Videogames That "Require" A Wiki

[@genbear]

hey everyone, thank you all so much for the positive reception and encouraging comments. don't take this video at face value, enjoy and have fun with how you play games. that's it. nothing more to it other than that.

[@thedarter]

Tbh I'd say Minecraft is the ultimate wiki game, if it weren't for the fact that it got so popular that basically everyone already knows the basics. At least for Java, never touched Bedrock so this may not apply. Think about it, how would someone who has never seen anything about Minecraft know about nether portals? Sure, there are ruined portals, but what are the odds that it would convey exactly what to do? The odds of them realizing 1.) you can even build portals, 2.) how to activate it, and 3.) that they need to replace any crying obsidian is astronomically low. Then they need to figure out what a nether fortress is, find a blaze and kill it, turn the rod into blaze powder then into an eye of ender, use the eye of ender instead of assuming it's some niche decoration or something, realize that its leading them somewhere, follow it, find the stronghold, find the frame without assuming the stronghold itself was the reward, and kill the ender dragon, and that's just to reach the ending. That doesn't even cover all of the post game or side content. How would they know about the wither? Why would they even think to throw an ender pearl into the portal to the end islands? Ocean monuments, jungle and desert temples, mineshafts, woodland mansions, piglin bastions, end cities, dungeons, villages, and underground cities will only be encountered if they're lucky enough to randomly find one. Even if they found an elytra how would they know what it is? Why would they swap out their armor for what seems to be a cape? Taming animals, villager and piglin trading, wandering traders, critical hits, potions, enchantments, all things that a new player has a real chance to not know exist. That's not even a comprehensive list, and that is way too much game to simply not tell a player about. I love minecraft, don't get me wrong, but it's one of the worst offenders. Not even Terraria is quite as bad.

[@EuLucio]

ey lil man upgrade your mic, funny content and edits but your dry wheezing into your microphone gets annoying

[@zombeebear30]

Idk I don’t think stardew or Isaac really need wikis Stardew wiki just ruins the game, and you aren’t supposed to memorize the location of NPCs and Isaac is a game where you are meant to experiment and figure out what items do

[@terraminator4379]

i got rid of my habit of trying to not miss content, and always trying to do stuff the most efficient way. This makes games way more relaxing and fun. And if you discover something yourself, it feels way cooler than reading a wiki and playing a game with methods someone else made.

[@eddsson]

Lovely video! Thanks. Yeah there's a couple games that I'd add to the list but, a follow-up would be neat as heck with some of the suggestions perhaps? I was gonna say that Path of Exile is very much up there! Good luck playing that from first startup to end-game just using the in-game guide, hah. Notoriously "out-of-game-dependency" in that. Also, mic's fine. You'll improve it further down the line so don't worry about people expecting everyone to have recording booths for their voice over. Have a sub and a like.

[@harmoen]

Going through a wiki can feel like reading ancient texts to prepare for your adventure. It can also be just giving up because you can't stand trying to figure wtf you're supposed to do anymore.

[@M0D776]

That first part is completely accurate for me, sometimes I even read wikis for games I've never played (nor that I ever plan to) and it's pretty fun, oddly enough my mind doesn't retain this kind of information, so at the end I pretty much forget about it so I can go through the same information trip again, pretty cool stuff.

[@shannon5604]

@@M0D776 me too, honestly the work that goes into some wikis is fucking insane so just appreciating the work is fun enough for me

[@commentbot9510]

If I have no hint at all then what else am I gonna do

[@M0D776]

@@commentbot9510 I only know one game that straight up never tells you stuff, so just look more

[@idontwanttopickone]

If a game needs that to play it, then the game designers haven't done their jobs properly.

[@beetlebailey7037]

This discussion never fails to make me think about how old games used to come with physical manuals that would explain everything about the game to you, even the basic story, because it wasn’t always included in the actual game itself

[@idontwanttopickone]

But the best games never needed you to read those manuals. I never looked at the manual that came with Half-Life or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time because you learnt everything you needed in the game. The only time you should be looking at a manual is if you haven’t played in ages, are right in the middle of a game and need to look up one control that you forgot OR when you need the install code. Good game design teaches you through play. If you need a wiki or a manual to play, it’s a badly designed or unfinished game.

[@ronny584]

@@idontwanttopickone If you compare FPS and RPG games depth to an open world game that constantly gets update. You are a bit special.

[@alejandrovallejo6763]

@@idontwanttopickone TBF some of the clues Navy gives arent clear at all, when I first played I had really hard time getting to the Zora Domain.

[@thechugg4372]

@@idontwanttopickone Although you are right in your last sentence if your idea of old games is half life and oot well, yeah you're getting old but game had mostly stopped doing the manual thing by that point and had actual tutorial levels so you have to look at earlier examples

[@citizen_grub4171]

@@ronny584 Bad defense. Games like Minecraft could (and many *do*) include a proper map screen, recipe list, etc.

[@ytivarg5371]

Guild wars 2 has a wiki function in chat. You type /wiki followed by an item, quest, character, etc and it will display basic info for it and a link to the official wiki page. For an mmo with seriously more to do in it than most, its suuuuper helpful

[@genbear]

That's actually really cool

[@NewsofPE]

runescape does it too if I remember

[@neortik7]

this is awesome !

[@Markomilicic012]

"Gaaaame wghat de faq is this thing now"

[@andresbarragan7212]

Civilization game also have this with pressing a button

[@arttukettunen5757]

It's even worse when they just have a fandom wiki and it's 5x laggier per tab nowadays compared to independent wikis

[@haikei888]

Fandom isn't that laggy on PC, but on mobile it's actively fighting your phone as you scroll. This and the ads/honest reviews that pop up in the middle of the screen out of nowhere Community-made fandom wikis have a plus of having generally more information and trivia than official wikis, as they don't need to be official. Unfortunately they can sometimes have straight-up misinformation or outdated data

[@breakbeat_hardcore]

Fandom used to be good when it was known as Wikia. It was so good, but then they decided to completely change their brand and how their website looks so they can display more ads. Now the website is unusable unless you have the best adblockers known to man.

[@breakbeat_hardcore]

@@haikei888 Holy shit, I know how that feels. Fandom is hell for mobile users.

[@hamburgercheeseburger7959]

+CoperCZ_HSR_Taka fr, especially since it's difficult to get an adblocker on mobile, it's damn near unusable

[@breakbeat_hardcore]

@@hamburgercheeseburger7959 Yeah. You don't just need adblockers, either. You're probably gonna need a script blocker of some sort, too.

[@greatvegetables]

Remember how you had to pick the right dialogue choice 5 or so times in a row WITHOUT getting any wrong in order to not get the bad ending in Persona 4? That’s honestly a perfect example of this

[@MNthal]

GOD FUCK THAT! Maybe they really really wanted you see the bad ending, but the fact that they ask you if you want to save after getting it is just cruel (and if you override your file everything you've done is gone, gotta beat the game all-over again)

[@vanitas8072]

Being my first Persona game, when it recommended that I should save before those various scenes, I was sweating bullets to not get the worst ending lol.

[@aidanrock8719]

Personally i don't play Persona games, i don't enjoy games for pedophiles 😎

[@thexp905]

@@aidanrock8719 Good. Because we wouldn't want pedophiles like yourself playing good games and giving them a bad reputation. Have a wonderful day!

[@aidanrock8719]

@@thexp905 sick comeback bro, how many times did you make the teenage main characters involved with adult teachers who actively talk about how it's wrong in-game?

[@Ender_Onryo]

This reminds me of another video I watched awhile back. Someone ranked how feasible progression in Minecraft would be without using external information. One of the big things was, they deemed figuring out how to get to the Nether to be nearly impossible. The only information you had would be the advancement info and the ruined portal structures.

[@lordz19]

I need to see this video that sounds awesome

[@Ender_Onryo]

@@lordz19 I'm trying to find it, but I can't recall what the title is.

[@spooky2683]

​@@Ender_Onryo is it retrogamingnow's "why minecraft is secretly impossible"? it seems like what you're describing

[@Ender_Onryo]

@@spooky2683 Yeah, I think that's it. The intro seems familiar and it has a Like + view history from my account.

[@peterrocha100]

When I started playing Minecraft, it doesnt even had the ruined structures, everything I learned was by KZbin videos

[@Monori198]

I think that “Papers, please!” Is a good example of giving players all the info they need (VERY important info) and making it in a way that make sense in the game

[@MatthewTheUntitled]

Papers, please is pinacle of simple game having depth

[@robertharris6092]

Agreed.

[@jellii]

fuck, I love Papers, please

[@sriracha0]

@@jellii 🤨🤨🤨

[@Graf-Fischgen-von-Fischgesicht]

Glory to ARSTOTZKA!

[@phalamy9180]

Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter nights have caused my distrust of games to the point i keep looking stuff up. "Ooops, you killed one npc 8 hours ago and saved over it, have fun restarting the ENTIRE GAME"

[@primarchicarus7099]

Me recently replaying Mass Effect 2 with a specific love interest in mind, didn't realize that by telling the character "I can wait for as long as you need, take your time" the character interprets it as "we will not have a relationship" so I went all the way to the end mission before realizing the mistake and then had to replay the entire second half of the game to undo my mistake

[@klutzspecter3470]

Pov: You murderhobo’d a kid in the shadowlands. Crucial to the Act 2 plot.

[@UltraViolentMoon]

Bioware games are awesome, but holy shit the dialogue wheel sucks.

[@natshoz7900]

​@@primarchicarus7099 I remember romancing Miranda in Me2 but felt I wanna romance Liara for the third game. There are very specific actions you have to do there for Miranda to survive. I did EVERYTHING right, from giving her the right information to listening to what she wanna do. But she died anyway, leaving me confused. Learned that when you first meet her, she asks if you're still interested in her. Since she isnt a permanent companion and I didnt want to cheat on Liara, i told her im over her. She became sad but nothing more changed. Turned out THAT was the reason she died. If i lied to her and told her that we were still a couple, she would survive. Such a fucking stupid system, it pretty much endorse romancing several character at the same time.

[@primarchicarus7099]

@natshoz7900 that's the run I'm going for except I'm going Ash -> Miranda -> Traynor (modded LE), because I've never romanced Traynor and wanted a new experience. For the exact reason you mentioned, I told Miranda I'm still interested, but I'm just moving forward with Traynor anyway and deciding in my head that the distance between Shep and Miranda and their time spent apart is enough to make them naturally separate over time without explicitly telling each other that. If Miranda wouldn't die from broken heart syndrome, I would have just broken up with her during that first conversation.

[@justweirdout]

Games like Stardew could really benefit from easy to implement, immersive, lore-friendly ways to look up information. Like, where do I catch this fish? Look it up in a fisherman's almanac or something, but instead when you first play you either google it or you randomly cast in every area at every time of day, raining and sunny.

[@Delta0429]

I love this idea. I got into Stardew again recently and while I do play a lot of wiki-heavy games, initially getting back into it was a huge info dump. Farmer's almanacs or fisherman's logbook would be great. They wouldn't even have to tell you what the fish is, just have a general outline and say what season, time, and weather you fish for them

[@spaghettiisyummy.3623]

Gunther could sell an Encyclopedia for 100 Gold.

[@trollge3712]

tbh i like using the wiki in stardew

[@allisongretsinger322]

subnautica was great at this. you can easily play through that entire game without the internet

[@gabrieldinix]

Even in mods stardew is lacking in an immersive way to get that

[@_Matt29_]

I find it funny that some people think that the wiki stuff is a 'modern gaming' problem 'cause I've seen older games that require you to read 100-page Manuals or PDFs to fully understand the lore of the world, basic-end game mechanics, specific number stats, and more. Sure, wikis may not be directly provided or even supported by the devs, but games needing extra mediums because of their depth have always existed and most of the time I like it that way.

[@helion_ut]

Exactly. Look at the original Zelda in which you LITERALLY have to burn a random bush (In the middle of a douzen of other ones that look exactly the same) to make progress- I'd argue basically all of these coooould be completed without a wiki, but you just shouldn't. The guide in Terraria is far less useful than a wiki that just gives you all the info you need straight-up.

[@braydengraves4655]

helion2018 If you are talking about the bush covering a dungeon, (Which is the only example I can think of that matches your description) then the awkward position of the bush was enough to give it away for me.

[@braydengraves4655]

Interesting take. I do think it's worth pointing out that most of the NES examples I can think of (Metroid 1 and Castlevania 2 immediately springing to mind) are generally thought to have aged incredibly poorly, so it's also never been something people liked.

[@m.dave2141]

The thing is gaming in some places was expensive so most people didnt have original games, most people didnt have manuals pdfs or even Internet

[@icantthinkofaname4723]

@@braydengraves4655 Megaman 1 where you need to grab a "optional" item in elec man's stage to be able to finish wily stage 1 and you can only get it if you have already beaten guts man.

[@justarandomalt255]

This is exactly how I go from "I wonder what stuff I can do with this thing I found" to "so now I know every single thing about this game but I haven't even beaten the first boss yet"

[@4swordsluver]

Based time gear pfp!!

[@paulstelian97]

I'm that guy when it comes to Factorio lol

[@Smicklepickle]

I did somewhat the same thing with project zomboid before I played. I knew everything and my first character is still doing well with a awesome 2 weeks in :)

[@techstuff9198]

Hell yeah, pokemon mystery dungeon profile picture!

[@deleted-something]

True

[@liosscip]

The problem if you want to "see everything" in one play through is simple: If you want a game where your decisions make an impact or a difference, you will end up with a game you simply can not see everything in one play through, if you could, your decisions clearly dont have any impact

[@daweed695]

Sure, decisions mattering is a nice thing, but i would like to know before hand that not doing some random quests before the final dungeon lockes me out of 1/3 of the entire persona 5 game, or that i cant keep playing dark souls 1 after beating the final boss

[@arthuralmeida6049]

The problem is, you loose a lot by just not doing some stupid small thing in a certain time frame, make me insanely mad when something I have no way of know alone before it happen blocks me of things like true ending, I playing person 5 royal and if not for guides I would miss the true end just because I didn't maxed my confidant level with the correct characters in time. When you have complete different routes based on your choices like in The Witcher 2 where you have a whole diff segment of the game based on them I find pretty nice, even when there is no great changes in your route, like The Witcher 3, I still find fine because you can tell the dialogue is guiding what'll happen, but when something that's don't seems important is the main factor that decides what you'll see I really hate it, that's why I use wikis for that kind of game.

[@globurim]

I don't really care, I just want the best ending

[@ksicks]

You forgot one of the biggest victims of this. The entire Pokémon franchise. How the hell are you supposed to know without the wiki that my grass rat only evolves at 3am in real life at 12:00 am in game when there’s a full moon and im walking on a specific tile in a cave in the middle of no where

[@WartortlesBongWater]

Word of mouth or Offcial strategy guides

[@FestusOmega]

Best one of these is Inkay which can only evolve when you're holding your console upside-down.

[@base21]

​@@FestusOmega Please tell me that's not real, cause if it is that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard

[@timio44]

@@base21 that's real

[@dydx_]

originally it had been through word of mouth, but the internet made everything try-hard.

[@queennai6471]

You could argue thst some of these games dont necessarily need a wiki, they're just extremely useful. Anyway good video

[@grox5814]

yea thats true. but i would say that usefulness could be also a bit counterproductive because, why wouldn't you use it - seeing how useful it is

[@ssrbgangimaribotan6thofthe12]

@@grox5814 some people wants "challenge" and find out the hard way

[@IAmDocTho]

@@grox5814 its not unusual to want to play a game and figure out how to do stuff yourself

[@stx_1]

read the title, ""require""

[@imslightlybetterthanyou8365]

those games DO require a wiki to actually play. The truth

[@ianboyer2224]

With the Stardew Valley example, I don’t think it was the dev’s intention that you’re supposed to know exactly what every NPC likes and dislikes, where they go, etc. Although this information may “help you,” I would argue that it doesn’t improve the gameplay. Finding out what the NPCs like is part of the intended gameplay. I heard this quote once that was something like, “players will always optimize the fun out of a game.” Another example of this is the debug screen in Minecraft. It was never intended to be used by players. Only by the devs to.. debug it. One of the most fun parts of Minecraft is getting lost and finding your way back again. There are items in-game that can help you with this like the compass, but why make a compass when you can just press F3 and know your exact coordinates?

[@dazcarrr]

there are literally notes in the game and lines of dialogue hinting at what items people like yet people still claim the wiki is required

[@Kokonutzlz]

Yeah, there's a ton of info that your character actually keeps track of for the town people in Stardew Valley! You have to click on them in the friendship tab and it's all there

[@rub_y]

me when getting lost and having to spend 20 hours trying to find my way back to my base just so i can deposit 3 iron ingots is somehow "fun"

[@ianboyer2224]

@@rub_y Yes actually. You might not have experienced it yet if you use F3 all the time, but it is. Not really the getting lost part, but the part where you finally find your way back. Completing a task that was very hard or annoying is really satisfying actually.

[@rub_y]

@@ianboyer2224 i have played alpha minecraft for hours recently and while it is fun and nostalgic, getting lost was the most annoying and tedious part. while finding my way back is somewhat rewarding, i'd rather just not have to deal with it. i guess im just not a good navigator or something

[@X3N1TH]

0:14 why does bro have 97 doors in the trash 😭

[@olican101]

Character: "Do you want me to come with you?" Wiki: "If you answer yes, she will leave, if you say no, she will come with you". This is why we need the wiki.

[@Archimedes.5000]

Or you could just play the game as intended

[@proaxel7003]

Bloodborne has an NPC that does literally this You tell him to go to the chapel because it’s safe there, he instead goes to the clinic and gets killed and turned into a monster by the evil mad scientist woman. When he doesn’t show up at the chapel you’d think the game had glitched. Nah he’s just a skeptic that does the opposite of whatever you tell him to, and there’s no precedent or anything that warns you about that Luckily he’s not important for anything, at least as far as I remember

[@neurotic3015]

@@Archimedes.5000 It's genuinely sad that you're unable to grasp what he said when it was simple as everloving fuck.

[@Archimedes.5000]

@@neurotic3015 grasp what? That the game clearly intends to do the opposite of what you choose, but you can't handle that so you cheat the interaction using wiki and then complain about it? Lol

[@fukyoutubestupidfuckinghandles]

​@@Archimedes.5000everything in a game is intentional however if a choice a game makes isn't fun for the player, then of course people will complain and find workarounds. It being "as intended" doesn't change how good an intention it was.

[@NotaWalrus1]

I just wish more games, especially metroidvanias, implemented a notepad/journal functionality which you can use to write notes and reminders. It is bafflingly rare.

[@Gamingpandacat]

When I could add markers on the map for some of them I lost my mind

[@alvarojimenez50]

I remember this in the Zelda games of DS it was so cool and I didnt see it in other games

[@BooguyTheAdept]

Elden RIng definitely would've been better with that feature.

[@cool_scatter]

You know notebooks exist in real life, right?

[@BooguyTheAdept]

@@cool_scatter no in-game interacting potential. Like the hint from the note may come out when u are in specific area or smth.

[@a_few_species]

9,999 hours in paradox games is when you figured out the basics of infantry combat and politics. Now it's time for the fleet.

[@f3tsch906]

Rookie numbers

[@kieranmason2404]

20k in and i found out how to make an alliance

[@zachrabaznaz7687]

Only took me 50 to understand Stellaris, but HOI is extremely simple

[@disappointedmess209]

@@zachrabaznaz7687 the navy system is anything but simple

[@FriendlyFridge]

I have 1000 Hoi hours and not a dam clue on the navy

[@peavuh]

minecraft suffering from this is an understatement (if you SOMEHOW started the game with no prior knowledge you can't really know how to for example build a nether portal (i mean combining moving water with still lava to make obsidian and then making a rectangle out of it and finally lighting it on fire isnt really said anywhere in the game its just common knowledge to most due to the game's popularity))

[@Aloverofthefinerartz]

There is a KZbinr by the name of aboutOliver (very underrated creator) and he streams games completely blind with zero outside help not even from his chat, and he played minecraft and he literally figured EVERYTHING out on his own, nether portal? he just copied the ruined nether portal and spent an hour clicking random stuff on it until he found the flint and steel, enchanting? he was making a library and noticed the runes flying to the table. redstone? Don’t even get me started on the redstone. dude did everything through sheer commitment and will!!

[@peavuh]

@@Aloverofthefinerartz oh right the ruined portal exists (at least it helps people figure it out)

[@somdudewillson]

I mean, I'm not sure how probable it will be that you _never_ encounter naturally generated water interacting with naturally generated lava.

[@YuYuYuna_]

@@Aloverofthefinerartz Somehow I doubt this was fully blind. Maybe he did but also you have to get lucky and find one of those ruined portals. Did he spawn near one or if not how long did he spend before finding one in the world? This matters because most players aren't going to spawn near one and get super lucky. Sounds more like this guy got incredibly lucky on his playthrough rather than Minecraft being an easy enough game to figure out blind. I just don't believe he figured out blind to click random objects on it.

[@defaultio3354]

@@YuYuYuna_ruined portals are not rare by any means, by far the most common structure

[@CleridwenFR]

I like the way Minecraft tackled this problem, by adding a "recipe guide" that shows everything you can craft with the items you collected so far, and how to craft them. Remembering how to craft pistons was annoying ten years ago, but with each update adding more and more items, it was really becoming necessary

[@dallama2616]

except firework stars

[@RodrigoroRex]

Exactly but there's so many stuff in Minecraft that requires explanation like mob farms and redstone and all these other things

[@The9thDoctor]

@@RodrigoroRex those aren't really part of the main game, they're community constructs

[@JobiMorkos]

@@RodrigoroRex the command block yeah it needs wiki to find out but everything else are just your own speculation

[@CleridwenFR]

@@RodrigoroRex oh yeah, it's far from perfect. it doesn't teach the entire game at all, nor even the entirety of crafting in Minecraft. but it helps in keeping track of most of those crafting recipes that you don't often use which keep stacking up with each version

[@jampharos]

one thing i like about "wiki" games is that i can "play" even when i'm not at home - i like to think of things i want to look up and then i'll read the wiki on the bus or on break at work.

[@Snackable_]

I couldn’t agree more. Wiki rabbit holes on the other hand kill me. When you are looking for one thing but it requires you to look up a million other things, to understand what fully needs to be done in the game.

[@axsuriaa]

@@Snackable_ happens to me too, many times i had like 10+ tabs open just to craft something

[@stainew2407]

Same here. I remember "playing" terraria with my friend when we where bored in school because we would just talk about all the interesting things we had found in videos or in the wiki. It was very entertaining

[@tomas_iss7469]

Opposite happens to me, sometimes I bring my switch along and I just can’t play things like Terraria, I can’t be bothered to constantly switch between my switch and my small ass phone searching for stuff while crammed in a car backseat with two more people

[@daredevil2_074]

Yeah this is he of the best parts of them until you get back and realize you got nothing and forgot half of it

[@crow2989]

Pretty sure with the Stardew Valley gift system, whenever you give a gift them a gift, their reaction will be noted and catergorized in the friendship menu are whatever it’s called

[@Milombech]

That's correct, but it just sucks to give them a gift they don't like yk. But I use a mod, that he also showed in this video, which is very useful haha

[@matiaspereyra9392]

@@Milombech i mean just give them cheap shit until you find something they like, it's not like your friendship is gonna go into the negatives idk that's just me tho

[@crow2989]

@@Milombech the way I see it, giving someone a gift they don’t like is just natural and you learn not to give them that gift again, it’s pretty weird to automatically know what someone loves. I’m not bashing on people who use that mode, I’m just saying that already has a system that helps you figure it out over time, because like the rest of the game, it’s progression

[@Milombech]

@@matiaspereyra9392 True but I like giving them gifts they love or at least like, so I can get their hearts up quicker

[@Milombech]

@@crow2989 And that's completely fair. We all play differently. I prefer to look up what they like and give them gifts they love or like, so I can get their hearts up quicker.

[@HolyShinta]

Story time: I only started Minecraft recently (around the 1.14 aquatic update) and since I knew pretty much nothing about the game, I decided to test how far I would come without using the wiki. About a week. What tripped me up? I couldn't figure out how to get sheep to my base. Or animals in general. I would never in a million years guessed that I had to hold food for them in my hand because sheep are already eating grass. And I just didn't thought me holding something in my hand is something that NPCs notice anyway. And once I was on the wiki I definitelly went on a wiki-walk. Imagine my surprise once I learned about light dependent spawn mechanics! I also had trouble finding iron, but admttedly that's more me being a wuss and not exploring caves. The other example was in Pokemon Sword. I caught a galarian Farfetch'd and knew it has an evolution. But I decided to not look it up. There has to be an NPC somewhere who tells you how to evolve it, right? Or maybe I stumble over it myself, that would be so exciting! As it reached level 70 and I still had't found any hints how to evolve it, I gave in and looked it up. Ho boy. 3 critical hits in one fight?? That would've never happened naturally. Even after I knew what I had to do it took several tries. I'm not against wiki-games in general, but if you deliberately try to avoid the wiki and get really frustrated, it's hard not to wonder if this is a good idea. Especially because we might be a bit to comfortable with the idea that wikis will always be there. I was playing a lot of games in the 90s and there aren't a lot that you can still find all the walkthroughs and hints that you need to play well. I saw way to many big sites go down for the dumbest reasons and all the infos about the games on there being lost forever, to just think that everything on fandom.com will still be around in 10 years. A single copyright lawsuit or something and all is gone. The internet is not forever, almost no sites have a long term goal to be genuine archives. So making games that rely to such an extreme amount on fans providing info online isn't a good idea if you want your game to be playable on it's own in 50+ years. But I doubt any gamedevs care about that lol

[@kalkuttadrop6371]

Yeah the early Pokemon games usually gave you a hint...even if it was one NPC in some random house

[@ayrtonpavot3096]

remind me when I first started playing minecraft and I knew that you could lure cows and sheep by holding wheat because I watched some videos, but had no idea of how to lure porks. The next day I asked my friend who had been playing for longer than me and I was mind blown when he told me you just needed carrots.

[@sneeznoodle]

I like how most of the mainstream examples of this kinda game are like "lots of crafting recipes" or "large world to remember" and then there are games like Noita where one secret requires a degree in electrical engineering (I'm not joking) and you can make a wand that literally teleports you to an alternate universe

[@dustscythe7702]

Wait what's this? Sounds so cool, what's it called?

[@sneeznoodle]

@@dustscythe7702 it's called "Noita" and it's horrible, highly recommend

[@dustscythe7702]

@@sneeznoodle oh I meant like what's this secret called lol

[@holyroman6541]

@@dustscythe7702 I don't know Noita, but I believe what they're reffering to might be explained in the video "We might be close to solving the infamous Noita "eyes" puzzle" by FuryForged.

[@dustscythe7702]

@@holyroman6541 ah, thank you!

[@alexanderboyy]

My solution to this is to have a friend next to me that already knows everything about that specific game. That way he'll be able to give the exact info i need without spoiling things.

[@wiwita63]

Portable talking wiki

[@ajojofann]

ok but what happens when you have a friend that's in the same situation and asks you? like is it gonna be an infinite game of telephone or something lol

[@blubirdds]

@@ajojofann then you get the joy of experiencing a game alongside a friend, and making great memories together :)

[@ajojofann]

@@blubirdds true. thats an even better experience, imo.

[@diablo.the.cheater]

That is just a wiki with extra steps, just order your neural network of trust to train in a given wiki and ask it the questions, this works even if you don't have friends, so it is IMHO the better solution

[@gunterk6422]

Wiki games like Terraria, Minecraft and Skyrim actually kickstarted the curiosity in my brain and made me so eager to learn and research everything. Knowing every mechanics without consulting Wiki or Google feels so powerful.

[@pharao8077]

Skyrim aint no wiki game

[@gunterk6422]

@@pharao8077 Nah Skyrim definitely needs a wiki, otherwise I would've been sitting here flabbergasted at the existence of enchantment table.

[@chaitanya8126]

@@gunterk6422 ??skill issue

[@TenshiOkihana]

@@pharao8077 The wiki is a NECESITY for the fucking stone's quest

[@graydhd8688]

@@gunterk6422 I'm sure a guide is necessary for certain parts of skyrim, but I never used one and get plenty of life out of it. Terraria I couldn't do a damn thing without a wiki

[@EmmaEmbla]

I am in the group of people who thinks that games like Elden Ring doesn't need a wiki because I really like when people who play it for the first time have different experiences, but as you said you get enjoyment out of doing everything on the first playthrough so I see your point for someone like you! Isaac too honestly, you can't do everything on one run so learning what items do is part of the fun for me :>

[@abra_escaped]

Guess I'll say it too, I frequently enjoy wikis. Getting a new game, playing it for a couple hours on my own to get a feel for things, then diving deep into the wiki to answer all my questions is a great experience. Spending hours researching newly added items in Terraria, side quest and material locations in CrossCode, lists of synergies in Gungeon, or how in the world you get to a certain area in Dead Cells is part of the fun to me. There is the risk of getting spoiled though...

[@calvinsoueid772]

I absolutely adore games that lead to 30 wiki tabs open at once. I don’t know why, it’s like doing research and making a plan. I have a whole group of tabs that are just the runescape wiki and I love that

[@belgarath6508]

If you like strategy games and don't mind an incomplete and sometimes outdated wiki that you have to use together with posts/comments on Reddit and forums I'd recommend EU4. It's a _really_ complex game (the learning curve starts to flatten after about 1k hours), and it's a lot of fun if you don't mind sinking a few months into it.

[@jimjohn1740]

oh me too. I even look at wikis for games I don’t even have, usually pages on enemies and bosses As much as I like reading wikis, they have definitely changed how we play games. It reminds me of a game design thing, where players tend to choose the easiest way to do something even if it’s less fun. Not that wikis necessarily make every game less fun, but I do know I’d rather learn exactly how things work rather than be not know specifics as the dev may have intended, even if it removes the mystery Maybe we should try playing a few games with as little online help as possible, just to compare

[@Glub2]

I created an entire handwritten guide to completing the community center in stardew valley, I was so sick of switching from my game to my phone for the wiki. It’s just easier to have a piece of paper in front of me. Was really fun writing it up too I felt like I was doing a school project again lol

[@benamisai-kham5892]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who's done this LOL My friends called me crazy years ago when I would write down everything for the community center, but now you can see it in game so I don't have to anymore.

[@ForestFire369]

I just did something similar, made myself a guide to transferring pokemon from all the previous generations. I've never done it before, my 3DS is at the end of its life, and I just heard they're shutting down the eShop 😭 It was JUST like being back in school, panicking to finish my homework right before it's due.... Lmfao

[@Serlock4869]

Thankfully there's a mod for additional information for it

[@poftloft]

I was just about to say that the cc bundles in stardew valley are impossible to remember

[@ProfessorLink64]

You know you can just view the community center bundles that you've unlocked straight from your inventory at any time right?

[@jimbob929]

Old School Runescape is the ultimate wiki game. You need the wiki so bad that there is direct integration with the wiki baked into the game with the "wiki button". This allows you to click on any item, quest, npc, spell, and even many overland features and be directly linked to the corresponding objects wiki page.

[@gunsrusxx]

RS3 is worse. 😵 I remember starting off, I had over 50 wiki tabs open at once to learn since I was an OSRS player myself.

[@composaboi]

nah, Dwarf Fortress is the ultimate wiki game.

[@Slabfish]

Nah you can totally play osrs without the wiki! "Make a greenmans ale(m)" Fuck.

[@KILOLover]

I have 7 OSRS wiki tabs open right now lol

[@Lightning_Lance]

I see your Runescape and raise you Nethack.

[@Comicall]

I love games that gives you an easy quest to obtain a McGuffin, alongside simple instructions on how to get it so you'd do everything right, but it doesn't work, so you look it up on the wiki, only to find out that you have to do a moonwalk in a specific outfit at 2:45PM in real time alongside inspecting a very specific trash can, following it up by talking to a NPC with zero relevance to the story, who will give you yet ANOTHER QUEST to require you to find a whopping 239 of the mystical Bullshit Coins to be able to progress through the game.

[@Portabella56]

a very interesting thing to note on this topic is that during the development of Don't Starve, the devs experimented with gving the player direction but found that once the players ran out of the tutorial tips given to them, they stopped playing the game, and so the devs eventually came to the conclusion that their game would be more engaging if they gave players minimal direction, to resounding success.

[@Ben_c-j4u]

Don't starve together is mostly good but you will probably need the wiki to unlock some of the late game bosses The classic don't starve was better for that in particular I beat most everything without having to google anything but in dst if I didn't look up how to get to the fuel weaver I probably never would have

[@Portabella56]

@@Ben_c-j4uthat is certainly something the game struggles with, and I’d even wager is the case for Don’t Starve solo as much of the content has deeper mechanics than may otherwise be obvious to a newer player. Additionally, the new player experience in both games is notoriously punishing, and is in my experience best remedied by a veteran player, or a visit to the wiki

[@wickermind6668]

A game I found that did a really good job at alleviating this is Astroneer. the game by default comes with a built-in "Astropedia" that explains where resources are, how to create certain resources, the different flora on planets, and the planets themselves without going into excrusiating detail.

[@closesho]

i love astroneer and i'll have to disagree with this, many friends i have dont like it cuz they cant understand anything and everything can be confusing at first

[@idontwanttopickone]

​@@closesho your friends know they don't have to look at it, right? A simple fix for that would be to have the "Astropedia" grow as the player discovers things. But at least it's in the game and you aren't tabbing out to read a wiki or watch a KZbin video and risking ruining the game for yourself in the process.

[@digitaldritten]

@@idontwanttopickone like the Slimepedia in Slime Rancher

[@sekinnnnn1121]

Astroneer was my fauvorite game and I have over 500 hours on it. Stopped liking it because of missions and all the free stuff they give you. The game is quite simple actually, I were really lost at the start but now I memorized absolutelly every aspect of it

[@-mwolf]

Sadly the thing doesn't really tell you anything about automation.

[@gm_turtle2355]

As someone who learned terraria without using the wiki, it’s really difficult to see people who rely on the wiki teach newcomers how to play. It always ends up with them trying to speedrun or quickly progress while the new player is left in the dust, not at all knowing what’s going on. With a lot of hours of playtime dedicated to terraria, I’ve gotten a feel for how most items and gear is acquired, so I only use the wiki now and then to see rare drop percentages, but I actively try to stay away from wikis out of fear of getting caught in that infinite loop. It’s much more rewarding and fun to break a random block of dirt and get a cool pet than it is to look something up for 10 minutes, spend another 20 getting it, then say “what’s next?” Jeez this got long. Peace

[@torixon9902]

Honestly, this comment makes me want to give Terraria another chance because I think my first experience was exactly what you just said, someone else trying to speedrun it and leaving me in the dust, confused as to what is going on.

[@gm_turtle2355]

@@torixon9902 my opinon, take it slow and have fun. If you get stuck, use only the wiki class guides. Play the game at your own pace

[@thethe9286]

For me I just rely on the guide and pure knowledge to get through playthroughs of terraria

[@destructoid5939]

Hard agree. Did a joint play though with some friends and me and one of them had a lot of experience while another had some and another had none. We would progress for ourselves but always wait for the whole group to do boss battles. This made one guy a freeloader and would just ask us to make everything he needs for him and the other guy with the least amount of time to play would just suddenly get upgrades and hop into the next boss. Overall it was a terrible experience. So on a second play through I said we were only playing when all of us were online and to look up a class guide if they wanted a bit more guidance. Still had some issues but was mounds better than the first attempt

[@hlwanmoeaung4892]

My first play through of terraria was about 5 years ago with my friends on mobile and at that time, it didn't even pop up in my mind to search up on internet. But after getting corrupted by isaac, I do on every game I play.

[@morsology]

I think The Forest and Sons of The Forest both fall into this category. There are a dozen hidden caves on a massive map that you have to visit in a specific order to complete the game. It's filled with things that would take ungodly hours to find naturally, and the game tells you absolutely nothing about anything.

[@MozzarellaBasket]

There is a certain beauty to being dropped off and saying 'goodluck' but some things are so super vague in these games that a regular player needs to traverse the entirety of the game like 3 times before the ending can be properly accessed.

[@morsology]

@@MozzarellaBasket Well said! I completely agree. At some point that vagueness overdoes it for me

[@loki_is_tired]

Yeah, one of the vods I rewatch most often is RT’s The Forest stream, and the whole last three hours is them trying to find the caves to progress while chat gives them incorrect directions. He literally found the “swan lake” (they’re Canadian geese ffs) they spent forever looking for and walked away because it was incredibly unclear how you were supposed to get into the cave. I really like The Forest, and I think the fun of it is a bunch of you being dumped in the forest, fucking around and building a massive base, slowly progressing the story, but then when you decide to actually commit to it, the process of trying to find the story kind of sucks. Edit: shit I just realised this is a year old fml

[@randomtangle4629]

As someone with ADHD, I enjoy game wikis. They enable my “holy cow, the tab icons aren’t even appearing anymore” tendencies, lol. On the more serious side, I find the digging through a wiki and doing external research to be really fun.

[@Markomilicic012]

true man lookin shit up on a wiki is fun and makes u go "oh... that's cool"

[@Jann75]

YES

[@bigoptichecz6106]

@@Markomilicic012 for real exactly how I felt throughout terraria 💀

[@CloudyChair]

My terraria phase had me going down rabbit holes EVERY WEEK

[@pokelordomega1701]

I honestly try to figure it out by playing the game but sometimes I genuinely just don't know what I'm doing or how to unlock something. Especially in something like hollow knight or some of the more convoluted unlocks in binding of Isaac like the forgotten

[@Phosypha]

The first time I played Stardew Valley I spent the majority of a year and a half growing wheat, thinking that I was doing well for myself because I was growing exponentially more wheat (when I ran out of energy I just went to sleep)

[@marcusaurelius8467]

Based and Wheatpilled

[@DDoig1]

I haven't played it so that sounds good to me. More wheat must mean more money right?

[@ansalem12]

@@DDoig1 It does, but it's extremely suboptimal. Extremely being the operative word. Like, it's a relaxing farming sim (mostly) so being suboptimal isn't a big deal, but if your main goal is to make money, wheat shouldn't even be a consideration (when I last played it like 4 years ago anyway). Some crops are mostly meant to be grown for use not sale.

[@heitorpedrodegodoi5646]

Why arent doing well?

[@mothmansboyfriend8021]

@@DDoig1 wheat is a really cheap crop and doesn't sell for much compared to the other crops. The most valuable way to process wheat is to turn it into flour and then make bread and sell that, which already requires a lot more money and resources than just selling wheat will get you (I mean, you could eventually, but it would take a pretty long time and there's better and easier ways to make money in the game)

[@FestusOmega]

The most important thing about these games is that the Wiki won't be around forever. It's a new variation on old games which had critical information only in the manual... _Or only in magazines._

[@gumbarius]

I like the kind of "wiki games" where the beginning eases you into the game with everything being explained and such, but the game having a lot of complexity to just crawl into the wiki eventually

[@kylesimone6140]

*cough cough* rain world *cough cough* fun game though

[@terrydavisreal]

noita

[@undeniablelovefordispenser1595]

I think Noita is the poster boy for a game that NEEDS a wiki. The only time the game interacts with you to teach you something is at the beginning, when the game teaches you how to interact with the world (i.e. how to move, shoot and kick). To its credit, Noita is dizzyingly complex and deep, but it also only lets the player learn through experience of trial and repetition. "What does this spell do?" and then instantly dying because of the spell you just casted is basically the first 10 hours of gameplay. And that's just one of the basic mechanics you need to master if you want to survive for long, secrets are in another league of ambiguous. Noita is incredibly fun and I've clocked around 120+ hours and I have yet to do the secret endings, which have clues scattered about in the world, but good luck finding them, not even mentioning you have to decode what the crazed alchemist in this tablet is even refering to.

[@sardobi]

Part of the fun of Noita for me was delving into the wiki / Reddit / etc. to find out more of its secrets. Feels like finding esoteric forbidden knowledge, which really fits the theme of the game. I normally appreciate a game which gives you the tools not to need a wiki, but in this case I think it works well.

[@elliemoffett3598]

I've got around 50 hours into Noita and I get brutally crushed every time I pick up the game. I got to the work only once because I cheesed the final boss with the projectile repulsion field and sat around forever chipping it away with my horrible wands. I've gotten around 3 of the orbs but when I try to go for any others I get obliterated. I've done a lot of looking on the wiki and I understand how most of the spells and items work but it doesn't matter if half the hazards in the game one shot you if you get anywhere near them. I really like playing Noita but as someone who has beaten multiple FromSoft games, it is probably one of the most brutally difficult games I have ever played

[@willmungas8964]

40050+ hours here, once you get past that initial curve of killing yourself to learn sacred knowledge it becomes a lot more fun as you learn the basic combos that help at the starts of runs and powerful ones for later. I’ve gotten both the crown and the amulet, and tbh I didn’t mind using the wiki. The secrets in the game are so obscure that you just might as well, and once you learn it once you’re just gonna do things the same way again each time because you already know what to do. Edit 450 hours ._.

[@willmungas8964]

@@sardobi yeah true, the wiki really does feel like a collection of sacred texts. It helps that the nature of the game inspired collective solutions and secret finding as a community. Just knowing how crazy some of the secrets are and the history behind them is in many cases cooler than finding the answers myself

[@drupins9511]

@@willmungas8964 Is that a typo in the hours count lmfao. That looks like longer than the game has been out

[@strangeduckling]

Throwback to when games came with entire manuals and even _books_ that you were expected to at least skim through _before_ you started playing

[@agent7176]

*cough* F-19 Stealth Fighter by MicroProse

[@unocualqu1era]

Civ IV

[@somegenerichandle]

I needed the manual for morrowind...

[@LegoDork]

We had a novelized walkthrough for Kings Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella.

[@irissupercoolsy]

*cough* Zoo Tycoon 1 ... and I couldn't understand the English manual back then because I couldn't read English

[@declanhickie1394]

This is why I always look up if their are any missable side quests, storylines, and items before I play it.

[@LiamTolentino]

Minecraft modpacks take even further. Even when mods have their own guidebook built in, I always find myself looking at the wiki because there's almost always something not fully explained in the book. Modpacks that have quests to guide you through the different mods also overlook some very useful but obscure feature in the pack that may hinder your gameplay experience, especially if you're on a skyblock map or something. Like in Captainsparklez' recent modded skyblock type series, he didn't know that he could just get pebbles from dirt for a while, so he was stuck without cobblestone for the first episode or so. I do love modded Minecraft, but I can definitely see why a lot of my friends were turned off by it when I started a modded server lol

[@MeAMoose]

hmm how to build a thermal distillation tower *Haha Mekanism Wiki Go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

[@felix34ever1]

Playing Gregtech new horizons without a wiki is literally how to reach godhood

[@Hammerbruder99]

To this day I have still no idea how Thaumcraft works. This mod is so interesting but looks like a mess. :D

[@nottaserialkiller7238]

@@felix34ever1 hey Ferb I know what I'm going to do today

[@DerGyrosPitaFan]

@@Hammerbruder99 to be fair, thaumcraft works very differently depending on the minecraft version you're playing, so you have to learn it anew every time

[@galaxy_orchestra]

That intro was the most accurate thing ever, I felt your pain. This video was hilarious! I love Stardew and Terraria and I find all the options to indeed be intimidating, but also so exciting because of all the possibilities

[@ronny584]

But that intro is dumb, ofcourse different people enjoy games in different way. The whole point of Terraria is for you to explore the world, why you force yourself to consume knowledge that the game haven't introduce yet? It's like open up the game and looks for endings on google.

[@jamesfoster6506]

@@ronny584 terraria is near impossible to play as a new person right now

[@apollyon2018]

@@ronny584 Me omw to explore the enemy until he gives me the 1% drop

[@ronny584]

@@apollyon2018 you kinda stupid bruh

[@ih21180]

@@jamesfoster6506 Not really, just keep learning and it's fun. I started in 1.4 with the help of some friends and just picked everything up by learning what each item I found did. Now I know many things about the game having played it for 434 hours.

[@МихайлоРедько-т3л]

The problem with isaac is that there are lots of items that requires wiki - because their effect isn't obvious or is hidden, - and a lot of items, that may surprise you and create unforgettable situations(like plan c🥴). You don't use wiki and half of the items(especially trinkets) don't do anything at all or you use it and lose incredibly funny situations with plan c, soy milk, cursed eye etc

[@cejasygk509]

There’s no problem with Isaac

[@sardinelord]

@@cejasygk509 if you ignore every flaw isaac is a flawless game

[@marcospe2468]

Yeah, you must know lots of arbitrary info just to be able to play. It would be cool if they implemented the external item description mod as a setting without needing to browse the workshop.

[@qiang6016]

After hours and I mean hours I still don't remember the effect of like half the trinkets

[@VoidySan]

I LOVE when games have in depth guides integrated into them. And a toggle for a description tree or something on menu interfaces and such. I also LOOOOVE when games have bestiaries, especially ones that tell you elemental weaknesses! Whether you've gotta learn the weakness first and it gets recorded or not.

[@UberDragon]

Terraria honestly works alright without a wiki. The items with only very few exceptions tell you what they do and the guide guide tells you the recipes as well as where you should be looking to make progress. One thing they might still want to add (or maybe it exists and I just don't know about it) is a way to find out where you get a specific item from if you found that you need it to craft something.

[@tokatstorm9270]

Same with Stardew. The only exception that I looked up on my first playthrough was fishing, because trying to experiment with every possible combination of season/weather/time of day/location is a pain, especially when you don't have late game items that let you control the weather. Everything else you can mostly figure out. Sure, you'll occasionally give a bad gift here and there, but overall, still playable.

[@Crabdoodles]

the bestiary has drop rates so the info is available you just cant search by the item itself

[@sirpootsman1048]

@@Crabdoodles but you do have to kill a whole bunch of that specific enemy if you want to unlock the loot tables for it

[@apersoniguess_]

yeah I feel the major issue is how exactly do you get stuff, not necessarily what is it you need

[@kajacx]

I played terraria a few years back. I have absolutely no idea how I would have figured out how to progress without a wiki other than running aimlessly for 10 hours to find every boss. I hope it is better now and players don't need to go on Google just to know what to do in the game.

[@joshuatheawesome9440]

For something like binding of Isaac, I like the adventure that comes with not knowing. For something like old school RuneScape, the wiki is so crucial that the devs put a shortcut into the game that links directly to it.

[@ToyKnives]

I feel like in a roguelike you need some information about the tools/weapons/effects at your disposal to establish a good synergy. For BOI, it became too frustrating for me to lose a good synergy 30 minutes into a run because I picked a power up that overrode my other power ups. I only play using the wiki now

[@youtubearmy_bg8265]

I do not I HATE IT WHEN I FINALLY GET A GOOD RUN THEN IT GETS RUINED BY ONE ITEM

[@ratman507]

yea same. the binding of isaac is what it is because a whole run can be ruined with a single item. the wiki kinda ruins the game imo, or at least takes away a crucial part of the experience.

[@TheSimon642]

@@ToyKnives idk if you've played recently but they've been adding a tonne over the last few years so overwriting doesn't happen and the items combine instead

[@poopmuncher1769]

Binding of isaac was fun to learn what each thing did without looking anything up

[@Crabmaster]

Aha, finally someone else talks about "The Wiki Trap". Some games it feels fine because its just looking there to easier secret hunt for completion rather than leaving secrets as a surprise or challenge to find, other times its kinda awkward to have a lot of missable content that doesn't feel like secrets. The worst though is definitely how Minecraft and other similar games used to be, before the crafting book and before ruined portals there was basically not a single idea in-game for how to progress at a certain point.

[@waterbender6288]

That’s why I preferred terrarias way of progression. Everything you actually need is shoved right into your face, the eoc attacks you after you’ve progressed enough, the shadow orbs/crimson hearts are literally glowing. The clothier tells you to come back at night. You can very easily accidentally spawn the wall of flesh before you’re ready. Terraria has its own problems but as most of them solved by the gem of an NPC known as the guide who tells you how to craft every single item in the game. Of course that didn’t fix the issue with figuring out what mobs dropped what which required a wiki until the bestiary was added.

[@Crabmaster]

@@waterbender6288 Terraria definitely escaped the trap for the most part, from what I recall the older versions weren't as good about it, but at this point it seems pretty easy to do most of the game without the wiki unless you're trying to overly optimize your gear. For a regular new player I imagine progress would be more guided by what they come across rather than looking for specific items. I should take a good look at the NPC dialogue at some point, I really am curious if there's just enough hints from that to progress through most of the more obscure parts of the game's progress. Its been a bit since I last played through it tbh.

[@pikachuchujelly4119]

Also, with Terraria, the Guide NPC will tell you what you can make with an item, and will give you the recipe. The game became better the moment that was added in.

[@Benissy]

atleast with minecraft you can watch a guy play for 10 minutes and be competent at the game

[@ozzi9816]

Fun fact about Minecraft, there is a Japanese KZbinr named Piropito that has lived under a proverbial rock for his entire life and never heard or saw anything about Minecraft and has a blind lets play series where he tries to figure out everything without looking at the wiki, and I think I remember hearing stuff like the ruined nether portals were added because a dev that watches him saw him struggle immensely with figuring out how to get to the nether. The crafting guide was added for a similar reason.

[@One_Point_Safety]

Dwarf fortress is a key example of this, but is one my favorite games

[@Kokonutzlz]

I found that there are many players who never use wikis ever. Either they don't care, or don't even know what wikis are or if the exist for a game. It seems that there are two main groups: wikiheads who have gone down many rabbit holes for their own learning experience, and people who sink all their time into a game. It was so surprising to see the amount of hours people had put into games even surpassing my progress, even though I had much more technical knowledge. It just comes with being a minmaxer. One thing that I super appreciate and encourage is developers adding in visual clues for mechanics. Think about the Wither in Minecraft and a new player who has never seen any online content (almost impossible, lol). There's no way to know that you can create a Wither (much less Snow/Iron Golems), because it's not something that pops up in the helpful "Recipes" pop ups (another super great addition - as soon as you pick up an item for the first time, it shows you what you can make with it) after you pick up a Wither skull. However, there is a clue they added - one of the 2x2 paintings is a model of a Wither, so people who are looking could progress all on their own. Stardew Valley actually has a built in Journal that you take notes in for the townfolks' likes and dislikes after you interact with them, as well as filling out when you pick up Secret Notes. There's no real time limit on the game, so just letting go of minmaxing every single day, you can achieve many goals by sleeping and passing time to let crops grow quicker in real time and get to the next week for gifts, events etc. There are a lot of differences between being a wikihead and just playing the game as the developer presents it to you

[@DerpyNub]

My friend spends alot of time in wikis instead lol

[@AyakoHideko]

I find the example odd ngl, (the video's intro I mean) because as a Stardew player, I have never went down the wiki rabbit hole ever. I have experienced opening myriads of tabs just to keep useful info around, but I dont deep dive into the wiki just to learn more about the game... I just use it as a supplementary tool so I dont have to memorize everything haha. It feels really odd to see people explore the wiki instead of the game... To learn how to play the game.

[@Stardxst0]

I know wikis are a thing but I just prefer to never use them lol. Years and years ago I used to get so frustrated when I needed help with a certain part of the game but after having experience on learning how to do stuff myself I don't have that same frustration much anymore.

[@DaevaG]

There is a painting of how to make the Wither in Minecraft, but to be fair, that's quite vague. I don't actually remember when or how I learned how to summon the Wither. 🤔

[@knyt0]

i doubt anyone has ever made a wither with help from that painting

[@victorpena8356]

Man, I absolutely love doing this. Going through a wiki it’s part of the fun too at least for me, it doesn’t feel stressfull it is more like a chill reading and a fun opportunity to plan what you gonna do. I probably have 9.999 hours in the stardew valley wiki and bulbapedia. The best part is you don’t need the game to do this. I just be doing whatever, being in the bus, laying on bed or just bored and pull out my cellphone and search for something that intrigued me.

[@kekkomoshenji7966]

I feel the same way because I love games that require a wiki. It makes them feel very big challenge to learn about everything relevant.

[@kekkomoshenji7966]

I feel the same way because I love games that require a wiki. It makes them feel very big challenge to learn about everything relevant.

[@kekkomoshenji7966]

I feel the same way because I love games that require a wiki. It makes them feel very big challenge to learn about everything relevant.

[@kekkomoshenji7966]

I feel the same way because I love games that require a wiki. It makes them feel very big challenge to learn about everything relevant.

[@kekkomoshenji7966]

I feel the same way because I love games that require a wiki. It makes them feel very big challenge to learn about everything relevant.

[@jdenton1337]

This video was actually weirdly comforting lmao. I'm so envious of people who can play a story game and not stop to Google every single aspect, sometimes I spend more time on my phone looking stuff up than actually playing the game

[@ccsleepy8342]

It’s not even like the wiki will tell you everything for every game. There’s so much information unaccounted for on just how potentially profitable any given thing is in stardew valley is. I’ve taken it upon myself to run all calculations because it doesn’t seem anybody else has done it.

[@thespectrum7590]

for me thats the fun of it, i love playing ark even if most of my time is spent researching more effective ways to do certain tasks, where to find certain dinos or how to obtain certain items for the late game i think ive spent more time reading the wiki for ark than actually playing the game and i love it

[@almicc]

Try playing it without looking things up, commit yourself to it and you'll turn into the person you envy.

[@darkgrundi9543]

Well i like doing both. On my first playthrough i am completely blind and then i play a second one going for 100% achievements with the help of guides/wikis.

[@leftysheppey]

I don't really google stuff on my first playthrough unless I'm stuck (final fantasy II...I was a dumb kid). On subsequent playthroughs I may do a massive deep dive into it

[@HopeP0H]

Nameless King is one of the greatest boss fights I have ever experienced, and I would have never known that he existed if I didn’t check the wiki

[@coldy8480]

In my opinion it depends greatly on your free time. When I was like 13 to 16 I used to play like all day, so having complex, hard and demanding games was the only way to have any degree of challenge. Now that i'm older I basically got shit to do and don't have time/energy/will to put all that effort in games anymore (even tho I still love to play).

[@AesttseA]

This!!!! I totally agree on that aspect

[@AKA253]

I appreciate the Minecraft wiki because you don’t “need” the wiki for much. A lot of things can be discovered through trial and error. Sure, lighting up your base would be easier if you knew light measurements and spawn rates, but it’s also possible to just patch dark zones when things start showing up. I think it’s games like Stardew don’t really catch it because you can’t really even PLAY parts of stardew if you don’t read the wiki. As stated, likes and schedules would have it take a few seasons just to track one villager’s stats.

[@braydengraves4655]

I'm not so sure about your Minecraft assessment. It's gotten better over time, with the addition of the recipe book, but there is still a lot that most players wouldn't figure out on their own. The nether portal is an obvious example, and several mobs have less-than intuitive mechanics. Eyes of Ender are at first glance seemingly useless, and potion brewing is just convoluted enough that someone with no outside information would probably not know where to start. There are probably several other examples that I can't think of off the top of my head, but I think that's probably enough to get the point across. The game still favors the wiki users more than a game probably should.

[@TungVoid]

@@braydengraves4655 Minecraft is honestly a bit hostile to newer players. The way the game is designed assumes that you are familiar with how to play it. It thrives on the fact that there are millions of hours of minecraft videos on the internet, and the devs expects you to search stuff up or already knew about it. With no outside information Minecraft is very convoluted and the only thing you could probably figure out for yourself is building.

[@periberry7345]

@@braydengraves4655 minecraft has been doing a better job of this but I agree it's still lacking. For example you could figure out nether portals from finding the ruined portals all over the world, they usually have obsidian and a flint and steel so it all comes together. For potions it isn't that difficult either to figure out that the only farmable resource in the nether fortresses might have a use with the crafting station(brewing stand) that you also get from a fortress(assuming you got blaze rods and didn't steal one from a village or smth) Eyes of ender straight up only go in a specific direction so why not follow? I can't defend it too much though as I know my dumbass wouldn't catch on fo some of these

[@gamermapper]

PSA : After the 1.18 update, you actually don't need light mesureaments if you don't want mobs to spawn anymore. Because now, the mobs will only spawn at light level 0, aka absolute darkness, so for lighting up your base you simply put up torches in a way to not have any dark space at all. While before, you had to check the values, because they spawned at level 7, so at a small level of light too.

[@braydengraves4655]

@@periberry7345 Yeah, there are hints for the Nether Portals and Eyes of Ender, but I'm not really convinced it's enough to remove the "Wiki Required" status. The portals, while mysterious, don't really indicate that there is a way to actually use them. With the brewing stand, the nether wart doesn't really qualify as a clue. The player has no way of knowing that you always need to start with the same ingredient, or where that ingredient is found. (With the new villages, it is possible to encounter a brewing stand before they can be crafted, so the player may not think of them as being a nether item.) With the Eye of Ender, you have a point, but I certainly can't see myself following it after the first few throws, since I would have no idea where it was going, or even if it was going somewhere specific.

[@AlkyoneAoide]

I think a good way to mitigate the wiki problem while preserving the guidance and motivation might be in-game achievements. They give you a little bit of guidance through flavor text but it's up to you to do the rest. And for me at least, having progress tracked and getting to see when I'm close to finishing one is extremely motivating!

[@idontwanttopickone]

There are plenty of good games that teach through play and the best ones do it without you even realising it. A good computer game should be a completely self-contained entity that doesn't need an outside source to learn everything you need to know. You shouldn't have to look up a wiki to discover how to use an item. It should be somewhere in the game. Achievements are still something outside of a game. They often rely on the platform the game is on. They also can spoil the game by making players focus on them rather than on what is happening in the game. A much better way is to encourage a player to try something and give them a reward when they do. This creates a learnt connection between trying the game's suggested thing and a reward. Then, ideally, give them a reason to try that thing again so they learn that lesson properly and remember it. Over time a game can put larger gaps between the suggestion and the reward. Or a selection of suggestions to do and different rewards based on what that player chooses. An achievement can be a reward, but it can also be a burden. If an achievement is visible before the player has learnt all they need to know to achieve it, it can feel like an impossible task. This is why I don’t look at achievements until I get to a point in a game where I feel comfortable with it and want more of a challenge. Next time you play a new game, avoid looking at the achievements and instead keep an eye out for the suggestion and reward cycle. It’ll always be there. But the best games don’t make it obvious that they are doing that. That’s because it takes more skill from game designers to suggest jumping up to something than simply saying “press SPACE to jump up to that ledge”.

[@MrGermandeutsch]

You don't need to be a cook to know if food tastes good, so you don't need to be a game designer to tell if a game is good.

[@willkimball7677]

I feel like it’s more like you have good ingredients but you are a terrible cook

[@SuleX00-ov5ip]

If you understand game design you can not like something but appreciate it's design and vice versa. It also prevents you from making delusional takes on video games

[@fusrosandvich3738]

Making anything, period, helps in being able to tell the quality of other things. I took a stab at audio and video editing for a bit just to make some dumb jokes and got an hour sucked out of me by learning how Audacity works. After that experience I've come to enjoy stuff I already enjoyed even more because I can more easily tell the effort put in. It also helps you identify steaming hot trash easier so its really a win win

[@somdudewillson]

But you probably will need to be a cook to tell why _exactly_ the food doesn't taste good barring extremely obvious cases.

[@YuYuYuna_]

This is true, but the inverse of that, much like for not being a cook, is not true. Just about every game designer eventually comes to the realization through feedback be it if they are an indie dev or working on a big AAA title that gamers don't give good "actionable" feedback. What they do give you is whether or not they enjoy something and it's up to you as the developer to determine if them not enjoying something means you need to change it or in many cases it's a good thing and the players are just complaining about it. In many cases I've seen developers reactively develop their game and change anything the community didn't like and it made the game worse as a whole. Gamers don't do a great job of informing you of actual solutions and if they do 9/10 times the solution doesn't actually fix the problem.

[@_hallowed_]

To be honest, I'm surprised that you aren't more popular. The video was very high quality and well made!

[@maiz_kolbe5030]

Tbf this IS their second video. So I'd say theyre doing pretty well

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

@@maiz_kolbe5030 only his second video got recommended and see that view difference.

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

Cause there are no search options with details like informative or let's play variations on youtube but people still post here out of habit. Will be changing soon due to the recent trash policies

[@kissgergo5202]

I don't know why but games that "require" a wiki are my favorite games to play. Maybe it's because of the complexity they have that necessitates the existance of a wiki. It also feels really good to know so much about a game that you no longer require a wiki. Like for example I've played Minecraft for over decade now and I was surprised it was mentioned in this video because I don't even remember having to look up stuff anymore.

[@ccsleepy8342]

Used to look up crafting recipes all the time and that was pretty much the sole reason I used the wiki. I showed people physically how to craft items using a 3*3 grid of item frames so they wouldn’t have to look anything up. Now we have the recipe book like we should have always had.

[@eveoftheroses3766]

For me Terraria and Elden ring a bit are the games I have wiki tabs permenantly open on my other monitor, I have Calamity tabs open right now actually because me and a few friends wanted to introduce my GF to the game, but for me Terraria strikes the perfect itch with Wiki game because I see it's lack of direction being totally solved by the wiki. "What do I do?" Okay go to the weapons tab and the accesories tab, this is your goal, Grind for them. "Oh but I need this other thing for that" cool! You now have another thing to work towards. There is always goals for me to work towards and my external motivation oriented brain absolutely adores it. I would even argue that Terraria is the only game (I can think of) that is actively more fun with a second monitor

[@marixsunnyotp3142]

I didn't even knew that the End exists for a long time. When my classmates told me that there's a dragon I genuinely thought he was joking.

[@TheRedHaze3]

Boy do I have a game for you. The Last Sovereign. It's made in the style of a JRPG. So insanely complex that you can use the Wiki and still not get the best ending because you didn't figure out the right combination of choices. I wouldn't even bother with it if the story wasn't so good.

[@darkgrundi9543]

@@eveoftheroses3766 i agree, i tried playing it without searching up anything and i hated the experience so much i didn't touch it for 3 years after buying it.

[@fives5x77]

Learning to play Escape from Tarkov requires so much time on the wiki, 90% of the quests pretty much require you to look up how to complete them. A quest will be like, go get an item from a room in this building, and the quest wont tell you which room or that the room requires a key.

[@fingmoron]

But for tarkov it stops being fun real quick, there isn't that instant hop back in. It just becomes bullshit real quick and with resets its worthless. Ah well it's fun for the first hundred hours or so.

[@billplox]

@@fingmoron if the game gets 100 hours out of you then that isn't "real quick"

[@fingmoron]

@@billplox alright I'll rephrase it started being tedious pretty quick, but playing with friends kept it interesting, after the first reset though and having to redo all that tedious bullshit I looked up I'd had enough of it. It's a lot of effort for very little payoff the gameplay loop isn't that satisfying.

[@MsZsc]

@@fingmoron i tried to actually figure out quests ive never done before

[@BananaStefcio7]

Don't get me started on all the weapon mods, ammo types etc. The fact that gunsmith quests exist and if there were no wikis for it... And the gunsmith quests also block access to some other quests. Like jesus christ

[@champiggyfrm_pig5271]

I have always loved games that require me to read pages on pages of guides, wikis and all. There's just something about finding that one specific answer you'd been looking for that never gets old

[@Likorys888]

You should try a modded minecraft, especially the expert modpacks with gregtech.

[@champiggyfrm_pig5271]

@@Likorys888 you know what ? I wrote that specifically thinking about nomifactory which is by far my favorite modpack

[@shady4108]

I played terraria without looking ANYTHING, just discovering it by myself, it was an INCREDIBLE experience, it felt like the game was infinite

[@mind.journey]

Best way to play any game for me. Switching between the game and the wiki kills the sense of exploration and the immersion. I did the same with Zelda BotW and Dark Souls.

[@shady4108]

@@mind.journey based

[@zUltra3D]

Well you have the guide right there so you don't really need the wiki

[@shady4108]

@@zUltra3D well the guide doesnt really helps lmao

[@zUltra3D]

@@shady4108 eh, offers clues i guess

[@BroccinRoss]

I got instant PTSD when I saw the crafting requirements for the Zenith blade how could you re-traumatise me like this, great video :)

[@singerofsongss]

I couldn’t imagine the experience going into any of these games blind. The intro of this video lists some of the games I have the most hours in, and maybe it’s just because I was the right demographic for it at the time, but I didn’t start off any of those games by playing them; I started off by watching Let’s Plays of them on KZbin.

[@Naokarma]

This is probably one massive difference. I knew about Minecraft since 1.4, but I didn't play until late 1.7, right before 1.8. By then, I was used to the game's ideas, and had very little trouble picking up the then-very-unexplained mechanics. I'd read the changelog of every update, would watch snapshot videos, and so had little issue learning what was being added, as well.

[@bettydraper2034]

im like the total opposite lol i love going into games totally blind and never even look at the wiki until ive played the game like twice and get curious about one or two things.

[@sacredeyes3508]

I got through most of terraria blind. I couldn't get past skeletron prime or the Mecha destroyer without wiki though

[@Zelurian]

I finished Raft with my friend without using wiki. It was aimless at some point, so we often take a break from playing and continue the next day so we have an idea how to progress the game

[@CIARUNSITE]

Reading a wiki page is vastly superior to accidentally picking up chocolate milk and ruining your whole run.

[@wabbajocky8235]

you mean soy milk? chocolate milk's usually decent

[@Jari-bu2in]

I really used to enjoy games like that but now that I have less time, it really feels like such a hassle to keep a holding on to a wiki and I started to think: Wait... Thiis is a GAME right? Like, something that you can play for fun for a while and after that, live life. This just feels like work!

[@GinaTonik]

YES thank you! Adults play games too and a lot of us only have a couple of hours maybe between work, chores, dinner, and bed. That's not even considering those of us who are parents. Games should be fun escapism in most cases, not feel like a friggin book report or study session. I feel like a lot of games that require wikis disrespect my time.

[@tatherva7387]

​@@GinaTonik It's a bit silly to act like you're being personally insulted by a video game's existence just cause you don't have the time to play it, don't you think? Maybe I'm someone who wants to do a book report on Dwarf Fortress after a long day. That's my own business. Let me have my fun.

[@GinaTonik]

@@tatherva7387 Ok I get that, I get that other people have different preferences, but freaking advertise it. None of these games warn me before going in and before I spent my money on them. Then I find out the hard way when I’m really not down for this and I just wanna chill and vibe and I’m like oh my god. You get what I’m saying?

[@tatherva7387]

@@GinaTonik I do. I had a similar experience when I first got terraria. I think the best way to avoid accidentally opening up a whole rabbit hole though is to Google the game before purchase. If the first thing you see after the official sites and social media accounts is a wiki, go peek at it and see how many pages it has. If it's in the thousands, definitely not the game for you. I think it's ultimately our own job as consumers to research what we are buying, within reason. But the nice thing about games that need wikis is that the wiki will always come up first when you Google it because that's what everyone else is looking for too.

[@GinaTonik]

@@tatherva7387 I understand where you’re coming from and I think that is some good advice in general. However, I don’t feel that wikis really give me a clear picture and I don’t know where else to find this information. Wikis don’t say if this information is conveyed in-game, which is what I want. Also, some wikis are quite extensive because there is a lot of lore in the universe and that is absolutely fine by me but I don’t want game mechanics or item descriptions to not be explained. An example of an extensive wiki that is not necessary to read in order to understand what’s going on is Skyrim. Everything I need to know is explained in-game I feel and you don’t need to play the previous games to understand the story but the wiki has a TON of pages about lore if you would like to delve further. I have no problem with that but I don’t like games like Don’t Starve where most things that would help me understand and get good at the gameplay are left to wikis to explain. I found it very confusing and frustrating that I was doing a lot of bad things that led to me dying because I didn’t know how something worked. I don’t feel it’s entirely reasonable to expect me to make something like a steam forum post asking if the game explains its mechanics or not. I think that should be best practice when designing a game and if the developers disagree and want things a different way, the wiki should be linked on the store page or something as supplemental material like “You’re gonna want this.” Then I would know that’s not the game for me. I buy a lot of games on sale or even in bundles and these things have a time limit before it goes back to full price or it’s no longer available. Steam forums can be unreliable and it often takes some time for people to see it and reply, if they even do. Thank you for this discussion btw I hope I’ve accurately explained my side of things.

[@Purple_Sloth]

I will never understand how people ever played Minecraft without a wiki. "Oh yeah, naturally you make fishing rods with this amount of string, this amount of sticks, and in this specific crafting pattern. I love how you can craft anything you'd need, like if I need a saddle, its just leather and iron! Right?

[@PB-N-Jenny]

A perfect example of this is a video by RetroGamingNow (Thanks user An2theA for reminding me of the video uploader's name) where it showcased how far you could reasonably be expected to make it in each major update without external help and it was abysmal pre-1.16 since you'd have quite a hard time even realizing The Nether exists much less how to make a portal without being told by a friend or finding it some where online at some point

[@strrdxst]

there is a crafting menu in the game, but i do agree some things can be hard to figure out (and i grew up watching minecraft youtubers so i mostly knew how the game worked before playing)

[@Purple_Sloth]

@@strrdxst issue though is that was added a lot later after the game went through several updates.

[@uis246]

NEI comes to rescue

[@PinkMonkeyBird]

@@Purple_Sloth He is so young that he "grew up" watching Minecraft youtubers play it with a crafting menu xD

[@rodrigovda]

Good video! Just so you know, nowadays in Stardew Valley vanilla you can check in the villagers menu what gifts they like or don't (only those that you've already tried to gift, so the player is the one discovering what each like, but doesn't need to remember it all later)

[@jefferylittleton1005]

I actually really like that over the mod that tells you everything. Pretty much all the consequences in stardew are minor(except for blowing stuff up on your farm. That one sucks HARD) so experimenting and seeing if someone likes or hates trout is kind of fun.

[@ahintea]

saw the title and immediately thought of terraria. every time i get back into the game, i have to revisit the wiki. i started permanently keeping screenshots on my desktop between the years/months i stop playing. Yet, it’s one of my favorites and i have hundreds of hours on the base game

[@GuiSF9]

Tbh I really love games that make me go search about it in wikis, reddit, forums, etc. I just love the feeling of learning about the game and its items, quests and mechanics. I feel that's why I love Terraria, Mass Effect, Skyrim, The Witcher, and the Souls series so much

[@papagaiofilmes6642]

You're probably gonna love Dwarf fortress

[@kelico8407]

You know what all these games that require wiki’s also have in common? They foster a dedicated community that want to help and support each other, which is why they are so beloved

[@tamas9554]

But is that the achievement of the game or the player? Can a game be truly praised for it being flawed, and players helping each other to fix it? I think a community's achievements cannot be brought up to praise the game, even if the game is what made it possible in the first place

[@kelico8407]

@@tamas9554 I think the community of a game is the most important part of a game’s success. And there isn’t one type of community every game should aim to make, they all are formed and work differently. And this goes back to game development and how the developers respond to community feedback, look at ffxiv or nearly all of the Fromsoft games. In Fromsoft’s case, it’s more about maintaining that difficulty that the community expects. So to answer your questions, neither game(developer) or community should be praised exclusively as both play a part in its success, and that games which requires the community to “fix it” are usually designed that way to encourage exploration and gratification in one’s own discovery. It’s rare that a flawed game will intentionally design in this way, which is why they fail. Sorry for the essay

[@randomdeliveryguy]

@@tamas9554 Both, life is not 0 and 1.

[@tamas9554]

@@kelico8407 I wasn't talking about the success, but the quality. Sadly those are two different things that don't necessarily come from the other. Success can be very luck based and it won't represent the actual work put into the game in every case. I was talking about something like the soulsborne games, which would take a ton of time to figure out for a new player, because Fromsoftware just doesn't want to add a guidance system. The player will spend the majority of their game time not progressing, because they'll have to figure out where/how to do it. Its like playing an open world game, but without any markings on the map (imagine GTA V). However, the community's guides and wikis will help the new players overcome this flaw, because if these things didn't exist, many players would just get tired and throw the game away. Not because the game is bad, but because it only shows the player how annoying it is. And of course a community like this could forget that its them who are literally fixing the game's flaw, much like when the fans of a franchise start theorising about the plothole in the newest film, trying to give it an explanation that the filmmakers failed to deliver. This is why I said that the achievements of a community can't be brought up to defend the game

[@kelico8407]

@@tamas9554 the games I assume you’re referring to are soulbourne games as you’ve mentioned, I wouldn’t say that they are flawed, it is a very intentional decision made by the designers to push the player. And once the player overcomes something they thought was difficult, they get a sense of accomplishment. If a player gets frustrated and needs to stop playing then the game has also succeeded in developing a group of people who think their games are really challenging, which can also be considered as part of the wider soulsbourne community or at the very least feed into the expectation of these games through word of mouth. If we look at the opposite end of the spectrum and consider most of the recent Ubisoft games, where game mechanics are fed to you through tutorials and the player guided by markers on a map, it feels like the game is doing all the talking and I’m just along for the ride. This is not to say I dislike these games, I do, it’s just I always find myself enjoying the setting and presentation of the game more gameplay. While this, in the context of your argument, would be considered a game deserving of praise separated from its community, is actually being criticised for doing so. This goes back to the developers listening to their community, thus becoming ingrained in the game itself. So I think it’s kind of pointless to divorce a game’s praised from it’s community’s efforts because that is partly how many games have gained their quality, which is expected of them.( expected is the key word here) In fact, games should push for more community engagement, which would only result in better quality games that people want to play.

[@alexandrabuss7948]

"So I try to do everything in my first playthrough" I think that is called *anxiety*, my good sir.

[@ninjapug7]

God. I remember when I was really into Terraria, I'd literally read the Terraria wiki on an app on my phone out in public. I spent so much time on that wiki. It felt like I had to know everything. But now there are some points where I like not knowing what every item does. Admittedly some of them suck to not know, and I'd like to know about those, like stopping me from achieving an ending or an item instantly dooming me in a run that I actually care about, but otherwise? I miss not knowing every little thing about the games I play, sometimes.

[@itscarli3411]

me and my friend have a mini game we play when we open terraria which is “how long can we play before opening the wiki” and our collective record is 12 minutes after 1200+ hours each

[@Kokonutzlz]

Getting into modded where mod creators put even less effort into explaining things in-game 😭 Imagine trying to go down an item crafting tree in Calamity, etc. without being able to look up where things come from

[@0NoFreeWill0]

Risk of Rain 2 has a logbook that unlocks info about items, monsters, bosses/etc. when you use/encounter them. it doesn't give all the info you need, so the wiki is still helpful, but it also has tooltips that tell you what items do so you really don't need a wiki. As a dev I'd rather give players every single bit of info on how the mechanics work in the game so you don't have to wiki-scroll

[@screamingcactus1753]

I'd say the only thing the wiki would really be necessary for, depending on your willingness to scour every map for easter eggs, are the artifacts. The codes to unlock artifacts can be in some pretty obscure places, including one that's split between two different maps and one that's on the base of the diorama in a stage's log entry. That and the log entries for the secret stages like the Bazaar or the Gilded Coast, where the log is hidden in an obscure area since terrain scanners can't spawn there.

[@jojivlogs_4255]

a good chunk of risk of rain 2's item descriptions are really bad. either they dont tell you much of anything or they tell you everything except one critical detail

[@justa9560]

@@jojivlogs_4255”And his music was electric” - Ukelele, one of the best items in the game for proc chains screen wipes. “Dealing damage heals you” - Leeching Seed, sounds great, is actually garbage because it’s based on proc coefficient with a base of 1 times coeff (which is never explained in game) “Critical Strikes heal you” - Harvesters scythe, which is by itself flat worse than leeching seed, and with max crit is 8x as good! Yet still quite bad. “Killing an enemy gives you a burst of movement speed.” - This damn harpoon has almost killed multiple of my runs

[@palchum1185]

I cant forgive hopoo for making the new artifact codes based off a twitter post rather than a stage

[@0NoFreeWill0]

@@jojivlogs_4255 this is mostly what I mean... i made extremely poor build decisions by basing them entirely on intuition and not the actual mechanics since the descriptions are so brief... they could at least have detailed ones in the logbook even if they don't want to show all the math. until i started reading up on builds/watching youtubers/speedrunners my item choices were terrible.

[@emmyuuSan]

I’m very glad I got your video recommended to me, you deserve way more attention and I wish you the best for the future! For me, when I play Stardew Valley, I like not knowing where everyone is and just bumping into them, or spending the whole day just looking for that one person, it’s really more about the feeling of peacefulness this game brings me than just being the most productive and not wasting time. So yeah! Everyone has their own style of playing.

[@Tropix_02]

I love how you included the clips of you messing up your outro and all that. Its legit me everytime I hit record lmao, anyways great video.

[@TetraTheThief]

Game dev here. Fantastic video, great points! I agree, games shouldnt NEED a wiki, a way to compact the information will make it better and simpler for the player. Its why Minecraft added the crafting guide/recipe book,.

[@helloworld-wy4vq]

In terraria, the guide can serve as an adequate replacement for the wiki. He tells you what you can make with the materials you have, although he doesn't tell you where you can get them.

[@lillypad6936]

Yeah, for potion crafting, the guide is my first go to. As long as I know one item, I can see what else I need

[@exceptionallyriso]

When I first started playing terraria, I was playing with my friends and I always relied on the guide to help me with recipes. I tried asking my friends what to do with some items, they'd tell me to go to the guide and I've not changed since. I do look up stuff sometimes but it's usually for how to collect collectibles and not for progression

[@bloorb0569]

Or I could just, recipe browser my beloved.

[@DDracee]

tbh i don't really see how having an in game wiki instead of a external wiki really changes anything, the people who don't like doing research on the wikis are the exact same people who wouldn't care enough to make use of all the information the game gives them and just YOLOs through

[@DevelKutta]

As a mod junkie, I never want the wiki spirit to end for more complicated games. Some genres and playstyles are all about following complex sequences to reach a clear goal, it's not in the gameplay elements you'll discover but the practical and logistical situations you'll find yourself in and how you work with, through, or around them. I do like having more info available in-game, but too much information can feel less immersive (best would be a way to access that info with in-game upgrades or something).

[@MeAMoose]

So true, especially for Minecraft Tech Mods. Having JEI (or equivalents) for in game recipes is fine, but understanding what modded items/machines do and/or require is the job for a wiki (cough I'm looking at you Mekanism).

[@cargojeans]

@@MeAMoose been playing sevtech ages all month and after 3 weeks that fucking thing made me crack open the wiki for the first time this playthrough. probably one of my favorite mods now but it was so annoying figuring out the power system and it's limitations

[@cargojeans]

@@MeAMoose I always try to rely on in-game documentation first because it's designed to be what I need to know. but some mods (pneumatic craft, at least in sevtech) do NOT have a manual and it's quite upsetting when I have to open my browser

[@Currywurst4444]

Thats exactly what most game designers see as the major problem with mods. Prioritising complexity over gameplay. Though there is nothing wrong with liking that style of game.

[@MeAMoose]

@@Currywurst4444 I think a really good example of where Complexity can be beautiful would be Satisfactory. I mean look at some of the end-game automations and the maths behind running machines efficiently; people have spent thousands of hours in singular worlds perfecting their factories. I think Complexity, when done right, is awesome.

[@snappycat360]

you forgot my summer car, where you literally have to build a combustion engine from scratch and is unplayable without a guide

[@howdoiexitvim-i686]

nah do it enough or if you work in cars its easy without wiki

[@snappycat360]

@@howdoiexitvim-i686 fair enough but still

[@Lukas99g]

me playing terraria be like: - look up mod wiki to see how im supposed to progress - the terraria mod wiki links to a different mod wiki because its a mod that expands on a different mod - then that mod wiki links to the original terraria wiki when i try to look how to get the item i need to craft the thing i need - suddenly i have 17 tabs open

[@dariafirestar1393]

It feels so weird to have people say that you need a wiki to play minecraft when I've been playing since 2013ish, cause my gut reaction was "huh?? you don't need a wiki to play minecraft what do you mean???" but after thinking about it for a whole 2 seconds I realised that yeah the game doesn't tell you anything at least until they released the recipie book. Whichhh made me just kind of realise the weird phenomenon that because I've been playing for so long you just kinda,, learn this stuff out of the blue, I think most of my knowledge probably came from just watching lets plays here and there, and yknow sometimes i'd look up how to craft a comparator or whatnot, but other than that all the information I ever needed just kind of appeared in my brain without remembering from where.

[@sarah12232]

exactly, its open-world so its designed to be 'learn by experience' and most of the advance things about minecraft like structures, redstone, mob farms etc are players sharing their knowledge and experience.

[@damienw95]

After staring at the thumbnail for a couple minutes I realized how many of these games are some of my favorites of all time and the wikis helped me expedite the learning process significantly (like stardew valley and binding of isaac), and others I never enjoyed specifically because having to go external to feel like I had any grasp of what was going on was a big deterrent for me (like minecraft and stellaris). Somehow I've been on both ends of the extremes quite a few times.

[@kuligar]

i feel accomplished that i didnt play stardew valley using a wiki

[@Zysperro]

I feel so overwhelmed with Minecraft lately, so many things came out. I've been playing it religiously 8-10 years ago, but I haven't touched it for a good 6+ years. It's fascinating at times, but sometimes I dig too deep into wikis, it's not as bad as Terraria, but still I'm glad that I grew up with Minecraft, otherwise it'd be too much for me right now. As a side note - God I wish the caves update came out when I was a teen! These are literally things of my dreams! Those beautiful caves, deeper map are so good.

[@kelvinon5694]

Yeah, the past 6 years have massively changed the game. Take it slowly is all I can say.

[@rodryguezzz]

Yeah minecraft went from a funny simple sandbox to a very complete single player/coop campaign. Now there's even "post game" content, which are the end cities and include the elytra to be able to fly.

[@yeeoof1995]

@@rodryguezzz they still haven't added sharks

[@downbad4urdad]

My approach is to attempt to figure things out for myself as much as possible, until it's too frustrating and/or daunting then I'll consult a guide. In some cases, I've defaulted to wikis or guides depending on how extreme a consequence could be. Namely through that was for Don't Starve. You did a wonderful job of succinctly addressing this topic while still being detailed enough for it to be meaningful. Would be cool to see more like this

[@cara-seyun]

Same But that usually ends with me getting mad at how much time I wasted on a specific thing only to learn there are vastly better options/methods

[@nathangamble125]

Honestly, more games need to have in-game encyclopedias, like the Civilization games have always had.

[@pixalmasterstudios2485]

Terraria was the definitive wiki game. Honestly surfing the Terraria wiki was the vibe back then

[@MegaSim3]

I'd say Dwarf Fortress is one of the best examples of Wiki-Games, with layering armor, choosing the right material for weapons (For example, silver is adequate for warhammers/maces due to density, but sucks for swords or spears) and a really expansive industry and array of mobs ranging from vermin to megabeasts Personally, I absolutely love this kind of game

[@JohnDoe-cx6zd]

Been thinking about it the whole video. It's a bit more easy after release (at least interface-wise, although as a long-time player I can't get used to new UI/UX), but still pretty much requires you to look up stuff. I love reading DF wiki actually. Another game like that would be Noita, as you could of course explore everything by yourself, but let's be honest, who in their right mind would get that they can push that levitating blue crystal hidden under the floor all the way up and get... something interesting?

[@GassedCider]

SS13 is also a great storytelling (wiki) game which you'll need to be a functioning citizen in a multiplayer spacestation where disaster can strike every minute. It's like a adventure mode of being a space citizen on a space station. I'd recommend watching the sseth's video.

[@MegaSim3]

@@GassedCider Oh yeah, love SS13 - and Sseth

[@bananashapedorange]

just recently got into this game and I love it! its definitely a wiki game for sure. so much depth and I'm kind of forgetful sometimes so I need a refresh on certain concepts/mechanics. It would be an entirely different game without the wiki !

[@galacsinhajto]

As a " defense" the df wiki makes an entertaining read surprising often

[@whatskrecalackin]

As someone who likes video games but is not good at them, I very much rely on wikis. I don't mind the game getting spoiled at all, it actually only makes me more excited about the game because I know about something cool I may get to experience. For me at least, the games whose wikis I take the time to research end up being the games I spend the most time in. If I never look up a wiki for a game, expect me to put in less than 5 hours before giving up.

[@Lightning_Lance]

This is my pet peeve with video games tbh. I feel like in-game wikipedias would be so helpful in many many games. Or just actually good descriptions that give some insight into how the things work behind the scenes; looking at you, Call of Duty guns. Civilization did it right (don't know if newer entries still do).

[@dearprudish]

I know that Civilization 5 and 6 do have in-game wikis that tell you what a unit does and a brief history of them. In 6, sometimes it'll give a brief idea of strategy for leaders even

[@TheMrUnx49]

That's why the EID & EID community collab mods exist in the binding of isaac, because half the descriptions on these things are incredibly vague.

[@mardy3732]

Questions about game mechanics bring people to places like youtube, helping content creators as well as promoting your game. This is ultimately a good thing. Allowing players to discover secrets themselves and sharing their discoveries online, that's a major component of modern gaming. And it's nothing but a smart move if you're a developer imo. People who argue against this like to act like there are players who don't know how to use the internet when in reality, online media plays a major part in most people's gaming experience.

[@Razumen]

@@mardy3732 No it isn't. I shouldn't have to go to youtube to find out what some obscure stat does in a game.

[@KuraiKodoku16]

I organise and plan a lot due to my autism and my forgetfulness, especially when it's been a LONG while since I last touched my save file. From my own notes and checklists I give myself a reminder what I was currently doing or progressing towards. It's like a make a simplified condensed version of the wiki and community pages. It also gives me satisfaction to accomplish a goal and check it off but in-game and irl 💜

[@StarKatGaming]

I think the issue with games needing wikis comes down to the lack of official guides in modern games. You almost always needed a wiki to figure out all the secrets in the past, but instead of a wiki you searched up it was a booklet that came with the game you bought. Since we no longer get those it gets troublesome discovering everything in a game

[@determineddaaf3]

I tend to like wiki's because I love learning about games. I do hate that I sometimes struggle to enjoy myself because I try to do things as efficiently and perfectly as possible.

[@retrolyzee]

relatable af

[@DarkDax]

It’s about deciding whether you want a wiki in your game. These features like the Terraria guide are essentially low rate wikis just in another form. Wikis will be a thing for as long as the genre stays the same. There can be a cosy feeling to looking things up but also very daunting.

[@Phloxix]

I’d argue that you don’t “need” the wiki for any game. Like with the binding of Isaac half the fun is picking up new stuff and just trying it out. The more you play and encounter items the more you’ll begin to learn and understand them. And with ROG’s like fallout or Baldurs gate ‘messing up’ leads to some of the more memorable things in those games. Maybe I’m just crazy but I really enjoy the discovery and not knowing what everything does or what the outcome of my actions will be the first time around.