The Circle

[Hraklea]

WoW had a good formula going. You could do whatever you wanted in the game that you enjoyed with few strings attached.

I had been playing WoW from The Burning Crusade to Cataclysm, and I have no idea where this came from. WoW is (or was) insanely farm based.

---------- Post added 2012-09-19 at 01:58 PM ----------

...setting simple goals in the game and expecting the game to not actively punish you for pursuing those goals as you see fit has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Skinner Box concept.

You can set yourself all the goals you want, it is not the game's fault if you don't like your own choices (?!). You can decide how to play the games that you want to play, that's the point.

[Sylvanie]

It is psycho-babble. You heard some terms on the internet (or off of Extra Credits) that sound nice and technical and seem to support your platform, so you throw them out there, even though setting simple goals in the game and expecting the game to not actively punish you for pursuing those goals as you see fit has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Skinner Box concept.

Let me be frank: You still seem to be avoiding my points.

If you are interested in game design, you will know that the overjustification effect has been looked at for quite some time, in the context of both video games and "gamification" of non-games. You will know that game developers and designers have been writing about this.

I would appreciate it if you could engage my argument on its merits.

[DrakeWurrum]

Are you nuts? I haven't had any issues with gold.

[BoomChickn]

Another thing (Not sure if this is mentioned) is that the wvw jumping puzzles give 2 blueprints each when done.

Beware the opposition though. Forced movement is pretty brutal when platforming. Trebuchets are rare and I'm not sure if seige golems even drop though.

[Deleted]

Another thing (Not sure if this is mentioned) is that the wvw jumping puzzles give 2 blueprints each when done.

Beware the opposition though. Forced movement is pretty brutal when platforming. Trebuchets are rare and I'm not sure if seige golems even drop though.

they do

fillup

[Kelimbror]

This thread is not at all what I expected. I understand the frustration with needing to run things over and over, yet limiting the rewards from doing so. That seems a bit counter productive to me. It was how running your daily LFD in WoW used to be. It's an archaic system. I would rather have an isntance cap like wow uses to prevent speed run abuse. It makes much more sense.

The rest of Mr. Hefer's complaints about gold seem to be a tad ranty and not accurate at all. I'm poor in every game I play, because I don't see the game as training for some video game stock market and spend time doing things that usually cost money. Other people might love economic aspects of MMOs...to you I say, go play EVE or something. Not every MMO has to be about hoarding wealth.

[Sylvanie]

Overjustification: Not applicable here at all.

It absolutely does apply. If you are asking why you should be running a dungeon if the rewards are on diminishing returns, that is pretty much overjustification 101: You're replacing intrinsic motivation (the fun of experiencing the event and ideally overcoming a challenge) with extrinsic rewards (loot, gold). It is the very definition of the overjustification effect if what keeps you motivated are the extrinsic rewards and your intrinsic motivation is diminished in the process.

Cosmetic dungeon sets require you run the same dungeon over and over, but running the same dungeon just a couple times causes it to stop dropping any rewards.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: Cosmetic gear is an extrinsic reward also. So is the status that goes along with wearing difficult to obtain items, cosmetic or not.

Frankly, my impression is that you still haven't read up on the overjustification effect, because you still don't seem to understand what it is.

And yes, obviously ArenaNet has littered the game with extrinsic rewards. In the end, they are a business. Rewards do motivate a lot of players and keep them playing, if only because that's what they're expecting. It also means that ArenaNet will not make them easy to obtain.

At this point the player is asking, "Why is the game telling me to NOT do what I want to do?"

The game isn't telling the player what to do. That type of player has at one point decided that he or she is only interested in the game insofar as the game offers rewards, and is only interested in the path of least resistance to obtaining those rewards, up to the point of refusing to do more than one explorable path per dungeon. Those players are not looking for a game, but for a loot dispenser.

At best, the game is telling to you to not just mindlessly farm the same thing over and over, but to vary your play experience (at least up to the point of doing more than one explorable path per dungeon in succession). Though, in the end, it is not actively stopping you if you really want to. And by varying your play experience, I mean that you can still do the same type of content over and over and collect appropriate rewards, just not the very same thing.

Note that this is a pretty unique aspect of the PvE side of MMOs (and some other online games that have started imitating it). In the end, this leads to things such as Cow Clicker that remove the last vestiges of actual gameplay and just make the reward system itself the game. But if you look at board or card games, there's no such thing as unlimited farmable rewards. And you can seriously question whether farming rewards can still be considered playing a game, except in the loosest sense of the word.

[Deleted]

I just vend the junk that drops in wvw, get some silver from objectives, get a couple arrow carts every 30 minutes or so, enough.

[DrakeWurrum]

Those players are not looking for a game, but for a loot dispenser.

I feel like this can sum up most of the people who have been complaining about GW2 lately. Not necessarily a bad thing - some people just want those extrinsic rewards, and have come to believe that only stats matter.

[DrakeWurrum]

Sylvanie is right, though. Some people are making goals in this game that this game was simply not designed for. Some people are playing this game without realizing that it's not meant to replace WoW.

[Remilia]

Sylvanie is right, though. Some people are making goals in this game that this game was simply not designed for. Some people are playing this game without realizing that it's not meant to replace WoW.

To play the game how you want and then the game is not how you want to play it is contradicting in itself.

[Sylvanie]

I'll say it one more time, then I'm done. It's not the loot that's the issue. It's not the "extrinsic rewards" that are the issue. What players are annoyed by is the obstructionism that A.Net has built into the game in many areas, regardless of the goal that you're pursuing. The only counter you seem to have to this is, "Just stop having any goals at all, lol!"

No. What I'm saying is that RPGs are in the end, about the following concept: "Here there be dragons. Go slay them." [1]

When that (being the protagonist in an action adventure that you play out) is not goal enough, there is a problem. Either the game is so uninspiring that it needs to be propped up with additional rewards, or the players have lost track of the goal.

Note that the problem is not with having rewards per so (rewards are traditional in heroic fantasy, after all), but when those rewards diminish and replace the underlying goal.

[1] This, of course, includes not only literal dragons, but also monsters, undead, and bad guys of all kinds.

[TequilaFlavor]

I'm sure people are, but again, that's really not the crux of the issue here. The rampant obstructionism in the game is just...strange at best. Frustrating and confusing at worst. And just flat out bad design all around. I know that some of it is designed to patch some undesirable holes in the current system and hopefully it'll be repealed later, but right now it's just odd.

If I need 6 Clawblood Oozetotems to finish a rank in my Widgetmaking, why can't I just go out and kill a bunch of Wadoozles for a while if I want? Why is there a scolding parental figure that says, "Hey. Hey, stop that. Stop what you're doing. You're not getting any more Clawblood Oozetotemes from these Wadoozles until you do something else, now get!! Go on, get!!!"

The other end of it is that it's just infuriating when people latch onto popular terms and use them completely improperly, then twist everything you say around in knots trying to make it fit those terms. ><

As far as I understand Sylvanie's idea of "overjustification", even picking up crafting or the idea of farming for it when it's not 100% by accident while having fun, is already overjustifying it by means of (quasi-)"extransic" benefits (quotation marks because I'm neither a native English speaker nor a psychologist and I'm just stating things from what I think is Sylvanie's idea of these terms - not saying she or he is right or wrong).

If we view "having fun while playing the game" as the only possible (quasi-) "intrensic" motivation, then any (other) "goal" is (quasi-) "extransic".

Meaning anything from searching for a vista for even a splitsecond on your map to killing a single centaur or researching a single crafting-recipe stems from an (quasi-) "extransic" motivation, if you follow any other goal doing it than purely "having fun".

In reality, it's extremely rare to find any action done to only fulfill a single "goal" or following a single "intrensic" motivation - that goes both for RL and videogames.

For a lot of people "having fun" at least partly stems from "getting stuff done", ideally in an enjoyabe fashion.

Most people won't just aimlessly stumble around in circles "having fun" for example, they will try to "have fun in a productive manner".

At what point does this scale tip from "mainly having fun" to "mainly doing it for (quasi-) extransic means" ?

That's a difficult question to answer regarding the "grey areas" between the extremes - but farming for crafting mats seems to be in the (quasi-) "extransic" motivation area, according to how I understand Sylvanie's idea on "overjustification" (again, not an expert), so hindering people from persuing those motives through obstruction could seem justified from where Sylvanie - to my understanding - comes from.

Again: Neither a native English speaker nor a phychologist, so I hope I do Sylvanie's viewpoint justice - not saying either of you is right or wrong, wanted to point that out again.

[Sylvanie]

As far as I understand Sylvanie's idea of "overjustification", even picking up crafting or the idea of farming for it when it's not 100% by accident while having fun, is already overjustifying it by means of (quasi-)"extransic" benefits (quotation marks because I'm neither a native English speaker nor a psychologist and I'm just stating things from what I think is Sylvanie's idea of these terms - not saying she or he is right or wrong).

To be clear, it's not "my idea". The overjustification effect is an established concept from behavioral psychology.

It is fascinating, because on its surface it appears to be at odds with other theories [1] from operant conditioning, especially how rewards can reinforce behavior, but studies have shown that it is a very real effect.

Meaning anything from searching for a vista for even a splitsecond on your map to killing a single centaur or researching a single crafting-recipe stems from an (quasi-) "extransic" motivation, if you follow any other goal doing it than purely "having fun".

Intrinsic rewards are all those that are inherent to an activity. Curiosity, the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge (as opposed to peer recognition or status gain for overcoming a challenge), feeling in immersed int he world, the joy of an "eureka" effect, socializing as part of a group activity, are all intrinsic. If you're looking for a vista while fighting a centaur, you're just conducting two activities concurrently; looking for the vista is not even a reward, extrinsic or not.

Extrinsic rewards are those that are not an intrinsic, normal part of an activity (obviously, there's a bit of a gray area here). The extreme case is payment for an activity. Other examples of extrinsic rewards are status gains, loot, XP, levels, peer recognition, etc.

The overjustification effect occurs not because there are extrinsic rewards, but only when they start to diminish and displace your intrinsic motivation [2]. Killing a dragon after a fierce battle and being rewarded with a hoard of (virtual) treasure? That's just cool. It's positive feedback at this point: you did something nice, the (virtual) world shows its appreciation. Running the same dungeon for the 100th time for the tokens you get at the end to the point where you start to get sick and tired of it? That's too many extrinsic rewards decreasing your intrinsic motivation (and in the worst case leading to burnout) [3].

[1] I'm using "theory" here in the scientific sense, i.e. "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment".
[2] Note there are studies that seem to indicate that extrinsic rewards can increase intrinsic motivation, when they are appropriately rewarded for competence. But that's not a situation that we encounter when we're talking about farming in MMOs.
[3] An interesting data point here is a statement that Blizzard made towards the end of the WotLK in a discussion about relaxing raid lockouts. One of their concerns was that if they relaxed raid lockouts too much, some players (especially tanks and healers) might be coaxed into doing a raid more often than they liked, for "the good of the guild". Which is how we ended up with the current system, which allows some more flexibility, but avoids this scenario (mostly).

[glo]

I see a lot of (expected) arguments about how I'm "just doing it wrong" in response to my thread. To all of you I ask:

What happened to "Play how you want"?

You can argue back and forth until the end of days about how I should accept that the massive grind (or any grind at all) is justified to do the activities I like, or that I need to do X and Y and gold will come easy, blah blah blah.

Well, that's not how I want to play. If I want to log into the game and do such and such, I shouldn't ALSO need to do this and that to enable me to do so in the first place. That's not "play how you want". That's not how this game was advertised, plain and simple.

[Sylvanie]

Sigh. See, this is why it's frustrating. I keep talking about a VERY specific thing, and you keep going off about stuff you read on gaming psychology blogs.

At this point, it may be helpful for you to review what you have actually posted so far.

This discussion began my post here, which was not in response to any post of yours.

You then responded here, and continued here, here, and here, and here.

If you look at it again, you will see that your first three responses to me were just generic disagreement (plus repeatedly expressing your dislike of behavioral psychology). Your fourth post was the same, plus a laundry list of issues towards the end. Your fifth post then started talking about ArenaNet's "obstructionism". If you can extract your "VERY specific thing" from this sequence of posts, I can't. You need to be clearer. Also, this was initially not about anything you liked or disliked -- I was responding to someone else. So, I'm not sure how the "psychobabble" in that response could have ignored anything you said, given that there wasn't anything you had said at that point that I was responding to. I was assuming that you were still on the original topic I had introduced instead of going off on a tangent, so the original topic was what I was sticking with.

So, if you could kindly point out now what your very specific issue is, we can perhaps settle this, and then return to what I had originally talked about.

Let me address your issues from post #47 now, so that we can get those out of the way and avoid further derails (I had addressed the dungeon part before, but maybe I was not explicit enough).

Crafting: You are, as far as I can tell, not expected to farm a specific material. Collect what resources and items you get through normal gameplay, sell what you don't need on the trading post or a vendor, and buy what you need from the proceeds. Even without diminishing returns, you wouldn't do any (or at least not significantly) better through grinding a specific mob, since there's a corresponding opportunity cost (the time you're taking for it during which you could make money) in farming materials that aren't guaranteed drops. Read the beginning of this Reddit post to understand why this approach is pretty efficient (modulo the trading post fees).

Cosmetic dungeon sets: You should be able to avoid diminishing returns entirely by alternating between two different explorable paths. See this post by Jon Peters for the details.

Karma from high level events: Alternate between events (and zones) to avoid diminishing returns. Yes, there will still be a limit on how much karma you can obtain. No, you will not be able to limit yourself to the most karma-producing events, but if ArenaNet had left them in place without diminishing returns, then they'd likely have slashed karma rewards accordingly to be in line with their effort/reward ratio targets.

In short, ArenaNet wants you to diversify the content you're doing. Not the type of content, but they don't want you to stick to the same farming spot forever.

If you just play the game normally and competently -- even focusing on the type of content that gives you the desired reward -- you should be close to the optimal effort/reward ratio already. If you just want to brute force your reward acquisition by grind-farming one specific thing, then we're talking about the topic this all started with: doing content that you are not really enjoying for the rewards, i.e. the overjustification effect.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

I don't think OP wants or likes choices, in which case it's not really something you'll like either way. Making gold is insanely easy and anything will make it, from farming centaurs to farming dungeons, almost anything you do in this game PvE wise that does not involve lots of death will make you a profit. Farm gold in the many many ways it's offered and you can do anything.

[TequilaFlavor]

Intrinsic rewards are all those that are inherent to an activity. Curiosity, the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge (as opposed to peer recognition or status gain for overcoming a challenge), feeling in immersed int he world, the joy of an "eureka" effect, socializing as part of a group activity, are all intrinsic. If you're looking for a vista while fighting a centaur, you're just conducting two activities concurrently; looking for the vista is not even a reward, extrinsic or not.

Extrinsic rewards are those that are not an intrinsic, normal part of an activity (obviously, there's a bit of a gray area here). The extreme case is payment for an activity. Other examples of extrinsic rewards are status gains, loot, XP, levels, peer recognition, etc.

Thanks for explaining the overjustification-theory in more detail, always interesting to hear about new stuff.

Two things to keep in mind though (that's also where my examples come from):

a) It's pretty rough to have a clear cut definition of "intrinsic" as opposed to "extrinsic" because a lot of activities will naturally include both in a lot of cases, for example: Socializing with people can easily bleep over into peer recognition/upping your social status of some kind.

Killing the centaur mainly for fun but also to complete that heart "quest" is one example, doing that jumping puzzle to get to that vista is another, more "grey area" one, as my goal doing might be enjoying the challenge but also bleep into loot for map completion.

b) Humans and animals of higher intelligence levels will often do these activities for these intrinsic and extrinsic rewards at the same time - according to the overjustification theory, that's fine as long as the extrinsic rewards don't "way down" the intrinsic ones, right ?

Then there must be a different "breaking point" for different kinds of people, as some even "demand" to have a grindy gear progression as endgame.

[glo]

I don't think OP wants or likes choices, in which case it's not really something you'll like either way. Making gold is insanely easy and anything will make it, from farming centaurs to farming dungeons, almost anything you do in this game PvE wise that does not involve lots of death will make you a profit. Farm gold in the many many ways it's offered and you can do anything.

Have you not paid attention to the newly imposed dungeon caps / DE caps / mob drop caps?

[Sylvanie]

The other end of this topic is that I'm really confounded by this attitude of, "Just don't have any goals period. Just log in and...you know, be logged in. Don't have goals, because goals are <insert newest internet fad psychology term here> and that's bad." It gets to the point where it feels like some people just want you to log into Lion's Arch and then AFK, because if there's ANYTHING you want to do, it's indicative of something bad.

No. My argument has been, at a very basic level, that if you limit yourself to grind-based goals, you're likely going to be unhappy. Goals do not have to depend on grinding out external rewards. I have never said that you do not need goals (in fact, only a couple of weeks ago or so I wrote that the game would benefit from having more diverse goals in PvE).

"I want to do explorable path X of dungeon Y" is a goal.

"I want to fully explore zone Z" is a goal.

"I want to do the jumping puzzle in zone A" is a goal.

"I want to learn to play class C" is a goal.

None of these goals depend on grinding out extrinsic rewards. And, obviously, many people do also have additional non-rewards based motivations for play, such as socializing (i.e., playing with friends and family), that contribute to their enjoyment.

Really? I look at those posts you linked and I see myself chanting over and over and ooovvvveerrr again about how it wasn't about "chasing a reward" but you just absolutely would not leave the "Skinner Box" and "Overjustification" stuff alone. That's probably why my posts weren't "clear" to you, you just had to keep pounding those same little phrases over and over. It's really appropriate that this thread is entitled, "The Circle"

You stating over and over again that it wasn't about "chasing a reward" does not mean that you stated what it actually was. If it is this "obstructionism" (which you didn't get to until your fifth post), then you're simply factually wrong. The game does not prevent you from obtaining rewards; it does require you to go about it a bit more strategically instead of grinding them out in one spot. If, for example, you absolutely want to grind out cosmetic dungeon rewards, all you have to do is to alternate between two different explorable paths of the same dungeon. If you want to grind out karma, you will have to work out a route through high level zones to maximize karma gain rather than AEing mob waves for the same "defend" event over and over. That the game requires you to strategize a bit about your reward acquisition schemes in order to optimize them does not mean that ArenaNet is obstructing your efforts.