.

I meant compared to a challange- a hard game is still a game yes- but it's hard to be hard...and like a damn stuck record if you practise something you are not very good at...over time you will improve...and that is where the feeling of acomplishment comes in! Where is the fun in a game that is piss easy to beat just because someone can't be bothered to learn. You're not born knowing how to do everything in life and you learn.

[Volpino]

FuzzballFox, on 30 March 2012 - 04:58 PM, said:

Volpino, on 30 March 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

FuzzballFox, on 30 March 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

...and why change it for those who WANT A CHALLANGE.
If you find it too hard, either get better or deal with it. It's called a challange. Not a playful event.

If you want a challenge, you should be able to set it to hard mode and have hard mode only give you a challenge, that's what you want, right?

Also last time I checked, a video game IS a playful event.

I meant compared to a challange- a hard game is still a game yes- but it's hard to be hard...and like a damn stuck record if you practise something you are not very good at...over time you will improve...and that is where the feeling of acomplishment comes in! Where is the fun in a game that is piss easy to beat just because someone can't be bothered to learn. You're not born knowing how to do everything in life and you learn.

I don't mind that you want to play a game for a challenge but it sounds to me like you demand that I do, and fuck that shit. I have enough bullshit to put up with. The feeling of accomplishment is not nearly as important as how the game makes me feel, I don't appreciate it like you do, I shouldn't have to.

I only attempt to improve at things when I have to, video games should not even be considered in that category. Things that I do consider in that category are generally more productive than sitting on my ass and holding a controller.

This post has been edited by Volpino: 30 March 2012 - 05:09 PM

[Strife]

Personally, I think time limit deaths should largely depend on the gameplay itself. I can understand a 10-minute killzone if the player is in a situation where it makes sense - I.e. Sonic is trying to escape before the whole place explodes or before Robotnik escapes and can no longer be stopped. Sonic Advance 1's Egg Rocket was a terrific example of this, since you had to climb up through the various layers of his rocket before they broke off. In other situations, though, I don't see any reason for it other than to whittle down extra lives. I would have enjoyed Sonic CD so much more if I knew that I could explore all of the time periods at my leisure without worrying about running out of time. :/

While I generally dislike time limits, I think it's okay if they're optional, as they were in most of the stages in SA2. At least then, it's up to you whether or not you want to race against the clock.

[ReBirFh]

I like time limits in old school platformers because it makes the player choose between finishing faster for a better score/ possible bonuses or try to gather items to help in the later stages (lifes, coins, rings, B-o-n-u-s items, etc) but the scoring system isn't as relevant today as it used to be, every manual had a place in the end where you could keep track of your scores and magazines, gaming clubs also used to maintain a highscore leaderboard sometimes even giving prizes for the best players.

[Selbi]

I honestly don't care. If I remember correctly, there were only two instances of me ever running out of time, and one of it wasn't even in an original game.

• The first one was Carnival Night Zone in Sonic 3. This stage (both acts) is so frustratingly huge, I don't recall ever reaching Eggman before hitting the 8th minute. Obviously, when I still was young, I had no chance of doing this.
  
• The second one was in Sonic Megamix 3, Dark Castle. All of these levels are ridiculously long and I'm more than glad they redid these with the 4b release.

[Jen]

To be honest I really don't care either way because I don't remember the time limit ever being a persistent problem for me, even when I was a little kid. On the rare occasions I got a "time over" I took it to mean "I need to get better at this level", in much the same way as a "game over" meant that I needed to try harder.

Video games are DESIGNED to be challenging. You are supposed to try and improve at them in order to complete them. Get a time over in a Sonic game? Go faster! Sonic is a game designed primarily around speed and momentum after all, it makes sense for the game to push you to go fast. If anything, the ten minute time limit in the classics is extremely over-generous in certain zones (not so much in others, but like I said, it's a challenge). In any case, if you want to freely explore and piss around in the classics "just for fun" and/or remove as much challenge as possible, there's always debug mode; not only does it remove the time limit but it also lets you skip massive areas of the game if you want to...

[Jayextee]

5 minutes. That's what the time limit could be, in Sonic 1 and 2, and still not be a challenge for most. You are not telling me that you're going to exhaust every possible route of exploration in that time, because the level design isn't that complex in either game. It may be in S3K but I've always held that S3K is an over-long, bloated mess (which is just my opinion, yo - and not the dicussion of this thread). I still maintain that a 2 minute limit for S1 (maybe 3 minutes for SBZ3 because it has that long route) and 3 minutes for S2 would be nice and snug. Wouldn't bother me, but it would be a lovely incentive to move players along instead of collecting EVERY. DAMN. RING. THEY. SEE. And hold off special stage spam in S2. Hell, that would make Super Sonic before Chemical Plant actually a task.

And I'm not bitching that the games are too easy (which, for the record, they were back in the '90s according to the videogame press of the time) but the 10 minutes is completely arbitrary and not even a factor.

[gold lightning]

To be honest I think if you take 10 minutes to complete a level you deserve to lose a life. Unless you suck really bad you probably gained a few lives during that 10 minutes anyway. The only stage I remember really causing problems for me in the classics is Sandopolis zone. But by that point in the game I have always had so many lives that I never really cared about the time limit causing me to lose one. I always just saw it as justice for me not playing well enough.

Another thing is that levels should never be designed to where they do easily take more than 10 minutes (I'm looking at you Sonic Heroes).

[Volpino]

Jen, on 31 March 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

Video games are DESIGNED to be challenging.

Wrong.

Video games are not just a sport, they stopped being just a sport when artists got involved with them, now they are multi-purpose, and should accommodate as many people as possible because they're multi-purpose, and I'm not just talking about the "difficulty" thing which seems to disgustingly be a huge hangup with some of you, but has it ever, even one time, crossed your mind that someone plays a video game for other reasons than s "good sporting challenge"? Because I never have.

Parts of video games are challenging because limits help with balance - a game can't be too god-like an experience or people get bored and the experience is flat, rising and falling challenges help keep people interested and feeling something through the experience and that makes it last longer. People like to think, their brains are always working, but it should never be the be-all-end-all of game design ever, because that basically throws away half of the reason for playing video games.