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Guilty pleasure: mobile games

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    #31
    Originally posted by Asura View Post
    I'm confused; I googled this and it looked just like Arknights.

    Are they related? Or is this just the mobile game thing again where many of them look the same?
    I don't play Arknights, but from what I get that's more of a tower defence game; GFL is more of a full-blown strategy game.

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      #32
      Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
      I don't play Arknights, but from what I get that's more of a tower defence game; GFL is more of a full-blown strategy game.
      Googled it again, turns out some of the top images I get actually are for Arknights.

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        #33
        Originally posted by Asura View Post
        Googled it again, turns out some of the top images I get actually are for Arknights.

        I don't know if it comes down to my coockies or whatever, but "Girls Frontline" only returns GLF images for me. Maybe a couple of Girls Frontline 2 images (currently in closed beta), but nothing off topic.

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          #34
          Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
          I don't know if it comes down to my coockies or whatever, but "Girls Frontline" only returns GLF images for me. Maybe a couple of Girls Frontline 2 images (currently in closed beta), but nothing off topic.
          Probably easier for me just to ask; what game is this? Circled?

          As if that's what Girls Frontline looks like, you can understand my confusion.

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            #35
            That's Girls Frontline II. It's currently in beta for Chinese players. It's turn-based 3D game in the same style as Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Advance Wars, or Langrisser.

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              #36
              Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
              That's Girls Frontline II. It's currently in beta for Chinese players. It's turn-based 3D game in the same style as Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Advance Wars, or Langrisser.
              Apologies, just you can understand my confusion when Arknights looks like this:

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                #37
                Mhmmm, now that you mention it, they do look very similar.

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                  #38
                  The Call of Duty addiction that I'm always trying to recover from sometimes manifests via bouts on Call of Duty Mobile.

                  And you know what? It's pretty good. it's basically what I wanted Black Ops Declassified on Vita to be, a punchy portable version of classic 6v6 CoD gameplay.

                  The controls are a bit awkward, although aiming via a touchscreen is fine and actually kind of feels more accurate than an analogue stick in some instances.

                  The game itself is actually Chinese, as it's developed by Timi, part of Tencent - although the content is a megamix of maps and weapons from various mainline console titles.

                  One thing I would say is that, like almost any other F2P game I've tried, the number of mechanics is absolutely baffling. I basically skip through everything and just go to Ranked for a quick Team Deathmatch now and again, but there are about a bazillion different currencies and types of lootbox and battle pass and season pass and all sorts on there.

                  It seems utterly confusing to me and I have no idea where I would even begin in terms of spending money on there - what on? Why? What benefit does it confer? Who knows.
                  Last edited by wakka; 05-08-2021, 16:59.

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                    #39
                    Originally posted by wakka View Post
                    It seems utterly confusing to me and I have no idea where I would even begin in terms of spending money on there - what on? Why? What benefit does it confer? Who knows.
                    It's for levels of abstraction, and it's a deliberate choice; older games like Game of War pretty much proved it, and even the Xbox 360's old MS Points system was for similar reasons.

                    It means that to work out the cost of anything in real money, you have to do some maths, which most people never do.

                    It also means that it's difficult to convert your ongoing expenditure back into real money, to reduce the chance of you waking up one morning to realise you've spent £10k on Moon Crystals or whatever

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                      #40
                      Oh yes, I understand why they use in-game currencies as an abstraction of real monetary value. My question wasn't 'Why do they do it like this?', but instead 'How do I divine the value of what I'm receiving?' - not in financial terms, but in game terms.

                      It's unclear to me the advantage of what I can purchase versus the cavalcade of free stuff you receive, not least because there are such a range of purchase options (bundles of items where you know what you'll get, lootboxes, battle passes, and so on).

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                        #41
                        That is definitely a problem with COD Warzone as well. I dabbled with it a little while ago and the main menu is a nightmare of ads to buy stuff being vomited at you. I felt like I was having a stroke. Nothing made sense, it took ages to find the play game button and I couldn't really see what the value in any of the things being offered.

                        I did get a good chuckle a while back when I loaded it up and there was a big fullscreen Veterans Day message thing and then the very next screen was an ad to buy a pack that would let you put anime girl art on your guns. It's what our fallen heroes would have wanted.

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                          #42
                          Originally posted by wakka View Post
                          Oh yes, I understand why they use in-game currencies as an abstraction of real monetary value. My question wasn't 'Why do they do it like this?', but instead 'How do I divine the value of what I'm receiving?' - not in financial terms, but in game terms.

                          It's unclear to me the advantage of what I can purchase versus the cavalcade of free stuff you receive, not least because there are such a range of purchase options (bundles of items where you know what you'll get, lootboxes, battle passes, and so on).
                          Ah OK, gotcha. That's a different tactic, called "mental overloading".

                          The idea is that when playing a game long-term, if you're grinding in the "metagame" to unlock things, you have a certain amount of "mental load" to keep track of your progress.

                          By loading you up with currencies, timers, progress bars, collections, calendars where you get something each day, jars to fill, sparkles to collect... All of these things are progressing at very different rates, some are permanent, some are ephemeral... The mental load is too much for anyone to track and you either make a spreadsheet or you just focus on what the game asks you to do, when it asks it, because you expect the game knows its own systems. You, the user, are supposed to feel like you're being discerning, like you're filtering out the crap to find what matters to you, and maybe you are - but also, the developer is coercing you to focus on specific things too, and what those things are can change day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month...

                          What's going on is the developer, once you're "engaged" with the game, is trying to create "pinch points" - moments where your progress grinds to a halt and you realise (without them explicitly telling you) that you could progress faster if you open your wallet.

                          The mental overload approach is about pushing/pulling you around many different parts of a complex system, like you're spinning lots of plates. If the game had just one plate to spin, it'd be easy for you to see when the developer artificially slows it down, and you'd be very aware that the obstacle you're paying to get around is created by the developer themselves; but if they have 36 plates, of varied shapes and sizes, some are even in different rooms of your house (i.e. different parts of the UI), it's not so easy to see why each plate slows down.

                          This is the psychology behind it, in any case. It's about obfuscation. You mention how it's not clear to you where you should/would spend money; that's the point. But if you play it enough, you'll probably find one of those areas will suddenly come into very sharp focus. Then a little while later, another area will. Then another.

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                            #43
                            That's very interesting. I hadn't cottoned on to that at all, nor have I heard of that technique before. Thanks for your clear explanation of it mate.

                            It's horrible, the way these games are designed to manipulate. Really makes me uncomfortable.

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                              #44
                              Originally posted by wakka View Post
                              That's very interesting. I hadn't cottoned on to that at all, nor have I heard of that technique before. Thanks for your clear explanation of it mate.

                              It's horrible, the way these games are designed to manipulate. Really makes me uncomfortable.
                              While that's true, I have some sympathy for the developers.

                              Many videogames are coercive/manipulative. I mean classic arcade games had difficult bosses and at-times unfair mechanics to get you to put in more coins. NES games were difficult to encourage people to buy/have games, and not finish them in a weekend from Blockbuster. Videogames have always had things in them which are designed to maximise revenue, sometimes at the expense of fun/player comfort.

                              People are probably bored of me saying this by now but in the early days of smartphone gaming, many developers tried more traditional videogames on phones. Some of them were very good. They flopped. This is an industry where the creators of Monument Valley, a beloved, highly rated and highly regarded mobile game, brought out DLC that practically doubled the content in the game for 1$ - one solitary dollar - and people sent them death-threats. It's a part of the gaming landscape where people saw a game for $2.99 and suck their teeth as if that's a king's ransom.

                              The market kinda gets what it chooses here, and people chose manipulative freemium games (to the tune of billions of dollars), so developers chased the revenue.

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                                #45
                                Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. From a business perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. From an outsider's perspective, it seems like it's practically the only way to make the space work financially (apart from, perhaps, being in something like Apple Arcade - although the financial rewards for a successful F2P are magnitudes greater than that would ever offer, I'm sure).

                                And yet - as a user, the way these games work does make me uncomfortable. The manipulative meathooks of this type of game, digging around in your brain. You can practically feel it. It's almost visceral. It's just a bit gross.
                                Last edited by wakka; 06-08-2021, 11:31.

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