This has made me wonder: Why do I enjoy point salad games so much? The answer is that I think I simply like the busywork at the end. I get a genuine rush out of the tallying. Though with the group I usually play with, we make it more interactive - one person tallies everyone's score, one component at a time, so you get the fun of talking about people's strategies as you go around the table. I'm boring enough to find this fun.
Still - I think your ranking of ending satisfaction makes sense!
I like point salad games too, but mostly because of the non-interactive nature. It's like we all get to work on out own puzzles, unencumbered by anyone else.
I just see some games like Arnak that are so close to making something better.
There is one other essential design aspect of "point salad" games worth mentioning: they obscure / obfuscate victory progression.
This is (I think) an intended feature for many designers -- it contributes enormously to many board games playing like pseudo-solitaires where player interaction is limited to accidentally inconveniencing other players by taking worker spaces or market cards another wants.
Note that some games -- Catan -- will have VPs, but a number less than 10, which is (relatively) countable. This makes every difference to these games -- the "leading" player is transparent and can be responded to in gameplay to prevent them from winning. This unironically makes Catan more interactive than the majority of "point salad" VP games.
TL;DR
If victory points are countable and transparent (10 or less) throughout the game, the game fundamentally feels different than these spreadsheet tabulation true point salads.
I cracked up at the actual quiz at the end.
This has made me wonder: Why do I enjoy point salad games so much? The answer is that I think I simply like the busywork at the end. I get a genuine rush out of the tallying. Though with the group I usually play with, we make it more interactive - one person tallies everyone's score, one component at a time, so you get the fun of talking about people's strategies as you go around the table. I'm boring enough to find this fun.
Still - I think your ranking of ending satisfaction makes sense!
I like point salad games too, but mostly because of the non-interactive nature. It's like we all get to work on out own puzzles, unencumbered by anyone else.
I just see some games like Arnak that are so close to making something better.
There is one other essential design aspect of "point salad" games worth mentioning: they obscure / obfuscate victory progression.
This is (I think) an intended feature for many designers -- it contributes enormously to many board games playing like pseudo-solitaires where player interaction is limited to accidentally inconveniencing other players by taking worker spaces or market cards another wants.
Note that some games -- Catan -- will have VPs, but a number less than 10, which is (relatively) countable. This makes every difference to these games -- the "leading" player is transparent and can be responded to in gameplay to prevent them from winning. This unironically makes Catan more interactive than the majority of "point salad" VP games.
TL;DR
If victory points are countable and transparent (10 or less) throughout the game, the game fundamentally feels different than these spreadsheet tabulation true point salads.