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Kaku's Rambles 167 - Get Gud Advice Corollary

So, last week, I debunked and explained why being vague with advice is kind of a dick move, even if you don't use the words Git Gud. This week I wanted to talk about why and when that can be the only damn advice you can offer. There's probably an argument to be said that last week's examples could be this, but I want to actually focus on a specific game that isn't one I have much experience with personally, but do have experience with the genre. That's right, we're going Souls hunting, lads.

So, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Sekiro, Bloodborne and really a buttload of games are no longer in a Metroidvania genre subset, and have become their own genre by themselves. A Souls-like, in fact. Not really my cup of tea, but I see what they're doing with the genre, and it looks amazing. It does, however, mean that you can't really help someone with the game unless you've played the game thousands of times through. I'll get to that in a moment, but I feel I should justify why I don't play them. It's not a sense of never being able to get good at it, or disliking the overall core gaming loop, but it's generally that the games look a bit bland to me and can put me off within five minutes of watching footage of it. That's not to say that you can't find it beautiful in its dark murky terrifying atmosphere, but saying that it's not to my tastes. I'm sure I could get really deep into the lore and stuff of this game if I just wasn't put off by the look.

Yeah, so Souls-likes are big vast open worlds that give you lots of different playstyles for the most part, and also have a lot of weird world interactions to let you progress. Yes I've watched a lot of playthroughs and speedruns to come to these conclusions, plus listening to Souls-like Fans gush about how great the game is around me. I'm observant, you see. What this inevitably leads to, though, is that you have a lot of players playing this wonderful world completely differently from each other, and just absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to give someone advice on what to do.

Sure sure, you can ask them the weapon they are running and what to specialize in and the like, but when it comes to how you defeat certain bosses, it's kind of a situation of all you can say is "Uhh... Get good with the weapon specialization and class you picked?" and shrug your shoulders because you either have never done the exact stat drops that they have done, or you don't want to tell them that it is impossible to do because everything is possible in these amazing worlds and games.

It's not just From Software games that do this, or just Souls-Like that can come off this way. Fighting Games are pretty similar to this kind of anything goes advice that you can't really pinpoint how to tell the person to exactly beat their current opponent. Puzzle games may have an exact strategy to complete each stage, but if it's procedurally generated, you're fucked. That's absolutely fine, as each person gets an entirely different experience out of their gameplay, and makes each playthrough totally different. That's really cool.

It just makes asking for help on these types of games to be a fruitless endeavor and that's okay. Hell, some challenges can absolutely be this too, where there are so many infinitely perfectly weird ways to accomplish a thing that giving step by step ways to do it, is cutting off an exploration of ways to actually succeed in that particular puzzle.

Honestly, after thinking about this subject for technically two weeks, I think that's just part of making an interactive medium where there is technically no truly correct answer, and a bit of what makes Video Games the expressive artform that streaming a game for others to watch such a joy. Or hell, maybe it's just fun to watch someone get further and further frustrated by absolute bullshit. Who knows?

Description
Kaku's Rambles 167 - Get Gud Advice Corollary

So, last week, I debunked and explained why being vague with advice is kind of a dick move, even if you don't use the words Git Gud. This week I wanted to talk about why and when that can be the only damn advice you can offer. There's probably an argument to be said that last week's examples could be this, but I want to actually focus on a specific game that isn't one I have much experience with personally, but do have experience with the genre. That's right, we're going Souls hunting, lads.

So, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Sekiro, Bloodborne and really a buttload of games are no longer in a Metroidvania genre subset, and have become their own genre by themselves. A Souls-like, in fact. Not really my cup of tea, but I see what they're doing with the genre, and it looks amazing. It does, however, mean that you can't really help someone with the game unless you've played the game thousands of times through. I'll get to that in a moment, but I feel I should justify why I don't play them. It's not a sense of never being able to get good at it, or disliking the overall core gaming loop, but it's generally that the games look a bit bland to me and can put me off within five minutes of watching footage of it. That's not to say that you can't find it beautiful in its dark murky terrifying atmosphere, but saying that it's not to my tastes. I'm sure I could get really deep into the lore and stuff of this game if I just wasn't put off by the look.

Yeah, so Souls-likes are big vast open worlds that give you lots of different playstyles for the most part, and also have a lot of weird world interactions to let you progress. Yes I've watched a lot of playthroughs and speedruns to come to these conclusions, plus listening to Souls-like Fans gush about how great the game is around me. I'm observant, you see. What this inevitably leads to, though, is that you have a lot of players playing this wonderful world completely differently from each other, and just absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to give someone advice on what to do.

Sure sure, you can ask them the weapon they are running and what to specialize in and the like, but when it comes to how you defeat certain bosses, it's kind of a situation of all you can say is "Uhh... Get good with the weapon specialization and class you picked?" and shrug your shoulders because you either have never done the exact stat drops that they have done, or you don't want to tell them that it is impossible to do because everything is possible in these amazing worlds and games.

It's not just From Software games that do this, or just Souls-Like that can come off this way. Fighting Games are pretty similar to this kind of anything goes advice that you can't really pinpoint how to tell the person to exactly beat their current opponent. Puzzle games may have an exact strategy to complete each stage, but if it's procedurally generated, you're fucked. That's absolutely fine, as each person gets an entirely different experience out of their gameplay, and makes each playthrough totally different. That's really cool.

It just makes asking for help on these types of games to be a fruitless endeavor and that's okay. Hell, some challenges can absolutely be this too, where there are so many infinitely perfectly weird ways to accomplish a thing that giving step by step ways to do it, is cutting off an exploration of ways to actually succeed in that particular puzzle.

Honestly, after thinking about this subject for technically two weeks, I think that's just part of making an interactive medium where there is technically no truly correct answer, and a bit of what makes Video Games the expressive artform that streaming a game for others to watch such a joy. Or hell, maybe it's just fun to watch someone get further and further frustrated by absolute bullshit. Who knows?