Not that I’m aware of. However, you can certainly try and challenge yourself in various ways, e.g. how to woo and marry X villager in the earliest possible season, determine the most profitable crop arrangement, and so on. Nothing is particularly random though, so it’s likely that things can be optimized outside the game on paper.
This isn’t good enough. While you can race against a clock or a score, without comparing to other people, you can’t know if what you’re doing is actually challenging. I mean there is no direct competition in Marathon running. You cannot do anything that somehow slows a competitor or score goals against him. You are racing only against a clock. You can run a Marathon all by yourself if you have a stopwatch and a field with measured length. Let’s say I do it and complete the track in 5:30.
Am I good? Was it hard? It sure felt that way for me, I barely feel my feet and my lungs are hurting. But the truth is that most runners can do it within 3 hours. My numbers suck. It might be a very hard task for me, but it’s because I suck in running.
We don’t need other competitors for the competition. We need them to standardize the clock. The IQ score isn’t theoretically set, it’s standardized by running it on lots of people. You are a retard under 70, not because 70 is such theoretical number, but because it’s two sigmas away from the mean.
If I play Stardew Valley and manage to plant 1000 potatoes, is that good? I can’t tell without seeing others performance. But since there is no official scoreboard, I cannot. So I won’t play, because I can’t. To have a game, we need challenge. Without challenge, it’s just a toy you can use at will as entertainment tool. Which is fine if you are 5, less fine if you’re 35.
Can you… really not set internal goals? Is everything you do, everything that is “fun,” dictated to you by your peers?
Say you run a marathon in 5:30. Then practice for a month or so and run it again and get 4:45. Can you not see that as an improvement? Sure, in a vacuum, 1000 potatoes in Stardew Valley doesn’t particularly mean anything. But part of what make games fun for me is getting into them and seeing the structures and mechanics express themselves. If my goal is to build a Chicken Coop, is getting the required 4000g best done by planting a lot of low-money crops that quickly grow, or the long-term crops that take most of the season? Should I spend a bunch of time in the mines getting copper, or should I fish/forage instead? Over time, I’ll start to figure out that X is much better than Y, either outright or because it fits my playstyle better.
In any case, once again, how many hours did you spend in Subnautica? Why did you draw your own map by hand? You felt something while playing that game, and I daresay that feeling was… fun. It may not last indefinitely, but for those hours, it was worthwhile to you, and engaged your mind the same as any direct competition.
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A game does not need to have a scoreboard to be difficult and therefore provide a challenge. Simply reaching the end can sometimes be a challenge, though obviously not in the case of Stardew Valley.
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@Azuriel: I drew the map it to help my future actions. Except there were no future actions. The whole thing was a fake, a big waste of time.
4:45 is still shit.
@pmichalek: how do you know if it’s difficult? For Arthasdklol, finding a plate helmet instead of a cloth cap was too much of a challenge.
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The best challenge is against your yesterday self. That’s how you improve.
Comparing yourself to others only matters when your results need to compete. In games, they don’t.
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@Stawek: yesterday I pooped into my pants. Today I could push them down in time and pooped on the floor. I’m awesome and deserve an achievement.
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There are games what you play to win and there are games what you play to outlast, make a goal. If you play LoL or World of Warships round, you have a clear victory condition. You play and compete against others to be victorious. If you take minecraft as example, there are no clear ways to win. Everything is so random, that having a common ground or ruleset to compare players is very hard and even then luck has more important role then skill.
Game theory splits those games on two different groups. Finite games and infinite games. Finite games, like World of Warships have clear ruleset, fininte ways of moves and actions, clear boundaries what you can and what you cannot do and when the finite game is over, winner will be decided. Infinite games have no ruleset. Because you can play endlessy, there is endless ways of moves and actions. If there are boundaries, you have time and resources to change them at any time you want. There is no winner in infinite game, player purpose is not to win, but to play the game longer.
You can compare finite game to a other finite games. Example you can compare actions per minute, match length, winning percentage etc. Because you have clear ruleset, you can compare to other players and have a ranking system.
You can compare infinite game to a other infinite game. You can show what intresting things you can do in either of games, you can show how pushing to one type of extreme influences the gameflow, you can do work there just because it gives you a reason to play the game longer.
Now there is a big problem if you compare finite game to infinite game. They have completely different playstyles what are not comparable. Finite game player wants to win and it cant find a way to win in a infinite game. So for that type of players, it seems a infinite games is rubbish game. For a infinite game player in finite game there is no meaningful goal to work on. For them you are just in a big box, ruleset is forced to be so strong, that they find a game like a boring tic-tac-toe game where you play again and again and again without any significat goal to work on. So for them, finite game is crap. Neither type of player are right or wrong, you cant compare those kind of games what have very different goals.
Stardew walley is very good infinite game. Thre are many creative ways to play the game, thats what infinite game players like it and in other hand, thats the same reason why finite players hate it.
ps, running in competition is finite game, you run to be the best. Running for good health and improved mood is infinite game, you run just because you can run more and more, there is no victory condition to stop running next week or ever. You run and find a reasons to run more, just because you want to run, not because there is a victory condition.
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Nitpick: under 3 hours isn’t most runners, it’s kind of the starting point of being a badass. I ran a 3:22 marathon recently and was well ahead of average.
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You are pretty much fooling yourself. Why? Becouse as you often say and I agree, actions speak louder then words. The Subnautica is a very good example of it. You say it was a waste of time etc. etc. But you did play it. You did so for 200h. Nobody payed you to do it, nobody forced you to do it. You did it of your own vocation. And tell me how good were you at Subnautica? Whats your place on the scoreboard?
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You’re learning. If you keep it going you will be awesome one day.
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How about trying stardew valley before concluding anything about it?
that post reeks of: “muh no leaderboard, no challenge in this game”
Not every game is about comparing your e-peen on a leaderboard you know, the journey matters more than the destination blabla…
Every day is a race against the clock in stardew valley, you wake up at 6am and should sleep at 2am or else a villager will bring you back to your home, taking some of your money. It looks minor but this brings tension in the game.
One hour ingame is 42 seconds IRL, meaning you have 14min to spend each day on gardening activities, mining, fighting in the mine and farming reputation with your neighboors.
This game is all about planification and optimization.
Want to plant 1k potatoes? Well good luck doing that in one go. You have to hoe, fertilize, water and then plant your seeds in 1K tiles of soil which will probably take multiple days of work. But what if you placed green beans instead? A plant that continue to produce after reaching maturity. But then you have to take into consideration the fact that green bean tiles are not crossable so how should you arrange them? Long lines? What about your water sprinklers position?
Also, should you plant crops with a slightly lesser return on investment but taking more days to mature, meaning less time spent replanting? That free time could be spent fighting in the mine, collecting ores to craft extra sprinklers. What’s the best choice?
Planification and optimization…
Now, if you really need a leaderboard to have fun in a planification and optimization game, try Factorio and let’s see you topping this leaderboard: https://www.speedrun.com/Factorio
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While I agree with your general stance that “git good” is almost always completely useless as advice for people looking to improve their scores in any given game – and makes for a singularly dull topic to blog about…
There is nonetheless a certain satisfaction that does come with getting good at any game – even if it isn’t directly competitive and doesn’t have published scores/benchmarks to shoot for.
In most cases you can tell when you are doing things catastrophically badly, and there are at least certain benchmarks to aim for to reach an “acceptable” level within the game. In your pooping example, presumably it would be managing to poop without making a huge mess you later have to clean up. In Stardew Valley, you have benchmarks such as the profit margins/bankruptcy of your farming operation, your reputation around the town, your upgrade levels, etc.
If you want to know what is possible – or need further motivation to push yourself to improve to a higher standard or reassure yourself you are doing OK – there are always people out there who can’t help publishing results they believe (correctly or not) to brag about how awesome they are. These people, obnoxious as they often are, do provide a benchmark of someone to beat – and the really good ones provide examples of what is possible if you improve your gameplay/strategy sufficiently.
To tie this back to your marathon analogy: You’ve never run in a marathon (I’m assuming). I doubt you’ve ever even personally witnessed a marathon. But you can look up competitive marathon times online any time you want. Even if there weren’t formal competitions with published results – I guarantee there are blogs out there dedicated to nothing more than progress updates on how fast various runners are running marathons in their spare time.
I haven’t looked at the Stardew Valley subreddit – but I can pretty well guarantee you there are people there bragging about how fast they’ve accomplished X, Y, or Z – which you could use as a benchmark for your own progress if you were so inclined.
Whether it is a game you personally enjoy, or one that would give you any blogging material – I don’t know. But it is nonetheless a game which can provide plenty of challenge to engage even a rational adult, not merely a toy for 5 year olds.
(Though I will grant that, like most games these days, it can also be treated as a toy and will allow you to dawdle along without ever challenging yourself if you play it as such – that just isn’t ALL it is)
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So I won’t play, because I can’t.
To each their own. You do you and I do I.
To have a game, we need challenge. Without challenge, it’s just a toy you can use at will as entertainment tool
YOU need that and players who like the competitive side in a game.
Which is fine if you are 5, less fine if you’re 35.
you cultivate recreational sex? do you time that? keep score? … ohh ok it isn’t a game. So I won’t have it, because I can’t. To have a climax, we need challenge. Without challenge, I have to fake it as relationship tool. Which is fine if you are in puberty, less fine if you’re happily married for 35 years.
Bartle’s Taxonomy youtube.com/watch?v=yxpW2ltDNow
Is it fine to bash here? I’m old, so I was that idiot that drag CRC monitors and rig around to lan parties. because that was far more cheaper then modem use and better to play and also share files. anyway. the crowd back then was filled with all kinds of gamers. they all very much liked their games and they all had a spark.
Did some need competition? yes. all of them? no.
Just because you need it doesn’t mean it is universal.
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@Gevlon
I drew the map it to help my future actions. Except there were no future actions. The whole thing was a fake, a big waste of time.
You have months of World of Warships posts up here. For what? You are going to grind the game to get coal, compete for a higher spot of the leaderboards, and then… nothing. You’ll stop playing, just like you have stopped playing every game, and move on to something else. Meanwhile, the posts themselves will age and expire as soon as the meta changes X amount of time later. Does this reality make your efforts “fake, a big waste of time?”
I dunno, man. I can’t see how you can value “competition” over extremely trivial things as valuable, but see “having fun” as pointless. Maybe you could just explain how hitting Rank 1 (or whatever) in World of Warships is any more noteworthy to anyone not playing that game as planting potatoes is to someone playing Stardew Valley. Or either one to anyone ten years from now.
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@Anon: sex isn’t a game. It provides pleasure on a body level. Simply clicking imaginary potatoes does not.
@Azuriel: didn’t you read the post? Rank 1 is noteworthy BECAUSE only 1% of the players can do that.
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@Gevlon actually clicking imaginary potatoes also might provide pleasure on a physiological level, by releasing dopamine. Any activity that is fun (liberally defined) provides physiological pleasure this way. That’s pretty much why people do them.
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“it provides pleasure on the body level”
pleasure on a body level? I will leave it at that … and go with the flow here.
it is different for anyone involved. some need very specific settings and configuration otherwise they are turn off. like giving Diablo fans a mobile game (too soon). or giving you a atmospheric puzzle point and click singleplayer game (Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis) without any competition in it or around it.
Simply clicking imaginary potatoes does not.
as Artahm already said. same activity as to updating EVE online so/bo. or clicking solitair cards. same chemicals in the brain. and still that depends what “fetish of player” you are. for you that is competition, others it is something else.
Competition as you demand it, is still not a universal thing for a game to have.
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I don’t know, I think it looks pretty good! It’s an indi game that doesn’t suffer from “AAA-itis.” I’m downloading it from steam now.
I have to question your whole “Competition! Derp!” argument. There are just too many holes in it. Are you sure you’re not just using that to hide a slew of other things?
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Where was the scoreboard or competition in EVE Online? Especially when you started it? What was the “standardized clock” there? As far as I remember all of your metrics was defined by either you or the community, not by the developers.
So why there has to be an offical scoreboard? If you look at World of Warcraft, the race for clearing new raids has a leaderboard, which is accepted by the whole community, but not an offical one. You could create and popularize your own scoreboard in the Stardew Valley community.
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Difference between Gevlon’s view on games and other people’s views can be described with comix
http://shencomix.com/post/148836283844/a-and-b-smell-the-flowers-image-twitter
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