“given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”

I actually think that this quote is missing an important nuance:

if there’s a culture of {optimization for the sake of optimization}, players will optimize the fun out of a game

if there’s a culture of fun, players will find ways to add even more fun to the game

like, consider the difference between WoW’s toxic optimization culture, and Settled’s Swampletics series. Settled created a brand new type of optimization challenge for himself in order to add even more fun to OSRS. but in toxic WoW culture if you’re having fun it’s probably because you aren’t taking the game seriously enough and people will flame you for that

@kasdeya this took way too long to find, but,

https://cryptid.cafe/notice/AupwGTmecQc3HNQZwe

@kasdeya (it also feels like a split between competitive and cooperative play - some of the games i like to play have have widely known shortcuts/exploits but without a competitive edge to gain there is no incentive left to skip/optimize the fun away. (except when people intentionally try to break the game for fun/to show off))

@kasdeya yeah like what about the roleplayers who will take your numbers-go-up rpg/mmo and turn it into a tapestry for nuanced human expression and storytelling. They've "optimised" to be more fun almost despite the systems and mechanics of the game.

@kasdeya I’ve liked that quote for a long time because it always made perfect sense to me. but in recent years, I’ve been realizing that the only reason it made sense was because everybody around me was doing it all the time, and I wasn’t looking past that

there have been plenty of times that I’ve “optimized the fun out” myself, which made it even harder to think differently, but at some point I just suddenly realized that every time I did it myself, it was because I wasn’t having fun in the first place. I hunt down and abuse the optimal strategy when I’m playing a game that I do not enjoy, but feel like I still have to play anyway for whatever reason. that’s pretty different from all the people around me who abuse optimal strategies in everything all the time forever and complain about “balance”, even in single player games

it’s almost like for games to be fun, not only is fun design necessary, but the players also have to be willing to have fun

I am reminded of forza games, where I wanted to have fun and drive the cars I liked at the speeds I liked in the performance classes I liked, but doing races online became impossible because everyone was always driving The Meta Cars™ as if every casual race was always a competition for the #1 ranked spot

@kit ugh - yeah I’ve had very similar experiences to your Forza example

I’m not sure if that’s a cultural problem, or if that’s just what naturally happens when a playerbase has been playing the same game for hundreds of hours. but it sucks because like 9 times out of 10 when I play a new multiplayer game the matchmaker is physically incapable of finding opponents for me who are on my skill level lol. it makes me feel so so bad at video games but the weird thing is I’m actually not?

maybe I’m just bad at multiplayer PvP games in particular - idk. but I can at least confidently say that I always feel like it lol

@kasdeya I’m sure it’s a cultural problem, and a matchmaking problem, and a design problem

cultural because there’s such a strong competitive lean in any game with the capacity to compete, especially in Western™ countries, so even casual multiplayer so often becomes competitive, even in co-op games. racing games, of course, are especially affected by this, because the whole point of racing is to try and win the race, which unfortunately leads many people to the terrible conclusion that anything other than first place is a great dishonor (which also feeds griefing culture in racing games, because when people believe they can’t win, they feel that nothing could possibly get worse for them, so they resort to ramming other people off the road, either because they feel it could actually improve their chances of winning or they just want to make sure there are other people in the mud with them)

matchmaking because so many games attempt to match people by skill level, (essentially) as measured by a win/loss ratio, which is just completely ineffective. in my head, one of the most effective possible matchmaking solutions would be to give you a simple “did you have fun” survey at the end of each match, weigh your response against your performance relative to the rest of the players, and give all other players the ability to rate their experience of playing with you, because that matchmaking system prioritizes satisfaction over “fairness”. chasing that ideal of “fairness” only ever results in the painful experience of each good round being followed by getting stomped and repeating that cycle forever, or the even more painful experience of consistently being the bottom performer in every match until the game pities you and suddenly you’re the one stomping the entire room for a little while and feeling dirty about it… although, one could argue that these experiences are part of the addiction factor for some competitive/esports games, which is also a cultural problem

design because too many games just plain do not understand their own appeal, and forza is a prime example of that. the entire system of performance classes is irreparably flawed, because it’s entirely possible to have an american muscle car from the 60s, a japanese sports car from the 90s, a modern economy hatchback, and a massive four ton pickup truck all fitting into the same class, with the same performance rating, even though they all perform so incredibly differently, and it’s not even possible to make custom lobbies with better regulation because the games just plain don’t have effective categorization of anything anymore and haven’t since the xbox 360

@kit this is so so similar to how I feel about any kind of PvP game tbh. I definitely agree completely with your point about the competitive culture of online games. it is such a problem, and I think it’s made worse by how the internet disproportionately shows us the most highly-skilled optimization-minded players (speedrunners, esports players, people doing extremely technical challenge runs) which creates this cultural expectation that the “best” (or even the “only correct”) way to play a game is very very sweatily. and then of course games are designed to cater to that sweaty culture and they all start to become endless skill-grinds, designed to only be fun if your sole motivation is to become as skilled as possible

although I have more mixed thoughts on matchmaking. I think that for my personality type - where I only enjoy PvP games when I win, and feel pretty bad when I lose - I just shouldn’t play PvP games at all. I think that probably a majority of people who play PvP games feel this way, which sucks because that essentially makes it a zero-sum game: someone’s happiness always has to come at the cost of someone else’s pain. which is probably a big part of where PvP toxicity comes from

losing will happen at least half of the time no matter what, so I think that PvP games should only be played by people who enjoy the game whether they win or lose - and people like that do exist! I have a hard time wrapping my head around that concept but there are people out there who just enjoy playing a PvP game at all, and don’t care if they win or lose. and I think PvP games should only be played by them tbh. and that’s why I only play Deadlock against bots lol

@kasdeya I think there’s a little extra nuance in the winning vs losing experience that most people do feel but rarely articulate (not necessarily saying this is you though)

nobody likes losing, even though there are certainly some ultra chill people who really do just have fun playing the game regardless of the result, but in a healthy competitive setting, I feel like a lot of the thrill and appeal comes from being challenged, rather than from the simple victory condition. as in, I’m pretty sure that losing an incredibly close game with a lot of back and forth where the winner isn’t clear until the very end is going to be a lot more fun for most people than a game where you win without doubt

motorsports make a good example again, because in a racing game, it’s actually pretty boring to be leading the pack, it feels more like you’re playing time trials than actually racing anybody, unless you have five cars in your rear view, constantly breathing down your neck. and when you’re in the middle of the pack, it’s a lot more fun to keep racing when you can actually see the leader just up ahead, instead of only seeing the split time saying you’re 45 seconds behind. similarly, it’s way more fun to be a spectator when the racing is close, and I think that’s tapping into the same competitive spirit

that’s part of why I like the idea of a satisfaction-based matchmaking system, because if implemented well, it would naturally lead to most people’s typical experience being those super close games. it would also be able to account for the people who just plain hate losing no matter what though, because the people who only rate their experiences positively when they win would end up being matched with the people who rate every match positively even when they lose, so everyone stays happy