The Problem with Perfectionism: An Argument Against Min-Maxing
By Luke Condon (Gaming Editor)
Perfectionism can be a blessing, but it’s just as likely to be a curse. Whether it’s college work, regular work, or trying to get your hair just right in the morning, we’ve all been guilty of pushing things a bit too far in the name of being flawless, often to no avail. Gamers aren’t exempt from this trait; on the contrary, perfectionism is what drives many players to spend countless hours chasing down every single collectible item available, or tailoring each minute detail of their multiplayer loadout to attain the best possible chance at victory. Speedrunners, players who aim to complete a game in as little time as possible, have built a whole community around a playstyle that strives to eliminate any errors and achieve an unbeatable record. Games commonly include a progress bar to measure story and side content progress, and the allure of seeing that bar hit 100% is enough to keep many players occupied for unholy amounts of time. Indeed, mechanics like these are amongst the core foundations of modern game design, and without them many great video games would cease to function.
There’s the blessing side of the coin; now for the curse part. Most games allow you to play your own way, to at least some extent; shooters allow you to choose your weaponry, for example, and sports games allow you to choose what players you’d like to field. Role-playing games, in particular, give players unrestrained freedom in creating a character and painstakingly tweaking their every attribute, ability, and trait. Doesn’t really sound like a curse yet, does it? Well, it’s when you bring perfectionism into this mix that things start to go wrong. Inevitably, people start to look for the ‘best’ way to play a given game, and so players will run tests and delve into games’ code to find the weapons with the highest damage, the most effective character builds, the optimised methods of gathering in-game experience points, and so on. This is the basis of my gripe with ‘min-maxing’, ‘save-scumming’, and ‘XP grinding’ (don’t worry, I’ll be explaining these terms); by focusing on getting absolutely everything right, gamers often lose sight of having fun and instead turn what could be an enjoyable experience into a slog.
The time-honoured tradition of Min-Maxing has its roots in tabletop role-playing board games, like Dungeons and Dragons. Players would ‘minimise’ negative aspects of their characters and ‘maximise’ positive ones in order to be as efficient as possible – hence the name ‘min-maxing’. This entails carefully allocating points awarded upon levelling up to specialise in certain powerful abilities, whilst neglecting less useful skills. As soon as video games became sufficiently complex to allow in-depth character building, the practice was carried over. Unsurprisingly, Min-Maxing is most common in role-playing video games, which share similar mechanics to their tabletop predecessors. Outside of this setting, it’s less frequently referred to as Min-Maxing, but it still exists in various forms across all games that feature customisation mechanics. Today, Min-Maxing is easier than ever; online guides and YouTube tutorials are plentiful for almost every game with a player count above zero.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Min-Maxing, as long as you enjoy it. It’s often the best way to ensure your character is as powerful as possible, and in a multiplayer setting this is absolutely necessary to give yourself a fighting chance; Pokémon players who want to prove they’re the very best have been subjecting their poor creatures to a special type of Min-Maxing called ‘EV Training’ ever since the release of the first games in 1996. However, the fact that this level of effort is necessary to even compete online highlights one of the primary issues with Min-Maxing: in competitive play, you don’t have any other option. If you’re going up against real people, you can bet that they’re going to give themselves every advantage they can get, and so you’ll have to follow suit unless you want to suffer through an endless cycle of demoralising defeats. This leads to the formation of a status quo often known as the ‘meta’ in online play, and what ensues is a stale scene where only certain characters, weapons, and strategies see the light of day.
In single player games, Min-Maxing isn’t forced on players, but even having the option to do so can have detrimental effects. With many games offering an overwhelming amount of gameplay options, the fear of playing ‘wrong’ can prompt players to go straight for a guide, rather than curate their own unique playstyle. Simply copying methods from an online source is the path of least resistance, and will produce an overpowered character quickly, but in doing this players miss out on the fun of experimenting with different builds, or the triumphant feeling of prevailing over enemies unassisted; the destination takes priority over the journey, and the overall experience suffers for it.
‘XP Grinding’ is closely tied to this behaviour. In order to acquire the in-game currency, or ‘experience points’ necessary to unlock abilities, players usually need to defeat enemies or complete activities. XP Grinding is the streamlined version of this process that involves discovering a certain location or enemy encounter that can be repeated indefinitely until the desired amount of currency has been acquired. It’s dull and repetitive, but an inevitable extension of the Min-Maxing process; players will seek the fastest way to achieve their perfect character, and from there they can breeze through the rest of the game unchallenged.
‘Save-scumming’ isn’t quite the same as Min-Maxing, but it falls under the same umbrella. This term refers to the act of saving your game just before a major event or decision, and then reloading to that point if the outcome isn’t to your liking. Players often exploit this to acquire certain rare items in situations where they’re not guaranteed to appear every time, or to avoid losing health in scenarios that are deemed ‘unfair’. In narrative-focused, choice-driven titles, the act of save-scumming is particularly tempting; oftentimes players will make a questionable decision, immediately regret their actions and rewind time to correct themselves. In these cases, save-scumming can be considered an alternative form of Min-Maxing, where the experience of a seamless, branching story with consequential choices is sacrificed in order to craft a player’s ideal resolution. The resultant tale, without any of the hiccups and setbacks that make a story feel real, can often ring hollow.
These practices don’t always have the negative impacts I’ve outlined. When they do, it’s usually the result of failures in game design, rather than the fault of players. If people feel a need to Min-Max, it’s likely the game has balancing issues; flawed levelling systems lead to XP grinding; save-scumming is the result of an overly forgiving save system. It’s better for developers to address these issues than attempt to stop players from finding workarounds, and thankfully, several games have done just that.
The level of balance required to avoid the formation of a ‘meta’ in multiplayer games is difficult to achieve, but ongoing updates that take player feedback into account can make it possible; although developer support has been scaled back, I can’t think of a better example than the online shooter Team Fortress 2, which features 9 perfectly viable classes and a large array of well-balanced weapons.
The Dark Souls role-playing game franchise deftly avoids the problem of XP grinding by making it entirely unnecessary; with enough skill, players can beat the entire game without levelling up once (although they’ll certainly be making it much harder for themselves).
Save-scumming is a tricky problem to tackle, with many developers opting to remove the ability to save manually entirely and replacing it with a frequent autosave system. Personally, I prefer the narrative-driven adventure game Pentiment’s approach; the game’s major dilemmas have no indisputably correct answers, and consequences don’t become apparent until long after a decision has been made, rendering save-scumming obsolete unless you plan on replaying through the entire game.
As a final disclaimer, I’d like to reiterate that these aren’t universally negative practices. Min-Maxing can be a blast when your meticulous calculations yield the desired results, and save-scumming to avert a beloved character’s death tends to feel like justice rather than a crime. At the end of the day, you’re entitled to play video games however you like, and having fun your own way will always take precedence.
Unless you’re a fan of XP grinding, of course. That’s just boring.
