GRINDING

Is there a scientific explanation of why grinding is even a thing in video games? Why and how a lot of people willing repeat the same shit over and over again just to keep repeating it with slightly better results?
I mean I'm guilty of this shit as well, there are few online grinders I'm addicted to, that I return to waste my time away once in a while to.
But why? Why am I willing to do this shit?
Is there some psychology behind it?

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Post your favorite scientist
I like Halley

user you just described every form of training.

Where you at, Teslafags?

Yes, it's called Skinner Box.

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So video games are like lifting but fun?

Tesla is the greatest man of the modern world. Imagine, instead of electricity we'd be running out games on coal.

Sounds comfy for the winter.

Sounds like perfect feminist world.

It's set up so that at any point the new increased amount of time it takes to do something feels reasonable because of the amount of time already invested.
I saw a documentary about Runescape a while back. The guy who designed the initial xp curve said he put in 99 as an arbitrary limit, and didn't anticipate people going beyond 40 or 50 or so.

I came here to post this.

Drop rates and gambling.

you mean like multiplayer games in general :^)

At least when training you learn a skill and when exercising you improve your physical shape. When grinding in a video game all you get is being able to say how you beat the game.

TIME FOR STATISTICS

See OP, in ye old times, one popular trick in the gamedev school was this:
So a popular thing to do was to stack obstacles like this, especially when the player hada say in the chance to overcome it: if you're skilled, the chance goes up. So if you pass and obstacle 90% of the time, the dev could slap two and you'd pass 81% of the time.

This ties in with checkpoints. In fact this train of thought propped up at the same time checkpoints were a thing (think about the original crash bandicoot).
You can easily tweak a level to be more or less hard by putting more shit between each obstacle.

Now enter the JRPGS. No really, they started this shit.
Imagine you make a game so fucking casual, every obstacle has a 100% chance of sucess for anyone not retarded.
The game becomes a walk in the park for every player. Everything you do loses meaning: nothing is an obstacle anymore.

There's two ways to fix this. Darksouls and similar games went back to basics: there's not a whole lot of shit between checkpoints, but they're pretty hard. And by hard I mean: hard if you're not skilled.
You can effectively learn to play and circunvent obstacles with ease.
THIS IS SATISFYING.

Other JRPGS focused on story, on characters. They had a plot to tell you. They didn't care about pety "level design".
So the only to make something extremely easy have meaning again? Make it repetitive. Make it a time sink. The moretime you sink, the more it's worth.

Pop in any MMO forum. Every single one has at least one thread about somedumb motherfucker bragging about spending 300 hours grinding for an UBER SUPAH ELITE ITEM and about 20 dumb faggots praising him.
Why is the UBER SPUAH ELITE ITEM worth a lot? Is it because it's really fucking good in game? Hard to get?
Nah, it's because only one faggot had the willpower and patience to grind for it.
The moment someone finds some cheesee to get it in a tenth of the time, either the dev patches the cheese out (to prevent loss of value) or releases some NEW IMPROVED EXTRA UBER SPUAH ELITE item.

tl,dr: grinding is a fake sense of accomplishment. If it's a side thing you do while doing other shit, it's fine. If it's the only reason you play, it's a blight and requires you to sacrifice half your brain.

I think it's a little bit more complicated than simply a Skinner box. The brain's dopamine system rewards you when you make progress towards an identified goal. Grinding games give you that goal, as well as clear markers as to your progress towards it. Every time you collect 1 out of the 20 bear asses you need you get a little squirt of dopamine for rewarding you on your progress towards that goal. Interestingly, it isn't the achieving the goal that really provides a lot of positive emotion, as once you've achieved a goal you have a problem: What's the next goal? The answer of a grinding game is to always give you something a little better to work towards, providing that constant moving goal for you to work towards.

Lots of people's games do run on coal you moron.

Where do you think electricity comes from?

To artificially make the game longer by forcing you to do the same thing over and over, and because it rewards you a little but not too much, also because the game has enemies or places that act like roadblocks unless you cheat or find an exploit. It's just not fun sometimes to very slowly chip away at boss' health away, or to constantly use items if the enemy mobs are hard for your level.

You mean like fake fun?

How can fun be real if you are not real?

Literally this. There's no real distinction between grinding levels in an RPG, lifting, and practicing a musical instrument. Some have more inherent practical value than others, but all elicit the same psychological response.

NPPs

grinding is a way to lower the difficulty without actually having to make a hard mode
if you're get to git gud enough to beat that boss the way you already are, you go grind then try again

if you're yet to*

Repetitive actions are soothing for people with autism

pavlov's ideas about conditioning are a little simple to apply to human beings, but accurately describe the learned behavior of dogs and MMO players. (although that's a little harsh on dogs, unlike MMO players, dogs have a purpose.)

It's fun.

Because it's fun.

but i hardly know her

They're like achievements/trophies. They mean nothing but they give you a sense of purpose. But instead of an trophy, you get a shiny new cosmetic. It's like life but I actually feel accomplished when I reach my goal at the time.

People want to play games with low skill ceilings, but they want to feel that they've gained something after an hour of sitting in front of a monitor.

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Came here to post this. You're essentially fooling your dopamine system for a short term hit when it's meant to reinforce positive behavior. It's pretty much like junk food and porn.

Reminder to stop jacking off.

If dopamine is meant to reinforce positive behavoir, fucking dudes must be rally positive behavoir

Welcome to wage slavery, dipshit. Gas the fucking kikes to save humanity. It's not a meme and never has been.

It will also reinforce negative behavior if you let yourself fooled into it. That's why I said stop jacking off.

/thread

Why do you post on imagesboards over and over again, only to see slightly different responses?

Ever notice that people who often criticize grinding go on to play whatever game they like over and over multiple times? That sounds far more boring.

But if I don't I start wanting to fuck whores.

Why do you?

I seriously think that grinding so much in videogames has take any kind of will to improve in any other field.

I got bored after grinding in so many fucking videogames so now I don't have any patience to learn how to play an instrument, go to the gym or anything in general.

Kids should use that capacity to grind to learn some shit when they still can, after some years it burns out and you get nothing but a bunch of save game data that are nothing special because there's always a million more autists out there with better accomplishements.

Explanation A) people with high functioning autism enjoy repetitive tasks
Explanation B) the games that get away with having grinding have a underlying combat system that is enjoyable to its players and just enough variation from combat to combat that it delays the brain's realization that it is repetitive.

As with most things, both of these are probably partially true.