About rewards

[yann.1946]

Just now, Astralporing.1957 said:

Again, the whole discussion has nothing to do with arguments about extending the gameplay time. It's all about discussion about using rewards to push players into the content they would not play otherwise.

it has everything to do with it. They are both parts of the same coin.

 

But honestly i feel like i need to go a little more meta here.

You say the argument only get used to show when rewards are the only reason people play the content.

 

Tell me what the first sentence after this you disagree with is:

 

For any piece of content with a unique rewards their will be a dip in players ones these rewards are acquired, the size of the dip depends.

 

Not all the time this dip will be a consequence of people only playing for rewards.

 

Their is no way to differentiate a dip because of solely playing for rewards or a general dip because of the above arguments.

 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

51 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

People use the argument a lot that because people leave some content after getting the rewards they want, the content is suddenly not fun.

 

my point is that that argument is fallecious as that is the expected outcome of having rewards. As rewards are meant to  extend the time people play content and as such when people have gotten the rewards they want their always will be dip from players for which while the combination of rewards and all the other things they play was enough to make them play the content/game , just the other things weren't.

 

This argument holds if you replace  rewards with social interaction or any other of the reasons you gave.

 

Are you trying to refine your position by asking about this on the forums?  I don't disagree with what you are saying, and it sounds like you have a solid opinion and reasoning for it.  Fun is far too subjective and different from person to person.  What you find fun  can change over time as well.

Without a specific topic it becomes rather theoretical.  I can think of content that players might not enjoy (or they might) but repeatedly farm for a chance to get the same infusion multiple times.  Some players might farm it until they get the infusion once, and some players will never farm it because the odds or methods of attaining that reward are not appealing.

13 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Again, the whole discussion has nothing to do with arguments about extending the gameplay time. It's all about discussion about using rewards to push players into the content they would not play otherwise.

I consider the nuance of what you are saying is two sides of the same coin.  The 'rewards' for playing content can be in-game gold or items, but also experiencing story, progressing character, engaging with friends and guildies.  Sometimes my reason for starting new content is because of one reward, but I stay for a different reward.  Like, do I start raiding for Legendary Armor and stay for a good group experience?  Or do I start raiding for the story and enjoy it enough to stay to complete my Legendary Armor?

and Yann beat me to the coin analogy..

[yann.1946]

3 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

I'm totally confused what this thread is trying to accomplish.  It seems the goalposts keep moving, or the topic changes, or ....  I've no idea. 

If it is any conselation, the only thing this tread tried to accomplish (and failed to do) is show why a specific argument is fallecious.

But for some reason people are arguing against different strawmen of the position so everything went to kitten.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

If it is any conselation, the only thing this tread tried to accomplish (and failed to do) is show why a specific argument is fallecious.

But for some reason people are arguing against different strawmen of the position so everything went to kitten.

It might be due to people having difficulty understanding what exactly is being argued, rather than malicious attempts to prop up straw men for knocking down.

[yann.1946]

1 minute ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

Are you trying to refine your position by asking about this on the forums?  I don't disagree with what you are saying, and it sounds like you have a solid opinion and reasoning for it.  Fun is far too subjective and different from person to person.  What you find fun  can change over time as well.

Without a specific topic it becomes rather theoretical.  I can think of content that players might not enjoy (or they might) but repeatedly farm for a chance to get the same infusion multiple times.  Some players might farm it until they get the infusion once, and some players will never farm it because the odds or methods of attaining that reward are not appealing.

Its more that i personally, from the work i do, really dislike fallecious arguments.

For it to be a good argument it would need to hold for all cases where applicable.

You are completely correct that without a specific topic it becomes quite theoretical, but that is also why the argument itself is a problem. People use it when they dont consider the topic fun, and then extrapolate the fact that their is a dip after X,Y,Z point as prove that the only reason people did the content was because the content is not fun.

But that does not really hold water as a dip is expected, its a consequence of the funamental nature of things that extend gametime. (ones they are gone people quit)

 

So i wanted to show that using the argument, even though retoricly effective is not a good argument. For it to be a good argument it would need to hold for all cases where applicable , and in this case its applicable almost always.

 

To finish, whether the conclusion of an argument is true sometimes does not make it a good argument. It only is good when it is always true when applicable.

1 minute ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

I consider the nuance of what you are saying is two sides of the same coin.  The 'rewards' for playing content can be in-game gold or items, but also experiencing story, progressing character, engaging with friends and guildies.  Sometimes my reason for starting new content is because of one reward, but I stay for a different reward.  Like, do I start raiding for Legendary Armor and stay for a good group experience?  Or do I start raiding for the story and enjoy it enough to stay to complete my Legendary Armor?

and Yann beat me to the coin analogy..

 

[yann.1946]

9 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

It might be due to people having difficulty understanding what exactly is being argued, rather than malicious attempts to prop up straw men for knocking down.

Probably, i was not assuming the strawmen where malicious.

Insert horror movie joke here. 😛

 

As Astral as pointed out, he could only place what i said in some greater picture of debates on this forum and thus did not read what i meant to write. Honestly im not completely sure how much it has to do with my writing style and how much the deep rooted need to defend position that has grown in these conversations.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

Probably, i was not assuming the strawmen where malicious.

Insert horror movie joke here. 😛

 

As Astral as pointed out, he could only place what i said in some greater picture of debates on this forum and thus did not read what i meant to write. Honestly im not completely sure how much it has to do with my writing style and how much the deep rooted need to defend position that has grown in these conversations.

Totally understand. I've had that experience recently, where I respond to a post on its face, but then someone reacts because that post was responding to their post, and that makes them think I was arguing a point two posts back.

Forum conversations are... unique.

[Fuchslein.8639]

4 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Probably, i was not assuming the strawmen where malicious.

Insert horror movie joke here. 😛

 

As Astral as pointed out, he could only place what i said in some greater picture of debates on this forum and thus did not read what i meant to write. Honestly im not completely sure how much it has to do with my writing style and how much the deep rooted need to defend position that has grown in these conversations.

 

I personally thougt you came from the Raid-Discussion where it is always argued that raids should not have the "best" end reward from the game because of "insert xy argument here please". And that without these rewards no one would play raids anymore.

Both of which are of course purely subjective(of course, confuse the two often)and wrong.

 

But yah ... this thread got quite confusing ^^'''.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Fuchslein.8639

[yann.1946]

@Mungo Zen.9364About youre infusion example, that exemplifies the point a lot. The reasons people stop doing something are so diverse ,that just saying look at dip thus it must mean they did not enjoy the content, is reductive at best.

 

 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

18 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Its more that i personally, from the work i do, really dislike fallecious arguments.

For it to be a good argument it would need to hold for all cases where applicable.

You are completely correct that without a specific topic it becomes quite theoretical, but that is also why the argument itself is a problem. People use it when they dont consider the topic fun, and then extrapolate the fact that their is a dip after X,Y,Z point as prove that the only reason people did the content was because the content is not fun.

But that does not really hold water as a dip is expected, its a consequence of the funamental nature of things that extend gametime. (ones they are gone people quit)

 

So i wanted to show that using the argument, even though retoricly effective is not a good argument. For it to be a good argument it would need to hold for all cases where applicable , and in this case its applicable almost always.

 

To finish, whether the conclusion of an argument is true sometimes does not make it a good argument. It only is good when it is always true when applicable.

 

See, from my perspective, as the number of variables increases in a discussion, the ability to validate any one position becomes harder.  Anecdotal Evidence is a tool used far too often to back up claims.  I tend to ask for factual information to create a solid foundation to base an opinion, but that isn't the case for everyone.

Some people are not invested in the factual backing behind an argument.  Look at how wildly players feel about obtaining the Skyscale.  For some it is just playing the game and getting rewards, and for others it is an endless grind deliberately put there to make them feel bad.  Most players are somewhere in between.  But that range of experience will color the response to "was it fun" greatly.  The fact is, everyone did the same thing (more or less) to obtain the Skyscale, but have very different opinions of how that experience was.

As such, I take responses that appear to be based upon anecdotal evidence with a bit of skepticism.  Some people just don't care about the facts, they just want to say 'I liked/did not like" this thing and here is the first reason I can think of why.  You can see this when there are more statements than questions in a conversation.

So, a question, why engage in a conversation with someone who doesn't care about the result as much as you do?

Edited September 27, 2021 by Mungo Zen.9364

[yann.1946]

1 minute ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

 

I personally thougt you came from the Raid-Discussion where it is always argued that raids should not have the "best" end reward from the game because of "insert xy argument here please". And that without these rewards no one would play raids anymore.

Both of which are of course purely objective and wrong.

 

But yah ... this thread got quite confusing ^^'''.

That is where the argument get used the most and that was what motivated me to write this. But for me it was more about a broader problem that i hoped to adress.

 

Lots of the time people use snappy arguments a lot that seem true on the surface for those that already agree with the conclusion.

(Another raid example is : people who want legendary armour are lazy because they dont want to put in the work)

But these arguments are not true, and worse people who disagree with the argument in one setting will use the same argument in another setting where they do agree with the conclusion.

 

And to me that is problematic, because that means people are not actually using the arguments or assuming other people start from the same invisibles axioms as they do. ( i made the same mistake in my op.)

[yann.1946]

2 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

See, from my perspective, as the number of variables increases in a discussion, the ability to validate any one position becomes harder.  Anecdotal Evidence is a tool used far too often to back up claims.  I tend to ask for factual information to create a solid foundation to base an opinion, but that isn't the case for everyone.

Some people are not invested in the factual backing behind an argument.  Look at how wildly players feel about obtaining the Skyscale.  For some it is just playing the game and getting rewards, and for others it is an endless grind deliberately put there to make them feel bad.  Most players are somewhere in between.  But that range of experience will color the response to "was it fun" greatly.

As such, I take responses that appear to be based upon anecdotal evidence with a bit of skepticism.  Some people just don't care about the facts, they just want to say 'I liked/did not like" this thing and here is the first reason I can think of why.  You can see this when there are more statements than questions in a conversation.

So, a question, why engage in a conversation with someone who doesn't care about the result as much as you do?

Because im a hopeless romantic who hopes that people one day start caring about the logical foundation of their argument.

 

I would like it if people could differentiate between what they want vs what is better for everyone a little more.

As an example someone (i think raknar but id have to check) assumed my main motivation is rewards, i assume because they assumed i was arguing rewards are the only thing that matters (as that is what atleast two people in the first page where arguing against)/But that is just not the case, in mmos i mostly play for the friends i made and i play lots of puzzlegames just for the fun of completing the puzzles.

"The room" games are really good games if you are interested in these kind of games.

I can however reason and see that rewards (in a broad sense) are a part of the gameplay experience for most players to some degree (even if that degree is small) and argue from those observations.

 

 

I am not free of these mistakes to, but id hope people can argue to me when i fall in these traps myself.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

5 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Because im a hopeless romantic who hopes that people one day start caring about the logical foundation of their argument.

 

I would like it if people could differentiate between what they want vs what is better for everyone a little more.

As an example someone (i think raknar but id have to check) assumed my main motivation is rewards, i assume because they assumed i was arguing rewards are the only thing that matters (as that is what atleast two people in the first page where arguing against)/But that is just not the case, in mmos i mostly play for the friends i made and i play lots of puzzlegames just for the fun of completing the puzzles.

"The room" games are really good games if you are interested in these kind of games.

I can however reason and see that rewards (in a broad sense) are a part of the gameplay experience for most players to some degree (even if that degree is small) and argue from those observations.

 

 

I am not free of these mistakes to, but id hope people can argue to me when i fall in these traps myself.

High Fives for caring, keep at it, you will never see the results but it does change people.

[Fuchslein.8639]

14 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

That is where the argument get used the most and that was what motivated me to write this. But for me it was more about a broader problem that i hoped to adress.

 

Lots of the time people use snappy arguments a lot that seem true on the surface for those that already agree with the conclusion.

(Another raid example is : people who want legendary armour are lazy because they dont want to put in the work)

But these arguments are not true, and worse people who disagree with the argument in one setting will use the same argument in another setting where they do agree with the conclusion.

 

And to me that is problematic, because that means people are not actually using the arguments or assuming other people start from the same invisibles axioms as they do. ( i made the same mistake in my op.)

Well, people are people. I often catch myself writing sarcastic comments in threads that pop up for the xth time with the same people and arguments. Sometimes you just want to defend what you like.

Although I agree that I find it terrible how people insist on a truth and then talk you into the corner, because you yourself may represent more than one opinion on the same subject as you can see both sides. But I also experience that again and again in RL, that it seems to be a riddle to people when you try to put yourself(your'e mind?) in both sides. If this makes sense.

[Klowdy.3126]

11 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

no not really, everyone has a sort of maximum that they can do content even if they enjoy it.

For example i like pasta a lot, but if i had to eat soly pasta for the rest of my life id probably get over it pretty soon.

 

 Or do you think that people will just keep playing the same thing over and over indefinetly? 

PvP. 

[yann.1946]

4 hours ago, Klowdy.3126 said:

PvP. 

you thank people on average will pvp indefinitly?

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

You say the argument only get used to show when rewards are the only reason people play the content.

Tell me what the first sentence after this you disagree with is:

For any piece of content with a unique rewards their will be a dip in players ones these rewards are acquired, the size of the dip depends.

Not all the time this dip will be a consequence of people only playing for rewards.

Their is no way to differentiate a dip because of solely playing for rewards or a general dip because of the above arguments.

First two are okay. Third is... well, quite often there are ways to tell the difference. For example, the clear cutoffs of LI in raid content at the 150 and 750 LI (values of first and all 3 sets of legendary armor) are hardly a result of content burnout. Those are a result of people playing for rewards and stopping as soon as they obtained those.

Besides, that was not your original stance, nor this is what people usually keep complaining about in the posts you argue against.

The argument you keep attacking is generally used when someone wants to point out that a content should not be kept alive solely due to rewards.

Come to think, i will use your own approach here as well: what in the sentences "Rewards should not be designed as a primary motivation for people to play a specific content" and "rewards might be used to extend the longevity of the content, but should not be used in order to populate it in the first place" you disagree with?

Edited September 28, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

you thank people on average will pvp indefinitly?

No, but only because people on average don't pvp at all. The PvP-minded players however? Yes, on average they do pvp indefinitely. And if they drop out it's for other reasons than (lack of) rewards.

[Tails.9372]

On 9/27/2021 at 8:25 AM, yann.1946 said:

The purpose of rewards is always twofold:

-Incentivizing people to play content they normally would not (in the hope that they start enjoying the content)

-Making people play a  part of the game longer then they normally would have.

It is therefore normal that people in general stop playing content ones they got the rewards they want. 

Not really as there are also different types of rewards: one that adds rather constant replay value to the content in question (e.g. gold) and one where all added replay value is lost on the initial acquisition of the reward in question (e.g. skins). Ideally the former kind should be roughly equal for every kind of content as it shouldn't be a factor when deciding what kind of content to play. Then there is also the issue of what reasonably counts as "incentivising" for the content in question, e.g. putting an infusion behind a massive RNG wall with even the content related currency not offering an alternative way of acquisition does not incentivise me to play the related content. If anything it incentivises me to play whatever has the best time to gold rate at the moment in order to buy it from the TP which would generally be missing the point of having it there in the first place.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Tails.9372

[yann.1946]

47 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

First two are okay. Third is... well, quite often there are ways to tell the difference. For example, the clear cutoffs of LI in raid content at the 150 and 750 LI (values of first and all 3 sets of legendary armor) are hardly a result of content burnout. Those are a result of people playing for rewards and stopping as soon as they obtained those.

Besides, that was not your original stance, nor this is what people usually keep complaining about in the posts you argue against.

The third is a result of the the first two statements, you can not disagree with the third if you agree with the first two.

The clear cut at li is a good example why the argument you are trying to make does not work.

 

Their are a plethora of different reasons people who raid. Lets make them analogous with batteries with different amounts of power.

Lets say a social interaction battery, leg armour battery, reward battery, gameplay battery, excitement battery, and a others battery.

now the combination of power of these battery needs to be high enough to surpass some fun/play vallue for people to play the content.

Now the powers of these bateries change over time, excitement in general decrease over time, social interaction is more variable but in general grows over time with big drops if guild break up. etc.

 

Now if you would plot the amount of people playing raids vs li aqcuired you would expect a drop in players at the 150 and 750 li mark because their the armour batery will drop to zero power for some people so their will be an amount of players for which their previous amount of fun/play power suddenly drop under the value they need to play the content.

But that is not the same as them only playing for the rewards, any of these other bateries could have lost power (their guild disbanding for example) would have lead to the same result.

 

Like i said before, the whole analysis also works if we would take any other time extending thing for gameplay (like social interaction etc.)

47 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The argument you keep attacking is generally used when someone wants to point out that a content should not be kept alive solely due to rewards.

An argument does not suddenly becomes true because of what you wanted to show with it. That is the problem im trying to adress here. Because you agree with the conclusion you suddenly agree with the argument, but that is not how logic works.

47 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Come to think, i will use your own approach here as well: what in the sentences "Rewards should not be designed as a primary motivation for people to play a specific content" and "rewards might be used to extend the longevity of the content, but should not be used in order to populate it in the first place" you disagree with?

I disagree with the second, but in the same way you disagree with it.I'm okay in the same way youre okay with GoB to help populate (as in get people to try out WvW) WvW.

But you thinking that id disagree with any of these is pretty tellling though, because i never made the claim that its "good" that people only play for rewards. 

Im just pointing out that you can not conclude from the fact that a player stops after getting a reward, that the only reason they played is because of the reward. This is an argument on how to analyze data, not a moral statement about what is good or not.

[Mik.3401]

I think a good endgame content is enjoyable and exciting in itself, rewards just contribute to it. At the present I am not sure what kind of content fits this category, maybe fractals until you get bored

[yann.1946]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No, but only because people on average don't pvp at all. The PvP-minded players however? Yes, on average they do pvp indefinitely.

Your next sentence contradicts your first.

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And if they drop out it's for other reasons than (lack of) rewards.

So people do drop out of pvp games eventually, thanks for acknowledging that.

 

Now the kicker, the argument i'm making works as long as rewards extend gametime on averagee. So if pvp minded players do not care at all about rewards, why do you think rewars are added to pvp games? 

[yann.1946]

13 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Not really as there are also different types of rewards: one that adds rather constant replay value to the content in question (e.g. gold)

 

 

13 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

and one where all added replay value is lost on the initial acquisition of the reward in question (e.g. skins).

Correct, and as i should have pointed out,  the second is the only one where we could detect a drop in players after acquisition because its more of a discrete seperation then gold where the amount what people want is way more fluid.

13 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Ideally the former kind should be roughly equal for every kind of content as it shouldn't be a factor when deciding what kind of content to play.

Sort of, their are some arguments against that but they are not really relevant for the topic of the tread.

13 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Then there is also the issue of what reasonably counts as "incentivising" for the content in question, e.g. putting an infusion behind a massive RNG wall with even the content related currency not offering an alternative way of acquisition does not incentivise me to play the related content. If anything it incentivises me to play whatever has the best time to gold rate at the moment in order to buy it from the TP which would generally be missing the point of having it there in the first place.

Well what incentivices people is extremely varied ofcourse. (which is why we have such diverse "reward" structures, where i use reward in an extremely broad sense) but we are not talking about singular experiences here.

This RnG wall does incentivize enough people (its the same reason lootboxes work) so the reason they add these big ticket items is to incentivize more engagement with the content.

 

Now i agree with most of what you said, but they dont really show why what you quoted was wrong. The fact that not all rewards incentivize everyone does not invalidate the fact that they are added to incentivize certain people.

[yann.1946]

15 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

I think a good endgame content is enjoyable and exciting in itself, rewards just contribute to it. At the present I am not sure what kind of content fits this category, maybe fractals until you get bored

i agree, 

my point is that in that content you will still see dips (of varying sizes) after the aqucition of the unique rewards. Because any content has an experition date for most people.

Edit: This enjoyable and exciting in itself, most content is that for the right people. And you cant really do it for everyone because people are so extremely different.

Edited September 28, 2021 by yann.1946

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, the point of this thread is that you want to change the way people argue, or just prove that they are wrong in their statements, and really has nothing to do with Guild Wars 2; it's just that it's happening on the Guild Wars 2 forums and using Guild Wars 2-related topics.

 

Gotcha.