Are they the best players? Or merely the ones who pay more subscription time because they like to do it hard mode and that takes more time? I think Game companies have a vested interest in rewarding those hard core mode players by selling the myth that they are better. But better at what? pushing buttons and managing resources? I don't think most people care about those things. I supposed it's a point of view thing but it's definitely not the popular way to do anything I know of.
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Level Up (A5E) You don't hate exploration, you hate survival
- Thread starter PJ Coffey
- Start date
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
An awful lot of people play survival video games, where food/water keep you from not dying. They seem to be having fun.
Your claims that it is exhausting and not fun, and that we're all trying avoid real life stuff and survival's too close to it, are personal and subjective. No more than that.
an awf
the statement an awful lot is personal and subjective. give me some numbers of survival games vs MMO's, RPG's and first person shooters then it'll mean something.
Timespike
A5E Designer and third-party publisher
I think basically you've established that you're not part of the target audience for this, but I will also say that the size of that audience is definitely not zero; my entire Saturday gaming group is people north of 40 years old with busy schedules. We manage to get the scheduling for gaming to work for about 2-3 hours every 6 weeks or so.
So advice for streamlining things and trimming minutia? Handy to me. If it's not handy to you and your group, that is also valid; I know a lot of people really like the gritty resource management game, and I don't think those people aren't having fun. Heck, that's a huge part of the wildly popular West Marches style of play.
However, I think this blog post is mostly to give people who don't enjoy that sort of play permission to do something else. It can be easy for a lot of gamers to get tunnel vision and assume that because there's a rule for something, they must use it or they've somehow done something bad or transgressive. Now, at least a hefty plurality of game designers will tell you this is hogwash; by way of example, I ban some of the stuff I have personally written such as the Monster destiny from MoAR in my games. But it's a perception that has been around (and in the online discourse in one form or another) for the entire time I've been involved in the TTRPG hobby. Or perhaps they've been wanting to streamline things but wouldn't mind some guidance as to how to go about that because they haven't yet blocked out some time to ponder the problem. Those folks are, I think, PJ's intended audience for this blog post.
I should also note that the tone of the blog post seems deliberately affable and playful and acknowledges in spots that it's directed at a specific set of preferences; I don't think PJ needs to be treated like they're claiming to have the word on stone tablets from the gods of gaming for this one. Are the observations that form the thesis of this post personal and subjective as you say? Yes. Does that mean they're worthless? No.
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W'rkncacnter
Hero
i mean, just in terms of skill level...yeah, probably. they're who hard modes are for.
dayz peaked at 73,336 concurrent players on steam and 56,749 currently playing. sons of the forest peaked at 411,804 players, and currently has 36,480 playing. don't starve peaked at 114,109 players and currently has 18,196 playing, though the 24 hour peak was 42,935 players. rust has a peak of 244,394 players and 116,027 currently playing.
for context, gta 5 peaked at 360,761 players and currently has 129,018 playing. rainbow six siege has a peak of 199,830 and current players of 65,696. counter strike 2 has a peak of 1.8 million players and 1 million currently playing (jesus CHRIST). rdr2 has a peak of 77,335 players and 38,841 currently playing (24 hour peak of 51,342).
so, i mean, obviously not nearly up there with counter strike 2 (because jesus CHRIST), but survival games have pretty good numbers all things considered.
edit: note that these are all concurrent players btw
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Ok. Some people like survival video games. This right here puts the lie to your statement that survival isn't fun, because some people enjoy them. Now if you had said survival isn't fun to you, we wouldn't be having this discussion, but some people insist on presenting opinion as fact.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Did I say most are?
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Fair enough. People should like what they like, and other people should let them without argument. I just really don't care for statements where opinion is presented as objective truth.
Timespike
A5E Designer and third-party publisher
I think the worst PJ was doing was trying to do was grab some attention and get people to read their thoughts on the topic. It's pretty clear from the earliest lines of the blog post that the target audience is people who are wondering why they're not enjoying part of the game, rather than everyone, everywhere. A little clickbaity, perhaps, but not as arrogant as some in this thread seem to have construed.
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