Guild Wars 2

A bit of an unfair question, seeing as how GW2 is an MMO and all. But regardless, what in GW2 constitutes extrinsic gameplay? Can it be fixed somehow? What experiences are intrinsic?

Extrinsic Gameplay

• Any reward you get for doing something (Gold, Dungeon Tokens, Laurels ect)
• Levelling to access to newer content (Arah, CoF ect), rather than the process of levelling itself

I’d say for many, getting a Legendary weapon would be an example of Extrinsic gameplay; they don’t want to grind all that gold, but they will for the shiny sword.

Intrinsic Gameplay

• Exploring for the sake of exploring (I’m personally coming up to close 1GB worth of screenshots).
• Enjoying the process of getting to 80, as opposed to only wanting to get to 80 ASAP for reasons.

I’d personally say WvW is an example of Intrinsic Gameplay; people play it for the joy of playing it, since there aren’t any material rewards (outside of BoH).

All in all, both will depend on the person; I enjoy dungeons, and I do them just because. Bob over there might do them because they like the armour / best farming place ect, but they might not necessarily enjoy playing in the actual place.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Extrinsic Gameplay

• Any reward you get for doing something (Gold, Dungeon Tokens, Laurels ect)
• Levelling to access to newer content (Arah, CoF ect), rather than the process of levelling itself

I’d say for many, getting a Legendary weapon would be an example of Extrinsic gameplay; they don’t want to grind all that gold, but they will for the shiny sword.

Intrinsic Gameplay

• Exploring for the sake of exploring (I’m personally coming up to close 1GB worth of screenshots).
• Enjoying the process of getting to 80, as opposed to only wanting to get to 80 ASAP for reasons.

I’d personally say WvW is an example of Intrinsic Gameplay; people play it for the joy of playing it, since there aren’t any material rewards (outside of BoH).

All in all, both will depend on the person; I enjoy dungeons, and I do them just because. Bob over there might do them because they like the armour / best farming place ect, but they might not necessarily enjoy playing in the actual place.

I pretty much feel the same way about those things. Dungeons would be intrinsic for me, but I find their design to be incredibly un-fun. Don’t get me started on legendaries either.

Great video.. Thank you for sharing it. Yes, GW2 is highly extrinsic in nature. Slaying and killing, over and over, is not something I wish to do. I hold no malice toward most forest animals. Yet, I joylessly kill them in bulk for an extrinsic item. Right now, I’d like white dye for all my characters. Which is quite expensive…..

WvW is actually an extrinsic activity for a lot of people. It’s required for map completion, and the badge are required for legendary. And honestly, the way people can camp key resources gets pretty old.

Gilosean.3805:

WvW is actually an extrinsic activity for a lot of people. It’s required for map completion, and the badge are required for legendary. And honestly, the way people can camp key resources gets pretty old.

For those who only do WvW for the Legendary, it is.

The people who primarily play WvW though (and not simply for the Legendary), it is mostly an intrinsic activity.

I agree it depends hugely on the person.

I’ve heard some people talk about grinding map completion for a legendary, even calling it the biggest grind in the process. To them it would definitely be extrinsic gameplay.

Whereas for me map completion is not only one of the things I most enjoy doing but something I feel like I make a lot of process on without even trying. To me it’s not only intrinsic in the sense that it’s what I want to do, I’d also say it in the sense that I don’t know how you can play the game without doing it.

Personally, I see too much emphasis being put on extrinsic motivators in GW2. Things like dailies and the legendary grind are rewards to playing fairly static content; they can become extrinsic real quick, especially when you consider the most efficient methods of completing them. Even WvW can be extrinsic if all you’re doing is playing for the score system, without which there would be little purpose in many of its premises.

This game can be intrinsic, but there needs to be a balance I think of intrinsic and extrinsic reward.

I love to feel like the big man on campus in this game, and this game provides that feel sometimes. But also, the extrinsic rewards for some of these things are insulting.

Like, I decided to level a guardian recently. I was around level 24 ish, and I fought a Champion that was level 27 or 28 by myself. I know that by design, Champions are meant to be killed by groups, but also by design as per what the devs have said before, when the odds are stacked against you, the rewards are better.

It took me a good 30 minutes to kill this champion, I had some close calls during the fight but I felt invincible. I felt unstoppable! However, the reward a got from it, a blue, feels insulting. I just spent 30 minutes fighting something that required me to dodge, to pay attention, and to use my skills at opportune times.

I like feeling like a boss, but I really don’t enjoy how I’m rewarded for my effort. That really stings, I know I value my skill, but does ANet also value my skill? Because it doesn’t seem that way.

On one hand, I understand the best quality item I could have gotten was a masterwork item at level 24, but the experience rewarded for killing the champion was also weak, 124 experience. That’s also really insulting. I don’t understand that, sure it was fun but it also really pains me to be rewarded with so little for my efforts because it feels like my fun isn’t valued by the devs.

There’s other aspects of this game that do the same thing, and sometimes it’s inversely so such as CoF p1 Farm, people do it solely for extrinsic reward. You DPS everything, there’s no challenge of the mind, there’s only DPS and money to be had. I put in such a tiny amount of effort in CoF p1 and get nearly 1 gold every single run, and the run lasts for 5 minutes. I get massive reward for 5 minutes in CoF compared to 5 hours of anything else in the game. And for what, you ask? Pressing the number 2 when I have my greatsword out on my warrior.

That’s why I believe there should be a balance for an MMO. Intrinsic rewards during my challenges and proper extrinsic rewards for my efforts.

If I got proper extrinsic rewards for other intrinsic values in the game, then I would play so much more of the game. I honestly think that’s what is missing from GW2, I’m not crying for exotics and precursors, but for things like killing champions and other challenging avenues in the game I should be properly rewarded for my effort else I will feel like what I did has no value.

Great video, thank you for posting.

Guild Wars 2:
The base ideas all appear to be intrinsic.
The implementation is almost always extrinsic. Especially since around November.

Extrinsic gameplay is FAR easier to create. It consists of a string of carrots to entice us to keep playing. It requires the developer to design in a far different way than intrinsic gameplay. It makes the designer ask questions like: “How long can I make the player grind to get this reward before they question it or even quit?” and “How small of a reward can I provide to satisfy temporarily but make the player willing to grind for for another one?”

Intrinsic gameplay is hard to design, hard to implement, and hard to balance. It takes time and talent. It makes the designer ask questions like “Would the player enjoy this content even if no reward was given?” and “How much replayability does this content have via fun alone?”

GW2 has loads of ideas that were marketed to us (and/or perceived by a large chunk of the playerbase) as intrinsic. A hard gear gap that was easy to get to, a flat leveling curve, mini-games, eSport grade PvP, and large open field battles in WvW. Of these, WvW is the ONLY one that has stayed true and lived up (kind of) to the hype. The removal of culling is going to be a huge leap towards a very high dosage of intrinsic gameplay. But with the same patch, they are possibly going to run that into the ground too. They are implementing ‘progression’ into it. Which will be minor and passive effects at first, but will lead into active skills later. This is a dangerous line.

And two things that are universally extrinsic by their very nature are time-gating and RNG.

With time-gating you are physically forcing your player base to wait for water bottle drips of rewards. Like with laurels/ascended gear and guild missions. This is pseudo content. It’s made to seem like the content has more girth than it actually does by purposely shackling the player down. Only letting them get rewards when you want them too, punishing players for playing your game more than X amount of hours, and crippling players that take breaks for other aspects of their life. It’s the worst kind of game design possible for the players, but one of the best kind for business. It let’s the company push very little content over a very long period of time, saving a ton in resources. This is currently being done for what appears to be a way to put a large chunk of their work force on expansion content, which we will have to pay for.

RNG is gambling, which is also inherently extrinsic. The goal is not to pull the lever, but to get the prize. The easiest way to prevent players from obtaining a reward (as a whole, since statistically a few will get lucky) is to make something random with a low chance. This makes players have to keep gambling away their time and money for just a sliver of a chance of getting what they want. This is also wonderful for business. Instead of spending time creating content to play through (like a scavenger hunt) all that is needed is a randomly generated number. That’s it. That’s all the work done, just like that. For the player this is not only really un-fun, but it’s also very expensive (like buying gems with real money for chest keys) and underhanded (using natural human flaws like compulsion and addiction to profit from).

You make an imersive world that is interesting. As apposed to making a game to make money.

This game is just a platform to take your money, it’s not really here for your enjoyment… Unless you like what is considered here as extrinsic game play, or are too stupid to know what’s really going on.

I don’t think Anet could fix it. Their game doesn’t have the space for it, or a smart enough community left to suggest what they could do if they did feel inclined to make the game they talked about for 8 years. This is as good as they could do…

For me GW2 offers both, though most is intrinsic.
Most content I do is for fun/challenge, though I make sure there is also some reward for it.

Geikamir.6329:

Great video, thank you for posting.

Guild Wars 2:
The base ideas all appear to be intrinsic.
The implementation is almost always extrinsic. Especially since around November.

Extrinsic gameplay is FAR easier to create. It consists of a string of carrots to entice us to keep playing. It requires the developer to design in a far different way than intrinsic gameplay. It makes the designer ask questions like: “How long can I make the player grind to get this reward before they question it or even quit?” and “How small of a reward can I provide to satisfy temporarily but make the player willing to grind for for another one?”

Intrinsic gameplay is hard to design, hard to implement, and hard to balance. It takes time and talent. It makes the designer ask questions like “Would the player enjoy this content even if no reward was given?” and “How much replayability does this content have via fun alone?”

GW2 has loads of ideas that were marketed to us (and/or perceived by a large chunk of the playerbase) as intrinsic. A hard gear gap that was easy to get to, a flat leveling curve, mini-games, eSport grade PvP, and large open field battles in WvW. Of these, WvW is the ONLY one that has stayed true and lived up (kind of) to the hype. The removal of culling is going to be a huge leap towards a very high dosage of intrinsic gameplay. But with the same patch, they are possibly going to run that into the ground too. They are implementing ‘progression’ into it. Which will be minor and passive effects at first, but will lead into active skills later. This is a dangerous line.

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And two things that are universally extrinsic by their very nature are time-gating and RNG.

With time-gating you are physically forcing your player base to wait for water bottle drips of rewards. Like with laurels/ascended gear and guild missions. This is pseudo content. It’s made to seem like the content has more girth than it actually does by purposely shackling the player down. Only letting them get rewards when you want them too, punishing players for playing your game more than X amount of hours, and crippling players that take breaks for other aspects of their life. It’s the worst kind of game design possible for the players, but one of the best kind for business. It let’s the company push very little content over a very long period of time, saving a ton in resources. This is currently being done for what appears to be a way to put a large chunk of their work force on expansion content, which we will have to pay for.

RNG is gambling, which is also inherently extrinsic. The goal is not to pull the lever, but to get the prize. The easiest way to prevent players from obtaining a reward (as a whole, since statistically a few will get lucky) is to make something random with a low chance. This makes players have to keep gambling away their time and money for just a sliver of a chance of getting what they want. This is also wonderful for business. Instead of spending time creating content to play through (like a scavenger hunt) all that is needed is a randomly generated number. That’s it. That’s all the work done, just like that. For the player this is not only really un-fun, but it’s also very expensive (like buying gems with real money for chest keys) and underhanded (using natural human flaws like compulsion and addiction to profit from).

I agree with all of this post.

ANet’s marketing made this game out to be an intrinsically rewarding one but that’s definitely not what we have right now.

TwoBit.5903:

Personally, I see too much emphasis being put on extrinsic motivators in GW2. Things like dailies and the legendary grind are rewards to playing fairly static content; they can become extrinsic real quick, especially when you consider the most efficient methods of completing them. Even WvW can be extrinsic if all you’re doing is playing for the score system, without which there would be little purpose in many of its premises.

- Intrinsic is like child playing outside. He’s not told how he should play, he’s playing spontaneously because he finds it fun. So a good way to differentiate intrinsic and extrinsic content is to see how much you’re being asked to do it. By this definition daily achievements are extrinsic rewards. You’re literally told to go to some area and do certain activities there.

Most games are made to be intrinsically interesting. Think of chess for example. There’s nothing in rules that says you should capture pieces, or move pieces in order. The moves you play depend pretty much on your freedom of expression. Same thing goes for majority of sports that set a goal, but only a few rules how to achieve that goal.

I kill dragons because I want to kill dragons

I do dungeons because I like defeating the big bad

I do WvW because I like roaming on a battlefield

When I feel like it, I’ll ride a few event chains because that’s just fun

Jumping puzzles are awesome!

Eventually, all that leads to a legendary, but I won’t break any sweat over it.

This game is very much intrinsic fun, except in the case where people want a legendary yesterday. I understand those people don’t really like the game very much.

marnick.4305:

I kill dragons because I want to kill dragons

I do dungeons because I like defeating the big bad

I do WvW because I like roaming on a battlefield

When I feel like it, I’ll ride a few event chains because that’s just fun

Jumping puzzles are awesome!

Eventually, all that leads to a legendary, but I won’t break any sweat over it.

This game is very much intrinsic fun, except in the case where people want a legendary yesterday. I understand those people don’t really like the game very much.

Bob kills dragons for the guaranteed rares. He doesn’t like standing there pew-pewing, but he will for the loot. (Although, only doing dragons with around the minimum amount is so much fun!)

He also does dungeons for the loot. He doesn’t want to run that dungeon….yadda yadda, you get my drift.

What may be intrinsic for you may be extrinsic for Bob.

I’d say largely the problem is people have been conditioned that they should be rewarded with loot for their efforts, which leads to developers repeating this, as opposed to creating engaging content and mechanics. Another issue is humans are conditioned to take the path of least resistance. This is shown by Plinx chain, CoF1 ect, which yield more rewards than anything else.

For example, DE’s. Take away the rewards, and most of them people wouldn’t do, simply because they’re repetitive.

The baddies attack from this side, then that side, then this side, as opposed to the baddies are attacking from here AND from just outside our range AND from the hillside with siege weapons. In order to end the event you need to cut off the main support of the ones attacking the outpost, but there’s a time restraint, since their also setting stuff on fire ect, so you need to do it before the demolish the camp. You’ve even got people who are running away with supplies. The more that’s going on, the more engaging the content is. Extrinsic rewards just sweeten the experience.

Another video I feel that is related to this topic:

TheDaiBish.9735:

marnick.4305:

I kill dragons because I want to kill dragons

I do dungeons because I like defeating the big bad

I do WvW because I like roaming on a battlefield

When I feel like it, I’ll ride a few event chains because that’s just fun

Jumping puzzles are awesome!

Eventually, all that leads to a legendary, but I won’t break any sweat over it.

This game is very much intrinsic fun, except in the case where people want a legendary yesterday. I understand those people don’t really like the game very much.

Bob kills dragons for the guaranteed rares. He doesn’t like standing there pew-pewing, but he will for the loot. (Although, only doing dragons with around the minimum amount is so much fun!)

He also does dungeons for the loot. He doesn’t want to run that dungeon….yadda yadda, you get my drift.

What may be intrinsic for you may be extrinsic for Bob.

I’d say largely the problem is people have been conditioned that they should be rewarded with loot for their efforts, which leads to developers repeating this, as opposed to creating engaging content and mechanics. Another issue is humans are conditioned to take the path of least resistance. This is shown by Plinx chain, CoF1 ect, which yield more rewards than anything else.

I love and hate FotM at the same time. I love it because it is a cool dungeon with interesting mechanics. I hate it because I feel it is a necessary dungeon to get ascended equipment.

If all gear in FotM had exotic stats except for the infusion, I would be far more happy to run it over and over. As it stands, I don’t like it because of the rewards I’m implied to get there.

I’m the kind of guy who runs away from carrots on a stick. Fun should be worth something in its own right.

TheDaiBish.9735:

marnick.4305:

I kill dragons because I want to kill dragons

I do dungeons because I like defeating the big bad

I do WvW because I like roaming on a battlefield

When I feel like it, I’ll ride a few event chains because that’s just fun

Jumping puzzles are awesome!

Eventually, all that leads to a legendary, but I won’t break any sweat over it.

This game is very much intrinsic fun, except in the case where people want a legendary yesterday. I understand those people don’t really like the game very much.

Bob kills dragons for the guaranteed rares. He doesn’t like standing there pew-pewing, but he will for the loot. (Although, only doing dragons with around the minimum amount is so much fun!)

He also does dungeons for the loot. He doesn’t want to run that dungeon….yadda yadda, you get my drift.

What may be intrinsic for you may be extrinsic for Bob.

I’d say largely the problem is people have been conditioned that they should be rewarded with loot for their efforts, which leads to developers repeating this, as opposed to creating engaging content and mechanics. Another issue is humans are conditioned to take the path of least resistance. This is shown by Plinx chain, CoF1 ect, which yield more rewards than anything else.

For example, DE’s. Take away the rewards, and most of them people wouldn’t do, simply because they’re repetitive.

The baddies attack from this side, then that side, then this side, as opposed to the baddies are attacking from here AND from just outside our range AND from the hillside with siege weapons. In order to end the event you need to cut off the main support of the ones attacking the outpost, but there’s a time restraint, since their also setting stuff on fire ect, so you need to do it before the demolish the camp. You’ve even got people who are running away with supplies. The more that’s going on, the more engaging the content is. Extrinsic rewards just sweeten the experience.

---

Another video I feel that is related to this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

Now see that’s what I’m talking about. I posted earlier about there being a balance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. But, if they can make it intrinsic enough, then the reward doesn’t have to be massive however it still needs to be substantial. Having fun is one thing, but if there’s a huge meta event that is massive amounts of fun with little reward, it naturally discourages people to avoid it because the reward sucks. The extrinsic rewards should be substantial, it doesn’t have to be exotics and precursors but enough to reward me for my effort there.

But that’s also another thing, your event here sounds way fun and challenging even more so. That’s what we need, challenging content, that not only challenges your skills but also your mind. Right now in the game, some of the most challenging content can leave you with terrible extrinsic reward and the content that takes the least possible amount of effort(CoF P1 Farm) yields the best reward.

Eventually they should make CoF p1 harder but they need to actually add in content in the game that’s challenging on the mind. Agony is a great example of fake difficulty. Agony is merely a gear-check, few parts in fractals are genuinely challenging but I’d rather agony be replaced with actual hard mechanics for the bosses that make me put my thinking cap on.

That’s why I’m bored when I play most of the content, I get my fix in WvW but everything else is boring because it’s simply not engaging.

Geikamir.6329:

Great video, thank you for posting.

Guild Wars 2:
The base ideas all appear to be intrinsic.
The implementation is almost always extrinsic. Especially since around November.

Extrinsic gameplay is FAR easier to create. It consists of a string of carrots to entice us to keep playing. It requires the developer to design in a far different way than intrinsic gameplay. It makes the designer ask questions like: “How long can I make the player grind to get this reward before they question it or even quit?” and “How small of a reward can I provide to satisfy temporarily but make the player willing to grind for for another one?”

Intrinsic gameplay is hard to design, hard to implement, and hard to balance. It takes time and talent. It makes the designer ask questions like “Would the player enjoy this content even if no reward was given?” and “How much replayability does this content have via fun alone?”

GW2 has loads of ideas that were marketed to us (and/or perceived by a large chunk of the playerbase) as intrinsic. A hard gear gap that was easy to get to, a flat leveling curve, mini-games, eSport grade PvP, and large open field battles in WvW. Of these, WvW is the ONLY one that has stayed true and lived up (kind of) to the hype. The removal of culling is going to be a huge leap towards a very high dosage of intrinsic gameplay. But with the same patch, they are possibly going to run that into the ground too. They are implementing ‘progression’ into it. Which will be minor and passive effects at first, but will lead into active skills later. This is a dangerous line.

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<snipped second half, just for size purposes>

I find this interesting because I think we can illustrate your perspective and mine as two halves of the same coin. I find that the majority of time I spend in GW2 is intrinsically rewarding. I enjoy doing hearts for doing hearts. I enjoy doing map completion for doing map completion. I enjoy WvWvW for WvWvW. The list goes on. I’ve introduced a number of my friends to the game and they didn’t have the same reaction. Nothings wrong with either of us. It’s just how we’re wired. I used to play Lotro, a lot. It was intrinsically rewarding to do so. Now, due to various circumstances, not so much.

The cool thing about GW2, to me, is that while I’m doing all of these things that I find intriniscally rewarding, I’m able to also gain extrinsic rewards. Some of them take longer than others. It doesn’t worry me because for me, there is not a grind involved. The things I am doing in order to achieve those rewards are already intrinsically rewarding.

I think, in a nutshell, the manifesto advertised that I was going to get intrinsically rewarding play with no punishment for not doing things that I did not find intrinsically rewarding. I feel like I’ve gotten that.

However… I, and others like me, primarily find gameplay intrinsically rewarding. There are people, however who find acquisition and status intrinsically rewarding. The thing they are acquiring isn’t the reward (that’s still extrinsic), but the act of “accumulating higher value” (tough to put the concept into words) in some for is intrinsically rewarding. I’m not sure that I’d correctly understood this, until now. These aren’t brain-washed, shallow, or even necessarily culturally conditioned people. They are just wired slightly differently from how I am wired. I believe that those people for whom acquisition (or accumulation of status) is itself rewarding are currently significantly underserved by this game. And it seems that it is primarily those folks who seem “betrayed by grind” and “punished by dailies.”

marnick.4305:

I’m the kind of guy who runs away from carrots on a stick. Fun should be worth something in its own right.

I agree, and there are plenty parts of the game I enjoy. I enjoy dungeons, event chains, the big events that aren’t flooded with people, roaming in WvW. I don’t set out to do these because of some reward. I do them because these are what engages me.

But I also recognize that there are parts that are designed around keeping people playing based around rewards, and not engaging play.

Dailies and Monthlies, for example. While some might get the Daily and Monthly done without even looking at the requirements, thus, being more engaged by the content, rather than the reward, you also got the people who take the path of least resistance / complain that it doesn’t fit into their playstyle because they do x, y and z(not getting into the whole ’I’m a casual, it only suits hardcore players’ thing), thus only being motivated by the reward, and not the content.

McDili.1549:

Now see that’s what I’m talking about. I posted earlier about there being a balance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. But, if they can make it intrinsic enough, then the reward doesn’t have to be massive however it still needs to be substantial. Having fun is one thing, but if there’s a huge meta event that is massive amounts of fun with little reward, it naturally discourages people to avoid it because the reward sucks. The extrinsic rewards should be substantial, it doesn’t have to be exotics and precursors but enough to reward me for my effort there.

But if the content is engaging, people will do it, and thus developers don’t have to rely on extrinsic rewards so much. I’m not saying no rewards are needed. I’m saying they’ll be needed less as a motivator.

Say the dragons were some epic battle with engaging mechanics, requiring the utmost teamwork and best play, I doubt people would mind if rares and exotics were decided by RNG (not ridiculous RNG, btw. Say, a 1 in 4 chance); because they’ll do it for the battle.

Tetris is an example of such a game. People play it for the game, and while there is the score, the main motivator is to see how far you can get.

McDili.1549:

But that’s also another thing, your event here sounds way fun and challenging even more so. That’s what we need, challenging content, that not only challenges your skills but also your mind. Right now in the game, some of the most challenging content can leave you with terrible extrinsic reward and the content that takes the least possible amount of effort(CoF P1 Farm) yields the best reward.

Eventually they should make CoF p1 harder but they need to actually add in content in the game that’s challenging on the mind. Agony is a great example of fake difficulty. Agony is merely a gear-check, few parts in fractals are genuinely challenging but I’d rather agony be replaced with actual hard mechanics for the bosses that make me put my thinking cap on.

I have way too much time on my hands in work :P

The issue with my example though is development time. It’s quicker to produce the zerg rush mobs than my example. However, my example would prolly be more suited to meta events.

Look at the Shatterer, and where the event takes place as a whole.

You got two outposts nearby that do nothing. Factor them into the event. Have cannons firing from them. Maybe have grappling hooks that are required to bring the Shatterer to ground, otherwise he attacks from the air. Now have them outposts attacked by minions / siege from afar ect. If the cannon breaks, a mini event happens where you need to guard the engineer and go look for scrap to repair the cannon.

And then the Shatterer itself; make him immune to player damage, and have more mortars. You need to protect the mortars and players on the mortars. If a mortar breaks, you need to repair it. If all mortars break and outposts taken over, you fail the event. When people get trapped in crystal, reduce the time in which they shatter, but also make them give protection from his breath attack. And so on, so forth.

I’d argue Agony isn’t just a gear check. Sure, you’ll eventually need AR, but you can also push yourself to see how far you can get without AR. Granted, you’d need a bunch of like-minded individuals to do so.

McDili.1549:

That’s why I’m bored when I play most of the content, I get my fix in WvW but everything else is boring because it’s simply not engaging.

I’d say this is because WvW changes on a moment to moment basis.

In PvE, there’s only so fast that devs can put out content, so previous content is about to get tedious eventually, some parts faster than others.

What’s easier to make?

A game that is easy and takes long to finish or a game that is challenging? Challenging content is more difficult to make because you have to test it a lot. Easy content doesn’t require much testing. You just have to test that it works. Making easy content is less costly and less time consuming.

Someone at Arenanet slashed the development budget. Big time.

Calae.1738:

What’s easier to make?

A game that is easy and takes long to finish or a game that is challenging? Challenging content is more difficult to make because you have to test it a lot. Easy content doesn’t require much testing. You just have to test that it works. Making easy content is less costly and less time consuming.

Someone at Arenanet slashed the development budget. Big time.

Actually, using metrics, all you have to do is see if it works with any content.

If you see that only a small portion are able to complete it in relation to those who have tried it, you can then adjust the numbers to make it easier.

The only way challenging content takes more time to test and produce is if there are more components to it i.e. in an event, the event that only has mobs zerging is going to have less components than the event that requires you to escort someone, which has a) the escortee and b) the mobs that rush.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Another video I feel that is related to this topic:

- I think the authors misunderstand the idea of operant conditioning. It’s not some dubious mind trick that you build into your game to hook players. It’s a fundamental mechanism how animals including humans work. I press keys on my keyboard because I’ve been conditioned to see it produce letters on the screen. Should the monitor turn black all of sudden, my behavior of typing letters would change, because the “reward” is gone. Reward must be seen as functional term. It need not be some actual glittering prize.

Operant conditioning is a sound theory how tools are integrated into behavior, but it’s too general to explain alone why humans do the things they do.

Calae.1738:

What’s easier to make?

A game that is easy and takes long to finish or a game that is challenging? Challenging content is more difficult to make because you have to test it a lot. Easy content doesn’t require much testing. You just have to test that it works. Making easy content is less costly and less time consuming.

Someone at Arenanet slashed the development budget. Big time.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what it boils down to. They cut the live-team resources to pitiful levels.

Where a piece of content lies on the easy-to-challenging scale has zero impact on how much testing it needs.

Zenith.6403:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Another video I feel that is related to this topic:

- I think the authors misunderstand the idea of operant conditioning. It’s not some dubious mind trick that you build into your game to hook players. It’s a fundamental mechanism how animals including humans work. I press keys on my keyboard because I’ve been conditioned to see it produce letters on the screen. Should the monitor turn black all of sudden, my behavior of typing letters would change, because the “reward” is gone. Reward must be seen as functional term. It need not be some actual glittering prize.

Operant conditioning is a sound theory how tools are integrated into behavior, but it’s too general to explain alone why humans do the things they do.

I think their point was that it was being exploited, and that the emphasis of design was focused on it rather than the game’s quality. To quote “it’s a lazy and cheap” way of simulating engagement.