What is badwrongfun? An explaination

[pedrito_elcabra]

Stopped reading here:

but fortunately everyone has been working around it with the Guarantee exploit

I agree in principle with the general idea of your first post.
But you'd have a hard time fitting more arrogance, patronizing and false assumptions into your posts... which really makes it hard for me to agree with you on anything.

 

[zyphial]

Rocket jumping can't be called an "optimal strategy" because it isn't a strategy at all. It's a tactic, and a very helpful one, possibly even a gamechanger. But it doesn't negate strategy and skill like many of your examples do.

You're quibbling over definitions, which is ironic, because game theory definitions are more appropriate in this context than military ones (the one you're using), in which case "strategy" matches his use case.

Overall, I don't like the way certain hard limits/babysitting features that have slowly been rammed into the game(s) but on the contrary I haven't seen any of the cases that particularly irk me mentioned in this thread so it's hard to weigh in on either side.

Going a little OT, that strategy isn't an exploit or a loophole. The ruleset clearly states that you can't build houses if there aren't any available, so it's logical to try to monopolize them to avoid other players competition.

Dangerous ground for any opposition argument (and touches on the difference between WAD and WAI to boot /petpeeve). "According to the rules" prior to the rules change due to badwrongfun, Ottoman HRE was not an "exploit" but a perfectly valid playstyle. Or "the ruleset clearly states that a nation can join the HRE under X, Y and Z circumstances, so it's logical to try to universally control europe through the HRE to avoid other states benefiting from it.[/i]

Don't get me wrong, I think Ottoman HRE is... er... a topic for discussion, if we're being generous. Also there's way better examples but it's 6:00 AM and I'm not retyping that. Just pointing out how that argument doesn't work and is actually an argument in favor of continuing to allow badwrongfun.

 

[ForzaA]

2) Did it make the game Quake more or less fun?

Let me preface this with noting I don't make the design decisions, and this is solely my own take on the matter.

Your assertion is that it makes the game more fun. Others found that it made the game less fun (it MAY be just the developers in the case of Quake, I do not know)

To take the Google example of French military victories - I would argue that if I were searching for "French military victories", that I was NOT looking for "defeats".
Taking the comparison a little step further - the "badwrongfun" others were having by manipulating the Google algorithms to "correct" victories into defeats, was actually DETRIMENTAL to my use of Google.

With no reliable way to determine the balance between people suffering "badwrong" and the people having "fun", you're basically left with three options;
1) assume there are more "badwrong" sufferers, fix the issue. Given that people in general buy the game based on the design, and this is by definition not by design, this is the logical assumption if no proof otherwise.
2) assume there are more "fun" havers, leave the issue untouched.
3) turn it into an option. With followup consideration; how visible should it be, and should the fixed or unfixed be the default.

now, obviously, 2 takes the least immediate work, IF* the issue is isolated. 3 certainly takes the most work (you both need to create the fix as for 1, and create a framework for switching between the two)

* This is of course a big if - your "fun" in one location may actually be "badwrong"(be that visible for the end user, or "only" in the code) in another location where you DO want/need it fixed. (you're not as sensitive about fat american jokes as you are about french military victories, say)

 

[LS22]

As a game designer myself, I know how tempting it is to fix badwrongfun. But what is badwrongfun? If you keep reading this term on the forums, but have no idea what it really means, then here is an explanation using Google rather than a game, for clarity. I am then going to explain why fixing it could be a dangerous trend for EUIV.

Ever play that game where you type "X is the..." into Google?

A classic example of this is where Google would return "Did you mean French military defeats?" when you asked about victories. Or you'd put "America is the..." and predictably get "... fattest nation on earth" (This is no longer true, by the way but I digress).

This is badwrongfun. It can be defined in the Google case as follows:

1) The system works perfectly
2) The result is the expected result (in Google's case, the most popular or regular)
3) 1 + 2 generates something funny or fun, but is stereotypical, "unintended" or possibly offensive to a certain audience.

Google has fixed the badwrongfun in a lot of their search results now. So for example, if you google "X is the..." where X is a country name, you will get "X is the best", "X is the size of what state", etc as the top results, every single time.

So what is the problem with fixing it? Well, badwrongfun is actually fun.

In the case of games sometimes it is more fun than the actual game.

Sometimes the badwrongfun becomes the actual game.

So I'm going to show my age here and give you a game example now. There was a game in yonder years gone by called Quake. Until this point, most games had some basic scripted physics for big damage weapons, but mostly on flat 2D worlds. Quake was unique in that it was possible to make maps very vertical, over "lots of tunnels" and that knocking people around with grenades and rockets was more readily a thing over doom, where it was possible but irregular.

Soon, "Barrel maps" in doom were created, where you could blow up a barrel and make a chain reaction that'd explode its way through the map. However, in quake, the idea for using explosions to launch the player around like a ping pong ball was becoming a thing. Then Quake II turned up.

In Quake II, it didn't take long for players to realise (which their new found power to jump) that they could launch themselves up the new and more vertical than ever maps to get powerups, dodge shots, etc. This had always been an exploit, after all it makes no sense in the game universe that you could use a rocket launcher like jumpjets (and survive).

Rocketjumping was born. It was badwrongfun to the extreme. But it was fun. Of course, developers wanted to patch it out, but back then developers could not force the issue. No-one would install the patch that took their badwrongfun rocket jumping away and eventually, the developers relented. Realising the game was a better, more fun game with the badwrongfun left in.

The badwrongfun had become the reason to even play the game at all. Now there are games out there that owe their existence to the exploit and badwrongfun that was rocket jumping.

I feel at times that EUIV is walking a dark path, which I jokingly refer to as the "Apple path". When you have complete control over a product and forced updates, like Apple does, it gets all too easy to remove anything you don't approve of. There is a reason why getting out of the Apple updates and firmware is called "jailbreaking". It's like being in a prison where the fun is not allowed because Apple disapproves.

The little "exploits", the "tricks" the clever strategy that is somehow too "clever" gets removed. What you are left with sometimes is a game with no soul, or is simply less fun. Knowing all the gamey tricks is what makes me a better gamer.

After all, is EUIV not a game?

You know that you only play the game if you want, right?

 

[bleakie]

If I understand correctly, what the OP suggests is that sometimes perceived exploits should be allowed to exist because it is fun.
Such things did happen in EU4. One such prominent example is vassal feeding.

In earlier versions of EU4, the aggressive expansion on other countries was a major limiter in expansion, as the annoying coalition formed with minimal AE.
Vassal feeding did not give AE and did not incur any monarch point cost , which sped up expansion considerably.
What happens eventually is that vassal feeding gives AE, but coalition also stops being the annoyance that it used to be.
Currently, vassal feeding stops being perceived as exploit, but is still a powerful tool to assist expansion.

The point that I want to make is that changing the game to allow exploits to survive with a reasonable strategic space is possible, but in the process such tactics will be accompanied by restraints that stop the trick from being considered exploitative. Either that or the exploit must go to restore the strategic space.

 

[User4035]

You know, there's an exploit in Monopoly (a horrible game, never play it) that this reminds me of. There are about thirty houses in the box. A player can build houses on their properties if they own all properties of a certain colour (two to three properties per color) to increase their value. Once all properties of the same colour have four houses, no more can be built, but instead the houses can be upgraded into a larger red hotel and be returned to the box. The rules stipulate that no more houses may be built if there aren't any remaining in the box, so a player with the cash to build may have to wait for other players to upgrade their houses into hotels first.

The problem? While upgrading to hotels is beneficial, Monopoly is a (horrible, never play it) competitive game, so harming your rivals benefits you. Nothing in the rules forces a player to upgrade their houses - therefore the best strategy to the otherwise rather luck-based Monopoly is to get two or three color-coded areas as fast as possible and upgrade them with houses - never hotels. This drains the house pool and prevents other players from ever upgrading their properties, securing a victory with near 100% certainty.

I figured this out when I was twelve or something, as we were (regrettably, as the game is horrible) playing Monopoly with my family. I used the trick, and felt clever. Figuring the strategy was fun, I guess, although most of them regarded me as abusing a loophole rather than making any meaningful strategic decision.

The next game we played wasn't fun (even by Monopoly standards). Now everyone tried the house draining strategy, because it was clearly the only one worth pursuing. So with the unintended consequences of the rule, the game became distracted from its original point - instead of buying property, and building and upgrading your houses, it became simply a race to drain the house pool after which the game was practically decided.

Since Monopoly isn't a game of high strategy, this is hardly a big deal for me. However, similar situations happen in lots of other games too. For example many RTS games have varied factions, intricate tactical options and specialized units, but have an optimal strategy as simple as building a ton of generic tanks and using the massive force to stamp your enemy before they do the same to you. Your claim of these strategies being "unforeseen" is foolish - an overpowered strategy is not going to be a rare sight or anything, but rather it usurps all other strategies by making them unable to compete. They're not pinnacles of strategic thought, except maybe for the first time, after which they're merely tricks you're repeating for easy wins. Granted, they often require a certain amount of skill (micromanagement and mouse-fu, as I like to call it) to execute properly, but that's not a matter of strategy but execution.

Removing avenues to such no-brainers isn't making the game any less fun, in fact it's putting back the strategic element which requires actual responsive thinking, instead of having one successfully play the same housedrain/tankrush/whatever over and over again. Compare with your rocket jump example - it's a handy tactical addition, but it won't win the game for you if you don't have any actual skill.

Heh, when i was a kid someone told me the house building exploit.
I told them were wrong and to find it in the rules.
Then i explained the reason that the lack of houses wasn't a rule and simply because the game Company was cheap and just didn't include more houses.

No one has ever shown me the rule. ....at least in the older versions, not sure monopoly updates it.

 

[oblio-]

I feel that EU4 allows a lot of "badwrongfun". Basically the player can do almost anything he wishes, even highly ahistorical things, with increasing degrees of difficulty. The highest achievements require a high level of experience and skill (probably 300+ hours of game play involving nations ranging from Native Americans to European HRE OPMs to Hordes to Buddhist OPMs).

Most of the "badwrongfun" bits that is being stamped out of the game are plain old bugs (exiled armies could explore the world in 1.1 or so) or missing features (vassals prior to 1.8, I think (?) did not have any liberty desire so an OPM Frankfurt could maneuver a 500 province Russia at will) or just AI exploits.

For the AI part, the rule of thumb is easy: would a decent human player, role playing as a historical ruler of that country, allow another player to do action X to himself? For example alliances prior to 1.14 were basically a form of AI abuse since you could use large nations constantly to fight your wars to turbo-jet your way to great power.


Now, sometimes "badwrongfun" was used as a band aid for bugs or missing features. Examples of things which are either bugs or not well designed:

- 15 year old truces are a bit too long, but they're manageable.
- Regencies make very little sense in a game all about war. I hope there's a feature being developed by Paradox to cover this, some sort of dynasty management, where you balance out prestige and legitimacy to manage your dynasty and potentially avoid regencies.

 

[kviiri]

No one has ever shown me the rule. ....at least in the older versions, not sure monopoly updates it.

There are dozens of editions of (even vanilla) Monopoly, with possible rule variations, so I believe you. But I found the rule in the official version from Hasbro's (owners of Parker Bros) site: link to pdf

When the Bank has no houses to sell,
players wishing to build must wait for some player to return or sell
his/her houses to the Bank before building. If there are a limited
number of houses and hotels available and two or more players wish
to buy more than the Bank has, the houses or hotels must be sold at
auction to the highest bidder.

I guess they might've forgotten it in the old version - after all, you have to define something to happen if someone wants a house but doesn't have a piece of plastic to represent it.

 

[Xara]

I think rocket jumping falls under the category of emergent gameplay. It's not really the same as cutting loopholes and exploits in a strategy game.

 

[Edmon]

I think rocket jumping falls under the category of emergent gameplay. It's not really the same as cutting loopholes and exploits in a strategy game.

Orthodox into HRE could be called "emergent gameplay" by all the same definitions.

 

[oblio-]

Orthodox into HRE could be called "emergent gameplay" by all the same definitions.

And that's still possible, but harder than it used to be.

Which is how it should be.

 

[kviiri]

You're quibbling over definitions, which is ironic, because game theory definitions are more appropriate in this context than military ones (the one you're using), in which case "strategy" matches his use case.

No it doesn't (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_(game_theory)). Rocket jumping is a move, or a part of a strategy, but it's definitely not a strategy.

Reporter: "How are you going to win the game?"
Player: "I'm rocket jumping!"
Reporter: "...and?"
Player: "...rocket jumping."
Reporter: "Where and why and to what outcome?"
Player: "...rocket jumping!"

One's strategy might involve rocket jumping in varying quantities but it's not strategy any more than "normal jumping", "running", "shooting" or "duck and cover" is.

 

[Edmon]

No it doesn't (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_(game_theory)). Rocket jumping is a move, or a part of a strategy, but it's definitely not a strategy.

Reporter: "How are you going to win the game?"
Player: "I'm rocket jumping!"
Reporter: "...and?"
Player: "...rocket jumping."
Reporter: "Where and why and to what outcome?"
Player: "...rocket jumping!"

One's strategy might involve rocket jumping in varying quantities but it's not strategy any more than "normal jumping", "running", "shooting" or "duck and cover" is.

Not sure if you are serious or not, but Rocket Jumping as a strategy or complete set of moves in combat involves:

1) Rocket at feet / Aircrouch, which would launch you into the air.
2) Rocket(s) fired at enemy, which come from above, causing high chance of face or upper body bounding box hit (which was likely instant death for your victim). Shots from above, even if missed, were likely to hit the floor next to your target and splash them.
3) Rocket at floor on landing (if returning to original height) to mitigate likely fatal fall damage and complete the maneuver.

The complete set of moves could very easily "win you the game".

 

[Sian]

curiosity forces me to ask this...

Who decided that you know what players at large think is fun, and that players at large don't know what they think is? You might know what YOU think is fun, but unless you evolved into being able to read minds over the internet, you can't state that you know better about what people think than they do themselves...

 

[oblio-]

curiosity forces me to ask this...

Who decided that you know what players at large think is fun, and that players at large don't know what they think is? You might know what YOU think is fun, but unless you evolved into being able to read minds over the internet, you can't state that you know better about what people think than they do themselves...

There is a skill for that. I believe it's called hubris

 

[Edmon]

curiosity forces me to ask this...

Who decided that you know what players at large think is fun, and that players at large don't know what they think is? You might know what YOU think is fun, but unless you evolved into being able to read minds over the internet, you can't state that you know better about what people think than they do themselves...

I'll bite and answer as if you are genuinely curious.

People are really bad, in the general case, at a lot of things and understanding why they are having fun is one of them.
Another one is knowing that cars or crisps are many thousands of times more dangerious than "scary" things like sharks, murderers, snakes, etc.
Or that most child abusers are female. Unless you really study something, it's oh-so-easy to get caught in these false knowledge traps.

The key one for gaming is that a game dealing out horrible punishments and/or being hard and/or akward or frustrating at times is what makes you feel happy and accomplished when you do actually succeed. Or that clever and/or exploititive gameplay is often what gives the game skill ceiling or depth.

If I'm sick, I don't think I know what is best, I go and ask a Doctor. Gamers are often in the mindset that because they play games, they understand them and the design of them also. This is false. Hence why I earlier spoke of the Simpsons episode about "The Homer" car.

 

[Sian]

... you must utterly hate those playing Roguelikes without being forced to do so by gunpoint, in which case its torture...

Fact is, that not all of those that play games play for the same reasons (your definition of fun), or even with the same goals in mind... i know its arcane but some people actually play for the challenge

 

[Edmon]

... you must utterly hate those playing Roguelikes without being forced to do so by gunpoint, in which case its torture...

Nah, I actually spent 10 years (on and off naturally) building a massive city scape in Sim City 4 with three friends. But that game has absolutely no competitive aspect, other than I suppose packing more people into tiles.

 

[BrokenSky]

Ok that makes sense. What's your point?

Do you consider these a "no brainer" or something "that won't actually win the game for you unless you have skill"?

> 5 year truces.
> Vassal(s) via conquest.
> Taking land you can't core.
> Deliberate Civil War to ditch a bad ruler.
> Taking land against a coalition.
> Deliberately making yourself a protectorate.
> Selling your army to incite the AI to attack you, then making and calling allies in.
> Using rebels to reset stability and WE
> Developing the land of a nation with vast cores in yours using all your mana, then releasing them and playing as them and attacking yourself?

And btw, nothing was stopping you from starting a bidding war every time someone wanted to buy a house in monopoly. You could then force them in a game of deadly monopoly chicken, to pay through the nose for their houses.

> I don't care about truces, but then I don't believe in empire building because it makes the game less fun IMO.
> Should be in
> Should be in definitely.
> A sensible and fair thing to do. I'm playing the nation, not the monarch.
> Coalitions are done badly IMO. They should be for defense, not punitive. You should be able to beat them by doing nothing (except maybe for HREmperor calling HRE members in to reclaim HRE land via return core/release nations)
> A reasonable thing to do.
> A bit gamy, but the AI shouldn't attack based on your current army strength, but also your possible army strength, including possible allies.
> What kind of rebels? Some should do this, while others shouldn't. Revolutionaries should, for example.
> Seems a bit too gamy I think? dunno.

But the idea of balance in a game like EUIV which contains France is a bit different than in other games anyway.

Also Civ Nuclear Gandi was funny enough that they put it in quite a few games after. Definitely not WAI at the time though.

To take the Google example of French military victories - I would argue that if I were searching for "French military victories", that I was NOT looking for "defeats".
Taking the comparison a little step further - the "badwrongfun" others were having by manipulating the Google algorithms to "correct" victories into defeats, was actually DETRIMENTAL to my use of Google.

I think I understand your point in principle but I also feel like if you actually use "I'm feeling lucky" on a search you care about more than the people doing this for a laugh, then you're using google badly? That said the example it doesn't lend itself well to counter-argument since If I had to guess I would say that most people were searching "french military victories" because of the joke, which supports the OP's philosophical argument as I understand it.

 

[net.split]

I refuse to play competitive shooters that have exploits like rocket jumping that emerge into the metagame. These exploits are almost always a pain to master, not having been designed by the developers to have user-friendly interaction (since they didn't actually account for the mechanic at all). Another example was the "bunny-hopping" trick in a lot of Half-life based multiplayer mods. Natural Selection in particular suffered from this; it entered high-tier competitive play, which the developers balanced the game around (presumably they were unable to patch it effectively since it wasn't their engine, or they were afraid of people complaining like with Quake rocket-jumping). If you were not able or willing to use the exploit (or get enough practice trying to aim at someone that was using it), you would lose and generally have a miserable online experience. I stopped playing when my favored servers became full of people doing this stuff (and, arguably more importantly, when the game's balance was tuned to the assumption that everyone was doing it).

EU's similar, even though I don't play it competitively. If an exploit is available and becomes standard practice for being competitive in multiplayer, either the devs must balance all future updates around this exploit or remove it entirely. If this exploit is a pain to deal with, then using it actively hurts playing the game for many players. If it's well-hidden, it creates an additional, artificial gap in skill levels between players. This can matter in the single-player if the devs adjust balance accounting for players using a given exploit.

Quake's rocket-jumping wound up working decently enough because it was fairly easy to do and obvious to tell how people were using it. It became cemented into the metagame because user levels were designed and widely distributed & played with the mechanic in mind, making its later removal rather difficult. Precious few exploits wind up falling into this category in practice. As an apparent game designer, this is something you should be extremely familiar with.