Then you haven’t seen many gamers, because most of the people I’ve ever played with (and it’s not a small number) have little or no interest in what you (quite tendentiously) call “authentically challenging” games, especially PVP.
“Tendentious” is kind of a rude way of inquiring into someone’s assumptions.
Inauthentic challenge (eg, enemies who look very strong but who are actually at a huge power or ai disadvantage to the player that’s easy for the player’s lizardbrain to not notice and to feel like they’re being very skillful) pretty much is the bad thing people are pointing at when they complain about power fantasy.
You could also accuse sadistically crushing visibly and obviously weak enemies of being a toxic power fantasy, but I actually can’t think of any games irl that are like that. There’s usually a false pretense that the player is some sort of underdog. I guess it’s possible that a lot of people would still enjoy these things without the pretense, but I don’t see evidence of it.
Halo presents elites as equals or superiors to Spartans. Superficially, they look to be. In reality the AI is hamstrung. Mostly, they shoot less, with predictable inaccuracy. I have not come across a lore reason for it. Players often don’t consciously notice it. This is a very normal type of inauthenticity about the challenges of the game.
Spelunky is mostly just is what it looks like. It’s actually harder than it looks, because it forces the player to reckon with very tight safety margins as a result of disjunctive sources of risk, which is something most of them wont be used to. It’s very honest about how it works. It is authentic about its challenges.
Suppose that the AI opponents actually shot more, with superhuman accuracy. (Are there difficulty settings in Halo?) Would the challenge then be “authentic”?
Is playing against bots in Unreal Tournament “authentically challenging”? How about in StarCraft?
Are high-level PVE encounters in World of Warcraft “authentically challenging”?
When something’s harder than it looks, we tend to notice, because we usually have to figure out what’s going on in order to overcome it. That’s mostly what difficulty is for, as an instrument of the art, it’s a way of saying “don’t move on until you’ve figured this stuff out” So surprising challenges are usually ‘authentic’ (eventually).
I guess there are also games that’re hard due to factors that aren’t what people were really interested in, and the player never consciously figures out what’s going on (“fake difficulty”?). I can’t think of a great example of this off the top of my head, I think the games that do it tend to be identified as bad or unfair, and we mostly don’t have them any more.
I’m not sure why examining this terminology would be interesting to you.
Note after OOB debate: this conversation has gone wrong because you’re reading subtext into Said’s comment that he didn’t mean to put there. You keep trying to answer an implied question that wasn’t intended to be implied.
If you think playing against bots in UT is authentically challenging, just answer “Yes, I think playing against bots in UT is authentically challenging.”
That’s fascinating, but it seems like your reply to my comment answered none of the questions I asked. Was that intentional, or an oversight, or… what? To clarify, those questions were not rhetorical. I would like to know what your answers are.
I think it answers them: Is the player (supposed to be) fully aware of the reasons this is as hard as it is?
So: Yes, player’s sensitivity to bot quirks probably depends on the difficulty level they’re playing at, and I haven’t played WoW but from what I’ve heard Yes.
In Unreal (or a game like it that I played) I felt like I understood what kind of challenge I was actually facing, and it felt quite different to playing against humans.
With starcraft, I’m not sure. I think at high levels of play people are fairly aware of how the bot thinks.
Another interesting example is Network Wars, the bot AI is flawed, but to dig into it at all, the player has to become aware of that (and to enjoy it, I think we have to recognize that the flaws analogize interesting vices that people have in the real world (nearsightedness/greed, cowardice), though turned up to a inhuman extreme)
Look, I have to ask: is there some reason why you’re refusing to give me a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer to a yes-or-no question?
I ask because this is making it very difficult to follow what you’re saying. I would like to understand your comments, but it would really be much easier for me to do that if the commentary accompanied the direct answers, rather than replacing them!
If you understand my reasoning, you can infer my answers.
If you don’t understand my reasoning, I would not actually want you to know my answers.
This sometimes leads to a style of writing that keeps things abstract and indirect and as a result is able to tell the truth about any issue, because it means that the author’s positions on things will only be clear to people who understand why they think that (and can thus empathize with it, speak to it, and probably agree with it).
Inauthentic challenge (eg, enemies who look very strong but who are actually at a huge power or ai disadvantage to the player that’s easy for the player’s lizardbrain to not notice and to feel like they’re being very skillful)
Then you haven’t seen many gamers, because most of the people I’ve ever played with (and it’s not a small number) have little or no interest in what you (quite tendentiously) call “authentically challenging” games, especially PVP.
“Tendentious” is kind of a rude way of inquiring into someone’s assumptions.
Inauthentic challenge (eg, enemies who look very strong but who are actually at a huge power or ai disadvantage to the player that’s easy for the player’s lizardbrain to not notice and to feel like they’re being very skillful) pretty much is the bad thing people are pointing at when they complain about power fantasy.
You could also accuse sadistically crushing visibly and obviously weak enemies of being a toxic power fantasy, but I actually can’t think of any games irl that are like that. There’s usually a false pretense that the player is some sort of underdog.
I guess it’s possible that a lot of people would still enjoy these things without the pretense, but I don’t see evidence of it.
What are some examples of “inauthentically challenging” games, and some examples of “authentically challenging” games that aren’t PVP?
Halo presents elites as equals or superiors to Spartans. Superficially, they look to be. In reality the AI is hamstrung. Mostly, they shoot less, with predictable inaccuracy. I have not come across a lore reason for it. Players often don’t consciously notice it. This is a very normal type of inauthenticity about the challenges of the game.
Spelunky is mostly just is what it looks like. It’s actually harder than it looks, because it forces the player to reckon with very tight safety margins as a result of disjunctive sources of risk, which is something most of them wont be used to. It’s very honest about how it works. It is authentic about its challenges.
Suppose that the AI opponents actually shot more, with superhuman accuracy. (Are there difficulty settings in Halo?) Would the challenge then be “authentic”?
Is playing against bots in Unreal Tournament “authentically challenging”? How about in StarCraft?
Are high-level PVE encounters in World of Warcraft “authentically challenging”?
When something’s harder than it looks, we tend to notice, because we usually have to figure out what’s going on in order to overcome it. That’s mostly what difficulty is for, as an instrument of the art, it’s a way of saying “don’t move on until you’ve figured this stuff out” So surprising challenges are usually ‘authentic’ (eventually).
I guess there are also games that’re hard due to factors that aren’t what people were really interested in, and the player never consciously figures out what’s going on (“fake difficulty”?). I can’t think of a great example of this off the top of my head, I think the games that do it tend to be identified as bad or unfair, and we mostly don’t have them any more.
I’m not sure why examining this terminology would be interesting to you.
Note after OOB debate: this conversation has gone wrong because you’re reading subtext into Said’s comment that he didn’t mean to put there. You keep trying to answer an implied question that wasn’t intended to be implied.
If you think playing against bots in UT is authentically challenging, just answer “Yes, I think playing against bots in UT is authentically challenging.”
That’s fascinating, but it seems like your reply to my comment answered none of the questions I asked. Was that intentional, or an oversight, or… what? To clarify, those questions were not rhetorical. I would like to know what your answers are.
I think it answers them: Is the player (supposed to be) fully aware of the reasons this is as hard as it is?
So: Yes, player’s sensitivity to bot quirks probably depends on the difficulty level they’re playing at, and I haven’t played WoW but from what I’ve heard Yes.
I’m sorry, perhaps I’m being dense, but: yes, playing against bots in Unreal Tournament or StarCraft is “authentically challenging”? Is that right?
In Unreal (or a game like it that I played) I felt like I understood what kind of challenge I was actually facing, and it felt quite different to playing against humans.
With starcraft, I’m not sure. I think at high levels of play people are fairly aware of how the bot thinks.
Another interesting example is Network Wars, the bot AI is flawed, but to dig into it at all, the player has to become aware of that (and to enjoy it, I think we have to recognize that the flaws analogize interesting vices that people have in the real world (nearsightedness/greed, cowardice), though turned up to a inhuman extreme)
Look, I have to ask: is there some reason why you’re refusing to give me a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer to a yes-or-no question?
I ask because this is making it very difficult to follow what you’re saying. I would like to understand your comments, but it would really be much easier for me to do that if the commentary accompanied the direct answers, rather than replacing them!
I did, each answer was in sequence.
But the reason I was reluctant initially was:
If you understand my reasoning, you can infer my answers.
If you don’t understand my reasoning, I would not actually want you to know my answers.
This sometimes leads to a style of writing that keeps things abstract and indirect and as a result is able to tell the truth about any issue, because it means that the author’s positions on things will only be clear to people who understand why they think that (and can thus empathize with it, speak to it, and probably agree with it).
Games are designed so that success is possible.