How so? Games are ultimately there to be enjoyed. If following a guide makes it more enjoyable, then that's perfectly valid. And I say that as a working games developer.
The same way cheating in solitaire is just lame. Or save scumming in a roguelike. Or installing a mod to just make the game much easier. Or walking for a bit on a long run. Or pretty much any solitary situation where you bend the rules for your favor.
Once you do it, you will likely internalize that you’re not capable of doing it and will rely on such methods and general lack of skill for the rest of the game, and eventually reach a point of indifference where it’s not about you doing well but rather just attempting it a number of times where your incompetence works.
If that makes things more fun for you, sure, whatever. I did this a lot as a kid. But now I would be acutely aware that I’m cheating myself of the full experience and skill curve of the game and feel very little satisfaction from it.
I’m current doing a bit of owl cat’s pathfinder video games. The game is pretty well balanced on normal. The game includes a very unbalanced mode called unfair which requires a lot of metagaming hyper min maxed character development. There is further a mode that gives you one self deleting save slot so you have one chance permaloss.
I see a fair number of people playing in unfair, with one save slot, bragging about their completion of the game having looked up character builds for every unit, used mods to make some parts easier, and save scummed to undo the effect of choosing permaloss.
I think they’re morons personally. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’ve accomplished something when you’ve outsourced, cheesed, and cheated many parts of it. Play games on lower difficulties and play them fairly instead of playing them on harder difficulties and cheating to get through.
There’s a wide spectrum and sure it’s just a single player activity but I find it personally exceedingly lame. My mum plays games and is not technically skilled so she plays on the lowest difficulty and uses guides and it’s still very hard for her and you know that’s great.
Well, that just sounds like a pretty sad attitude, especially when it comes to a fun activity like video games. Any games that I work on - please feel free to look up guides(or cheat[0] or use mods or cheese them) if that makes you enjoy them more. I definitely won't judge, and I frankly don't see why anyone would. You beat dark souls by "getting gud"? Great for you. You beat it by looking up optimal strats for each boss and cheesing routes? Equally as good. It's not a competition. There are no medals at the end. The only "lame" thing here is people judging others on the internet for how they play games.
[0] as long as it's not a multiplayer game of course.
You say that, but do you have any released games? Have you personally experienced the toxicity of complaining players who want to be handed every sense of achievement and simultaneously feel like it’s very difficult and exclusive? Or complaining that it’s unfair because their idiot min maxed build is viable for everything? All single player games become multiplayer in communities
I build games myself. Nothing released. Likely won’t ever manage to do so.
>>You say that, but do you have any released games
7 AAA titles and counting.
>>Have you personally experienced the toxicity of complaining players who want to be handed every sense of achievement and simultaneously feel like it’s very difficult and exclusive?
Also yes. We have millions of players. I have experienced both the very good and very bad from players - that doesn't mean I'll start telling them how to enjoy our games. As for communities being "multiplayer" - forums for games have existed for decades, and you always had people complaining that yes, their idiotic build doesn't work in your game. But that didn't lead me to developing a position where I think people are stupid for doing something and trying to ovverride their desires.
I just want to add one thing here - you seem to be saying(and please correct me if I'm wrong) that the way to play a game is ultimately up to the creator and no one else.
And well, I agree but only to a certain extent. For a counterexample - creator of Studio Ghibli said many times now that his films are made for children, and he finds it weird that adults watch them. Like, he can have that opinion, it's his work after all - but I think he's very wrong about this. Disregarding his opinion is not lame or weak, because ultimately once his work is out there it's not his role to gatekeep access to it. Similarly, From Software games obviously have a certain style of gameplay attached to them, but if your preffered way is to play with a guide, or by installing a mod that just gives you top stats......great. Enjoy it.
For the last example - one of my favourite games of all time is SOMA - it has a fantastic Sci-Fi story that is well worth exploring, but unfortunately it also happens to be a horror game. I don't enjoy those, not even because they make me uncomfortable, it's just that the horror elements of the game get in the way of enjoying a fantastic story. So I installed a mod(way before it was made official) that made the monster docile - that allowed me to complete the game and enjoy myself. Is this wrong or lame? Maybe - but the point is, you as a player shouldn't care what others think.
