Is the lives system pointless?

[JezMM]

Losing hours of progress is not a good punishment at all. Remember that whatever time it takes us veterans to beat stuff, it probably takes kids about 10 times longer.

And yes, we grew up with hard, unforgiving games but that doesn't make them good. Video games are already reaching the point where we're getting grumpy oldbies saying things like "we had to start right over in the old days and we were fine!" just like old people IRL complain about how we don't need new technology, can you believe it?

Winding the clock back any further than a few minutes for failing is just a terrible idea.

Players should be able to go through at their own pace. Players who are worse at the game and take longer to get through being punished MORE for failing than those who are more skilled and can take the punishment is just completely backwards.

Punishing with lack of ranking bonuses and such at the end of the level is the best option, since it is leinient towards new players who just want to finish, but punishes the skilled players who want something more out of the game. As part of the latter group, it suits me just fine.

Edited July 21, 2012 by JezMM

[Blacklightning]

Losing hours of progress is not a good punishment at all. Remember that whatever time it takes us veterans to beat stuff, it probably takes kids about 10 times longer.

I think what you're forgetting that while younger gamers are less skilled, they're also a hell of a lot more impressionable. Unless they've somehow already been exposed to really easy games long enough to consider it normal, and they're under the impression they're having fun regardless, I don't think they're really going to give a toss if they have to repeat stuff for screwing up. I guess it might depend on what your definition of a gaming "kid" is, though.

And yes, we grew up with hard, unforgiving games but that doesn't make them good.

S3&K isn't good? For that matter, S3&K is hard? Certaintly not to any undue extent, I'd say.

Players should be able to go through at their own pace.

They're always welcome to try walking.

Players who are worse at the game and take longer to get through being punished MORE for failing than those who are more skilled and can take the punishment is just completely backwards.

So let me get this straight. You think it's backwards that the less skilled players... are getting punished more than the more skilled players? Umm, what? How is that not the normal thing to expect from a videogame? That's, like, the entire incentive for getting more skilled at a videogame in the first place. I just... I don't even... ugh. Say what you will about a lives system but I can't actually think of a single mentality more counterproductive to player growth than this, to be perfectly honest.

Punishing with lack of ranking bonuses and such at the end of the level is the best option, since it is leinient towards new players who just want to finish, but punishes the skilled players who want something more out of the game. As part of the latter group, it suits me just fine.

The unfortunate thing is, I might just have been content with rankings in the first place if the games these days didn't throw S ranks around like fuckin' candy canes. For all the hate that SA2 gets these days I think that's where it shined best - unlike say, Unleashed, you weren't exactly punished for not memorizing the level design most of the time (as long as we're talking Sonic levels here - treasure hunting... not so much), but to get the best ranks out of it you really had to look around for the best score-boosting opportunities, and for the most part a fast end-time was just the cherry on the cake.

[Jack / Joker]

What do people make of the lives system in Unleashed Wii? You start the game with 3 lives and there's no way to find extra lives in stages. It's only when you go to a new level that the counter is reset. You could increase your life total permanently by exploring the Gaia Gates, so from then onwards you would always start with 4 or 5 or whatever number of lives. But under no circumstance could you gain an extra life while in a stage. You had a finite amount of times to attempt a level.

I really liked this because one thing that bugs me in the 360 version is that they give you lives when you're heading towards trouble (see: platforming) so there's no chance of running out of lives since they give you one every time. With the Wii version you have a set number and that can't be changed in-level. It makes it more fair!

[Diogenes]

Having an actual punishment to dying encourages rationale when faced with tricks of the level design,

I always thought dying itself was enough of a punishment. Honestly I don't think I've ever played a game with this blind-and-dumb, rush in and pray mentality that you're railing against. One life or 100 lives, either way I'm looking for the solution to whatever obstacle I've come across. Getting chucked out of the level doesn't make me think any harder, it just wastes my time and breaks the flow of the game. It interrupts my attempt at figuring out the level, it makes me more likely to forget what I was trying, more likely to lose what muscle memory I had built up.

And I think you're not giving proper credit to trial and error as a learning tool. I'm not saying games should be designed to require trial and error, but trying out potential solutions is basically the backbone of figuring things out.

You mean besides simple outcry? Problems like blind bottomless pits become a lot more evident when death has any such weight

If they can't figure it out from the level design itself, I don't think game overs are going to do much to make them realize it. Honestly if they're that bad the game's doomed either way.

[Candescence]

I really liked this because one thing that bugs me in the 360 version is that they give you lives when you're heading towards trouble (see: platforming) so there's no chance of running out of lives since they give you one every time. With the Wii version you have a set number and that can't be changed in-level. It makes it more fair!

This is also one of the things I utterly hated about the HD versions of Unleashed, it's practically writing on the wall on how shitty and just plain unfair Unleashed's level design was. If you have to practically hand players lives right in front of an incredibly difficult section, there is something clearly wrong with your level design. The second half of Unleashed was rife with trial and error gameplay, and not the good kind, there were plenty of examples of spots where it was virtually impossible without pure luck to pass without prior knowledge of the incoming obstacle itself. Eggmanland, especially, that level was an utter abomination. Colours and Generations weren't quite as bad about this, thankfully.

On the other hand, Unleashed Wii was challenging, but it was actually reasonable about it. I think it's mainly because the boost was restricted to limited bursts, and the gameplay was focused around drifting rather than the quick-step, which was used surprisingly rarely. The lives system was surprisingly unique, too.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Masaru Daimon

[Blacklightning]

I always thought dying itself was enough of a punishment. Honestly I don't think I've ever played a game with this blind-and-dumb, rush in and pray mentality that you're railing against. One life or 100 lives, either way I'm looking for the solution to whatever obstacle I've come across.

Emphasis once again on "encourages". I'm not suggesting anything more than it's possible to get through most situations by chucking corpses at a wall and observing which ones get through it. If you're above that, good for you, but it's still not a particularly good way to design a learning curve. Speaking of which.

Getting chucked out of the level doesn't make me think any harder, it just wastes my time and breaks the flow of the game. It interrupts my attempt at figuring out the level, it makes me more likely to forget what I was trying, more likely to lose what muscle memory I had built up.

If the existing learning curve is anywhere half competent, chances are the level design was already building up to that point to begin with. If anything it's a chance to re-learn fundementals that the player may have neglecting in order to get in that position, assuming any due sense of caution fails them. Losing muscle memory shouldn't be a worry unless there's a big spike in the difficulty curve the devs hadn't accounted for... and hey, with the likes of Colours and Generations, what's the risk of that these days?

EDIT:

This is also one of the things I utterly hated about the HD versions of Unleashed, it's practically writing on the wall on how shitty and just plain unfair Unleashed's level design was. If you have to practically hand players lives right in front of an incredibly difficult section, there is something clearly wrong with your level design. The second half of Unleashed was rife with trial and error gameplay, and not the good kind, there were plenty of examples of spots where it was virtually impossible without pure luck to pass without prior knowledge of the incoming obstacle itself. Eggmanland, especially, that level was an utter abomination. Colours and Generations weren't quite as bad about this, thankfully.

For what it's worth, Eggmanland did have some genuinely creative route design put into it - sheer length aside, the tradegdy of it all is that it could very well have been considered a fuckin' awesome level had the game eased better into its various quirks. Most of the difficulty seems to come from factors that you never had to deal with previously. =\ Edited July 21, 2012 by The Cheese

[JezMM]

I think what you're forgetting that while younger gamers are less skilled, they're also a hell of a lot more impressionable. Unless they've somehow already been exposed to really easy games long enough to consider it normal, and they're under the impression they're having fun regardless, I don't think they're really going to give a toss if they have to repeat stuff for screwing up. I guess it might depend on what your definition of a gaming "kid" is, though.

Dunno really, you make a good point, it probably varies from kid to kid.

S3&K isn't good? For that matter, S3&K is hard? Certaintly not to any undue extent, I'd say.

S3&K isn't a good example of what I'm talking about. Game Overs sent you only about 10 minutes of gameplay back, maximum, thanks to the save system. That was more a direct response to your view on Sonic Colours. 6 Acts could take hours for a kid/less-skilled player, especially in the latter half of the game. S3&K is a little harsh for Game Overs but not very. Reasonable but starting on the Act you Game Over'd on would be fairer.

They're always welcome to try walking.

That's my point though, if they NEED to go that slow just to finish the level then that's a huge time investment to lose when they fail right before the end of the next "Game Over checkpoint" so to speak.

So let me get this straight. You think it's backwards that the less skilled players... are getting punished more than the more skilled players? Umm, what? How is that not the normal thing to expect from a videogame? That's, like, the entire incentive for getting more skilled at a videogame in the first place. I just... I don't even... ugh. Say what you will about a lives system but I can't actually think of a single mentality more counterproductive to player growth than this, to be perfectly honest.

I think every player has a right to enjoy and at least reach the end of a game. If it means using a super guide or level skip or whatever that's fine as long as it's there choice. All I'm saying is I prefer when games give you the option of the challenge. If they want to get more skilled there can be missions, marathon modes, ranks, hidden items, hard modes etc to cater for them. But if they just want to enjoy themselves and get to the end of the game, there shouldn't be flow breaking "you suck at this bit too much therefore you must do that other bit again as punishment before you can have another go".

This is also one of the things I utterly hated about the HD versions of Unleashed, it's practically writing on the wall on how shitty and just plain unfair Unleashed's level design was. If you have to practically hand players lives right in front of an incredibly difficult section, there is something clearly wrong with your level design. The second half of Unleashed was rife with trial and error gameplay, and not the good kind, there were plenty of examples of spots where it was virtually impossible without pure luck to pass without prior knowledge of the incoming obstacle itself. Eggmanland, especially, that level was an utter abomination. Colours and Generations weren't quite as bad about this, thankfully.

I think Eggmanland was very intentionally designed. They wanted it to be balls hard and a serious reaction test, so they more or less gave you infinite lives for it.

People didn't like it because it was out of the blue, but they essentially did invoke the design philosophies of a hard platform game with infinite lives. Problem was it was just that one level so everyone cried foul. Aside from the Werehog pipe sections (and those are more due to terrible camera design than level design) I think Eggmanland is one of the greatest levels in a Sonic game ever. I've found no final stage as satisfying as that one to finish personally. I completely embraced what they were going for with it.

On the other hand, Unleashed Wii was challenging, but it was actually reasonable about it. I think it's mainly because the boost was restricted to limited bursts, and the gameplay was focused around drifting rather than the quick-step, which was used surprisingly rarely. The lives system was surprisingly unique, too.

The problem with the Unleashed Wii's life system was the finite amount of chances. It meant you can do flawlessly all the way through but when you get to that one bit you still only have this many chances no matter how well you did.

It's a good system if not for the fact that you earn additional lives by doing non-standard gameplay (the Gaia Gates). Just like the HD version with it's medal collecting, no-one wants to be forced to do the extra content just to finish the content they enjoy.

Basically my general philosophy with any game is the more styles of player it can accomodate the better.

[Blacklightning]

Dunno really, you make a good point, it probably varies from kid to kid.

Well, that too, but the point I was making is that impressionability is very dependant on age - I started playing games somewhere around 4 years of age, and that early on the mind hasn't really made a cement objective judgement on what's fun, what's fair and what's right. As long as a game doesn't go as far as to be deliberately infuriating, it makes little difference to the young-uns.

S3&K isn't a good example of what I'm talking about.

Uh, really? It's a Sonic game with lives. Don't see why an example shouldn't be taken from it. But okay then.

Game Overs sent you only about 10 minutes of gameplay back, maximum, thanks to the save system. That was more a direct response to your view on Sonic Colours. 6 Acts could take hours for a kid/less-skilled player, especially in the latter half of the game. S3&K is a little harsh for Game Overs but not very. Reasonable but starting on the Act you Game Over'd on would be fairer.

Like I brought up earlier with Dio, if the existing learning curve is any good it's simply an opportunity to revise fundementals that they may have screwed up. And again, impressionability takes a pretty big role too, as long as we're still talking about kids handle it - if the game tells them they have to try again, they're not about to question it.

That's my point though, if they NEED to go that slow just to finish the level then that's a huge time investment to lose when they fail right before the end of the next "Game Over checkpoint" so to speak.

I was joking, just to be clear on that.

I think every player has a right to enjoy and at least reach the end of a game.

And I think a game without due challenge is a game without due reward, so on that it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree. There are some extremes to be perfectly fair, but I doubt any one of you didn't feel really pleased with yourselves when you finally kicked Sonic 2's ass all on your own anyway. Edited July 21, 2012 by The Cheese

[Kuzu]

So we've come down to two arguments; Completely abolish the life system and just have trial and error be the player's teacher, or have an actual consequence to dying?

In the context of Sonic games, isn't the fact that you basically lose your entire score count as the latter? It pretty much fucks you over for getting an S-rank, and it probably sucks for perfectionist like myself.

[TheOcelot]

The extra lives system didn't use to be pointless. With games like Sonic 1 on the Megadrive it was quite an achievement just to get an extra life and there was sufficient difficulty so that you would need to take care when moving through the zones to avoid losing lives. I like that you have a limit of lives, because it meant that it wasn't just about playing the game, you had to play the game well, get good at it/master it. Thats a good thing. After all no one wants that humiliating game over music. Waaa waa waa waaa waaaaaaaaaaaaa.

A lot of games these days don't have lives systems. So if you die you just continue where you left off, from the last checkpoint. Thats absolutely fine by me. With S3&K for example I normally achieve 99 lives by the end of the fourth zone because there are so may ways of obtaining lives, through the bonus and special stages, extra life item boxes, score and rings. This also in a way renders lives pointless, but I do enjoy collecting them.

With the modern games like Heroes, Unleashed and Shadow the Hedgehog, the lives system was rendered useless because of the cheap deaths due to the poor controls, flawed physics and level design.

Edited July 21, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[Candescence]

I think Eggmanland was very intentionally designed. They wanted it to be balls hard and a serious reaction test, so they more or less gave you infinite lives for it.

People didn't like it because it was out of the blue, but they essentially did invoke the design philosophies of a hard platform game with infinite lives. Problem was it was just that one level so everyone cried foul. Aside from the Werehog pipe sections (and those are more due to terrible camera design than level design) I think Eggmanland is one of the greatest levels in a Sonic game ever. I've found no final stage as satisfying as that one to finish personally. I completely embraced what they were going for with it.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Masaru Daimon

[Kuzu]

Yeah, Eggmanland is difficult, but it's the shitty type of difficult, that is not fun to go through. I can stand hard levels in my games, but not when it's consisted of absolute bullshit; Mandatory QTE's, that fucking pipe section, and that one section with the unwinnable section(someone mentioned it a while back.) I mean it does make lives seem kind of pointless if they just throw them at you, it's they knew they designed a shitty level and tried to make it alright by force feeding you lives.

[Marx rT]

So there is game mechanics. We talk about lives, but what really matters is the game-over mechanics. You feel frustrated every time you die, and to avoid that, you need to be more skillful. That's the reason why a game over punishment have to exist, since it's the general way players to be taught to solve the problem. When a game is over, the game is actually suggesting you to do the right thing.

What happens in Sonic games now, is that you have to look for rings and collectibles for extra lives. You don't do that, you're screwed. So you want to avoid a game over, just collect rings, do it and you can restart from any checkpoint you fail. A fail-safe that is. So in my opinion this is what we mean "pointless" here. It's like game telling you to focus on extra lives, while what you really want to do is beat the level.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Marx rT

[Burnt Ash]

If there's one game that annoyed me about its lives system more than any other game, it's Sonic 4: Episode I. I think I ended up with about 300 lives after the first playthrough...which pretty much made me think "Why in the world is the lives system needed in this game?" Not to mention that the game has an achievement "Collect 100 lives". The fact that 100+ lives is easily accessible in a game kinda renders the whole system useless.

[JezMM]

@Masaru... Yeah we'll have to agree to disagree on Eggmanland. Considering Sonic Unleashed is my favourite 3D Sonic game and your second least-favourite, I don't think there's any chance in hell of us seeing eye-to-eye there. XD;

@The Cheese

I agree with your arguement of "who didn't feel amazing when they beat Sonic 2?" and I would never take advantage of mercy features myself, I'm just simply looking at it from the perspective of the people out there who instead are thinking "who didn't feel like shit and give up when they got a Game Over right near the end after having all their lives whittled down by Metropolis and Wing Fortress?"

I mean I recently finished Rayman Origins and was really surprised to see no mercy feature at all despite the unlimited lives. I mean that is a seriously hard game with some really heavy trial-and-error gameplay with far apart checkpoints. But was it fantastically fun? Yeah! So it makes me sad there are some less platformer-skilled people out there who won't be able to enjoy it without putting in the hours to gain the skill level equivelant to the one I've grown from a lifetime of platform game experience.

I dunno, I just kinda wish every game out there had difficulty settings. Not for me but for everyone. I know I'd have never finished Half-Life 2 had I been forced to play it on normal. I love that game but I suck at it above easy for some reason. But I feel I'm getting off-subject from lives to general difficulty balance here.

Edited July 21, 2012 by JezMM

[TheOcelot]

If there's one game that annoyed me about its lives system more than any other game, it's Sonic 4: Episode I. I think I ended up with about 300 lives after the first playthrough...which pretty much made me think "Why in the world is the lives system needed in this game?" Not to mention that the game has an achievement "Collect 100 lives". The fact that 100+ lives is easily accessible in a game kinda renders the whole system useless.

Yeah it's like in Casino Street Zone of Ep1 you can pick up about 50 lives and this is without really doing anything. Just moving through those playing cards and stuff.

In Sonic CD and Sonic 3&K you can obtain massive amounts of lives, but you have to work hard to get them. Loads of exploring and spending a long time (using the 10 minutes available) in each Act/Zone is required. I like doing that.

Edited July 21, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[PerfectChaos]

I think if we do have to have a lives system, Unwiished was probably the way to go.

[UltDevilDoom]

I don't think I would play Sonic so much if it had an inifinte lives system like Call of Duty or Gears of War. It takes away the rush. I like the feeling I get when I have no lives left and I have to beat a boss on this last life or start over somewhere.

[WarioBone]

I have literally never run out of lives, outside of spamming restart, in a Sonic game since Sonic 2.

So...yeah.

[That Nut Job]

The idea that a game without lives cannot be challenging is totally unfounded. As Halo is my other favorite game/franchise, I will use it as an example. First of all, its use of a four-tier difficulty system in the first game (Easy, Normal, Heroic, Legendary) meant an ability to go from super-easy gameplay to break-your-controller-because-you-died-yet-again gameplay seamlessly. The subsequent games added the difficulty skulls which were a challenge just to unlock/find, and would, when activated from the menu*, would up the difficulty independantly of the standard difficulty system by changing the gameplay in novel ways. Some examples:

Mythic Skull=Enemies have double health

Malfunction skull=Each death removes a vital HUD symbol (e.g. Health bar)

Famine skull=Enemies and allies, when killed, drop half the normal ammo

Black Eye Skull=The only way to recharge your shield is to melee a LIVE enemy (even when in a vehicle, you need to get out and punch someone to regain your shield)

Assassin Skull=All enemies are invisible

In the Halo fandom, playing on Legendary with every skull is known as LASO (Legendary All Skulls On), and beating a level LASO can take HOURS.

Conversely, you can use the settings to make the game so easy that, as the Halo 3 description for the setting said, "the game basically plays itself."

Halo has NEVER had a life system. You never get a game over, but I promise you the series is anything but easy, unless you decide you WANT it to be easy.

Further, "trial and error" is not an argument against a lack of lives, for a couple reasons.

One: All video games, save any that automatically hire hitmen to prevent playing after a single death, are trial-and-error. Playing is the trial, death is the error, and that does not change with or without lives. Even if you go back to the first level after each death, it's still trial-and-error.

Two: It's not really teaching you what you need to learn. If you already got to point X, why does sending you back to any prior section help you avoid the mistake that killed you? All it would do is make it less likely for you to remember what it was you did wrong in the first place.

Lives simply cause me to want to give up, because I really don't have time to navigate and replay everything after every game over or death. It's a system that serves simply to waste the players' time without adding fun or true novelty.