mattachine meow machine

It's a bit ironic because I'm absolutely the guy who will do training drills in fighting games for hours. Not just combo trials, but the "boring" stuff. Dash checks, meaty rotations, anti-air options, a combination of everything into various sequences. I'll grind that, no problem. I'll repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat until I have it burned in my muscle memory, and then I'll repeat again just to do something with my hands while listening to a podcast or something.

But put me in a MMO or some such like and I'm bored by level 10. Have me run dungeons and I'll tell you that after the third one it's just variations of the same thing I did twice before and ask where's the fun. Tell me to min/max and I'll just give you a dumbfounded stare.

The only thing I can figure is that fighting game drills are an approximation of building a skill, at least to my mind. It's something I'm actively building within myself. It's a transferable reflex. It's something I was bad at and continually improved upon. It's not as the same as beating a boss in a souls game, it's more like being able to pick up a guitar and nail a solo. I don't get that same satisfaction just clearing screens of mobs, rotating skills, or following a build guide. I asked a buddy who loves PoE what the appeal was once. He told me it was purely the power fantasy, the ability to build the right way, hit the right keys, and everything around you dies. I said I don't get that. He said of course you don't, you don't like video games. I said yeah, probably and we laughed and that was the whole conversation.

But still I like the idea of having a game you return to. It was street fighter for me, but I don't like 6 (I have other posts about that if you want to dig them up) and I'm not interested in anime or discord fighters. So I'm looking around, trying to find a new touchstone I can keep coming back to. So... How do y'all do it?

I would genuinely like to enjoy them as well, if my brain chemistry allows.

Iro @Iro7/8/2024, 5:20 PM

From what I understand it's about getting into a flow state where you do not have to think about the outside world at all. The grind is just the repetitive task that helps facilitate that. Put on a podcast and push buttons to make number-go-up for an hour, clear off the checklist to create the feeling of accomplishing something, kill time with something that doesn't require using the last dregs of your mental energy to figure out some new mechanic.

_{(this is separate but related to the "third space" value that these games often rely on. ideally in an MMO or other live game you run dungeons over and over while also playing and chatting with your friends. it is a group activity complex enough to be cooperatively engaging during the natural dips in the conversation but not so much so that it prevents idle conversation [if i am being overly patronizing with this statement please tell me])}

That said, I've mostly fallen off finding that stuff enjoyable myself. These days if I gotta grind in an RPG or something and it's going to take more than 20 minutes, I'm probably just going to crack open Cheat Engine and tweak my number of rathian scales or whatever. I'd say that I don't have that kind of patience anymore, but it's more likely that now that I'm medicated I do have enough mental bandwidth to not want to heavy-scare-quotes "resort" to long grinding sessions or live games.

(edit: @barquq has a different perspective here re:optimization) that i simply didn't consider at the time which kinda tracks considering my own skewed/inconsistent perspective on the matter)

Permanent Reset @PermanentReset7/8/2024, 5:31 PM

This is the thing I can't wrap my head around, and it's definitely a me thing. I've spent far too long trying to understand why I can totally get into this flow state when playing something like, say, Powerwash Simulator. But as soon as you throw me into a Monster Hunter or a FFXIV I just can't get there. I don't know if there's just too much stimuli in those games? At least for the initial learning curve. Something more than "hold button, clean grime" or "enable training routine, repeat practice"?

I dunno. It just ever so slightly irks me because I feel like I should like these games. I clearly can flow state, and I clearly can get engrossed in a game. But for the life of me I can't figure out why I can't get into either mode with these types of games specifically.

Aside from the third space/friends part which I think is very valid and also an unfortunate reality of hitting your 30s and seeing all your friends splinter out into different hobbies and responsibilities and not having time to hang any more, much less hang and game. But that's a whole other conversation.

mattachine meow machine @spookybiscuits7/8/2024, 5:50 PM

see when i read your first post about fighting game drills, that feels the same as running dungeons in FFXIV to me. the exp and items are important but mostly incidental, because i'm actually practicing my execution of skills and combos and rotations. it's practice for the real deal, which is high-difficulty raiding >:3. every time i run a dungeon faster than before or i see my dps was higher on a dungeon boss i feel like i'm making progress. it's all to prepare for the raid. maybe you need a target like that to aim at, a reason to drill.

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in reply to @PermanentReset's post:

Is it Shaker!?@EarthShaker7/8/2024, 6:13 PM

to build on your comparison of hitting a combo to hitting a solo, playing most MMOs is having a soundboard with samples from other people's music that you play at certain times, on cool downs, over and over again. which really makes the experience seem less attractive to me, who has been lately shopping for a new MMO to play haha.

It's pretty old now but maybe you'd like Rival Schools: Project Justice? it's a Capcom fighting game, but the combos have this very particular "one two three FOUR one two two THREE" rhythmic quality to them that makes it really enjoyable and quick to pick up. not as overwhelming as marvel vs Capcom 2 which is of a similar era

Smoke and Honey @smokeandhoney7/8/2024, 7:47 PM

I've never been able to get into MMO's, but the games I've put crazy amounts of hours into were TF2 and Left 4 Dead and Overwatch. For me, those games were about the multiplayer, hanging out with my group of friends online. I think MMO's would be the same but I never wanted to buy a game and then have a monthly subscription on top of that, so my frugality saved me hundreds of hours :-D

My pattern with games is to obsessively play a new game for hours and hours in the first few weeks then drop it forever.

I guess the one exception is Stardew Valley, which I've bought 3 or 4 times on different platforms and enjoyed each time, but I don't think I can do it again. I need novelty!

Stepnix @stepnix7/8/2024, 8:00 PM

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-strange-and-bruising-poetry-of-rpg-combat-systems
I like this article that compares RPG combat to verses of a poem. it's the repetition that provides that structure that lets the whole thing work

@gkrnours7/9/2024, 6:56 AM

I think an interesting part of FFXIV is that you are not alone. I did most if the story when beginning as a healer then switched tank. I do a lot of "roulette", random content with random player. Sometimes I get paired with great player and things go very smoothly. Sometimes I feel alone and it's me and my axe carrying everyone through the duty. Once it's was litterally me alone. All other went down on the first attack from the boss that required a bit of reflexion. As a tank, my damage output isn't great and the boss still have 66% HP so I crash the fight, we run back to the boss and they do it again. So it's punisher time and I solo that boss. Second boss of the dungeon, they do it again. With 75% HP remaining, I solo that boss too. There is a profund interpersonal relationship here. The first time I saw it, it was one of the trial duty, 8 player against one boss, no preamble. When the boss was down to 5%, 7 of us went down. All that remain was one lonesome paladin, a tank with offensive spell and one healing spell. Female viera in shiny armor. She continue fighring. 4% HP. We are all watching. 3% HP. We encourage her. 2% HP. We all messes up and her she is, fighting for our sin. 1% HP. But it's not a fight meant for lonesome paladin and she finally fall. Then it went better. Sometimes it's not solo. Another dungeon, another team, 4 this time. Healer and one of the two DPS fall before halfway through the last boss of dungeon. The dungeon is late enough in the story that I have a skill to heal another player. So we continue. We can't revive the players down but I can keep both of us up and we cleared the boss without much issue. That's when everything go fine. I did a tiny bit of high-end duties. Extreme trials and worse stuff. These remind me of ballet in a sense. Sure you need the gear and know your rotation. But you also need to know the fight. Know when the boss will blow up half the arena without the usual marker telegraphing its intent. You need to know when to bait an attack in a specific direction so the team have a safe zone moment after. You need to keep your damage output up during the whole thing else so called damage check, party wiping attack happening after a set time, will reset the fight. And that not just one person, everyone in the fight need to be good enough. And if not come the hardest part. These content are usually played in static, group of people who meet at regular time to form a party and tackle these content. If the group is good, the party will stay together at least for a fea different trials. If someone is struggling, the group will try to help them learn, get good enough. If they can't get to level, they need to be cut down and replaced. Or the group will dissolve.

They say glamour is the end game of final fantasy XIV. I think it'a true in more way than one. MMORPG are multiplayer first and that mean it's about interpersonnal relations.

in reply to @PermanentReset's post:

signal eleven @widr7/8/2024, 6:39 PM

i think a lot of it is about having an abstract space through which you are progressing.

simply traveling from point A to point B can be made an interesting enough overarching goal for a game, and there's lots of ways to do it. throwing unique challenges at the player, an engaging gameplay loop for simple movement, etc. Even normal walking, while not necessarily interesting, can be comfortable and satisfying in real life.

repetitive game loops that seem to make no progress are pretty much only engaging as long as they are either theraputic and satisfying in their own right, or the visible game loop is in service of some larger goal, or both. these larger goals can be very abstract (self-improvement and a higher-level understanding of strategy and tactics like fighting games) or straightforward (unlocking more contents in the game for continued or successive games); relatively simple (getting the best items for each slot and raising your paragon level in diablo 3) or fiendishly complex (navigating the byzantine phase space of character builds in path of exile)

for me getting any kind of flow state is mostly about having a clearly visible breadth of things that can be done without stalling, getting stuck with nothing special to do and no particular progress for a long time. even games with absolutely trivial core gameplay (like cookie clicker or kittens game) can clearly offer long grinds without stagnating. Whether you actually enjoy a given game's core gameplay loop is up to the player! i think satsifaction with that is much harder to analyze; there's no accounting for taste really. in my experience it's actually not hard to tell if you might enjoy playing a game a lot.

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