5 ms·

Completely agree. Games are typically only "fun" when you feel challenged. Most people do not find "fun" in losing.

vvanders 9y ago
It depends. With a well balanced fighting game I don't mind losing to a good human opponent because it means that my game improves. Playing against someone who's good is a great way to find out what moves/patterns you thought might be safe aren't. I agree that if you have no way to measure that progress/improvement then the fun is lost.
pmarreck 9y ago
> Most people do not find "fun" in losing. Allow me to introduce you to a developer named https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware ...
- lmitchell 9y ago
  And if that's not good enough, there's the one whose game basically opens with 'Losing is fun!': http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    Both of which were influenced in their attitude towards losing by a little game known as Nethack [1]. Although I understand Souls doesn't have permadeath, therefore it's probably only half the fun of Nethack. __________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack
    - setr 9y ago
      Which in turn took from rogue. Which in turn came from DnD first edition / advanced edition, when DnD was more about navigating dungeon traps than fighting monsters (and not at all similar to modern DnD, which resembles Besthesda RPGs much more than roguelikes) But Original DnD is where my inspiration-knowledge stops
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        D&D is descended from wargaming.
        eru 9y ago
        And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame) is a pretty old one.
    - pmarreck 9y ago
      https://alt.org/nethack/ https://alt.org/nethack/ is probably the best way to play it (or watch others do so, which is a pretty cool feature)
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    Kind of off topic, but the thing I like about the "Losing is fun!" mantra of DF is that "losing" is not the end of the game. It's just another point in history. So "losing" really just advances the story plot -- which is why it's fun. Conversely, "winning" means that you don't have anything left to do and it's "boring". I don't know any other game with this point of view.
    - setr 9y ago
      Thia is just the general rule for simulation games, in free play mode. Reach a point where all core problems are solved, and then create your own problems (and try to solve them). Its just DF community that claimed it as their mantra, and their primary marketing of the game. But all sim games (d)evolve to this. Kinda like Lucky Strike's "it's toasted!" slogan
Houshalter 9y ago
The thing is most simple game AI isn't challenging. Or it's challenging in boring ways. Like having 100% perfect aim or long health bars. It's awesome to have an AI that is challenging by actually being good at the game. Having some actual strategy and intelligence. It's a complete misconception that "real AI" needs to be super hard. Give it realistic constraints like slow reaction times or noisy input. You can handicap it in many ways to control the difficulty. Modern chess engines can easily beat even the best players in the world. But by limiting the number of moves they search, you can set one up that new players can beat. My favorite game AI is from age of empires 2. All other RTSes just let the AI cheat like crazy to provide challenge. For AoE2 they went to a lot of work to design an expert system and a custom scripting language for it. Tons of features were implemented to make it easy to write relatively sophisticated AI strategies. And they documented it well and made it easy for modders to write even better AI scripts. As a result the AI on hardest can beat all but skilled competitive players without cheating at all (at least the current AI shipped with the steam version.) It's actually fun to play against and isn't a terrible substitute for a real human player.
- krasi0 9y ago
  Similarly to that, there exist AIs for Starcraft Broodwar that are capable of providing a decent challenge to novice and intermediate level human players. You could check some examples at play on: http://sscaitournament.com/ http://sscaitournament.com/ and also develop your own AI in one of the more popular programming languages (C++, Java, etc). Disclaimer: I am the author of one of those Starcraft Broodwar AIs
samstave 9y ago
That actually would be an interesting game mechanic; make sure you lose, but you get more points for how spectacularly you lose...

It depends. With a well balanced fighting game I don't mind losing to a good human opponent because it means that my game improves. Playing against someone who's good is a great way to find out what moves/patterns you thought might be safe aren't. I agree that if you have no way to measure that progress/improvement then the fun is lost.

pmarreck 9y ago

> Most people do not find "fun" in losing. Allow me to introduce you to a developer named https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware ...

lmitchell 9y ago
And if that's not good enough, there's the one whose game basically opens with 'Losing is fun!': http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  Both of which were influenced in their attitude towards losing by a little game known as Nethack [1]. Although I understand Souls doesn't have permadeath, therefore it's probably only half the fun of Nethack. __________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack
  - setr 9y ago
    Which in turn took from rogue. Which in turn came from DnD first edition / advanced edition, when DnD was more about navigating dungeon traps than fighting monsters (and not at all similar to modern DnD, which resembles Besthesda RPGs much more than roguelikes) But Original DnD is where my inspiration-knowledge stops
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      D&D is descended from wargaming.
      - eru 9y ago
        And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame) is a pretty old one.
  - pmarreck 9y ago
    https://alt.org/nethack/ https://alt.org/nethack/ is probably the best way to play it (or watch others do so, which is a pretty cool feature)
- mikekchar 9y ago
  Kind of off topic, but the thing I like about the "Losing is fun!" mantra of DF is that "losing" is not the end of the game. It's just another point in history. So "losing" really just advances the story plot -- which is why it's fun. Conversely, "winning" means that you don't have anything left to do and it's "boring". I don't know any other game with this point of view.
  - setr 9y ago
    Thia is just the general rule for simulation games, in free play mode. Reach a point where all core problems are solved, and then create your own problems (and try to solve them). Its just DF community that claimed it as their mantra, and their primary marketing of the game. But all sim games (d)evolve to this. Kinda like Lucky Strike's "it's toasted!" slogan

Houshalter 9y ago

The thing is most simple game AI isn't challenging. Or it's challenging in boring ways. Like having 100% perfect aim or long health bars. It's awesome to have an AI that is challenging by actually being good at the game. Having some actual strategy and intelligence. It's a complete misconception that "real AI" needs to be super hard. Give it realistic constraints like slow reaction times or noisy input. You can handicap it in many ways to control the difficulty. Modern chess engines can easily beat even the best players in the world. But by limiting the number of moves they search, you can set one up that new players can beat. My favorite game AI is from age of empires 2. All other RTSes just let the AI cheat like crazy to provide challenge. For AoE2 they went to a lot of work to design an expert system and a custom scripting language for it. Tons of features were implemented to make it easy to write relatively sophisticated AI strategies. And they documented it well and made it easy for modders to write even better AI scripts. As a result the AI on hardest can beat all but skilled competitive players without cheating at all (at least the current AI shipped with the steam version.) It's actually fun to play against and isn't a terrible substitute for a real human player.

krasi0 9y ago
Similarly to that, there exist AIs for Starcraft Broodwar that are capable of providing a decent challenge to novice and intermediate level human players. You could check some examples at play on: http://sscaitournament.com/ http://sscaitournament.com/ and also develop your own AI in one of the more popular programming languages (C++, Java, etc). Disclaimer: I am the author of one of those Starcraft Broodwar AIs

samstave 9y ago

That actually would be an interesting game mechanic; make sure you lose, but you get more points for how spectacularly you lose...