What is "pacing"? What are some meaningless words people

whether or not scenes go on too long or are too short, whether or not the story beats are clear or muddy, whether or not the movie keeps you interested and knows when to switch things up or if it overstays it's welcome on certain scenes or doesn't give them enough attention.

On the internet it's a buzzword for hacks that just reword other people's reviews and use generic putdowns after the general public have given their thoughts.

>>385638763
pacing is how well the game flows with it's difficulty, story, character progression etc. from beginning to end. it's a genuinely useful word that helps describe the game. it's also used while talking about movies and books.

Pacing is keeping the game interesting and introducing new mechanics and features at a good rate without being given these features overbearing fast or given too slow. And levels have a good flow to them where they dont drag on forever or end too fast

>>385639043
>>385639056
Okay. Name one game that has "bad pacing"and elaborate, please.

>>385639282
Persona 3. Literally "nothing happens" the game.

>>385639381

Persona 5. The pacing is all over the place. There are long periods where nothing happens, parts where things happen and then they're immediately brought to a halt by incredibly long and tedious dungeons.

>>385639282
GTA5. It starts strong, then totally fucks it's pacing up after the whole Martin ordeal, loses itself for like 20 hours, manages to have a decent climax, and then it ends on such a low note, it's the definition of poor pacing

>clunky
>wonky
>janky
>floaty

name a game with good pacing

>>385639282
MGSV TPP is the worst offender.

>>385639282
The vast majority of JRPGs have bad pacing, actually. Typically they'll have very good pacing for part(s) of the game and very bad pacing for others.
FF6 is a good example; great pacing for the first half, pretty bad pacing for the second half.

>>385639282
Pokemon XY has the stretch between the second and third gym.
Or first and second gym, I don't remember which.

>>385639685
Agree with all except floaty. My understanding is that it means nothing feels like it has any kind of weight to it. Like everything is just light and floating.

>>385638763
bad pacing for me is when a game has filler shit shoehorning mandatory mundane or funny sidequests in between a serious world threatening sequence. optional content doesnt affect pacing.
for some casuals out there, it means the game isn't a rollercoaster of awesome shit exploding like the uncharted games

>>385639685
>>clunky
>>wonky
>>janky
Poor choice of words but generally used for controls that work against you more than they work for you.
>>floaty
Bad air control.

>>385639992

floaty is when the animations are really feathery and have no weight or impact to them

a good example is Brawl

I'm sick of /v/ using dumbed down as an argument against new features just because they don't like them. Removing things because they're too complex is dumbing down. Adding a 2 hour long tutorial that even new players get annoyed by how tedious and redundant it is, is dumbing down. Being able to shoot while moving very slightly or having a grappling hook for new movement options is not dumbing down. Stop talking about shit you don't understand.

>>385639692
Mirrors Edge
Ace Combat Zero

>>385640217
Basically what I meant but a better way to put it. Brawl and Dark Souls 2 were the first things that came to mine.

>>385638763
Comfy.
>What are some games with comfy X?
That isn't how the word is used. I fucking hate summer. Why can't Reddit stay in Reddit?

>>385640497
Fuck, mind*

>>385639282
Armored Core 4. The difficulty is all over the place, it goes from easy to almost batshit absurd to easy again.

>>385640267
it can be dumbing down if the new features allow you to circumvent challenges that were traditionally faced in a hard-but-fair way, such as one-button special moves in fighting games

>>385640562
Not vidya but summer is meaningless too. There's no such thing as summerfags. There are always shitposters doing their thing all year long. Any increase of shitposting you notice during the summer is just a placebo from thinking summerfags are a thing.

>>385639282
Dragons Dogma
fuckall happens until the very end

>>385640267

Splatoon is a dumbed down arena shooter by definition.

It is literally an arena shooter where all the advanced movement mechanics that would normally take a lot of skill are mapped to buttons and abilities.

>>385639282
Final Fantasy XV
The first half of the game is a big ol roadtrip, and then the last half of the game you can knock out in an afternoon. The amount of time spent in the world when Noctis return after Chapter 13 is criminally short

How well the game moves and flows together. Not dwelling on one part for overlong but still giving a satisfying buildup and payoff for each area.

Resident Evil 4 is a good example of pacing. It's pretty much perfectly paced.

Pacing matters more in linear games, for obvious reasons. Only time it really gets in the way for non-linear games is when they decide to lock you in on a set path at some arbitrary point. Fallout 3 kinda did this.

RPGs usually have bad pacing.

Mass Effect 2 and 3 were awesome though.

>>385638763
>What are some meaningless words people use to praise/shit on games they like/don't like?
"It aged."
Games do not age.

>>385641207
there actually is no time spent in the world at all after the time skip. you are dragged into Hammerhead and dropped into Insomnia right after.
the World of Ruin has the potential to be just like its FF6 counterpart but Square not only has preemptively written it all off by establishing all survivors as having ran off to one single town in the whole world (rendering all other locations useless and deserted), but also having promised a crapload of unrelated content for its dlc chapters before even considering doing something about it.

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>>385640873
Go play some cawwaduty

fun

>>385639282
Alien Isolation

>>385641639
They literally do though. It's not so much that the games have changed, but expectations on how things should work absolutely do. You can't view games in a perfect vacuum.

In contrast, some games hold up. Mario 64 still feels as good as it did the day it came out, while many other games that were considered to be good from that era feel antiquated now.

>>385638763
>pacing
>meaningless

Now, some people may use the term improperly, but it is a thing anon.

""""Gameplay""""

>>385639282
Damn you got BTFO dude

>>385641706
the town is Lestallum and the argument used is that it's the only inhabitable place left thanks to its power plant to keep the place lit up while the rest of the world is screwed due to the eternal night

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>[thing I don't like] is a meme/makes it a meme game
fucking children

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193KB, 1000x718px

>>385641908
Games should be judged on how they are by themselves, not how they compare to other games from different eras.
The first photo of a human looks terrible by today's standards, but that doesn't mean the photo itself is bad.

>>385642393
someday you'll understand kiddo

>>385640873
Definitely. I still loved the game.

>>385639685
>Clunky
I feel like this means the controls lack precision, and it's difficult to make minute adjustments. (kingdom hearts)

>Wonky

Not sure what this means

>Janky
I guess i'd say it's interchangeable with Wonky but i feel like Jank means that things don't work exactly the same every time. sometimes an action would yield a greater or lesser effect."

>Floaty

Lack of gravity, generally bad physics.

I can't think of many things that I think don't make for valid criticism, I get "bad pacing", I get "clunky/floaty controls", I get walking simulator, cinematic, I even get the "stumpy normals" thing with street fighter... except for "artificial dificulty". Anyone who uses it has a different idea of what it means, and usually it's total bullshit either way.

>>385639282
FO4 shoves you into a Power Armour and Deathclaw encounter in like the first ten minutes of the game. Does that count, or is it more of a structure thing?

>>385641770
Why?

>>385643013
I would say that the difference between difficulty curve and pacing lies in the area of the game the problem is affecting.
If the gameplay is not properly taught and escalated throughout the game, it's the difficulty curve that has problems.
If the tone and presentation of the game do not follow rising action up to a climax, it's a pacing problem.

I mostly hear complaints of bad pacing when there is a massive dead spot right where the rising action or climax should be.

>>385639282
Everyone hates how drawn out KHII's Opening is due to all the cutscenes and generally how long it is until the main game.

>>385640562
I have never seen an explanation of comfy in regards to vidya but I always assumed it meant relaxing. Like the complete opposite of competitive multiplayer games like dota or csgo.

Seems like a very subjective thing though. What is relaxing to one person won't be the same for everyone.

>>385643336
example: Just Cause 3, the challenges are paced horribly. One challenge will be super easy, the next will be practically impossible, and all at random. There isn't a clean progression of difficulty, it's just untested and all over the place. Some of the intial challenges are easier than the late-game ones, none of it has any direction

>>385643336
Uh huh. I suppose that sounds about right.

>>385638763
>pacing
the amount of time between interesting events and how consistent the game is in keeping interest with novel story beats, gameplay additions, environment changes, etc
also used to describe difficulty curves
>>385639685
>clunky
>wonky
usually used to describe games with movement or interaction mechanics that don't work "smoothly" - don't feel natural, aren't quite as responsive as they should be, maybe it lags or drops your inputs
also used to describe systems that have more steps to get from point a to point b than necessary, or are initially un-intuitive
>floaty
when your character moves like they're floating - little friction, frustratingly difficult when precise movement is required
often used for platformers to describe jumps or low acceleration/deceleration times (see LBP's jumping)
>>385639692
titanfall 2 singleplayer
>>385640562
>comfy
usually settings that feel nice to inhabit combined with relaxing mechanics
>>385641639
games "age" in comparison to their modern counterparts
it's all relative - games can be revolutionary when they come out, but when developers have had decades to iterate on the same concepts and provide lots of quality of life improvements to the same systems, and polish things up a lot, it can be difficult to go back if you're not in the right mindset
>>385642975
there are a couple ways in which artificial difficulty manifests
I usually point to intentional trial-and-error design that requires failure to progress - bayonetta 1's QTEs being stupidly tough to get without knowing the input ahead of time, for example

>>385639282
Ultima Underworld 2, the dungeon crawling is too short compared to solving puzzles and shit around the castle.

>>385638763
>pacing
>meaningless
Are you a retard or something?

>>385638763
Games usually cycle between different styles of, let's say, gameplay through their events. A game with good pacing cycles through for example action, exposition and maybe exploration at different times to keep things engaging and keeping the feeling that you just want to play more of that game and there is no parts that are too boring or intense for too long.

So when I play Castlevania Lords of the Shadows, I like to experience the visuals and I like the combat but the combat is not good enough for the game to be long and engaging, so the game designers added very annoying puzzle sections to change pacing so you are not in combat all the time, but there is far too many of them and almost none of them is specially engaging or interesting. Often when I reached those parts I wanted to turn the game off, so that's an example of a game with bad pacing.

>>385640562
Comfy means comfortable.
There is a sweetspot of relaxation when you enjoy a media where you feel very relaxed but you still are interested in what's going on but not too relaxed that you want to sleep. A comfy game is able of draw you into it's world making you forget everything about the outside world as you feel relaxed only by those things happening in the game.

Comfy games are usually slow paced and the feeling is often empowered by music.

So when I'm playing Hotel Dusk and I'm at the bar experiencing that I'm an old weary man taking a drink and speaking with the barman, learning things about the Hotel's owner and listening to slow jazz music, I feel comfy as fuck, because I'm very relaxed but interested as well and I want it to go on for a very long time.

>>385640562
>>385643384
Generally speaking it's a series of cues that invoke associations of the feeling of comfort (which actually is not about the comfort itself, but rather being aware/attentative to our comfort. We are comfortable more often than we realize, but quite often we just don't think/pay attention to it.

While the individual, specific cues that work for people might differ from person to person, here are some patterns that seem to be working reliably:

A) closed/controlable environment. We usually don't feel particularly confortable in wide, highly open environment, because with it comes the risk of losing control and the requirement to pay attention to a relatively large amount of potentially dangerous angels.
This why a lot (not all) "comfy" scenes involve closed, small spaces: a room in a cottage, an interior of bar, a compartment of a train. Constrained light helps this.

B) a contrast element, that serves as a reminder of our comfort (viz the whole "being aware of being comfortable thing). This is usually something that creates a contrast between our space and potentially less comfortable one. Like a rain behind a window, snow/ice on the stills, fog (fog and rain also restrict our vision, and help to establish element A). A view of the vastness of space even can work though.

C) proof or element of a human presence.
We like to be reminded that the environment is suitable for us, and presence of other people assures us of that.
A cabin, a field in the distance, a road. Small clutter around - foodstuff on table, books on the ground, clothes on the chairs, unmade beds, hand-crafted items on shelfs, fireplace. Items related to history work marvels.

D) water.
We really don't like dry places. Rain, fog, a stream, a lake or sea shore on horizon, and of course, manageable greenery and plants.

E) tokens of physical comfort: Again: fireplace, bed, long chair, bottle of wine, cat sleeping. Again, dim lights also serve this purpose.

>>385643013
Yes. That counts. The beginning of the game you instantly are introduced to end game shit. That's awful.

>>385643458
Do you think that might just be a problem with open world games that allow you to tackle challenges in any order?
Has anyone played an open world game that didn't have that problem?

>>385639282
SmtIV apocalypse.
The last dungeon was too long, boring, repetitive and just a pain.

Pacing might be the single biggest problem in video games.
Every fucking game is full with useless padding to justify its 60 dollars price. There are too many retarded faggots that legitimately go "WTF THIS ONLY TOOK ME 10 HOURS TO BEAT? COSTS TOO MUCH"

You fags don't realize that lower playtime means less padding, which means the experience is overall better, but all you want is to see your time get wasted. It's sad.

>>385639282
Ocarina of Time. The first 1/3rd of the game, up until you get the master sword and realize Ganon was playing you all along, is pretty slow and meticulous.

>>385643949
I know I'm gonna get called a retard for this, but I actually think there are plenty of comfy games that are punishing.

For example, This War of Mine is a game I'd consider comfy, even though it's about a group of survivors in the middle of a war getting fucked up with perma-death and crafting, survival and shit like that.

The atmosphere is so good and there's that feeling of "People in a hut sticking out for each other" that gives the whole thing a comfy feeling, in my opinion.

>>385639282
RDR, the Mexico segment in particular. Great game, but on replay that part just really isn't up to much, especially once the Landon Ricketts missions are done.

>>385639282
Halo CE, the backtracking segments are pure filler and positioned awkwardly in the timeline of the game.

>>385639282
Persona 3-5 is bad pacing: the series. P5 is the worst offender with it taking 5 hours just to start and it completely boring. And after that there are multiple sections during the game where your doing nothing.

>>385639282
Witcher 3's main quest fucking drags

>>385642482
Stupid logic. That's just not how the mind works. If camera controls improved, you're gonna want them improved in old games, for example, and they are gonna be much more noticeable than they were at release.

>>385641882
fuck I wanted to love the game but I couldn't. It was enjoyable but overstayed its fucking welcome by like four hours

>this game has shit 'writing'

And they never explain what constitutes as "shit writing."

>>385646741
Writing in games is a really weird field. You'd be hard pressed to get anyone on /v/ to actually talk about why they like or dislike a game's writing outside of the jokes it makes or specific qualms they have with the plot.
That being said, it really grinds my gears when people say a game sucks because they don't share its sense of humor.

>>385646741
Dishonored 1 and 2 are great examples of games with excellent world building and lore but actual terrible writing
>Find a recording
>Muahahahah, I'm talking to my audio-diary about how it was actually me who brought the plague along to kill all those *FILTHY* people and how I planned the Empress', and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that pesky Corvo.
I'm paraphrasing, but it might as well be what he said.

>>385646741
Awkward or unnatural dialogue
nonsensical, contrived or cliche plot elements
Confusing, convoluted or difficult to follow
Overuse of conveniece to progress the plot (see Logans Run)
Characters that do not have motivations but act as agents of the author to progress the plot

I could go on

>>385643949

>>385646669
I think 4 takes the cake, 7 months of "who dunnit" conversations, 1 month leading up to a chaos fight with a demi-god.