Re boghog's
" https://cohost.org/boghog/post/5269002-the-opportunity-cost"
[AB]
although our positions differ i really appreciate this lens you bring to scoring vs speeding, i had never quite thought about it in these terms before.
im not sure if you will find my perspective interesting or useful, but i will share my thoughts as a dev who avoids playing and making high score games:
i am generally most interested in presenting and being presented with curated experiences, ones where the player seeks out such experiences themselves but where there is a kind of "release" that i have not much encountered in high scoring games.
the physical sensation of an additive system, . . .
But then i decided not to send that yet, preferring to spend a little more time working my ideas, [AB]-ing the little seed of a thought. I discovered some more related writing by boghog, of course those articles (posts) linked inside the linked post, but also this: don't trust speedrunners (https://cohost.org/boghog/post/4818329-don-t-trust-speedrun)
Quote. . . a more coherent, enjoyable learning curve where the skills you learn transfer to all levels of play, instead of a bunch of stuff getting undermined/emphasized haphazardly . . .
- boghog expressing a specific design value (https://cohost.org/boghog/post/4976732-the-opportunity-cost#comment-9379b47e-a328-431f-a2ad-3b6ffde69866), in a sense that is a little too reactive for me; it's clear he has a particular chip on his shoulder that he's reacting to, whether that be a specific game or a current trend
Speaking of
reactive responses...
Quotescoring fell to the wayside because of devs borrowing the systems without thinking . . . Nowadays there's no excuse really, anti infinite mechanics are trivial to implement and devs have access to hundreds of games with well made scoring. Theres nothing stopping them besides themselves
- another bh comment (https://cohost.org/boghog/post/5269002-the-opportunity-cost#comment-7bdff4bd-9fe1-4689-a8e6-2526100952b6)
There's some condescension woven into this line of thinking; scoring systems that i don't like are bad, devs are the problem, there's no excuse for them not making the things that i like the way i like them.
[AB]
Additive versus subtractive.
Quote. . . speed play is subtractive, the goal will always be to reduce the amount of engagement with a game's elements like levels, enemies, and so on. . . . there's a [possibility] that players will optimize their way into not engaging with the game at all.
. . .
Scoring is the only way to reward engaging with the game as much as possible.
- boghog, selected excerpts from main copost (https://cohost.org/boghog/post/5269002-the-opportunity-cost)
Boghog's perspective is very clear: he prefers to engage with systems in great depth.
And yet what catches my eye is the illumination of what interests me by contrast... this contrast is what i would like to understand.
[AB].