Educator here: I'm sorry to inform you but the hierarchical nature of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been disproven. Humans seek out needs from all levels of Maslow's Hierarchy basically simultaneously. The basic needs at the bottom (breathing, food, water, rest, shelter, etc.) will supersede other needs but that's the only level that works like this. It's still a good model but don't lean in on the implied hierarchical aspect. Also, the sketch in the video at 0:35 is the basic version which is missing three levels of needs which Maslow added later: Transcendence above Self-Actualization, Aesthetic below Self-Actualization, and Learning above Esteem.
There is a game called outer wilds, its a very fun game however you shouldn't watch ANYTHING about it. Pretty much any knowledge about it is spoilers. This is also not coming only from me, everyone who played it will tell you the same, im not kidding!
Feels like someone could make a game built around Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a very literal sense. Climb a pyramid where the first floor is shelter, food, water; the second floor is security and safety; the third is love; etc
Mind you, interpreting it too literally might miss the idea behind the pyramid, which wasn't quite as strictly hierarchical as it might seem at first glance.
@@paulchapman8023 Quite a few survival games have at least the lower rungs covered pretty well. The upper ones are the more difficult to cover gameplay-wise.
The sims aren't that far off from this. Fulfill your sims basic needs to be able to fulfill their higher needs. But of course you could make the basic needs a little more challenging and the higher needs a little more granular.
Intriguing idea! I really appreciate hearing this model articulated this way and it makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. It helps explain where there may have been a disconnect in the past when I wanted to share one of my favorite videogames (like Journey by thatgamecompany) with someone who wasn't experienced with or interested in video games as a medium. You can't rush someone up the hierarchy of needs, and if they're busy learning to play a 3D third-person platformer for the first time (basic elements of play) they won't be able to "hurry up and appreciate the beautiful symbolism, non-linguistic world-building, and allegorical narrative" (psychological benefits and self-fulfillment). It also makes me think of teaching math: it's hard for someone to "hurry up and appreciate the patterns" when they're still picking up basic mechanics like algebra.
For me, I'd see another basic needs layer above the Intuitive UI: Actual Playability. To give an example, Candy Crush was/is easy to understand and has intuitive controls. But after a few hundred levels of playing, levels become unbeatably difficult so that I throw away the game no matter how addictive the basic concept was. This in contrast to another game I once had on my phone, which was a bouncy-ball-to-bricks game, that gave you 1 extra ball to beat the level every time you failed a level. Eg when level 250 for started with, say, 60 balls and you failed the level then the next time you tried level 250 you would start that level with 61 balls to shoot. And after another failure you could try the level with 62 balls and so on. And the at level 251 you'd start with 60 balls again. This ensured that there were no unpassable levels. Bonus: by adding this playability layer, the pyramid becomes a 3, 2, 1 pyramid which, to me at least, is aesthetically more satisfying than a 2, 2, 1 pyramid. Don't mind my autism please 🤦♂
I know one of the problems I have with match 3 games is that I can't predict more than a move ahead, because the new gems that appear are random, and I can only move gems that make a meld. So maybe what you're referring to in Candy crush is just a lack of clarity in how you can win, from the first level of the pyramid? Other mobile games I've played just hold your hand for the first hour, not letting you click anywhere else, or give you so many items/resources they're meaningless to train you to pay for microtransactions. Felt that way for a Final Fantasy Tactics mobile game. So I wonder where player autonomy fits in the hierarchy.
This episode really resonated with me, and it helped me understand Will’s process when playing for streams a little better. I don’t play many rogue-likes or Metroidvanias, so sometimes I can feel a little lost when he’s explaining things. But looking at it through this hierarchy of needs makes it more understandable, even if I don’t explicitly get the gameplay.
It was around the point that I found myself putting down my Switch and spending the hours *in between* my Baba is You play sessions thinking about various puzzles in the game and how I might solve them that I realised I was playing something truly special. This hierarchy of needs illustrates why so well!
I love Warframe, and this video is really making it obvious to me that I got into the game kind of backwards? When I started - and when most people start - it makes NO sense and you really have to talk to other players or consult the wiki to make sense of it and feel like you're playing it well. But I got into it because my roommates got me into it - as in the top of your pyramid: it affected my outside life profoundly by building stronger relationships with my friends through cooperating and learning and exchanging gameplay stories. Then eventually it became a satisfying visceral experience as I got the hang of the fast pace and the third-person-looter-shooter-ness of it, so I started playing it on my own, and then I got to THE BIG PLOT TWIST and was just like, "Oh my god???" Which was when I got into the core fantasy and became very devoted to the game. Which meant lots of time on the wiki, watching videos, watching streamers, asking questions, until the UI/UX made sense to me and I understood the basic elements of play so that I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. I didn't really realize how wild this was until fairly recently, when I started getting my friend into it. She has said multiple times that the game makes NO sense to her, but it's fun to play together, so she's rolling with it. And I just hope that she'll eventually have an epiphany like I did and fall in love with it. 😢 ... which is all to say, Warframe desperately needs to continue putting work into the new player experience, because it /suuuuuuucks/, lol!
Warframe is good. The only reason I don't play is because I'm the sort of person who shouldn't play MMOs, in much the same way some people shouldn't every touch alcohol. By MMO standards, Wareframe is probably the best there is by a landslide, but it's still an MMO. I'm not capable of playing in moderation when a game has daily rewards, real world cash, and has resource grinds balanced around sinking multiple thousands of hours in as a guild of 100+ members. IF you can play MMO's in moderation, there's nothing I know of that comes close to Warframe in terms of the magical "fun" factor. It's hard to express how fun it is to move through even repetitive levels when one's primary method of locomotion is parkour. None of the paid mechanics are needed to enjoy the game (and in fact might detract from enjoyment). The writing - most of it at least - is top tier, and genuinely wholesome. IF someone made a Warframe overhaul balanced around being singleplayer instead of an MMO (along the lines of Borderlands), I'd pay $100 bucks for it in a heartbeat.
i liked the gameplay but then i got hit with the Necramech grind (i had barely interacted with any of the factions so i had 0 standing) and let me tell you, its a pain (cant do a very important mission until i get it done) and frustrated me so badly i havent played the game in 3 months
That little bit about Intuitive UI/UX hit different- I can think of _two_ massively-praised games I played this year that I struggled to enjoy (Signalis and CrossCode), and _both_ of them had subtle flaws in their menus that always put an aggravated huff up my nose: not a good vibe to then take into engaging with the actual gameplay! BOTH of them had their menus split up into like 3-4 different menus you access by pushing different buttons, and depending on which menu you were in, you had to push different specific buttons to then exit OUT of them or switch to ANOTHER menu, and every time I would spend 2-5 seconds trying to quit out by pushing the button that _made sense_ to me (usually B or Start) and the game just wouldn't respond at all. So annoying
This hierarchy feels like is missing a few layers at the bottom. I wish it could be assumed, but making sure the game runs adequately seems like something even more foundational. If you cannot play the game, nothing else matters. For video games it needs to not crash, and board games need to have all the pieces.
I've just completed an essay, soon to be video, about the concept of a Punishing game, where that very first thing is explicitly not done, on purpose, for a different kind of experience.
Thanks for this useful information! Now this might explain why some players are obsessed with replaying some games ovr n over while some others mod their games to fit their needs.
This episode is very much in the wheelhouse of what I have been trying to do for making my own first game and so I can appreciate the use of Maslow's Hierarchy for how intuitive it feels from a visual standpoint but I have found other useful models that I prefer. Instead of thinking of needs in this bottom up framework, we can imagine needs as if they can be met simultaneously and thus be treated with equal importance. This I think helps explain the challenges mentioned at the start of this video with making games for players of different levels of familiarity with games. A game could focus on meeting the need for some players to be eased into a new experience or it could focus on getting out of an experienced player's way and letting them get right into the main experience, or a game could try the harder option of catering to both kinds of needs at the same time. The problem of course is that they are playing the same game and thus it requires more effort and knowing of player expectations (through game design experience and thorough playtesting) in order to meet both needs without harming the ability to meet one or the other. And so with all that said each part of the game can then be considered by how many player needs it can meet at once and to look for places where it might be harming another need the player has. You can even use Maslow's Hierachy if it feels more intuitive for how to classify the types of player needs. You can look up Manfred Max-Neef or "Nonviolent Communication" to see more about what they have to say about what our needs might be and how we can better try and meet them.
5:53 I was thinking the exact same game while watching this video! Hollow knight is really the perfect game for me. It was especially poignant given that I was playing a game about an epidemic in late 2020 while having COVID myself. The game struck me with a powerful sense of awe and also melancholy for what had been lost. God I can't wait for silksong. Also this hierarchy of needs will be very useful when looking at games in the future. I have a busy life and I don't want to waste time on a game that is just fulfilling the bottom tiers. Those kind of games are akin to the junk food of your media diet and often distract you from other, deeper experiences.
It may be shameless to say this but I recommend you play Outerwilds or Rain World, they both have stories just as good if not better than Hollowknight and have massive reveals and gameplay that melds with the story. Don’t look them up, especially Outer Wilds it’s a knowledge based game. I’m not giving much in the games but I’d need an hour to introduce them each.
I found Hollow Knight to be bad since you had to purchase everything from hidden vendors; thus without a map I got lost, died, and and couldn't recover my currency (grubs?) since I couldn't find where I died. Very poor game design.
I'd cut that pyramid to remove the top two elements. Not replacing them with anything, just leaving a halfway-pyramid. I feel like people nowadays expect games to provide things games aren't meant to provide. A storyline is one such example. Sure, they CAN provide those things... but it changes virtually nothing. A game has to be fun. Everything else is a minor bonus.
I picked up Eldon Ring just yesterday (very late to the party, I know), and if it wasn't for my wife wanting to see the game herself, I probably would have put it right back down, because I have a really high standard for understanding the basics of play. If you're going to show me stat numbers and offer me items, I want to be able to see detailed descriptions of what each does, otherwise I simply don't want to make a choice because I don't feel well enough informed. Of course I pushed past it and am having a great time, but character creation felt like a hurdle I had to jump over just because it was failing my initial vibe check.
Thinking about the games I've recently played that have hit that top hierarchy for me. Journey, Celeste, Tunic, Super Metroid, Spark the Electric Jester 3. They do all seem to hit those boxes. There are some weird outliers though. The Beginner's Guide has some clunk here and there (even unintentionally), but I still came away loving it. Also not sure about Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, cuz a lot of the games are archaic as heck and don't play well with modern controllers (controllers need, like, a scroll wheel or something to make Pong fun again), but I still came away appreciating the package overall due to how it presents the history.
Not gonna lie, the other more recent videos from extra credits felt more like entertainment with a dash of forgettable education but this video’s lesson stuck with me. Keep it up, and we’re back in the extra credits golden age. W extra credits studio
A game I think fits this video quite well is Rimworld. It's main marketing comes, unbelievably enough, from "Word of Mouth". Which isn't exactly easy to do, because it requires doing the top need mentioned in this video well and at a rapid rate. The only thing I gotta say is that it does struggle a bit with the UI/UX thing, but in a lot of cases, people are coming in quite excited to play the game. So they've kind of done the top need so well, that the UI/UX kinda gets a crutch to help it. Other games I think fit would be more tactical shooters like PUBG, hell let loose, and games where there's moments of high tension, then a satisfying release if you manage to win the small battle. That being said though, I'm not a designer, so this is an unprofessional opinion xD. Hope everyone has an amazing day : D
I'd be willing to argue the UI / UX need should be the base underneath basic understanding of gameplay. To me, a lot of the time, a bad UI or bad organization of game options, sub-menus, and the like can make it hard to want to understand the basics of the game. There are SO many games I've just up and returned before I even scratched the tutorial because I tried taking in all the menus (with no basic understanding of what any one window or option truly was) and couldn't figure out exactly what the point of any of it was. I think the little inconveniences of bad UI can be a death-of-1000-cuts situation that makes any potentially playable game not worth the effort. Plus, if you go through a discovery queue on Steam, you can point out any number of BAD UI elements in a given trailer or preview image and just know whether or not you will have any patience to want to mess with it. Certain genres are more or less off limits because so many of the ones I've experienced have the UI's I cannot stand with just too much on the screen at once. Maybe it's just me, but bad UI is such a dealbreaker to me.
For me, one game that met all of those listed needs was Garden Story. I didn’t expect it to stick with me as much as it did, but I really fell in love with that game. (Edit: fixed a spelling mistake)
I think this video explains better than anything why I just couldn't get into Horizon Zero Dawn. The menuing was too convoluted and poorly explained, and I just never wanted to engage with any of the game's systems that involved the menu, which was basically all of them. It probably would have met a lot of things higher up the chain, but it just couldn't get past that UI/UX level.
This echoes well the MDA framework of game design that EC's also covered in the past, but from the player side, who has to M: understand the Mechanics, D: engage with the Dynamics, and A: experience the Aesthetics. And on top of that we have the meta aspect of the game holistically as a meaningful life activity.
Basics of play and UI/UX *are* hugely important. I bounced off one game because the tutorial, while present, didn't teach basic things like ..dodging. Same game, the controls were a muddled mess of combination buttons because it was feature-creeped to heck and back. And that dodge command? HOLD a button. Awful for a game of split-second timing.
Good UI makes SUCH an impact. I used to adore playing Mercy back in Overwatch 1, and it wasn't until Overwatch 2 took over that I realized how much of my love for playing that character was tied up in OW1's excellent UI design. Mercy in Overwatch 2 has the same abilities as end-of-life OW1 Mercy, but her gameplay _feels_ so much less intuitive - and not-insignificant part of that is because of the new UI. Overwatch 2 "updated" all of Overwatch 1's HUD icons and visual/sound effects with new versions, but most of them are direct _downgrades_ that actively make it harder to parse what's going on.
I feel the one game for me that fits the pyramid would have to be Baldurs Gate 3. It has a really good story and the strategy of this game is fun as well as entertaining.
Crusader King problem is no joke. There's a tutorial as. Count of Munster, but the game missed so many basic controls and features in it's features. Had to see so many tutorials, tips & tricks and playthrough alongside playing to understand the game loop.
I really should play more of Hollow Knight. Only played a bit of it. Also, the bit about the music and gameplay not matching at all is part of what makes the Dynasty Warriors series so good most of the time. Wario Land 3 is my top game of all time, which I think checks all of the things on this pyramid. Pokemon Gold lost me when it said I had to trade to get some creatures.
For me personally, the game that fulfills all those needs is Shovel Knight. In fact, Shovel Knight is the direct inspiration for Project Hop (I will not be elaborating).
I'm glad you mentioned Hollow Knight, it quickly became my favorite game of all time, it's the perfect cute, with the haunting feeling of loss that souls games have fostered. It's so amazing.
I remember I had a big frustration with fifa 23 about the ui/ux. I hadn't owned a football game since 2005, I had recently purchased it, and I was having a game party at my house. We wanted to make a local OFFLINE tournament, and OMG, we took like 15 minutes trying to find how to do that. We gave up and then decided to go with singular matches (which took us a couple of minutes to find) and organized the tournament in a board outside the game. To this day I consider that game's ui to be the worst I've known. Perhaps people that grow up playing many fifas throughout these years don't have that problem.
I just tried my first game of Wheels in the game Sea of Stars. I skipped the tutorial and went about my game. When I tried to play Wheels in the second town, I was totally lost. When I tied at the end, I felt good for figuring it out, though I do wonder what I missed in the tutorial.
Side Discussion: What games have actually hit the top of the pyramid? Self Fulfillment. Spirit Fairer? That Dragon Cancer? Brothers? And what DID that game deliver for you?
Maslow's actual hierarchy is sort of nonsense, though. In many countries where a large share of the population is malnourished, people will still spend large sums on organising celebrations (e.g. relatively lavish weddings) rather than using it to buy more food. Basic needs like food do not need to be met before people will start pursuing social needs.
That also maps fairly well on the metaphor with people being able to muddle through an unclear game and find the fun despite the baser needs being lacking.
As I watched this video I began to ponder what elements were missing or didn't connect with me in games I tried to get into but failed to enjoy, especially MMOs. It made me appriciate the few I actually do enjoy even more. Something like PSO2NGS does a lot more to engage me in it's systems and narrative than the majority of MMOs. In my experience many MMOs feel lacking in a viseral moment to moment gameplay experience which combined with much of the most exciting content being locked to endgame can make the core fantasy feel unachiveable or simply lacking. Poor controls, optimization, and ui on console ports can make it even worse. MMOs and MMOlites that can get past these issues are typically the ones I stick with and the ones that ultimately reach those higher levels of this scale where I am actively thinking positively about the game and it's universe beyond what my actual playtime states.
These days I'm just happy if a game is released in a finished state. Baldur's gate 3 & Warhammer 40k rogue trader are two examples of games that drop significantly in quality after the second act & totally killed all enjoyment for me. Sadly, I don't see companies stop doing this because the games get good score and reviews anyway.
I think about my third favorite game Rain World on the daily, I have plushies, my TH-cam channel is built on it, my first large solo project I’m currently working on is a video on the game, and if I ever get a tattoo it will be from Rain World. The same for Outer Wilds and Hollowknight to a lesser extent (despite them being my #1 and #2 favorite games respectively), nice to see you play Hollowknight, if you haven’t played Outer Wilds or Rain World I highly recommend them, the only two games I truly consider to be high art
One game that I played that really suffered from a "missing" bottom tier was The Sims Castaways for the Wii. I owned Castaways for both the PC and the Wii. The game play on the Wii was much more fun in my opinion, less pointlessly linear, but the controls were obviously designed for a standard game cube controller. The Wii controller was horrible for this game. Worst of all, there was no option of using a regular controller even though you could plug one in. It made an otherwise fun game into a truly unpleasant experience.
I would argue that there's another way to analyze the Maslow hierarchy, which is from the position of theory of mind. Humans require social interaction and affirmation, so when we engage when fiction, there is a part of us that requires affirmation. I experienced the opposite during the Last Jedi, as someone who wanted to get into the Star Wars franchise, but felt like the director was talking over me to the established audience, making me feel unwelcome. We see something similar in PVP, where new players are made to feel insecure by established players who have a very different theory of mind for other players.
the only rough part of this Model is that the higher up the list you go. the more subjective it gets.... and honestly you can reasonably stop at 3. not everyone is going to find your game a brain teaser or an inspiration... also these elements aren't always equal Person 5 differently Fails Step 1. but it excels everywhere else... UI is very snappy and Stylized. Dungeons are very engaging. (the Social Sim maybe a little Rail Roady compared to P4 but meh) Persona fusing is a long term engagement. and the whole Human Cognition and Living Cognition thing is something that has stuck with me. i point excitedly whenever i see another piece of fiction use that style of fiction. can't see Yellow Eyes the same way
When I play a game I look for either a plot reason to play or a gameplay goal to get me interested like either get to this point the story because you’re interested in the story or play this much of the game to unlock some new content and if a game doesn’t have a good story or reward system then I’m not interested
Care to explain how people in Bethesda Fallout games care little for shelter? There's tons of buildings made of stone available, but they remain boarded up, while sheet metal huts are used. Food also doesn't seem to be something needed, with the exception of New Vegas, were farms and water pumps exist. Seems for world-building, Maslow is pretty much being ignored
I don't particularly think any of those things in the pyramid apply to me. Sometimes for me, I only want to play a game because I know how famous it is, or how much of a credibility it has among critics and developers who cite it as an influence, or if it appears in all those top 10 and top 100 lists. And the other big reason is the story. Sometimes I've been able to withstand truly unacommodating games just because of the creative fascination and development history that they had hiding behind the veil.
I like the idea of this episode, but the way it was presented makes all layers feel equal, if not that the higher layers are more important. The whole point of the pyramid analogy is that the foundational levels are the most important - that without them, the upper "enrichment" layers don't actually mean anything and crumble under their own weight. I think this episode could have used a bit more reiteration that "without the strong foundation of intuitive gameplay and solid UI/UX, great visuals or other artistry don't actually mean anything because there will be no players getting far enough to actually experience it. But if you do have that strong foundation, the artistry elevates it from a 'functional game' to a 'good game'." and then "without strong foundational gameplay, UI/UX, and artistry, the emotional heart of the game doesn't mean anything because nobody is paying attention. But once you have that foundation in place, the emotional heart elevates the experience from a 'good game' to a 'meaningful game'."
I would agree, but the thing is that while it's much easier to fulfill the higher up needs if the lower ones are met, it's not strictly required to do so. See the crusader kings example. On the other hand, I absolutely had an experience where I just had to put a game down because it was just too frustrating to play. The game was company of heroes 2, a mod for it, and I just gave up after seeing my units stand still and not do anything for 2 solid minutes after an attack command and various other ways of attempting to get them to do so. I had something like 9 squads of infantry upgraded with anti tank weapons, and they died to a single tank without even firing a shot back. Also combined with the "what do you mean me anti-whatever isn't actually good against that thing" issue I heavily experienced.
@@aaronscott7467 I think this is where we get into the "exceptions vs the rule" discussions. I think Crusader Kings is a good exception to the rule, but does not in and of itself negate the importance of the rule.
I personally believe that the psychological needs need to be met first before the mechanics and gameplay. I'd rather play a flawed game mechanically if it has a good story, art style, or aesthetic that make it worth grinding through versus a mechanically good game that has a boring, ugly, or uninteresting style to it. Though some games can be so mechanically broken that no matter what style art you put into it won't be playable but that is an extreme case. An example for me is Terra Nil. Mechanically the game is a pretty shallow puzzle game and is extremely short but the style and art of the game makes it very enjoyable to play. This is why I like Monster Hunter 3 over Dark Souls 1 when they have very similar mechanics (big boss monsters that can kill you in 1 or 2 hits). One makes you feel like a bad ass while the other makes you feel pathetic. I could name several other "flawed but fun" games add to this.
@@llSuperSnivyll Not always. Though the cutscenes can give a feel of the game but gameplay animation can the look of the character plays a part. Going back to Monster Hunter 3 vs. Dark Souls 1. Both have the same attack speed and relative damage but with MH the style makes you feel in control and powerful while in Dark Souls you feel weak and clunky. Even when you have the proper strength for the weapon your swinging animations looks like you can't wield it or you don't know what you're doing.
I'm watching this video trying to figure out why I bounced so hard of Baulder's Gate 3, ad a game on paper that I should have loved. The only thing I can think having watched the breakdown is that it got up to "Experience of the Core Fantasy" and was just incongruous with why I play D&D. BG3 Feels like it contains the trappings of D&D but it doesn't provide the same feeling I get from playing D&D and so well... it doesn't work for me.
I know a game that is amazing but fails on the first level, TABG (totally accurate battle grounds) I’ve gotten many story out of that game I think about it all the time and the sound is amazing in game and visuals responsive but the game has no tutorial I’ve met knew player that didn’t know you could go prone or know how to change spectating POV it’s so fun but hard to get into
I think intuitive UI/UX should be rephrased, because I have a two word counter argument to the idea you need that to get more out of a game - Dwarf Fortress. Nobody would tell you that UI is anything but horrendous, but lots of people get deep fulfillment out of it regardless. I think that stage is more accurately described as a version of the previous one - after you understand the basic elements of play, you need to be able to smoothly and easily execute those elements. UI is the main part of that, but even if your UI is a crime against graphic design, there's going to be some people who can still get through it and become able to smoothly execute the basic ideas regardless.
Maslow's "key insight" that needs are in a hierarchy is not universally accepted by modern psychology. In fact, the only people that really buy into it are in more applied fields. It's taken as common sense in teaching, for example, but that concept is far from true, and too much adherence to it can lead to problems too.
yeah! a lot more people need to understand, that models present a part of reality and make it more digestible and are not reality itself. as it is a social construct, based on the knowledge, beliefes and insight from the person creating it.
So i liked all of it, up until the top of the pyramid, I don't need a game to effect my real life, I have real life that effects my real life. Time to grow up kids, the real world's waiting. Most video games are toys, with a little art, the high art/meaningful games are rare and in a different league, to expect that all of them can fulfill the last part of this hierarchy is unrealistic and even a tad manipulative.
Personally, one of my biggest draws to a game is a good character creator, I've found that I have little to no interest in a game that throws a character at me. Like, I know hollow knight for example is a good game, but I've never been able to enjoy it much. Meanwhile Sims 4, which is a sad little failure of a buggy mess, has gained 1000+ hours on steam alone, mostly creating sims to live in a world, lol.
I think it's probably very wrong in actuality, look at all the AAA games coming out with horrific UI, UX, bad tutorials, and still be successful just due to the so called top of the pyramid
Different players definitely have different levels of tolerance for it, but HAVING to leave the game, literally turn it off, and go to the internet in order to learn the basics of how to play it is bad design, right? Note, not necessarily the optimum strategies, just ways to kill bosses not die, and not get stuck for hours /days / weeks / oops too late I quit at hours. I would say Cuphead does this well, whereas Dark Souls 1 through 3 (and other FromSoft games too) do this absolutely terribly. You can ruin the entire game before you even start playing by making an unviable build at character creation. What things do and how to use them is intentionally obfuscated. The easiest way to add an easy mode to any of these games is to copy and paste a 10 minute "how to" from TH-cam on the actual options of play, some advice for good character choices for new players, and such. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, maybe gamers like it when games don't fulfill this need so they can feel better about themselves for summiting it, but I don't like it.
Yes, I absolutely agree with this. Like, say, why do I have to put down my Pokémon game, walk to my PC, open a browser and do a Google search to know that Scald has a 30% chance to burn? That's an awful design. And yet, I've seen people defend things like this because it supposedly "encourages discovery". Open world games also catastrophically fail at this. You keep asking "Why would I want to do this?", but the game does not answer it, forcing you to go to the internet why you should even try to go to that location in the horizon. At most they try to appeal as to why the player character would want to, but never onto why the player, as in YOU, would.
@@llSuperSnivyll In regards to the pokemon example I would say its not quite the same thing. Scald tells you it has 80 power and 100% accuracy, it tells you that it is a special water type move, and the in game description DOES tell you there is a chance to inflict burn (but it does not say how high) and most importantly it tells you all of this BEFORE you decide to learn it or not. Imagine a pokemon game where NONE of the above information was available. That's the level of hiding the game from the players that I dislike.
No offense but the ad read transition at the end was absolutely profoundly discomforting experience. eating sounds and drinking sounds not even seconds after hitting the satisfying end note *shudder* what a whiplash
"learnt" → tell whatever UK or Ausie writer you have that they have to write American words for their American narrator. Also, you (Matt) really should just change their "learnt" to "learned" when you read it. Unless you sound like some kind of non-American, saying "learnt" is going to sound out of place, even if it's not technically "wrong."
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Replace the top of the pyramid with 'require microtransactions' and you've got modern game development. 🤷♂️
Educator here: I'm sorry to inform you but the hierarchical nature of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been disproven. Humans seek out needs from all levels of Maslow's Hierarchy basically simultaneously. The basic needs at the bottom (breathing, food, water, rest, shelter, etc.) will supersede other needs but that's the only level that works like this. It's still a good model but don't lean in on the implied hierarchical aspect.
Also, the sketch in the video at 0:35 is the basic version which is missing three levels of needs which Maslow added later: Transcendence above Self-Actualization, Aesthetic below Self-Actualization, and Learning above Esteem.
There is a game called outer wilds, its a very fun game however you shouldn't watch ANYTHING about it. Pretty much any knowledge about it is spoilers. This is also not coming only from me, everyone who played it will tell you the same, im not kidding!
Feels like someone could make a game built around Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a very literal sense. Climb a pyramid where the first floor is shelter, food, water; the second floor is security and safety; the third is love; etc
Mind you, interpreting it too literally might miss the idea behind the pyramid, which wasn't quite as strictly hierarchical as it might seem at first glance.
Isn’t Minecraft a bit like that? I haven’t played much of it, but I remember needing to build a shelter on day 1 to survive night 1.
The policies to true perfection to each persons needs are allready underway/van der weigh,i just need alot of help.
And probbally medicene...
@@paulchapman8023 Quite a few survival games have at least the lower rungs covered pretty well. The upper ones are the more difficult to cover gameplay-wise.
The sims aren't that far off from this. Fulfill your sims basic needs to be able to fulfill their higher needs. But of course you could make the basic needs a little more challenging and the higher needs a little more granular.
Intriguing idea! I really appreciate hearing this model articulated this way and it makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. It helps explain where there may have been a disconnect in the past when I wanted to share one of my favorite videogames (like Journey by thatgamecompany) with someone who wasn't experienced with or interested in video games as a medium. You can't rush someone up the hierarchy of needs, and if they're busy learning to play a 3D third-person platformer for the first time (basic elements of play) they won't be able to "hurry up and appreciate the beautiful symbolism, non-linguistic world-building, and allegorical narrative" (psychological benefits and self-fulfillment). It also makes me think of teaching math: it's hard for someone to "hurry up and appreciate the patterns" when they're still picking up basic mechanics like algebra.
For me, I'd see another basic needs layer above the Intuitive UI: Actual Playability. To give an example, Candy Crush was/is easy to understand and has intuitive controls. But after a few hundred levels of playing, levels become unbeatably difficult so that I throw away the game no matter how addictive the basic concept was. This in contrast to another game I once had on my phone, which was a bouncy-ball-to-bricks game, that gave you 1 extra ball to beat the level every time you failed a level. Eg when level 250 for started with, say, 60 balls and you failed the level then the next time you tried level 250 you would start that level with 61 balls to shoot. And after another failure you could try the level with 62 balls and so on. And the at level 251 you'd start with 60 balls again. This ensured that there were no unpassable levels.
Bonus: by adding this playability layer, the pyramid becomes a 3, 2, 1 pyramid which, to me at least, is aesthetically more satisfying than a 2, 2, 1 pyramid. Don't mind my autism please 🤦♂
I know one of the problems I have with match 3 games is that I can't predict more than a move ahead, because the new gems that appear are random, and I can only move gems that make a meld. So maybe what you're referring to in Candy crush is just a lack of clarity in how you can win, from the first level of the pyramid?
Other mobile games I've played just hold your hand for the first hour, not letting you click anywhere else, or give you so many items/resources they're meaningless to train you to pay for microtransactions. Felt that way for a Final Fantasy Tactics mobile game. So I wonder where player autonomy fits in the hierarchy.
This episode really resonated with me, and it helped me understand Will’s process when playing for streams a little better. I don’t play many rogue-likes or Metroidvanias, so sometimes I can feel a little lost when he’s explaining things. But looking at it through this hierarchy of needs makes it more understandable, even if I don’t explicitly get the gameplay.
Hello Brad 😁
It was around the point that I found myself putting down my Switch and spending the hours *in between* my Baba is You play sessions thinking about various puzzles in the game and how I might solve them that I realised I was playing something truly special. This hierarchy of needs illustrates why so well!
I love Warframe, and this video is really making it obvious to me that I got into the game kind of backwards? When I started - and when most people start - it makes NO sense and you really have to talk to other players or consult the wiki to make sense of it and feel like you're playing it well. But I got into it because my roommates got me into it - as in the top of your pyramid: it affected my outside life profoundly by building stronger relationships with my friends through cooperating and learning and exchanging gameplay stories. Then eventually it became a satisfying visceral experience as I got the hang of the fast pace and the third-person-looter-shooter-ness of it, so I started playing it on my own, and then I got to THE BIG PLOT TWIST and was just like, "Oh my god???" Which was when I got into the core fantasy and became very devoted to the game. Which meant lots of time on the wiki, watching videos, watching streamers, asking questions, until the UI/UX made sense to me and I understood the basic elements of play so that I finally felt like I knew what I was doing.
I didn't really realize how wild this was until fairly recently, when I started getting my friend into it. She has said multiple times that the game makes NO sense to her, but it's fun to play together, so she's rolling with it. And I just hope that she'll eventually have an epiphany like I did and fall in love with it. 😢
... which is all to say, Warframe desperately needs to continue putting work into the new player experience, because it /suuuuuuucks/, lol!
Warframe is good. The only reason I don't play is because I'm the sort of person who shouldn't play MMOs, in much the same way some people shouldn't every touch alcohol.
By MMO standards, Wareframe is probably the best there is by a landslide, but it's still an MMO. I'm not capable of playing in moderation when a game has daily rewards, real world cash, and has resource grinds balanced around sinking multiple thousands of hours in as a guild of 100+ members.
IF you can play MMO's in moderation, there's nothing I know of that comes close to Warframe in terms of the magical "fun" factor. It's hard to express how fun it is to move through even repetitive levels when one's primary method of locomotion is parkour. None of the paid mechanics are needed to enjoy the game (and in fact might detract from enjoyment). The writing - most of it at least - is top tier, and genuinely wholesome. IF someone made a Warframe overhaul balanced around being singleplayer instead of an MMO (along the lines of Borderlands), I'd pay $100 bucks for it in a heartbeat.
i liked the gameplay but then i got hit with the Necramech grind (i had barely interacted with any of the factions so i had 0 standing) and let me tell you, its a pain (cant do a very important mission until i get it done) and frustrated me so badly i havent played the game in 3 months
That little bit about Intuitive UI/UX hit different- I can think of _two_ massively-praised games I played this year that I struggled to enjoy (Signalis and CrossCode), and _both_ of them had subtle flaws in their menus that always put an aggravated huff up my nose: not a good vibe to then take into engaging with the actual gameplay! BOTH of them had their menus split up into like 3-4 different menus you access by pushing different buttons, and depending on which menu you were in, you had to push different specific buttons to then exit OUT of them or switch to ANOTHER menu, and every time I would spend 2-5 seconds trying to quit out by pushing the button that _made sense_ to me (usually B or Start) and the game just wouldn't respond at all. So annoying
Well, now, fancy running into you here.
Here was an opportunity to put paradox on the other end for once.
This hierarchy feels like is missing a few layers at the bottom. I wish it could be assumed, but making sure the game runs adequately seems like something even more foundational. If you cannot play the game, nothing else matters. For video games it needs to not crash, and board games need to have all the pieces.
Started playing Outer Wilds with my partner and gosh does it deliver across the pyramid. We can't stop thinking and talking about it !
And I agree with everything here, you've got pretty much every important part of games laid out here.
props to the artist who made
the meta bored game
where you compete to create the best flixl stix user-generated content
I've just completed an essay, soon to be video, about the concept of a Punishing game, where that very first thing is explicitly not done, on purpose, for a different kind of experience.
Thanks for this useful information! Now this might explain why some players are obsessed with replaying some games ovr n over while some others mod their games to fit their needs.
Fun fact, this show inspired Mat Pat to create game theory.
Thats why I came here!
This episode is very much in the wheelhouse of what I have been trying to do for making my own first game and so I can appreciate the use of Maslow's Hierarchy for how intuitive it feels from a visual standpoint but I have found other useful models that I prefer.
Instead of thinking of needs in this bottom up framework, we can imagine needs as if they can be met simultaneously and thus be treated with equal importance. This I think helps explain the challenges mentioned at the start of this video with making games for players of different levels of familiarity with games. A game could focus on meeting the need for some players to be eased into a new experience or it could focus on getting out of an experienced player's way and letting them get right into the main experience, or a game could try the harder option of catering to both kinds of needs at the same time. The problem of course is that they are playing the same game and thus it requires more effort and knowing of player expectations (through game design experience and thorough playtesting) in order to meet both needs without harming the ability to meet one or the other.
And so with all that said each part of the game can then be considered by how many player needs it can meet at once and to look for places where it might be harming another need the player has. You can even use Maslow's Hierachy if it feels more intuitive for how to classify the types of player needs.
You can look up Manfred Max-Neef or "Nonviolent Communication" to see more about what they have to say about what our needs might be and how we can better try and meet them.
5:53 I was thinking the exact same game while watching this video! Hollow knight is really the perfect game for me. It was especially poignant given that I was playing a game about an epidemic in late 2020 while having COVID myself. The game struck me with a powerful sense of awe and also melancholy for what had been lost. God I can't wait for silksong. Also this hierarchy of needs will be very useful when looking at games in the future. I have a busy life and I don't want to waste time on a game that is just fulfilling the bottom tiers. Those kind of games are akin to the junk food of your media diet and often distract you from other, deeper experiences.
It may be shameless to say this but I recommend you play Outerwilds or Rain World, they both have stories just as good if not better than Hollowknight and have massive reveals and gameplay that melds with the story. Don’t look them up, especially Outer Wilds it’s a knowledge based game. I’m not giving much in the games but I’d need an hour to introduce them each.
I found Hollow Knight to be bad since you had to purchase everything from hidden vendors; thus without a map I got lost, died, and and couldn't recover my currency (grubs?) since I couldn't find where I died. Very poor game design.
I'd cut that pyramid to remove the top two elements. Not replacing them with anything, just leaving a halfway-pyramid. I feel like people nowadays expect games to provide things games aren't meant to provide. A storyline is one such example.
Sure, they CAN provide those things... but it changes virtually nothing. A game has to be fun. Everything else is a minor bonus.
I picked up Eldon Ring just yesterday (very late to the party, I know), and if it wasn't for my wife wanting to see the game herself, I probably would have put it right back down, because I have a really high standard for understanding the basics of play. If you're going to show me stat numbers and offer me items, I want to be able to see detailed descriptions of what each does, otherwise I simply don't want to make a choice because I don't feel well enough informed. Of course I pushed past it and am having a great time, but character creation felt like a hurdle I had to jump over just because it was failing my initial vibe check.
Funny that I found this video right before talking about Maslow in my community college class.
Thinking about the games I've recently played that have hit that top hierarchy for me. Journey, Celeste, Tunic, Super Metroid, Spark the Electric Jester 3. They do all seem to hit those boxes. There are some weird outliers though. The Beginner's Guide has some clunk here and there (even unintentionally), but I still came away loving it. Also not sure about Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, cuz a lot of the games are archaic as heck and don't play well with modern controllers (controllers need, like, a scroll wheel or something to make Pong fun again), but I still came away appreciating the package overall due to how it presents the history.
Not gonna lie, the other more recent videos from extra credits felt more like entertainment with a dash of forgettable education but this video’s lesson stuck with me. Keep it up, and we’re back in the extra credits golden age. W extra credits studio
A game I think fits this video quite well is Rimworld.
It's main marketing comes, unbelievably enough, from "Word of Mouth".
Which isn't exactly easy to do, because it requires doing the top need mentioned in this video well and at a rapid rate.
The only thing I gotta say is that it does struggle a bit with the UI/UX thing, but in a lot of cases, people are coming in quite excited to play the game.
So they've kind of done the top need so well, that the UI/UX kinda gets a crutch to help it.
Other games I think fit would be more tactical shooters like PUBG, hell let loose, and games where there's moments of high tension, then a satisfying release if you manage to win the small battle.
That being said though, I'm not a designer, so this is an unprofessional opinion xD.
Hope everyone has an amazing day : D
I'd be willing to argue the UI / UX need should be the base underneath basic understanding of gameplay. To me, a lot of the time, a bad UI or bad organization of game options, sub-menus, and the like can make it hard to want to understand the basics of the game. There are SO many games I've just up and returned before I even scratched the tutorial because I tried taking in all the menus (with no basic understanding of what any one window or option truly was) and couldn't figure out exactly what the point of any of it was.
I think the little inconveniences of bad UI can be a death-of-1000-cuts situation that makes any potentially playable game not worth the effort. Plus, if you go through a discovery queue on Steam, you can point out any number of BAD UI elements in a given trailer or preview image and just know whether or not you will have any patience to want to mess with it. Certain genres are more or less off limits because so many of the ones I've experienced have the UI's I cannot stand with just too much on the screen at once. Maybe it's just me, but bad UI is such a dealbreaker to me.
For me, one game that met all of those listed needs was Garden Story. I didn’t expect it to stick with me as much as it did, but I really fell in love with that game.
(Edit: fixed a spelling mistake)
I think this video explains better than anything why I just couldn't get into Horizon Zero Dawn. The menuing was too convoluted and poorly explained, and I just never wanted to engage with any of the game's systems that involved the menu, which was basically all of them. It probably would have met a lot of things higher up the chain, but it just couldn't get past that UI/UX level.
This echoes well the MDA framework of game design that EC's also covered in the past, but from the player side, who has to M: understand the Mechanics, D: engage with the Dynamics, and A: experience the Aesthetics. And on top of that we have the meta aspect of the game holistically as a meaningful life activity.
Love your videos made up my child hood and still watching today.
I played through most of outriders on my first play session because it was extremely engaging to me. It was absolutely wonderful.
My teacher just taught us this today and you guys used maslov's hierarchy in gaming. Now I understand it more effectively thank you.❤❤❤
You're the first long-form video creator I've watched more than once in a long time
Basics of play and UI/UX *are* hugely important. I bounced off one game because the tutorial, while present, didn't teach basic things like ..dodging. Same game, the controls were a muddled mess of combination buttons because it was feature-creeped to heck and back. And that dodge command? HOLD a button. Awful for a game of split-second timing.
I never thought of it as a hierarchy need before but that's certainly interesting.
I'll say the UI/UX is my number one pet peeve.
Good UI makes SUCH an impact. I used to adore playing Mercy back in Overwatch 1, and it wasn't until Overwatch 2 took over that I realized how much of my love for playing that character was tied up in OW1's excellent UI design. Mercy in Overwatch 2 has the same abilities as end-of-life OW1 Mercy, but her gameplay _feels_ so much less intuitive - and not-insignificant part of that is because of the new UI. Overwatch 2 "updated" all of Overwatch 1's HUD icons and visual/sound effects with new versions, but most of them are direct _downgrades_ that actively make it harder to parse what's going on.
I feel the one game for me that fits the pyramid would have to be Baldurs Gate 3. It has a really good story and the strategy of this game is fun as well as entertaining.
Crusader King problem is no joke. There's a tutorial as. Count of Munster, but the game missed so many basic controls and features in it's features.
Had to see so many tutorials, tips & tricks and playthrough alongside playing to understand the game loop.
I really should play more of Hollow Knight. Only played a bit of it. Also, the bit about the music and gameplay not matching at all is part of what makes the Dynasty Warriors series so good most of the time. Wario Land 3 is my top game of all time, which I think checks all of the things on this pyramid. Pokemon Gold lost me when it said I had to trade to get some creatures.
PANR has tuned in.
For me personally, the game that fulfills all those needs is Shovel Knight. In fact, Shovel Knight is the direct inspiration for Project Hop (I will not be elaborating).
I'm glad you mentioned Hollow Knight, it quickly became my favorite game of all time, it's the perfect cute, with the haunting feeling of loss that souls games have fostered. It's so amazing.
I remember I had a big frustration with fifa 23 about the ui/ux. I hadn't owned a football game since 2005, I had recently purchased it, and I was having a game party at my house. We wanted to make a local OFFLINE tournament, and OMG, we took like 15 minutes trying to find how to do that. We gave up and then decided to go with singular matches (which took us a couple of minutes to find) and organized the tournament in a board outside the game. To this day I consider that game's ui to be the worst I've known. Perhaps people that grow up playing many fifas throughout these years don't have that problem.
I just tried my first game of Wheels in the game Sea of Stars. I skipped the tutorial and went about my game. When I tried to play Wheels in the second town, I was totally lost. When I tied at the end, I felt good for figuring it out, though I do wonder what I missed in the tutorial.
Side Discussion: What games have actually hit the top of the pyramid? Self Fulfillment. Spirit Fairer? That Dragon Cancer? Brothers? And what DID that game deliver for you?
Did you guys just turned 100k subs? Congrats!
Maslow's actual hierarchy is sort of nonsense, though. In many countries where a large share of the population is malnourished, people will still spend large sums on organising celebrations (e.g. relatively lavish weddings) rather than using it to buy more food. Basic needs like food do not need to be met before people will start pursuing social needs.
That also maps fairly well on the metaphor with people being able to muddle through an unclear game and find the fun despite the baser needs being lacking.
As I watched this video I began to ponder what elements were missing or didn't connect with me in games I tried to get into but failed to enjoy, especially MMOs. It made me appriciate the few I actually do enjoy even more. Something like PSO2NGS does a lot more to engage me in it's systems and narrative than the majority of MMOs.
In my experience many MMOs feel lacking in a viseral moment to moment gameplay experience which combined with much of the most exciting content being locked to endgame can make the core fantasy feel unachiveable or simply lacking. Poor controls, optimization, and ui on console ports can make it even worse.
MMOs and MMOlites that can get past these issues are typically the ones I stick with and the ones that ultimately reach those higher levels of this scale where I am actively thinking positively about the game and it's universe beyond what my actual playtime states.
this video met my needs to learn!
These days I'm just happy if a game is released in a finished state. Baldur's gate 3 & Warhammer 40k rogue trader are two examples of games that drop significantly in quality after the second act & totally killed all enjoyment for me.
Sadly, I don't see companies stop doing this because the games get good score and reviews anyway.
Wait a sec, did Matt just use the ad read to come out?
Flixl-stix mention! \o/
2:28 Gaming news for breakfast fans unite for a game of flixil sticks!!
Welcome to the Hollow Knight fandom, enjoy your complimentary Silksong-shaped inner void. ;)
Are you saying … Hornet is void?
(Also I prefer exterior, golden void)
You guys are awesome! Always learn from you! ❤❤❤❤❤
I think about my third favorite game Rain World on the daily, I have plushies, my TH-cam channel is built on it, my first large solo project I’m currently working on is a video on the game, and if I ever get a tattoo it will be from Rain World. The same for Outer Wilds and Hollowknight to a lesser extent (despite them being my #1 and #2 favorite games respectively), nice to see you play Hollowknight, if you haven’t played Outer Wilds or Rain World I highly recommend them, the only two games I truly consider to be high art
Maslow's Hierarchy of needs?
*Starving artist has entered the chat*
The cake is not a lie!!!
I KNEW IT WAS CAKE!
One game that I played that really suffered from a "missing" bottom tier was The Sims Castaways for the Wii. I owned Castaways for both the PC and the Wii. The game play on the Wii was much more fun in my opinion, less pointlessly linear, but the controls were obviously designed for a standard game cube controller. The Wii controller was horrible for this game. Worst of all, there was no option of using a regular controller even though you could plug one in. It made an otherwise fun game into a truly unpleasant experience.
I would argue that there's another way to analyze the Maslow hierarchy, which is from the position of theory of mind.
Humans require social interaction and affirmation, so when we engage when fiction, there is a part of us that requires affirmation. I experienced the opposite during the Last Jedi, as someone who wanted to get into the Star Wars franchise, but felt like the director was talking over me to the established audience, making me feel unwelcome. We see something similar in PVP, where new players are made to feel insecure by established players who have a very different theory of mind for other players.
the only rough part of this Model is that the higher up the list you go. the more subjective it gets.... and honestly you can reasonably stop at 3. not everyone is going to find your game a brain teaser or an inspiration... also these elements aren't always equal Person 5 differently Fails Step 1. but it excels everywhere else... UI is very snappy and Stylized. Dungeons are very engaging. (the Social Sim maybe a little Rail Roady compared to P4 but meh) Persona fusing is a long term engagement. and the whole Human Cognition and Living Cognition thing is something that has stuck with me. i point excitedly whenever i see another piece of fiction use that style of fiction. can't see Yellow Eyes the same way
I think that could be said of Maslow's hierarchy as well. Certainly "love" is subjective.
When I play a game I look for either a plot reason to play or a gameplay goal to get me interested like either get to this point the story because you’re interested in the story or play this much of the game to unlock some new content and if a game doesn’t have a good story or reward system then I’m not interested
Care to explain how people in Bethesda Fallout games care little for shelter? There's tons of buildings made of stone available, but they remain boarded up, while sheet metal huts are used. Food also doesn't seem to be something needed, with the exception of New Vegas, were farms and water pumps exist.
Seems for world-building, Maslow is pretty much being ignored
I don't particularly think any of those things in the pyramid apply to me. Sometimes for me, I only want to play a game because I know how famous it is, or how much of a credibility it has among critics and developers who cite it as an influence, or if it appears in all those top 10 and top 100 lists. And the other big reason is the story. Sometimes I've been able to withstand truly unacommodating games just because of the creative fascination and development history that they had hiding behind the veil.
Thank you for the video.
Great content, as always. Thank you.
I like the idea of this episode, but the way it was presented makes all layers feel equal, if not that the higher layers are more important. The whole point of the pyramid analogy is that the foundational levels are the most important - that without them, the upper "enrichment" layers don't actually mean anything and crumble under their own weight.
I think this episode could have used a bit more reiteration that "without the strong foundation of intuitive gameplay and solid UI/UX, great visuals or other artistry don't actually mean anything because there will be no players getting far enough to actually experience it. But if you do have that strong foundation, the artistry elevates it from a 'functional game' to a 'good game'." and then "without strong foundational gameplay, UI/UX, and artistry, the emotional heart of the game doesn't mean anything because nobody is paying attention. But once you have that foundation in place, the emotional heart elevates the experience from a 'good game' to a 'meaningful game'."
I would agree, but the thing is that while it's much easier to fulfill the higher up needs if the lower ones are met, it's not strictly required to do so. See the crusader kings example.
On the other hand, I absolutely had an experience where I just had to put a game down because it was just too frustrating to play. The game was company of heroes 2, a mod for it, and I just gave up after seeing my units stand still and not do anything for 2 solid minutes after an attack command and various other ways of attempting to get them to do so. I had something like 9 squads of infantry upgraded with anti tank weapons, and they died to a single tank without even firing a shot back. Also combined with the "what do you mean me anti-whatever isn't actually good against that thing" issue I heavily experienced.
@@aaronscott7467 I think this is where we get into the "exceptions vs the rule" discussions. I think Crusader Kings is a good exception to the rule, but does not in and of itself negate the importance of the rule.
@@dragonbretheren Absolutely, but because there are exceptions it is more of a guideline instead. A very important one, mind you, but one nonetheless.
I personally believe that the psychological needs need to be met first before the mechanics and gameplay. I'd rather play a flawed game mechanically if it has a good story, art style, or aesthetic that make it worth grinding through versus a mechanically good game that has a boring, ugly, or uninteresting style to it. Though some games can be so mechanically broken that no matter what style art you put into it won't be playable but that is an extreme case.
An example for me is Terra Nil. Mechanically the game is a pretty shallow puzzle game and is extremely short but the style and art of the game makes it very enjoyable to play. This is why I like Monster Hunter 3 over Dark Souls 1 when they have very similar mechanics (big boss monsters that can kill you in 1 or 2 hits). One makes you feel like a bad ass while the other makes you feel pathetic. I could name several other "flawed but fun" games add to this.
That sounds like something you can just look for the cutscenes in TH-cam and call it a day.
@@llSuperSnivyll Not always. Though the cutscenes can give a feel of the game but gameplay animation can the look of the character plays a part. Going back to Monster Hunter 3 vs. Dark Souls 1. Both have the same attack speed and relative damage but with MH the style makes you feel in control and powerful while in Dark Souls you feel weak and clunky. Even when you have the proper strength for the weapon your swinging animations looks like you can't wield it or you don't know what you're doing.
I've heard that The Darkness game by 2K games maybe getting a remake or remaster soon!
😂 I haven't seen Maslow cited since the 1970s.
3:58 Rasputin Aquato Cameo
3:09 Pay attention RS3
I just typed yesterday=the best games are 1s you play/watch.
I'm watching this video trying to figure out why I bounced so hard of Baulder's Gate 3, ad a game on paper that I should have loved. The only thing I can think having watched the breakdown is that it got up to "Experience of the Core Fantasy" and was just incongruous with why I play D&D. BG3 Feels like it contains the trappings of D&D but it doesn't provide the same feeling I get from playing D&D and so well... it doesn't work for me.
I know a game that is amazing but fails on the first level, TABG (totally accurate battle grounds) I’ve gotten many story out of that game I think about it all the time and the sound is amazing in game and visuals responsive but the game has no tutorial I’ve met knew player that didn’t know you could go prone or know how to change spectating POV it’s so fun but hard to get into
Is the podcast era finally over and you're back to these great scripted videos only?
I think intuitive UI/UX should be rephrased, because I have a two word counter argument to the idea you need that to get more out of a game - Dwarf Fortress. Nobody would tell you that UI is anything but horrendous, but lots of people get deep fulfillment out of it regardless. I think that stage is more accurately described as a version of the previous one - after you understand the basic elements of play, you need to be able to smoothly and easily execute those elements. UI is the main part of that, but even if your UI is a crime against graphic design, there's going to be some people who can still get through it and become able to smoothly execute the basic ideas regardless.
The cake is a lie
The cake is a lie
The cake is a lie....
Sonic has Arms... and hes not Beanish...
Are you guys back to normal now?
You mean seed soup.
I never speacted for a pdx game to ve mention here, huh.
They always seemed too niche for them to be covered in extra credits.
Nice
But the cake is a lie!
But... dwarf fortress?
Maslow's "key insight" that needs are in a hierarchy is not universally accepted by modern psychology. In fact, the only people that really buy into it are in more applied fields. It's taken as common sense in teaching, for example, but that concept is far from true, and too much adherence to it can lead to problems too.
yeah!
a lot more people need to understand, that models present a part of reality and make it more digestible and are not reality itself.
as it is a social construct, based on the knowledge, beliefes and insight from the person creating it.
Wow
So i liked all of it, up until the top of the pyramid, I don't need a game to effect my real life, I have real life that effects my real life. Time to grow up kids, the real world's waiting. Most video games are toys, with a little art, the high art/meaningful games are rare and in a different league, to expect that all of them can fulfill the last part of this hierarchy is unrealistic and even a tad manipulative.
Personally, one of my biggest draws to a game is a good character creator, I've found that I have little to no interest in a game that throws a character at me. Like, I know hollow knight for example is a good game, but I've never been able to enjoy it much. Meanwhile Sims 4, which is a sad little failure of a buggy mess, has gained 1000+ hours on steam alone, mostly creating sims to live in a world, lol.
I think it's probably very wrong in actuality, look at all the AAA games coming out with horrific UI, UX, bad tutorials, and still be successful just due to the so called top of the pyramid
Different players definitely have different levels of tolerance for it, but HAVING to leave the game, literally turn it off, and go to the internet in order to learn the basics of how to play it is bad design, right?
Note, not necessarily the optimum strategies, just ways to kill bosses not die, and not get stuck for hours /days / weeks / oops too late I quit at hours.
I would say Cuphead does this well, whereas Dark Souls 1 through 3 (and other FromSoft games too) do this absolutely terribly. You can ruin the entire game before you even start playing by making an unviable build at character creation. What things do and how to use them is intentionally obfuscated. The easiest way to add an easy mode to any of these games is to copy and paste a 10 minute "how to" from TH-cam on the actual options of play, some advice for good character choices for new players, and such. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, maybe gamers like it when games don't fulfill this need so they can feel better about themselves for summiting it, but I don't like it.
Yes, I absolutely agree with this. Like, say, why do I have to put down my Pokémon game, walk to my PC, open a browser and do a Google search to know that Scald has a 30% chance to burn? That's an awful design. And yet, I've seen people defend things like this because it supposedly "encourages discovery".
Open world games also catastrophically fail at this. You keep asking "Why would I want to do this?", but the game does not answer it, forcing you to go to the internet why you should even try to go to that location in the horizon. At most they try to appeal as to why the player character would want to, but never onto why the player, as in YOU, would.
@@llSuperSnivyll In regards to the pokemon example I would say its not quite the same thing. Scald tells you it has 80 power and 100% accuracy, it tells you that it is a special water type move, and the in game description DOES tell you there is a chance to inflict burn (but it does not say how high) and most importantly it tells you all of this BEFORE you decide to learn it or not. Imagine a pokemon game where NONE of the above information was available. That's the level of hiding the game from the players that I dislike.
What do orcs look like?
No offense but the ad read transition at the end was absolutely profoundly discomforting experience. eating sounds and drinking sounds not even seconds after hitting the satisfying end note *shudder* what a whiplash
Early for once!
cat
"learnt" → tell whatever UK or Ausie writer you have that they have to write American words for their American narrator. Also, you (Matt) really should just change their "learnt" to "learned" when you read it. Unless you sound like some kind of non-American, saying "learnt" is going to sound out of place, even if it's not technically "wrong."