Notes on the Arcade Culture

[icycalm]

This is the title of another upcoming article. One of the things I have to resolve in it is the whole scoring conundrum.

http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php ... 90#msg9190

If you look at professinal sportsmen you'll know that 0.0001% or so (total guess) actually make it to the top level. Does that mean the other 99.9999% of people playing the game are only experiencing 20% of it?

The upper 0.1% or so may get more & know more about a game than the rest, but do you honestly think that the details are the majority of a game? I'll bet the developers know less about the game than the WR score holders.

obviously we don't mean that only getting a WR rewards 80% and 0% for all the rest, it's more like if you can get a pretty good score, you're 50% into the game, then 85% if you can get a really good score, then 100% for WR...

lol

My point was just that a 1cc doesn't take too much skill. Of course it depends on the person playing, but I'm sure that with some dedication everyone could get every Cave Clear (no 2-all's, no Ultra's, no Raizing's) within 2-3 months maximum. Whereas playing for score opens whole new levels and I don't think everyone could achieve a 1bill DOJ score even if he has 1 year.

"Whereas playing for score opens whole new levels" -- usually OF INANITY.

There are plenty of people that, even given months, cannot 1CC the middle tier up.... especially the ones that demand a high score to get the extends.

Yeah, the extends. Number 1 reason to play for score.

I tend to focus on score far too much, leading to terrible survival rates. This means I play the early levels so often that I get bored with them and drift off to another game.

This has happened to me too, several times, most notably in Giga Wing.

As PROM tends to put it often; half of the scoring improvements you could make tend to be boring. Getting that 1CC is definitely more possible - and to some, more rewarding/wanted - than beating the world record.

Bolded part: damn right! And in many games it's much more than just "half"!

[icycalm]

The subject is raised again on another forum by an Insomnia reader due to Bulletstorm's [ > ] impending release:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... -of-a-game

He quotes a very interesting forum post by Josh:

Again, a player who truly appreciates these games wouldn't be seeking those types of people for any legitimate criticism. You're just setting artificial goals. The designers are telling you what to do, and you are ignoring it. If someone thinks winning in Chess is making a neat pattern on the board, and he has fun doing it, that's okay but I would never consult him to educate me on the many intricacies of Chess. So you're entitled to your opinion but you must concede that it is an inferior opinion, or at least know who the designers of these games would back up.