#i'm literally pitting two absolute KINGS of acting against one another | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rawliverandgoronspice · 7 months

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Hello!! I'm back for: more whining about TotK Quest Design Philosophy

I can't reblog a really great post I just saw for some reason (tumblrrrr *shakes my fist*), but hmmmm yeah not only do I completely agree, but I think I might expand on why I feel so much annoyance towards TotK's quest design philosophy at some point, because it does extend past the fundamentally broken setup of trying to punch a pseudo-mystery game on top of BotW's bones, where the core objective was always explicit and centered and stapled the entire world together; or the convoluted and inefficient way it tells its story through the Tears, the somehow single linear exploration-driven quest in the entire game.

Basically: I'm talking about the pointless back-and-forths. There were a lot of them, a lot that acted against the open world philosophy, and almost none of them ever recontextualized the environment through neither gameplay abilities nor worldbuilding nor character work.

I'll take two examples: the initial run to Hyrule Castle (before you get your paraglider), and then the billion back-and-forths in the Zora questline.

I think?? the goal of that initial quest to Hyrule Castle is to familiarize you with the landmark, introduce the notion that weapons rot, tell you about the gloom pits, and also tell you that Zelda sightings are a thing? But to force any of these ideas on you before giving you a paraglider is, in my opinion, pretty unnecessary. I think the reason it happens in that order is to prevent Link from simply pummeling down to the gloom pit under Hyrule Castle and fight Ganondorf immediately while still introducing ideas surrounding the location; but genuinely, the Zelda sighting makes the next events even more confusing? Why wouldn't you focus all your priorities in reaching the castle if you just saw her there? Why lose time investigating anything else? Genuinely: what is stopping you from getting your paraglider and immediately getting yourself back there, plunging into the depths to try and get to the literal bottom of this? (beyond player literacy assuming this is where the final boss would be, and so not to immediately spoil yourself --which, in an open world game, you should never be able to spoil yourself by engaging with the mechanics normally, and if you can that's a genuine failure of design)

I think, personally, that you should not have been pointed to go there at all. That anything it brings to the table, you could have learned more organically by investigating yourself, or by exploring in that direction on your own accord --or, maybe you think Zelda is up there in the castle, and then the region objectives become explicitely about helping you reaching that castle (maybe by building up troops to help you in a big assault, or through the Sages granting you abilities to move past level-design oriented hurdles in your way, etc). Either way: no need to actually make you walk the distance and back, because the tediousness doesn't teach you anything you haven't already learned about traversal in the (extremely long, btw, needlessly so I would say) tutorial area.

But to take another example, I'll nitpick at a very specific moment in the Zora Questline, that is honestly full of these back-and-forth paddings that recontextualize absolutely nothing and teach you nothing you didn't already know. The most egregious example, in my opinion, is the moment where you are trying to find the king, and you have to learn by listening in to the zora children who do not let you listening in.

So okay. I think Zelda is great when it does whimsy, and children doing children things guiding you is a staple of the series, and a great one at that. But here? It does not work for me on any level. Any tension that could arise from the situation flattens because nobody seems to care enough about their king disappearing in the middle of a major ecological crisis, except for children who are conveniently dumb enough not to graps the severity of the situation, but not stressed out enough that it could be construed as a way for them to cope about it and make anything feel more serious or pressing. It feels like a completely arbitrary blocker that isn't informed by the state of the world, doesn't do anything interesting gameplay-wise with this idea, doesn't build up the mood, and genuinely feels like busywork for its own sake.

This is especially tragic when the inherent concept of "the zora king has been wounded by what most zoras would believe to be Zelda and is hiding from his own people so the two factions do not go to war over it" has such tension and interest and spark that the game absolutely refuse to explore --instead having you collect carved stones who do not tell you anything new, splatter water in a floating island, thrud through mud who feel more like an inconvenience than a threat or, hey, listen to children playing about their missing king less than a couple of years after being freed from Calamity Ganon's menace. It feels like level designers/system designers having vague technical systems that are hard-coded in the game now, and we need to put them to use even if it's not that interesting, not that fun or not that compelling. It's the sort of attitude that a lot of western RPGs get eviscerated for; but here, for some reason, it's just a case of "gameplay before story", instead of, quite simply, a case of poorly thought-out gameplay.

Not every quest in the game is like this! I think the tone worked much better in the sidequests overall, that are self-contained and disconnected from the extremely messy main storyline, and so can tell a compelling little tale from start to finish without the budget to make you waddle in a puddle of nothing for hours at a time. It's the only place where you actually get character arcs that are allowed to feel anything that isn't a variation on "very determined" or "curious about the zonai/ruins", and where you get to feel life as it tries to blossom back into a new tomorrow for Hyrule.

But if I'm this harsh about the main storyline, it really is because I find it hard to accept that we do not criticize a structure that is at times so half-assed that you can almost taste employees' burnout seeping through the cracks --the lack of thematic ambition and self-reflection and ingeniosity outside of system design and, arguably at times, level design-- simply because it's Hyrule and we're happy to be there.

There's something in the industry that is called the "wow effect", which is their way to say "cool" without saying "cool". It's basically the money shots, but for games: it's what makes you go "ohhhh" when you play. And it's great! The ascension to the top of the Ark was one of them --breathtaking, just an absolute high point of systems working together to weave an epic tale. You plummeting from the skies to the absolute depths of hell is another one; most of the dungeons rely on that factor to keep your attention; the entire Zelda is a dragon storyline is nothing but "wow effect" (and yeah, the moment where you do remove the Master Sword did give me shivers, I'll admit to this willingly) and so is Ganondorf's presence and presentation in the game --he's here to be cool, non-specifically mean, hateable in a non-threatening way and to give us a good sexy time, do not think about it too hard. What bothers me is that TotK's world has basically nothing to offer but "wow effect"; that if you bother to dig at anything it presents you for more than a second, everything crumbles into incoherence --not only in story, but in mood, in themes, in identity. This is a wonderfully fun game with absolutely nothing to say, relying on the cultural osmosis and aura of excellency surrounding Zelda to pass itself off as meatier than it really is. This is what I say when I criticize it as self-referential to a fault; half of the story makes no sense if this is your first Zelda game, and what little of that world there is tends to be deeply unconcerned and uncurious about itself.

And no, Breath of the Wild wasn't like this. Breath of the Wild was deeply curious about itself; the entire game was built off curiosity and discovery, experimentation and challenge (and I say this while fully admitting I had more fun with the loop of TotK, which I found more forgiving overall). The traversal in Tears of the Kingdom is centered around: how do I skip those large expanses of land in the most efficient and fun way possible. How do I automate these fights. How do I find resources to automate both traversal and fights better. It's a game that asks questions (who are the zonais, who is Rauru and what is his deal, what is the Imprisoning War about, where is Zelda), and then kind of doesn't really care about the answers (yeah the zonais are like... guys, they did a cool kingdom, Rauru used to run it, the Imprisoning War is literally whatever all you have to care about is who to feel sad for and who to kill about it and you don't get a choice and certainly cannot feel any ambiguous feelings about any of that, and Zelda is a dragon but we will never expand on how it felt for her to make such a drastic and violent choice and also nobody cares that's a plot point you could *remove* from the game without changing the golden path at all).

I'm so aggravated by the argument "in Zelda, it's gameplay before story" because gameplay is story. That's the literal point of my work as a narrative designer: trying to breach the impossibly large gap between what the game designers want to do, and what the writers are thinking the game will be about (it's never the same game). And in TotK, the game systems are all about automation and fusion. It's about practicality and efficiency. It's also about disconnecting stuff from their original purpose as you optimize yourself out of danger, fear, or curiosity --except for the way you can become even more efficient. And sure, BotW was about this too; but you were rewarded because you had explored the world in the first place, experimented enough, put yourself in danger, went to find out the story of who you used to be and why you should care about Hyrule. I'm not here to argue BotW was a well-written game; I think it was pretty tropey at large to be honest, safe for a couple of moments of brilliance, but it had a coherent design vision that rewarded your curiosity while never getting in the way of the clarity of your objective. There is a convolutedness to TotK that, to me, reveals some extremely deep-seated issues with the direction the series is heading towards; one that, at its core, cares more about looking the part of a Zelda game than having any deeper conversation about what a Zelda game should be.

#thoughts #tloz #totk #totk critical #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war...#quest design #game design #level design #game criticisim #I think the more time goes on and the more uncomfortable I am with “if the game is fun it's good”#sometimes the game is fun and the game is empty #fun games can be addictive and predatory on purpose #(not saying totk is but it is well known that fun is not a neutral feeling)#fun can also reinforce questionable ideas of what “fun” should even look like #*side-eying CoD and co*#and fun =/= coherent always #if we're talking about games like artpieces #then you don't get to pick and choose which parts matter and which parts don't #you can absolutely say “I resonated with it for X and Y” but to make an argument that people who feel uncomfortable by content #that is in the game!! put in the game!! on purpose!!#is not a very productive attitude let's say

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radiorenjun · 4 years

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Lavender Antics

→ Pairing: Han Jisung x Reader

→ Summary: Shooting in a drama with him was your absolute nightmare. Working with your enemy and pretending that you were love interests has been the most frustrating experience of your life. Though, after saying your farewells, the scent of lavender never leaves.

→ Warnings: Explicit Language. Antics. Mentions of insecurity. Alcohol, Making out. Suggestive?

→ Chapters: 4, 5, 6

As Jeongin continued to play with Jisung's switch, Jisung stared at the ceiling with his hands behind his head as he layed down on the bed next to his best friend. Jeongin noticed how disturbingly quiet Jisung had gotten since he called him out at the bus stop.

Jeongin tried his best to get a reaction out of Jisung without him being too obvious to see if he was just spacing out because of a horror scene he probably came across on YouTube or if something had really upset his friend to get him sighing exasperatedly every 13 seconds.

Jeongin gave out loud reactions as he played his game, chewing his snacks as loudly as possible and fidgeting around the king-sized bed next to the spaced out boy, but nothing exept an exasperated sigh was released from the squirrel-looking boy.

Jeongin gave out a dramatic exhausted sigh, putting down the switch on the table and sitting up on the bed with a snack on his lap. "Alright, hyung. What's wrong? This is literally killing me." Jeongin asked, with a perplexed expression.

"What? Seeing me all sad boy?" Jisung mumbled, not tearing his gaze away from the ceiling. "No, you're literally killing me in this game because of your loud ass earthshaking sighs." Jeongin stated simply, laying his chin against his palm cheekily.

Jisung's brows furrowed as he turned his head to look at his friend smiling innocently. He rolled his eyes and continued to stare at the ceiling, getting lost in his thoughts once again. "Alright, all jokes aside. What's actually wrong, hyung? You haven't been this quiet since Minho and Felix got eliminated in the survival show." Jeongin asked.

"Promise not to be a childish dick about what I'm bout to spill?" Jisung muttered, avoiding his friend's eyes. "Unless you did a really hilarious stunt that caused you to slip and fall, no promises." Jeongin joked, earning a small hit from his friend.

"I'm serious, dude!" Jisung exclaimed, sitting up on his bed. "Okay, okay! What's up?" Jeongin raised his hands up defensively with a shocked expression. "I.. I made y/n upset." Jisung spoke hesitantly.

Jeongin's brows furrowed as his lips formed into a small frown. "And your point is?" he asked, confused at what's the problem. "What do you mean 'my point is'?! I made her upset!" Jisung exclaimed, giving Jeongin a nudge.

"Come on, hyung. I know you're a dumbass but surely your ass isn't dumb enough to not realize that you make her upset basically on a daily basis." Jeongin shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, it was at that exact moment.

"No, you prick. I made her cry!" Jisung exclaimed, falling back into his pillows and burying his face into the soft fabric. Now, this got Jeongin's full attention.

"What? How? Did you make her smell your feet or something?" he asked, earning an annoyed look from Jisung. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry. But what happened?" he exclaimed, taking a pillow as a shield as he saw Jisung ready to go out on him.

"Well," Jisung sat up again, pulling his hood on and pulling on the strings as he plays with them in between his fingers. "She was being rather quiet and I got bored, I tried to get a reaction out of her like always but she kept quiet. So I pestered her the whole day until she finally snapped."

"And when she snapped, I just kept on going and going but then she screamed at me in the middle of the streets and she was crying. Then she just stomped away to walk to the hotel herself." Jisung shrugged sadly, guilt filling his stomach as he recalled your teary eyes.

"Dude. That's fucked up. Didn't you know the poor girl's grandma passed away?" Jeongin tsked in disappointment, folding his arms and shaking his head. His actions reminded Jisung of Bang Chan in this sort of situation. Man, he misses that guy.

"What? Her fucking grandma died?!" Jisung exclaimed in shocked, guilt filling him up even more. "Dude, no one told me!" Jisung ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Didn't you hear Yeoreum telling us, more specifically you, to leave her along to grief this morning at the makeup room?" Jeongin scolded.

"I couldn't hear shit! I had airpods on!" Jisung groaned. "So that's why she was so damn sad the whole day! Fuck, I should've just left her alone before she snapped." Jisung whined, collapsing to his pillows once again. He felt like shit. He was the type to joke around but he didn't mean to make people cry when doing so.

"You fucked up bad, buddy." Jeongin patted his hyung's back, grabbing the switch as he leaned against the headboard to leave his friend wallow in the pit of guilt of his own actions. Jeongin's eyes darted from his switch to his friend who was dramatically sulking into his pillows.

"I fucking said, 'you're acting as if somebody fucking died'. I'm a jackass, fuck." Jisung's voice was muffled by the thick fabric but audible enough for his maknae to hear him. Jeongin let out a groan, "my fucking God."

He scratched his head, "if your dramatic ass really feel that guilty, you could just be a normal person, which I doubt you are, and you know. Apologize." Jeongin suggested in a tone that stated the obvious.

Jisung's head shot up in excitement, his eyes wide. "Right! Apologizing existed! Dude, you're a genius!" Jisung grabbed Jeongin's shoulders and shook him vigorously. Jeongin gave him a double chin disgusted frown, pushing his friend's hands off of him.

"It's called thinking. You should try it sometime." he replied shortly. "Wait, but how am I suppose to do that?" Jisung asked with a pout. "I don't know man. That's your problem. Seriously, I came here to hang out and use your switch as if it were my own. Not act like Channie-hyung and become a dad, ew gross." Jeongin shivered in disgust at the thought.

"Don't you have your own switch, though?" Jisung's brows furrowed in confusion. "Well yeah, but you have more games." Jeongin shrugged with a grin. "Bruh, if you want my games so much just borrow some." Jisung shoved Jeongin who gave a small laugh.

"Really? Okay, then. Adios, my dude." Jeongin grabbed Jisung's switch and quickly exited his room before his friend could chase after him. "I didn't mean you could take my switch! JEONGIN. HEY-" Jisung shouted before he heard the door click shut.

Jisung bit his lip as he stood in front of your hotel room door with a bag of your favourite drink in hand and some onigiri and mochis in the other bag. Without wasting another second, he knocked on your door and patiently waited for you to open the door.

His foot tapping against the carpet floor as he heard small footsteps from the other side of the door. The door clicked open, revealing you in your pajamas looking all sleepy. You looked at him with a blank unamused expression, gazing at him from his small smile to the sole of his sneakers tapping impatiently on the carpet floor.

You closed the door as if he was just a person walking by, but he stuck his foot in to hault the door from closing. "Y/N-" Jisung started before he let out a small noise as he felt you push harder against the door. "Fuck off." you mumbled in a hoarse exhausted voice.

"Y/N, hear me out." Jisung tried to reason as he pushed the door back with his foot as hard as he can as you both fought against the door. "No, you and your donkey personality can just fuck off!" you exclaimed, putting your back into closing that damn door.

"I brought you your favorite drink, mochis and onigiris! What more do you want in order for you to hear me out for just two seconds?" Jisung exclaimed, feeling you hault your movements at the mention of your favorite foods.

"You what?" your head poked out of the doorway as you eyed him suspiciously, realizing that he was carrying a bag of your favourite foods in his hands. "Why?" you asked with a raise of your brow.

Jisung opened his mouth to say something but closed his mouth when he realised that he doesn't know what to say now that he finally grew some balls to apologize after sulking for thirty minutes in his room. 'Fuck,' he thought, 'I didn't fully think this through.'

"Well?" you raised your brow, gesturing him to continue with his words. "I... I heard bout your grandma and I just wanna say I'm sorry for being an inconsiderate asshole and I want to say my deepest condolences to you. Please accept these foods as a token of my apology so we can go back to being friends again." Jisung blabbered, avoiding eye contact as he shyly spoke, his ears turning red involuntarily.

Your eyebrows raised in surprise as he stretched out his hand to give you the bags. "You're here for that? And you consider me as your friend!?" you exclaimed, dumbfounded at the boy's actions infront of you.

Jisung's brows furrowed as he looked up at you with an offended look, "of course I consider you as a friend! You don't consider me as one?" he pouted, his hands going down as his expression saddened.

"Well, with your fucking attitude towards me I thought you had some sort of grudge against me as if my ancestor killed yours or something." you shrugged. "The ancestors thing might be a possibility. But you're funny when you get riled up. I never hated you, y/n. I felt like shit when I saw you cr-" he whined.

"Don't even say that word, I was being sentimental and emotional." you cut him off and cringed the embarrassing memory of crying dramatically in public. "Okay, sheesh. What Im saying is, I'm sorry for going too far with my antics and I want you to have this." he handed you the bags with a small smile.

You bit your lip as you accepted the bags in your hand and gave him a smile. "You're alright, Jisung." you nodded. "Does that mean you forgive me?" Jisung grinned, stepping closer to you as he practically towered over you.

"Dude, I forgave you three seconds ago. Go to sleep its like 11 PM, we have to shoot scenes first thing in the morning tomorrow." you chuckled, putting down the bags on the floor and gently pushed him, eliciting a laugh from him.

"Alright. Alright. Good night," Jisung giggled as he walked towards his door. "Goodnight to you too, Han. Thanks for the food by the way." you smiled, leaning so you could see him standing infront of his doorway, giving him a small wave before getting inside and closing your door.

You picked up the bags and lay them on your nightstand, checking to see what that ridiculous boy had bought you. Something inside caught your eye as you reached a hand down the bag and pulled out the object in sight.

You bit your lip, smiling as you saw a bouquet of lavender wrapped together with a small silk, some small carnations adding some colour to the bouquet. That boy really is something.

Jisung leaned back to see you pick up the bag he brought you before closing your hotel door. He sighed to himself, biting back a smile as he thought bout your reaction to his small gift inside.

He noticed how you kept looking in awe at the lavenders nearby, longing to pick one of them so he went down to the nearest bouquet shop and bought the most eye-catching lavender bouquet they had.

He chuckled to himself, wishing he could see your reaction when you see his gift as he fidget his hands around his pockets to pull out his key card to his room. He soon frowned when he doesn't feel his card anywhere in his pockets.

He pulled out his wallet to check if his card was there. Unfortunately, it wasn't there. He locked himself out. 'Fuck my life.' he thought before jogging down the hall to Jeongin's room where he knocked nervously.

Jeongin opened the door with his bed hair looking like an untamed mane as he squinted sleepily at his friend. "Hey Jeongin-" Jisung greeted nervously before Jeongin shut the door to his face.

"Asshole!" Jisung exclaimed in a soft voice but loud enough for the younger boy to hear him from the other side of the door. Jisung clicked his tongue as he pulled out his phone and dialed the only person he knew who could help him.

"Manager-nim! My favorite hyung! How are you?" he laughed as he walked towards his manager's room nervously. "You're gonna be laughing your eyes out when you hear me out. So. I got a little problem..."

I was so motivated to write with all the comments that wanted me to make more of Lavender Antics like Bruh I didnt think this would be so popular💞💞😳😭

#lavender antics #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz jisung #skz #stray kids #stray kids imagine #stray kids smut #stray kids x reader #skz ff #stray kids fanfiction #stray kids fanfic #stray kids fic rec #stray kids fluff #han jisung imagines #han jisung

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