Boss Skip Feature?

[DarkosOverlord]

I pretty much said all I wanted to, I'll just reiterate my thought again one last time: I think y'all are way too sure a decline in quality is the only inevitable fate for implementing a "skip something" feature. There has to be another way-- there is, as again there are games with such features and they did not decrease anything.
And it's not even something as tragic as "hey you just press this game to INSTANTLY REMOVE THIS GAMEPLAY SECTION FROM YOUR LIFE" it's something much more mundane as "you've tried many times to get through this part and failed, are you still having fun? If not, now you can skip this if you want."

Is that really a crime? Is that something that can be implemented only and only by downgrading the entire system and killing the overall experience and all those other apocalyptic scenarios?
I simply refuse to believe that.

Like, let's use a practical example: you know which game kinda does that? Metal Gear Solid. Yes, the good ol' MGS, the true game for true gamers and all of that.
The MGS saga features a system where if you fail too many times in a situation npcs will give you hints via Codec that will be more and more direct with each fail.
And at one point the game literally gives you an alternative way with Psycho Mantis: if by some chance you can't or still haven't figured out to switch your controller in the player 2 socket, the game will devise another, simpler way to end the boss fight by shooting the statues. All that was required for the player was to shoot four unmoving targets, fulfilling the basic of the basics required to play the game.
This is the kind of open-mindedness for even the most uncommon situations that might arise, and I don't think it killed the game in any way.

Yes, it's not an entire skip of the fight, but I think we're focusing a little too much on the concept of skipping content. The general idea of making things easier to people is what matters most to me.

 

[VoidGear.]

I mean, of course a company doesn't have to get lazy with enemy design if a lot of people make us of a skip feature.
But honestly? Square Enix is probably the last company I would put it past.

And it does already show in some of their games, actually? For example, it is tiringly easy to "die" in Final Fantasy XV. Easier than in any other Final Fantasy, I would say, and also more likely. But Square has, of course, thought about an amazing way to make that unimportant - by allowing you to use a phoenix down after you died! (Which, seriously, made me question if it's actually possible to die in the game at all as long as you don't forget to stock up on them every now and then.)
Similar problem: Final Fantasy XIII. You can quite easily and totally unexpectedly die anytime, and since you're unable to continue a fight with the other two characters standing - oh, great idea! Just start over right before the battle you died in.

Things like that would've been unthinkable in older Final Fantasy games, simply because they were made in a way that made it relatively unlikely that you would just randomly die to an enemy. Of course it would still be possible, but as long as you paid some attention to the gameplay, you would get by without dying a cheap way only to just come back to the living right on the spot.
(Sure, there's tough boss fights, but they usually also come with a save crystal right in front of them.)
But Square fans and critics tend to care a lot for the story, looks, characters and music. So that's what they (try to) focus on, sometimes neglecting gameplay elements that could have needed more focus, and just giving the players a cheap way to get by anyway.

So, I don't really get why people doubt that lazy gameplay features will result in people using them will result in even lazier gameplay features. It's all presentation and response, rinse and repeat.

 

[catcake]

How is having an easy mode at all the same as completely skipping content? I have nothing against always playing games on the easiest setting if that's your thing, but why would you want to remove content altogether? Why even pay full price for a game if you're going to skip half of it? I would feel very weird if such an option was in KH. What is there even left if you skip every single boss in the games...? If you want to play an exploration game then there are plenty, KH is an arpg, if you remove like half the fights, completely, then that would pretty much make it a different game. I'm not saying such a feature is inherently bad, but I absolutely don't see it fitting KH as the series has been and is. That's like doing that sport where you run and jump over obstacles, and instead of making the obstacles lower to make it easier you just remove them completely. Different sport. That's just how I see it, but whatever works I guess.

 

[Dreaded_Desire62]

How is having an easy mode at all the same as completely skipping content? I have nothing against always playing games on the easiest setting if that's your thing, but why would you want to remove content altogether? Why even pay full price for a game if you're going to skip half of it? I would feel very weird if such an option was in KH. What is there even left if you skip every single boss in the games...? If you want to play an exploration game then there are plenty, KH is an arpg, if you remove like half the fights, completely, then that would pretty much make it a different game. I'm not saying such a feature is inherently bad, but I absolutely don't see it fitting KH as the series has been and is. That's like doing that sport where you run and jump over obstacles, and instead of making the obstacles lower to make it easier you just remove them completely. Different sport. That's just how I see it, but whatever works I guess.

There is also the option of watching a walkthrough of a video game online. That's what I did before I decided to play Kingdom Hearts 1 for myself.

I wonder if the skip boss option would just be for the entire game or just be allowed once for one certain boss. I don't think the skip boss option would be a good idea since it would just defeat the purpose of developing a strategy to beat a very difficult boss. I do remember just giving a family member or a friend the controller to beat a boss that I just thought that I could never beat.

 

[alexis.anagram]

You can extend this 'secret special club' line of reasoning to the modern younger audience that expects dumbed down design and social narratives in gaming... If the majority of games cater towards these types of players, players like myself who play games for a sense of interactivity and challenge are left out in the cold far too often.

Nobody here is arguing that games shouldn't be challenging or interactive and the point I was making is that nobody has sufficiently corroborated the idea that games would or have sacrificed quality in order to achieve wider appeal and accessibility with evidence-- or even ventured to begin to do so. The statements being made against access efforts all basically boil down to, "I play games for this reason and everyone who doesn't do so is playing games for the wrong reason"-- it's that appeal to exclusivity which I defy to prove its rationale.

Offering a boss skip feature would not prevent a single player from fighting that boss, so no, there is no comparison to be made between widening access and limiting it.

Nobody has control over general market trends, so if your argument hinges on not enough people wanting to be shit on for trying to enjoy something they do as a hobby, oh well? That's why I said hardcore gamers are a niche. The number of games which appeal to that segment of the gaming population relative to the whole will theoretically work out to meet the demand that population represents. I'm sure there are reasons that might not be the case and there might be a justified concern that games in general are just not as interactive and involving as they should be, but again, that's neither here nor there. Issues of lazy development and bad game design should be taking to task on their own merits-- where they represent an industry pattern, seeking to assign causality to an unrelated question only permits those trends to ensue.

There is no world in which a boss skip function prevents a game developer from designing a fantastic boss fight-- unless the desire or motivation to do so is missing in the first place. In which case you get a shitty boss whether the function exists or not. Arguments like "Square will hide behind this!" are laughable precisely because they're rooted in a collective perception that Square has been pulling stunts with its games in absence of any concealment for a while now. Do you think so little of your fellow players that you imagine we would all be fooled or, what, supportive of Square eliminating competitive aspects of games with the conviction that people don't actually play them?

As a (very) general rule, I think the gameplay experience should be fully customizable. I support cutscene skip features even though I primarily play games for the narrative and cinematic elements. I haven't seen a notable downgrading in cutscene quality; quite the contrary. Wouldn't the logic need to hold true that if you could just skip a piece of content developers would suddenly stop caring about it? And yet we have the opposite being argued here: that developers are funneling more time and resources to the aesthetic-- not less? How strange. It's almost as though there is a completely unrelated set of factors which is acting as a determinant in how game development is prioritized.

 

[Precursor Mar]

I have to say that the argument that games are made to be played is false. Games are made to SELL, just like any other product. If introducing a boss skip feature allows for more consumer satisfaction and copies sold, that's all that would really matter in the end. And I think introducing a feature that regular gamers can easily ignore while satisfying a certain subset who would get upset if they were never able to finish the story and not buy any other game in the series in response seems like a no-brainer. *shrug* Ultimately, there would be small benefits for the company (without very little effort on their part) and no consequences.

If you're gonna look at it from a purely commercial perspective then such a feature shouldn't even enter the equation. AAA games today are mostly sold on marketing hype and any kind of sales impact it would have would be so small it'd be inconsequential.

the point I was making is that nobody has sufficiently corroborated the idea that games would or have sacrificed quality in order to achieve wider appeal and accessibility with evidence

How you can look at the abysmal state of the utterly homogenized AAA industry and not see it as a result of trying to reach a wider audience is beyond me. In fact, I find it quite telling that despite companies becoming even more blatant in their attempts to court a casual audience, overall video game software sales have decreased.

 

[Elysium]

As a (very) general rule, I think the gameplay experience should be fully customizable. I support cutscene skip features even though I primarily play games for the narrative and cinematic elements. I haven't seen a notable downgrading in cutscene quality; quite the contrary. Wouldn't the logic need to hold true that if you could just skip a piece of content developers would suddenly stop caring about it? And yet we have the opposite being argued here: that developers are funneling more time and resources to the aesthetic-- not less? How strange. It's almost as though there is a completely unrelated set of factors which is acting as a determinant in how game development is prioritized.

Another point I hadn't thought of before. I think I've only used the skip scene feature one or two times before, but I don't mind it being allowed for people who want it. It hasn't minimized the story in the KH series or caused the story to receive less attention from SE. (If the story has devolved at all, that has more to do with incompetence at the top more than anything else...) The same is true for gameplay. Expecting a skip feature for story-required bosses to result in or cause a company's gameplay failures doesn't make any sense.

 

[Ðari]

Pardon my dust kingdom hearts sub-section, it's been at LEAST 9 years since i've posted in you.


Ok so let me actually address the question. Would I like to see the option to skip the boss after the third time? Personally, no. Am I against the option, not really, but with how games are now this would not surprised me if this was patched in sometime into the live games life-span post launch. (If my favorite youtuber I love to see rage just skips the boss, I would unsubscribe without question however lmao)

My issue is simply this, if the boss fight has elements of narrative in the boss fight that I am missing, I would immediately be de-incentivized from skipping. Thats pretty much it.

Bonus thoughts: Stuff not completely relevant to the actual question
I know enough about difficulty parameters in games to understand across difficulty settings in actual games, damage scales in two fashions. Damage dealt and damage taken, and typically both are disingenuously scaled in opposite directions depending on the level. If your getting thrashed in beginner mode when you take half as much damage and deal a multiplier of two, well...use the damn feature to skip, I have no sympathy for your ass hahaha.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

To be honest I don't really even get the notion as to why this would/should be a thing in the first place?
Just for the sake that some small group of people might use it?

Generally spoken, if it doesn't waste too much development time and resources I certainly won't throw a fit if it would be included as a possible option (which should be able to be toggled on or off in the Options menu), yet I'd say IF one chooses to skip a mandatory story-boss there should be a penalty for doing so like i.e. getting zero rewards for that battle because the person in question didn't tackle it and chickened out.
For people who really just want to solely experience the story and narrative like i.e. an interactive novel, that's what theater mode and similar things are for.

Of course, this would mean that rewards for a boss could not include mandatory things needed for game progress like movement commands. But those 30 Extra-HP or other stats you get for beating that boss or a new weapon/armor/accessory? Nope, if you skip you don't get those.

 

[Elysium]

I agree, there would need to be punishment for skipping. I think I said something earlier in the thread about not getting trophies, but not getting HP/Magic/equipment upgrades would also be a good balance.

As for Theater Mode though, you'd have to be able to finish the game to watch there, so....

 

[Enturax]

I think that the punishment thing would be a miss if you could skip ANY boss, even the easier ones; if you'd not get any reward from it, then you'd skip yet another boss after it because this time it could be way harder - you'd feel that you're chanceless against it because it's harder than the previous one and because you're underleveled/underequipped from skipping the last one. So, either way, you'd have to go back and level up.

When it comes to devs not copying this feature existing in different games already - my guess is that those titles are either not popular enough (if not on the level of franchise, then on the level of genre) or their main focus is nowhere near boss battles, or other developers already did what I said - they made their bosses easier, to begin with.

 

[Launchpad]

If you skip a boss, that boss comes back at the end of the game and must be faced before you fight Xehanort. The more fights you skip, the longer the gauntlet will be.

Jk that'd really get some panties in a twist

 

[DarkosOverlord]

I'm not at all against applying punishment (as in, not getting content) if you skip a boss fight, tbh.

If you skip a boss, that boss comes back at the end of the game and must be faced before you fight Xehanort. The more fights you skip, the longer the gauntlet will be.

Jk that'd really get some panties in a twist

Ironically enough, this made me remember that technically you CAN skip bosses in KH1 and KH II, and in KH II's case you even get a sort of punishment by having the enemies in Halloween Town and Pride Land stronger.

 

[silentmusic16]

Absolutely not. What would even be the point of having any gameplay at all if you were just going to skip the pieces that are supposed to be the culmination and test of your skills? Might as well just include a way to watch all of the cutscenes and skip the game entirely.

Isn't this what difficulty levels are for? There's no shame in playing on Beginner or Normal if you simply aren't good at ARPGs or something, but this is way beyond that.

 

[GrumpyRoxy]

I really wouldn't like this at all. I wouldn't skip no matter how hard the boss battle is, but I still think this shouldn't be a thing.
I can't really explain why, I just feel it's so wrong lol

 

[Phantom]

I don't think this is a good idea at all. But I guess there could be an option to switch to easy mode if the player is still struggling against the boss after dozens of attempts, and even then there should be some sort of punishment.

 

[maleficentfan123]

Throwing my two cents in here, I guess I don't really see what the big deal is with this?

Here's the thing; I play video games to destress and have fun. I do not play video games to not have fun and get stressed out about not being able to beat a certain boss. As a result I tend to prefer playing on lower difficulties because that's the type of gamer I am: I prefer to play as an overpowered god who can easily destroy everything in his path. (Which is why KH2 is actually my favorite KH game to date but that's beside the point.)

For example, the Demyx fight. I'll admit, when I played through the game the first time it took me HOURS to beat Demyx, on Beginner Mode. To the point where I got frustrated, went and grinded it out and became even more over leveled, switched all my equipment to the best available to me at that point and still couldn't beat him. At that point I wasn't having fun anymore, put the game down and didn't go back to it for about a year. The only reason I even went back to the series was because a friend played the game and I remembered how much fun I had the first time I played. So I went back and had my friend beat Demyx for me. (Disclaimer: I have since beaten him on my own but it was a frustrating experience nonetheless.)

I guess the real point I am trying to make is that if I want to skip a boss battle, and I paid good money for the game anyway, what right does anyone have to tell me I can't? I mean, yeah I could go watch through the game on YouTube, but I still want to buy the game and support the series because if the game doesn't sell well then there won't be a KH4. (I understand that losing my 1 copy to YouTube probably wouldn't kill the series but if enough people felt this way it could.) Just because I might want to skip a boss battle doesn't mean I don't like the game.

I do agree however that there should be consequences for doing so like losing out on boss rewards and having to at least attempt the boss like 5 times or something before the option comes up. Alternatively, make it so that you can change the difficulty mid-game.

 

[f'tang]

When i was a wee lad i couldn't beat the second riku fight in hollow bastion. For several years i just couldn't figure him out. EVENTUALLY i bested him. Not once did i think ' This game needs a skip boss feature '. Tell ya what though, if they added a "game journalist" difficulty, i guess a skip boss feature for that mode specifically wouldn't bother me all that much. I play games to escape reality, and if i get mad at a game because of a boss, hey, all the better.

The problem for me runs deep. First thing to consider is speed running. With a boss skip feature, everyone is just gonna skip all bosses. Rather boring, but overall not a big deal. Then we have the issue of square not knowing when to stop. "hey, everyone was okay with that boss skip feature we added! What if we also add a skip mini-boss option? Nobody is complaining? lets add a skip enemy option! Ooh, lets also add a skip gummi ship mission option~! Platforming? Pfft. Overrated! We don't need the player to return to a world they've already been too in their play-through, so lets just make this series linear. That's what are fans want, right? An interactive movie?" so on and so forth.

Do you also want dark souls to have a boss skip feature? Kingdom hearts has always been an easy game franchise. We all get stuck on that one boss that just isn't compatible with our play style, but that doesn't mean we need to drag everyone else down to our level. That's a very social justice warrior line of thinking.
Sorry my minds all over the place right now. Haven't posted in a while.

 

[Launchpad]

Yeah, I'm not adverse to players being able to lower the difficulty if a boss is proving too difficult for their level of skill, but I think all bosses must be experienced-- They're a vital part of the package.

 

[DarkosOverlord]

Throwing my two cents in here, I guess I don't really see what the big deal is with this?

Here's the thing; I play video games to destress and have fun. I do not play video games to not have fun and get stressed out about not being able to beat a certain boss. As a result I tend to prefer playing on lower difficulties because that's the type of gamer I am: I prefer to play as an overpowered god who can easily destroy everything in his path. (Which is why KH2 is actually my favorite KH game to date but that's beside the point.)

I guess the real point I am trying to make is that if I want to skip a boss battle, and I paid good money for the game anyway, what right does anyone have to tell me I can't? I mean, yeah I could go watch through the game on YouTube, but I still want to buy the game and support the series because if the game doesn't sell well then there won't be a KH4. (I understand that losing my 1 copy to YouTube probably wouldn't kill the series but if enough people felt this way it could.) Just because I might want to skip a boss battle doesn't mean I don't like the game.

I do agree however that there should be consequences for doing so like losing out on boss rewards and having to at least attempt the boss like 5 times or something before the option comes up. Alternatively, make it so that you can change the difficulty mid-game.

Round of applause, seriously.
I'm sorry, I honestly don't get why suddenly everyone get all uppity about it.
We spend the rest of our lives complaining about this or that boss fight, because they're unfun, because they're useless or poorly made, but as soon as someone says "skip boss feature" everybody act like every boss fight is a rite of age that if you miss it you'll lose one of the most valuable experience in your whole life that will shape you into the man you're supposed to be.

People, not every boss fight is Final Xemnas or Lingering Will. There are also a lot of Oogies and Jafar Genies, and I'm sorry-- those are supposed to be the vital parts about the game? Pardon me while I'm being skeptic about it.
By all means, keep defending your own thoughts on the subject and feel free to think otherwise, but y'all are kinda sanctifying the idea of boss fights and putting it on a pedestal is all I'm saying.

The problem for me runs deep. First thing to consider is speed running. With a boss skip feature, everyone is just gonna skip all bosses. Rather boring, but overall not a big deal. Then we have the issue of square not knowing when to stop. "hey, everyone was okay with that boss skip feature we added! What if we also add a skip mini-boss option? Nobody is complaining? lets add a skip enemy option! Ooh, lets also add a skip gummi ship mission option~! Platforming? Pfft. Overrated! We don't need the player to return to a world they've already been too in their play-through, so lets just make this series linear. That's what are fans want, right? An interactive movie?" so on and so forth.

Skipping bosses/entire parts of videogames has been one of speedrunning's main pillars since speedrunning was a thing and has never led to such an apocalyptic scenario.
Also not even true. There are times in speedrunning where if winning the fight is faster than losing or skipping it, everyone will try and win it. It's all about finding a way, it's really not "hurr durr me skip fight me faster"

Do you also want dark souls to have a boss skip feature?

Oh yes, I really wouldn't want Dark Souls to have ways to not fight a boss.
...like it already does. You can skip 2-3 bosses (skip, not avoid) just in the first Dark Souls and I don't think it ruined anyone's experience nor destroyed the gaming market or changed the developing games approach for the worst.

You want to show you're an hardcore gamer 420 blaze it that completed the game 100%? Then fight all the bosses.
You wanna have fun with the product you've paid for? Skip the things you don't want to experience.
I don't see why one thing HAS to damage the other.