Section Z posted:

Yeah it CAN work great. but a big part of why it works in STALKER is you are way more badass than most fans give you credit for. "Oh no, a psychic mutant who can create a bullet deflecting force field!... Oh I auto shotgunned him so hard his corpse froze upright halfway through his shield casting animation " Granted, my big turning point in those games was realizing that everyone telling me "This isn't doom you know! A poor craftsman blames his tools" was full of poo poo and MMO progression was the name of the game because usually a later gun you find half broken in a ditch on full auto is more accurate than an early gun lovingly aimed down sights with careful semi-auto with recoil upgrades.

I've just had it beaten into me over the years that claims of "Hiding the information because that is so immersive and proves you are not like an MMO" is often a bad time. Gameplay information does not ruin immersion.

Whenever someone's big argument for a gameplay element that inconveniences the player rather than aids them is "Oh but we love lore and/or immersion so much!", nearly every time it turns out they are lying to themselves to put some PR polish on a personal preference and will backpedal to "It's a game and we need to think in terms of gameplay not immersion" if it would benefit the player instead of be the set dressing for a detriment.

like how early on in Elite Dangerous there was a reccurring trend of the Devs poo poo talking the idea of tractor beams people wanted due to awkward (if not outright buggy) ore scooping because it just wouldn't be lore friendly or realistic, then U turn to "Uh... that wouldn't fit the gameplay we want" when a well meaning veteran of the franchise suggested the set and forget automatic mining machines from the games being put up on a pedestal instead of just being part of the "It is elite dangerous not elite casual. We love immersion." echo chamber.

So these days I start to get twitchy when people start declaring how lore friendly and immersive hiding relevant gameplay information from players or restricting core gameplay loop resources is.

You know, like survival games showing helicarrier bases and flying strip mining operation trains on the store page, where the devs preen about how they just HAD to nerf water table generation because people were just "solving thirst by drilling" and that isn't how immersive realistic survival gameplay works