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Forum - View topicHow BOFURI Defies Gamer Expectations
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Saiphaz
Posts: 60 |
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It would be, if her choices made her not incredibly OP, had she struggle with hard quests while having fun doing it.
There's no point if she only reaps the benefits from both sides. The only lesson I get from this is that you can only have fun if you're capable of facerolling everything. |
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Casval Rem Deikun
 Posts: 266 |
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Indeed! Well said. Not to mention this statement can be applied to nearly every OP MC as well. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Sighhhhhh, this is another of those show that really make me believe no one in the anime industry play video game (and apparently few people in anime review seeing as every review I see also claim it "defies gamer expectation").
She's min/maxing. That's it, she's min/maxing. It's literally one of the most common way to build your character in RPG. It date back to before video game even existed. There's a wikipedia entry on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#Min-Maxing Here's a relevant passage: "This is usually accomplished by improving one specific trait or ability (or a set of traits/abilities) by sacrificing ability in all other fields." There's also a TV trope and an urban dictionary of it: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinMaxing https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=min%2Fmax It would literally be more unconventional if she split here ability evenly across all stats. The fact that the dev can't balance it really show how little the author play game considering almost every RPG nowadays are built in a way to discourage min/maxing. And it's not that hard, an easy way is to just put stats requirement on better equipment so that if you only put point in one area you're stuck with starter gear. I can pretty much guarantee that within minute of the game going live someone would have done this very build (especially defence since group usually have a dedicated tank). The closest thing to an actual game insight the show has is that some people prefer to play video game with the difficulty turned way down. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2867 |
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for a similar feeling, therr is the manga a certain middle aged guy something vrmmo something.
like marble, he plays for fun, one or two hours per day after work, maybe more during thw weekends unless he has something else to do, iirc he misses a big event because he has to work. so, therr is no point in trying to play the game seriously anyway, so at first , like mapple, he chooses random skills that he finds fun, the skills individuallyare considered crap and even the normal builds sone using those skills ( kick, martial arts, much weaker than swordsman, whip tamer, a crappy version of summoner, bow, archer, weaker than mages) are considered low tier. then it becomes bofuri when the game creators want to revamp a bit the classes and improve the specific skills the mc coincidentally happened to choose, and unlike the other players he had already developed ( so he is ahead of any players that have his same build, not that there are any, anyway) |
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Ryujin99
 Posts: 191 |
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You make a good point about the min-maxing, but I do think there's a bit more to the story. My main contention is that often when people talk about min-maxing they are functionally talking about minimax/maximin strategizing (both essentially focus on minimizing worst-case outcomes). I'd further argue that the way protagonists are portrayed in most series of this sort leans into the minimax/maximin logic more than textbook min-maxing. Sure, the protagonist(s) may technically be weak in areas a balanced character wouldn't be, but if those weaknesses are not or cannot be exploited, then from a practical and narrative perspective, I don't think they're really weaknesses. To look at SAO (specifically Aincrad and phantom bullet arcs) for some examples, in theory Kirito is a heavily min-maxed speed build. But in practice, Kirito is never portrayed as the sort of glass cannon these builds tend towards in practice; he can, and does, take hits on a regular basis. Are more balanced characters in-universe technically a lot more sturdy? Perhaps. But we never really see that beyond characters that specifically lean into defensive builds. Kirito may technically be min-maxed according to in-universe rules and stats, but those in-universe rules are largely a black box to the viewers/readers, so I would argue that he is portrayed as being a minimax/maximin build. And note that, while I use Kirito as an example, there are many other series that I think fall into the same abuse of the min-max terminology; Danmachi is another that immediately springs to mind. TL;DR I agree that Maple is a textbook example of a min-maxed character (Sally as well, to an extent), but oftentimes people aren't talking about the textbook definition of min-max when the describe a player/character as such. If nothing else, the fact that that BOFURI actually shows the negative impacts of min-maxing sets it apart from most other series in the broad genre. Edit: fixed some odd wording and spelling. |
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Weasalopes
 SubscriberPosts: 4 |
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Caveat: I haven't played any online RPGs of any kind, and it's now some 25 years since I played a tabletop RPG...I started playing them in 1977.
To me, min/maxing implies some understanding of what the minimum abilities still need to be. A min/maxed build toward defense is still going to allow you to get to where the action is before the action is over...if you have any intention of getting into a situation where you could get hurt in the first place. If you don't intend to go in and mix it up, why bother with defense in the first place? Min/maxing implies some thought to the impact of what you are minimizing upon your ability to do the stuff you want to do. It's a balanced equation based upon what you desire to strengthen and a recognition of what is necessary to be able to function at all within the game setting. If you can't walk as fast as a turtle taking a leisurely post-prandial stroll yet intend to go in and duke it out, you've totally failed at the "min" part of min/maxing. Maple maximized defense without giving any thought whatsoever as to the impact that would have on any of the game mechanics, such as movement rate. That's not min/maxing. That's throwing everything into one pot. Everything. Everything else was at the minimum the character generation utility would allow; in other words, the base values assigned by the developers. The developers couldn't imagine anyone leaving very many of those at the minimum level... You want to make it such that those consciously min/maxing still have to say, "Oh f*ck, I've gotta toss X amount into Y category, even though I don't wanna!" because they realize the impact Y category being under that amount will have upon their desired gameplay. Maple hadn't a clue. Which is the whole point of it all. |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 649 |
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Every single joke in the series shows how much and how many games the creators played and loved. But you also don’t understand what min-maxing is even after linking an article on it so I guess you missed that. Maple is just having fun. She didn’t pour over mechanics and theory craft. Her friend is literally a min-maxer to show the difference! I don’t know why you expect a show about showing people having fun with a game to be the equivalent of a RuneScape stream on twitch, but since that seems to be your complaint good news there’s plenty of those in existence. Last edited by ATastySub on Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:57 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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7jaws7
 Posts: 704 Location: New York State |
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BOFURI gets dragged for no real good reason. It's a cute and fun VR MMORPG story about a girl that wants to stay protected from danger, while she ironically attracts said danger with her decision-making.
This genre has one of the harshest fanbases in anime simply because it goes so deep into the RPG mechanics. Which is understandable, but I feel like they can get lost in the min-max debate and forget about the point brought up in the article: just playing the game however they want. |
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JaffaOrange
 Posts: 251 |
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I originally held the opinion that the series creator had no idea how online games worked with how it depicted Maple stumbling into broken stuff but then I had an epiphany. The series isn't trying to recreate a online game but rather the essence of one. More pointedly, the experience of coming across some broken ass game mechanic and playing with it, teaching others about it by steamrolling them and having as much fun as possible before the devs patch it out. There is a special joy in finding some game exploit and seeing how it unravels the game before something gets fixed (or never). It's like watching an any% speed run but Maple is an adorable idiot.
This series could be 100% faithful in all technical aspects to the experience of playing a MMORPG but 1. It would probably be mind-numbingly boring 2. If you wanted that true MMORPG experience, you can always just play one and 3. I'm sure such a series already exists anyway |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3672 |
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This was a fun series to watch and enjoy so I'm looking forward to the next season
Regarding her eating and gaining new abilities; I haven't watched this since it aired, but unless this game has some kind of AI to allow characters to develop new abilities that aren't in the game already, then her eating and gaining abilities had to have been created by the devs. Skills and abilities can't just spawn on their own in a game. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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I forget where I read it but someone once said almost every MMO anime make a lot more sense once you start treating them as being based on MUDs rather than MMOs, and I kind of agree with that. Ideally, a future where VR games become so widespread and common would have the online games take after MUDS more than MMOs. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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Toaru Ossan no VRMMO Katsudouki: https://www.alphapolis.co.jp/novel/638137573/992069999 https://www.alphapolis.co.jp/manga/official/658000067 |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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You don't have to understand you're doing minmaxing to minmax, just like someone might not know what a rocket jumping is but would still find out that they can jump really high by shooting explosive at their feet. The point is, no expectation is being deified, the opposite. She's specializing, specializing is a good way to build your character. If the show was about "defying gamer expectation" she'd instead be splitting her point across the board. The show could have done that and then the idea that it's about defying expectation would have worked, but it didn't. I don't know why you think I want this to be like a stream, I'd just like the basic premise of a show not to be factually and easily demonstrably wrong. Maybe the show is meant to be an allegory of "finding broken thing in game", but then, why not do just that? Like she could be allocating point and then the game bugged out and just gave her 9999 in every stats, or made her invincible or something. The author specifically chose to make this about her build and also included multiple event where the dev tried to nerf her and failed, none of which are representative of someone finding an exploit. I understand that the show has the intent of showing the character defying expectation, I guess I'm just picky when I expect a writer to spend a few minutes researching a topic to actually craft a story in line with their intent. I'd be like if a show about people cooking food had the main character use spices in her recipes and it was treated as some incredibly weird things that was "defying" expectation because the author never cooked in their life. This show is just the perfect example of "tell, don't show" or rather "tell, show the exact opposite" because the author just didn't bother researching the topic. |
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bastek66
Posts: 118 |
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VRMMORPG is terrible genre. Since characters are just playing games it kills any tension so there is no point of making the story serious. Too bad Bofuri isn't funny enough which makes it even more boring. Of course Maple being overpowered Mary Sue is also annoying.
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Minos_Kurumada
Posts: 1033 |
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I like the series, but the spoiler[Gundam] power up was too much for my liking, it came from nowhere and it's the only reason she can do most of the stuff she does at the end of the season.
It was not an exploit but something somebody planed, designed, programed and tested and kind felt off. |
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