Min-maxers and how developers address them are the bane of fun.

[ZedClampet]

First of all, min-maxers take multiplayer games too seriously. Take for instance the following scene that is a composite of lobbies I've had the misery to be a part of in the past.

You and one other player are passing time quietly in the lobby as you await the arrival of two more random players. Finally one shows up and immediately starts screaming in the high pitched voice of a 10-year-old boy.

"WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THE RANGER! THAT'S THE WORST JOB! WE NEED A SNIPER, NOT A RANGER, YOU STUPID $!@##%! CHANGE TO A SNIPER NOW!!!"

Just then a fourth player shows up and the four players are swept up and carried to the starting area as the child screams about how all is lost because the other player didn't change into a sniper. Soon you are at the starting area and the last player to arrive speaks for the first time.

"You don't have the hydroponic toothbrush equipped. I'm out."

The player name over number 4 changes to the name of a bot. Realizing that it's grown quiet, you see that the screaming child's name is now that of a bot as well. Then the other player leaves, and it's just you.

Okay, actually this was a heartwarming story of how I got to do a mission by myself, but you can see how some people might find that experience annoying.

But what is worse than interacting with min-maxers is how some developers handle them, which is by perfectly balancing every bit of fun out of the game. In Big Ambitions, a retail capitalism game, the clothing store was the most lucrative store you could make when the game first came out. At the first update, they nerfed the clothing store to be exactly like every other store. One player told me, "I'm glad they did that. I was tired of just making clothing stores." What? That's your problem and people like you are why the store got nerfed. I made stores of all different types because I'm not a min-maxer. Did I make a couple extra clothing stores? Sure because it was fun to have some stores that did really well.

Now, though, it didn't matter in the least what kind of store you made. It was going to bring in the same amount of income as all the rest. Fun had been balanced out of the game.

And it's not just little developers who make this mistake. Blizzard is making it now as they nerf the high XP dungeons in Diablo IV. So now everyone who plays Diablo IV is going to have less fun and have more of a grind. Why? Because Blizzard noticed all the min-maxers were solely focused on these few dungeons.

But I don't blame this only on the min-maxers because the developers have a lot of other ways they could have handled these things. They could have buffed other things/dungeons so that the min-maxers and everyone else would have choices and variety, which is a fun thing to have, particularly in games like Big Ambitions where you are basically doing the same thing over and over and over again.

So while this post is a slam on min-maxers, it is predominantly a plea for developers to address min-maxing differently. Instead of making everything the same, create more options.

 

[Zloth]

A lot of those 'max' things are actually false. Somebody posts a good guide explaining how best to play a sniper that gets popular and, suddenly, the snipers are doing best. It isn't because the snipers are best, though, it's because people have learned how to play them without learning the strengths of other classes. But now "everybody knows snipers are best" and the whole thing feeds on itself. (I wonder if any developers have fixed this by fake-nerfing? Take 15% off sniper damage and put it in the notes, but leave out the fact that the sniper shoots a little faster now, making the damage/s about the same. )

I love it when there's situational balance. Consider X4's smaller trade ships. Normally, you want the ship that flies the fastest, carrying the most cargo. In a simple situation, the devs would make big and slow ships, fast and small ones, and a few others - with all having the same ratio so, over the course of several hours, all of them deliver the same amount of cargo. But there's a wrinkle to make things interesting: highways. Big, blue ribbons that form a big circle around the center of the map. If a smaller trade ship gets on one of those, it's whisked along at pretty high speed. If you know your trade ship is going to be using one of those a lot, a big-but-slow trader will be far better. So, what we got was some trade ships that are really good near the highways, but terribly slow if they have to go out to the far reaches. THAT is the kind of balance I love to see!

 

[Pifanjr]

So while this post is a slam on min-maxers, it is predominantly a plea for developers to address min-maxing differently. Instead of making everything the same, create more options.

I agree that this is mostly a developer problem. If you allow the player to make a choice in your game but one choice is always objectively better than all other choices, that's typically bad game design. However, making all options exactly balanced might waste the opportunity to make the choice actually interesting.

For example, in Big Ambitions, the choice of what store to open should introduce a layer of depth to the game. Having every store exactly balanced is only slightly less boring than having one store be the best. Ideally every store would have advantages and disadvantages.

In contrast, in Diablo IV, it's fine if every dungeon drops the same amount of loot, because it allows you to pick the dungeon(s) that best fit the build you picked. Having some dungeons have better loot pushes players into adopting specific builds, limiting their options for how to play the game.
The problem seems to be that now grinding dungeons is too slow and easy for the min-maxers, but boosting every dungeon might make the experience worse for casual players. The best solution in my opinion is to add a mechanic to travel into a more dangerous but rewarding version for each dungeon, so you have the best of both worlds.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

"WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THE RANGER! THAT'S THE WORST JOB! WE NEED A SNIPER, NOT A RANGER, YOU STUPID $!@##%! CHANGE TO A SNIPER NOW!!!"

That does suck, part of the reason I dont like playing co-op games with randoms. Do many games have different queues to separate the try hards from the casuals these days?

Now, though, it didn't matter in the least what kind of store you made. It was going to bring in the same amount of income as all the rest. Fun had been balanced out of the game.

Surely there should be income based on location, product range, rival stores, larger economic factors, time of year etc etc. Is it all just cosmetic?

I dont think min maxing destroys fun though, only if as @Pifanjr mentioned theres one way which is objectively so much better than all the others and it makes other play styles unviable. Generally I guess that would mean it has to be a competitive online game, otherwise as you say you can just choose not to use that build/skill/method. If you can min max different stats and gear in different ways thats where a lot of people find the fun, right?

Elden Ring for example has some character builds and abilities that make the game way easier. but its perfectly possible to play in dozens of different ways effectively, even in duels afaik. I've been playing Diablo 2 resurrected a bit as well, and I much prefer the look of my Barbarian with 2 axes, even if swords seem to have better base stats. Haven't had any problems yet really into act 2, fingers crossed.

Ideally every store would have advantages and disadvantages.

Sounds like a better plan.

 

[ZedClampet]

There are a variety of factors that come into play in stores for Big Ambitions. For instance, locations have different levels of foot traffic, which impacts how many free customers you get. Anything over that and you have to advertise. The problem is that the foot traffic is almost always over the building max capacity, so it doesn't do any good to use the marketing feature.

Also, different types of stores attract different numbers of people, but stores that attract more people have products with lower margins, so your earnings end up the same, and the game has failsafe code that prevents you from circumventing such things. Sell only high margin jewelry in a store with huge capacity and foot traffic? It just cheats you back down to a certain level of sales. It's all very simplistic.

What I want to see in games is more complexity, situational advantages that cause you to have to think more about what the best course of action is. A good example is from @Zloth 's post.

 

[Pifanjr]

I dont think min maxing destroys fun though, only if as @Pifanjr mentioned theres one way which is objectively so much better than all the others and it makes other play styles unviable.

Min-maxing is also just a state of mind. There's countless stories of players who bounced off of Stardew Valley because they wanted to get the most out of every day and become as profitable as possible as quickly as possible. Even though the game gives you zero deadlines, these players min-maxed the fun out of the game for themselves.

I do think part of that is bad game design. With the final house upgrade, the game gives you a cellar with a whole bunch of barrels you can age wine in so it becomes more valuable. I think it feels like something you're supposed to interact with because it's a reward for spending a ton of resources and it allows you to get more money out of it. But I don't think it's particularly fun or rewarding to make money that way.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Min-maxing is also just a state of mind. There's countless stories of players who bounced off of Stardew Valley because they wanted to get the most out of every day and become as profitable as possible as quickly as possible. Even though the game gives you zero deadlines, these players min-maxed the fun out of the game for themselves.

I do think part of that is bad game design. With the final house upgrade, the game gives you a cellar with a whole bunch of barrels you can age wine in so it becomes more valuable. I think it feels like something you're supposed to interact with because it's a reward for spending a ton of resources and it allows you to get more money out of it. But I don't think it's particularly fun or rewarding to make money that way.

That's exactly how I would play it, it isn't fun to me to do anything else. The thought of playing a game endlessly with no set objectives sounds miserable to me. Now if theres a context, for example if say, Cities Skylines had scenarios with a win state after reaching certain goals, and even better some story as well I would happily engage with the exact same mechanics because it feels like I'm working towards something and trying to solve a problem to reach a set goal. FrostPunk is probably the best one of those I've played.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd grown up playing co-op games like Minecraft online just to hang out with people, or if I had more time to actually just sit and play games anymore.

I know we talked a little around this before at some point about Rimworld, I just happen to be broken in that way

 

[BeardyHat]

A lot of those 'max' things are actually false. Somebody posts a good guide explaining how best to play a sniper that gets popular and, suddenly, the snipers are doing best. It isn't because the snipers are best, though, it's because people have learned how to play them without learning the strengths of other classes. But now "everybody knows snipers are best" and the whole thing feeds on itself.

I do think this is a big one. The internet creates a feedback loop and opinion becomes truth, especially when someone can speak with what sounds like authority, suddenly that becomes law.

This happened just this past week with the new 10th Edition of 40k. Even though everything is completely overhauled and totally different, it was decided that certain factions were complete trash before anyone even played a game; much gnashing of teeth, prognostications that armies will be sold, etc, etc.

That said, this is one of the main reasons I don't play Activision-Blizzard games anymore (aside from them just being generally **** as a corporation), because all the edges are filed off; in the pursuit of perfect balance, something is lost and everything tends to just become bland.