Sliders: I Don't Get It

[Bornindamecca]

Quote: Originally Posted by OU81206

This is the dumbest article I have ever read on OS.

This is definitely the silliest and least informed article I've read on OS.

NBA 2k developers: "We have the foul slider set low out of the box because a realistic foul setting would alienate many casual gamers."

You don't have to agree with that thinking, but if you don't understand it you probably shouldn't be writing op-eds for a sports gaming site the caliber of OS.

[NeoOsiris]

Quote: Originally Posted by allstar3970

i think you misunderstand how sliders are used.....sliders are used because out of the box the game is tuned to often be fun for the "average gamer" or 95% of the people who buy the game. This is often NOT realistic, but meant to be fast and arcade-like (especially in the case of say, NHL 09). So the developers give the other 5% (most here) the option to tune the game to their more realistic tastes. The reason why a game like say...Halo doesnt have a huge amount of sliders is because its not like any of us have experience fighting interstellar war so we can tune it right. We know how the sport is supposed to be; the developers dont set the defaults this way (i would assume on purpose...again for the masses, which is fine, they have to do what they have to do) Horrible, completely uninformed article.

I don't think anyone is actually reading what his artcile actually says. His point is that it's giving developers a reason to release a haphazard game with mechanics they are too lazy to correct themselves to create a real sports simulation. If a sports game is built on the fact that it is a SIMULATION, then out of the box it should play like a realistic simulation. It shouldn't need hours of adjusting and tweaking, and testing to fix it.... the company's themselves should be testing this and fixing the issues themselves. I don't think any of you ******s actually read the entire article let alone the first paragraph because reading isn't "cool". It was a well written article and brings a nice and refreshing opinion on sports games these days. Some food for thought people.

[DaNextPhenom25]

The problem with sliders is that people are trying to make a VIDEO GAME play as realistic as real life football, which while it is possible, it's very tedious, and in the end you've wasted the last 5 months trying to find the right slider set when you could have been in year 5 of your dynasty. Just pick a good difficulty where you get a good challenge and stick with it.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by NeoOsiris

I don't think anyone is actually reading what his artcile actually says. His point is that it's giving developers a reason to release a haphazard game with mechanics they are too lazy to correct themselves to create a real sports simulation. If a sports game is built on the fact that it is a SIMULATION, then out of the box it should play like a realistic simulation. It shouldn't need hours of adjusting and tweaking, and testing to fix it.... the company's themselves should be testing this and fixing the issues themselves. I don't think any of you ******s actually read the entire article let alone the first paragraph because reading isn't "cool". It was a well written article and brings a nice and refreshing opinion on sports games these days. Some food for thought people.

Calling anyone a ****** automatically makes us all assume you are of low intelligence and detracts from your comments. Maybe you actually read the article but you certainly didn't view it from everyone's point of view.

"sports gamers use them because they are there. Too lazy to put in the practice to excel in the game as it was designed, gamers slide the almighty sliders to adjust to their individual whims." - this assumes people who adjust sliders are doing it to cheat and calls them lazy. Did you read this part?

Sure, everyone can agree that sliders have let developers get a little lazy at times but there is no way that is the reason sliders are in the game. The reason sliders are in the game is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to please everyone when releasing a game. Everyone has different skill sets, expectations of games, etc. Sliders give gamers the freedom to create a game that they want - whether that's more arcade, more sim, easier, harder, whatever. Sliders have always been about choice and customization. That is the biggest reason BY FAR they were every put into a video game.

[dkgojackets]

This is probably the first article I've read in a month or so since the title caught my eye on the forum page and I thought it would be some form of humorous sarcasm or otherwise good reading. My thinking was miserably wrong.

[Jukeman]

everybody has their own opinion that's why there are sliders in sports game......
Realistic is not fun for everybody
Fun =$
Sliders are options
Every game these days are somewhat customizable
My opinion of realism may not be his/her opinion
Hardest level may be too easy
Replay value
And IMO any sports game that comes out the box with penalties/fouls dumbed down or default quarter is not 20/15/45/12 the game is not meant to be sim out if the box....my .02

[yamabushi]

Is that you Phil Fraizer??

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

for me, I rarely, rarely, and I mean rarely use sliders. To me, adjusting sliders means that you are trying to get a "predetermined" outcome thus eliminating the unpredictability of the game. Also, in my opinion, slider adjustments become a never ending, vicious cycle. You are playing the game to see if it "plays correctly" instead of playing the game to, well, play the game. Now having said that, do I think that sliders should be removed? Absolutely not. They have become a mainstream in sports games and in all honesty, the more options given to the user, the better. We all have different opinions of what a "sim" game is and sliders gives the users the ability to adjust the game to their "sim level".

Predetermined, yeah to a certain extent, what we're trying to do is to created a reasonable standard deviation.

Steve Kerr hold the NBA record for 3pt percentage in a season at 52%. Playing out a 20-year association it should be quite an amazing thing if you saw 2 or 3 guys TOPS, equal or surpass that number, and if they do it should be around 55% max.

Now if 3 guys on your team shoot 65% from 3 land every season, well then you aren't playing a game that is emulating NBA basketball. For a lot of people that's totally o.k., for a lot of us here at OS, its not.

We already know about the game being tuned for casual players, but in addition to that no matter how knowledgeable about their sport, and talented they are at their craft, its clear to me that all development teams have their eccentricities as well as "blind spots". They fall in love with certain animations, or don't like to work the count as a batter in baseball, it could be 100 different things.

Sliders allow us to deal with those personal developer quirks that lesson the authenticity of the experience. Talking about "not getting it" I never got the whole "as the developer intended" mantra. History has shown us that as long as the "fun factor" credo exists there will be many liberties taken when developing a sports games.

At least we have a way to ameliorate many of those design decisions.