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This obsession people have with determinism! I'd much rather take a low rate of weird bugs than common consistent ones. I don't believe reproducibility of bugs

by kqr 2y ago

This obsession people have with determinism! I'd much rather take a low rate of weird bugs than common consistent ones. I don't believe reproducibility of bugs makes for better gameplay generally.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Reproducibility does make bugs more likely to be fixed, or at least fixable. Also, games introduce randomness in a controlled way so users don't get frustrated by it appearing in unexpected places. I don't want characters to randomly appear and disappear. It's fine if bullet trajectory varies more randomly as they get further away.
- skydhash 2y ago
  Also most engines have been worked on for years. So more often than not, core elements like audio, physics, input,... are very stable and the remaining bugs are either "can't fix" or "won't fix".
NotMichaelBay 2y ago
It might be fine for casual players, but it would prevent serious and pro players from getting into the game. In Counter-Strike, for example, pro players (and other serious players) practice specific grenade throws so they can use them reliably in matches.
- kqr 2y ago
  I'm not saying one can make specifically Counter-Strike on a non-deterministic engine -- that seems like strawmanning my argument. People play and enjoy many games with varying levels of randomness as a fundamental component, some even professionally (poker, stock market). This could be made such a game.
  - monsieurbanana 2y ago
    Either the physics engine matter, in which case you want a deterministic engine as you said, or it doesn't like in a poker game and you don't want to spend much resources (manpower, computer cycles) into it. Which also means an off-the-shelf deterministic engine.
mrob 2y ago
The whole hobby of speedrunning relies heavily on exploiting deterministic game bugs.
hobs 2y ago
Make a fun game with this as a premise and I will try it, but it sounds just an annoying concept.
- FridgeSeal 2y ago
  Gosh can you imagine how frustrating a game would be when you can _barely_ do anything reliably? Wanted to jump on the platform? Wow too bad, model had a little day-dream and now you’re floating somewhere. Wanted to peak a corner? Oops too bad, model had a moment and now the wall curves differently. Trying to pick a shot-well you’d definitely hit the other player if the model wasn’t making physics go out the window. Inconsistently.
dartos 2y ago
You don’t play a lot of games, huh? Consistent bugs you can anticipate and play/work around, random ones you can’t. Just look at pretty much any speed running community for games before 1995. Say goodbye to any real competitive scene with random unfixable potentially one off bugs.
siev 2y ago
[dead]

by kqr 2y ago

This obsession people have with determinism! I'd much rather take a low rate of weird bugs than common consistent ones. I don't believe reproducibility of bugs makes for better gameplay generally.

paulryanrogers 2y ago

Reproducibility does make bugs more likely to be fixed, or at least fixable. Also, games introduce randomness in a controlled way so users don't get frustrated by it appearing in unexpected places. I don't want characters to randomly appear and disappear. It's fine if bullet trajectory varies more randomly as they get further away.

skydhash 2y ago
Also most engines have been worked on for years. So more often than not, core elements like audio, physics, input,... are very stable and the remaining bugs are either "can't fix" or "won't fix".

NotMichaelBay 2y ago

It might be fine for casual players, but it would prevent serious and pro players from getting into the game. In Counter-Strike, for example, pro players (and other serious players) practice specific grenade throws so they can use them reliably in matches.

kqr 2y ago
I'm not saying one can make specifically Counter-Strike on a non-deterministic engine -- that seems like strawmanning my argument. People play and enjoy many games with varying levels of randomness as a fundamental component, some even professionally (poker, stock market). This could be made such a game.
- monsieurbanana 2y ago
  Either the physics engine matter, in which case you want a deterministic engine as you said, or it doesn't like in a poker game and you don't want to spend much resources (manpower, computer cycles) into it. Which also means an off-the-shelf deterministic engine.

mrob 2y ago

The whole hobby of speedrunning relies heavily on exploiting deterministic game bugs.

hobs 2y ago

Make a fun game with this as a premise and I will try it, but it sounds just an annoying concept.

FridgeSeal 2y ago
Gosh can you imagine how frustrating a game would be when you can _barely_ do anything reliably? Wanted to jump on the platform? Wow too bad, model had a little day-dream and now you’re floating somewhere. Wanted to peak a corner? Oops too bad, model had a moment and now the wall curves differently. Trying to pick a shot-well you’d definitely hit the other player if the model wasn’t making physics go out the window. Inconsistently.

dartos 2y ago

You don’t play a lot of games, huh? Consistent bugs you can anticipate and play/work around, random ones you can’t. Just look at pretty much any speed running community for games before 1995. Say goodbye to any real competitive scene with random unfixable potentially one off bugs.

siev 2y ago

[dead]