The game's not made for everyone

 Made for someone

Given that the development of video games are such a huge and expensive production, it's both beneficial to the growth of a genre and the potential profitability of each product that every game be designed to be 'made for everybody'. It's a wonderful sentiment, encouraging interconnectivity and propagation of one's loves towards the masses, as well as the corporate desire to permeate absolutely everywhere but in the effort of positivity I'm going to choose to ignore that angle to all this. Games are meant to be celebrated and shared which it's why it's great for them to become as inclusive as possible with all of the accessibility options which are slowly becoming more commonplace. (Very slowly, mind, but some progress is better than none.) Because entertainment should be laid out as everyone's feet for them to enjoy and all that smiles and happiness talk which we all love so very much. Now here's the counter.

Not every game is made for everyone. Obviously. Or the concept of genres wouldn't exist. But even more specifically than that, sometimes games aren't made for new comers and genre experts to enjoy in equal measure, largely because such a balance always comes with drawbacks. You can't make such a game too in-depth and systems heavy for fear of alienating new comers (Trust me, I've been trying, and failing, to force myself into learning Homeworld for more than a year at this point) and you can't make it too basic and bare bones for risk of being boring to genre fans. The in-the-middle balance is typically recognised as the ideal game balance; but not every game is suited to fit that. Sometimes you'll have games that strive off in the direction of alienation driven to explore one extreme or the other, and I wanted to consider a collection of games that I believe, in some sense, were designed specifically not to foster genre new comers. (Or at least; games that significantly leaned towards the learned and experienced.)

Pathfinder: Kingmaker was perhaps one of the biggest wake-up slaps in the face I had leaning towards this realisation. Because any CRPG fan can enjoy the plethora of great genre titles out there in this impromptu resurgence of this unique game style, but not everyone can role up to Pathfinder: Kingmaker with that same carefree attitude. Just as how Baldur's Gate 2 is fundamentally designed not to be played out of order with 1, even if you ignore the story, the gameplay is set-up to be literally next step in terms of difficulty; Pathfinder wants you to know exactly how to play this style of game from the get-go. You are encouraged to build effectively, to the point where the game itself will actually take over the levelling unless you know exactly what sort of character you want to be at endgame. No, this isn't the blind autolevelling system you can expect out of Mass Effect or those sorts of RPGs; Pathfinder picks your life path for you.

And it is for good reason. Pathfinder: Kingmaker adapts a module designed to see players through an entire campaign, and wants you to bitterly earn every scrap of progress you make in fire and blood. Even from the early game you're facing the sorts of bosses that will drain every last spare item you have to take them down, and end game mega-bosses who will simply eat you up and spit you out. At normal difficulty levels (I always play in levels that most accurately match the scaling of the table-tops) Kingmaker is easily one of the most difficult CRPGs on the market right now, but by that same merit also one of the most exhilarating. In the same way that Dark Souls (Yes, forgive the reference, it's pertinent.) forces players to climb a mountain so they feel the weight of their trials on the otherside; Kingmaker drags you through hell so that you earn your kingdom and every moment of peace. That sort of challenge just isn't possible to present in a game designed to coddle newcomers and can only really be presented from a title that expects you to be familiar and will punish you raw anyway.

Another game I want to highlight is 'Stellaris', although to be fair to this assessment could broaden out to most every single 4x game on the market. Most of them. Because 4X as a genre has gotten to the point where those who love it recognise it, and those you don't can't really be persuaded into it. Some games like Stellaris, therefore, tend to lean towards the more intensive crowd with systems and interfaces piled ontop of one another and only really offers a perfunctory sort of tutorial to explain it all. It's hard when looking at these sorts of game to differentiate between titles that genuinely don't try to bridge the gap beteeen newbies and experienced genre lovers, and games that just have a really vapid and weak tutorial (like I would say Kenshi does. And yes, I think Kenshi just about counts as a 4X/RTS/ survival hybrid game) but I think Stellaris and similar games can recognise the divide and choose to go the other way.

Which does not mean that every game of this genre does, however; and though they are the rare exception I do recall some 4X strategy titles that are built specifically to cater for new crowds. I think Civilisation as a series has always kept itself accessible enough for just about anyone to find it's charms if they want to, and Humankind is said to be welcoming. I consider this to be the ideal balance; great games to introduce people to the genre, just as good games for them to enjoy once they're inducted into the fold. The best of both worlds. Although I'm sure there's got to be some game I don't know about from this genre which pushes even that to it's pure elitist extremes. (No, I'm not claiming that game to be Homeworld; I wish I could withstand it long enough to be able to make that determination.)

Which brings me to the general state of platformers and how they currently are; because pretty much no platformer made today is taking into account a newcomer to the genre. One might argue that there is no feasible reason for them to, given that Platformers are so intrinsically tied to gaming that they are somewhat second nature to any gamer, but that is a wad of hand-wavey logic when you break it down. Modern platformers can actually be pretty challenging to people who aren't intuned with that style of play which can result in them being a little hard to penetrate. Hollow Knight, for example, requires tough reaction times, pinpoint dodges and complex movements. (Although HK is kind enough to introduce these elements carefully as the game progresses.) I think that it's actually difficult to make a newcomer's platformer without it feeling hopelessly outdated or simplistic; which is why we just let Platformers carry on their evolution to become more specialised and tough.

So not every game is made for everybody, and is that a good thing? I'd argue; yes. Some of my favourite games out there are the one's designed to batter you down and destroy every once of confidence you believed you had, so that you can slowly build it back up in a pantheon of challenge and strife. To me that is a fun time. And does that make me a weirdo? Yes, to a good number of people out there who like totally different experiences. Just as we all hold different thresholds for entertainment, does it make sense for there to be differently catering entertainment products. Some made for the consumption of everybody, and some made for the consumption of the genre lovers. That's how you nail into a niche, afterall.

I Hate: Disengagement attacks

 You're not going anywhere!

It has been so very long since I've added another entry to this oft-ignored little series of mine, and that has come from a merciful lack of mechanics and routines from the world of gaming that I can blanket say that I hate. Which is a good thing. There's also the shade in all of this that I don't exactly like thinking of the negative when there's so much of it already mixed in with the positive, and so I usually go out of my way to talk about positive things that I like. That being said, sometime things can't be avoided and I end up coming back around here anyway, talking about another thing that I cannot stand with every screaming fibre in this decaying body. Disengagement attacks. And saying that right now, I'm betting that the most common reaction is: what the heck even is that? So unfortunately this has to come with an explanation too.

During my exploration into Classic RPGs over the course of this year, I've become very familiar with the ins and outs of the heart of role playing games, and seen the techniques that have come to define this genre and the differences between it's subcategories. And trust me when I say, those modern RPGs that Bioware put out every blue moon, which are copied by some other developers here and there, have nothing on the absolute brain melting insanity of the CRPGs. Learning the benefits of turn-based RPGs and real time action is just the beginning, and picking a preference becomes muddy when you happen upon games like Pathfinder and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire; which offers both. (I typically go for real time for those games, for no other reason then the fact these games were built for huge ungainly encounters that would take actual hours in turnbased.) And that is how I've learned of things like Disengagement attacks.

This is a mechanic which exists more in real time then in turn based games, but that's because they have a very similar but slightly different mechanic known as 'attack of opportunity'. If you think about the way how in X-Com, to use a popular example, uses a mechanic known as 'overwatch' to put your character on alert so that they can take an automatic, low accuracy, shot on a target the second that they move on their turn, we're essentially looking at a mechanic like that. For turn based games you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy walks past your engagement range and it mirrors a mechanic present in DnD tabletop. But to explain exactly what 'disengagement' is, I'm afraid I have to dig a little deeper into how live action games treat this thing called 'engagement'.

So 'Engagement' is the solution to the problem of 'how do you deal with who's attacking who when you're dealing with huge fights'? Live action combat typically has most of the team on the player's end operated by AI, simply because the player doesn't really have the desire to micromanage everything until the later stages of the games in question where that becomes absolutely necessary. And so Engagement pairs up attackers with defenders in the way that let's the AI know "This is who I'm attacking, so this is where my attention needs to be." From this it should be pretty clear what Disengagement attacks are. When someone who is paired up moves out of the range of attack, the attacker is granted a free attack upon them when their back is turned. Striking in the back like a coward would. Although some games, like Pathfinder, take that a little further and have disengagement hit on anyone who moves out of range, even if that person was positioned behind the reactor and moved whilst they were busy. (Those are some straight supernatural reflexes) 

Okay, is everyone caught up, we all know what today's lesson is about? Good. Now I hate disengagement attacks, and I'm talking with a burning fiery world ending passion do I hate these goddamn disengagement attacks. And this is a very weird one for me, because in a battered, twisted little way I squint my eyes and actually kind of see the rough justification for why this mechanic has to exist and the role they have to fulfil in the overall grand scheme of CRPGs, but I can't come around to liking them. Or even begrudgingly accepting them. They are the devil to me and my gorges froths at the very idea of co-existing in this plane of existence with them. Each and everytime I see that crimson red disengagement number stat number pop up I wince at the cheap shot, and a large part of that comes from the very real fact that I only ever see the attack used against me, and that establishes the 'unfair treatment' complex right there.

Because you see, disengagement is something that only ever hit you if the the victim moves away of their own accord, which funnily enough is something that the AI never does. Sure you can use some powerful magic to knock them out of range, but that won't trigger it, meaning it really is a rule for thee but not for me. Even when you charge ranged archers in these games, something which makes them practically unable to hit you unless they're fitted with somesort of point-blank perk, (Which practically no one ever takes because Archers aren't supposed to be in Melee range most of the time anyeway) they'll rather spend their last moments desperately trying to bring down one of your companions in the back row as you chop them to pieces rather than try to save themselves by retreating. I have never seen a disengagement hit against an AI opponent, and why would it when most AI have the job of 'Swarm the arse and that's our entire plan'.  

The idea is that with this mechanic, the player won't run circles around the enemy in a way they feasible could do without these systems. So it's basically a balancing tool to make sure you play fair, but when you're dealing with a game and spongey human DM logic gives away to the cold, hard, unthinking iron of machine decision making, it can't help but feel as though these are systems designed to box you in. Imagine you're a delicate rouge doing stealth damage to a giant Treant Owlbear whilst your much hardier team members, and several ranks of summons, distract the thing. A Human DM might think the giant mindless monster would attack the horde in front of it, but the AI says "Well, the easiest to kill opponent is the thief behind me so I'm just going to do a three sixty on the spot and get to town." You see the turn, but what can you do about it? If you try to move your rouge he'll get a full-power blow on you anyway, so you're just sort of incentivised to stand there and get pummelled because RNG says this isn't in the cards for you today.

It's a bizarre issue, and one that I don't think can be adequately explained unless you're familiar with these sorts of games and the way that they play for yourself. I mean I could moan about things like how Pathfinder has a feat specifically for escaping engagement safely, but because you only have limited feat options in a playthrough you'd have to be insane to take it over actual class benefiting choices; but would that really mean anything to a non CRPG player? And again, I feel bad for being incensed at all, given the fact that a lot of these games have systems in place for disengagement play, such as spells for combat movement and feats for sneaking out of engagement, but they seem like bandaids on a searing wound of a badly made system to me. Only turn based RPGs handle attacks of opportunity with any class, because encounters need to be designed to consider such systems and the way the player handles them. But given as how I'm almost definitely in the minority of this little grip of mine, I know that the next time I see an enemy one shot me with it's back turned, whilst attacking someone else, because of engagement, I'm going to be only one in the world huffing and rolling my eyes.