Are lives a pointless game mechanic?

Of course they are, that's why Mario Odyssey is getting rid of them.

No you fucking morons. Yes they make you redo shit you've already done, but that's the point. It's to motivate you to get better so that you won't have to redo that shit

Depends on the difficulty of the game.

>>387731362
elaborate

>>387732004
I think if a game is difficult, there should be extra lives lying around to aid the player. However, I don't think they should be nearly as easy to obtain as they typically are in Mario games.

It seriously depends on the type of game.

>>387732482
which types of games need them?

>>387732579
A linear 2D platformer for example. A 3D collectathon with a hub World and everything doesn't need them.

>>387732659
rayman legends and super meat boy seem to do fine without them

They are pointless when it's too easy to obtain lives, or when a Game Over is without consequence. The most glaring example I can think of a good game doing this wrong is Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, which just pelts you with lives and by the time you do the pretty difficult bonus stages it's not going to make much of a dent in your stock of lives anyway. Not only that, but all a Game Over does is remove your checkpoint which is a complete non-factor in bonus stages anyway since there are no checkpoints in those. Compare all this to DKC1 where save barrels could take a while to get to, and you could lose quite a bit of progress if you got a Game Over. I love Tropical Freeze but lives were a complete non-factor.

>>387731071
Lives literally exist as an artifact from Arcade games. Everyone voting "NO" is an idiot with no own thought.
Lives serve no purpose on modern platforms, other than artificially extending a game. Of course it's different if the game tries to emulate an arcade experienc, then yes, lives make sense.

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Part of the problem is how checkpoints/auto-saves after each level detract from the point of lives. If a game over makes you restart from the beginning of the world then it works as a penalty, but then there's the problem of games pelting you with extra lives so casual players don't end up suffering

>>387733267
>other than artificially extending a game.

Fucking how? How do lives extend a game? They extend how long you can keep playing the same area until you win, at most.

They can still serve a good purpose if the designer chooses to use them well. Like if you had one level that is broken into 5 sub-sections, and every death just restarts you at the beginning of the sub-section you're in so long as you have the lives. If you run out of lives, you start the whole level again. It's fair punishment and makes lives worth something.

>>387733652
how is wasting your time by forcing you to repeat sub-sections you already mastered a good punishment?

>>387731274
Video games are supposed to be fun. Being challenging doesn't mean they're not allowed to be fun. Redoing a segment of the game over and over just so you can get to the challenging part, try once, fail, and then have to redo the same segment again does not add to the fun. It's not a proof of skill either, it's just a test of patience at best. That was a way to pad out playtime back when games could be beaten in 30 minutes if you didn't get stuck, nowadays you'd expect better value for your money instead of cheap tactics like those.

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this is the most heated strawpoll i've ever created

>>387733828
Beating something doesn't mean you master it. If you master it then you can easily pass it again, maybe even getting more extra lives.

>>387734118
>If you master it then you can easily pass it again
but it would still waste my time.

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Super Meat Boy and Rayman Origins showed me that you can make a game challenging even if you remove lives.

>>387731071
>Are lives a pointless game mechanic?
Multiple ones, yeah. You should restart completely when you lose the one.

>>387734457
"b-but they're designed differently" - retarded sonic fags

>>387731071
>lives
>not toons