Almost all of them. Back when I used to play Kingdom of Loathing (a super casual game whose main attraction is that it contains a lot of jokes), I used spreadsheets to optimize everything from which food to eat to which familiar to use when. Way back in the day, I wrote a (for me-at-the-time) math-heavy guide for the N64 Goldeneye game; I used spreadsheets for that.
I know of people who've used spreadsheets for routing speedruns of games you wouldn't think you could optimize that way (e.g. entries in the Mario Kart series).
It has lots of options to acquire various items and qualities, and depending on our situation, spreadsheets can help a lot figuring out which one is most efficient.
It even has the "bone market", an exchange where you can build skeletons from various bone types, and sell it to NPC vendors, some of which have non-linear payout curves. There's an optimizer for that written in Python: https://github.com/Saklad5/Bone-Market-Solver
It's an awesome combination of great writing, bizarre, whimsical stories and a potential (but not a hard requirement) to optimize by spreadsheet and other methods :-)
Anything stat-heavy. Genshin Optimizer: https://frzyc.github.io/genshin-optimizer/ for example; the game has no data export at all, so there's an OCR program you can run that screenshots your inventory for analysis.
Any games that have competitive, collaborative multiplayer aspect I think!
Especially Google Spreadsheets; perhaps not math/computation-heavy like EVE, but it's one of the best tools to organize data in a collaborative manner online.
I also see it (ab)used frequently as a mediawiki/online text-editor alternative, barely using any spreadsheet mathematical formulas, using it simply as a place to write text for others to read, e.g.: this gigantic reference spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JjK7Ws4gfzKChRs5ueox...
For cookie clicker and factorio the math was simple enough that you could mostly do it in your head, plus each of them had wikis that spelled out all the answers. I think you only really need a spreadsheet if the numbers are dynamic and continuously changing depending on your situation.
Most MMOs 'benefit' from spreadsheets and APIs. Any situation where players are incentivised to optimize/track/gather statistics benefit from them.
Guild Wars 2 is an example of a very casual MMO that nevertheless has an extensive API, and a wide range of fan-built sites that use it to optimize/track history of trades, manage your account, track achievement histories, improve wiki information, etc.
A lot of Runescape resource to XP / hours calculators. What they really need to do is replace VBA with a proper programming interface. Rubberduck VBA [1] Adds some essential features into the VBA IDE but they really just need to add C# support directly.
I recall having something like this for Freelancer. Calculating best profit over time for cargo runs while balancing the risk of the route for said profit.
I use spreadsheets for lots of games for various reasons but generally because the UI of many games is "klunky" and often doesn't provide enough information without requiring tons of clicks, or even worse, only shows info once and you have to remember it for the next 100 hours of play-time. I generally don't play a game through to the end in one sitting, I'll put it down for months and revisit and have no idea where I left off. Here's a small list of recent spreadsheets...
- Divinity Original Sin to track skills i've assigned to which characters as well as discovered recipes.
- Dyson Sphere Program to keep track of which star systems and planets i've visited (there are tons) to show roughly how much of each resource is there, sun/wind energy stats, etc. and whether i've exploited the resources there or not.
- Game Dev Tycoon to keep track of what types of games i released and the resulting ratings (which determine payouts). It's a very arbitrary system and i feel only through trial-and-error can you discover what games will get good reviews. It's borderline cheating but i figured since i did it myself, it's only half-cheating ;)
- Mount and Blade to keep track of which kings, queens and princesses i have interacted with and their likes/dislikes for when i communicate with them. Necessary because once you start a dialog there's no way out until you finish the dialog. And there's absolutely no way i can remember 300+ names and their standing with me, plus i play very irregularly (still Early Access and things change constantly). Yes you can click on royalty names and it'll tell you the standing, but it's just so much easier to have a spreadsheet open on another monitor which you can glance at from time to time.
- Rogalia for recipes, rent, combat, conversion times, selling rates...
Every time I try to get back into Destiny 2 (I have thousands of hours in that game), I remember that I basically have what amounts to old actuarial tables I'd need to go update and I just bail after about 30 minutes.
- Diablo 2. Figuring out the optimal distribution of skill points for your build, taking into account all the different buffs from all the different mechanics.
I thought it'd be cool to write an optimiser for this. I.e. given this craft file for a payload subassembly, give me the cheapest/lightest/fewest parts booster subassembly that will get me to orbit with a remaining delta V of X.
Parsing the possible mount points seemed like a nightmare though.
Eve Online is continually fascinating to me. People basically have jobs playing that game. It's bewildering to me. I tried playing Eve Online once. I think it took me quite a while to get through the initial setup, and then I was just placed in space. I had no idea what was going on, and then someone took me out.
Eve is an example of what the whole "play to earn" thing could actually look like and not be micro-transaction fueled casino-psychology games, imo!
There are people who basically do play full-time, running a corporation or something, and even kinda roleplay a bit, and some of the best leverage that into what resembles a salary by doing Twitch shows or selling merch and such.
So in essence, the players are paying these people to effectively become NPCs in the game to better their enjoyment of it! And it's been going for 20 years now.
Brings back memories of my trading empire... 5x alt accounts scouting for best trade routes using the export data to CSV feature... Bringing ships and gear into null sec to sell for huge markups...
I love how this is getting around because it seems like such a weird headline, but any EVE player current or former will just go: "yep makes perfect sense"
Aurora4X (you're welcome). Similar to the idea of EVE ONLINE but much more indepth without the pesky things like graphics. Calling all Hackers: Lets make an open source Aurora4X style came that's played online.
Don't you fucking dare. I'll find the other 8 nerds across the world that play that game and never emerge again as I watch 5-second increments tick by.
This combines 2 of my favorite things: games and spreadsheets. However, it isn't generating any excitement in me. Just some feeling of dread and gloominess. I guess, its because in my mind I don't want games (pleasure) and spreadsheets (work) to mix.
[+] [-] martincmartin|3 years ago|reply
- Kerbal Space Program. Figuring out the sizes of different stages, how many solid boosters to add, etc.
- Factorio. Ratios of different factories, mostly for creating science packs.
- Cookie Clicker. Figuring out what to buy to get the best marginal cookies per dollar.
[+] [-] amalcon|3 years ago|reply
I know of people who've used spreadsheets for routing speedruns of games you wouldn't think you could optimize that way (e.g. entries in the Mario Kart series).
[+] [-] perlgeek|3 years ago|reply
It has lots of options to acquire various items and qualities, and depending on our situation, spreadsheets can help a lot figuring out which one is most efficient.
It even has the "bone market", an exchange where you can build skeletons from various bone types, and sell it to NPC vendors, some of which have non-linear payout curves. There's an optimizer for that written in Python: https://github.com/Saklad5/Bone-Market-Solver
It's an awesome combination of great writing, bizarre, whimsical stories and a potential (but not a hard requirement) to optimize by spreadsheet and other methods :-)
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fbcpck|3 years ago|reply
Especially Google Spreadsheets; perhaps not math/computation-heavy like EVE, but it's one of the best tools to organize data in a collaborative manner online.
An example: Inventory management/dashboard of a clan of 30 members: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tpbLmB4Fha_0TpMd4h3d...
I also see it (ab)used frequently as a mediawiki/online text-editor alternative, barely using any spreadsheet mathematical formulas, using it simply as a place to write text for others to read, e.g.: this gigantic reference spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JjK7Ws4gfzKChRs5ueox...
[+] [-] colanderman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Taek|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bayart|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|3 years ago|reply
Guild Wars 2 is an example of a very casual MMO that nevertheless has an extensive API, and a wide range of fan-built sites that use it to optimize/track history of trades, manage your account, track achievement histories, improve wiki information, etc.
[+] [-] pacoWebConsult|3 years ago|reply
[1]: https://rubberduckvba.com/
[+] [-] gtaylor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wingmanjd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glenneroo|3 years ago|reply
- Divinity Original Sin to track skills i've assigned to which characters as well as discovered recipes.
- Dyson Sphere Program to keep track of which star systems and planets i've visited (there are tons) to show roughly how much of each resource is there, sun/wind energy stats, etc. and whether i've exploited the resources there or not.
- Game Dev Tycoon to keep track of what types of games i released and the resulting ratings (which determine payouts). It's a very arbitrary system and i feel only through trial-and-error can you discover what games will get good reviews. It's borderline cheating but i figured since i did it myself, it's only half-cheating ;)
- Mount and Blade to keep track of which kings, queens and princesses i have interacted with and their likes/dislikes for when i communicate with them. Necessary because once you start a dialog there's no way out until you finish the dialog. And there's absolutely no way i can remember 300+ names and their standing with me, plus i play very irregularly (still Early Access and things change constantly). Yes you can click on royalty names and it'll tell you the standing, but it's just so much easier to have a spreadsheet open on another monitor which you can glance at from time to time.
- Rogalia for recipes, rent, combat, conversion times, selling rates...
[+] [-] ineedasername|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mockapapella|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmeredith|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SkeuomorphicBee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nivenkos|3 years ago|reply
I thought it'd be cool to write an optimiser for this. I.e. given this craft file for a payload subassembly, give me the cheapest/lightest/fewest parts booster subassembly that will get me to orbit with a remaining delta V of X.
Parsing the possible mount points seemed like a nightmare though.
[+] [-] peeters|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blamazon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freeflight|3 years ago|reply
On the not so extreme level; DPS calculations to decide which item/ability combination is the most efficient in dishing out damage.
[+] [-] UweSchmidt|3 years ago|reply
Dropping everything in life for that one perfect game will always be a temptation... ;)
[+] [-] jereees|3 years ago|reply
The current title is misleading and clickbaity. There’s no Excel features inside the game, heck it’s not even a CSV API.
[+] [-] honestduane|3 years ago|reply
I remember in one of the MonkeyCommend meetings while kicking BoB out of the South, we actually talked about Excel lacking this.
It feels like we created the world we wanted, on a 10 year delay.
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
Eve Online is getting Microsoft Excel support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31293066 - May 2022 (103 comments)
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosdp|3 years ago|reply
There are people who basically do play full-time, running a corporation or something, and even kinda roleplay a bit, and some of the best leverage that into what resembles a salary by doing Twitch shows or selling merch and such.
So in essence, the players are paying these people to effectively become NPCs in the game to better their enjoyment of it! And it's been going for 20 years now.
Eve Online is the prototype for the metaverse.
[+] [-] drexlspivey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teh_klev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bearjaws|3 years ago|reply
Good times.
[+] [-] eugenekolo|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICp2-EUKQAI
[+] [-] sph|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulmd|3 years ago|reply
everything past excel '03 was downhill imo
[+] [-] Maximus9000|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olivierestsage|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XorNot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt321|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ixwt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arrath|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nobrains|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brolumir|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SantiagoElf|3 years ago|reply
Anyway, yeah I played EVE - it is Excel in Space. So good there are finally APIs.
[+] [-] pyinstallwoes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acutis_fan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smrtinsert|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kondro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shadonototra|3 years ago|reply
to me it sounds like microsoft is colluding with game developers to lock in users more than to help users