@Hephaestic ye

@beardalaxy
It's strange to see otherwise intelligent people like you take this side in the discourse. A code which is literally called "cheat" is qualitatively different from an option in a menu - using either to trivialize a game's core mechanics is bad, and the prevalence of developer-approved cheat codes is part of a much larger trend to destroy the purity of game design as a whole. GTA is a dishonest comparison because it's never been anything more than a sandbox for fucking around with a mediocre story.

What am I paying the developers for if 70% of the game is within my control?
What is the "core experience" and why is it okay for me to play the game at 50% speed and ignoring death pits while still maintaining it?

It's the exact same mindset as black belt dojo mills that just let people rush through the motions and get the credential. The point of the doing of things is to to go through the motions, and the credential merely acknowledges that.

@Hephaestic @beardalaxy are you aware of the concept of "having fun"

@tomie @beardalaxy
Why do you pretend that overcoming a handcrafted challenge is not fun?

@Hephaestic @beardalaxy why do you pretend that challenge and fun are synonymous?

@Hephaestic if you think modifiers in a game ruin the integrity of the core experience, then don't use them. you're paying the developers for making the game and crafting a fun default experience, and then you can change some stuff about the game if you want to. instead of needing to like, download a mod from nexus or whatever, you can just click the toggle in the game. all of these things are tied to variables so the devs are just exposing the variables to the players to tweak things if they really want to. they are trusting the PLAYER to know that changing any of these is not the core experience.

if YOU don't think that it is okay or fun for you to play the game at 50% speed, then just don't do it. play the game the way it was intended to be played. then maybe you can have some fun messing with the modifiers afterward. that's how i've always played games.

the difference between a video game and a black belt dojo is that you don't get an actual credential for beating a video game. you do it for personal satisfaction. and this is kind of my whole point. it almost seems like people criticizing this feel as though their "gamer cred" is being cheapened. your personal accomplishments in and enjoyment of games can't actually be taken away by someone else not playing the game in the same way. it's very similar to gamers who get triggered over any% speedruns because they're using all these glitches that make beating the game comparatively trivial.

@beardalaxy @Hephaestic >it's very similar to gamers who get triggered over any% speedruns because they're using all these glitches that make beating the game comparatively trivial.

good on them, any% speedruns are boring.

@pettanko @Hephaestic it does get to a certain point where it becomes boring to watch and probably boring to play as well, which is usually when different categories are made or people play different ones instead.

imagine there being a really easy way to beat a game but it isn't fun that way so you just... don't play it that way. you play the 120 star run of mario 64 instead of the 1 star run. that's pretty much the exact thing i'm talking about with these toggles.

@beardalaxy @pettanko
>just... don't play it that way
What happens if people who play it this unfun way outnumber you 10:1 in the game's community?
What happens if the game achieves commercial success because it expanded its audience to tenfold shiteaters and casuals?
What happens if the unfun way becomes the dominant one in all discussions and media created around the game?

@beardalaxy
>if YOU don't think that it is okay or fun for you to play the game at 50% speed, then just don't do it.
>play the game the way it was intended to be played.
These statements are pure doublethink. What is the "intended" way to be played if dozens of variables and modifiers are exposed to the player and there are billions of possible combinations?

@Hephaestic the intended way to play the game is to play without the modifiers. is this like the breakfast question for gamers?

@beardalaxy
The default modifiers are programmatically identical to any other combination. What makes them special? I'm sure you'll say that the devs tested the defaults and balanced the game with those as the primary case, and I can agree with that.

But here's a real breakfast question: do you think Yacht Club Games would ever say that people who beat the game by removing all death pits didn't beat it the real way? That people who slowed down a chase sequence to 50% speed are less skilled?

@Hephaestic I don't actually know for sure because I haven't checked, since to me it is kind of irrelevant to my argument, but it might be to yours. I heard some people saying that achievements were disabled if you used the modifiers. So yes, it's a possibility.

@pettanko no it's not but nobody said you had to use the cheat codes lmao

@beardalaxy what even are “modifiers?” like difficulty sliders?

@pettanko yeah there are 100+ settings in the game you can mess with to make it harder, easier, or just weird shit like filters. It's supposed to just be for fun but chuds on Twitter are getting mad that you can use them to make the game easier.

@beardalaxy there have been games with difficulty sliders for decades now.

@beardalaxy @pettanko some games aren't supposed to be made easier. For one, you are supposed to suffer and overcome your suffering in Dark Souls. That is the entire point of the game.

@newt @pettanko yes indeed. that's dark souls. this is mina the hollower. some games are meant to be really easy. some games are meant to be perfectly approachable by a wide audience.

what's with the trend of everyone trying to force games to contain dark souls level challenge? it's a really narrow thought process that i think stems from insecurity and/or pride.

@beardalaxy @newt @pettanko
The trend you're describing is a long psyop by media and the AAA gaming industry to remove the essential nature of challenge from video games and turn them into Epstein-approved skinnerbox slop. It's been happening in every genre, and many genres have been taxonomically killed because they didn't fit with this narrative.

People are not trying to force/inject anything into games. What you're seeing is a small sliver of pushback against the "slushification" of gaming, and the notion that all games must be interchangeable and made for all audiences - that for a game to have a distinct form and a requisite challenge is an unforgivable sin.

The games that Mina the Hollower is taking direct inspiration from, the 2D handheld Zeldas, didn't have modifiers that let you step over every pit and play the game with generous checkpoints. Yet they still sold mountains of copies to children like me. Why does Mina the Hollower need to have a 50% game speed option and a hundred other options?

@Hephaestic @beardalaxy the trend of "requisite challenge" (the proper name is artificial difficulty) you're describing is a long-standing psyop that was created long ago by arcade cabinets manufacturers to bleed pockets dry and transformed later to sell 20 minute games as 200 hour experiences, and mountains of slop were sold to children because children are known to not know any better
same psyop evolved to sell battle passes and to keep grownups' attention so they would keep logging in like the game is their second (or fourth) job they have to clock in daily, which is the direct opposite of fun and games

you come into media built on variables and beg "oh please, please, remove as many variables as possible" and act like that's how it should be; I'd recommend you something like rhythm games because there's absolutely nothing else other than wanking over difficulty, but even those have difficulty options and modifiers, 50% speed included, so at this point just go watch a movie