I have just one last long winded rant on the subject of gaming the system.
I never liked RPGs growing up and avoided them, but I had a couple friends who got me into both Morrowind on OG Xbox and Fallout 2 on PC. I came to appreciate the design, ideas like leveling, understanding the stats, picking skills and upgrading gear. Generally just understanding the design of the gameplay. And over the years broadened my appreciation by branching out to gameplay styles and game genres that use similar designs. I'm glad I jumped on board when I did, because since then we've seen a broadening of hybridization with RPG elements into lots of mainstream games and perhaps I wouldn't have come to appreciate many of these new games without first overcoming that initial hurdle.
The games are fun as games themselves, but I felt a drive to understand them by ways of gaming the system. These days you can find shortcuts online that suck all the fun of discovering those exploits yourself but I steer clear, I don't want to rob myself of making such discoveries on my own.
Back in original Morrowind I discovered I could get around the leveling wall, which was tied to your major and minor skills improving, but once those are capped, that's that. You could level up other skills but not achieve the point to put points into attributes anymore... until I discovered the debuff gear. There was some item I came across, I think it might have been some shackle, it had a penalty of lowering a skill while equipped and like most stuff in this game you disregard to avoid encumbrance, overall the item seem inconsequential, then it suddenly occured to me, this debuff applies to one of my major skills... EUREKA!! I equipped it, found a master trainer, even though I had maxed the major skill out and couldn't be trained, equip the debuff gear, suddenly the game thinks there's room for improvement and allows me to train, and with the debuff gear applied I could do it again and again until oh look, opportunity to start adding more and more attribute points to ridiculous levels. I ended up with the most OP character that paled all my previous attempts at that game.
And perhaps by accident, when I first played Skyrim I did the most perfect character design with skill focuses applied to some mix of alchemy, enchantment, and blacksmithing. I essentially circled the buffs back into each other like potions to create better enchantment, enchantments to create better potions, round and round until I was tired of it and just settled on something to buff my blacksmithing, used my best resources and created some of the most ridonkulous OP armor and bow and I could take down dragons and trolls with single shot, basically what I did in Morrowind all over again.
These games scream for players to game the system, but to do that you have to understand that system. Now, these two examples are perhaps the most grotesque examples because they suck all the fun out of the game afterwards, but they were fun to unravel. But gamers at large game the system whenever and wherever they can. Perhaps people's limits are just inherent in their comprehension and observation and problem solving, but no doubt the drive is universal. I imagine if a game has a casino and offers high stakes games and players can save before throwing everything they own at a roulette table or a single hand of blackjack, they will, and if they fail, they'll just reload. Or rather than spend a skill point to upgrade pick-pocketing, if they need something from an NPC, perhaps just walk up to their back pocket sneaking, save, attempt, if failed, reload and repeat until successful. It comes in all ways shapes and forms, and people will do it.
I don't want to say Joe didn't have more fun because he didn't game the system, but he certainly exhibited positions that told me he'd be incapable of doing so because he never really understood what that system was. He'd scream about things he just couldn't wrap his head around. And it's rather shocking he never did get a grasp on a better understanding, be it with the several weeks he put into it, his engagement with others online, his two goons standing over his shoulder the last several weeks.
Overall I'd say regardless I stand with his assessment of flawed but fun. But the hour-plus of minutiae that brought him to that conclusion are largely flawed. And here is a game that can be improved. No doubt devs are listening. But to get good feedback... well, they need people to offer good feedback to be heard. Joe's feedback is largely counter-productive because it just doesn't nail the issues right or also fails to recognize causality, but unfortunately, that's the kind of dumb shit the devs will have to placate.
And I won't fault him for being wrong, people should be allowed to be wrong, he at least tried his best, but if you're going to be a critic, if you're going to critique a game, you have to do some critical thinking. Joe let his lizard brain dictate this review.
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