also the more likely the fanbase will complain about games journalists and walking simulators like they're trapped in 2012. gamer opinion hot take bottom text
The Dark Souls community is the single most confusing community on earth. On one hand you have the Twitch streamers that are almost all gamer bros and then you have the Reddit community that is always wrong about everything. The Dark Souls Reddit community is still convinced magic is bad in DS1.
magic is bad in DS1
being able to quickly get past tedious bullshit is fun, we can't have that
I don’t understand the obsession to make games so difficult. Maybe I don’t want to have to watch YouTube tutorials or do math in my head to play a game. I’m lazy.
IDK man, untangling complicated shit and getting good at things feel good. Plus I have ADHD and if a game doesn't ask for enough of my focus, it'll just lose all of my focus.
I wouldn't want all games to be difficult or complex though, I really like games as a medium and think it's cool when everyone can find something that hits their brain just right.
I think there's a big difference between complex and difficult though. I've always found games that have lots of systems (complex ones) to be fun but I can't stand "hard" games. I get the same thing with working out the mechanics and stuff so I'm kinda curious what the difference, if there is one, between complex and difficult.
I'd describe the difference as something like knowledge vs. execution
Super Meat Boy is very simple, not complex. It's a pretty barebones platformer, it's just a hellishly difficult one. Demands a lot of precise execution and reaction, you know exactly what you're supposed to do, and the challenge is actually doing it.
Something like, idk, Civilization. Complex, but not necessarily difficult. Lots of moving parts and systems to grasp, but it's turn-based, once you know how to read and manipulate things you can break the game wide open pretty leisurely. The challenge is from figuring out what to do rather than actually doing it.
That's pretty much my feeling on it too. I think one thing that really sets apart simple/hard and complex games apart is the ability for simple but hard games to be brute forced. I mean that less in the repeated attempts kind of way, and more in the if you keep doing it your brain is going to get pretty good at it eventually. I guess that might cause a difference in the audience that plays the games.
Yeah they're totally different dimensions and people just like different stuff. I think you hit on what makes difficulty appealing though, as you(r brain) gets good at it and muscle memory sets in, you have to think less and less about it, you get that "flow" state where everything you do Just Fucking Works and it's all flowing or rhythmic. It's almost another kind of puzzle solving, "I figured out what the dev wants me to do here," the execution barrier itself is the learning phase.
Nicely put! I'm going to talk to some rhythm gamers about this, cause I think there's a difference between that mechanical flow and the musical flow of rhythm games
Also the closer the game is to the sphere of action-based "boys" games, the more chuddish they are.
Economic sim games and doomlike boomer shooters are both pretty hard, yet you're more likely to find bigots in the latter.
Counterpoint: Celeste
Jokes aside, gaming communities seem to be the most gatekeepy spaces I have ever seen, like, unless you have 3000 hours into a game and have 100%ed it on the hardest difficulty while blindfolded, you haven't enjoyed it like, wtf? Just let people play the way they want, I don't get it.
I think this sort of thing seriously chills out the longer a game has been around, or there are some other factors here. I don't believe the Ghosts 'n Goblins fanbase is particularly toxic. There's also Touhou, Ikaruga, and that odd game Pathologic. Notoriously difficult/bullshit games and I've always found their fans pretty chill (I'm biased here because I'm all of these)
Is pathologic that difficult? I've only played 2 but I just listened to what the devs were trying to get me to do and I never really had any issues with supplies.
The first one is notoriously uncompromising and will allow the player to get stuck. Lack of supplies, strict time limits, oddly translated dialogue, and roving pockets of plague gas can all completely ruin your entire playthrough, forcing you to load an earlier save or just die. Also a lot of characters will outright lie to you, sending you off on wild goose chases you'd only know about if you chanced your way into seeing through their lies or you've played the game before. Since you'll barely have time to spare, you sometimes can't afford to assume someone's lying to you.
2 is much more relaxed from what I've played. Much smoother experience really. Pathologic 1's difficulty is more rooted in clunkinesss, poor translations, and frequent save scumming.
celeste 's and hollow knight's fanbase seems pretty cool
You can't just make a take into a hot take by declaring it as a hot take.
hot take means an opinion that i have. no i have not and will not look up any definitions
I’ve found that the fanbase of logistics games like Factorio, Satisfactory and Dyson Sphere Program tend to have a really collaborative spirit, everyone sharing ideas and treating new players really well, but that’s just my limited experience.
ive also experienced that, multiplayer is basically just hopping on someone else's world and just get to work building for the fun of it.
I once went on one of those factorio multiplayer maps thats been played thousands of hours, but then was abandoned and griefed over time. I was mostly there to just take a look around for curiosity's sake, but then a couple other people came on probably doing the same thing I was and we decided to try and rebuild the world. Since the blueprints of everything built were still around we mostly just had to rebuild to robot network and the robots got to rebuilding everything else. It was a fun experience working with random people in a completely unfamiliar base to make everything run again.
That’s dope, I’ve never played multiplayer, but I hung out in the subreddit a good bit. I’m into Dyson Sphere now, you played it?
I havent played dyson sphere but ive seen a bit of it on youtube, I watched the very early game of nilaus' playthrough. The concept looks interesting but the fact theres no grid for machines to snap to bothers me for some reason so I never got too into it.
Multiplayer factorio is fun and really easy to get into, I would say its even easier than singleplayer. Its a great way to learn the game from players more experienced than you, and to teach players with less experience. Literally just go to the multiplayer server list and join one, theres always something to do no matter skill level.
Also Minecraft.
"Oh, have you already created your automated farm? How many X can you get in Y hours?"
What? I just want to mine and kill zombies, what are you talking about?
The creative minecraft community isn't even that bad. The PVP minecraft community however is the most toxic garbage I've ever encountered.
walking simulators
So you'd expect QWOP to have some of the worst fans?
i would rank people insisting 'you gotta try this flash game' as indeed, quite awful
I play a ton of kerbal but I dont pay much attention to the community, in what ways are they toxic? Just the general Gamer attitude or something more specific to kerbal?
it's not. i'm just offering a counter point, but also it's hilarious to imagine the raging gamers trying to take their little green men to Duna
Yeah i was kinda confused by originally but it makes sense now. I think the reason difficult stuff like darksouls is toxic is because the extreme reflexes of teenagers on caffine are a requirement to be good, so the community is quite immature. KSP's difficulty comes from the "oh fuck it exploded again" aspect which makes everyone a bit more humble.
