Thread 718735340

When are devs going to stop using meters as a crutch for game design?

Only redditors and zoomers complain about meters

I'm either too stupid or too smart to see the problem.

meters>invisible meters. To the point Sekiro copied Nioh

i dont know what im supposed to be looking at, this is some chinese game? i think it should go back to china and stay there.
i prefer to use hammer units, not meters.

more action games need zero metric solutions like the delimb system in ninja gaiden 2

What the fuck does that MEAN?

>>718735340 (OP)
Games still have these systems but some keep it hidden from you.
This is a completely retarded point

Xitter retards should be hanged and paraded through the streets

>>718735340 (OP)
>Fast Food analogy

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TWITTER THREADS

>>718737349
THEY'RE EMPTY CALORIES

Why would I not want meters? There are several games that treat visible meters as an incentive for leveling up skills or using certain items.
I mean I don't think games NEED them but I also don't see a negative to having them as an option.

>>718735340 (OP)
all the zoomies calling this game a soulslike need to be shot down the streets
fromslopware is the worst thing to happen in the industry
behead miyahacki

>>718735340 (OP)
I don't give a FUCK what the cunts on twitter are doing

Why does Capcom keep regressing? They were the literal biggest gameplay pioneers in their heyday.

>>718737332
The funny thing is if you go back further to games before auto regen became standard, you'd then just have UIs and health bars again.

>>718735340 (OP)
>>718736917
The bar/numbers should be hidden. Not using physical indicators to show a boss is exhausted or low like going into different phases, bleeding, limping, torn armor, etc is bad lazy game design.

Millenials should be banned from gamedev

>>718737586
nigga all these same crap people complain about capcom games exist in fromslopware and the same retards deepthroat those too

>>718735340 (OP)
>realize they are the junk food and empy calories of depth
>They are the go to band aid to create perceived depth to badly implemented systems
> you can fake depth using bars and meters to literally anything

Notice how they aren't actually explaining the problem with meters.

>>718737679
This is the era of youtube essayist. Children will watch some faggot retard spiel about inane vague shit for 10 hours and the stupid mouthbreathing audience will proceed to believe themselves to understand game design and development.

>>718737912
i don't even think it's about game development. I think it's more about them trying to sound smart while not saying anything. They could have just said the visual indicator breaks their immersion and that would have been perfectly fine.

>>718737654
>Millenials
Enemies having health bars is literally from games from when millennials were barely old enough to play them let alone develop them.

>>718737679
that's what I was about to post

entirely empty, meaningless statements

>>718736869
He doesn't like that you have to fill up a meter to advance in a fight, like in Sekiro where once you max out the enemy's stance you can instakill them. Why not instakill them before? What changed? etc etc

I thought the 'no-ui' experimenter came and went like two decades ago, what are these people talking about?

ok, instead of showing you meters, the boss simply turns yellow when you hurt him

>>718738182
Their wording implies they aren't upset there is a system to wear down the enemy's stance, but that we can see it. Which seems really dumb.

>You can apply this to any function

Why bother creating built in strengths and weaknesses, why bother creating encounters that inherently complicate the use of a tool

Just slap a bar and gate it behind a meter, now you can cheat and say "resource management"

Meters are BAD.

>>718737679
I'm tired of having to engage with levels, HP meters and damage numbers in FPS games of all genres that were never designed to be RPG in first place. You are not supposed to shoot some random ass thug in the head four times to kill him. I'm not appealing to "muh realism", I'm appealing to common sense.

can twitter screen cap threads become a bannable offense?

>>718738182
>He doesn't like that you have to fill up a meter to advance in a fight
but you don't, the extra bar is a stun bar that gives you a special prompt to do extra damage or get resources

I noticed that the fury directed at twitter screencaps is directly proportional to how accurate the statement within them is.

>>718738487
why all these niggas didn't say anything when sekiro and armored core 6 released?

So do zoomies like sperg out when they see Megaman bosses, where there's player health, boss health and weapon ammo all on the screen at the same time?

>>718738487
Dumb statements create much more outrage than reasonable ones.

>>718735340 (OP)
oh yeah, because obfuscating mechanics from players is so much better

>>718738676
the meta is making vague statements and waiting for others to make up argument for you so you can parrot it another time and pretend you have an ounce of intelligence later

>>718738207
yup. this is bitching for the sake of bitching.

>>718738372
tying jumping to stamina in Elden Ring unironically made it a much more mechanically interesting ability
Jumping is a tactical decision where you need to compare it to the value of the stamina for other actions

>>718738908
sounds like 4chan

>>718738561
lots of people complain about ac6's stagger system

>>718738975
one guy isn't lots

>>718735340 (OP)
>reddit spacing
>food analogy
You need to go back

>>718735340 (OP)
Absolutely nothing of value has ever been said following the words "we need to have a discussion"

Why is everyone always trying to find a hot take on literally everything? Just talk about things, man. You don't have to worry about sounding smart. If you don't like the game you can just say that.

>>718739251
>If you don't like the game you can just say that.
everyone got programmed into finding a reason of WHY they don't like something, even smallest pettiest thing works as it might gonna sound smart for retards

>>718735340 (OP)
A very stupid way of describing it but I sort of get it. Getting a peek behind the scenes doesn't in of itself add gameplay depth. I think the meter worked in Sekiro since they were going for a sort of old samurai movie feel where two guys clash swords until one single good hit ends the fight. They probably experimented without the meter being visible but players would've gotten frustrated as they wouldn't understand why enemies wouldn't go down since chip damage was severely lowered. But the same meter would be terrible in something like Dark Souls for the stuns since rather than it being a sort of bonus for being aggressive it'd just be another bar the player is focused on. But stamina and health are too important to the gameplay to just not tell players.
For example, Resident Evil bosses can be mildly frustrating as they don't have any sort of visible health bar but for a horror franchise it's perfectly fitting as you see the ammo running out and you hope the next bullet will finally end it, adding some tension.
Haven't kept up with Onimusha so I can't speak for if it makes sense there, although I'm guessing they are going for a Sekiro thing.

I get kinda mad when a game doesn’t have a boss HP bar.

He was right

>>718738602
zoomies dont play megaman. probably dont even know who megaman is.

>>718739804
the new onimusha has an execution system where you can deplete the meter for multiple enemies and chain execute them after
there's an animation for it but there's no reason not to just add the meter to show the player an actual visual indicator that they're ready or close to being ready for an execution
anyway, all the monkeys who use twitter have double digit IQ

>>718738908
the JOE ROGAN way

>>718735340 (OP)
They need to switch to yards like real men.

>>718735779
You need to be stupid but think you're smart to see the 'problem.' This thread is peak pseud.

I have rageaholic fatigue

I have anon fatigue

so i guess he wants a game where you have anatomically correct enemies that die of the actual specific injuries you inflicted, rather than just abstracting away from the gruesome business of murder with a fun little colored bar that shakes and stuff as you deplete it with well timed inputs

>>718735523
yeah the difference is that the UI here is not just two bars stacked on top of each other.

Nigga, All games smokes and mirrors
They are made to make you feel a certain way and it's called game design.

>>718735340 (OP)
>complains about "fake depth" and poorly designed systems
>one of his favorite games is NG2, one of the worst balanced games ever with some of the most poorly designed systems to ever grace gaming (also technically has meters)
I've never seen an NGfag that doesn't just spout pseud bullshit.

>>718738024
those games didnt have the economy to put in shitload of sprites and sounds to convey things naturally. modern games have no excuse.

>>718740642
In both cases ui is doing its job and one can say style meter is a lot more useless than the posture meter.

>>718739005
honeymoon phase is over.
everyone realized stagger is a shit mechanic and makes the game completely trivial

>>718735340 (OP)
Are we now calling games meterslop?

>>718735340 (OP)
Woah, when did they announce Sekiro 2?

>>718741086
i invented sekiro

>>718740783
In game design everything is a trade off.
I'll give you an example
Games like Metro Exodus and Ready or Not don’t show enemy positions on the map, and there’s no way to tag them. This leads to a much more careful and slow approach, with fewer enemies in any given area giving you a greater sense of immersion and realism.

On the other hand, games like MGS V and Far Cry let you tag enemies and see them on the map, which allows for 30 enemies in a single outpost. It makes you feel like an action hero, running circles around them.

>>718740956
yeah because you can't do any damage unless they're staggered, not because you can see a meter

I see a distressing amount of anons in this thread assuming that not wanting bars everywhere across your screen necessarily equates to not wanting any bars whatsoever

>>718735340 (OP)
>we need to talk about
>it’s time we discussed
>we need to have discussion
no “we” don’t, fuck off with that passive aggressive garbage

>>718735340 (OP)
I don't see the issue. What do they even want? It's like they've never played video games before.

>>718741161
this entire argument is fake outrage bait lmao kys retard

>>718735340 (OP)
I don’t mind parrying. Onimusha always had something similar. But is that a fucking stamina bar under the health bar? Say it isn’t so?

>>718741196
i dont know but i do know that i want to smoke crack. you never truly enjoyed life if you never played a pure ludo while high on crack

>>718740329
>This thread is peak pseud.
Literally every thread on /v/.

>>718735340 (OP)
Peak midwit

>>718735340 (OP)
He wants cod red edges and regenerating health basically. A total casul.

>>718735340 (OP)
Stop developing games with teams larger than 40-60 people. The management overhead is simply too big and major publishers/developers primarily end up hiring grifters as managers who just farm out their bullshit to consultants whenever they have to do any managing of their own to keep up appearances.
Similarly any non-indie, non-passion project game should be finished in 3-4 years unless the project has had to be restarted nearly from scratch (moving to a different engine or completely scrapping the game).
These poorly managed projects naturally end up with random placeholder systems like this, especially in the UI.
>>718737586
Practically every major publisher has regressed to making their money mostly off of business administration.
Taking grants, embezzling money off the top and committing mass wage theft to make up the difference.
>>718738908
>Make a vague, somewhat reasonable bait and wait for people to come up with their own reasons for why they agree with you
>Roll in with a new argument that makes no fucking sense but bears surface level similarities to your old argument, so now you have a defense force for your dumb retarded bullshit
Every time.
>>718739559
I don't like this post because of the grammar.

>>718741207
>"This is ragebait!"
>Gets ragebaited anyways

Skill issue

Blader is such a fucking pseud

>>718741428
>I don't like this post because of the grammar.
im ESL

He's not completely wrong but it really isn't anything new. Some devs just have no idea how to do it correctly and are just doing it because Popular Game did it
FF Rebirth/FF16 are shit partially because every encounter has you do fuck-all damage to the enemy until you break it and then either instakill it or just deplete half its health. It really just pads out fights in an unsatisfying way. A ton of games do this but combat is generally resolved faster or breaking/stunning only gives you one quick opening

>>718735340 (OP)
THIS! Games NEED to look like movies and play like movies. No bars, no meters, to immersion breaking thing. No one who plays video games want to be reminded that they are playing video games. They want to LIVE in the games. Like a movie. All you need to do is erase those meters and make everything streamlined. You don't need to pay attention to anything, no need to concentrate, no button pressing, and just relax and let the story plays out. THEN games will become art instead of children's plaything with meters.

i am tired of fromslop

>>718741861
Okay, then go play something else. Nobody is forcing you to play games like this.

they are killing onimusha.

>>718741768
I've seen some people defend the stagger in those games and I genuinely don't get it. Like you said, it just makes most of the fight feel like you're doing pitiful damage until there's a mandatory break in the action as the enemy stops moving for 30 seconds so that you can do proper damage. It just feels terrible.

>>718740642
the devil trigger indicator is right underneath

>>718741954
uhhh youre like weird man

1v1 realtime combat versus a CPU opponent is inherently a dead end not worth pursuing in video games anymore.

>>718741161
>everywhere
A meter UI for the player and a meter UI for the enemy. By this chucklefuck logic, God Hand has the same problem.
Shut the fuck up.

>>718741768
>>718742037
Have you guys tried playing the game correctly? Or did you play 15 minutes and assume it was shit? The actual only dogshit part is Rufus

stagger worked fine in dark souls without any meter. the bar is there only to generate dopamine for retards.

>>718741861
Not really From's fault that they got popular and every dev is so desperate for new ideas they just started imitating them. It's like how after Half Life a bunch of shooters started adding a 10 minute intro where nothing happens. Half Life did it and got praise so I guess everyone has to do it too, right?

>>718742073
god hand doesnt have stagger meter

>>718735340 (OP)
He's right.

It has always annoyed me about people who complain when bosses don't have health bars. Like why the fuck is that needed? So you can get greedy when it's low on health?

>>718742126
I've given my reasoning for not liking the stagger system. How about you actually add something to the conversation and explain why you like it?

>>718742171
Everyone copied all the wrong things Fromsoft did.

>>718742153
remove health bars too or kys

>>718742237
Okay, you said
>because every encounter has you do fuck-all damage to the enemy until you break it and then either instakill it or just deplete half its health
Which tells me you didn't understand the combat system, didn't play it, or played for 15 minutes and assumed that was it. You don't need to rely on the stagger bar and, if you play correctly, you can proc it really fast but this requires you to play the game and know what you're talking about. It's no different from knocking a monster down in Monster Hunter. It's just a different form of basically the same thing.

>>718742204
It does have a value treshold for stagger, attacking a guard broken enemy just triggers it faster.

>>718742227
Goes without saying that it's a case by case basis but yeah, not seeing a health bar isn't really needed a lot of times. With RPG's I think it's somewhat important since you want to know whether this weapon or that weapon is doing more damage but seeing a boss's health bar in Doom wouldn't add anything.

>>718742171
>>718742268
fromsoftware copied rolling in moster hunter and bastardized the mechanic to be the answer for everything thus creating the rollslop genre

>>718737586
All of the old guard retired or left

>>718742073
A "meter" is a way of measuring a specific value of something. It does not need to come in the form of a bar. Bottom right you have two bars which I assume are ability cooldowns. There's also two bars on the bottom left indicating items held

>>718742347
My bigger issue with the stagger in those games is that it's a mandatory part of the fight. If the stagger bar refiled after a while it'd be a nice encouragement to be aggressive, making the stagger more of a bonus opportunity to do big damage. But either it takes forever to refill or it doesn't at all. Maybe I wasn't that good at the games but rather than feeling like you're doing 100% damage with a brief window to do 200% damage, it felt like doing 50% damage with a brief window for 100%.

>>718742347
What's the fundamental gameplay value of a mechanic where the enemy becomes a static target? Is the stagger bar not the real healthbar if dealing enough damage to it causes the enemy to behave as if it's dead? What does this accomplish from the perspective of providing an interactive challenge?

>>718738372
These things, like most game design features thast people complain about or praise, are not inherently good or bad. Features like this are a part of a game system and its only in relation to the rest of that system that you can judge if a feature is good or not.

>>718742347
It's the same thing done poorly with shitty numerics, tat's the issue
In monster hunter you get a variety of things you can "stagger" and get different results (actually staggering the monster, cutting off monster parts, disabling certain attacks, etc). In Fromslop you get a pretty boring system but getting the stagger typically wins the fight, and you can usually do normal damage without it. Recent squeenix games do none of those things and try to make the stagger seem like some big cinematic moment to the detriment of actual gameplay

>>718735779
The meter is artificially dragging out the fight because all you gotta do is parry enough times to fill the bar instead of anything actually fun or diverse.
The alternative is a one hit kill for either you or the enemy
The alternative would be to make a better game

>>718742381
>With RPG's I think it's somewhat important since you want to know whether this weapon or that weapon is doing more damage

Damage numbers do that just fine

>>718742348
but there is no visual meter. which requires good game design. the stagger needs to be fine tuned so it feels just right. with a meter the stagger threshold can be obnoxious as fuck but because you can see the progress it somehow makes its ok. thats the issue with meters.

>>718742847
And which game are you talking about here?

>>718743004
A meter's a meter even if it's hidden from the player, but I get what you mean.

>>718742608
You have to exploit weaknesses and use specific abilities to fill the pressure gauge faster to then combo that into increasing the stagger % while building ATB and spending it in a way that will overall benefit you. Some enemies get absolutely demolished by certain abilities or spells and it's up to you to figure out how to work that in a way to make the fight easier or faster.
>>718742660
You're creating an opening to do more damage. Again, it's the same as monster hunter. What's an example of what you feel should be the golden standard?
>>718742787
>In monster hunter you get a variety of things you can "stagger" and get different results (actually staggering the monster, cutting off monster parts, disabling certain attacks, etc)
Okay? I've played 3U, 4U, Generations, World, and Rise. The game is different but overall, you're working towards the same result. It's not really that complex. It's fun but not exactly complex.
>and try to make the stagger seem like some big cinematic moment to the detriment of actual gameplay
It's not really to any detriment. I don't have any actually good webms to show but a lot of the time, you're figuring out what works best against every enemy you fight. If you approach everything the same way, of course you're not going to do much because you're not utilizing everything available to you. This is such a common theme whenever I see people saying certain games are shit. It's why people don't like Nioh, they simply don't use what's available to them and go at it like they're a caveman.

Why can't games be like Doom and just shoot it until it dies?

>>718743109
Any game you like, faggot.

>>718742929
Sure but it's still an extra visual element you need to add. In From games at least, those bosses can take quite a while to bring down so without the bar it could become frustrating as the player starts thinking they're doing something wrong or they might be doing a pixel's worth of damage because they're trying to fight a boss too early.

>>718743438
>become frustrating
it could be frustrating when players die too so maybe we should make them invincible?

>>718735340 (OP)
>I don't have two brain cells to rub together: the post
Meters are never going to go away because they are clear indicators of game states.
>>718737654
>why not add a shitload of extra work (read: bloat dev budget) for shit that's harder to read / worse indicator than a bar or number.

getting tired of meme game design discourse
>bloodborne has an invisible stagger meter that gives you an opportunity to do a lot of damage if you keep up the aggression
wow, so cool!
>Sekiro (and a lot of games after the fact) just make it a visible meter
cringe! forced game design!

honestly I can't think of a single "this mechanic objectively sucks" discourse that doesn't make me think "everyone involved in this conversation is a fucking idiot"

>>718743917
It's always like this

>>718743823
No need for hyperbole, you know what I mean. In old turn based JRPG you rarely see the boss's health and more often than not it's not necessary since if you're underleveled you'll get killed before your turn starts. But From bosses already do that when you're at the intended level so the health bar being visible can help say "you're doing good, keep at it".
There's probably already a mod for Dark Souls that removes all UI elements including for the player and enemies/bosses and it'd probably make for a fun experience but one that would probably only be suitable for those already experienced with the game rather than a first time player.
I mentioned in an earlier post but in a game like Resident Evil the lack of a healthbar for the bosses adds to the horror and tension so it's a nice decision.

>>718744153
games used to convey boss health by making them pulse in red hue when theyre at 25% health remaining. that kind of design is infinitely better than health bars.

>>718743325
I dunno why you would bring this up when half of you screen is comprised of player information in Doom.

>>718744290
>games used to convey boss health by making them pulse in red hue when theyre at 25% health remaining.
name 10

>>718735340 (OP)
and how many games has this guy made?

>>718743159
>You're creating an opening to do more damage
You're still performing roughly (or exactly) the same actions, but the enemy doesn't fight back. Many games don't present the stagger as an opportunity to do something that the player can't do while the enemy is active, which is why I question why the mechanic is seen as a necessity in the first place.

A stagger meter is fundamentally not a good starting point because in these games the enemy typically has a healthbar which much like the stagger meter is completely arbitrary because it's semi-divorced from the actions taking place on screen. Why does it take x amount of identical hits to kill or stagger the enemy? There's no answer to that question, because it's a half-baked system of gameplay. Devs need to think harder about how they abstract actions and activities in video games.

>>718735340 (OP)
Onimusha's problem is it's slow. It needs to be like 6% faster at the very least.

>>718744667
no fuckoff

>>718744290
When it comes to game design I refuse to take an all or nothing approach. In the From games the health bar works fine while in Resident Evil it'd take away from it. In Sekiro the meter for the stagger works while in OP's case maybe it won't. This isn't a one size fits all situation.
If you've played enough From games you've certainly come across a situation where you hit an enemy, see a single pixel being taken off their health bar and instantly start running for the hills. That's a nice way of the game saying "try exploring somewhere else".
Like I said before maybe there is a mod that already experiments with it but I doubt it'd work as a first time experience. Maybe some youtuber can try it out or something.

>>718744667
>Onimusha's problem is it's slow
Play Genma Onimusha

>>718744749
You can turn off the hud in all the souls games.
It doesn't help much since there's no real way to track progress in the fight besides phase transitions
https://youtu.be/oAzgc0aZAsg?t=108

>>718744749
>If you've played enough From games you've certainly come across a situation where you hit an enemy, see a single pixel being taken off their health bar and instantly start running for the hills. That's a nice way of the game saying "try exploring somewhere else".
that's due to design flaws in souls games. there was no need for enemy health bars in king's field for example because you'd get hit by enemies in the new area and use the damage taken as a metric of whether you can handle it or not. souls is so avoidance heavy that it skews this sort of design and then requires an extra health bar for enemies.

>>718743326
whatever bullshit you like to spout, you disingenuous faggot

so do you guys actually have any original thoughts or is your head just empty until you see a xitter post to inform you on what to think next

>>718735340 (OP)
meters just indicate the accumulation of numbers.
the fuck do they think stats are?
should we ditch stats?
any kind of additive number increase?
>fucking devs - leaning on non-contiguous segments of gameplay and tracking them with an ever increasing number (levels)! AMATEURS!

>>718745009
I get what you mean. Souls games are about not taking damage so how can you gauge an enemy's strength without seeing their health bar. But designing a game around the idea that you'll never have to take damage is not bad design. It's commonly one of the more accepted design decisions out there, that every attack should allow to be avoided, outside of like turn based games. The From games just take it up a notch by very heavily punishing getting hit.

>>718745140
If I'm going to get mad about something it's that every game feels the need to add rpg elements. Now there's illusion of depth.

>>718745128
Most of my thoughts are about why I should throw every screen in my life into a trashcan

>>718735340 (OP)
mechanics are a crutch

>>718745251
>It's commonly one of the more accepted design decisions out there, that every attack should allow to be avoided
The downside is that you have to design the entire game around that frankly trivial feature, and devs force themselves to discard any potential innovation in the action genre if it goes against the convention. Might as well turn the boss healthbar into a countdown, so you're protecting your perfect no hit status until it expires and the boss dies on its own. Is that not the real focus of this kind of design?

>meters
I assume they're talking about "stagger" meters that open the enemy up for a short time after depleting, and not health meters because that would be incredibly dumb

I think it's better to keep stagger meters hidden, that way they feel more rewarding when triggered and the player won't be specifically going for them. Even if the end result is the same, SEEING a stagger meter deplete does have a psychological effect.

Of course I don't think action games really need them, maybe have the rare attack that has an opening at some part of the animation that triggers a stun when exploited, or the monhun approach where several different kinds of stagger meters are depleted over the course of the fight instead of like, depleting five or six times each

>>718735523
>only redditors complain
>post reddit-core the game
????

>>718745495
>mechanics are a crutch
>proceed to post a video of someone exploiting i-frame mechanics

>>718742847
that's like saying you're artifically dragging out the fight with a hp bar because all you need to do is deal enough damage

You ever think about how healthbars only exist because there's no reaction or visual feedback from the enemy itself, when you deal damage to it?

>>718745903
You lost me with that one. The idea that every attack can be avoided is just to prevent moments that feel like bullshit. Like the player did everything right but the game just said fuck you. You can certainly design moments where the player is forced to take damage but then you have to account for how much health the player already has at that point. As an example, there's a moment in Half Life 1 where you drop from a vent and take fall damage. To prevent this moment feeling like bullshit they have you drop onto a health pack. So you still get the desired effect but without the bullshit of the game randomly killing you.

>>718746669
>>718745903
Also
>Might as well turn the boss healthbar into a countdown
It's been done.

>>718737651
Any damage is instant death
Start with 3 lives (aka credits)
Then you go back to the start, no continues, punk

>>718746419
It's okay when arcade slop does it.

>>718735340 (OP)
Isn't he talking about the stagger bar?

>>718735340 (OP)
Same people that use the simple rhombus/geometric UI for inventory/gear/journal/map etc.
It's disgusting and a symptom of creative bankruptcy plus deep fear of experimentation and trend chasing in the industry.

>>718735340 (OP)
Couldn't disagree more. I'm old enough to remember the era where devs decided removing health bars altogether would make everything more immersive. It was fucking shit. I hope it never comes back.

>>718740329
Yup. Best example of a midwit I've seen since yesterday. Simply calling a fundamental game mechanic a crutch without any explanation as to why. Just an excuse for some retard to think he's clever.

>>718738182
Do you just want bosses to all die in one hit or something? What alternative are you proposing?

>>718737654
Yeah man I loved the era of bosses not having health bars. It was so fun to have absolutely no idea whether it was at 10% or 80% health. I just replayed Deus Ex HR and my god would those bosses have benefit from just having a big health bar instead of hiding it.

>>718743159
Fuck off, designated damage window is fucking shit mechanic in every game it was implemented.

>>718737332
Because they are too young to realise how shit that whole movement was. If you are going to have a game with barely any HUD then it has to be designed well, like Metro 2033. Otherwise it's just an annoying slog full of trial and error.

>>718740642
but
it literally is

>>718737912
The easiest way to spot a retard is when they are convinced by someone just wrapping their arguments in faux-intellectual language and acting zealously correct.

>>718745128
My head is constantly filled with original thoughts (note: original does not mean paritcularly valuable or insightful here) to the point I can't get it to stop and give me some peace and quiet for once.
I've tried ADHD meds but they just let me focus on the constant racing thoughts better.

I just hate the whole "fill one meter to make an opening so you can start actually dealing damage" mechanic. Either have actual openings built into the fight or let me deal damage normally throughout. Don't give the health meter its own fucking health meter.

>>718742227
Because then you have no idea whether the boss has a million health or 1, how far you are into killing it, what types of weapon are strong against it etc. Go play the King Kong game from 20 years ago if you wanna experience no UI slop. It's shit.

>>718738317
>Which seems really dumb.
Why?

I hate pseuds so much.

>>718738372
>I speedran the thought process in my head, so there's no depth!

>>718748585
>Because then you have no idea whether the boss has a million health or 1, how far you are into killing it
and games were better balanced because of that. bosses were easier but the uncertainty created additional decision making. theres no strategizing over whether to do an all out attack because the boss might be dead next few hits or play defensively and recover if you can just see their health. these souls games bosses are tuned to be obnoxious garbage and removing health bars from enemies only reveals the bad design. I'd argue the only title in the series that could withstand removal of enemy health bars is demons souls.

>>718747530
>Start with 3 lives (aka credits)
Lives and credits are not the same.

>>718747530
credits are just a smaller form of meters

>>718735340 (OP)
>giving people knowledge about the game's systems so they can make informed decisions is bad game design
interesting take
I'm sure this person is very intelligent and I'm glad you shared this with us, anon

>>718735340 (OP)
This is the sort of hard-hitting insightful video game critique I come to /v/ for so of course it's from twitter

>>718750638
>design game badly
>put bunch of meters on screen so players can navigate through bad design
>"wowie this is so well designed!"

>>718737558
Meters should be an absolute last resort when balancing a mechanic. Think of any mechanic where balancing isn't done by having a meter and think about whether it would be made better or worse by using one instead. Imagine if they replaced the downside of dragon punches (being punishable on block) with a dedicated DP meter instead. Both prevent you from spamming DP but one is a clever design while the other is completely braindead. There are almost zero cases where using a meter instead is an actual good idea.

Sometimes we simply aren't smart enough to think of anything better than a meter but we should still strive to eliminate them.

>>718735340 (OP)
When are anons going to stop using twitter screenshots as a crutch for thread OPs?

>>718750638
>so we added this fun mechanic but it completely breaks the game
>ok, just make it so the player is forced not to use it most of the time
game developer sama...

>>718750741
what does that even mean?
are you saying those meters are filling up completely disconnected from the gameplay? just for show?

>>718750791
ESL love using em because it substitutes them writing anything

>>718735340 (OP)
>>718740024
Bog on the hog
https://www.patreon.com/posts/quick-notes-on-129852199

>>718737654
you don't even understand what the guy is talking about

he means use a physics simulation and knock out organs in a body instead of doing a damage value that reduces hitpoints - this, before you bitch and moan about how its impossible or too hard - is already done by warthunder

Physics simulation of projectiles vs hitscan is another example

meters and number go up are crutches, they oversimplify and leave you with an empty game mechanic with no emergent gameplay

>>718750862
it means you can make a shit game but as long as you show progress visually no one will complain. look at something like FF16. abysmal game to its core and the only reason it's playable is because the game shows bunch of progress bars.

>>718735340 (OP)
nobody uses "meters and bars" to "fake depth" thats fucking retarded, you need better critical analysis than this.

if there is a bar or meter for a resource, that is necessarily effecting gameplay. the only time id call a UI element like that "fake" is if it didnt really effect anything or gave the illusion of having more depth than it purported to have or something?? otherwise, those elements tend to effect how you are managing something, how you are thinking about your resources, how close you are to a certain beat/ebb and flow of the combat, etc. if you dont like the mechanic it is communicating then say that, but thoughtlessly saying "i dont like bar, bar soulless and modern" is braindead monkeybrain shit

>>718735340 (OP)
I think the funniest part of this thread is that despite everyone being dumb and misunderstanding what he was whining about, they're still far more intelligent than him and his desperately ignorant purposeful misunderstanding of basic cause and effect all to try and look smarter than he actually is. But of course, he's an NG2 sycophant so denial of reality is second nature to him which certainly adds up in other regards. He doesn't mean meters as in health but resources that are used for actions or special attacks. He also piggybacks off beat-em-ups for clout, so reread the first part of the last sentence and recognize how stupid he actually is.

but will you play

MORE METERS
i must see my fingerless glove gauge

>>718751128
An example of how the meters and bars soulless game design ruined a sequel is Homeworld 2

In the original game, all projectiles were physics based, this meant you could actually friendly fire your own ships if they got in the way. This meant you needed to use specific kinds of fleet formations to minimize friendly fire and maximize damage to enemy ships. It added several layers of depth to the game that manifested in ways you wouldn't have ever thought when just thinking about it on the surface level.

Homeworld 2 came along, and they only thought about it on the surface level - why simulate the projectile physics? That seems wasteful and inefficient. So they made everything work on scripts and hitscan. There is no longer any friendly fire, there is no such thing as changing engagement ranges to be more difficult to hit by particular weapons on particular ship types, or switching formation type to minmax firepower. You just select all and move to attack.

The approach of bars and meters for everything is exactly the kind of simplification Homeworld 2 chased down and used, and it made the game substantially worse for it compared to it's Homeworld 1 and Cataclysm predecessors.

>>718735340 (OP)
>game has 2 bars
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE BLOAT SAVE ME!!!

>>718742391
wait monster hunter was the first to implement rolling as evasion?

>>718751462
what does bars and meters have to do with them changing the projectiles to be more deterministic in nature?

I also disagree with the idea that bars and meters necessarily simplify things. bars and meters are simply exposing a system or variable to the player. whether that makes things easier is really moreso on what is being exposed. for example, do the meter and mechanic only exist in tandem, and the additional worry of the combination is an added stressor to the player? or does that meter actually alleviate a stress by reassuring the player of some resource that could have otherwise only be left to intuition or careful observation of the diegetic elements of the game?

>>718751775
nah, I bet it was in some 90s games already. but off the top of my head Prince of Persia Sands of Time had a roll dodge in 2003. Monster Hunter came out in 2004.

>>718735523
>it's good because other site doesn't like it
ok poopoo man, keep gobbling it up.

>>718748125
nta
Works for monster hunter.

>>718737586
>heyday
when was this hayday exactly, they haven't made anything new in 13 years. Kunitsu was the closest thing to innovation and it bombed.

>>718751775
No, he's coping
rolling in monhun for the large majority of series had like 2 iframes and was mostly a repositioning or animation cancelling attack endlag tool, it was also directional locked a lot of time so sometime it was better to not roll at all since you couldn't back peddle
you could build around dodging but it was very weapon dependant, required a dedicated armour build to give you a useable amount of invul time on roll and was not the intended default way to play

>>718751775
>>718752772
MH is the first one who tied rolling to a stamina bar retard, also any non shitter who played FU rolled through narga's attacks
fromtard copied the mechanic and turned rolling into braindead nigger shit to counter all kinds of enemy attacks

This thread is generally pretty retarded but I do think a lot of games these days would benefit from deliberately obscuring more information from the player.
I'm reminded of that plugin someone made for SRB2Kart that shows you the exact duration of every single source of speed you could receive and it just sucked so much of the fun out of things.

>>718746669
>Like the player did everything right
In chess you sacrifice pieces to win. What is and isn't right depends on the system and its goals, and perfection however you may define it isn't always the goal. Why shouldn't action games try different things? People are unreasonably obsessed with one kind of skill, memorisation and mechanical execution in predictable solved scenarios, which obviously can be pretty impressive but games can provide different kinds of challenges and being different isn't inherently less valuable.

>>718735340 (OP)
Sekiro is easily the best game of the last 10-20 years, I don't see the problem.

>>718735779
Seems like a resurgence of pseuds who actually don't like video games and the characteristics that separates video games from other forms of media. I wouldn't be surprised if his solution was simply to hide the meter but keep the actual mechanics related to the meter in place.

>>718753365
>but games can provide different kinds of challenges and being different isn't inherently less valuable.
Nor would I want to imply that. No one complains about taking damage in a turn based game for example. Like chess, those are a battle of attrition. Sure it's neat when games find ways around it, like the Mario RPG games, but game design is never a rule written in stone. Arguably the only rule I'd live by is "Make the player blame himself for failure, not the game".
Even within the From games there's plenty of moments of needing to take damage. Falling down to Nito's boss arena, general platforming, the Moon Presence's attack in Bloodborne, and so on.

>>718741768
>>718742037
That's not true at all. Normal attacks do shit damage, but not because they're building stagger, they're for building ATB. ATB attacks do proper damage.
And even then this "shit damage" is greatly exaggerated, especially for Rebirth, they do damage just fine against regular enemies, ATB just does a shitton, like a good 60% in one 0MP move here.
Even stagger has depth to it because it's all about making the most of it, so using things like Stop to extend the meter, building your ATB evenly among party members to prepare for the stagger, which means constantly switching characters and stuff.
If you get into magic, if you play with a nuke Aerith, her solo challenges end before they even begin with a single Firaga that generates more MP than it costs and wipes the whole map. What's stagger?

How many meters can a game have on screen before it becomes barslop?

>>718735340 (OP)
>NG pfp
>Most pseud opinion imaginable
Classic

>>718744519
>You're still performing roughly (or exactly) the same actions, but the enemy doesn't fight back.
Completely wrong. Why in the world would you ever spam the stagger multiplier increase attacks with Tifa outside of the stagger window? And why in the world would you ever use the attacks that are better at inflicting pressure or the attacks that are better at raising stagger on pressured enemies instead of the ones that increase stagger percentage or your big damage dealers during stagger?
Unless by "the same actions" you mean "pressing buttons" or some other dumb shit.

>>718738317
It’s not just the enemy stagger-meter.

There’s also like 3 seperate gauges player fills up on themselves by doing different things that once full allow you to do a special action. EG if you perfect parry enough times you get a temporary weapon buff that increases damage for a while. If you perfect dodge enough times you get some other buff.

>>718757635
How much soap can you add to a bath tub until it becomes barsoap

>>718735340 (OP)
We are talking about the same industry that will probably never shy away from using a "desert wasteland" to populate at least one "open world" area or two. It's human nature to seek the path of least resistance. Get used to crutches, they aren't going anywhere. Especially while the HR safespace female-friendly work environment exists.

He’s right monster burner does it right with no hp bars, from soft also does it right in ER with no stagger bar

>>718758131
That perfect parry gauge goes down when you get hit, and once the buff is applied it goes down with time and needs more perfect parries without getting hit to sustain it. How is this "fake depth"? It would work the exact same way without a visible meter. It's just explicit information, it's not real or fake depth, the depth is in the mechanic itself.

>>718735340 (OP)
I am very confused. Is he talking about units of distance measurements meters/feet/kilometers/etc and depth perception in 3D environments?

>>718759337
read the thread.

>>718756036
>simply to hide the meter but keep the actual mechanics
sounds like a good idea though

>>718748374
that's the point of the meds though, so you don't feel like a drooling retard because you can't piece together a coherent thought.

>>718760872
Many games do let you choose which parts of the HUD you want to show or hide, yes. It's always a welcome addition.
Play more videogames if you think this is twitter hot take worthy.

>>718735523
Okay, now imagine if neutral Style button, forward + Style, and backwards + Style were three big icons in the corner and each had a 5-15 second cooldown, and instead of DT being a transformation you can turn on and off whenever, it was a single ult you can use when full once per mission.
That's the kind of meters being talked about.

>>718735340 (OP)
meters is what makes the gameplay not be completely dependent on reaction and reflexes. if all you want is to button mash then there are plenty of games out there for you, just don't play this one.

The problem is not the idea of multiple gauges and bars all over the screen, the issue is that Capcom took an action adventure classic in a world where non-soulslike action games are getting rare and turned it into a Sekiro clone instead of making their own thing

>>718761382
Onimusha is not cooldown based. You build the meter instead of waiting for it. Much like DT.
The "ult" you build with blue orbs, which you can force out of enemies depending on how you finish them, direct interplay of mechanics. The buff you build up by perfect parrying multiple times without getting hit. It's so not a cooldown that it doesn't even go down when out of combat, the only way to lose the buff meter is to get hit.

This sounds like a non-issue that 95 IQ people who think they are smart complain about

>>718747530
>make a game with normal looking hp bar that at the start goes to 100
>enemies at the start deal so much damage it on-shots you
>add upgrade system that allows you to increase your hp
>enemies will still oneshot you
>no matter how much hp you have you still die in one hit
I want this

>>718739804
Great point

>>718735340 (OP)
All games should have a meater that tracks how much meat your character has.

when will /v/ learn that these retarded twitter screencap threads are always made by the author of the post to try and get more engagement on twitter because twitter literally pays you for ragebaiting loads of people

Need a dev to take a note from SNK of olde and just have bars that have multiple coloured layers, just to fuck with you and not know how much actual HP is left until you memorized the colour order.

>>718762526
Sounds cruel. I think games should make it clear what the player needs to do yet challenging to do so
Maybe there's a clever idea where the upgrades have secondary effects that are what really matter in some metagaming way but can't hide one shots forever

guy has opinion and pretends he has authority on a subject

>>718747791
What are some game UIs you think are done well?
I've many pet peeves about game UI / "UX". Playing CP2077 now expecting rage but tolerating. Skip Dialogue not working in the main scenes is getting me heated

>>718735523
DT fills too quickly to be a good meter

>>718738182
I prefer parries in dark souls, where they just give you free damage, instead of filling up a meter that gives you free damage when it gets full.

>>718735340 (OP)
as opposed to what? replacing them with just numbers so you have to try and read those mid fight instead of just glancing at an infinitely easier to read bar? the video game industy has been dying over the last decade and these retarded cunts think bar graphs are the issue.

>>718769396
Monster Hunter doesn't even have health bars though.

>>718769979
it does for the player character

>>718735340 (OP)
Ain't social media great? Smoothbrained idiots sharing their opinions to other morons who see this kind of shit as substantive.

>>718770189
>imblying 4chan isn't social media
That post there stirred an interesting thread here. zoom out don't be so precious about ur ego

>>718735523
To be honest. I don't actually play this game. And I never have a Reddit account.