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RE: One Boss Battle Experience (Final Fantasy IV)
let me see if I understood this correctly
FFIV signals you you how to win the fight by making you die to the same pattern more than once... that's what you mean, right?
I agree. Designing the game so the player thinks they figure out how to proceed by themselves, to not notice that it was designed that way is the best thing game designers can do... I liked the Half Life example, now I'll notice it more once I play it.. Haha ^v^'
And I agree that older RPG games did great with having you learn by putting you in difficult situation with hints for the solution scattered there... I think old Megaman-like games did so too in their own way.
I will say yes to that FFIV comment, but for a different reason. Lemme force it into a metaphoric allegory. Basically, as you keep failing, you learn, through the punishment of the death, of what not to do. But that punishment isn't direct, it hurts more the fact that you lived to see its aftermath and be able to fight the same scenario again, no matter where you respawn. Yet in the opposite direction of death, life and survival, the player can see through a NPC dying if their reaction and signification to the event was correct. Thus they mastered the dialect of the game and know what to do in future events if this arises again or they replay the dialect again. For this is how mastery works: you master something as it masters you. You learn to understand its Language that you become so wrapped up in it. But, to become wrapped up in it, the game has to teach you about itself and has to ensure you'll be able to associate it successfully when you play the game.
Yet ultimately, fights like these to all playable characters are just parts of an Language, whole as they may seem, to its wholeness. The one that steered you all along, the Language of the game, is what the player really wants to conquer and the game signals this through the player's death and the NPC's death - though only as consequence of the player's reaction and previous signification of the actions it throws to the player. Which ultimately allows the player to know and understand the game, and what is to be done. But I like to posit that because the game can't totally teach the player everything and that the player can't learn everything for perfection doesn't exist and only facsimiles of such do, that it allows the players to come back and continue to have the desire to master the game. Thus why signifiers are arbitrary yet dictate how we live in the World - they can possess all these conflicting signified messages, in our case strategies to overcome the event, at any time, that there's always more to document and more to accept as they get documented. But what will be signified will manifest itself in that signifier if enforced to be such under specific conditions in a given area.
To just make a digression for digression's sake, that's why the elixir which at first had a purpose of being a rare healing item turned to be essentially a HP mini-nuke. Because the event forced a temporary signification to make you signify the elixir as a HP mini-nuke, but afterwards it reverts to its original meaning. Yet because of that new signified meaning, you must preclude the original meaning being the wholeness of that elixir and accept that there's possibly more to it as time goes on. And games like FFIV do make subtle gestures way early on by making it clear that items can have multiple purposes, multiple signified messages, dependent on where the signifier is located any moment. Thus why you were able to finally reconcile the signifier of the reverse gas-attack with the signifier of the elixir to see it can be purposed as a HP mini-nuke and ultimately conquer the event on the path towards the end of the game.
Another example would be how I needed to read your previous comment 3 times to have a mental image of what is being said, that worked as a signifier to understand your language (as I'm used to easy English phrases.)
I totally agree!!
And there's always room for improvement... We humans are wired that way, it'll be boring if we have the ability to reach the maximum mastery the first time. That's why "Lets Plays & "Speed Running" are popular, I guess.
But you have to feel sorry for the characters world that ends every time the player is defeated.
Instant upvote! Wish I had 10,000 SP for that comment alone!!
And I totally wanted to stick a point in that my comment would be hard to read for non-native English speakers. Because I had to revise it many times just so it avoids being an obscurantist comment (and I despise people that purposefully write like that, lest they know what they are doing). Regardless, the re-reading effect is a powerful I admit.
But yeah, I do feel saddened for the Character’s World when I get defeated. But at least I make sure that it can live and struggle without my efforts.
Anywho, thanks for the compliments and thanks for reading my comment. UwU
Don't worry, I was talking about the comment before that... The last one is easier to read, and I had better grasp of the words after I read the comment before it 3 times. Funny enough, I know the meaning of every word you said, it's just that I found them used together for the first time.
Or maybe I was just tired... :sweat_smile:
Even in my native language (Arabic,) I'd rather to read and use common words so I don't get anyone confused, though I know that makes my language weaker.
Well that's interesting to know - well good that we can at least see each other eye to eye on that level. Welp, happy posting!