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🍉 Melon 🍉@drmelon10/9/2023, 1:27 PM

@zaratustra

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 5:34 AM

I kinda hate the whole yellow ladder debate, both because, in the great scheme of things, while that exact type of signaling is probably overused, it's not really that big of a deal but... also because when the more experience designers come out to explain it, a lot of it ends up like...

But it HAS to be this way! There is no choice, people are dumb! We have to have ultra realistic, cluttered, hyper realistic environments and the players can't find anything unless we use neon colors! The player HAS to slide through frictionless content tube! And since everyone else is doing it, we have to do it even more! Better than our competitors!! Even smoother and slicker!!!

and like... it's not that big of a deal. I don't think you can actually like... meaningly long-term enfeeble players like this. Nor is this the only trick AAA devs ever actually use (look, game design is like 90% tricks anyways, yellow ladder is just overexposed)... but like... something about the mentality behind the defense, the many times I've seen this topic come up just... idk. It feels lame? Like you don't have to do any of the things you think you have to. This is why we got silly shit like when Ubisoft devs got salty about Fromsoft games or w/e while they continue to print money. And it's not like they're magic, or genius, or don't take shortcuts (lol they take SO many, they're just different ones). But the point is more... you don't have to do anything. You're making a decision.

And honestly I think it's fine to go "We watched testing, weren't happy, and decided that slapping a paint texture-projector in front of the ladder would solve the issue so much faster and save man hours instead of rejiggering a whole room that you're supposed to be in for 20 seconds". It's not even a bad, or artless decision! It's fine! But the idea that this decision is inevitable...? IDK I hate that mentality.

@zaratustra10/9/2023, 10:59 AM

solution: if the player starts wandering around cluelessly too much, a can of yellow paint falls on the ladder

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in reply to @Kayin's post:

mauve @mauve10/6/2023, 5:52 AM

i tend to think there's a huge disconnect between designers and audiences that aren't theirs. like, i can fully see mainstream AAA games going for maximum signposting, in the most obnoxious way possible.

just, there are other audiences than that, and more specific ones, and a lot of them are actively turned off by that level of patronization. ...and sometimes we kinda go the other direction too hard with extremely muddy visuals everywhere, for the sake of a dark and brooding atmosphere.

there is no real way to design a game for everyone, i think, but conversely i don't think there's a right or wrong way to design a game either. it's all about knowing why you're doing what you're doing and who it's for.

(as an aside, i actually really hated Portal when it was new because it always felt like it was telling me where to go, at all times. it's kind of remarkable to me how beloved that game is when i never felt like i was the one playing the game at all...)

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 6:06 AM

Yeah, which is why I try to be generous here like sure, hand holding is your goal! You wanna have as much reach as possible, even at the expense of other things! Totally fine! Different goals, different audiences...

But sometimes it almost feels like people too deep in AAA space think there is only one audience and one way when... very clearly there isn't???

@NotMiki10/6/2023, 6:46 AM

It has a Netflix kind of vibe where their overriding goal is to remove any hint of friction that might cause a player's eyes to stray from the screen. It's the videogame version of skipping intros and outros and proceeding to the next episode before you have the opportunity to decide if that's what you want to do. And maybe that IS what you want to do, but the inescapable fact is that the design exists to accomplish their goals all the time, and your goals only if they happen to align.

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 6:51 AM

There is definitely a big part of this where the overabundance of analytics enable minmaxing psycho behavior from both platforms and games like "Oh this change is good because 2.5% of players stopped playing for the day unless we did this" and and you keep adding all those little microtweaks and aaaaaaaa

mauve @mauve10/6/2023, 6:33 PM

indie space and i think non-western devs in general have a firmer grasp of the idea of games as individual experiences, rather than as Content To Be Experienced.

like.. it's okay to stop playing for a bit? to have your fill for a time and walk away? really! not everything has to be a streamlined signposted romp.

what's funny is I tend to think that a lot of games, particularly live-service type stuff, tends to work best and be at its most popular when it's the MOST confusing, because then people have an excuse to trade tips and information with each other, making the game more social in turn. (see every other mobile game being a confusing mess of resources you'll never figure out the full scope of without wiki help)

vivi-n @tinyvalor10/6/2023, 6:00 AM

i saw some rebuttal like "people would google "how to get out of room name" and watch a youtube video of a guy climbing the ladder" which made me think about what i do and how it's not always the same thing. like sometimes i wanna get it over with and i do look for gamefaqs or someone asking the question on reddit bc i'm definitely not the first person to have gotten stuck, and sometimes i turn the game off and then maybe play it again in a year. and sometimes i sit there and look around and backtrack for an hour till i find it the hardest way possible. it's got a lot to do with what's going on in the game and in my brain, i guess. i don't think i'm very predictable and i don't think people as a whole are

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 6:15 AM

Nah this doesn't sound that unusual. Like sometimes I'm like 'eh fuck it' at a barrier but... at the same time that's usually an indication I'm not really feeling the game.

☆Mirai★@mirai10/6/2023, 7:09 AM

Yea I saw some of the dev threads and immediately rolled me eyes at this whole "no you have to see it from our perspective we HAD to" angle, like even if I understand why the decision is made its still a decision you made, own up to it!

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 7:15 AM

I don't want to be mean to the thread maker cause there was a lot of good stuff too and like... you're arguing with fucking gamers you kinda gotta oversell your case but... as a designer too I was just like rgghghghgh

Ryusui @ryusui10/6/2023, 7:42 AM

i'm torn because instinctively it feels like yellow paint is the lowest-hanging fruit in the realm of "highlight things without breaking mimesis" but the gamers are not exactly beating the "gamers are brain-dead" allegations with their responses

i can't help but get a vibe that the people screaming bloody murder about yellow paint would get performatively offended over even the most subtle, immersion-friendly signposting, because lord forbid anything reek of the dread wokeness - i mean, accessibility

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 8:02 AM

This is why I can't get mad at anyone saying this stuff cause like on one hand I think they're overselling things, but on the other, they're arguing with worms.

Alex @tayl1r10/6/2023, 8:25 AM

i've had two run ups at a response, but i think this incapsulates my feelings. it's hard to have a nuanced discussion when people are getting this mad over a decal

Kay @Kayin10/6/2023, 8:27 AM

I genuinely laughed out loud at this because you're not wrong.

@NotMiki10/8/2023, 2:05 AM

anyone who insists there's one right way to make a game is wrong; the rest is negotiable.

Serbaayuu @Serbaayuu10/7/2023, 3:55 PM

Short answer: most game developers are not good at conveyance.

This has become clear with the rise of hyper-detail and photorealism.

In low-detail environments, conveyance is free, so most game developers did not need to be good at it. If there was a box in a room, you could open it. If there was a lever in a room, you could flip it. The things you could not use were not present in the room.

So now that there are too many things in the rooms, many players know they want good conveyance, and many players have played games that either had good conveyance or did not need good conveyance. Thus when one does it poorly, because it is a skill that not all developers have, it's easier to notice.

JP @vectorpoem10/9/2023, 3:47 PM

Thanks for saying this, this is exactly how I feel. I probably have a decade+ industry experience on most of the veteran designers who have come out in this discourse to explain to the plebs why the patronizing thing is Inevitable (sometimes with assertions of the unwavering "stupidity" of players), and like... I feel bad for them that they have become so The Market-brained that they're no longer working in a creative medium so much as they are working in a very low immediacy high labor sort of customer service.