Anyone play that Mega Man 11 demo?

[Blinge]

I'd rather have nothing.

[BrianC]

So, when can we all stop pretending and finally admit to ourselves that Mighty No. 9 is actually the best game associated with the Mega Man franchise?

I had no idea that "Mighty No. 9" was another name for "Mega Man X".

[kitten]

I'd rather have nothing.

yeah. especially cuz i actually backed that kickstarter for than a few bucks (...the money came from a very generous friend who i got into rockman, which honestly makes it feel even more morally crushing)

i'd really prefer if rockman just died, at this point (and have frankly felt this way for years). i stop and think to myself, well, jeez, we got at least a half-dozen games i loved out of that and that's just fine. it's okay to just remember. rockman is more alive in toy interpretations, fan art, and general cultural consciousness than anything else at this point and i feel like even if 11 were good - something i feel will strictly not happen after the demo - that it will never be able to be true to form, again.

though perhaps not my favorite series, anymore, it's the one i've spent the most time, money, and investment in and one deep to my heart. things like that can stay alive in our hearts and not need to see someone new constantly getting the reins for a new product. it's okay that things you love stop being updated.

p.s. did you know the "better than nothing" quote was from ben judd? the dude who produced the return of bionic commando that totally fucking owned? talk about going from one only revivals to make me think they can be worth it to one of the most crushingly awful and soulless revivals, ever. (he's also the voice of phoenix wright's famous "OBJECTION!")

[BurlyHeart]

As someone who knows next to nothing about Mega Man, I found the demo to be quite boring.

[Blinge]

p.s. did you know the "better than nothing" quote was from ben judd? the dude who produced the return of bionic commando that totally fucking owned? talk about going from one only revivals to make me think they can be worth it to one of the most crushingly awful and soulless revivals, ever. (he's also the voice of phoenix wright's famous "OBJECTION!")

Haha yeah and my response to it was yelped out by one of the "Best Friends" the only youtube personalities I can stand, on their podcast. The podcast for that week was titled "I'd rather have nothing"
I guess because it's..ridiculous as Judd's quote.

Judd really got crucified for that but it seems to me like a slip of the tongue from an exasperated man during a terrible launch. He didn't make the game, after all.

Personally I don't feel strongly about megamon either way. One thing stickles with me however and that's the legions of 'fans' demanding his return, or something like MN9. That's fair enough, IF... IF you have played all of the megamans. At least the sidescrollers, I imagine this not to be the case with a load of fans clamouring for MN9 back then.
The reason I don't feel strongly about rockuboy is that I haven't got around to playing 4 and onwards yet!

[Vanguard]

no one makes you play the game, either. sick and goddamn tired of that excuse when someone points out a chunk of bad design in a game that you don't have to play it, as if the option not to somehow forgives the game for including it as key design.

Flaws that you wouldn't notice unless you sought them out are less serious than flaws you can avoid simply by choosing to, which are less serious than flaws you have to put effort into working around, which are less serious than unavoidable flaws.

[Sumez]

I think the game/demo at least awards the player for not using the gear powers by making the game much more fun to play. As I mentioned, I found myself completely unable to actually press one of those two buttons, as it would immediately affect my enjoyment of the stage.

My biggest issue is knowing that a lot of people picking up this game will never see the same perspective of the game, as a button pretty much allows them to win. So they will do it. That's how the rational human mind works.

[kitten]

Flaws that you wouldn't notice unless you sought them out are less serious than flaws you can avoid simply by choosing to, which are less serious than flaws you have to put effort into working around, which are less serious than unavoidable flaws.

sure? no one is arguing otherwise.

in the example i was responding to: there's an incredible amount of pointless moons in odyssey, many of which literally cannot be avoided to just hit the ending (especially if you don't have prescient knowledge of which are boring and which are 'fun,' which you don't) and much less of which can be avoided if you want to play all of the game's significant content. while not getting all moons does alleviate some pacing issues it doesn't mitigate them nearly enough and there are still far more duds in the wide-open maps than acceptable.

[Vanguard]

sure? no one is arguing otherwise.

in the example i was responding to: there's an incredible amount of pointless moons in odyssey, many of which literally cannot be avoided to just hit the ending (especially if you don't have prescient knowledge of which are boring and which are 'fun,' which you don't) and much less of which can be avoided if you want to play all of the game's significant content. while not getting all moons does alleviate some pacing issues it doesn't mitigate them nearly enough and there are still far more duds in the wide-open maps than acceptable.

If being ignorable makes flaws less serious then "you're free to ignore it" is a legitimate defense. I have not played Mario Odyssey, but if the overall proportion of moons are bad then that's a serious problem. If there's a moon for doing a ground pound in the same spot 30 times then yeah, that's lame, but it's your own fault for actually doing it. The multi-coin blocks going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. are lame too, but you just keep walking and there's no problem.

[JBC]

I don't feel that the slo mo & power up triggers are win buttons at all. They last a very short moment & are used to make progress possible when facing tasks you would otherwise die on the first go lacking superhuman precognition, then there's a cool down to prevent spamming. I could see both being implemented retroactively into older MM & not feeling out of place. The challenge in the demo at least is designed for their inclusion. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad.

[Sumez]

I actually disagree immensely with the above.
I think I already made the statement, but I will gladly reiterate - the stage feels like it's designed to play through entirely without using either of the skills at all, though most of the challenges are also deliberately designed in a way that using slowmotion definitely makes them much easier.
For example quickly destroying blocks and sliding through the big walls on conveyor belts is all about being fast, which the slowmotion completely alleviates. It solves the challenge, but it also makes it less fun. I feel the game rewards you for not using it by simply being more fun to play. But that's not a good way to design a game if you want everyone to experience that.

The power up trigger is mostly useless (as the slowmotion can be used for a similar effect), but the slowmotion absolutely is a "win button". I can't think of a single obstacle on the stage that isn't trivialized by using it?
Sure it only lasts for a short while before having to recharge, but as every obstacle is super short (as they should be), that's not really relevant outside of boss battles.

[kitten]

If being ignorable makes flaws less serious then "you're free to ignore it" is a legitimate defense. I have not played Mario Odyssey, but if the overall proportion of moons are bad then that's a serious problem. If there's a moon for doing a ground pound in the same spot 30 times then yeah, that's lame, but it's your own fault for actually doing it. The multi-coin blocks going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. are lame too, but you just keep walking and there's no problem.

there are something like 30 moons where ground-pounding a portion of the level reveals a moon, not a moon where you need to ground pound 30 times. in almost every instance, they're not exciting to discover nor are they exciting to get to, but they contribute to what you need to exit the level and continue the game and many other gates. you cannot ignore them and you cannot have prescient knowledge of which moons are fun and where to find them. they heavily inform the design for the game.

if you can truly completely ignore something and still have fun with the game, i think how much the game suggests you do that or has its design informed by this decision is a very important consideration. you don't need to jump a hundred consecutive times on the dojo guy's head in super mario rpg, but you also don't even need to know that is there. it's almost completely an ancillary, silly little thing you can do for a bonus that frankly makes the game worse because it lowers the already minimal difficulty and is a huge pain in the ass to get. the moons in odyssey are how you engage with the game at every turn, however. you're going to get a lot of chaff on your play no matter what, and "ignore it" doesn't fix how much it informed the game's design, nor does it solve that i did do everything fun in the game and still didn't see what the big deal was. when i did all the dumb shit in SMRPG, i didn't hold it against the game but a tiny, tiny bit in thinking it didn't really need to be there or could have been easier to just blow through.

"ignore it," left alone and by itself, is a useless and even very annoying dismissal or deflection - and, more often than not, used to deflect something you cannot ignore, at least on a first play (and mario odyssey is a 30 fucking hour game to do everything in, so i'm not giving it the replay benefit. i frankly think even the fun stuff would be joyless on a re-attempt). at the very least, acknowledge what detriment the element does have on the game and if you think it potentially adds something under a certain context or is heavily outweighed by everything else. i love classic action games, i'm used to needing to readjust my staunch perspective a little bit to enjoy something, even when i'm stubborn as hell about it. heck, i'm used to being someone who has to tell someone else that an otherwise valid criticism they have for a first play melts when going for the real substance. but even still, i always acknowledge a criticism that commonly damages a play perspective, especially when the game diverts the majority into that play perspective.

- - - - - - - - - -

I think I already made the statement, but I will gladly reiterate - the stage feels like it's designed to play through entirely without using either of the skills at all

i disagree with this & feel it definitely informs the design. the highest difficulty probably disables the power gears but i think encounters and enemies are often built from the ground-up with the slow-mo as a consideration.

the slowmotion absolutely is a "win button". I can't think of a single obstacle on the stage that isn't trivialized by using it?
Sure it only lasts for a short while before having to recharge, but as every obstacle is super short (as they should be), that's not really relevant outside of boss battles.

i agree with this, however. it's like the charge shot - something that can be pre-prepared to reduce the difficulty of an upcoming segment by an unnatural pause before tackling it - taken to an absolutely ridiculous extreme. it is a heavily disruptive presence in the game. while the charge shotis something that i think ultimately adds more strategy to the game (and frankly rarely actually needs to be charged - hell just rapid-firing is usually better dps), the way slow-mo is implemented lets you cheese soooo, so much and is so easy to take advantage of.

[Sumez]

i disagree with this & feel it definitely informs the design. the highest difficulty probably disables the power gears but i think encounters and enemies are often built from the ground-up with the slow-mo as a consideration.

A consideration, but not a guideline. If it were so, playing with slowmo would be an interesting aspect to the game, that you'd be encouraged to use for problem solving, rather than problem bypassing. As it is, it only makes the stage less interesting. As I also pointed out right after the text you quoted, it obviously influenced the design, but there's definitely also a conscient descision to make the stage best enjoyed through not using slowmo.
The large walls on the conveyor belts is again an obvious example (even if it's the least interesting part of the stage) - they are consciously designed so that using slowmo will influence how they play out, but at the same time, not using it is the only way you actually get the intended challenge.

Or to put it more simply, the stage is intentionally designed so that using slowmo will trivialize every element, which means that not using is by definition also a key element to the design.

[kitten]

i don't know. perhaps i've grown overly cynical, but i feel a button to trivialize everything is what the designers perceive as substance, today

[Sumez]

Nah, you're right about that. But the fact that the designers obviously paid a lot of attention to how the game plays without the powers gives me hope.

[Durandal]

Mechanics where the underlying idea is that they make the game straightforward easier on usage and that you shouldn't use them at all if you want an actual challenge makes for an annoying point of discussion online because everyone is left guessing the developers' intentions and everyone is stuck in the twilight of 'i should be able to use all tools at my disposal' and 'self-restriction is the only way you can have a proper challenge in this game'

this is why developers should make their intentions absolutely clear on this front by establishing what constitutes as cheesing or not through positively reinforcing using or not using said mechanic through other mechanics, or even better: lend mechanics an actual layer of depth so they can be utilized aggressively at high level play with actual risks attached and don't come down to being a crutch

[Sumez]

Exactly. The biggest issue here is that the gear powers is presented as the main event of the game. So why would you expect the player to not use them? You don't play Mega Man 3 without the slide. Sure, it "makes some things easier", but it also gives you more tools at your disposal, and makes the game more fun to play.

What we have here is a tool that makes the game less fun to play, and the only defense of its existence is making the game more approachable to newbies, who can "pass over" obstacles that they consider too difficult.
With that in mind, the game should absolutely have some sort of backlash to using it, even if it's only superficial.

The obvious and easy route is just awarding the player with an achievement or whatever for beating the game without pressing the gear power buttons. But I'm more interested in something that makes not using the powers the default way of playing.

[FinalBaton]

Mechanics where the underlying idea is that they make the game straightforward easier on usage and that you shouldn't use them at all if you want an actual challenge makes for an annoying point of discussion online because everyone is left guessing the developers' intentions and everyone is stuck in the twilight of 'i should be able to use all tools at my disposal' and 'self-restriction is the only way you can have a proper challenge in this game'

this is why developers should make their intentions absolutely clear on this front by establishing what constitutes as cheesing or not through positively reinforcing using or not using said mechanic through other mechanics, or even better: lend mechanics an actual layer of depth so they can be utilized aggressively at high level play with actual risks attached and don't come down to being a crutch

That is an excellent point right there, well said

[Blinge]

Why is it such a profound intellectual leap of faith to just say "oh, guess i'll just play without these tools, more fun that way."

[Obscura]

Because one would assume the developer put them there for a reason, and not using them is saying "the developer totally fucked this up, but still lucked into a game worth making despite having no clue what they're doing".

[JBC]

I'm pretty sure if the gears were just boss weapons like usual nobody would notice. I'd rather take MM11 for MM11 & not expect it to be any one of my other favorite entries from the franchise, as those are different individual games in the end despite all their similarities. By the 11th entry it's time for something new & I look forward to the full game.

[Durandal]

Why is it such a profound intellectual leap of faith to just say "oh, guess i'll just play without these tools, more fun that way."

It's a whirlpool of confusion if I have a PRESS X TO WIN button (or something that practically amounts to it) which I can use fairly regularly, only for the game to never make it explicitly clear or clearly reinforce it mechanically whether using it or not using it makes me better at the game. It clearly makes the game easier, but it exists, it can be used regularly, it tremendously helps me win the game, why shouldn't I use it? The only reason I wouldn't want to use it is if I want to make it harder on myself or if I don't want to mindlessly steamroll through everything, but if using it only worsens the game experience, why is it there in the first place? Difficulty settings exist, all you'd have to do is disable the WIN button on the higher difficulties and the problem would resolve itself. But for some reason this is a very difficult notion for developers to wrap their head around, so you have the choice to make the game easy or hard by (not) using the win button (a choice nobody knows whether its intentional or something you place on yourself) on top of difficulty settings, which... why do you need to do it twice?

If difficulty largely comes down to self-restriction and is left nebulous by the developers, then it becomes difficult to discuss difficulty in any meaningful way when everyone has a different interpretation of how the game ought to be played. Moreover, it puts a question mark of whether the present difficulty settings are any good or not. Sometimes there can be a consensus for how things should be played, but those are never unanimously accepted, and most of the time there's no definite answer to how a game should be played or how the more 'nebulous' mechanics should be treated. The developers could have resolved this confusion from the very beginning, but they didn't, because they either didn't know the answer themselves or just assumed people would play in a certain way without actually reinforcing it through mechanics. What's a blurb in the manual going to do if I do what it says? Stab me?

That's why there exists an alternate universe where in a thread discussing one of the boss fights in Dark Souls: Prepare To Not Die Edition, some dweeb will chime in: "I'm not sure why everyone had trouble with this boss. I just quicksaved after safely dodging each attack and after landing one in him. He went down with no sweat and I managed to do it without taking any damage too! I no damaged all the bosses in the game that way."

[Blinge]

Because one would assume the developer put them there for a reason, and not using them is saying "the developer totally fucked this up, but still lucked into a game worth making despite having no clue what they're doing".

If the end result is you enjoying yourself, who the fuck cares.

[JBC]

I look forward to watching your no death stream on October 2nd. You can use all the win buttons including jump & mega buster!

[BrianC]

I'm a bit confused about all this talk of the gears being a win button. I didn't get that impression at all. I'm under the impression that some areas in the stage were designed around the use of it, especially those hard to avoid boss patterns. I also didn't feel it made the stage easier since it's limited and it can actually work against you with that shield enemy if improperly timed.

[FinalBaton]

Why is it such a profound intellectual leap of faith to just say "oh, guess i'll just play without these tools, more fun that way."

I think what he's saying is not that actually. At least that's not what I got from his post

[kitten]

If difficulty largely comes down to self-restriction and is left nebulous by the developers, then it becomes difficult to discuss difficulty in any meaningful way when everyone has a different interpretation of how the game ought to be played. Moreover, it puts a question mark of whether the present difficulty settings are any good or not.

durandal making an effort post and saying what i wanted to without me having to.... oh god i can actually shut up for once

[Sumez]

I wonder if the highest difficulty is actually just this with gear powers disabled. Personally I would love the game to have this with gear powers disabled built in. But I would also love a plain higher difficulty setting (with gear powers disabled).

Man I really hope this early demo is enough to give the devs the feedback they need on this issue, but with a release date in just two weeks the game probably already went gold.

[Immryr]

If difficulty largely comes down to self-restriction and is left nebulous by the developers, then it becomes difficult to discuss difficulty in any meaningful way when everyone has a different interpretation of how the game ought to be played. Moreover, it puts a question mark of whether the present difficulty settings are any good or not.

durandal making an effort post and saying what i wanted to without me having to.... oh god i can actually shut up for once

how easy it is to discuss a games difficulty on the internet has absolutely no bearing on a games quality or how much i enjoy it. i can't really understand why it would effect anyones enjoyment of a game.

i'm not really sure i understand peoples weird fixation on what developers intentions are either.

[kitten]

I wonder if the highest difficulty is actually just this with gear powers disabled. Personally I would love the game to have this with gear powers disabled built in. But I would also love a plain higher difficulty setting (with gear powers disabled).

Man I really hope this early demo is enough to give the devs the feedback they need on this issue, but with a release date in just two weeks the game probably already went gold.

my guess (and hope, maybe?) is that the highest difficulty is just the gears disabled, but i feel it's already informed the design enough to already be poisonous. the boss fight, in particular, really felt informed by having a button to slow shit down because it is otherwise memorizing its really, really poorly predicated attacks (please see: my lots of work put into giffing & discussing that fucker on the last page). even the little block-dropping 'puzzle' that seems clearly meant for slow-gear in the stage is able to be gotten (frankly, more easily lol) with rush coil.

ya know, an aside here, but the game is missing one of my absolute favorite features from rockman 8: the one where you can change the controls to have square always fire a buster pellet and put your special attack on triangle for when you need it. this is crazy useful for short-range attacks like sword man's, and i took full advantage of it. why the heck do the basic powers need transformations in this new one, anyway, they're kinda ugly and really distracting.

how easy it is to discuss a games difficulty on the internet has absolutely no bearing on a games quality or how much i enjoy it. i can't really understand why it would effect anyones enjoyment of a game.

i'm not really sure i understand peoples weird fixation on what developers intentions are either.

you're seriously ignoring the substance of that post, and i'm tired enough of running in circles here that you can either read it once more and try again or i'm done talking about it. the last sentence of the quoted blurb is as important as the bolded one