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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1660 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Then you get a payoff in the form of climactic fights

So the payoff of all the waiting around is that you finally get to play the game.

Waiting around to play the game isn't fun. It's barely tolerable with friends, and that's more in the suffering-through-something-someone-else-enjoys sense than the actually-engaging-for-player sense.

The difference between an extraction simulator and similar open world games where there's a similar amount of walking (or waiting) is that, for the latter, playing the game is more of an incidental (as in, there's more to look at/more to gather, because you're building towards something else- there's no building or measure of permanence in any of these other games).

Tarkov is even worse about that, because you spend a limited resource to have a higher chance of surviving/accumulating further resource, and if you die having done that you're now at a further disadvantage when it comes to playing the game. So the chance you'll actually have any fun in a round is now distributed over several rounds/hours, not just one. And that's not counting the cycle resets that do this anyway.

It's not a game; it's boring, tedious, work to have a chance of making it to the fun part.

The waiting part is a different game; a sneaking game with regards to avoiding unecessary fights with NPCs (or players if you're not looking for a fight that day). There's also the hunting game mechanics; if you're looking to kill some players, stopping, listening for distant firefights, doors, exfils, running... so that you can create as accurate a picture of what is happening before you engage is another kind of gameplay that is enjoyable in its own right, for some people at least.

with regards to avoiding unecessary fights with NPCs

So the best strategy to succeed is to avoid playing the fun part of the game at all costs.

That is certainly a gameplay loop.

You can engage in the NPC fights whenever you want, gear up in consequence with cheap/free gear and go tussle with them. It's fun, and sometimes your goals will align with that. You probably don't want to be doing it with fancy gear because no fancy gear can compensate for the disadvantage of being caught in between the NPCs and the players the noise you've been making fighting the NPCs might have attracted. But anyway, some people, me included, enjoy the sneaking aspect as much as the fights. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to fight at all but I'm in the mood for the survival horror esque aspect of trying to sneak around.

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