Final Skinner Box 14

[Ventus]

All credit goes to Hulan on this:

Someone on the dev team really loves Skinner Boxes. That being said, my suspicion (and I'll admit, it's entirely a hunch and has no grounding in fact), is that they are doing everything they can to keep the 1.0 game going and populated with a skeleton crew while the rest of the team works on 2.0. Skinner Boxes are the fastest and easiest way to artificially keep someone playing a "game" for a long time, so it's no wonder they would be over-utilizing it to keep people around until 2.0.

If that is the case, hopefully we will see a substantial decrease in pRNG based content in the future (read as 2.0+).

And please don't say "all mmos are essentially built around skinner boxes/operant conditioning" because that would be setting the bar SO low....

MMOs can be better than this, and please for the love of god shy away from these blatant stalls for time SE. Players DESERVE rewards for working on content 50+ times.


inb4 "this thread again >.>"/"tldr"/"OP is a @#$@#$"

[Masamune1004]

this thread again >.>/tldr/OP is a @#$@#$

[Ventus]

this thread again >.>/tldr/OP is a @#$@#$

<3 ya!!!!!!!

[Ventus]

this thread again >.>/tldr/OP is a @#$@#$

"this thread again >.>"/"tldr"/"OP is a @#$@#$"

I suppose nobody is willing to actually discuss anything XD

[mysterytaru]

I suppose nobody is willing to actually discuss anything XD

Post something worth discussing that hasn't been beaten to death, maybe?

[Alderton]

Post something worth discussing that hasn't been beaten to death, maybe?

You meant, "Post something you didn't pull STRAIGHT FROM ANOTHER THREAD ALREADY DISCUSSING THIS TOPIC, maybe?"

[Chain]

I suppose nobody is willing to actually discuss anything XD

Do you expect anything better from them? Especially "TheVedis", a guy that literally spends 90% of his waking life inside this game.

[mysterytaru]

Do you expect anything better from them? Especially "TheVedis", a guy that literally spends 90% of his waking life inside this game.

It couldn't possibly be because he didn't post anything that hasn't been discussed to death in 342124542524 other threads. No, not at all. The Horse. Is. Dead.

[insaneshadow]

this thread again >.>/tldr/OP is a @#$@#$

He's at a pound with money? Did I get that right? No? Shut my mouth? Ok... ._.

[Urthdigger]

Ok, I don't see WHY you felt the need to make a separate thread. As I mentioned in the other thread, you're kinda using the wrong terminology here. You say that thinking all MMOs are skinner boxes would be setting the bar low, but really they are. A skinner box doesn't mean a place where you keep repeating an action, hoping for a reward, but not getting one. A skinner box is the place that TEACHES you to do that action in the first place.

It's fairer to say that the whole game is a skinner box. Existing in a vacuum, by itself, nobody would do content like Ifrit. The rewards are too little for the effort involved, and if that's all the game was most people would have long moved on. However, things like Ifrit do not exist in a vacuum, and in fact that's the beauty of the whole conversation. The Ifrit fight is not the skinner box. The Ifrit fight is what BENEFITS from the skinner box.

What's actually an example of operant conditioning in this game, is in fact all the content OUTSIDE what people are bitching about. Quests, levelling, Toto-Rak, Grand Companies... let me explain. In quests, you put in the effort to do the quest, and you get your reward in xp, gear, and plot. For levelling, you put in the effort and are rewarded with higher stats, and more abilities. This firmly sets into your mind that effort equates to reward. That if you keep working at something in this game, it will reward you. Then we have Toto-rak, a low level dungeon. However, it differs from the endgame dungeons in one important aspect: Every chest from the boss has a 50/50 chance for items of equal value. The chests scattered about have random rewards, but the big reward from the dungeons is 100%. You're gonna get something, it may not be the weapon for your job, but you're gonna get something. This teaches you that dungeons drop loot. Finally, Grand Companies are a method of earning endgame gear through pure effort. Just get the seals and buy your gear. All of this firmly conditions you to play the game and get better gear. THAT is the skinner box. THAT is the chamber performing operant conditioning on you so you'll repeat a conditioned response.

Now, this sort of behavioral psychology isn't a bad thing necessarily. It can be used for good things, and can greatly help you learn any task faster, from tutorials in games (Games with good learning curves make GREAT use of conditioning to teach you how to play effectively in early levels), to doing your job. The problem is just when it's used to teach you to perform a task that you really shouldn't be doing in the first place, like throwing yourself at a 1% drop rate for a tiny smidgen of an increase in power in an MMO.