Very interesting (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Thursday, June 11, 2015, 13:58 (3452 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by General Vagueness, Thursday, June 11, 2015, 14:07

It never fails to amaze me how deeply ingrained the power fantasy is; gamers complain bitterly at any element that undermines it even in the slightest-- anything that suggests that the entirety of the gameworld cannot be dominated by a player with sufficient skill.

Something about this point you made is stuck in my brain. I think there really is something to it, I just can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe the fact that as long as I've played videogames, they've presented a series of challenges to be overcome? That I (we?) have come to expect that if there is an obstacle in a videogame, we are supposed to conquer it? Or that the "power fantasy" is so deeply ingrained in to what games like Destiny are, that some of us have a difficult time reconciling with the idea that there are some challenges that exist outside the range of "beatable" obstacles?

I think you guys are off on this. Failing (or for that matter winning) because of randomness rather than skill feels unfair, and a big reason for engaging in any media-- and especially games and sports-- is to escape the unfairness of life. A good game is fair, because that feels good. Maybe that ties into the power fantasy, because you have the power to make things always turn out in your favor if you're skilled enough, but a good game also has enough challenge that it's nearly impossible to do that, and it does it without bullshit deaths or failures.
That's not to say there's no place for randomness. Good enemy AI is unpredictable to a certain extent and that's hard to do without a degree of randomness. It's standard practice to play on a random map when you go into multiplayer, and until Destiny it was standard for Bungie games to give you a random gametype too, and people like that for a variety of reasons. The random strikes and burns for weeklies and Nightfalls fit this, as do the random bosses, burns, buffs, and bobstacles in the Prison of Elders.
The trick is to make it not feel like the proverbial dice are trying to kill you without it getting dull and samey.