this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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Convenience is a bad thing. Or, at the very least, convenience isn't useful while inconvenience is.
The most recent discussion about it is about pause buttons; having a pause button isn't bad, but it doesn't add anything while being unable to pause can. Fast travel is a classic, it stomps over gameplay and enables bad design from developers, it's actively detrimental to many games. Weapon degradation is another big point in favor of inconvenience; when done well it gives a steady resource sink and forces you to plan ahead.
The obsessive need for everything to be quick and convenient is down right counter to the very idea of a video game and over stimmed children need to chill out.
I was playing a game recently and was fighting a boss whose gimmick was controlling time. I paused the game and the boss quipped at me and then unpaused the game. It was impressive and amusing in the moment, but very quickly became an issue of "no seriously, I need to be able to pause".
If work calls, someone knocks on my door, or my cat knocks something over I need to be able to set the game aside and not have it demand my attention. Having pause doesn't add anything because we've become accustomed to it, not having pause is noticeable because it subtracts, not because it adds. I've never had a gameplay experience that would have been better by not having pause available to me.
Gameplay should be about overcoming challenges, not overcoming inconvenience. If my equipment degrading just means I need to stop playing the game for 5 minutes to do the digital chores of collecting wood and stone that is not adding to the experience, it is just padding the playtime.
When World of Warcraft removed portals to "make the world feel big," which ultimately results in players pointing their flying mount in a direction and waiting longer to get somewhere that doesn't improve the game. It is ultimately a design problem, but the fault is not in the convenience tools, it's in the lack of meaningful gameplay without them.
I agree with the fast travel but not the pause. There has to be a pause. Stuff happens in real life. What if you get a phone call, someone rings the doorbell or you have to take a shit? Unless you're doing really basic quick stuff like a sudoku puzzle or an online match that only lasts a few minutes, or playing a really really slow game, that's just not reasonable. It may not be realistic to have a pause function as we don't have a pause in real life but sometimes liberties have to be taken be taken to make it more accessible to people.