by icycalm » 15 May 2012 01:52
That DJ Orwell kid was saying in an irc channel somewhere some shit about my Ketsui comments, where I said that its scoring system was about "random boxes falling out of nowhere for no apparent reason". He was trying to figure out how to integrate the boxes aesthetically into the game, in some gimmicky way, so as to negate my theory. So, for example, he asked, "And what if the boxes were fuel?" What I take it he meant by this is that you are point-blanking the enemy ships and then staying near them to chain the fuel, so that the fuel goes in your ship. So there you go: aesthetic problem solved, and the game remains unchanged.
But see, it's not just a matter of changing the boxes' color, to look like fuel. That would be a merely gimmicky solution. The point is that this fuel must also be mechanically useful. So you'd have to add another mechanic that would make your ship run out of fuel if you didn't refuel enough, and THEN you'd have a perfectly integrated mechanic. Of course, aesthetically it might still not be perfect, because the whole idea of shooting helicopters in the air and automatically refueling from them is a bit ridiculous, even for a 2D shooting game, but ANY proper mechanical integration of a scoring mechanic is better than none. ANYTHING that makes the reward the game gives you for performing difficult tasks an IN-GAME reward is preferable to an OUT-of-game one.
As in Burnout. The complexifying mechanic must lead deeper into the game.
Or take Rando's comments in the Shmups thread. Where he says that "the score helps the player to see how well he is doing" -- or something to that effect. It's hard to believe that someone as experienced with scoring systems as Rando could make such a mistake. For I might be on the very last stage, just one shot from killing the final boss, while having a LOWER score from someone who just died on the second stage -- so in what way was the score showing us how well we were doing? I was doing better than the aspie all the while having a LOWER score. I finished the goddamn game, and got a cool CONGRATULATIONS screen, whereas the aspie got a screen that said "WHY DON'T YOU TRY HARD NEXT TIME", so there's no question of who was doing better. Essentially, if you have really deeply understood what a scoring system is and how it works, you will have realized that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the score to be an accurate reflection of a player's progress in all but the most primitive of games. Even in something as simple score-wise as R-Type, the moment the player figures out how your scoring system works he can begin min-maxing and milking it, and all idea of the score actually representing anything other than itself goes out the window.
Did you get the last sentence? The score ultimately represents nothing more and nothing less than HOW WELL YOU ARE SCORING, just like IQ tests only reflect how good you are at taking IQ tests, and may or may not have anything to do with your actual intelligence (or even normal school tests, for that matter). Past a certain point, when the player has become, after a shitload of strategizing, etc., very familiar with how your system works, a huge score even indicates the OPPOSITE of progress: the player who pushed himself TO THE VERY EDGE in order to maximize his first stage score will ALMOST CERTAINLY end up DYING IN IT, just as someone who spends his whole time preparing for IQ tests, or studying for school tests with the only object of making the highest grades, without taking any actual interest in the subjects he studies, or extra-curricular activities, will end up a worthless idiot who is simply good at passing tests.
In short, the NATURAL scoring system and the SECONDARY, ANTI-NATURAL one are ultimately DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED -- as I also explained in the essay, but here rephrased some of the arguments, and gave a few more examples, to help along those who are still not fully getting it. The point is that the impetus for doing or not doing things must come FROM THE PLAYER, FROM HIS INSTINCTS, and not from any kind of artificial carrot that is even supposed to be consumed OUTSIDE the game, as with all kinds of heavens and false paradises.