My take on sliders...

[outkast44]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deegeezy

I also find it that for alot of people the "perfect set of sliders" means the perfect setting for them to win every game.

I guess, for some... but couldn't you just play varsity default and win every game? Sliders don't just allow for skill level adjustment, a good set of sliders changes the entire way the game flows. Try using one of the slider sets in the Slider forum and you'll see that for better or worse, they really change the way the game plays.

I use a set of sliders that makes me want to play the game more than when it came out of the box, and I have yet to win a game using those sliders so far.

[Graphik]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

Gotta disagree with you there. NBA Jams was a hot seller and the Ballerz games still are (never played them so don't know about SHaq's play but I know about Jams). If you've ever played a game with an 11 or 12 year old or guys that only play games when they have a few friends over (and not for scheduled gaming days), or guys that don't know much about how the sport is really played and don't care to... they do want the stuff that you mentioned. They do want many big plays. It's like a pick up game of basketball with a bunch of guys that never played organized ball. I believe this is the majority of buyers. They want to think something is realistic but don't really know what that is. They don't want to spend time learning techniques that aren't obvious when watching a game on Sunday. They just want to have fun.

I cant speak for kids but you may be right in that regard. IMO, these games are to complex for kids. Thats why they make the Street series. But learning and knowing what a slot recievers role is in a video game seems a tad bit to much for their feeble minds.

To tell the truth, I learned the game of football from Madden. Its complexity and depth for a football game back in the early 90s is what seperated EA from companies like Tecmo, SNK and the like.

Fastfoward to today, we got pure sim type games from the 2K series, sim-cade(I love that word) type games from EA and others and then there are the Street games.

EA has taken over the market by appealing to a broad number of gamers. From sim-heads to ppl who are looking for a pick up and play sports game. As for the sliders, I dont think they put much efford in fine tuning them. I think that Madden's game engine has been complete since 2001. And what happens is that with each passing year, they do nothing more than add a few more variables to their code and ship the game out. BUT...they gave us an option to tweak the mistakes that EA ethier does'nt want to pay for or dont have the resorces to fix. So thats why I feel sliders are a cop-out.

A good example would'nt be Madden. It would be the 2K series. You can pretty much tell that they're sliders are put there for users to correct the devs mistakes. Its no way in hell that 2K5 should of went out with super running backs and dozens of INTs per game. There is no way that NBA 2K5 should of came out with poor off the ball movement and Shaq shooting turn around jumpers from the baseline. They expected ppl to mess around with the sliders so they can tweak the variables themselves. I dont think they are tryna cater to the casual gamer by having these blatant flaws, just to lazy to correct them so they expect us to.

[spit_bubble]

Well, I think the bottom line is, and this has been said many times before, that sliders are both a blessing and a curse.

They're a blessing in that, what if sliders weren't there? What if gamers were stuck with the best that the developers could come up with? Yuk!!!

And they're a curse in that, they take a lot of time to adjust, often taking a lot of fun out of the game.

The happy medium would be if developers got the game as close to perfect as possible, and then added sliders for users to adjust if they so pleased.

So, all in all, I am in favor of sliders, despite my facetious reference to lobbing the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at developers who use them.

[wwharton]

blessing and a curse is the best description.

i agree with you, graphik to some extent. i do think the tweaking you mentioned is what happens but i think the tweaking is intended to make a damn good game. as for the EA games and even the last 2 vc games, the base was clearly a wide fanbase that doesn't need to know the difference between a counter and a trap or staying in the pocket, etc. the different levels were the beginning of this, then they started adding arcade/sim but that was a joke and now we have sliders. now you may be right on the time put into the 2k5 sliders vs the Madden sliders, but i think both were happy with the product going out the door. you have to remember that even though these games go through a ton of tests, they can never test enough different playing styles, vs the cpu, vs another person, on different levels, etc. problems are bound to pop up.

think of it this way, before the online console gaming came along, i'm sure, like me, that you felt you were probably one of the best at [insert football game here] or at least one of the best, then you got online and got your tail handed to you and realized you had a lot to learn. with these forums, being able to play thousands of people, etc. make glitches easier to fine and quicker and then talked up to the point that they are considered game killers.