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Comment on Hideo Kojima proposes a game where the protagonist forgets abilities if players take too long a break

This is a feature of Escape From Tarkov. Your trainable skills decrease to a minimum if you don’t use them, even if you’re playing regularly. I tend to like effort-based progression more than point spend, so this is a sound idea depending on how it’s implemented.

Western gamers and especially americans are just devestated when a game doesn’t preserve their progress forever, Once Human being the prime example in recent years. People couldn’t see past level-playing-field reset periods and decided it was theft, so by the time they added permanent scenarios (which are basically like every ARK pve no wipe server: unplayably bad) the damage was done.

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lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Skill loss itself is fine, the problem is to make it based on RL time. It’s a game, not a job; you shouldn’t need to clock in/out regularly to enjoy it. (Tamagochi had the same issue. Except it was character loss.)

I didn’t play Escape from Tarkov but two good examples come to my mind:

RimWorld - colonists have ~10 trainable skills. They lose skills over time, faster at higher levels. This encourages specialisation, so when shit hits the fan the game cripples you even harder. (Fuck you, Randy.)

Nethack - your character gradually forgets spells over time; to avoid it you need to either re-read consumable spellbooks, or use the spell often (thus using precious mana). It’s all about resource management, hoard spells and you’ll get yourself killed in no time, but if you prioritise useful spells you have a better chance of survival.

In both cases the player is always losing something, even with correct gameplay. But neither demands you to treat it as a job.
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Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
MUDs and early MMOs used to have skill rust. It sucked and was universally hated. There’s a reason most games don’t implement something like this, but developers seem to insist on bringing up long-buried ideas and calling them innovation.

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bisby@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Tarkov is a live service game. Which has its own ups and downs. Tarkov has benefits of having some things progress while you are offline. Things happen at the server level while you’re gone.

Not every game needs to be a live service game though or try to use live service features in a single player offline game.

Unless there is a very specific reason in the game mechanics why in game time is 1:1 with real time, it doesn’t make a lot of sense except to be divisive and a discussion point.

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Umbrias@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
it’s criticized in general as a dark pattern that encourages toxic habits and is anti consumer. it is secondarily a problem because aint nobody got time for that shit.

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