How Outer Wilds Makes Running Out of Stuff Fun
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- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2019
- Man, Outer Wilds is great, but all the great exploration, compelling mysteries and space borne shenanigans can all be traced back to one thing: running out of stuff.
But including resource management in your game is a bit harder than you might think, as there's the potential for players to be pushed and pulled into playing in a way that you didn't intend. How? Find out as The Architect dives into the end of the universe to find out where all the frazzles went:
Take a look at First Five here: / @firstfive
Small correction, the Celeste track that plays is First Steps. not Resurrections- my bad!
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You Saw:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
Enter The Gungeon (2016)
Destiny (2014)
Outer Wilds (2019)
Dicey Dungeons (TBR)
Sunless Skies (2019)
Spelunky (2012)
Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Resident Evil 7 (2017)
Dark Souls (2012)
Celeste (2018)
Dark Souls 2 (2014)
Super Mario Party (2018)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
Islanders (2019)
Borderlands 2 (2012)
DOOM (2016)
Descenders (2019)
Frostpunk (2018)
XCOM 2 (2016)
Wargroove (2019)
Final Fantasy 7 (1997)
Offworld Trading Company (2016)
Subnautica (2016)
Pokemon Insurgence
Pokemon Ultra Sun (2017)
Void Bastards (2019)
Dark Souls 3 (2016)
Fallout 4 (2015)
Final Fantasy 15 (2016)
Interesting Links:
kotaku.com/how-to-get-into-ou... A great article about how to get over outer wild's initial comprehension hump
games.avclub.com/outer-wilds-... Running out of stuff is fun, see!
Soren Johnson's Website: www.designer-notes.com/ 
Игры
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I just got Islanders a few days ago, and damn son my first island has so much wasted space.
i never used the alien blaster in fallout since there is a finite amount of ammo.
Adam, you don't need to wait till the last moments of the 22 minute cycle to do *the* *thing* on ash twin. Recall the principle of a weird chronological phenomenon associated with *the* *thing* , and also recall that you have a trusty friend that can tell you when *the* *thing* happens. Also-also and you don't need to wait under the bridge either, as there are certain cover which are nearer to *the* *thing*
Spoiler non friendly version of my *THE THING* comment.
.
.
.
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Adam, while the game tells you the teleport occurs when the corresponding celestial body is directly above, the truth is weirder: because black holes messes with time, the teleport actually occurs when the celestial body has slightly passed "directly above". (this is very noticeable with the white hole-brittle hollow teleportation)
If you laid down your scout on the telepad while hiding under the remain bits of the second floor of the ash twin tower, you can see the exact moment the teleport happens. The best part is there is a window where you can rush in chasing after your friend.
So no, you don't need to wait the entire 22 minutes to do the thing, it will prolly take you like, 2 minutes.
You say optimization is always at odds with fun, but what about management sims like Factorio, Two-Point Hospital, Roller Coaster Tycoon, or other better games that I can't think of that revolve around optimization and resource management?
"I'm out of MP!"
"Then use an Ether!"
"But you can't buy Ether!"
"IT'S THE FINAL BATTLE!!"
"But I only have 85 of them!"
Prozd is the fuckin man, love his stuff.
Archibald NO
Reminds me of The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age;
I'd been stocking reduce armor consumables throughout the game simple because I never really needed them, and "there will always be a harder enemy later I'll need it for". Fast forward until final battle, and I have like ... a lot of these. Sauron is armored out of his ass, and I barely do any damage, so I decide, now's the time and start tossing the potions at him. Turns out they stack, and that with 0 armor he's basically a pushover. Ended up as the easiest boss of the entire game.
A gamer never uses an item late, @@Tech2Rush, nor does he use it early. He uses it precisely when he needs it!
@@Tech2Rush brings back memories. that game was great.
Ah yes. Never using an item because they're rare or you can't buy them. The bane of many games indeed.
One of the most famous examples being the Master ball
@@FullMetalChains Not really, since the Master Ball always had a specific place that it was "supposed" to be used at (whatever big bad endgame pokemon of the game like Mewtwo)
If you want to continue with pokemon mentions then maybe Full Restores?
If you are fine with other games then....well, other games equivalents of full restores? Heavy Explosives (anything that doesn't count as a common weapon). Any ability with an excessively long cooldown or cost compared to other abilities, no matter how effective they are.
@@Shadowhawkdark full restore is sold at the pokemon league for 3000p. honestly i'd think berries. they do have a purpose but they require time to grow and invest in them and not many people care to do it.
@@BenightedAlizar I didn't think of TMs, they definitely fit, but I mentioned full restores because people are much more likely to use a potion instead. I guess it's an item that 'can' be used sometimes, but I doubt it actually is used very much except maybe in PvP or speedrun scenarios.
I still don't feel like Master Balls fit because they are kept for an endgame reason, rather than what was described being "didn't use it despite being ABLE to use it." Yes, you are ABLE to use it on a ratata, doesn't mean you will just because a regular pokeball failed once. Instead you will definitely save it for that scenario where it actually serves a purpose. With Full Restores, using them has a purpose, healing potentially more than the highest tier potion, which means you might not need to use a second turn to heal later-pure DPS profit there, but it's used because "I can live without that turn" or "I might need the better heal later."
@@Shadowhawkdark atleast in my case I would rather throw 100 ultra balls rather than the 1 master ball I had.
Personally, I give the final puzzle in Outer Wilds a pass because the cycle you choose to tackle that puzzle is, by definition, the last cycle. It's no longer about exploring and discovery, it's now about executing a well thought out plan in a short amount of time
He does have a good point, though, that seeing as it is the last cycle, It feels a little weird that you now just have to sit around for almost 10 minutes just waiting for the ability to go IN to start the sequence. It really isn't the most interesting thing you could be doing, but there just isn't anything else to do.
Although, I don't exactly have any better ideas for it, so I'm thinking that maybe the ending sequence is just suffering from "we put so much cool stuff in the game that we inevitably weren't going to be able to make every second fun/interesting". It's still a solid game
@@mallk238 You can always go to the camp fire on Ember Twin, speed up time for a bit, then book it swiftly over to Ash Twin. Ultimately, it's an annoying side-effect of the slow but steady reveal of things on Ash Twin and the Hourglass Twins tower being the last to appear - which makes perfect sense in how the towers are structured and designed and for general gameplay, because you're less likely to stumble on the Project long before you're deliberately looking for it, but is annoying when you've discovered everything else and you're just twiddling your thumbs waiting for the sand to drain to execute the final plan.
I think the main reason it rubbed me the wrong way a bit was the combination of the Ash Twin tower itself being a bit finnicky thanks to the "get sucked through the sand vortex to Ember Twin" mechanic, followed by having to thread the needle through Dark Bramble's Anglerfish; one of the few instant death mechanics in the game. While it did feel good to pull off, constantly having at the back of my mind "if I mess this up, I've got to waste another 10 minutes on Ash Twin" wasn't a good thing.
I certainly think it was a bad shout to have Ash Twin tower be "the one with the broken roof, lol!" and I would personally have added a backdoor mechanic to the Vessel after reaching it (e.g. via the bramble piece on Timber Hearth) to avoid having to repeat the Anglerfish-dodging sections. However, in the grand scheme of things, griping at that last puzzle and some of the more stressful time pressure sections on Ember Twin didn't take away anything from how much I enjoyed the game as a whole.
@@wozify you only have to wait for about 5 minutes on ash twin, less if you use the campfire. the tower also has a cubby area that you can stand in so you don't get sucked away.
@@somsnoslara You do feel those 5 minutes when you're kicking around with nothing better to do, and not a huge amount of time to go and do it in, so it remains a valid (if not huge) criticism. And yes, between the cubby area and the bridge you have options to avoid the sandstorm sucking you over to Ember Twin - not that it stopped me from ballsing it up on my first attempt because I mistimed it. *facepalms*
The missing roof and potential to be sucked to Ember Twin added more frustration than value; were I on the dev team, I would have personally put the missing roof on a different tower. But again, it's not a huge issue either way.
@@wozify I’m pretty sure the broken roof was to lower the odds of someone accidentally taking the teleport early and “forcing” us find and use the information in the black hole forge to figure out how to not get sucked up to ember twin, I agree that the 5 minutes is annoying though, especially if you die / mess up
One thing I think to be wary of, using health as a push-pull mechanism, is to avoid getting into a situation similar to what the original Crash Bandicoot did with lives, where lives were used as rewards for tricky little mini-challenges, which often meant that players would lose as many lives getting the reward as they actually got fro m it. Or put another way: those who needed the lives couldn't get them, and those who could get them didn't need them.
You summarized my feeling about that first Crash game.
Thank goodness the "git gud" memes weren't invented back then.
@@Felipemelazzi I really can't take any credit for the observation. I'm basically paraphrasing what the developer of the game himself said about it in a retrospective blog (which is a fun read: all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/).
Similar thing happend in Death's Gambit. There is a tier of healing iteams, if you want get better one you need to deafeat a boss WITHOUT using healing iteam.
Parafrasing : those who needed better healing couldn't get them, and those who could get them didn't need them.
well, same its in games like thief series, especialy thief:deadly shadows, you collect money on every level and latter for that money you can buy extra gear for a mission
but why said that especialy deadly shadows have that issue? in older thief games the buy section got limited stock and money doesnt carry over to next mission and stock is realy small on highest difficulity, making money basicaly useless, only a indicator of how much points you scored, in deadly shadows player basicaly snowballs through game, stores have infinite stock and there is a lot of money what carries between mission so money not spent is saved for latter, this time only limiting factor is that you can have max amout of each item
or in enter the gungeon, where the main way of getting extra health containers is beating bosses without getting hit.
"useless hungry children" looks like someone didn't go with child labor
Children labors are in the endgame always useless, because you have more workers then you need.
[Soviet anthem starts playing]
Daniel Müller
Ugh... really now?
The money you spend on pesky safety procedures can be better put elsewhere.
The very fact you’re complaining about having extra workers is only evident you’re doing something wrong.
Child labor is useless in the later game because you have more workers than you need anyway.
What game are we talking about?
"More efficient, less fun."
Factorio: "Am I a joke to you?"
Any puzzle game: "Am I a joke to you?"
Well you are boring
@@seantaggart7382 :(
@@MrMoron-qn5rx awww
And satisfactory (the game)
as a sufferer of crippling I.N.I.L. syndrome (ill need it later) i can and have an entire inventory of healing, only to repeatedly reload a fight until i can beat it without healing/using item/depleting any type of impermanent resource really.
much better than i was, at least the words, "but what if theres a super boss" havent left my lips during a final boss fight in a couple years....
I see u git gud as well...
yea, i remember first system shock, conserving ammo, collecting supplies, return back to recharge and healing stations to heal and recharge instead of ussing batteries and healing items saving for last battle, when finaly i got to final battle i didnt even used the fractor of my supplies...
of course first system shock deals with that issue in different way, on hardest story difficulity you got time limit of 7 hours so you dont have time to check every place, and cant move back and forth from healing/recharge after using bit of energy or getting shot, thats rather short time looking that it took 14 hours on second hardest difficulity
Brent Ramsten is like to say that I recently played dark messiah of might and magic, and I have to admit that it did item management really well. So well in fact that that I only got my inventory full by the last chapter of the game on normal difficulty on my first run. Pretty much every item is useful and it never really goes into the realm of being too in efficient or game brakingly good (except ice magic maybe). The game pushes you to move between a stealth, fighter and mage build pretty flawlessly, I think the only beer useles thing is archery.
At this point, there's nothing devs can do to help you.
And then it makes the super boss easier anyway, may as well use em as you get em.
"More efficient, less fun"
> Zweihander
WOW. I feel so personally attacked right now.
To be fair, I find the Claymore's weapon art a lot more satisfying
Crossbow sure is effective but you not going to have a good time reloading it
Who doesn't love the Bass Cannon?
Fume Ultra Greatsword is where it's at.
D A R K S W O R D
That Subnautica thing is interesting, because I never ended up using the thermalblade like that.
For the first half of the game I'd just go back to my pod and spend a good 15 minutes or so catching bladderfish and crunching them into water bottles, then drop those off at whatever forward operating base I've set up and spend another few hours exploring that area. Once I could reasonably power a base and had the stuff to make water filter machines I'd just set up a tiny base near the FOB and have that one purely for pumping out water bottles.
I didn't upgrade to the thermalblade until super late game because I forgot all about upgrading minor equipment like that. I love how tiny things like that change someone's entire playstyle.
I used it for food at home base, but I always made water before a long trip. My seamoth was pretty much a picnic basket.
I only got around to building the thermal blade near the end of the game. I ended up spending much of my game hunting bladderfish, cooking fish, growing fruit, or trying to move a farm to a new base. The water mechanic stopped being enjoyable for me after a few hours. I think they should have merged water with food because they were essentially the same mechanic, and you ended up using similar solutions for both-except you had to do everything twice-once for food resources and once for water resources.
Bulbo trees. Done.
I never crafted the Themal, I found one for free and only used it as a last ditch survival in cases where I forgot to bring enough water.
I felt like Bulbo trees were OP. They grow on their own, give food and water and power your garbage reactor.
I dislike the water heating effect of the thermablade, so I never used it. You are pushed very early to go find the floating island, and there I found watermelons. From there on I was living pretty much vegetarian for the rest of the playthrough. Only when I went on a deep water exploration trips I would pack some salted fish.
@@georgeman27 you can also make planters inside your cyclops if you don't already know. If you fill a large planter with the watermelons or the hanging fruit trees which don't require replanting then you have inifinite food and water wherever you go in the deep.
i think cd project red did a great job with witcher 3 potions: you can never run out in the long term, but in a battle you cant restore your potions and you cant just chug everything you have because of toxisity
14:50 I'm so glad you finally hit 125 subscribers
It's been a long road to triple digits
I don't support youtubers hitting their subscribers though. Seems kinda mean.
Mad Hatters in jeans my favorite RUclipsr hit 1.5 million of his subscribers recently, I don’t know if I can keep supporting him.
@@nickwilson3499 Honestly if a RUclipsr personally hit that many people I'd definitely support them out of both being impressed and terrified
Nice 125 likes you got there.
I think that Subnautica allowing the player to streamline tedious food hunting in favor of exploration and gathering other resources is a way to make the game more fun.
Yes. My biggest annoyance in that regard was the use of bio-generators - there's no point even bothering with any other means of powering your remote bases. Just place generator, place plot, add tree. All done. It meant the power mechanic was basically empty - it served no purpose. It was also just unrealistic.
I'd have addressed the issue by complimenting the battery charger with a 'battery discharger.' All the renewable power sources would be available only on the surface or at certain rare static locations, so if you build deep-water bases, you also need to worry about how long you can remain in one before you need to hunt down an energy resource or grab the flat power cells and return to the surface to recharge them.
@@vylbird8014 Aren't all of the powering options like that, though? They are all incredibly passive and require little maintenance. In fact, bio generators are perhaps the trickiest to set up because you have to do that extra step.
I agree. I was actually thankfull that there was an food and water mechanic that was easily fixable, since it made the world more believable while not hindering me from exploring this great underwater world that really fueled my sense of curiosity. If food was more of an issue i probably would have dropped the game out of annoyance
thats actually good design because early game you will need to just stay alive with food and water, but later on once you have access to certain plants you have a super efficient, unlimited supply. this allows you to explore as far as you want, especially with the cyclops.
Yeah what is this guy talking about lol. The food and water mechanics is one of the worst parts of the game. Plus it helps give you a feeling of progression. You spend so much time at the beginning of the game making food and water
Note on the Outer Wilds problem you discuss (minor spoilers): They've patched that puzzle to be easier. (Also, there is a waiting mechanic that speeds up time significantly so you can skip waiting for a specific time window in real time. The mechanic is basically never explained, which it really should be...)
I also think in the "intended" way to play, you would only be attempting that puzzle after you have fully completed everything you want to in the game. So that time waiting isn't time that could be spent exploring new areas as there shouldn't be anything left to do at that point. Still a bit of an awkward implementation as they were clearly at odds with what they were trying to accomplish.
They wanted you to feel stressed and rushed to complete that final puzzle, racing against the clock. But they've already established their normal loop of length of time and so they can't suddenly cut it shorter on that sequence just to cause you to feel rushed. I guess one option could have been to make that final puzzle sequence longer to take a bigger chunk of the full time if you were to start right at the beginning of the loop, but maybe they were concerned that would become too challenging or frustrating to players.
You could also argue that that waiting time is intentional to give you a chance to ruminate on everything in the game and build anticipation for the ending before you say goodbye to everything, but that is a little expectant of the players to be in such a philosophical mode.
If you're talking about the campfire, it's definitely explained. There is some written messages at the radio tower on timber hearth. Also, I think it would be hard anyway to miss ir considering how often you have a campfire nearby
@@raph2550 radio tower is dlc
@@zachrabaznaz7687 No it was always there, it just used to be closed
@@jakeread9668 Nope! The radio tower only appears AFTER they announced the DLC. If you don't have the dlc but it's already out, it will show up
"... useless hungry children..."
Excuse me, i believe they are called "mineworkers" and "emergency food".
(When a Rimworld player starts playing Frostpunk...)
I honestly love games with plentiful resources because I have a hoarding complex when it comes to most healing items in games. For example, I'd go through like an entire playthrough of Breath of the Wild without using max HP-increasing foods or full recoveries because "what if I use it and then need it later?" Really doesn't help that the game doesn't have a recipe book and I always forget to write down how I make certain foods lol
See, I never had that issue with healing items in BotW since its so easy to make max healing items once you have the item tracker. Just need to take a picture of a Hearty Radish (or any of the other ingredients that add extra hearts when cooked) and then track a dozen or so of them down. Since cooking just one of the things by itself gives you a max healing food stuff it made optimizing it really easy to the point I could pretty much ignore healing as a worry. So I instead dedicated that time to hording dozens of elemental swords that I never used (except flame swords, those things gave off heat simply by being equipped so I used them to turn me into a mobile ice melter).
Then you play around with the cooking system for a few minutes and then realize that it is extremely simple. And then you stuff your backpack with 20 single ingredient "hearty" meals, because that's the optimal way to play. Yup.
@@weaponmasterJConn Ya I was SUPER disappointed by how easy to minmax the food system was, because at first it seemed so deep. Turns out it was super shallow. Ohwell, not the worst problem with BOTW. #broke2weaponsfighting1guythisisstupid
RPG's always seem to create this problem.
(And yeah, I'm calling Zelda an RPG. Sue me. ;p)
But, it's much worse for items that are in limited supply ingame.
Like the high-end healing item that you find in a chest that may be all of 1 of 3 or 4 such items in the whole game.
The healing items in BOTW pretty much all respawn infinitely, or are based of ingredients which do.
Yes, you may run out at a critical moment, and it takes time and effort to find the ingredients, but...
You'll never truly 'use up' the entire game's supply of such items.
Plenty of RPG's have a bunch of resources that are strictly limited in number...
That truly messes with your head and makes it all the less likely that you'll ever use the item in question...
Kinda messed up.
@@KuraIthys The best part of Zelda's"free lunch" exploit is that at the end of the early game you get the ability to use sonar on specific items. So after spending a half hour stripping a forest of all its hearty beats you've got enough ingredients to last the next 30 hours of gameplay (give or take).
The best part of BotW will always be it's expansive and scenic overworld. Every other system needed some more work imo. But hey, BotW II.
RPGs are weird. Too many of them because of the large spectrum RPGs now encompass. I think the genre needs to be concretely sub-divided, but that's just me.
This is directly related to why I like playing off-meta and underdog builds in most games whenever given a choice. I like coming up with new ways to play games, especially these games where the meta and other similar things have been seemingly predetermined. Even if my win/success rate isn't as high, there will always be those moments when you catch somebody off-guard with your off-meta build in PvP, or some unique and interesting use of your build in most other games, and those are quite satisfying.
Since I do this in almost every game, I have a lot of examples, but the first one that came to mind is in Guild Wars 2 back in the day (before it went free-to-play). I made this bleed-based Warrior build, which at the time was absolutely an off-meta build. Nobody was doing it because it was difficult to use. In fact, I didn't meet any other players with a similar build at all. On paper it was pretty bad. It didn't do as much damage per second as a true damager build, and didn't handle facetanking so well especially in PvP. Some guy even laughed at me in the PvP lobby for even coming up with such a supposedly stupid build. However, once the match began I was able to dominate, with both the top number of kills and objective captures/defends, because my build actually relied on outlasting opponents, which required me to be clever in movement and manual dodging than relying on my equipment stats to keep me alive. I would apply dozens of stacks of bleeding damage to enemies, they would continuously take damage while I was just dodging and dancing around the objectives, and then they would die due to how difficult it was to remove the bleed debuff versus how quickly I could apply the stacks to them. It was a truly enjoyable kind of play style for me, and it made me feel like an expert at the game.
The limited resources I had were the dodge meter and my HP, and I was managing those efficiently via skill and understanding of the game's mechanics. By thinking about all of this stuff and managing them properly, I did much better than my counterparts who relied too much on stats and staying on meta and things like that.
Reminds me of myself in Warframe.
Basically all I did was: Pick up bad weapon. Try to make it good or at least decent somehow.
On one occasion I rolled very unusual stats on a Riven-Mod. A riven mod is a very speciel mod that can only be installed on a particular weapon in the game, and it just so happened that it turned an otherwise very lackluster weapon into an absolute beast.
The process of experimentation, testing and going back to the drawing board of strategies that others may not have explored yet is just so satisfying - especially when things work out.
@@Bananenbauer123 that was point of riven mods in first place, to turn off meta weapons into something useable, thats why the worst weapons get the best rivens easily
@@arekkrol9758 It was the idea yea, but it only works so often.
The main problem is that terrible weapons are usually bad because they have terrible scaling. I have ridiculous riven mods for a couple of week weapons that are still 4/10. Might just pick up a normal soma over the seer(which is farmed from a boss...).
OP weapons have great scaling so even very slight bonuses can push them over certain edges like constant redcrits and so on. I haven't played Warframe for a while, but I know that came didn't give two shits about balance. (It's a PvE game it's kind of alright, but still... build diversity suffers).
I'm also like that.
Although I wonder if I do it for "fun" or if I do it for bragging rights.
I do it for real-life as well. "Take the road less traveled" etc.
Can't quite pin down the exact reason why....
@@shanerooney7288 Haha yeah I know what you mean. Tbh I think it's a little bit of both for me. I don't like being "good" at a game just because I followed cookie cutter builds or something. Honestly I don't think that qualifies you as being good at a game. That's like if you win at chess while somebody else is teaching you what moves to make. I personally feel like what makes you good at games, when you can call yourself an expert at it, is when you understand all the underlying mechanics, the rules and limitations and work around them to really push what can be done with them. Like in that bleed warrior example, I think even the devs weren't really intending bleed damage to be used that way (they nerfed it hard some patches later in fact). It was likely supposed to be more of a supplementary damage thing, but I was using it as my main damage source.
So while I don't gloat so much in game, I get a bigger sense of accomplishment by playing this way. Which is, of course, fun.
Just wanna say English isn't my mother tongue and the subtitles helped a lot with the words I'm less familiar with
@Mighel do PUBG stfu
@Mighel do PUBG Splanguage
Nice :D
Spoiler for Outer Wilds:
I assume that end game puzzle you were talking about is the warp into Ash Twin's core. You don't actually have to wait until the end of the loop at all, though you do have to wait a bit. As soon as you can see the purple platform in the tower, you can use it. You'll still have at least 10-15 minutes left of the loop, which is plenty of time to do finish up.
It is annoying and boring having to wait for the tower to clear out, but it's not nearly as bad as you made it you make it sound
also you don't have to do that first, you can go set up your probe on the planet you have to go to next for easy direction, and then head back with just enough time. no waiting at all.
Yeah its actually just a pretty short time. The dark bramble was the annoying part for me. My heart literally skipped a beat whenever I accidentally triggered a fish.
Dima Gamolya omg i remember one passing by me and i got so freaking scared
This.
I'm pretty sure the game puts a fish in the scariest possible location when you've finally got all the stuff to actually finish the game
Honestly, Outer wilds is the best game I played this year.
That specific time window in outer wilds isn't that small, really. Or rather, it's not the only one. By using parts of the building you're in, you can do it a lot earlier, though it's a bit tricky.
I absolutely loved Outer Wilds to bits... but I (and pretty much everyone in the community) think that one puzzle is the weakest and least fun in the entire game.
That is compounded by the fact that it doesn't make (intuitive) sense.
[light SPOILER]
Your destination is not Ember Twin, but within the planet you're standing on; so why the need to line up with the sand pillar?
I actually don't get what time window he's complaining about. I mean "Executing the plan to finish the game on Ash Twin" I got, but why at the end of a timeloop? You can enter that room after roughly five to ten minutes, and it isn't that hard - especially since the latest patch where they changed the room shape.
@@araxiel569 If it didn't line up with anything and worked all the time, players would discover the (sort of) endgame area by accident and it would spoil parts of the game. It had to be something specific so no one jumped ahead by mistake. Also, every other warp worked using an alignment, so it wouldn't make sense if this one was different.
@@Rain-ti7gj I discovered the warp on Ash Twin by mistake myself, though I was hiding from the very close sand pillar coming towards me. I don't remember how exactly it happened, it was near the end of a loop, but I just entered the building and as the pillar went over, I just remember warping inside and my brain turning inside out. I struggled to recreate the conditions to make it happen, going so far as to believe I had to do the thing in the High Energy lab, only discovering how to do it "on command" recently.
@@araxiel569 Warning: Spoilers!
There is text at the Black Hole Forge explaining that the warp tower activates not when aligned with the warp receiver, but with its corresponding celestial body. It also mentions that because the Hourglass twins are so close together, they function as one celestial body, so it makes perfect sense... I don't know why it works like that, but it just works.
I don't see any issue with that puzzle. It's actually really good: only because I discovered what warp towers are at the White Hole Station and how they work at the Black Hole Forge, I was able to understand what to do there. I assumed it was impossible, because without the aforementioned information, I only expected something to happen if I waited on the platform itself (and I didn't even know where it would lead to before visiting the High Energy Lab). Needless to say, I kept getting carried away by sand.
Only because this discovery is a multi-step, very specific process, the ATP just happened to be the last thing I discovered... ever. I think this lead to it being a more fulfilling experience: learning the full story, the one with the longest buildup, right before finding that last thing that I needed to end the game. An example of good game design in my books.
"Efficiency and fun will always be at odds" Have you ever played Factorio?
Any game based on building a literal factory with limited resources is fun. Also, skilled DnD players merge both. At least, I think so.
My thoughts exactly
ah, a man of culture
Dead Cells tackles this axiom rather well, too!
@@gatekeepingwarlock9604 not necessarily. One of the easiest ways to get through levels is to run super strong dual turrets with high cool down.
I watched a friend take forever to cheese his way through levels like that. It was so frustratingly boring to watch.
Am I the only one the keeps mixing up "Outer Wilds" and "Outer Worlds"?
No. It's something that's been happening since both games were officially announced. Though, to be fair, Outer Wilds was in development since 2016 or so, so that exempts anyone from mixing it up with Outer Worlds (jokes, but you'll only get confused if you aren't paying attention).
This. A few months after seeing this video, i suddenly got a craving for a game like Outer Wilds, and decided to download it. Problem is, i forgot if it was Wilds or Worlds, so i ended up getting the wrong thing. It all seemed off to me, but i only realised that i was playing the wrong thing when i saw the Fallout-esque skill checks in dialogues. It's still a good game tho
Yes
Same
So, I am not saying you are "wrong" about Subnautica here, but I do wish to share something from my own personal experience: I have never used the Thermoblade as a hunting tool. As soon as I could get growbeds going, in both my playthroughs so far, I simply stopped hunting entirely. I did not WANT to hurt the inhabitants of that world due to the strong world-building of the game.
I would further say that food+water, oxygen, health, and depth are all obstacles the game deliberately presents with very varied methods of overcoming them, and which ones someone arrives at will depend on very organic gameplay variation.
Mentions Subnautica food exploit....talks about THERMOBLADE instead of BULBO TREES? Rest of video is great thanks for the drive to fun Analysis!
Preemptive TLDR: Bulbo trees are master crafted exploration bait and tempt you into going into the grand reef where the thermoblade is literally just a hot knife
Well there is a major difference.
Bulbo trees means you went to the floater island.
Which, is also full of enriching lore, and is above the beautiful and terrifying grand reef.
A place full of eye glittering loot and plants, and also full of manly-screaming inducing creatures, and is an integral part of the plot.
Then on top of that, bulbo trees are well, stationary. Sure, at base you are safe, but with how much room the fruits fill, what will you do when you move? Hope you were stockpiling!
Whats that? The cyclops lets you move trees with you? Well good! That encourages you to adventure and gather the many fancy blueprint frags and luxurious amounts of titanium to get a true BEAST of a vessel!
Then there is the thermoblade. A battery and a knife. No lore, no story, no pretty appearance. Just a hot knife really.
And more importantly both it and the things it cooks take up 1 slot, and unlike stationary trees, fish are well, bloody everywhere in subnautica.
The thermoblade encourages players to be lazy, why bother setting up for an expedition when one hit is all it takes to get a quarter of the food bar back anyways?
The bulbo trees are basically explorer bait, the trees are so good! Surely if its so good, there must be more good things around yeah? Hence making people find the lore, leading them into the reef, into leviathan jumpscares into the storyline stuff etc.
I feel like bulbo trees aren't much of an exploit. You're either going to have them on land, which is a rather situational thing anyway, or planted in your cyclops, which is already supposed to work as a mobile base around mid-game. The thermoblade is a rather early-game item you can use anywhere even outside vehicles, but I never used it to get water. I just stocked up on bottles and if I ran out, I would have to go back to my base; who spends all that time getting water from cooked fish!?
@@ZanderTheUnthonkable Pre-Cyclops, the thermoblade means you don't have to carry food, which frees up inventory space for more water bottles or other stuff.
@@ZanderTheUnthonkable Actually they are already on the enforcer island (or whatever that gun island is called) where the game literally pulls you quite early to meet with the sunbeam. But yes, I think you don't have the planter bed blueprint until you are on floater.. while there is a teleport on the enforcer island too, so you usually get to floater right afterward anyway..
And after that I always had a planter in my base and when I got exploring far I build another minibase near with a planter.. so food/water soon became a rather trivial thing. And this was good IMO as it allowed a focus on exploring rather than repetitive food gathering.
I found that the exploit with Subnautica actualy had the opposite effect on my fun. Once I had what I needes to have lots of food and water on me, as well as safety within a vehicle, the game changed from terrifying to oh so satisfying and interesting, as you go from a scared human on an alien world to a master survivalist of the planet.
Also, other limits do start applying in the endgame that push you towards exploration: more and more limited construction resources. As you build a primary base you end up using a hell of a lot of resources around your starting area, so when you build a secondary base closer to the endgame objective and/or in an environment with more tricky flora, fauna, and environmental challenges (like water pressure and perpetual dark that make solar pannels useless) you are forced to travel farther and farther to find what you need, which has the effect of exploring other biomes you usualy would just scimm through, and by extension learning to survive in these.
Subnautica is a freaking amazing game. +1
Agreed. It's this flow of gameplay that instead of asking you to worry with more and more mechanics, it lets you master the first aspects of the game and making it trivial before asking you to do more complicated and dangerous things. For a game about discovery and exploration, this change of pace is really important, and there's so much new things you can discover when the challenge is to not starve. It's almost like a Maslow pyramid where you work you way up.
And the game also don't trick you with "extrinsic" rewards. As you progress, the reward is usually a technology that, coupled with the knowledge you just acquired, helps you to solve the problems you already solved more easily, while letting you use that to tackle the new ones. It's all about discovery and problem solving. It rewards gameplay with more gameplay.
i mean the grav sphere does the same you only have to cook it. but it also aplies to water and it just removes the problem of food and water and lets you focus on other things like exploring and finding out how to escape.
Agreed.
*spoilers* The main thing I wish Subnautica did a little differently is that, once you find the lost escape pods and do everything there is to do in the Aurora, the surprisingly motivating force of a timed or urgent exterior force diminishes a bit. Getting those radio signals from the lost pods or the ship that's coming to try to rescue you, or the imminent reactor meltdown of the Aurora, really motivated me to face my fears and push forward into unknown territory.
But after that point, when I started seeing material requirements in the crafting menus that I didn't have a clue where to find, and there wasn't a sense of urgency or any sense of even vague direction (hence why I loved the pods: they just tell you "there's one over here" and let you find out for yourself that it's hundreds of meters down, or surrounded by dangerous creatures), my nervousness about coming face to face with a reaper or something worse, without knowing what I was even looking for, shut me down. I might just be a chicken, but I loved the early-game push of "shit I don't have time to be scared, let's go" and knowing more or less what my goal was beyond gathering resources I didn't know how to identify helped keep me moving a lot more. I would still like to finish the game, but after stabilizing the Aurora's reactor, the momentum died off for me.
I found the knife to be utterly useless. My biggest concern was running out of water and I feel that aspect pushed me. I had to be mindful of just how much deeper I could/should go.
I do wish they'd decrease the rate at which you lose HP though once you start dehydrating.
13:30 Playing MMO's I did realize there was one resource that was more limited then gold, hp or premium currency:
My Playtime.
It is technically more effective to never buy a horse (or local equivalent) and never use quicktravel. Except for the part where it wastes tons of my playtime resource.
Why? If I use a horse or quick travel I can level up and quest a lot faster. Which relatives the cost of the horse real fucking fast.
@@Maddinhpws But that's precisely the point. Levelling up and whatnot really fast just means you're maximising playtime efficiency rather than currency efficiency or some other resource. Buying a horse costs money, walking there manually costs time.
@@shuriken188 Lets take Aion as an example. In Aion I did a lot of what is called "Aether farming" where you have to fly to the aether that was floating around and extract it.
Now the problem on this is: your standard flight time is 1 minute or 2 minutes gliding and it takes 2 seconds for each second you restore on flight time.
Thus with each time flying, I could farm about 2 floating aether. Which thus means I got 2 floating aether per 3 minutes.
Now there are potions in Aion that increase your flight time by 12 seconds and have 24 seconds cooldown.
Using these potions I could increase my flight time to roughly one minute and 36-48 seconds. As well as the wait time between each flight was roughly halved.
Now in the beginning, this wasn't really worth it, I essentially came out zero extra money from the entire ordeal.
However, I managed to increase my Aether farming to the maximum needed to farm the next best Aether within one hour instead of 3 or 4.
Now I began to farm the next best aether. This one sold for roughly 900 Kinah a piece. The potion only cost me 800 Kinah. Each floating Aether gave me 2-4 Aether a piece. So now I was making roughly 9 pieces of Aether per flight and needing 1 minute to restore after each flight. Thus I made roughly 4.5 pieces of Aether per minute using roughly 2 potions per minute.
Thus I made 6,500 Kinah a minute.
If I were to not use any potions, I would've gotten only 6 pieces of Aether per flight, every 3 minutes, for a total of 2 pieces per minute. This gave me 1800 Kinah a minute. As such, using the potions was the much more cost effective method, because I made 4,700 Kinah more per minute, or 3.6 times as much Kinah as without using potions.
This effect only got stronger as I got to higher levels, where I would easily make 600,000 Kinah per hour (and that was far from max level).
So while you can argue that one thing costs money, I argue that efficient use of time is equal to money.
@@Maddinhpws In that example, sure, optimising time inherently means optimising money. The original example of fast travel is one where they are disconnected, however. If you aren't optimising for time and don't consider it a resource, consider the two options. Pay money, get to your destination. Alternatively, pay no money, and still get to your destination. The amount of money you'll gain in some time after you arrive is the same, the only difference is that you start with less money if you take the quick route.
In your example, flying for longer means getting more money per time spent in the air, but the amount of money you'd earn after travelling to your destination is the same regardless of how you got there. Getting there faster won't increase the money you gain over time.
Then, when you consider time, the options become: spend money to get there and start earning money, or spend time to get there and start earning money. If you'd rather optimise your time, take the fast route, but if you really feel the need to keep that money, you can spend time getting there the slow way instead.
But let's say we're thinking about the whole time you've played the game in total, not just how fast you'll earn money on destination. You might argue that since you spent less time getting to your destination, the amount of money you earned is earned over less time. However, this isn't exactly how games work. Let's give three examples in a game with a level system (like an RPG) where the money you earn over time is fixed:
1. You get all the money right at the beginning of play, and nothing after.
2. You get all the money right at the end and nothing before.
3. You get a rate proportional to your level.
In Example 1, all the money you'll ever earn is given to you right at the beginning. This is ideal, because no matter what your level is, you have the cash to pay for appropriate gear. Your spending can scale with your level.
Example 2 is the worst possible situation. At low levels you can't afford equipment, and if you make it to high levels you have more money than you know what to do with.
Example 3 is still sub-optimal. You gain exactly what you need at any level, but you still need to save up if you want to buy something big. This is roughly what most people will experience in RPGs.
Obviously, despite earning the identical amount of money over time, Example 1 is the best, Example 3 is fine, and Example 2 is the worst.
Clearly, measuring money earned over total playtime isn't a good measurement, as you can earn the same amount and still be in wildly-different situations. But let's consider why each example is better or worse.
Example 1 is the best because you can spend money proportional to your level.
Example 3 is good because you can still do that, you just have a bit less freedom with how you spend your money.
Example 2 is so bad because the amount of money you can spend is 0 regardless of your level until much later in the game, when it becomes useless as you're done levelling anyway. So in Example 2, the money you can spend per level is 0.
Taking the long route to your destination doesn't affect your level or the amount of money you earn during your levelling, because you gain neither levels nor money throughout the trip. That is to say, the amount of money you earn per level doesn't increase if you fast travel. Therefore, fast travelling doesn't actually help your income, and the only reason it's good is because you're optimising your own personal time and nothing more.
@@shuriken188 This is an interesting point you are making. However, you seem to assume that it is a game with a fixed amount of available resources and that you will gather all the resources.
Now any game that I know of with a fixed amount of resources has one thing in common. Linearity. These games usually don't give you the option to spend money to get to the end faster. This is because every level is designed with what you can do in mind.
The only exception would be open world RPG's in which there is only so many enemies and resources until the entire game is depleted. However, barely any of these have a fast travel mechanic that you have to pay for. And they all have many more resources than you can ever want. As such there is an important factor in what it means to play games optimized.
In this case, the optimal way to play a game would be by beating the game as fast as possible, because no resource matters after the game is beat.
With that in mind you have to calculate the time spend on farming for the money vs. the time gained by fast traveling.
Your argumentation of optimal playstyle only works if the time saved by having more money is equal or more than the time saved by fast traveling.
I think that when you say that fun and efficiency will always be at odds, you tangentially touch on what makes games like Factorio, or the ones from zachtronics, or even farming simulator as they make efficiency one of the core sources of fun.
True! But I find that even in horror games efficiency is fun, or at least it feels very rewarding. In dead space, efficently killing aliens and saving ammo by taking enemies out with only a few shots thanks to good aim - the game is rightly so rewarding you for doing things the right way.
Kinda hated the new resident evil remake where the game secretly gives enemies extra health points if you are 'doing well', basically punishing your efforts of being resourceful.
@@Bananenbauer123 On the other hand there is Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, a game that gives you a bar you can fill by racking up combos and not being hit. The bar allows you to do more damage or heal yourself when you hit enemies.
So not only are you already taking less damage and dealing more damage. This effect is doubled for you. Meanwhile, if you are not as good and get hit relatively often. You are dealing almost no damage and can't heal.
So the games difficulty is doubled for bad players and halved for good players. Which is somewhat shit.
@@Maddinhpws Yea! Gamemakers toolkit (youtube channel) talked about this! Positive feedback loops. A snowballing effect of sorts.
I think it makes sense. If you aren't even struggling against an enemy and evade their attacks flawlessly, might aswell allow you to take them out quickly instead of letting the fight drag on.
And those players that do get hit need to put more effort into doging properly.
It's like extending the lesson.
In multiplayer this can become problematic though.
Damn, I really love these game design channels that take a close look at mechanics n stuff.
It's like psychology really.
In puzzle game, optimization is actually the fun part.
@@zockertwins A lot of unexpected games are (or can validly be played as) a puzzle game. That is pretty much how I play every game ;)
This is amazing, that was what I totally needed to hear for... my life.
I've always touted efficiency as the most important thing. Recently, I realized I wasn't having any fun. I've never thought of them as opposites until now.
So Outer Wild is just space majora's mask ?
Yes. Mixed with a little bit of Metroid Prime and Myst. It's fantastic.
Its one of the best games ever made play it now
It's one of the best experiences to play
A sci-fi mystery which focuses on exploration and puzzle solving. It be best to go into it completely blind.
If you do, have fun man it's a great experience
majora's mask was a big inspiration for OW. and it shows.
Wow! 125 subscribers? You're growing so fast. It feels like just yesterday you had 100 subscribers.
Edit: I'm very, very wrong. You now have 126 subscribers.
he just multiplied his subscribers by x1000
Yeah
This didn't age well
I completely agree with what you said about Outer Wilds. That was pretty much my only issue with the game (that and one part of Dark Bramble), but I still think it's one of my favorite games. Very unique gameplay and a great way to tell a story.
EVERYONE WHO HATES DARK BRAMBLE, RAISE YOUR HAND. AND WEAPONS.
Great video! your conclusion is also why i often RP in my games. by forcing myself NOT to optimize, it opens up a lot of other ways to play. for example, in divinity 2, this means using weird builds like a close up mage, or an undead paladin/healer. is it always working? no . is it fun? Absolutely
In Escape from Tarkov, not wanting to lose good stuff is called "Gear Fear"
"Efficiency and fun are always at odds."
Factorio: Efficiency IS fun.
Notification squads here we are
Edit: after watching the video, yeah I regularly used to have the issue of never using consumables and playing in the most optimized but not always the most fun way. These days I try to avoid doing that when I can, and I'm much better about using limited items and the like, but I still have issues with avoiding things like the subnautica heat knife system.
Since I usually listen to your videos while doing something else I leave them playing till they are finished. This means that I now can recite with you the names of the patreons off the top of my head
Rush4in, same, but it will take a few more time since I started listening to him today, 6 hours ago non-stop, hahahahaah....
Welp
I sometimes have fun trying to fully optimize gameplay; it's kind of like a puzzle. I know other people can get even crazier with it; just look at the guys trying to figure out the fewest possible A button presses that can be done in Super Mario 64.
.5 A presses are an amazing thing.. However the fewest possible a presses can only be done by a TAS though. as it's in the 0 Star TAS Run that's 4ish minutes long.
The best way to make a player use a resource is by making that resource an *exclusive.*
Lol
I wanted to add something to this. Recently, I have been fiddling with DOSbox, and playing some really old school RTS games like Dune 2 and Warcraft 2. I noticed something, I keep running out of resources in Warcraft 2. My mines regularly fall short, even worse the lumber is never enough! I don't remember this ever being an issue in Warcraft 3. Or really, Age of Empires 2. A little in Starcraft but not much.
Resource scarcity is a real thing in Warcraft 2 and really changes how you play. I expand not to improve my industry but to give it fuel, to gather just enough resources to start assaulting the enemy base. And the fact that I am running out of resources make me worry with every dead ogre, every sunk destroyer.
A great topic for a video and, and a good set of examples. I like how you manage to make me understand your points even when I've barely played any of these games.
I actually often have trouble with games because I try to play in ways I find most fun and the games punish me for it. I can only guess that, in those cases, the games are not intended for that playstyle at all. So instead of me optimising the fun out of games, I mostly have the problem of the games punishing me for my choises of playstyle.
Man, your videos are always so god damn interesting and enlightening. Other than having "huh, I never thought of that" moments, I also find so many new games to check out.
Thank you for having the games in the description.
I found something very interesting... and have had quite a bit of fun.
Respect.
Wow! Outer Wilds looks really good! I'm glad I backed it a year or so ago! I can't wait to download it on steam, the launcher I backed it for! Surely I won't run into any problems!
I didn't know about this until reading your comment and looking it up. That really sucks, pretty unappreciative of them. It is an incredible game though, so even if you have to wait I'd say it's worth it! Until then avoid spoilers like the plague.
Now's ya chance bro
The wait was worth it!
This channel is so very underrated, keep up the great work :)
*Same goes with money*
Precious as they may be, you're gonna need to spend them eventually
Yeah, who needs to keep some money around for unexpected expenses or retirement. YOLO!
_"Unspent resources is wasted resources"_ Money, in this case. - starcraft experience.
@@belldrop7365
That's true as long as you know that you constantly gain resources.
In real life there are unexpected events that can cause you to be forced to spend more money. So it is always good to keep a buffer without keeping too much in it.
“Your money is no good if you don’t spend it!”
Great video, and thank you very much for including all the games in the video!
rougelike ... mountainbike ... game
what?
Sounds like a good idea to me
It's a procedurally-generated downhill biking game where you can accrue upgrades for a run, but you lose them when that run ends. One of my favorite games this year!
8:35 - "...and one major thing it does wrong" You mean launching on EGS? ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I actually really love how you have to wait for the ash twins project in outer wilds, when going to finish the game it gave me the time to reflect on everything I have accomplish during the game and how this was the last loop in my story.
8:35 discussion of Outer Wilds begins.
Actually, some of the exploitable mechanics you were talking about are good for some players. What I mean is that you get a lot of enjoyment when you find a way to use the game in a way that looks like abuse of mechanics. Example: in old versions of Darkest Dungeon there were a lot of complaints about Cove being the hardest region, but when I found a party/trinket composition that could get out of there without any wounds/stress, I was so happy! And yes, the strategy optimized fun out, but for some time it replaced the fun from the game with the fun of "I am so cool and clever, i am so good at the game, ye!". Also, such exploits allow players to avoid parts of the game they don't want to interact with - like in DD (again, sorry) you get your blueprint, build bank, make 6+ runs with antiquarian and don't need to care about money forever - reducing tension and fun, but simultaneously reducing grinding.
Sorry if ideas I wrote were expressed somewhere in the comments, and the post is not very original.
"DOOM's glory kill system, which seems to come up all the time in these videos"
Honestly that just goes to show how genius that system is. Man, DOOM's a pretty good game, huh
Quality content, this is better that any videogame TV show I've ever watched, keep it up pal!
One example that hits very close to home for me is the Magnum from Half-Life 2. It was one of my favorite weapons in the game, but you can only carry 18 bullets, so I'd hesitate to use it. The irony is that if you're willing to just start using those few bullets, you get to use the gun more...not only because you're _actually using it_ but because you don't come across a box of 6 more bullets that you can't pick up because your very limited inventory is still full.
But I might need those x99 Ethers for the final boss of the game!
However, when optimizing fun at the moment, you risk not having as much fun later on in a game.
Hey I really appreciate this video. It actually made me re-evaluate life in general and not just the way I play games. I realize now that I've sacrificed fun (not going on trips with friends or spending money on experiences I wanted) and started falling into routine for the sake of efficiency. Thanks for the wake up call! Wish you the best :)
The only RPG series I always used that one rare item which is not sold in shops is MegaTen (Persona, SMT, ect.).
Because once you get cornered and realize that you haven't saved for hours so you will do anything for some random demon not to wipe your party.
“Given the chance, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”
Meanwhile, there exist;
>Players to whom optimization *is* fun.
>Players who genuinely don’t care whether something is optimal or not
>Players who play in odd, nonsensical ways because it makes sense and seems optimal to them
It's more of a guideline, really
The exception, not the rule.
@@nin2494 I'unno, that's like saying the color wheel is the exception of the color red.
oh yes, i'm the third case, without the making sense part. I JUST WANNA SEE IF I CAN CLIMB THAT SMALL PIECE OF EDGE, OKAY?
There’s also people who play non optimally on purpose to challenge themselves.
What about Factorio?
Where efficiency, is fun.
tbh Factorio has a bit of this, since the most efficient late game setup is logistic bots factories, but at the same time they take out all the fun optimization challenges that belt+train factories have
@@fluffy_tail4365 the same with satisfactory
Watching after months because i missed this one, great as always.
Your videos are always really smart, interesting and fun to watch. Thank you for this content!
I find that resource shortages usually push me toward optimizing my fun by just playing something else, because I actively dislike being led around by mechanics instead of just doing what I actually want in the game.
So I guess in the end, the biggest resource shortage a lot of games engineer is.. my ability to have fun playing them... or at the very least the duration I can have fun playing them.
On the other hand, I usually have a pretty good time when I'm cheating and/or hacking the fuck out of the game. I only play single player games, so don't bother at'ing me.
"Efficiency will always be at odds with fun"
My buddy who farms Roomscape purely for fun would like to have a word with you
Good video though! So glad you have hit the 125k mark
Yeah I don't think he was clear by what he means by "fun"
Needing to decide which thing to do in the limited time you have in Outer Wilds really reminds me of Eggoria, a really nice town building game that forces you to live a nomadic life which, how well it works came as a surprise to me since having to abandon all the stuff you've built in a typical building game after a while sounded like the opposite of what you'd want but since there are several things that do carry over from camp to camp means that it works really well thanks to making you decide what exactly is it that you want to focus on and not waste time building structures you won't really need ie. this time I'm going to make a smith and tools for everyone so that I won't have to do so for a while and then at the next camp I'll just grab some resources that I'll need to research a thing and then hopefully leave quickly enough that I can get more than 1 harvest out of a farm at the next camp.
Dang, first five is pretty cool! Thanks for the recommendation!
Does it seem like this video is Adam secretly showing his hate towards children?
If they can't work in the coal mines then I don't care about them
I'm doing an internship in a game company that makes games for kids. Its great fun, but you cant really do anything too complicated for that audience, so discussing deeper game design challenges will mostly exclude kid players.
"Efficiency and fun will always be at odds"
Speedrunners have left the chat.
No but seriously, great video. Using time at the ultimate resources was a brilliant design choice for exactly the reason you stated. It forces you to take risks because you know you're going to die anyway. You don't lose anything by trying something crazy.
Another great video. I remember playing Grimrock through the first time, never using the one-shot items. But I had fun anyway. Never felt that I need to use them, never felt bad not using them. If I someday visit the game I might use them as now I know roughly how many I get and that I won't screw my playthrough over.
I wish topics like this came up more often with great explanations like yours! All too many people believe that they will always inherently play games in the way that is most fun for them and that changes in difficulty, resource availability, and other factors that might initially go against what the player thinks they want (who wouldn't say no to more ammo in a RE game?) makes for a more enjoyable experience.
Outer wilds is surprisingly similar to tokitori 2 in the way you unlock new areas thanks to the knowledge you get along the way. It almost has the resemblence of a metroidvania structure
Not really for the metroidvania style, as metroidvania games tend to limit where you can go via paths that take a certain ability, where outer wilds limits you on where you can go with your own knowledge of the game.
Just finished metro:exodus with 600+ of both resources and almost maxed on every ammo because i was afraid i would run out...when the end credits rolled I felt cheated ;-;
Brilliant video that puts into words what I've been thinking about for a while. It makes perfect sense to me now, that games are fun first and not work to be done.
That transition at 8:22 is pure editing sex. I didn't even realize it was the cockpit screen at first! Brilliant!
The problem is that, yes the player can avoid some things to maximize their fun, but for that they need knowledge of the game systems, or at least the genre.
For exemple in rpg you usually don't know where the sweet spot for leveling is. Are you failing because you suck and should improve your strategy, or are you failing because you aren't supposed to be at such a low lvl? Should you be fleeing random battle to not get too much xp, or will fighting every random battle is the intented way to play for perfect balance? That's things you can't know in advance, and it's even harder to get a feel of that kind of things if you are new to rpgs.
Same with ressource management. The exemple of resident evil is perfect because of the game giving you ressources when you are struggling. I played RE 7 being way too cautious with ressource management because I wasn't finding a lot of stuff laying around, and the reason I wasn't finding stuff laying around was that I was overcautious with my ressources. This led me to almost never use the high tier weapons despite them being very fun to use. In that case, the game trying to adjust the balance to the way I was playing actually adjusted the way I was playing in return and made it less fun.
A lot of people have fought me on the idea that RPGs need to be VERY vocal with their leveling expectations. Show level numbers for all enemies, and give specific (albeit annoying) warnings the first few times the player takes on enemies that go higher than your level. This is especially important when the battle system is anything more than "Take turns attacking each other" - as players tend to lean towards an active, in-the-moment "what did I do wrong", rather than something more cohesive like "Am I ready for this battle."
It doesn't help that, while swinging a sword or setting fire to things are real-world actions players can relate to and make sense of with scant tutorials, the idea of a multicolored small rat that is vastly stronger than a room-sized brown enemy on another continent is not one that's so easy for our minds to digest.
On the topic of resources, this is often a reason that devs should be a little bit more generous than they think they should with resources - so that players can be given room to fail and experiment with them. This may mean that speedrunners will have a few more than they need, but that's not a terrible issue.
Maybe RPGs should just remove HP and damage scaling from leveling up, huh. Does anyone really think it makes sense that level 10 character is like 10 times stronger than level 1? Level difference can be even worse than that, like in Borderlands, where you cannot do anything to an enemy 5 levels above you.
Levels should only give minor improvements to stats and major improvements to abilities. You should be stronger not because your stats multiplied, but because you have new tools and gear.
But what if I run out of health?
nvm
Jokes aside. I love games that make health a resource. Such as magic spells that consume health, but are more powerful (because mana is generally a resource that replenishes itself, whereas health isn't)
I'm glad you came to the same conclusion I would have when you started describing that sequence. "I could wait around here, and yes that would ensure I don't miss it, but then I'm just going to be wasting like half a bloody hour doing absolutely nothing in the game. At that point, why even be playing the game? It doesn't take tooooo long to get back, I'll just rush back there as soon as I can instead of twiddling my thumbs. And if I miss it? Oh well, there's still plenty of other stuff to do while I wait to try again."
Efficiency and fun are always at odds, so why not be efficient with my fun?
I like doing similar in games like Minecraft when modded. A lot of people just plop down a quarry and have ores for days, but aside from hating the scar they leave on the earth, I just don't like big mineshafts in general. I think it's more fun to look into the mods your pack has and discover as many ways to get as many resources as possible entirely renewably, especially self-sustaining. And if you can make that method flashy and fun to watch work, even better, even if it's less efficient.
Also representative of something something let's be kind to the world we live on idk.
Complete automation is the endgame goal of modded Minecraft, that's the point when you say "cool, I beat the game" because you will never need to do anything ever again. But often in these modpacks you just have to do nothing but wait until your farms bring you enough resources to craft something spectacular.
You probably wouldn't like games like ARK where often you need to spend dozens of real life hours to raise a creature, ahah. At least this game could be tweaked to make it suit your perception of fun.
Thanks alot for listing the games you talked about, alot of them sounded interesting and i hadn't heard of them. :)
ohh yes frostpunk. heatzones the game
No matter how you play dwarf fortress it always ends up being a lot of FUN
Can confirm
Seeing him use thrusters for that long in dark bramble. Sobbing.
The video is on point as always. Thanks for the great content🤙🏻
"efficiency and fun will always be at odds"
adam has clearly never played satisfactory, factorio, minecraft....
I like how you included Minecraft. A reference to scicraft?
Turns out I find Skyrim more fun if I just use the scrolls.
Great to see descenders mentioned! I'm in love with that game, I've put in easily 4 times as many hours as i have on any other game i've played in years.
Well, it's a good thing they fixed the one problem you had by introducing the campfire update.
How exactly is being able to explore an interesting world without the threat of an unrealistic food and water mechanic, "less fun"?
"isn't the best way to play one that optimizes fun?"
Well... Not if having fun means I have to endure losing which is less fun. I love your videos, but suggesting that the burden of having fun is on the player and not the author of the product we purchased to have fun is.... It's fine. It's a good suggestion, but let's not dismiss it as the solution.
But, if having fun causes losing which is not fun, than having fun is not fun, so it's not fun....
Losing being fun is entirely dependent on how the game makes you feel about it. Did it feel like your fault? Or does the game feel like it's at fault when you lose? Depending on either of those questions, losing may either be fun or unfun.
It's complicated, because things get focused on preventing frustration, which is important but not actively fun
@@physical_insanity Darksouls, you don't lose from your fault. You lose because you literally had no clue what the boss could or couldn't do.
It has people who love it and hate it because of this, the "overcoming" a challenge or not really a challenge at first. It is like a rhythm game that didn't tell you the controls that change each song. It is entirely subjective.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 I'm going to be brutally honest, and please don't take this personally, but what you said sounds dumb. Failure in Dark Souls IS the fault of the player. If you lose in Dark Souls, it's likely because you're shit at the game, not because of something in the game stacked against you. If it wasn't the player's fault for failing, the whole "git gud," meme wouldn't exist. What you described isn't even exclusive to Dark Souls, that's a feature of literally every boss fight in gaming (or most, at least). Even if you don't know what a boss does, regardless of game, you will soon and that knowledge is mandatory to get in most cases.
Everything in gameplay is contingent on one's own ability to strategize and implement the correct button input at the right time or else you're fucked, and is never the game's fault because you're a complete greenhorn
at it. If you keep getting one-shotted, then maybe it's time for you to learn how to time the attacks and how to dodge. It's a matter of skill, not RNG, meaning it is a player's fault for losing.
The like/dislike of Dark Souls comes from people's preferences on whether they like to succeed through harsh challenges and overbearing odds or not, not because they want to play games that are rigged against them.
I've played Dark Souls, it's not easy, but it certainly isn't the game's fault that I lost. Every time I died was because I screwed up somehow, either because of a lack of skill or just genuinely screwing up. It was always my fault (except a couple times) and while I finished it, I won't deny that it got frustrating at times, but like how it is in Monster Hunter, once you get into an enemy's rhythm, it becomes easier to accomplish.
A great execution of the Fun:Efficiency ratio that I've found was in Dead Cells, where there is a safe option of going slow and checking the whole level for every resource but there is an incentive which comes in the form of timed doors where if you get there fast enough there is a big cache of resources for you to plunder which pushes the player to go for the more exciting frantic action speed running playstyle.
That outer wilds puzzle you mentioned is the one point I gave up and consulted a guide, I don't know that I would have ever figured it out otherwise.
Being efficient is fun for me. Being stressed out because of lack of resources is not.
I know that feeling! Sometimes I wonder if a lot of us resource-hoarding gamers have some sort of clinical problem like anxiety.
I watched the whole video waiting for outer worlds and then you said outer wilds
I mean it does say wilds in the title
"efficiency and fun, will always be at odds"
Factorio would like to know your location
In games where resource use is the core mechanic, the fun is in optimising. I spent many hours on Oxygen not Included fine-tuning my life support and industrial systems to operate on as little power and labor as possible.
I love the analysis of resource management, and I'm hoping you have or are planning to do a video on loot systems in games.
Did my guy just say dark souls would just waste some SECONDS of time..... try days lmao
"efficiency and fun will always be at odds"
Ever played Factorio? 🤔 😏
Ever played any puzzle game?
Wow! I didn't know this game was updated. I played the beta like 5 or 6 years ago. Glad to see it was finished.
Factorio is a game with wonderful resource development! great vid btw!