As a 40yr old developer of a FOSS RTS game (not released yet), I generally aim at games taking from 20 - 30 minutes. This is because I usually have only about 1 or 2 hours to play games with the bois after work. Additionally, I am usually extremely tired, so I try to implement a lot of QOL features that make the game less arduous to play.
Recently a popular RTS game that uses the same engine as mine has had a lot of sweats complaining about widgets (Long story, but they are unsynced bits of lua code that can extend things. They have limited access to the synced state, but are still pretty powerful). Basically people complaining about a specific widget that will make your units try to stay at max range when in a fight. While this sounds pretty useful, in the case of players who are relatively decent with rts gameplay, it’s more of an irritation to deal with than anything else.
But as a developer of this type of game, I have a vested interest in making players who aren’t as good be able to compete with players like myself who are really good. If that means some (very) rudimentary AI will try to make your units behave somewhat intelligently when you aren’t paying attention, I’m totally down for that. I find that as I get older, even though I am extremely experienced and good in rts games, I appreciate such tools existing for the players who simply aren’t that great. I don’t get my dopamine hits from steamrolling another player, I get my hits from good fights and satisfying battles. A lot of people I talk to make me feel like an outlier, but I know good and goddamn well that there are a lot of lesser skilled players that just wouldn’t bother with speaking up.
I have a very large problem with games that don’t respect my time. Elite Dangerous is a perfect example. I avoided it for a very long time because people went on and on about how hard it was to fly. Turns out, anyone who played descent 1 and descent 2 (And now Overload on steam (seriously, buy this shit, it’s modern descent built by the original devs and it’s amazing)) can fly the crafts with ease. The space combat is pretty shit tier. However, it’s gorgeous, and super cool, BUT, the developers refuse to implement any sort of fast travel. The sheer amount of time that it takes to get anywhere is mind boggling. I would spent 6 hours flying on a day off, and still not manage to really get anything done. This is the perfect example of a game that does not respect my time. I HATE games like this. I try to understand that time literally is money. That isn’t only a cliche. As you get older, you realize that time is a resource, and as you get older, you find that you have so little free time, that any time lost can be a really heavy blow.
So I spent some time thinking about this. Imma send you a like to a vod of me playing against one of the other devs (he does all of the balance design) instead of linking it directly. It isn’t done yet. It is fully playable, and on our discord there are some download codes for people to use if they want to play test with us.
We have a lot of good discussion on our discord and generally our dev chat stays open for all to read. A modicum of googling will find the GitHub and horrendously out of date wiki + discord and probably even our itch.io listing
This is sea of thieves for me. I had a friend who was obsessed with it, but you’re basically required to dump multiple hours in to complete anything and even then … You could get your ship sunk and lose it all. It’s incredibly frustrating.
This is how gaming dies. Easy mode should be forbitten as default and game should be always at hardest diffuculty and focus on challenging content and not grind. Hard challenges keep everyone busy, dosnt matter if you have infinite free time if you suck gaming. That should be the direction of a real game and not this no sense cringe “don’t have time to farm, here pay 80$ for your season-extraExp-bigEzRewards”. Fucking ridicoulus. Fucking Devs should actually rewarding the player who spend little time that the fucking no life grinder. Damn make % base drop chance -10% chance of legendary loot for each hour of the day log inside the game and gg.
I've googled and couldn't find this anywhere, and this user's comments are quite in line with what they've posted now, so I'd go for stupidity and gatekeeping over copypastaing
They will find the way to complain even for that. Cutscenes too long please nerf. What? I need to press button during the scene? Everything is screw in a big pretending because be a gamer is cool, goddamit.
Damn make % base drop chance -10% chance of legendary loot for each hour of the day log inside the game and gg.
Man, for someone who wants things to be “hard”, you really want to be rewarded for time spent, as opposed to skill. Hilariously, you’re the target audience for those $80 content skips: people who want to feel like they’re good, whether or not they’re actually good.
You’re out here talking about “no sense cringe” while posting nearly illegible drivel about how you feel entitled to success because you have more hours to kill. Step back, get some perspective. Most people have made their time valuable. It’s not on them if you’ve failed to do the same.
I think you missed the minus sign there and misread this, I will translate it: "The chance for rare loot to drop should be continuously reduced by 10% for every hour you log inside the game. I.e., you should receive rewards for completing difficult challenges rapidly, that is, skillfully." The implication seems to be that if the challenge is hard and you are not good at it, and are just throwing yourself at a wall repeatedly, or the challenge is non-existent/mindless (chore simulator), if you are repetitively doing either and grinding hours away, they are one and the same, and neither is a meritorious achievement. I think this is an interesting angle, as very few games reward skill expression or eureka moments as a momentous achievement. The vast majority, genre and budget irrespective, rely on the (easier to implement) crutch of locking progression behind pointless tedium, so given enough hours sunk in, everyone can win. It is interesting to think about how, whether, and under what conditions games could reward the above.
I actually agree with what you’re trying to say about microtransactions cheapening competitive games. It’s why I stopped playing competitive games altogether, but introducing proper casual modes for singleplayer or PvE co-op games for no additional cost to increase accessibility only helps increase the number of potential players. The existance of casual modes does not have any correlation with competitive games or takes away from another player’s time invested into the same game, and it will not cause the “death” of video games. The reason why people are disagreeing with you is because you’re blaming other players as the cause when it’s actually corporate greed with overinflated MTX and excessive season pass shit that’s truely killing the industry.
Corporation actually make their decision on how players approach the videogames, this greed is accept and even need it by exactly this kind of consideration about making game relativity easy. Competition isn’t the only enemy as mine opinion, it’s this approach to gaming that makes everyone want to win easy and fast because “it is fun” till the next game, because games dies in weeks, even days, after realise. The best game of this lastest years was Elder ring, not an easy game but still love by all. People are hypocrites who cries about having bad games and when you ask them what they want you realize that actually they wanna the bad garbage they deserve. I’m sure what a good game needs for be fun, and its the challenge, something we will never find by keep accepting trash or telling others to be gate keeping of stuff, that mean never understand what actually a gate is, looking for quality dies on this and always will.
I feel like a time wizard because I’m like 40, date several people, have a full time job, and still play games and read books. Where is everyone else’s time going??
It’s the kids. Kids take a lot of time. Most folks our age with kids don’t have any time to themselves until it’s 9/10 at night, then still have chores & work the next day.
Plus pets, home/vehicle ownership, commute times, etc… Lots of things that some people have/choose to commit a significant amount of time. Sometimes it’s also not about the total time commitment, but the windows of time available. Things like kids/pets can make it difficult for games that assume you’re actually going to be continuously attentive over 20+ minutes at a time when you can be interrupted by breaking up a fight with the pets, having to let the new puppy outside regularly, hearing the cat about to hack up a hairball, cleaning up the ice cream the kid just dropped, etc…
I only realized it was satire after I opened the thread and saw it was HardDrive, not only did it feel something a game would do (probably a New Blood game) but I was also genuinely stoked
Play a lot of jrpgs, I understand that too well. My playthrough of persona 5 has been going since the beginning of this year and I’m hardly halfway through the story
Dear god. I burned out around your age with a similar work schedule. Less commute but more work hours. Took me years to recover.
If your situation allows, please find yourself a better work and commute setup. Your boss isn’t going to care that you’re dying inside, especially when they’ve grown accustomed to everything you get done running yourself ragged. If you can, start doing less at work so you have energy to search for other jobs.
In some workplaces, it’s actually better to let things slip so your boss can push for more manpower.
My situation is lucky not the worst. I am currently going to a technical school for medical work. And when I actually am at the place I work in it’s hardly “working” much at all, a good number of days I literally can watch an movie between cases.
Honestly most of the feeling dead is the commute, which unfortunately I don’t have many options for, can’t drive plus no other job I find offers nearly as much as I make (coupled with the fact that this quite literally the only job of its kind in the area).
I also get along very well with my team (literally no drama) and management is pretty nonexistent and we all take a firm stand when they do.
Main reason games like Deathloop, Outer Wilds, Gunfire Reborn, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, etc. got their hooks in me so deep - something I can sit down, fire up to play solo (it’s tough as hell to get friends together to squad in games when all your friends are also 35 and busy), knock out a 30min - 2hr play session, and put down without feeling like I’m in the middle of something.
Love how many games there are these days who play like this. Seems like rogue-lites do it best, but it’s nice to see other genres making it work, too.
I’ve been meaning to try it out, it’s on GamePass, but I worry that it’s the kind of game that takes a lot of brainpower to “solve” while also requiring a lot of skill. I can do one or the other but both at once stresses me out! lol
Deathloop is great, I got it right around release and played through it over the course of a few weeks.
It doesn’t take brainpower to solve. There’s a whole time loop puzzle but the most disappointing aspect of the game was that it’s a solved solution. The game spells out exactly what objectives to complete at which places and at what times. While you play through the game the first time you’re uncovering twists and clues as to how to solve the puzzle but instead of letting you deduce a solution the games builds out a step by step list of markers for you to follow.
It’s essentially the complete opposite of how The Outer Wilds, which has a similar time loop aspect with a puzzle to solve, handles it.
That being said, give Deathloop a shot because it’s still a fun shooter with neat mechanics that lean very close to immersive sim levels of freedom.
really like the implementation. I remember playing the Witcher 3 on easy mode just to be able to go through the story and enjoy the fantastic scenery. One of the best gaming experiences of my life. especially on an ultra wide monitor
yep, I just started playing the DLCs on story mode again. I beat the main game on regular some time back but now I just want to bask in the lushness of Toussaint without having to think too much about which buttons to press
I am also 55. And every time I get spanked in Destiny 2 pvp I am reminded that my reflexes are now shit, and my days of pvp glory in UT and CS are decades behind me. I’m officially a pve player now.
Yeah just started it solo, guess it’s more fun with friends. However I don’t have friends who play online in my timezone. I’ll try on the Discord channel.
Just completed my first solo mission. Took me 38 mins on easiest, and not completed secondary objectives, but got out there alive! Think it can be a lot of fun in groups, and read many good things about how friendly everyone is.
There’s only a handful of games that made me turn down from normal, but when I do it’s out of pure frustration and just wanting it to be over so I can play something else.
The end of the Control Foundation DLC comes to mind. There was a fight that was a red room, with red enemies, red health bars, and bullshit instadeath mechanics. Man, fuck that.
My friends’ 13 year daughter thought it was so weird I never encountered the Ender Dragon or any real enemies in Minecraft. I never play on anything harder than peaceful. Because after working all day, I just want to explore a randomly generated world and create stuff sometimes.
I had more or less gotten over the game when the ender dragon was added. It was too grindy and slow and I felt like I could never get far enough to even approach the end. Then I joined a server where they had a bunch of infrastructure already set up. Suddenly I had access to enchantments and elytra and the game became super accessible, and I discovered just how much faster and more fun the game is now with all the incremental improvements. It’s given me something to play with my kids.
Lol, i never did as well and i play normal, but because i just don’t have the patient to go that far. Gods know how many time i’ve create a new world now, same for terraria but at least i made it to plantera.
I hate how playing in peaceful locks you out of crafting a bunch of very useful items. Since bone chips and slime balls only come from monsters, I can’t make my plants grow big and pretty with bone meal or make a lead rope for my horse. I’m sure there are other examples, but those are the two I care about the most, lol.
This is partly why I also play on Creative, usually. But yeah, would like to have the Survival - Peaceful playthrough and still get everything craftable too.
Granted, you can find some of this stuff in chests and randomly throughout the world while playing Survival - Peaceful, which is kind of part of the fun for me when exploring dungeons and villages and the spawning mansions.
I don’t think it’s the difficulty of games that makes them take so long for me. Just that everything is so bloated now. There’s so much to do, but so little of it actually adds to the experience.
I appreciate that a lot of games have realised this and let you differentiate between “go this way to see the end of the game” and “here is some bullshit if you’re not getting another game until Christmas”.
Like sure, I could deliver every parcel in Death Stranding, and really get into the class fantasy of being a post apocalyptic Deliveroo driver, but I’m just mainlining the story quests at this point. Which is taking long enough on its own.
hard-drive.net
Aktywne