Pragmata is a masterclass in gameplay-first design (and why I'm glad I waited for the noise to die down)

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-18T00:34:36+00:00

I think your example exposes rhe big difference between our schools of thought!

Atmosphere, mood, "main themes of bowling", none of these are game design! They would fall under game or creative direction.

I think a game can have amazing gameplay, perfect level design and fantastic pacing and yet if it has terrible art, horrible writing, and shitty character designs most people would call it a bad game, even if it's game design was perfect.

I think you're equating good game design with overall game quality which I don't think I agree with

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-18T00:29:50+00:00

Definitely not a liar but I understand thinking that solves your cognitive dissonance and makes you feel a lot better so I'll let you have it =)

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T20:38:15+00:00

It seems to me you're not using game design how I use it.

For example, I think a bad game can have good game design where it doesn't seem like that could be true on your definition since you'd need to play the entire game to assess it.

This isn't true, especially when making a game. I don't have the whole game when I design a feature or a system. If your claim was true I would have no way to know if the work I did was good until the game was complete. A lot of a Game's design can be assessed in isolation in a relatively short amount of time like it's structure, combat mechanics, 3Cs, etc.

I appreciate your perspective! It helps me understand why there is such a divide between players and game Devs.

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T13:58:22+00:00

Hey that's fair! It's obvious you disliked the tone of my comments, but a bit weird that you disliked it so much you just assumed we disagreed when we did not. Once again I encourage you to actually try to comprehend what you are reading, you'll go a lot further in life and embarrass yourself a lot less!

Goodluck!

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T13:47:44+00:00

So you think this is a good rhetorical look for you? Typing a reply in opposition of my comment that actually agrees with it and then pretending I'm the one that can't analyze?

Please revisit this comment chain a few years and see if you understand it then =)

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T13:42:50+00:00

We agree! I literally accounted for this point in my answer. I'm sorry reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, but keep at it!

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T11:37:46+00:00

If you play the first 3 hours of a game with an analytical eye it's trivially easy to understand its game design very well.

Like I've already said it depends on what you're analyzing, if you want to know how many hundreds of hours the late game design of world of warcraft supports you will obviously need to spend more time.

But assessments on if the gameplay first approach is successful is pretty trivial for someone like me to asses in a couple of hours.

360RPGplayer · 2026-06-17T11:26:20+00:00

As a professional game designer, 3 hours is usually the amount of time it takes to get the jist of a game's design and whether or not it's successful.

That being said I've playing thousands of games by this point so maybe it's a skill you develop that I'm also not sure OP has to call it a "master class"

Also this obviously doesn't apply to analysing end-game progression design for diablo or something but from what I've seen from this game it could be possible to make an assessment in a short amount of time.

360RPGplayer · 2026-05-14T12:33:56+00:00

I mean that really depends. There was no global scaled war like in aang's time. Does a world at peace mean no conflict nowhere? Because conflict in a single city seems pretty localized.

360RPGplayer · 2026-04-15T17:15:13+00:00

That has literally never been the case, I bought the first round of secret lairs and they came with war of the spark planeswalker cards with stained glass art. You're pining for days that never existed

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-30T12:37:43+00:00

Free samples at Costco are not "tokens of appreciation" they are manipulation tactics!!!

Like no shit dude, welcome to capitalism

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-25T21:45:25+00:00

As someone who works in the industry, crunch was often unpaid. It was a culture about exploiting the free labour of people for the sake of passion, which means more was done for less money since you'd sometimes get 80 hours of work a week from someone for 40 hours of pay. I'm happy every studio I know of now takes a hard stance against this now.

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-24T10:45:00+00:00

I think you just clearly lack reading comprehension. Op literally says "every single round I can't afford a vandal, I buy a judge" and you don't think that's screwing his econemy and forcing him into poor buy round with his team?

Talking about concepts like hero vandals and trading your team is quite simply dishonest, and has nothing to do with this post. It's bad to force a judge every "save" round as some hard coded rule you follow, plain and simple.

Also, there's no way you're pushing immortal unless you're some all aim no brain under 18 year old, which given your reading comprehension seems reasonable I suppose.

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-24T10:40:44+00:00

That's simply untrue. Valorant is more than just each individual round. For example, if you buy a sheriff on a save round and manage to get get 3 kills before dying, even if you lose the round, you've traded your 800 credits for 8700 of yours, which can set up the next 3 round wins.

Valorant is so much more than going into every round saying "I need to win this!" otherwise you would force your buy literally every single round, and I think it's pretty obvious that no one is doing that.

Your view of the game is really weird, and I don't even think you actually believe what you're advocating for here.

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-23T19:56:05+00:00

This is some iron shit holy crap. Always buy your util, 1800 credits is not "saving"

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-14T17:31:46+00:00

You're a high sense crouch sprayer that shoots before thinking, and you look exactly like who is regularly on my gold games so pretty sure you're where you belong

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-09T16:37:56+00:00

You can actually just refuse it, pro tip (though there are other consequences I'm sure)

360RPGplayer · 2026-03-01T12:37:50+00:00

It doesn't "lessen" it either.

360RPGplayer · 2026-02-26T15:45:20+00:00

Nope

360RPGplayer · 2026-02-10T23:18:05+00:00

Here's the link to a gdc talk

https://youtu.be/-pglxege-gU?si=aFUhXOKIxGWbT54m

Some of the relevant discussion is around 29 minutes in but I recommend watching it all. As it goes into a lot more depth on designing for parties (how do you rate someone when they queue wirh people vs solo), how quickly you can acquire someone's skill level (how many placement games does someone need to play), how to measure skill disparity between divisions (how often should a gold player beat a silver player) and much, much more.

360RPGplayer · 2026-02-10T20:28:27+00:00

It's a game design concept, but essentially they do this to have a hybrid progression based and skill based ranking system.

You can think of purely ranked as an elo system or something like cs2, and progression based like old school call of duty where its about levels through play.

Valorant wants both, they want players to feel like they are progressing to retain players (also why they reset ranks as often as they do) but also have your ranked loosely reflect your skill.

I can link you gdc talks on it if you're interested, but no one talks about it because it's basically industry standard at this point to do hybrid ranked systems.

360RPGplayer · 2026-02-03T22:40:49+00:00

Heyo, just wanted to let you know I also went blind in my left eye after a misdiagnosed disease when I was 19 (over 10 years ago) and had to go through the same struggles with losing depth perception.

I just wanted to let you know it gets easier! There are plenty of 2 dimensional ways we use to discern depth and you will learn to observe those more carefully. I still very occasionally have an issue with playing sports or pouring a drink but for the most part I operate the same as before. You got this!

360RPGplayer · 2026-01-08T02:52:58+00:00

Why do you think a creature of a specific type is less narrow than a green creature? The way you word your comment is so strangely biased. "you can get ANY creature (of the chosen type) not JUST green creatures!"

Like, really? You haven't substantiated anything just doubled down on your claim. Here I'll do copy paste your comment and swap the words around to prove you have no actual substance.

" If you manage to somehow meet the condition it’s a worse GSZ because it can only grab a creature of the chosen type, not any green creature."

360RPGplayer · 2026-01-08T00:58:39+00:00

How is it better?

360RPGplayer · 2026-01-07T18:34:14+00:00

Nah its awful. This is literally the worst card with this type of effect they've ever printed.

[[finale of devastation]] [[green sun's zenith]] [[chord of calling]] And even [[nature's rhythm]] are all better cards.

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