The Cardinal Sin of Game Design: Prioritizing Punishing the Player over FUN

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

So. My post. Telling you 'You aren't the authority on what's fun'. "Everyone is different", and you proceed to tell me how most people think the same way as you? and how my viewpoint is just 'niche'? And you justify this using what.. Confirmation bias from a forum of a vocal minority of the game?

Incredible. Thanks for the comment.

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crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

So. My post. Telling you 'You aren't the authority on what's fun'. "Everyone is different", and you proceed to tell me how most people think the same way as you? and how my viewpoint is just 'niche'? And you justify this using what.. Confirmation bias from a forum of a vocal minority of the game?

Incredible. Thanks for the comment.

Don't put words in my mouth. I said most people enjoy good games, most people dislike bad games.

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crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

This is why POE 2 is in trouble right now.

When you as a designer start to try to make sure every bit of difficulty shines, when you try to make sure all your planned difficulty curves matter, when you try to be the next dark souls, but your game is rooted in scaling power spikes...

You end up losing sight of what makes games successful at a fundamental level. You get so far lost in the woods you forget to view things from a player perspective and start to only see things from your own as a designer that lives and breathes your own game.

AT the VERY HEART of the ARPG is smashing open a skeletons skull, and pilfering that glowy red new epic item that has that cool new mod on it you've never seen before.

Nothing feels fresh and new in this game any more, nothing feels "FUN".

Because the moment you get something, the moment you unlock some new talent, or get some new minion, or whatever, you know in your mind that someone has ensured that new thing isn't powerful, someone has ensured that the new thing won't throw off the all important balance of what must be the next great souls like.

JUST SCALE UP THE DIFFICULTY OF THE END GAME FFS, ALL THIS BALANCE ALL THIS HAMSTRINGING, ALL THIS PUNISHMENT AND FOR WHAT?

To create a totally linear progression experience! No ebb and flow, NO STORY OF POWER!

Movies follow the heroes journey, the protagonists rises and falls in power, there are high points and low points.

Video games follow a similar story arc, of wild new drops, of crazy fun new zany mods.

Make unique items powerful and no drop. Allow the player to experience the thrill of finding items again FFS.

What on earth are you guys doing? This is fast turning into some kind of post modern art project with endless tinkerings and systems that don't amount to anything. Just this giant mass of logic that's huge and expansive... but puddle deep.

Nothing is special in this game any more, nothing is cool, nothing is thrilling.

Congrats GGG, you balanced your game.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

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crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

So. My post. Telling you 'You aren't the authority on what's fun'. "Everyone is different", and you proceed to tell me how most people think the same way as you? and how my viewpoint is just 'niche'? And you justify this using what.. Confirmation bias from a forum of a vocal minority of the game?

Incredible. Thanks for the comment.

Don't put words in my mouth. I said most people enjoy good games, most people dislike bad games.

And what is a good game and what is a bad game?


Entirely subjective. Right?

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crazyfingers619#3901 wrote:

Quick summation of bad game design in POE vs Diablo.

Diablo had gold and it had vendors, but they weren't that fun to most. Most people enjoy pinata item drops and getting their loot from their kills.

So in diablo if you ever needed gold, you could sell a few wands, which were TERRIBLY balanced and sold for WAY too much gold.

But that "bad" design didn't ruin the fun of the game, because the power of loot shops were relatively small. Which works because spending money in a shop isn't fun. Fun is killing enemies and finding fat loots.

GGG is coming from a different angle, they're thinking, how do we make all our systems relevant? How do we balance the game so that if the player perfectly utilizes shops, and perfectly itemizes, they can barely push forward?

And that's just not fun for most players, because it's not human nature to want to lord over spreadsheets.

Most people don't play ARGPs to deal with spreadsheets. And tuning your game to force players to do so is really bad design.

Bad design to stifle uniques, bad design to gimp abilities and try to stiff arm a specific difficulty curve.

The ETIRE POINT of ARPG's is to find broken items from slain monsters.