Game guide advocates got it all wrong! It's all about the comeback!

Waypoint was over there preaching that game guides allow people to experience the game in some form. I say nay! How many times have i been perplexed by a puzzle or stymied by a boss that i came back the next day or after a couple of hours and just owned it. I'm struggling through an early level in Doom64 and some of my typical excuses about glitched games or poor design will be borne out as false when i revisit that game on the toilet or on the subway.. one day.

How many times have you been completely unable to progress and still experienced the rest of the game in some form?

Once upon a time I was a proud soul who refused to engage with walkthroughs or hints or what have you. Then I became An Adult With Responsibilities and I ain’t got time for that attitude these days. I tend to still use them sparingly if I can, but guides are the difference between me actually finishing games and leaving a trail of deadends in my wake. With limited gaming time, I get no pleasure in banging my head against a problem for multiple sessions without progress. Case in point, after 10 years of aborted attempts, I finally saw Dark Souls all the way through last month solely because I had the wiki open in another window. There is vanishingly little chance I would have ever seen credits on that thing otherwise since I don’t have the time or energy to spend the dozens upon dozens of hours necessary to either properly “git gud” or to disentangle its obscurities to find the cheese strats on my own.

@banefirelord: It isn't 'Git Gud,' it's about playing something that speaks to you, natively. I'd say most adults don't go around trying to fit in by wearing baggy jeans in their 50s (using a strategy guide) if that's not something they've done their whole life. There's an enough stuff to play, who cares if you miss out. The whole point of gaming is to overcome. Do you take strategy guides to Disney World? That would be an annoying trip to accompany you on. Trust your gut. Fun within fun-ception. Soudns like work.

Isn’t a guide to Disney world just an itinerary.

Because that’s just good planning otherwise you just waste time.

I'm fine using a guide when I get stuck for awhile or I don't want to scour looking for something. When playing Fromsoft games I'll usually just use a guide for progression and items I would not want to miss. If I am really struggling on a boss I might go get some tips if its just not going well. Just in like in life, you may need help sometimes to get over the hump. No shame in that. You might even learn a thing or two in the process instead of just quitting.

@sometingbanuble: The whole point of gaming *to you* might be to overcome, but that’s not why I come to the medium. Principally, I come to games to explore virtual spaces and mess with systems. When I run into substantial barriers to those goals, I’m going to remove them as efficiently as possible. If a guide helps me do that, I’m gonna use it.

Also your Disney World analogy isn’t really moving the needle here. When I went to Disneyland for the first time it was a crowded mess that I only had a good time with because a friend who knew the park *guided* me to the places I told her I was interested in seeing. So, uh, yeah, having a “strategy guide” to Disneyland made the experience a lot better than it would have been otherwise.

@banefirelord: depends if you went to Disney to experience Disney or experience your friend. If the latter no matter you did would be fun. If the former then maybe just consult YouTube and do some pov. And experience eveything. You miss nothing. Life solved.

I experience games to experience myself. That’s the difference

@sometingbanuble: Disney literally sells "guided tour" experiences. Not to mention the countless other Disney guides you can find online. If you can think of a vacation destination, chances are there's a guide for it somewhere. Maybe you can afford the time and money required to stay in a place and organically discover every thing it has to offer. Good for you. Most people can't do that.

When it comes to games, different people have different reasons for playing them. Guides exist to help people get through areas they may not like. I often come to a game for the story. If I get bogged down by a puzzle, it may get to the point where I'm more annoyed than engaged. That's when I use a guide.

@bladeofcreation: you can spot those Disney guide tour group types a mile away. Opposite of envious. Those types are going to force slideshows at Christmas. Be the 10 year old guiding the family at Disney. That’s the point. Extract what you want from that point of view with gaming.

Don’t be guided anywhere by a 10 year old.

Thank you Dr.Kachi

Not everyone has the same desires, motivations, time constraints or lifestyle as you do. Try to accept the fact that not all gamers are the same as you and they don't all play games for the same reasons you do. And don't judge someone for using a guide.

I'll just quote Gerstman talking about Elden Ring and Destiny in the pod yesterday. All of that.

There is nothing wrong with using guides or walkthroughs. It's your game, you can experience it how you want to, and don't let anyone shame you, because 9/10, they're likely using some type of guide as well. People like to talk nonsense to make themselves seem more important than what they are, and there is nothing more annoying when a gamer does it. Truth is, many developers purposely make games where the player needs a guide to discover all the secrets, because it's impossible to discover them otherwise because there designed for the player to completely miss them playing the game normally.

Modern zoomers have attention spans of like 10 minutes, so if they can't figure it out immediately, they look to a guide, or a Youtube video

I'm playing "Silent Hill 2" for the first time ever, and I just had to throw a 6-pack of juice down at a trashbag to dislodge it from a chute in an apartment building. All this while having a length of lumber I'm using as a weapon that would've easily reached. So according to your "logic," it would've been more fun if I'd just started randomly going through my inventory using every single item in sequence. You know, 'fun.'

You can experience things differently than others, but your initial post and a lot of follow-ups seem to think you're "right" while others are "wrong."

Funny how every generation has said this about the next one. I remember when Gen X had an attention span of about 10 minutes, they couldn't concentrate on any brilliant films over 2 hours. Then it was Millennials who had an attention span of about 10 minutes, they needed so much backstory and filler that they couldn't engage with any of the brilliant under 2 hour films.

Sombre continues the ongoing project of self-identifying as the oldest person on the internet.

Sooo you're not actually gonna quote what he said? I listened to Jeff talk about Elden Ring last week, and this week. All that he's really talked about is how he has spent most of his time roaming the open world, while not really fighting any bosses and isn't sure if he'll really progress in that way. Then he talked with rest of the crew about the game in general and their personal gripes, like control schemes. This week he mentioned his fascination with speed runs and how he could see some later areas that he may or may not see. Followed by general opinions from everyone, then Jeff B talking about his wife watching him play. I haven't heard a single thing that pertains to guides, walkthroughs, or wiki's at all. Not sure what you're referring to in the slightest.

@spacemanspiff00: Yada yada Fez. Yada yada destiny. Yada yada elden ring. These games had a mystique. Lacked a guide and there was a community solving aspect to it. ALL GAMES have this. If you let them. Some games are bad, true. So Jan parroted the Fez comment from Jeff last week. So in the 2 weeks of discussion (they are thinking on the toilet too, right?)we have 3 games that had some curiosity and a need to find out. Or… game guides. Jeff wishes people/he could experience fez/destiny/elden ring while the iron was hot. Guides are for fizzles.

I think guides are fine. Those that don't wish to use them are completely free not to. I am working away at Elden Ring at the 98 hour mark with no guide so far and I love it, but I also don't care if someone wanted to go through with a build guide and a roadmap. I also use guides often enough on other games, particularly if they aren't as much fun as I'm having with Elden Ring. I prefer finishing games I start, even the bad ones, probably a bit of OCD to that. I also replay some games, like with Persona 5 Royale last year, and I already had my blind run so the second time around I had the most perfectly scheduled school year of my life to make sure I saw everything I could and also sleep with my doctor.

@sometingbanuble I'm guessing these things were said outside the Elden Ring conversation then, as I don't listen to every segment of the shows. Definitely nothing to do with Destiny at this point.

You could say the same thing about games in the 90's. People loved hitting all the walls in the original Zelda just to find hidden things. That's not fun to me. But it is what it is and I won't fault people's enjoyment. Hell, games seemed designed back then so you would have to call the Nintendo Hotline or buy a magazine, or be lucky enough to have a friend that just happened to discover said thing. So I guess how much can you take? And maybe said puzzles/challenges are so obscure/difficult that the average player isn't going to solve/overcome them. People had all sorts of reactions to The Witness. If you'd prefer a guided experience, lots of those exist. It sounds more like what Jeff is saying to me is " I liked these games enough to want to experience them but wasn't willing to do what I had to in order to extract what I'd hoped." Bummer, I had that same experience with 2/3 of these games. I'm not really into that kind of FOMO, and neither is Jeff when he doesn't really care about a game for that matter, so its seems like his own personal frustration.

How many hours or days would you spend until you give up? Is that the better option? If you can't figure it out on you're own, too bad. If you're too stubborn to ask for help, too bad. Seems counterintuitive to learning, honestly.

Gaming correctly? What does that even mean? I hope that's not leaning into the same territory as " You're not a true gamer unless X." Cause I'm giving up on your posts if that's the case lol. (I actually don't being like called a gamer)

@spacemanspiff00: I think it means any effort to win and make sense of the world and how you could be playing better in it. Me writing well and not editing my posts except to polish to cause less anger or confusion and to be more effective and efficient would be me "gaming correctly." There are things I actually care about at stake.

@spacemanspiff00: Based on some other threads I've seen and interactions I've had, I get the impression OP likes stirring shit.

I get the sentiment of the OP. Using guides rob the experience of learning from your mistakes since you are leveraging another person's experience instead of overcoming the challenges yourself.

Where I do find guides useful is when they explain how to obtain secret content like the Ultimate weapons in the Final Fantasy games or easily missable narrative cutscenes that the Trails series is infamous for.

With that said, I don't believe there is a right way to play a game. This includes using mods or cheat engine, why yuck other people's yum?

@banefirelord: He’s Giant Bomb’s very own Holden Caulfield and I’m here for it.