Comments on: Quip: tuning https://blog.learnlets.com/2011/03/quip-tuning/ Clark Quinn's learnings about learning Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:46:50 +0000 hourly 1 By: Internet Time Alliance | A game? Who says? https://blog.learnlets.com/2011/03/quip-tuning/#comment-170850 Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:46:50 +0000 http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=1964#comment-170850 s not magic, and while it requires tuning, it’s doable. And, as I’ve stated before: you can’t say it’s a game, only your players can tell you that. So here were these folks [...]]]> […] the topic.  It’s not magic, and while it requires tuning, it’s doable. And, as I’ve stated before: you can’t say it’s a game, only your players can tell you that. So here were these folks […]

]]> By: Rob Moser https://blog.learnlets.com/2011/03/quip-tuning/#comment-114005 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:14:32 +0000 http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=1964#comment-114005 Its amazing the number of games that get that tuning of the last bit exactly wrong. I wonder if maybe they do all of their testing progressively; so that by the time any of their testers plays the last scene, they’ve played the rest of it for 40x longer than they expect any of their actual customers to. But there seems to be a particular tendency to introduce a slightly different mechanic right at the end – presumably with the intention of making the final boss(es) seem more unique, but meaning that all of your training up til now is useless. Perfect example was the original Assassin’s Creed game, which rewarded you all along for sneaking around all the knights or running away from them instead of fighting them. Then, right towards the end (I’m not certain how close to the end, because I walked away from the game in disgust at this point) they lock you in a tiny open space with a dozen enemy knights, and surround you with an invisible forcefield that they don’t even bother to explain so you can’t run away. They’ve trained me in a set of skills, then suddenly dropped me in a forced situation where everything I’ve done so far is useless, and the only useful survival skills are some they’ve actually punished me for practicing at earlier stages. In one fell swoop it took a game from one of the more entertaining that I’d played in quite awhile, to a completely frustrating experience that I refused to finish and that I’m still ranting about in blog comments years later. And no, I didn’t buy the sequel.

I know this post was about tuning, and not about griping about a specific game, but I’d still love to know what it was that you were playing.

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