Frustrated by Café Remix Score Missions

In Pokémon Café Remix, a few of the game's Mission Bingo boards sometimes - OK, often - contains a task that states that the player has to earn a specific score on an event puzzle, one that ends with a certain digit. This sounds easy until it is considered that the score must be the one obtained after bonus points are taken into account, which can sometimes make the score shift by one or many points in any direction. This has the potential to cause frustration, and in fact, it already has for yours truly; for that, I've decided to make a discussion out of it.

The problem with the task is that its objective almost becomes totally dependent on luck - in the parlance of this and other similar games, gacha. Even if the Pokémon icons could be manipulated to earn certain point values, the kicker is still the bonus points, which are seemingly arbitrary in value in affecting scores as the above. I've had several runs where the point value I obtained was never the one I needed, whereas at other times, I got the required point value almost immediately. The results seem as arbitrary as the points.

For the case of One-Minute Cooking, it is possible to sidestep the effort needed for the task in some cases by clearing megaphone and skill icons (which give out bonus points), manipulating icons to the needed point value, then quitting the stage. Doing this will still allow the player to earn points for the task and the event, but hopefully in a quicker fashion; it might also take a few more stamina, but it's worth a try if the needed point value never seems to come up even with best play, which becomes the source of the frustration.

With Slow Cooking, the effort (and frustration) is magnified as one has to complete the entire sequence of puzzle stages to earn points for the task and the event, and quitting mid-way simply annuls the attempt. A player might try to rush through the puzzle stages and earn points wherever they can be earned while making progress, but this runs into the arbitrariness challenge of the bonus points, which are still earned during (and after) play of the stages. This situation might demand that a balance be struck between best play and rush play.

An appropriate saying for this situation seems to be that "sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic" - in this case, the former being Café Remix scoring and the latter being luck. Both might just play into the completion of the Café Remix score missions and the frustration that ensues when trying to complete those missions. Even so, at least some understanding can be made in trying to complete the missions properly, with a little luck for seasoning, and that may alleviate some of the induced frustration.

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