Final Skinner Box 14

[Ventus]

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.

Yes I believe you posted the exact same thing in the other thread similar to this, but the point of this thread is not to shed light on what skinner boxes can do FOR MMOs, it's about how this game in specific is exploiting them to derail the game from having content with any valid depth and reward system.

Skinner boxes aren't vital to teaching a player on how to play a game and that is a mistaken notion. If you watched the video that hulan posted it's intrinsic in a skinner box that it baits you into repeating an action not because it benefits YOU the person but usually the maker or developer in this case.

Learning how to surpass content does not go hand in hand with me killing ifrit 70+ times and getting nothing.

This thread is meant to focus on what is bad about skinner boxes in this game and how they are hurting it. Rather than discuss that it feels as if you deride them then lift them up just to spite the nature of this thread. Very odd.

[Urthdigger]

Yes I believe you posted the exact same thing in the other thread similar to this, but the point of this thread is not to shed light on what skinner boxes can do FOR MMOs, it's about how this game in specific is exploiting them to derail the game from having content with any valid depth and reward system.

Skinner boxes aren't vital to teaching a player on how to play a game and that is a mistaken notion. If you watched the video that hulan posted it's intrinsic in a skinner box that it baits you into repeating an action not because it benefits YOU the person but usually the maker or developer in this case.

Learning how to surpass content does not go hand in hand with me killing ifrit 70+ times and getting nothing.

This thread is meant to focus on what is bad about skinner boxes in this game and how they are hurting it. Rather than discuss that it feels as if you deride them then lift them up just to spite the nature of this thread. Very odd.

I have seen that video before. I've also taken psychology classes. My point is that you're using the term wrong. Killing Ifrit 70+ times and getting nothing is NOT an example of a skinner box. It's an example of something that BENEFITS from prior conditioning.

If the game was nothing but Ifrit, would you feel the need to keep repeating it for gear? Because of the drastically low rate of rewards, events like Ifrit actually do a very poor job of reinforcing behavior... if they even reinforce it at all.

I am not trying to say that events like Ifrit are good. I agree that things like Ifrit should be changed. I'm objecting to the term you are using.

[Ventus]

I have seen that video before. I've also taken psychology classes. My point is that you're using the term wrong. Killing Ifrit 70+ times and getting nothing is NOT an example of a skinner box. It's an example of something that BENEFITS from prior conditioning.

If the game was nothing but Ifrit, would you feel the need to keep repeating it for gear? Because of the drastically low rate of rewards, events like Ifrit actually do a very poor job of reinforcing behavior... if they even reinforce it at all.

I am not trying to say that events like Ifrit are good. I agree that things like Ifrit should be changed. I'm objecting to the term you are using.

I've taken many psychology classes as well but I don't believe that is a precursor for mastering the knowledge around the skinner box because the term seems to be bended so frequently to whomever sees it fit. Besides tossing "Qualifications" in front of someone as an excuse for being right is a bit cheap.

I believe one of the main analogies used in the video was to that of a casino slot machine. We understand the odds are direly against us yet we continue to press on hoping for a reward since the odds are essentially random.

The reason doing ifrit 70+ times IS an example of a skinner box is because although most all players are aware the content rewards players very little and they may have exhausted all the fun and mastery they can out of it, they STILL attempt ifrit because they hope for that random chance to get a weapon. I'm not sure how we don't see eye to eye on this, but nonetheless it doesn't even seem to be what I'd mainly like to talk about anyways. We are just arguing definition and semantics.