(Adams and Dormans, 166-167)
Two criticisms of Formal methods:

The machinations diagrams and the pattern language formalize the practice of game design to a certain extent; they are tools that we hope will enhance and complement your existing skills. However, not everyone in the game industry sees value in such methods. Game designer Raph Koster gave a lecture at the Game developers’ conference called “a Grammar of Gameplay: Game atoms—can Games Be diagrammed?” (2005), in which he discussed game mechanics at some length and proposed a method for diagramming them. Later he noted that the audience reaction was quite mixed (Sheffield 2007). From our own discussions on game design methodology with various people in the game industry, we have noticed a similar split. Some designers dislike the premise of design methodology and argue that they are academic toys with little relevance for real, applied game design. Others recognize the value of these tools and are happy to experiment with them to improve their designs.

Another common argument against game design tools and methodology is that they can never capture the creative essence that is the heart of successful game design. According to this view, no formal method can replace the creative genius of the individual designer (Guttenberg 2006). Supporters of this argument fear that the tools will ultimately limit designers because they tend to view game design only through the lens of formal methods.

Design tools can be Worth the investment.

We cannot deny that the current vocabularies and frameworks for formal methods have a poor track record within the game industry. There are a number of them in existence, but many were designed by academics with little hands-on game design experience. Often it takes a considerable investment to learn their tools, while the return value of using them is not particularly high. This is especially true of tools designed primarily to analyze games. Formal game analysis is done more often in universities than in industry.

The criticism is valid, but it does not mean that there is no point in trying to create game design methodologies. It simply suggests that we should adopt criteria for evaluating them: They should help designers to devise, understand, and modify their designs, not just to analyze other people’s games. We hope that by now, you see that the design patterns and the machinations language are not simply tools for analysis; they can actually help you improve your mechanics and offer the opportunity of experimenting with your designs at an early stage during development. Chapter 9, “Building economies,” features an extensive case study. In that chapter, we’ll show you how to use these tools to design game mechanics in a way that goes beyond the typical brainstorming techniques. (We do encourage you to use the brainstorming opportunities that design patterns offer, however.)

Any design tool requires some investment to master, but we feel that learning machinations will pay back this investment. Your design will be better because the tools offer you an efficient way to test your mechanics quickly.

Design tools support creativity.

The second argument, that no formal design method can replace the instinctive creative genius of the individual designer, is more problematic. People who subscribe to this opinion dismiss the whole idea of design methodology. However, this opinion is often informed by a rather naive conception of art. Art is, and always has been, the combination of creative talent, practiced technique, and hard work—a lot of hard work. There is no point in denying that one artist has more talent than another, but pure talent rarely makes up for the other two aspects entirely. Especially within an industry where much money rides on the success of each project, investors simply cannot afford to gamble on creative talent to deliver all the time.

The image of the artist as a creative genius extemporaneously devising brilliant works with raw talent is a romantic vision that rarely fits reality. To create art, artists must learn the techniques of the trade and work hard. This has always been the case for all forms of art, and there is no reason to assume that games are any different. The artist’s tools and techniques are many. They range from the practical to the theoretical.

Painters learn how to use a brush with different types of paint and learn about the mathematical principles of perspective and the psychological principles of cognition. The invention of geometric perspective—a seemingly scientific rather than aesthetic innovation—revolutionized renaissance painting. The development of abstract art throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century has been a gradual and deliberate intellectual process. none of these changes would have happened if painters treated intuition and individual skill as their only source of progress.

We feel that skeptics of design methodologies are missing the point. Formal design methods are created to support the creative genius, not to replace it. No matter how good a method or tool is, it can never replace the vision of the designer, nor can it replace the hard work involved in designing a game. At best it can ease the burden and refine a designer’s techniques. The best methods do not restrict a designer’s vision. Rather, they enhance it, enabling the designer to work faster and create better results. Machinations diagrams also facilitate teamwork and collaboration. Instead of arguing about how their proposed mechanics will behave once the code is written, a design team can diagram and simulate them before a line of code is written.

i miss the feeling of unknown the older titles had. you find something you cant use or get to without progressing and finding the item, you return and are rewarded for remembering it…

It’s nice that nothing about the Zonai was explained in TotK

tracking all the shrines is boring as well, and thats the only thing to do in the game since the story is short

Breath of the Wild does start out incredibly strong but I noticed when playing it that I got less and less excited about the game the longer I played. With most other Zelda games I get more and more excited until a climax is reached at the end. With BotW I got so fatigued at a certain point that I decided to go kill Ganon mostly out of obligation and apparently I missed out on exploring the best dungeon ever, Hyrule Castle. It was a fun game and I spent 120 hours on it but after a while it dawned on me that there is nothing new to find here. The combat wasn't fun, upgrading armor was useless with one really good set in my inventory and just exploring for the sake of exploring isn't my thing. I usually like to go for 100% completion in games but that was so far out of reach with BotW that there was no motivation for that. I just kept playing because it was familiar and comfortable for me at that time.

The game did something very interesting by focusing so heavily on freedom. It pushed boundaries and I think that is valuable. What I hope is that developers learn from this that boundaries are necessary. A game can't be completely non-linear. There needs to be tension built up by locking away certain things behind progress. There needs to be new abilities gained, new places to explore and more challenging parts to reach with enough experience.

BotW & TotK suffer from the same problem of not having enough unique content for their size. All the copy pasting makes it feel too formulaic which was the reason the series needed a new direction in the first place

At first, after only playing a bit of BOTW and not touching it for years I wondered why so many people were criticizing the game for being "empty", filled with shrines & korok puzzles, and nothing else of substance. But now after actually playing the game and beating Ganon I definitely understand the critique. The world is simply too big for the small amount of content that inhabits it. The area - content ratio is way over to the left.

I cant believe how well you articulated my problems with this game...

Honestly so relieved someone had the exact same experience as me. I was bored.

Something I realized recently. I never cheat in Zelda games, even when I know how to, I never use any exploits. In BotW, I'm constantly wind bombing, clipping, duping and cheesing the game. I always skip the cutscenes in BotW while I always watch them in Zelda games.

Look, this game was awesome, for the 1st three hours or so. Then I beat a Divine beast(Naboris) and the rest of the game didn't change, at all. All that happened was some new quests got unlocked in gerudo town, and an enemy or two changed colors, that's it.
I was expecting a response from Ganon(as in different enemies to spawn), or something aside from "oh, the sandstorm is gone, yay? anyway..."  I guess that's the price we had to pay to be able to go anywhere on the map whenever we wanted, but with that said... I'll stick with Twilight princess as my favorite.

I play tabletop games. Rules keep the game structured but working around the rules is the fun part.

Freedom: You don't even need game design rules for this. Because this is everywhere in life. For example, people who are born rich vs people who have to work for goals.
people with unlimited money are unhappy, if they have no alternative non material goals in life.
The thing is. Most people don't understand those simple things of (their) life. The way is the goal. Not having it all at once by snipping your fingers.
Winning a sports championship feels geat because of all the hard work until this day.

People call me so many things whenever I dare state my critical opinion on BotW and TotK. People are nuts.

"What if you could add real money to the bank in Monopoly?"

(sound of Monopoly Go developers muttering "write that down, write that down!")

Okay, so my comment is really oversharing and is almost as long as your video, but I need to be honest with how your video affected me.

When I played BOTW in 2017, the game honestly changed my life. At the time I was living in a high-demand religion / cult. Seeing Zelda's struggle of not hearing the voice of the Goddess in the game's cutscenes made me pause. I realized that I'd never heard an answer to prayers either. The game was a spark that ignited an existential crisis for me. I got out of that religion and I got out of a dark place, and I felt a debt of gratitude for this game for getting that started.

In 2018 I became an amateur game critic / reviewer on a blog and, of course, one of the first things I wrote about was BOTW and its mechanics. I felt proud of writing about its freedom and world design and how its mechanics interacted. Eventually this "amateur critic" became a small part of my personality after my faith transition, something I'd mention to people who asked what I liked to do in my free time. Over the years I went back to BOTW and made more blog posts about it. I played the entire thing a 2nd time in Master Mode, and then a 3rd / 4th time doing variations of the Eventide Challenge, and I conflated that my self-imposed challenges meant that the game was objectively well-designed. I even gave Tears of the Kingdom my game of the year last year, applying my BOTW bias, blissfully ignoring people who complained about the new era of Zelda.

This year I decided I needed to challenge myself with my writing and gameplay analysis skills. I thought that the best way to do that would be to genuinely listen to BOTW's critics, confident that I'd be able to withstand the blows. And that's how I found your video.

Dude, your video sparked a second existential crisis for me. Like, if I enjoyed BOTW for so long and it meant so much to me, then... what does that say about me? Are my tastes really that bad? Am I really that shallow? Was I really that easily amused? Is my writing just the ramblings of a clown this entire time? Should I throw out my entire blog? The embarrassment felt overwhelming.

After some time, I've come to terms with it. I've learned how to separate a game's personal meaning from a game's merits in design. Thanks for putting in all of this work -- I can't imagine how much of your life was spent on a video that many people will probably hate. Since BOTW was the Nintendo Switch's "killer app," I think some fans just won't tolerate any opinions beside the game being a masterpiece. Honestly, it feels like I'm leaving a second cult.

I really hope other game critics see your video.

Found what I'm watching for the next 2 days

A 7 hour long video about the most popular game in the franchise. This should be good

This game had really shattered me back then and experiencing it suck so hard while being gaslit by the whole internet made me think something was deeply wrong with me.

You gave my soul peace. Thank you.

only 7 and a half hours, nice.....