Interesting. (Destiny)

by EffortlessFury , Friday, December 08, 2023, 17:36 (350 days ago) @ Avateur
edited by EffortlessFury, Friday, December 08, 2023, 17:41

Halo was different because there was no reward to earn. The reward was, playing it and having fun. Whether it's matchmaking or customs with friends. Then they added ranks, and you had a little number by your name. With that, a little bit of fun died and sweat began to form. The chase of seeing that number go up consumed us.

Fast forward to now and how often do you play a game just for the fun of it. And I'm genuinely asking that question! The games I play, I have fun playing them but the thing I'm playing for is "to unlock this mod" or "to complete this challenge". It's the chase of that gratification.

#codywasright

https://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive35.pl?read=1039755

What's interesting is that just a couple of days ago I was having a conversation with someone about a baffling take I'd seen. Someone ran content dry in a game with just 5-10 minutes of optional low effort daily investment in-between frequent content drops and quit out of boredom; however, despite there now being years of new content, they still feel like other games are more deserving of their time. Essentially, the mentality being that a game without constant "meaningful" progression available at all times is not a good enough value of time invested, even if the vast majority of your time spent in the game is novel content, not even repetitive content like Halo MP or Destiny's playlists.

Games are now expected to give your time spent a long-term value outside of the momentary joy and are worth less if they do not. The old school sentiment has been entirely flipped around for some folk, and I find that so tragic. Luckily there are still games out there that cater to the idea that a finite amount of novel content is a worthy use of time spent, but man is it a shame that there are some who view that as a poor time investment.

Are they playing the game to complete bars, or is the game that they’re playing the type that can be played with friends and won/lost regardless of the “progression” taking place? We’ve seen some version of this even with achievement hunters over a decade ago who would drop a game the moment they got every achievement. If they’re having fun doing completionist activities, I understand why they would be “bored” after they’ve done them. Different play styles and all, right?

The thing that confused me was that, continuing from your analogy, the person supposedly enjoyed the experience of getting these achievements, quit when there were none left to get, but the game continues to get new achievements with the same degree of fun. It's not worth going back to, though, because it does not perpetually offer new achievements for them whenever they want them. Because there is a wait, because it is not able to gratify at all times, it's not even worth going back when there are new experiences to be had.

It's a quantity over quality thing. Even if it's quality, because the quantity is not infinite, it's worth less, even if the quantity does rise frequently.

That’s definitely more baffling than what I was thinking this was. Is it along the lines of because the content they were seeking “ran out” and ended for a bit, they moved on to some other game that maybe met the needs better? I’ve known people who move on from a game once they’ve put it down, even if it was still enjoyable and did things they enjoyed, primarily because some other game took its place when they “paused” to play it. I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking it while trying to figure out why someone would do what you’ve described.

Yes, and what you've described is totally reasonable. The baffling part is the judgement call passed upon it when told that the game now has a ton of content since the person last played, which is that they have better games to spend their time on (despite at the same time saying they enjoyed the game when there was content). Basically, even if the game could sustain their play for, let's say hypothetically, another six continuous months of play, they still don't think it's worth returning, because it's not an endless font.

Grinding repetitive content, ala Diablo, Destiny, or many other games of their nature, are appealing to folks even if they do nothing "new" for months at a time, because any amount of boredom that might set in is offset by the investment value of that playtime. Even if you're running a Strike for the 1,000th time, you're getting loot that you can use in future new content, you're gaining BP levels that gain you materials and loot you can use to strengthen yourself for future new content, etc. You're always investing in the future, so it's not time wasted, even if it's not always time 100% enjoyed.

A game that provides a minimal and rather dull daily grind (let's say, 10-15 minutes total per day) of investment in future content, when the game doesn't even really need that past a certain point because there's no raising power ceiling, becomes less valuable of an investment in future content. You could just...stop playing and wait for more content, like watching other movies while waiting for the sequel to come out. I don't not watch a sequel because it took a year for them to make the next film, but some now view games as needing to fill this continuous void.

Keep in mind, this is single player content. Imagine if Halo, instead of having taken three years to come out with new story content, took three months. I would've been overjoyed! (I always loved the promise of the "episodic content" promise) But this mentality would have one move on from new single player content because it's not something that can be played ad nauseum. It's just weird to me that a person could find the single player content really enjoyable but then decide it's not worth continuing once they realized it's finite and discrete.