Points as Additive; “The Opportunity Cost”

[droqen]

Re boghog's
" https://cohost.org/boghog/post/5269002-the-opportunity-cost"

[AB]

[droqen]

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, . . .

[droqen]

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

[droqen]

. . . 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, 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

[droqen]

Speaking of reactive responses...

scoring 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

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.

[droqen]

[AB]

[droqen]

Additive versus subtractive.

. . . 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

[droqen]

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].