The optimal playstyle is never fun, because losing is fun. Winning involves the systematic extinguishment of fun.
In theory losing should be fun in RPGs, but in practice there's very few games where it is, since for some reason players of single player RPGs hate losing more than the players of pretty much every other type of game. They hate losing, being punished, or having any real consequences to their choices, and they want to get everything and do everything and not miss out on anything, and since devs have trained players to think if they fail they will miss out at best while they cater to losers who hate losing, even players who can tolerate failure are nudged into the same way of thinking.
It's definitely the case that most games do it poorly - half the issue is Dev's hiding items that you can only access by certain means (which tends to foster save-scumming) and failing to add anything of value other than this (since they assume most people will probably save scum).
But it's also true of other games like M&B Warband - losing can be fun, since it has escape mechanics and so-on; what is not fun in that however, is when you lose, they steal your masterwork equipment - and even if you then hunt them down and murder them (even if it's less than 1 day later) ALL your gear they stole is magically somehow gone?
It is unrealistic, and a arbitrary punishment that tends to spur on save-scumming.
I can't think of many games where failure is its own fun.
The old Sierra Quest games where finding all the ways to hilariously die and the ensuing commentary was more of the game than actually winning. And save-scumming wasn't even an issue there: You were actively encouraged to do it!
Last edited by Norfleet on March 15th, 2024, 14:06, edited 1 time in total.
M&B Warband is an interesting example. It comes close to making you want to keep playing rather than reload, except for the reason you said, since the best equipment has special modifiers that appear in stores only very rarely, and so losing it means you're condemned to the longest shopping trip all because they couldn't be bothered to either: 1. Give you a way of getting it back, as if the dirty Khergit horse lord who defeated you after you went AFK, since there's no other way to lose to their AI, would sell it and not keep it for themselves, or 2. At least give you a way to pay a smith to make/upgrade the best equipment.
The Viking Conquest DLC for it lets you do the latter, except it also has unique items like special swords you can get in the main story, so it's even worse, since no way to get them back means they are gone forever. At least it handles C&C better than expected in the story, and if you "fail" there's always a path forward, it won't trick you, if there's not and you fail badly then it just makes you reload. There's a lot of little reactivity like how if you treat the ship captain early on well rather than torture him, he'll approach you and join your party later. I like how if you reigned the Danish king's bastard son in he'll probably whine at the Thing how you're a bad leader and potentially want to duel you to death, but if you let him do whatever he wants like rape the farmer's daughter, he'll back you up and praise your greatness in the face of any slanders like from the Frisian homeless man who is a total PoS.
M&B Warband is an interesting example. It comes close to making you want to keep playing rather than reload, except for the reason you said, since the best equipment has special modifiers that appear in stores only very rarely, and so losing it means you're condemned to the longest shopping trip all because they couldn't be bothered to either: 1. Give you a way of getting it back, as if the dirty Khergit horse lord who defeated you after you went AFK, since there's no other way to lose to their AI, would sell it and not keep it for themselves, or 2. At least give you a way to pay a smith to make/upgrade the best equipment.
The Viking Conquest DLC for it lets you do the latter, except it also has unique items like special swords you can get in the main story, so it's even worse, since no way to get them back means they are gone forever. At least it handles C&C better than expected in the story, and if you "fail" there's always a path forward, it won't trick you, if there's not and you fail badly then it just makes you reload. There's a lot of little reactivity like how if you treat the ship captain early on well rather than torture him, he'll approach you and join your party later. I like how if you reigned the Danish king's bastard son in he'll probably whine at the Thing how you're a bad leader and potentially want to duel you to death, but if you let him do whatever he wants like rape the farmer's daughter, he'll back you up and praise your greatness in the face of any slanders like from the Frisian homeless man who is a total PoS.
The Viking Conquest DLC is fantastic, but the items is doubly relevant compared to Warband.
Elf's Helm, Nad, Gungnir, Orm's Lorica to name a few items that can theoretically be lost due to losing, and impossible to recover. It's deeply frustrating.
The entire point of a game is a contest to win and you can not win if you can not lose.
Many games today are developed around the idea of "entertainment" presented as a game, but not entirely a game in its purpose. That is, the goal is more about making the game "fun" for people than it is in presenting the concept of a contest or challenge. This has led to systems that attempt to avoid "losing scenarios" and instead focus on various gimmicks to allow the player to win through various low difficulty conditions.
Early games used to be centered around losing being the process of learning to win. For instance, the entire concept of arcade games within the 80's were about perfecting the play (learning the patterns) until the game could be beat and the more difficult it was, the more people enjoyed the challenge (ie Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Dragon's Lair, Mario Brothers). They often had numerous levels (99 levels for Donkey Kong) to which each level became a progressingly more difficult process of learning the patterns until the patterns became more random near the end requiring the play to adapt quickly to beat the game. You had 3 lives, and if you failed, you started over back at level 1.
Even later FPS games, applied similar approaches, but with zones, or levels to beat. Adventure games as Norfleet mentioned, also applied this learning approach to win the game as well, adding interesting lose scenarios to make the loss more amusing.
cRPGs implemented save systems due to the enormous amount of hours that existed in play and then focused on encounters being tuned to be VERY difficult requiring the same circular approach by having to reload and try different approaches. Losing has always been an integral part of play and the "entertainment", the "fun" was that process of a games contest.
Somewhere this changed and the goal became "fun" and "entertainment", without the focus on it being a game. So many people (like myself) who enjoyed games for what they were designed to be, started to see them become more simulators of various "entertaining" tasks for a player rather than challenging them to a level of required success in order to succeed. Games stopped being games exactly, and became activities with mechanics meant to string along play until the game was completed.
I think this is why the souls games were so popular for a portion of the community as they really are nothing more than a 3D representation of an 80's arcade game. They were designed to force the player to learn the fights to succeed, but threw over a layer of activities (RPG development) to hide the basic concept of play.
In the end, loss and conditions of negatives designed for the player to find ways to overcome them was the point of play because that was considered "fun" and "entertaining".
Now, we use those words subjectively to describe what a game should be rather than recognizing what a game really is. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying less game contest, preferring a more interactive novel or simulator, but as I said.. it goes away from what a game actually is and becomes more simple entertainment. The problem I see is people seeking this level of focus trying to imply that the core concept of a game is somehow bad practice, poor design, simply because they personally think it not fun and would prefer less of its defined nature.
Last edited by Xenich on March 15th, 2024, 14:57, edited 6 times in total.
If games aren't fun, I don't play them, but if "fun" is defined as "is this game entertaining to watch/stream" then I agree.
Fun is subjective as you pointed out.
A game is not, it is a specific contest set to rules to which the player is tested to in order to succeed. This is the essence of a game.
Everything else is packaging. If a person does not enjoy contests (ie what a game is), then they may find many games unenjoyable.
Games while entertainment for some, are not entertainment themselves. Entertainment as it concerns "fun" is highly subjective and that becomes a problem when you insert an audience who has no interest in games, but simply wants to be entertained. They then demand game play features and concepts of a game be changed so they can enjoy it, which drives design away from being a game and more to the concept of just entertaining subjective positions of what is fun.
Last edited by Xenich on March 15th, 2024, 15:19, edited 2 times in total.
This was how games became movies with quick-time events, 20 years ago, and steadily died as they became less like games and more like story time. All to appeal to girlfriends of gamers and then stream watchers. Stream watchers are basically girlfriends.
I never understood the act of watching other people do something that I would rather be doing myself.
I loved playing sports, but watching them.. well... seemed pointless. Games are no different in my opinion.
This is predicated on the assumption that you would rather be doing it yourself. The point of watching modern games is so that you don't HAVE to do it yourself, since, after all, they're nothing more than a set of interactive cutscenes.
I never understood the act of watching other people do something that I would rather be doing myself.
I loved playing sports, but watching them.. well... seemed pointless. Games are no different in my opinion.
This is predicated on the assumption that you would rather be doing it yourself. The point of watching modern games is so that you don't HAVE to do it yourself, since, after all, they're nothing more than a set of interactive cutscenes.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
Oh, come now, that's obviously untrue. You'd absolutely watch someone fall ito a manhole and die, but you definitely would not want to participate in it. There are clearly entire classes of activity where all of the value lies in observing it and participation is zero or negative value. And that's what a lot of modern games are: Trainwrecks best watched rather than partaken of. Many of these games are little more than a series of cutscenes in which the "gameplay" involves following a linear path from one cutscene to the other. They're not games. They're movies. Movies are things you watch.
Streaming is a form of circus show where the streamer is the clown. When I watch streamers I know that I'm doing nothing more than watch a clown perform for my own entertainment, and I can find appreciation in that.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
Oh, come now, that's obviously untrue. You'd absolutely watch someone fall ito a manhole and die, but you definitely would not want to participate in it. There are clearly entire classes of activity where all of the value lies in observing it and participation is zero or negative value. And that's what a lot of modern games are: Trainwrecks best watched rather than partaken of. Many of these games are little more than a series of cutscenes in which the "gameplay" involves following a linear path from one cutscene to the other. They're not games. They're movies. Movies are things you watch.
I think you are being a bit obtuse to make a point. We were discussing watching games initially, now it has moved to various acts that occur? As for game movies, they are poor movies though, and I don't want to watch some cheap movie sequence that is designed to fit a game, I would rather read a book or watch a real movie to which it was created for.
Like I said, I don't see the point in watching someone play a game when I can play them myself and if I can't be bothered to play it, I have no interest in watching it.
Though you can continue the irrational argument of trying to tell me what I like an why if you like?
Last edited by Xenich on March 17th, 2024, 19:19, edited 1 time in total.
Like I said, I don't see the point in watching someone play a game when I can play them myself and if I can't be bothered to play it, I have no interest in watching it.
That's predicated on the game being an actual GAME. The thing is, many modern games aren't. You see how the devs of such games aren't even gamers and are really just making a movie posing as a game. That's my point.
Like I said, I don't see the point in watching someone play a game when I can play them myself and if I can't be bothered to play it, I have no interest in watching it.
That's predicated on the game being an actual GAME. The thing is, many modern games aren't. You see how the devs of such games aren't even gamers and are really just making a movie posing as a game. That's my point.
Going to post this again one more time.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
That depends on how you view "participating", I suppose. In a movie-posing-as-game, there is no participation. You are a spectator either way. The only difference is whether you choose to either drop $50+ and/or blow through a few dozen gigs of bandwidth to be that spectator, or watch it on the Youtube to be that spectator.
If I didn't find the activity entertaining enough to participate, I surely don't have any interest in watching it. To each their own I guess.
That depends on how you view "participating", I suppose. In a movie-posing-as-game, there is no participation. You are a spectator either way. The only difference is whether you choose to either drop $50+ and/or blow through a few dozen gigs of bandwidth to be that spectator, or watch it on the Youtube to be that spectator.
If I am going to bother watching a game movie, I will play the game. It really is as simple as that.
There are some games that actually just give me anxiety to play. I like the idea of these games, but I can't get myself to actually enjoy playing them. A good example I can think of off the top of my head is RimWorld, where I become very OCD about planning my base out perfectly, or Horizon's Gate where I stress out about putting points into skills / classes that won't be beneficial to my target build. Most of this stress is self-inflicted and not really a fault of the game, but if I really want to experience these games I'll watch someone else play it to scratch the itch while avoiding the stress.
The only other games I'll watch is fighting game tournaments. You have to be part of that gaming subculture to get enjoyment out of that though.
Horizon's Gate where I stress out about putting points into skills / classes that won't be beneficial to my target build.
I feel this, but a few things helped me get over it:
The game has a ton of XP in it.
You can beat the game without putting any stars into stats.
In the worst case you can just grind naval battles and/or buy essence crystals for XP.
You don't need to even come close to maxing out skills to use a class effectively.
Just by adventuring around I was able to unlock every class for each member of my party and make a good team. This was on RUIN difficulty, too.
You don't need a symmetrical or aesthetically pleasing base in RimWorld either, but that didn't stop me from over thinking it. The problem is that these things cause me to get stuck on the "planning" phase and then I restart at some point when I change my mind after committing to a plan. In the end I never actually play the game.
The other thing that drove me crazy was feeling the compulsion to use the eyeglass on everything to avoid missing an entry in the encyclopedia or w/e it is. I realize that you can probably ignore this feature entirely, but that doesn't stop me from compulsively doing it.
Beginning to wonder if I should take that autism test after all
Last edited by OnTilt on March 17th, 2024, 23:18, edited 2 times in total.
The other thing that drove me crazy was feeling the compulsion to use the eyeglass on everything to avoid missing an entry in the encyclopedia or w/e it is. I realize that you can probably ignore this feature entirely, but that doesn't stop me from compulsively doing it.
Are you talking about the item or the "L"ook command? I compulsively look at everything too but I didn't find it burdensome. There are NPCs you can pay to research monsters you fought and forgot to examine.
There are some games that actually just give me anxiety to play. I like the idea of these games, but I can't get myself to actually enjoy playing them. A good example I can think of off the top of my head is RimWorld, where I become very OCD about planning my base out perfectly, or Horizon's Gate where I stress out about putting points into skills / classes that won't be beneficial to my target build. Most of this stress is self-inflicted and not really a fault of the game, but if I really want to experience these games I'll watch someone else play it to scratch the itch while avoiding the stress.
The only other games I'll watch is fighting game tournaments. You have to be part of that gaming subculture to get enjoyment out of that though.
I can relate. I have gotten that way at times, but if I had to isolate why... I would think it is more due to the way games are played and presented these days. A large portion of the gaming populace rely on "guides" to play a game the most "optimal" way and it became a standard almost for every game to start out with people asking "What's the best...". Before this became mainstream, I don't remember playing games with the mindset that I had to account for everything perfectly. I just played it in a manner that felt comfortable for me to complete it and enjoy the process. I wasn't worried about optimal to play the whole game perfect, just that my choices were optimal as I played the game. Wiz 7 when it came out I played entirely in a manner that was not optimal, though it was hard at times, I still beat it without ever using a guide or pre-set build strategy.
Back then though, getting hint guides and build strategies were not common place unless you went down to the hobby shops and talked with people or happened to find a good BBS that had some people discussing things. I think there were magazines that had discussions, but again it was much more involved to do that, not like it is now where the moment a game hits the market, Youtube and forums are spammed with recommended strategies.
I got caught up in that for a while, then I just cast it all off and started taking the "whatever may come" type of attitude when I play, not worried about being perfect, only concerned that I could defeat the encounters I came across and enjoy it in the process by building the way I found interesting.
Unsure if someone mentioned this already but the Neverwinter Nights module Honor Among Thieves is really, really good, focused on stealing with a decent story.
There are some games that actually just give me anxiety to play. I like the idea of these games, but I can't get myself to actually enjoy playing them. A good example I can think of off the top of my head is RimWorld, where I become very OCD about planning my base out perfectly, or Horizon's Gate where I stress out about putting points into skills / classes that won't be beneficial to my target build. Most of this stress is self-inflicted and not really a fault of the game, but if I really want to experience these games I'll watch someone else play it to scratch the itch while avoiding the stress.
The only other games I'll watch is fighting game tournaments. You have to be part of that gaming subculture to get enjoyment out of that though.
I can relate. I have gotten that way at times, but if I had to isolate why... I would think it is more due to the way games are played and presented these days. A large portion of the gaming populace rely on "guides" to play a game the most "optimal" way and it became a standard almost for every game to start out with people asking "What's the best...". Before this became mainstream, I don't remember playing games with the mindset that I had to account for everything perfectly. I just played it in a manner that felt comfortable for me to complete it and enjoy the process. I wasn't worried about optimal to play the whole game perfect, just that my choices were optimal as I played the game. Wiz 7 when it came out I played entirely in a manner that was not optimal, though it was hard at times, I still beat it without ever using a guide or pre-set build strategy.
Back then though, getting hint guides and build strategies were not common place unless you went down to the hobby shops and talked with people or happened to find a good BBS that had some people discussing things. I think there were magazines that had discussions, but again it was much more involved to do that, not like it is now where the moment a game hits the market, Youtube and forums are spammed with recommended strategies.
I got caught up in that for a while, then I just cast it all off and started taking the "whatever may come" type of attitude when I play, not worried about being perfect, only concerned that I could defeat the encounters I came across and enjoy it in the process by building the way I found interesting.
I think this is my problem. I think I'm just going to avoid the internet related to the games I'm playing from now on.
