Speaking as a robot, what the fuck is this shit.
Hereās how art and games and all kinds of entertainment works: it makes your emotions change from one state to another.
If you judge something āwithout taking your own emotions into considerationā then how exactly are you judging it?
Are you only considering how you think it should change the emotions of other people?!?!?
Iām literally at a loss. How the hell does your brain work?
Just so you know, you are the weird one here. Iām pretty sure everyone else in the forum acknowledges their emotions and feelings are real to themselves, and have value.
That part I totally get. Like lets say we want to get a morale judgement. I can see how you arrive at several different culturally relative morale judgments. I can also see how you can arrive at different philosophical judgments based on different philosophical systems. And obviously further that a legal judgement is based on a different set of rules than all those other ones. I donāt have to consider in any way how I feel about something for all that.
So Scott is appealing to something external to his feelings. Iām not sure if that thing though is documented specifically outside of Scott-law though. I understand that in like king-making and orthogames and blah blah that ākingmaking badā in a certain competitive landscape, but in another competitive landscape itās literally the game in itself sometimes.
Like I grasp that mario party when you get to the end of the game and it just RNG starts handing out extra stars, I donāt really feel anything about that anymore, though I did at a time. Because Iām aware itās irrelevant now. You probably shouldnāt, in some sense, let yourself feel too much about stupid RNG at the end of the game. I donāt have a codex though that tells me that to appeal to.
I get all that, but in this case the entire thrust of my analysis of the game was āwhy does this make me feel this emotion?ā There just no response to this that can begin āfirst, you should work to not feel emotionsā or āfirst, letās not consider emotionsā.
Iām talking about emotions! They are real! And why do I feel this specific emotion after this one specific mini-game?
Because itās kinda bullshit.
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Right. Itās a different kind of bullshit from a random bit of fruit landing on your head and knocking you away from the finish line. When that randomness happens, itās a crazy moment and you laugh.
One source of randomness is inside the game engine, and another source is enough players on two teams randomly picking the third to lose. One feels like a true part of the game, and the other feels bullshit.
Fortnite got less play and was less popular when they made it slightly more fair and competitive. Those metrics returned to normal and then grew when they made it less fair/competitive, and more random.
I do think Fall Guys would die overnight if they implemented anything that gave players significant skill input beyond randomness and direct politics. Like it or not, politics is what most people are seeking in their games =( Especially in high-player-count games.
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Yeahā¦ pursuit of a more perfect ātheoreticalā game has backfired on a lot of developers in the past. You guys donāt particularly care for the game, but WoW has had tons of theoretical āfixesā to try to push the game to be more of an esport or to put everyone on a level playing fieldā¦ and itās just not the game for that. Could there be a game more in that genre that was still possibly an e-sport? I honestly still think itās possible. But not wow. Not the playerbase of that game. Not the people that are still at 15 years choosing to play that game.
This game could never be an esport. If there was any way to be reliably excellent at it, most players would be permanently driven away.
Spectation could be, at best, equivalent to a Game Show. They were also often lacking in significant skill input for a variety of reasons.
I donāt think thereās a huge politics element in Fall Guys. Itās only a factor in three of the seven team mini-games, and only totally broken in one. And thatās why it sticks out for me when that broken game pops up.
Three Team Modes
- Egg Scramble: Your teamās basket must have the most eggs. - Vote who loses. Thereās literally nothing the losing team can do except WAIT FOR 90 SECONDS until it is confirmed
- Rock āNā Roll: Push a giant ball through a hindered course. - starts as a straight race, with only a minor vote who loses factor at the end
- Hoopsey Daisy: Jump and dive through the hoops to get more points for your team in the given time. - no politics at all, everyone is just trying to dive through hoops
- Hoarders: Make sure that when the time runs out, the ball is in your teamās zone. - some vote who loses factor, but with much more randomness than Egg Scramble as itās played with highly bouncy balls*
The āpoliticsā of the other non-team mini-games is much more about āfollow the crowd and the doors will open for you and not othersā or āthe half of players on this side of the seesaw obstacle are more likely to fallā.
They tried to make world of warcraft an esport briefly back when I was in highschool. They had what is effectively 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 arena modes which, iirc was on espn2. It went about as well as you would expect. No spectator knew was was going on and any player who knew the game found it boring because the optimal way to play the game is boring.
The political aspect makes you feel that way because you are a nice person. Ruthlessly voting for another team to lose is enjoyed by sadists. The same part of human nature that enjoys trolling and griefing enjoys that game mechanic.
For most games and most developers, the design decisions that allow that behavior to proliferate were unintentional. These games usually employ external measures, like moderation and reporting, to curtail it.
In games like Fall Guys that behavior is explicitly permitted, and even condoned. You can tell from the game that they want to allow players to behave in this nasty way. Because itās not a serious competitive game the expectation is that there are no hard feelings. Players are free to explore and enjoy their darker tendencies in a lighthearted place where nobody is actually hurt. Just like how FPS games give people a place to explore and enjoy guns and murder even if they would never touch a gun or hurt a soul IRL.
Thereās a Japanese guy I watch on Twitch during lunch sometimes named ggseppuku. Iāve mentioned him before, he plays Mario Maker 2 on endless expert mode. He has beaten well over 33,000 levels in a row without game over. And most of the time when he dies, even if itās to a very poorly designed bullshit level, he laughs. When most people would throw the controller in anger, he laughs, skips the level and moves on. Heās obviously good at platforming, but Iāve seen plenty of speedrunners with more skills. Itās not his skill, but his attitude that has allowed him to carry on and complete so many levels. I know I would be throwing the controller well before 1000 levels, so I really admire his approach. Itās exactly the kind of person you need to be to get full enjoyment out of a game like Fall Guys if you donāt enjoy participating in the mean spirited behavior.
If you canāt bring yourself to not care about winning and losing, or if you donāt enjoy being the greifer who is mean to others, then games like Fall Guys are not going to be a good time.
The optimal way to play almost all games is boring. Powerful winning strategies are also safe, consistent and reliable, and therefore usually unexciting. Excitement comes from high risk high reward plays, but those are only wisely employed by players or teams when they are behind and need to catch up.
And see thatās basically what happened. At high levels of pvp at the era when this occurred (the first expansion, the burning crusade) These types of matches were, at a high enough level, effectively rock paper scissors.
So like, I think it came down to one team guessed the other team was gonna use the class that uses poisons, and picked the class that counters poisons. That was what decided the televised wow.
Good job thatās not me then. Iām having a blast at this game.
Well done for continually missing the point.
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The balance of skill and randomness in Fall Guys is pretty genius. Itās a simple formula of āi lost and it was randomā plus āI won and that took skillā.
And it really feels like that. Anyone can play and not worry about being eliminated, but it takes quite a bit of knowledge and strategy and platforming skill to actually win. The chances are that the players in the final mini-game have high levels of competence, and while you can make it there on chance alone, youāre going to have to use skill to swing it your way to grab the crown.
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I guess, my point being that in the 3 player fall guy games, thereās currently no incentive to get in first instead of second(only to raise the margin above the 3rd place player), so thereās no incentive to win instead of just get second. Thereās hypothetically ways to effect this(like, 3rd player should attack player 2 and not hinder first player from getting points, or other such group strategies). Giving players incentives to go for first would encourage taking eggs from first player rather then continuing to swarm the 3rd place player, which would give some relief and possibly some ability to rebound.
Generally speaking, I think thereās a lot of other ways to combat āvote who winsā. Such as engraning players in a narrative/way of thinking(it may be vote who wins, but itās now based on thematic feelings rather then you as a person, so it dampens the bad feels). Uncertainty, either from lack of game knowledge(a lot of scott/rymās talk mentions play at the highest level, but things can often play differently before that point), or from uncertainty about game state(sure you can make probabilistic goals/guesses, but oftentimes outside of the highest level of play itās better to focus on your own heuristics rather then trying to machiavelli your way to victory).
Thatās a lot like how Iād characterize the PAX Omegathon. The first several rounds are more random than skill based, and your goal is mostly just not to be eliminated. Only the final round or two are really tests of any serious skill. Everything before that is just having enough basic competence to get enough lottery tickets to have a shot at playing the real game at the end.
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In the post the ball race three team mini-game, there is that clear incentive for coming first. As soon as the first ball crosses the line, that team disappears from the game and then canāt be eliminated. Itās then a straight race/battle for the remaining two teams.
So of course, the most likely way to victory is to concentrate on coming first, not making sure you arenāt last.
My proposal for the Egg Scramble mini-game is to have that same kind of first place elimination.
One minute on the clock, and the team in first place qualifies and is then removed from the arena. From there is another 30 seconds of direct competition to not be the last placed teams.
This would put the incentive in from the start, not only to steal from the last place team but also from the second place team, to make sure youāre at least one egg ahead.
And it would give the last place team a specific goal: not lag too far behind the second place team, so in the final 30 seconds they will have time to catch up.
I was in a game of Fall Guys with a cheater. I got to the final round, but of course didnāt win because the cheater stole the tail and then flew into the air and was never seen again.
However, I seem to have been awarded an extra win count crown. Iāve only won two full games myself, but now have three wins recorded.
So I think that if a cheater is found, everyone in the final round with them is given a free win. Which is kinda nice, but also waters down what the win crowns mean.