Please enable feats progression in Custom Survival mode!

[UpUpAway95]

52 minutes ago, LoneWolf5841 said:

There's definitely a variety of reasons why, one of my friend who plays this game unfortunately has to play custom he has a condition and can't react to wolves very well so he plays custom with passive wildlife but he doesn't want the game to be easy so he cranks up the weather and lowers the loot to making it as hard as possible without predators. He wants the feats but they are definitely a grind for him as he always died if attacked by a wolf and he doesn't enjoy the easy gameplay of pilgrim and voyager so even though wolf attacks are relatively rare on pilgrim and voyager he doesn't like how easy those modes are.

Agree.  I wanted to add - putting it another way... Custom IS a standard difficulty of this game.  What it offers is "flexibility" instead of offering only low resources or only bad weather or only hyper-aggressive wolves in large numbers.  It's time it got treated on par with the other standard difficulties offered by this game.

Edited December 24, 2020 by UpUpAway95

[ArcherAC3]

This post did drag on for a bit, eh? Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have been loud enough for it to get the attention of a Dev.

I've read through the thread again, glad to see more people feel the same way with this senseless limitation.

I still find the "argument" of feats only progressing in a standard playthrough because, supposedly, that's what the Devs want (aka: "because, yes"), extremely weak.

We aren't fundamentally altering the game by choosing to play in custom mode. Custom is not a game modification. The Devs allowed us to choose and change a set of predefined limited options, they didn't give us full control over every detail of gameplay. We can't fundamentally change the game simply by changing the available options custom allows for.

Besides. Interloper wasn't originally in the game, should feat progression be disabled there? I could use an equally shallow argument to justify it being disabled.

Hushed River wasn't originally in the game, should feat progression not be allowed to happen there? Why isn't the argument of "this region was not originally in the game, therefore feats progress shouldn't be allowed there" equally plausible?

Shouldn't achievements be also locked out from custom mode if that's not the experience Devs wanted us to have? The argument is just as strong / weak.

Perhaps too, feats already unlocked should not be allowed to be used in custom mode, for it is custom and not the way Devs intended us to play - therefore this limitation must be enforced, because yes...

 

 

 

 

[odizzido]

Custom mode is the most fun, feats are something you also enjoy. The devs were smart not to let you have too much fun because that's bad. Fun is the root of evil. They're on a quest to stomp out evil, they.....ah no I can't continue this is too silly.

Seriously though the devs know people are unhappy that feats are disabled. They worry people will make the game too easy on custom to grind feats out. To them, keeping people from unlocking feats too easily is worth making many people unhappy.

Amelbeabk, you can use feats in custom, but you cannot earn them......unless you that that thing that you can't mention on the forums because they will ban you. Then you can.

[starlin]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:54 AM, ArcherAC3 said:

This post did drag on for a bit, eh? Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have been loud enough for it to get the attention of a Dev.

I've read through the thread again, glad to see more people feel the same way with this senseless limitation.

I still find the "argument" of feats only progressing in a standard playthrough because, supposedly, that's what the Devs want (aka: "because, yes"), extremely weak.

We aren't fundamentally altering the game by choosing to play in custom mode. Custom is not a game modification. The Devs allowed us to choose and change a set of predefined limited options, they didn't give us full control over every detail of gameplay. We can't fundamentally change the game simply by changing the available options custom allows for.

Besides. Interloper wasn't originally in the game, should feat progression be disabled there? I could use an equally shallow argument to justify it being disabled.

Hushed River wasn't originally in the game, should feat progression not be allowed to happen there? Why isn't the argument of "this region was not originally in the game, therefore feats progress shouldn't be allowed there" equally plausible?

Shouldn't achievements be also locked out from custom mode if that's not the experience Devs wanted us to have? The argument is just as strong / weak.

Perhaps too, feats already unlocked should not be allowed to be used in custom mode, for it is custom and not the way Devs intended us to play - therefore this limitation must be enforced, because yes...

 

 

Theres huge blind spot I've noticed throughout the whole conversation......  Why do people even want the Feats in the first place?  This sits at the crux at all the other decisions that surround it.

 

Theres a pretty argument to be made that they exist more or less for the "progression" that wanna feel like things they HAVE contribute to their improvement.  But I've long been of the opposing position that Progression and Perks have effectively muddled the concept of Player skill, to the point that it completely dominates any related conversation about game design. 

And as a quick sidebar, there is clear evidence that the vast majority of players, across nearly all games, have this deeply rooted assumption that rewards should be meaningful and earned. But when put into practice, those players will optimize out the "earning" part of process, and maximize rewards.  Whats kind of mind blowing is that this reward could literally be anything, but its perceived value is derived not from any realistic advantage, but the player being convinced it does.  Which is why cosmetics drive this behavior so much more fervently, because theres little to no quantifiable objective advantage to ground it in the power scale.  I played a lot of Guildwars 2 (aka Fashion wars), and this phenomenon was absolutely fascinating to watch between the chat and forums.  The history of the gear tiers alone is a bountiful case study into the Achievement based mindset.

 

Which brings us back to Feats in LD.  Part of the problem is that they are straight up advantages designed to make aspects of the game easier.  Normally stuff like this in modern RPGs would come at a trade off of some kind, or paired with a flaws table to point balance it out.  This is known as difficulty shifting; and, with enough foresight, can collectively increase or decrease the overall difficulty on a playstyle level.  Thus players see it as vertical progression.  When I first started out, the feats looked very interesting..... but after spending time in the game, and specifically working toward some, I can already understand why players don't understand why its setup this way. 

The mere fact that its cumulative across all play throughs means its serving triple duty to be a thing for the Achievement people who more or less need constant direction for their activities.  Surviving the most optimal way lands up being very risk adverse.  And what the Feats are laying out is a mechanical incentive to take risks, and hopefully die in the process.  And the feats themselves applying specifically at Sandbox start up is how you convince the player that dying in the last playthrough wasn't a write off. 

 

See, the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize Feats actually hurt the game on a small, but fundamental level.  To some extent, the skill leveling does this as well, because of how seasoned players begin to cheese it in order to minimize the "hardship" phase, and get back into their previous survival groove.  If you pay close attention to how the difficulties are tuned, a lot of comes from the sheer performance gap between many skills below lvl 5.  Once level 5 is achieved, the survival as scavenger aspect is largely side lined, and much of that focus shifted to this game's version of industrialization.  Farming Food, Farming resources, Processing and Restoring tools, building infrastructure and optimizing movement around the map.  Once at that level, you're effectively riding on not making a stupid decision.  And Feats essentially get you there faster.  So people feel a compulsion to grind them out, as this has the same conceptual profile of what gamers are convinced "end game" looks like.  IE: Things being easier when they started out hard means "I'm getting stronger" (progression), and those obstacles were just a contrivance created to measure my strength. 

 

The ultimate irony that games get easier further up the progression line, despite being functionally impossible not long ago, is conflated as growth and improvement.  Where as if the game didn't have these artificial barriers, but had difficulty based entirely on player knowledge, mechanical understanding, and practice of execution.... that game is deemed "too easy" or "too hard" based almost entirely player's performance ceiling. THIS is why people talk about the Soul's series they way they do.  Because in those games, Player knowledge and control proficiency directly translates into performance. 

Instead HL went with the skill levels in order to make the game more accessible to more players.  But the down shot of that is it trivializes the purpose of the early game phase to Seasoned player, because each advantage gained as skill levels cross thresholds changes how they play.  Thus early game is considered something of an inconvenience to getting back to your previous state, as the static maps don't create a need to rethink how you go about playing.  And I understand pretty good how that division was supposed to switch the player between scavenger (early game) to hunter (late game).  Which is why I think interloper got added later, and is so drastically different from the other difficulties, because a bunch of players got way too efficient at the standard modes. 

[calranthe]

I have 5 hours in standard survival but 500+ in custom much harder versions and thus only one feat apart from the darkwalker.

No progress in feats is kind of lame.

[UpUpAway95]

17 hours ago, The Orange Birb said:

Although this is the "unpopular" opinion, I agree with why the devs made it where feat progression doesn't count in custom. And also at first I thought it was "dumb" they added that, but after thinking for a while, I see why.

And this is why I feel so: Let's say you really want the Blizzard Walker feat. If feat progression was allowed in custom, what you could do to easily grind it is change the following settings: Put blizzards to max, start in a blizzard, make temperature drop the lowest, start with max gear, set loot to very high/max, etc. This would not only make it where you can stay in blizzards for really long without any penalties but also guarantee that blizzards will occur almost all of time. After a certain amount of time, you could easily obtain the feat without much effort.

And that's the problem: "You could easily obtain the feat without much effort." This would remove all difficulty from obtaining feats, which would make obtaining feats not a challenge anymore. And that's the point of the feat: To be a challenge to obtain.

And I looked through what people were saying and some people were saying "But you can obtain feats in Pilgrim, therefore, it should be allowed in custom too!" However, you can easily alter custom to the right settings to get a feat in a quicker amount of time than Pilgrim (Like the example I included about the Blizzard Walker feat). Another example is if you were trying to get the Cold Fusion feat in custom (If this idea was added), you can set temperature drop to the lowest, fatigue to the lowest, overall temperature never gets colder, etc. The point is, if you were allowed to get feats in custom, it would be EVEN easier than Pilgrim and that's the problem. I can already see a lot of people exploiting that if it were to be added to the game right away.

The devs added that so then getting the feats are an actual challenge and not an easy and obtainable grind. And although Pilgrim is an easy difficulty (As wildlife does not attack you), there is still some sort of challenge while going for those feats in that difficulty. If this were to be added, all challenge/difficulty would be lost in getting these feats (As @ManicManiac and @peteloud previously mentioned a while back).

As mentioned in the beginning of my post, I know most people disagree with what I think. However, this is my opinion on the matter  

The sensibility of this argument falls apart BECAUSE they allow feat progression in Pilgrim mode, which is almost as easy as it gets in this game.  Feats are not difficult to obtain, just grindy (i.e. time consuming)... so why not allow people to grind for them in whatever mode they enjoy... including an infinite assortment of Custom modes... most of which are harder than Pilgrim mode.  It's just an arbitrary restriction that does not add challenge to gaining the feats.  If that was the devs intent on imposing it, it has failed at that objective and just succeeded in frustrating people and creating a source of division within the playerbase... making some players reluctant to utilize what is probably the BEST FEATURE the devs have added to this game... CUSTOM modes that adds infinite replayability because it enables the player to make almost an infinite number of very different, unique runs through the game.

Edited March 28, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[calranthe]

2 hours ago, starlin said:

 

Theres huge blind spot I've noticed throughout the whole conversation......  Why do people even want the Feats in the first place?  This sits at the crux at all the other decisions that surround it.

 

Theres a pretty argument to be made that they exist more or less for the "progression" that wanna feel like things they HAVE contribute to their improvement.  But I've long been of the opposing position that Progression and Perks have effectively muddled the concept of Player skill, to the point that it completely dominates any related conversation about game design. 

And as a quick sidebar, there is clear evidence that the vast majority of players, across nearly all games, have this deeply rooted assumption that rewards should be meaningful and earned. But when put into practice, those players will optimize out the "earning" part of process, and maximize rewards.  Whats kind of mind blowing is that this reward could literally be anything, but its perceived value is derived not from any realistic advantage, but the player being convinced it does.  Which is why cosmetics drive this behavior so much more fervently, because theres little to no quantifiable objective advantage to ground it in the power scale.  I played a lot of Guildwars 2 (aka Fashion wars), and this phenomenon was absolutely fascinating to watch between the chat and forums.  The history of the gear tiers alone is a bountiful case study into the Achievement based mindset.

 

Which brings us back to Feats in LD.  Part of the problem is that they are straight up advantages designed to make aspects of the game easier.  Normally stuff like this in modern RPGs would come at a trade off of some kind, or paired with a flaws table to point balance it out.  This is known as difficulty shifting; and, with enough foresight, can collectively increase or decrease the overall difficulty on a playstyle level.  Thus players see it as vertical progression.  When I first started out, the feats looked very interesting..... but after spending time in the game, and specifically working toward some, I can already understand why players don't understand why its setup this way. 

The mere fact that its cumulative across all play throughs means its serving triple duty to be a thing for the Achievement people who more or less need constant direction for their activities.  Surviving the most optimal way lands up being very risk adverse.  And what the Feats are laying out is a mechanical incentive to take risks, and hopefully die in the process.  And the feats themselves applying specifically at Sandbox start up is how you convince the player that dying in the last playthrough wasn't a write off. 

 

See, the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize Feats actually hurt the game on a small, but fundamental level.  To some extent, the skill leveling does this as well, because of how seasoned players begin to cheese it in order to minimize the "hardship" phase, and get back into their previous survival groove.  If you pay close attention to how the difficulties are tuned, a lot of comes from the sheer performance gap between many skills below lvl 5.  Once level 5 is achieved, the survival as scavenger aspect is largely side lined, and much of that focus shifted to this game's version of industrialization.  Farming Food, Farming resources, Processing and Restoring tools, building infrastructure and optimizing movement around the map.  Once at that level, you're effectively riding on not making a stupid decision.  And Feats essentially get you there faster.  So people feel a compulsion to grind them out, as this has the same conceptual profile of what gamers are convinced "end game" looks like.  IE: Things being easier when they started out hard means "I'm getting stronger" (progression), and those obstacles were just a contrivance created to measure my strength. 

 

The ultimate irony that games get easier further up the progression line, despite being functionally impossible not long ago, is conflated as growth and improvement.  Where as if the game didn't have these artificial barriers, but had difficulty based entirely on player knowledge, mechanical understanding, and practice of execution.... that game is deemed "too easy" or "too hard" based almost entirely player's performance ceiling. THIS is why people talk about the Soul's series they way they do.  Because in those games, Player knowledge and control proficiency directly translates into performance. 

Instead HL went with the skill levels in order to make the game more accessible to more players.  But the down shot of that is it trivializes the purpose of the early game phase to Seasoned player, because each advantage gained as skill levels cross thresholds changes how they play.  Thus early game is considered something of an inconvenience to getting back to your previous state, as the static maps don't create a need to rethink how you go about playing.  And I understand pretty good how that division was supposed to switch the player between scavenger (early game) to hunter (late game).  Which is why I think interloper got added later, and is so drastically different from the other difficulties, because a bunch of players got way too efficient at the standard modes. 

You judge everyone by the way you play, for 400 hours of my playthroughs I haven't touched any setting myself, my friend sets the settings, the challenges and then sends me a code, I never look to see what settings she chose I even avert my eyes when I press confirm so I can't know the top settings and that is how I love to play, is it really that wrong that I it is annoying that my achievements in game only show 2 feats ? when I have fought through challenges most haven't from midnight starts with blizzard and no equipment,  to endless dark all set by someone else so I only discovered what I was facing by playing for over 400 hours. Even though I would love to get the feats and see them as a badge of honor, I can't play the normal versions I find them way too predictable and easy.

[UpUpAway95]

2 hours ago, The Orange Birb said:

However, as mentioned in my post, you can easily alter the settings of custom to be way easier in obtaining the feat than Pilgrim difficulty. For example, in the Blizzard Walker feat example I included, it would make getting that feat very easily without much effort. The reason being is that blizzards would happen almost all of the time AND there are barely any consequences in being in them. In Pilgrim, blizzards rarely occur. However, maybe they can remove feat progression from Pilgrim, as I also agree that difficulty is relatively easy. However, as mentioned earlier, custom can be altered to be WAY easier than Pilgrim in achieving feats. And that would remove ALL difficulty in achieving feats, which is the point of feats: To be a challenge to obtain.

Well I would say that currently, feats are difficult to obtain. For example, for the Fire Master feat, you need to start 1000 fires. That's going to take A LOT of matches, sticks, firewood (Coal, cedar, fir, etc.), and lasting for a very long time (In keeping up your calories, condition, etc.). And that in itself is a challenge. Currently, I only have 40% progression in that feat, as I don't want to waste a bunch of matches/firewood. If I did so, that would make me be in a bad situation (As I would have no more firewood).

Because it would remove ALL difficulty in obtaining feats. And obtaining feats is supposed to have some sort of challenge to it. That's why the devs didn't include it into custom difficulty, as they knew if they included it into custom, there would be no more challenge in obtaining feats (As they know almost everyone would set it to the absolute lowest and it would be WAY easier in custom, like I mentioned with the Blizzard feat example).

And there's a bunch of settings that are EASIER than Pilgrim. You can add as many settings that are harder but if there are EASIER settings than Pilgrim, you can easily set it to those settings and make getting feats even easier than Pilgrim (Like mentioned before).

Well the objective was to make feats an actual challenge to obtain, which the devs succeeded by not including feat progression into custom. Although Pilgrim is an easy difficulty, there is still some sort of challenge in it. Once it is added to custom, all challenge is lost. And as mentioned earlier, maybe they can also remove feat progression from Pilgrim?

Well you can still have infinite replayability in the base difficulties. All the difficulty changes is, well, the difficulty. Each run is unique in itself, even if you play on Voyager multiple times. For example, in my case, I had a Voyager run that went for like 100 days a few years back, which then I decided to "start fresh" again in my current day ~410 Voyager run. And those two runs were nothing alike, although they were still on the same difficulty. Also, once I get to 500 days, I plan to play on Stalker difficulty next.

The point is, you can still have a lot of fun in the game, no matter the difficulty. And you can still have infinite replayability on the base difficulties. For example, I have roughly 450 hours in the game and I've only played on the base difficulties (I've also tried a custom run but realized it's very similar to the base difficulties). I also know people who have had even thousands of hours and only played on difficulties like Stalker/Interloper.

So no, my argument is not "senseless." You might not agree with me, but that's fine. I have my opinion, you have yours. The point is, just because you don't agree with me doesn't make my argument "senseless." I can also see why you would want feat progression in custom. I don't agree with it, but I'm not going to say that "there is no point of your argument or it is 'senseless' because I don't agree with it." That's my opinion on the matter and you have yours as well!  

1) Mathematically... There are more combinations of Custom settings that are harder than Pilgrim mode than there are combinations that are easier that Pilgrim.  So, from a factual point of view (i.e. not making any assumptions or judgements about the players who use Custom settings), I stand by my statements.  You're making the assumption that the majority of people will use them to make obtaining the achievements easier than they are on Pilgrim.  Therefore, your entire arguement fails, IMHO.

2) You can also set the Blizzard Frequency to None - which is an easier way to generally play the game, but makes the Blizzard Walker feat impossible to get (if Feats were enabled for Custom games).  Setting the Blizzard Frequency to High in an otherwise Pilgrim file, makes the feat quicker to achieve, but also makes the overall play of that file a little bit more difficult.  Setting the Bizzard Frequency to Low in an otherwise PIlgram game, means that acquiring the feat will take longer... so the player has to survive more days in the file to get it.  You see... it balances out for the most part anyways.

3) Currently, the best way to grind for the Blizzard Walker feat is to make multiple starts in Interloper mode, where there is a good chance of getting a blizzard right away.  You don't have to survive, really since you can often progress the feat as you bolt for your first shelter.  Since feat progression accumulates, you can die and just start another file.  Is it a greater challenge? No.  Does it enhance the playing of the game?  No.... but it is what some people do.  So, shouldn't we eliminate the advancement of the Blizzard Walker feat in anything but Voyageur mode... where the frequency of blizzards is lower and you will most likely have to survive longer than a day to encounter a blizzard in order to progress the feat?

4) You can grind for the firemaster feat with just one match.  You just have to stockpile enough wood and continuously pull torches from your previous fire to light the next.  You can even break down your ruined torches to reclaim sticks.  Easily done on any difficulty in the Ravine where there is ample wood, a good sheltered cave, and no risks from wildlife.

Edited March 28, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

5 minutes ago, The Orange Birb said:

Yes... That's what will happen if you present a very easy way to do something. Although you yourself might not do it, others will. For example, if there was a button that was added into the game that instantly unlocked all feats, people would use it. Although there might be some individuals who don't use it, other people would. 

And you just agreed that custom can be made easier than Pilgrim difficulty. And if people are given the choice or opportunity to get feat progress in custom and custom can be made easier than Pilgrim, people can easily exploit it.

Like I mentioned earlier:

 

That's your opinion, like you stated.

And so am I. If given the opportunity to do something easily, people will exploit it. This can be seen in other video games too, not just this one. For example, there was an exploit in TF2 (Team Fortress 2) which allowed one of the video game characters, the Heavy, to gain pretty much infinite health. Once people heard they could do that, they took the opportunity and exploited it. Although not every single person exploited that, the game was still ruined in that time period, as fighting/playing became unfair. Once the exploit was removed from the game, however, no one could exploit that anymore.

Although that is a different example from a different game, it can be connected to this as well. For example, under your way of thinking, shouldn't they have left the exploit in that game (TF2)? Not everyone would exploit it, therefore, "it is not a big issue."

And looking at the suggestion here, if it was added, it would present a very easy exploit to gain feats in a very small amount of time. How is that fair for those who gained feats from harder difficulties, even if you look at Pilgrim difficulty? Although Pilgrim is an easy difficulty, it is no where as easy in comparison to what you can make in the custom difficulty. Like I mentioned above:

So that's my opinion on the issue. I think adding feat progression to custom is a bad idea, as it would open a very easy exploit for players to gain feats in a way quicker amount of time. As mentioned above:

 

Again, using math... there are MORE that are more diffiicult than Pilgrim than there are that are easier.

[starlin]

10 hours ago, calranthe said:

You judge everyone by the way you play, for 400 hours of my playthroughs I haven't touched any setting myself, my friend sets the settings, the challenges and then sends me a code, I never look to see what settings she chose I even avert my eyes when I press confirm so I can't know the top settings and that is how I love to play, is it really that wrong that I it is annoying that my achievements in game only show 2 feats ? when I have fought through challenges most haven't from midnight starts with blizzard and no equipment,  to endless dark all set by someone else so I only discovered what I was facing by playing for over 400 hours. Even though I would love to get the feats and see them as a badge of honor, I can't play the normal versions I find them way too predictable and easy.

A. But you're imposing that rule set on yourself

B. Do you think the feats are important/critical to what you're doing? 

C. Regardless of B, you can still function without them

D. Your last line just reinforces why the Challenges and Achievements exist in the first place.

 

See, the thing that I'm complaining about is this inevitable circular argument about effort and rewards, and the sheer amount of external systems layered over the core game play, to feed this growing OCD for metrics and validation.  And much of it runs in parallel with the same traps social media uses to drive people to use it, because operates on similar principles. 

The circular argument happens because players expect "rewards" on top of "success" for their actions. Back in the old days, it used to be pretty unimportant things (like points and high scores) which acts as proof of your accomplishment, but doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way.  Come 2008ish, and we're knee deep in the RPG Lite era of games.... where everything has a leveling system for the sake of having a leveling system.  And tied to a lot of that is a power progression system of varying degrees; ranging from functional to borderline incompetent.

Fast forward a couple years, and you start to see the popularization of custom hard modes in a number of more fringe games.  Some, like Demon Souls, have that scaling baked into how the gear works.  Other games, like Bastion, managed it by selectively altering game rules.  Models like the one Bastion uses incentivizes the difficulty by multiplying parts of the reward system..... higher payouts, more exp, etc. 

Over the next decade we've seen a rapid shift from a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, to almost entirely extrinsic rewards at the core of almost every non-experimental game.  And this kind of wouldn't be too big of a problem..... if it wasn't for the fact that custom difficulty got super popular, but the acceptance of lesser rewards was not.  Even the collectathons started getting roped into this problem, because people now believe there should be some "meaningful" reward for having done it. And among the most egregious are the milestone rewards.... because designing stuff around them can snowball very quickly in either direction, based on a myriad of other design factors at any given time.

 

This isn't the only thing in play here though.  I keep mentioning metrics, because thats another part of the circle.  Humans tend to not like leaving things unfinished.  Which exactly the thing that a lot of Achievement tracking and notifications directly trigger.  On the more innocent side, its there to make the player aware these things exist, and can peruse them if they wish.  The more sinister side is that high frequency of notifications and milestones has a tendency to pull their attention in that direction.  A knock on effect of higher frequency is a keen awareness of the amount of unfinished stuff going on in parallel; and has been known to create anxiety because its too many things at the forefront at the same time.  Lower frequencies allow more passive accumulation outside of the player's awareness bubble, and the notification of a milestone comes as a nice surprise.  Unfortunately, on the flip side of that is active pursuit comes off as frustrating, because the player doesn't think fast enough progress is being made due to the time scales involved. 

 

The third part of this is the Meta game.  So you have a reward system that gives perks or power, which are then incorporated into BiS and Optimization strategies. But the progression system prevents you from having it at the onset; so a secondary meta grows with the goal of optimizing a path to obtaining those rewards. Thus the entire progression model, and the tracking system used to understand it, is considered an obstacle to optimal play.  

 

And its THIS is what makes the circle so damn infuriating when trying to design a game system.  If the effort cost is too low, players think its too easy, and the rewards are devalued on either a psychological or economic level (depending on what kind of game you have).  Make it too hard, and the player thinks the Devs are being cruel for the sake their twisted sadistic personalities (which is only true in like maybe 10% of them).  Thread the needle correctly, and then players will complain about how theres not enough of whatever to keep them motivated.  Put too much stuff in, and then players feel like theres not enough time in the world, and this is just grind to pad the game out.  Actually do pad the game out, and the players think the rewards aren't meaningful.  Tighten that down to fewer, but higher impact things that are harder to obtain, and you run into a problem of the player having the assumption of "attainability" (the list is small after all).  Which then loops back around to "game being too difficult", uses the left lane to pass "grinding", and has a head on collision with a truck marked "unfinished achievement", and was all kicked off because "Meta Game" called you a Chicken for following the speed limit.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by starlin