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I think so, and I think they ("Jorbs", not the commenter) said a dumb thing. They're saying that winnable is bad when it's actually good. Being able to win or a

by ebg13 6y ago

I think so, and I think they ("Jorbs", not the commenter) said a dumb thing. They're saying that winnable is bad when it's actually good. Being able to win or at least not die[0] is a pretty big precondition for being fair, and people generally don't enjoy unfair games. [0] - This means at atomic components of the game, not necessarily the whole game. There are infinite games that have no ultimate win condition where the objective is to just go as far as possible, but if the progression is fundamentally unfair (i.e. if components are randomly unwinnable) then it will be also fundamentally unsatisfying.

jorbs_ 6y ago
i think non-ascension (lowest difficulty) spire is pretty close to guaranteeing that you're able to win every run. many people who play a lot of the game prefer to play at higher difficulties. for me the main reason is that at low difficulty a significant % of my time is spent going through the motions in a run that's already won, where almost any choice will still win and so my relevance as a player disappears, and my enjoyment of the game increases as the % of the time that my decisions appear relevant increases. i've played ~5,000 hours of the game and thanks to high difficulties i'd guess at least 4,000 of those hours have been engaging gameplay, whereas if the game had never released higher difficulties maybe only 1,500/5,000 would have been interesting. it sucks that some runs just end up being losses for pretty much any reasonable player, but at least even in losses there is usually engaging decision-making up until the end, since you can almost always find some out to play toward which will let you win with a bit of luck, and you can't tell ahead of time that you won't succeed at hitting that out. easy wins where you get enough stuff to beat the endboss in 10 minutes but still have 30+ minutes of gameplay left are less desirable in my experience. it's a nice design goal for a game to just always be engaging, but very few games like this come close to achieving that goal. i'd say ascension 20 spire is closer than anything else i've ever played.
- ebg13 6y ago
  Hi! If you're the same jorbs, I'm sorry to cast aspersions on you based on a secondhand account. I agree with everything you just said. I used to be a competitive gamer myself, and going through the motions where a win is guaranteed no matter what you do is definitely the other face of fundamental badness in game design. I fully agree that the most important thing in game design is for players to feel like what they do matters, and that means winning when they earn it, not winning when they don't earn it, and not making people slog through the motions when the outcome is decided. It's part of why we don't like playing against opponents who are too far below us in skill level. Trashing an enemy without effort just isn't fun for long.

by ebg13 6y ago

jorbs_ 6y ago

i think non-ascension (lowest difficulty) spire is pretty close to guaranteeing that you're able to win every run. many people who play a lot of the game prefer to play at higher difficulties. for me the main reason is that at low difficulty a significant % of my time is spent going through the motions in a run that's already won, where almost any choice will still win and so my relevance as a player disappears, and my enjoyment of the game increases as the % of the time that my decisions appear relevant increases. i've played ~5,000 hours of the game and thanks to high difficulties i'd guess at least 4,000 of those hours have been engaging gameplay, whereas if the game had never released higher difficulties maybe only 1,500/5,000 would have been interesting. it sucks that some runs just end up being losses for pretty much any reasonable player, but at least even in losses there is usually engaging decision-making up until the end, since you can almost always find some out to play toward which will let you win with a bit of luck, and you can't tell ahead of time that you won't succeed at hitting that out. easy wins where you get enough stuff to beat the endboss in 10 minutes but still have 30+ minutes of gameplay left are less desirable in my experience. it's a nice design goal for a game to just always be engaging, but very few games like this come close to achieving that goal. i'd say ascension 20 spire is closer than anything else i've ever played.

ebg13 6y ago
Hi! If you're the same jorbs, I'm sorry to cast aspersions on you based on a secondhand account. I agree with everything you just said. I used to be a competitive gamer myself, and going through the motions where a win is guaranteed no matter what you do is definitely the other face of fundamental badness in game design. I fully agree that the most important thing in game design is for players to feel like what they do matters, and that means winning when they earn it, not winning when they don't earn it, and not making people slog through the motions when the outcome is decided. It's part of why we don't like playing against opponents who are too far below us in skill level. Trashing an enemy without effort just isn't fun for long.