Playing for score sucks

[power UP]

Quality rebuttals as always.

[BIL]

icy would agree. edit: and that's quite a quality post there, power UP. I would expect no less.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Another shitty thread for a deranged sociopath to inflate his ego even more. You all should be aware that he actively keeps track of threads all over the internet wherever his name is mentioned, with special attention to this forum. Giving him the attention he craves only exacerbates his mental condition. I will try not to post in this thread again.

Blame me , I namedropped him an cuple of days back in the whats the best religion thread. I just c him as a intresting character and used to enjoy reading some of his gaming articles (even if I didn't agree with all his viewpoints) before his articles became too inflated with BS rather than getting 2 the fucking point.

He seems to h8 bad speling and grammer, which suites me just fine

[moozooh]

He seems to hate bad spelling? He misspells all the damn time.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

He seems to hate bad spelling? He misspells all the damn time.

Lol Well i'm guessing he does with all the ppl he has banned on his forum for it

[DMC]

These so-called "scoring mechanics", therefore, these "traces" of what happened in the game – and this will be very difficult for many people to grasp, especially the poor deluded "scorers" – are ultimately all of them bad mechanics. For if the aim of the main mechanics is to increase pleasure, which is to say in-game pleasure, the aim of the "scoring" mechanics is to increase out-of-game pleasure, by serving as mechanics in the real game the aspies are playing: the "king of the scoreboard" game. These scoring mechanics are therefore systematically siphoning off pleasure from inside the gameworld and redirecting it outside, thereby resulting, in all cases and with no exceptions, in worse games.

Okay, assuming the validity of this in-game/out-of-game distinction. Why is out-of-game pleasure worse?

About the "king of the scoreboard-talk": Let's take an example, say Garegga. The scoreboards here give me some sense of how far I can push it, difficulty-wise. So if I pick it up again, I know that clearing the game with the survival strats I used before will do it, but that more can be done if I really want to master the game. So then I push the challenge further, by doing more advanced tricks early in the game. Doing those advanced tricks makes the game more challenging ofc, which means more pleasure for me. And although I may have some top scores from the boards in mind when I play (is that out-of-game pleasure for you?), the excitement happens during the actual play, when I play at the edge of my ability, not when I submit the actual numbers on the boards.

[Obscura]

WTF, how is scoring only an "outside of the game" pleasure? Maybe in Dangun Feveron (where you can't see your score in-game), but in any other Cave game, it's right on the upper-left corner of the screen, there for you to look at whenever you want. I doubt that many people have never noticed their score during a quiet moment while playing.

Plus, even if you don't see the exact score, in the Pachis, there's that huge-ass hit counter right in your face constantly. Kinda hard not to notice that.

[Lance Boyle]

Maybe in Dangun Feveron (where you can't see your score in-game),

Wrong. The stage score is visible on-screen, just not the total score (which is visible between stages). Which suits the game well, I'd say.

[DMC]

Yes, I think many players keep track of their scores during the game, to learn about their progress and for the excitement of having something proper going on.

You start to look up at the score you have while playing and think something like "this is quite good for a stage 2 score" and then your adrenaline increases, your concentration increases. And then, if you pull out some advanced trick at, say, stage 3, you get even more absorbed in the game, hands get a bit sweaty, and your mind is very active on what is ahead. So quite early on, it's very capturing. There is little room for mind-wandering, evryday worries are out of the way, because right then all that matters is doing well on the challenge. It is a nice feeling imo.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I generally see score as something to play for when a game becomes easy. Even if i'm concentrating on a 1CC I can play for score in the earlier stages, even if I havn't spent the time to work out the best scoring routes I can atleast have fun with it.

Still I have to be carefull with how much risk I do put into chasing score. As I tend to lose a life in a early stage so it does get in the way of getting a 1CC. But playing early stages when I praticing full runs is boring I'ld rather have a little extra risk. I suppose getting the correct ballance for risk - fun is the key, something im not that good at.

You start to look up at the score you have while playing and think something like "this is quite good for a stage 2 score" and then your adrenaline increases, your concentration increases. And then, if you pull out some advanced trick at, say, stage 3, you get even more absorbed in the game, hands get a bit sweaty, and your mind is very active on what is ahead. So quite early on, it's very capturing. There is little room for mind-wandering, evryday worries are out of the way, because right then all that matters is doing well on the challenge. It is a nice feeling imo.

I tend to get this feeling only for 1CC play or scoreplay, whichever myprimary focus is, but never both, shame it would make playing earlier stages more of a pleasure

[BIL]

the excitement happens during the actual play, when I play at the edge of my ability, not when I submit the actual numbers on the boards.

Impossible, you're saying you actually enjoy playing games skillfully as an activity in itself? I thought I was the only one!

Next you'll be telling us you can enjoy playing games skillfully even when a no-miss, speed run, one-weapon run or any other challenging run results in a lower number at the top of the screen. And even if you don't tell anyone about it, ever. Again, this is shocking stuff - stop the presses. I thought everyone else was jerking off to the "post" button in various gaming score forums.

[dunpeal2064]

My brain

[moozooh]

And even if you don't tell anyone about it, ever. Again, this is shocking stuff - stop the presses. I thought everyone else was jerking off to the "post" button in various gaming score forums.

Quite telling that Icy is the one most eager to tell his opinion to as many people as possible, all the while flaunting his ego, and even write several-hundred-page-long books when others would seemingly be satisfied with a forum post...

[Randorama]

My thoughts.

I start from shmups, to make a concrete example. In most shmups, a score reflects the sum of actions that the player has performed successfully, according to the programmers' decisions on how to reward these actions.

For instance, in Garegga the score is ultimately a function of how many hits the player can land on enemies, and indirectly of how many items the player can trigger via these hits (power ups, medals).

Score increases when the player can combine these actions in a sequence of actions that does not lead to "game over" as a result, and that maximalimalize the score resources in a given amount of time.

In Stage 1, one gets the best score if does a certain sequences of tricks that do not result in a game over, and can be performed within the allotted time to clear the Stage.

So, the higher the score, the more the player knows the combinatorics that the basic mechanics of the game permit, with respect to a given level.

A score is an indirect way of self-monitoring the player's interaction with the game, on different temporal levels. A player knows that he is performing well if a quick look at the score will tell him that his stage 1 result is better than yesterday, or five minutes ago, or whatever.

Ideally, a zen-like player could never look at the score, but he can be perfectly aware that his performance squeezed out every single resource from a game.

If one has clear idea on how to destroy the final bosses of Border Down stage 6C, then the time count at which the bosses die matters; the amount of cancelling hits matter, too; etc. Several manifest aspects of the game tell the player that his performance is ideal or not.

The point is that score, or time, or extra bombs, or whatever the case one gets for performing well, are all values that represent indirectly the value of one's skills. In turn, these are a result of how much one is immersed in the game, when he plays.

Now, if people decide to share scores and brag about them, to the point of forgetting to enjoy the growth of skills in the first place, then this is a result of other factors, not the mechanics per se.

People like to brag in being good at something. Arcade companies have to sell games, so they allow(ed) people to bragging via a mechanic that primarily allows the player to monitor his performance.

One may argue that an extreme focus on scoring, ruins the important bit of a game: mastering a game, of which a high score is a reflection. One example is the "rat race" style of some hi-score competitions. I would not do that, as I think that such pattern emerges from the way players use score, not score itself.

Console games do not work in that way, examples being Another World and Super Metroid. They involve different goals: programmers used to attract players via the atmosphere, the experience, what have you. So, in those games one usually lacks a score as a representation system that tells you how optimal, not just successful, your actions are.

So, to recap, I'd say that a score, the digits on the left corner of the screen, is a certain sub-set of the game mechanics (Alex's "scoring system") that allows the player to see how good is faring. It can be used by other players for other purposes, but I'd "blame" the players for doing that, not the programmers.

By the way. Black Dragon has rank, based on the level of your weapon and armour, and the randomized enemies from treasure chests are selected from a finite set of possibilities. Sooner or later a player will have encountered all possible combinations of random enemies from treasure chests.

[Naut]

just play however the fuck you want

[Giest118]

just play however the fuck you want

I like how this is seven words long, and yet it debunks the entire fucking article.

[RNGmaster]

This article was clearly written by a man who tried scoring in Ketsui, couldn't climb past the bottom 5, and gave up because obviously the top scorers were clearly no-life, hypnotized sheeple. "I'm not the one who sucks, it's everyone else!"

That sentence about snowboarding is the closest to pure comedy I've seen in a few months, thanks.

[Vyxx]

just play however the fuck you want

Exactly. Thread over.

[Skykid]

Icycalm, remembered for four poorly written books investigating subject matter no one gives a fuck about.

[MrChiggins]

I found it interesting and worth reading up until the part where he went completely off the rails about cybersports vs. "real" physical sports. I didn't necessarily agree with everything he said up to that point but some of his observations were insightful and it was worded well enough.

Well I was clearly sleep-drunk when I read the article earlier because I'm downright embarrassed that I said it was worded well enough. *facepalm*
A precious few of his observations are still interesting though. So much bullshit to wade through. I'm not finishing it.

just play however the fuck you want

+1

[Skykid]

"...exemplified by Cave's shooters, and the modern STG genre in general (which is why I'll be focussing my analysis on them), and to a lesser extent trickling down to and infecting, unfortunately, also a number of other genres: difficulty.

Hey guys, 'difficulty' is a genre now, m'kay, a genre.
So please all look forward to the next game in the difficulty genre. Thanks.

[BIL]

I do get why you'd want a mechanically practical shooting game with lots of exhilarating setpieces, zinger. It's why I adore Strider Hiryuu, Sin & Punishment, Assault Suits Valken and Shinrei Jusatsushi Taroumaru. Mechanically natural action games stocked with spectacular scenes, success down to efficient counterattack and annihilation, the spectacle of authoritative play its own reward. So yeah, I'd be up for a new STG like that too.

But I don't have some Kraft durch Freude aversion to studying an STG's mechanics for no greater reward than more authoritative play, the same recreational satisfaction I got from learning to broil Spider Seemer's brain after the cafe firefight (a w e s o m e scene). And I certainly don't regard a quality action game as "done" after I've merely survived it and seen all its pretty pictures. So the article reads like Tim Rogers and Recap jacked off into a cup and dashed the result onto an IGN shooter review.

[Despatche]

at least the first post makes it clear this isn't a good thread

So the article reads like Tim Rogers and Recap jacked off into a cup and dashed the result onto an IGN shooter review.

i think someone's even said this before

anyway skittles

just play however the fuck you want

[Cagar]

Did this many people even reply to this thread? Unbelievable.
That super metroid quote is so fail in so many aspects that I almost puked.
Cmon guys..

[trap15]

I was wondering the same thing with my religion thread

[Gus]

Did this many people even reply to this thread? Unbelievable.
That super metroid quote is so fail in so many aspects that I almost puked.
Cmon guys..

Any mention of icycalm on here guarantees attention. Fact.

[Aliquantic]

Gus, you should take up the mantle and challenge Icycalm to a debate on the virtues of scoring! You may even enjoy it

[Drum]

By the way. Black Dragon has rank, based on the level of your weapon and armour, and the randomized enemies from treasure chests are selected from a finite set of possibilities. Sooner or later a player will have encountered all possible combinations of random enemies from treasure chests.

I did not expect to learn something from an icycalm thread. Interesting.

I'll say one thing: I think scoring systems that can be exploited by obsessive behaviour as well or better than thought and ability are poor scoring systems, and I don't think that's a terribly controversial opinion. I have no idea if this view aligns with icycalm because I'm sure as shit not reading that.

[100BilWarrior]

[100BilWarrior]

A great way to start teaching someone with Aspergers or Autism how to recognize their emotions is to create a scrapbook containing photographs

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-teach-someo ... 82854.html

I am pretty good with photoshop. I could turn icy's essay into a picture-book if that would help.