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[alabtrosMyster]

They think we are a bunch of idiots, this is really annoying and I wish we had an option to kill the buddies so they shut up at times.

I'm playing GoW R and I think this is the most annoying thing, and it has been spreading across all of Sony's games. This is getting worse, and this is not because the puzzles are even remotely complex.

 

[SHA]

What's Sony protagonists? They look retarded to me.

 

[SHA]

Seriously, I thought we've been through this, but it's getting worse.

It started with Uncharted. After a bit of time, if you haven't solved a puzzle, the game prompted you to press a button and Drake or someone would say something to give you a hint on how to proceed. It was actually brilliant and kept the flow of the game going, while still giving you the choice to keep attempting the puzzle yourself.

Then, games like Horizon started doing similar things, only they didn't give you the option to NOT hear the hints. If the game deemed you are taking too long, Alloy, etc would make comment hinting at what to do.

Forbidden West took this to a ridiculous level, basically giving you almost no time to figure out the puzzles yourself. And often when you WERE quick enough, she'd still insult you by telling you the answer while you were already in the process of doing that exact thing.

Now, I'm playing God of War Ragnarok. While, I'm pretty early on, this already looks like the worst offender yet. I'll fight a room of mobs and while I'm still picking up loot the other NPCs are giving me not so subtle "hints" at solving a puzzle I haven't even had s chance to see yet. And then, ten seconds later, even more specific hints to basically where they're calling me a dumbass and telling me exactly what to do.

"Hmmm, we need to get across that water. I wish we could freeze it."

"Oh, your Axe freezes stuff doesn't it?"

"Hey, what if you throw your axe at the water?"

Sigh... ok, I jump across and immediately

"Hmmm, I wonder if we could knock that block down?"

"Maybe you could throw your axe at the chain holding that block?"

Sigh... I do that. As soon as the block lands.

"I wonder what you'd see if you climbed on top of that box?"

As soon as you climb up

"Oh, a pool of water. I wish we could freeze it somehow..."

SHUT THE HELL UP. Or do you just want to take the controller from me and do it yourself?

Surely, I'm not the only one experiencing this, right?

Cause they want you to have the time do many other things besides gaming or to beat more games casually.

 

[brian0057]

Because it's a "cinematic experience" and, as far as I can remember, movies don't just stop to serve a quiz to the audience.
So, in order for the "cinematic experience" to not have its flow too dampened by that pesky "videogame" part, it hits you over the head with a sledgehammer.
But people keep buying them and making Sony billions so they honestly deserve it.

 

[RoboFu]

Yeah that’s some BS in GOW for sure. Maybe if they wouldn’t throw 4 hours of cutscenes at you every time you take a step the players mind might be sharp enough to easily figure it out.

 

[Humdinger]

I appreciate delayed hints, but give the player time to wrestle with the puzzle and get stumped first. Don't just throw the hint at them immediately.

 

[DerivedDataCache]

Every game needs an option to skip puzzles like Spiderman.

 

[Woggleman]

I am not a fan of puzzles in these types of game anyway. I am glad they cut down drastically in TLOU2. Horizon should have focused on it's main strength which is combat against robot monsters and GOW should have focused on it's strength which is combat against mythologic monsters.

 

[hemo memo]

How hard is it to have a hint button? If I’m stuck I will press it. What make this worse is that Sony has a game help feature they can also use.

 

[hemo memo]

That's part of the lack of charm of the characters Aloy specially. EDIT: Santa Mónica is doing this since long ago. Like a camera shot that pans out thru all the stage and points a lever that is glowing .. like if players were retarded

It is bizarre. It is game design pre-internet. The solution to your puzzles is a search away.

 

[01011001]

Seriously, I thought we've been through this, but it's getting worse.

It started with Uncharted. After a bit of time, if you haven't solved a puzzle, the game prompted you to press a button and Drake or someone would say something to give you a hint on how to proceed. It was actually brilliant and kept the flow of the game going, while still giving you the choice to keep attempting the puzzle yourself.

Then, games like Horizon started doing similar things, only they didn't give you the option to NOT hear the hints. If the game deemed you are taking too long, Alloy, etc would make comment hinting at what to do.

Forbidden West took this to a ridiculous level, basically giving you almost no time to figure out the puzzles yourself. And often when you WERE quick enough, she'd still insult you by telling you the answer while you were already in the process of doing that exact thing.

Now, I'm playing God of War Ragnarok. While, I'm pretty early on, this already looks like the worst offender yet. I'll fight a room of mobs and while I'm still picking up loot the other NPCs are giving me not so subtle "hints" at solving a puzzle I haven't even had s chance to see yet. And then, ten seconds later, even more specific hints to basically where they're calling me a dumbass and telling me exactly what to do.

"Hmmm, we need to get across that water. I wish we could freeze it."

"Oh, your Axe freezes stuff doesn't it?"

"Hey, what if you throw your axe at the water?"

Sigh... ok, I jump across and immediately

"Hmmm, I wonder if we could knock that block down?"

"Maybe you could throw your axe at the chain holding that block?"

Sigh... I do that. As soon as the block lands.

"I wonder what you'd see if you climbed on top of that box?"

As soon as you climb up

"Oh, a pool of water. I wish we could freeze it somehow..."

SHUT THE HELL UP. Or do you just want to take the controller from me and do it yourself?

Surely, I'm not the only one experiencing this, right?

I turned off voices and subtitles while playing Horizon Forbidden West, and I am starting to think I'll do the same in Ragnarök

the thing is, Sony knows that the vast majority of people who play these games nowadays are braindead casuals, so executives push for this shit.

IMO this issue alone would keep me from ever even considering this to be GOTY (there are other reasons but this is the obvious one)
this is just OBJECTIVELY bad gamedesign

 

[Kikorin]

Yes, I hate this too. I enjoy taking my time, chill and play at my pacing and I love solving puzzles. Some of my chillest gaming moments has been smoking something good and play graphics adventures stoned as fuck, without ever search for solutions online. I've been stuck for like a week in Grim Fandango before find how to continue, but is a great satisfaction when you find it.

Same playing Resident Evil or Tomb Raider as a kid, or even some of Pokémon dungeons. I think they could just give you the options to turn off hints by the game, so everyone can choose how to play.

Also, is dumb to think a game could fail because is too hard, some of greatest success this gen are games that don't treat the players like a moron, Zelda: BOTW has been the most successful game in the series ever and Souls games (Elden Ring too) are praised because of the challenge. I think a GoW as difficult as the average Dark Souls game would be received even better and would sells as much or more.

 

[RCU005]

It's pathetic that games for adults are treating players like dumb idiots.

Developers are so afraid that people won't complete their games that every instance of "roadblock" is solved by them. Then what is a fucking point of a "roadblock" in video games? I feel no sense of pride after beating some logical puzzle when game will tell me what to do. This whole stuff is data driven to the point of insanity. They know how many players are "dropping of" during game and they know exact places where they are dropping of. That's why this whole stupid thing exists.

It's funny, because I remember quest designer from Forbidden West mocking Elden Ring on Twitter because that's the game that will not tell player anything.

I believe this is due to being "story" games. I think devs of those games consider two things: story and combat. You don't like combat then just enjoy the story. Adding puzzles gives devs a third variable which they don't want to deal with when designing difficulty modes.

 

[Unknown?]

If it wasn't so easy they wouldn't get such high reviews, that's all it's for.

 

[01011001]

If it wasn't so easy they wouldn't get such high reviews, that's all it's for.

they know their crowd

 

[Markio128]

It only bothers me in very rare cases, but I agree that there should be an option to turn hints on/off. It’s that simple really.

 

[nial]

fucking lol https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...r-thoughts-on-protagonists-discussing-puzzles

 

[Thief1987]

It seems most of the heavy hints Atreus tells us, are a kind of tutorial to let players understand how the world puzzles work and what tools we can use. Im now in some mines, it was full of puzzles and Atreus never told me how to solve anything. Main quest progression Atreus still gives you a hint to where you should be looking for, but other than that, all puzzles i solved Atreus didnt even opened his mouth.

Yep, wanted to write the same. There are far less hints further in the game, and he don't tell anything about side content puzzles.
Still this system is not good and excessive. Like why you need to outright spoil basic mechanic things to the player? Hey, you can freeze water with your axe! Thanks, but i'm sure i could figure that out by myself. There are already visual hints when you aim at places which could be affected by your weapons.

 

[rofif]

It’s super bad in ragnarok. Don’t think it was this bad in uc4

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I just posted about this in the OT. It's maddening.

Think about how cool it would have been to realize that you can freeze the water. I realized it myself after about 3 seconds of seeing the geyser in my path, and Atreus started explaining it to me at almost the same moment.

The game gives you absolutely no time to think for yourself. These are not hints given after a couple minutes of wandering around. These are immediate solutions given the moment you set foot into a room. Hell, I had Mimir spoil an island for me the instant I stepped off a boat. I remember him even telling me to use a key in a lock! Often, one of these two clowns are telling me how to solve a puzzle before I even realize there is a puzzle!

 

[ArtHands]

Options are always nice

On PC maybe. Not on consoles no thanks

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Because we all need a Captain Toad to show us the way, you should know better than anyone else

black_guy_smart_gif_but_with_a_cat.gif

 

[samoilaaa]

In a Plague Tale Requiem there is a moment you arrive to a church and there is a puzzle and the companion solves it for you. It was shocking for me.

yeah , instead of giving you clues , look at the paintings or something they just give you the solution , what was even the point of the puzzle ?

 

[samoilaaa]

Frankly I couldn't give a shit about puzzles. Pipe up, prompts anything. I'll take whatever there is to not be standing around like a jackals for ten minutes cause I didn't turn a statue towards the sun.

Come down off your high horse dude. Or go do a crossword.

just because you cant use your brain to do an enviornmental puzzle doesnt mean that the rest of us dont want to , the game should offer the option to skip the puzzle for lazy people like yourself

 

[Thief1987]

Strangely enough on the contrary they are not telling you much about combat systems, like those yellow and red circle attacks for example. Yeah, i know, it's a basic stuff, though it's basic only for people who are fairly experienced in the genre, but even games like Nioh and Sekiro explaining to you how these things work.

 

[Captain Toad]

Strangely enough on the contrary they are not telling you much about combat systems, like those yellow and red circle attacks for example. Yeah, i know, it's a basic stuff, though it's basic only for people who are fairly experienced in the genre, but even games like Nioh and Sekiro explaining to you how these things work.

That might actually be helpful, at least early on. When I'm still getting used to combat, I might panic and forget res means unblockable, while blue means to double tap block quickly. If the head really wants to help out, remind me when to double block or when I better roll.

Of course, after a bit, that too when just begin to get insulting. It'd be nice if we had AI that was better at telling when the player may like advice and when they don't. But until then, just make it a button prompt.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Of course he needs help.

Kratos is not the God of Puzzles, after all.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

I am not a fan of puzzles in these types of game anyway. I am glad they cut down drastically in TLOU2. Horizon should have focused on it's main strength which is combat against robot monsters and GOW should have focused on it's strength which is combat against mythologic monsters.

GoW always had puzzles and moment of "search", but with the other characters it's just so annoying. You don't even get the no satisfaction of resolving these very basic puzzles, I would bet inclusivity has to do with it, this is the first game where brain dead people can solve the puzzles!

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Of course he needs help.

Kratos is not the God of Puzzles, after all.

Kratos went through the labyrinth of Daedalus all by himself! He has to be the God of Puzzles to do this!

 

[01011001]

fucking lol https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...r-thoughts-on-protagonists-discussing-puzzles

yeah totally just small hints... and totally only after a while

in some of them the only way to make the solution even more obvious would be if they gave the hint before you even see the puzzle and if the voice actors gave you precise button input instructions.

"HEY KRATOS! HOLD L2, USE YOUR RIGHT ANALOG STICK TO AIM AT THAT MARBLE WALL, THEN PRESS R1. NOW PRESS THE LEFT STICK FORWARD! NOW PRESS TRIANGLE!"

that's an actual puzzle btw. and the only way to spoil the solution even more than how it was actually in-game would have been that
and I apparently was too slow because after 10 seconds [redacted name spoiler] gave me the solution, just enough time to look at all the puzzle elements basically.

 

[AJUMP23]

Sony knows the average layer needs the help.

 

[zkorejo]

I noticed that too it's annoying. I would prefer to have them give players atleast 10 minutes before starting with suggestions and hints instead of turning it off completely.

Also another thing I noticed, they do it more often on main path and not side mission/exploration. I could be wrong but that's what I noticed in my 4 hours of gameplay.

 

[bender]

Sony's games are for the masses. Humans are fucking stupid.

 

[kiphalfton]

They probably assume you're literally retarded if you can't solve a puzzle in a first party modern AAA game.

 

[MaulerX]

Yea that's pretty terrible.

It's like going to an escape room and someone on a loud speaker says:

"Maybe the key is on that dresser over there"

**you walk to the dresser**

"Check the bottom left drawer"


Totally sucks the fun out of it.

 

[ArtHands]

Of course he needs help.

Kratos is not the God of Puzzles, after all.

Peak male performance

 

[TheDuskwalker]

Mimir let me know I probably should use the zipline when I was already on the zipline. Thanks Mimir.

 

[Roni]

Because its a fact that most of the people, mostly the ones that claim themselves as "gamers", are stupid as fuck. No wonder they created a journalist mode and things to make puzzles easier.

This is the reason old school games are dying: we don't care about other people as gamers. If we have a group, that's great, but rarely people will go out to meet and talk to people about games, show them, try to bring more people over to what you love. When that isn't done, then the corporations have free reign to dictate what the youth will play and what we have nowadays is stuff from PS2 era gameplay...

But we dug this hole, and we're going to die in it now.

 

[geary]

Sony knows its audience

 

[Thief1987]

Mimir let me know I probably should use the zipline when I was already on the zipline. Thanks Mimir.

He is hanging on Kratos' ass, he probably just didn't see that

 

[Hendrick's]

They are catering to their demographic

Well said.

 

[01011001]

Mimir let me know I probably should use the zipline when I was already on the zipline. Thanks Mimir.

once I shot down one of those buckets when Sindri told me to shoot down the bucket... I then walked by the spot I shot it down and he said something like "or don't I guess"
because the scripting didn't recognize me shooting down the bucket because I have functioning eyes and saw/shot that very obvious bucket too quickly I guess
(too quickly being when it was right in front of me on a linear path for about 5 seconds already before I shot it)

 

[Pasta la Vista]

The puzzles mostly suck. I want a skip puzzle option.

 

[Fess]

Thank you, thank you, and thank you for bringing this up OP.

It is FUCKING infuriating. I am loving GoW:R, but this is hands down ruining my experience. I've noticed this more and more from Sony exclusives....like how stupid do they think gamers are that they can't figure something out on their own? To make matters worse, they blatantly shout out the answer after like 10 seconds. I just got to a room with a puzzle and have barely seen anything....then I immediately hear Atreus yell out "maybe you should do XY and Z and that should open the door...." "Oh hey, look father, above you is a hidden sound stone".

Seriously, if games don't at the very least give us the option to turn this incredibly annoying shit off, they deserve to get criticized. This is why I'll forever respect From Software.

LET US FIGURE SHIT OUT ON OUR OWN. FUCK!

/rant

Have you seen the David Jaffe rants about Metroid Dread?
Or that ”Why can’t metroid crawl?” meme?

That is why this is happening. It’s how game designers are schooled to design games now. Devs now are afraid that gamers will just delete the game if they get stuck for like 5 minutes, so they add extreme hand-holding until anything called puzzles or exploration is effectively removed from the game.

Personally I love exploration and feeling lost, that’s why I’m playing adventure games and metroidvania, without that it’s just walking down a path taking out enemy waves until you reach a boss.

Still early on in Ragnarök, had hopes it was just a long tutorial but nope, luckily the story and presentation and action is great, but sadly it is not what I hoped it would be.

Maybe they’ll patch it if enough people talk about it. It’s just trigger points for clue audio files and hint textures to show where you can do stuff. Should be easily removed.
Add ”Exploration and Puzzles Dufficulty”. Done. Shadow of the Tomb Raider had that, wasn’t perfect but it was a decent attempt.

 

[01011001]

Have you seen the David Jaffe rants about Metroid Dread?
Or that ”Why can’t metroid crawl?” meme?

That is why this is happening. It’s how game designers are schooled to design games now. Devs now are afraid that gamers will just delete the game if they get stuck for like 5 minutes, so they add extreme hand-holding until anything called puzzles or exploration is effectively removed from the game.

Personally I love exploration and feeling lost, that’s why I’m playing adventure games and metroidvania, without that it’s just walking down a path taking out enemy waves until you reach a boss.

Still early on in Ragnarök, had hopes it was just a long tutorial but nope, luckily the story and presentation and action is great, but sadly it is not what I hoped it would be.

Maybe they’ll patch it if enough people talk about it. It’s just trigger points for clue audio files and hint textures to show where you can do stuff. Should be easily removed.
Add ”Exploration and Puzzles Dufficulty”. Done. Shadow of the Tomb Raider had that, wasn’t perfect but it was a decent attempt.

the new Monkey Island gives you a hint book close to the beginning of the game, and the character who gives it to you even warns you that you might ruin your fun if you use it. (although so far from what I played Monkey Island is also pretty braindead. the removal of action choices and having everything have 2 context sensitive prompts basically solves puzzles for you)

and that's the way to do it, give an option to help with puzzles, basically an alternative to googling it.

WHICH REMINDS ME... isn't Sony selling such a service with PS+ now? don't they have videos for [p̵͙̈ĺ̷̹͚͑͝ḁ̵̛͕͚̓̑ẙ̴̧̞͔ȩ̸̣̬͛͐r̵̳̝̃̊s̸̛̖̜͎] that get stuck and aren't those videos behind the PS+ paywall? THEY ARE LOSING MONEY HERE!

 

[semiconscious]

IMO this issue alone would keep me from ever even considering this to be GOTY (there are other reasons but this is the obvious one)
this is just OBJECTIVELY bad gamedesign

yes, it is. providing both puzzles & their solutions completely negates the point of providing puzzles. it's the equivalent of providing both combat & the auto-killing all the enemies combatants, or providing both racing segments & guaranteed first-place wins. you're basically being offered the semblance of interactivity rather than actual interactivity...

 

[01011001]

yes, it is. providing both puzzles & their solutions completely negates the point of providing puzzles. it's the equivalent of providing both combat & the auto-killing all the enemies combatants, or providing both racing segments & guaranteed first-place wins. you're basically being offered the semblance of interactivity rather than actual interactivity...

yeah the issue is developers easily can offer a braindead mode for all the skill based stuff, just give enemies less health and make them deal less damage, done! easy mode achieved.

but for puzzles you would need to do more work than that. either remove puzzles, change them or have multiple stages of "help". all of which takes more time to implement than some number changes for damage.
and it would need to be planned from the start. because you need to set flags for all the "help" dialog, if the devs don't do that from the very start adding it after the fact would take a lot of time... changing damage numbers doesn't

 

[Godot25]

I believe this is due to being "story" games. I think devs of those games consider two things: story and combat. You don't like combat then just enjoy the story. Adding puzzles gives devs a third variable which they don't want to deal with when designing difficulty modes.

If gaming companies want to allow players to just "enjoy a story" than make all puzzles and stuff like that being autocompleted as an option. But don't make a solution that is treating all players like idiots. Call it "I can't use my brain during game" mode.

And I know, that Aloy mumbling solutions to puzzles in Forbidden West can be disabled. But it can be disabled NOW. Option was not there during launch when majority of people played this game.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

So if they patch this, the reviews are gonna get corrected to 11/10. You should all be happy that they left the one flaw in the game! /s

I wonder what modern day gamers would do if games were like the old days of exploring and doing quests:

Somehow all us gamers since the 80s could figure out how to beat adventure and RPG games.

Did we really? For most games you absolutely did require playground hints and/or tips and solutions from magazines/hotlines, and today the Internet has replaced both.
I doubt you figured out Castlevania 2 all by yourself, let alone some much more obscure games. And most people didn’t beat that many games in the 80s anyway.
That said, in-game hints have gotten out of hand. People used to laugh at Nintendo’s Wii games, now Fi doesn’t seem that bad anymore.

Because dumb critics give out bad scores, if they are stuck somewhere...

Imagine NES/SNES games difficulty with today's critics...

One of the wonders how these critics like/love Souls games..

They don’t. They just like death threats even less. They know their audience.

 

[Fess]

So if they patch this, the reviews are gonna get corrected to 11/10. You should all be happy that they left the one flaw in the game! /s

Why would anyone playing the game be glad that they left a game design flaw? Makes no sense. It’s like an Elden Ring fan being glad that they left the broken camera mechanic in the Elden Beast fight where the camera literally comes your final boss to beat.