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What is your "Sweet Spot" of Success? (poll)
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8768635" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>60% to 65%.</p><p></p><p>Humans are weird. Our intuitive (and more importantly <em>emotive</em>) perception of probability and events is <em>not</em> particularly accurate. You see this problem, for example, in films that actually feature an equal number of male and female characters. Historically, female characters have been less common, and <em>much</em> less central, than male characters, which sets an expectation. As a result, when people* see a film that consciously works to ensure an equal balance of male and female characters, both in terms of quantity and of narrative importance, most audience members, <em>even women</em>, will often perceive an overabundance or preponderance of women even though there isn't one.</p><p></p><p>When it comes to bad events vs good events, <em>truly fair and equal</em> probability does not <em>feel</em> fair and equal. It almost always <em>feels</em> incredibly biased toward failure! In order to prevent players from feeling like they fail all the time, you need to have success rates around 65%, maybe a bit lower. And yes, that means people <em>feel</em> like they fail more often than not unless they succeed about twice as often as they fail! This is not a rational part of human psychology, but it's mostly pointless to try to fight against it.</p><p></p><p>*I'm fairly sure this comes from studying Western cultures specifically, so it might be different for non-Western cultures.</p><p></p><p></p><p>See, I find the latter half of this statement nonsensical. The <em>chance</em> of failure is completely different from the <em>pain</em> of failure or <em>rewards</em> of success. You can have a 5% chance to do something completely pointless, like tossing exactly four heads in a row (p=0.0625), and a 95% chance to do something that will get you your heart's desire, or something that if you fail you'll curse that day for the rest of your life. An outcome being unlikely does not, and <em>cannot</em>, make the outcome more <em>rewarding</em> or the lack of that outcome more <em>painful</em>. It may, sometimes, make the uncertainty more (or less) dramatic, but it can't change whether one <em>cares</em> about the result or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8768635, member: 6790260"] 60% to 65%. Humans are weird. Our intuitive (and more importantly [I]emotive[/I]) perception of probability and events is [I]not[/I] particularly accurate. You see this problem, for example, in films that actually feature an equal number of male and female characters. Historically, female characters have been less common, and [I]much[/I] less central, than male characters, which sets an expectation. As a result, when people* see a film that consciously works to ensure an equal balance of male and female characters, both in terms of quantity and of narrative importance, most audience members, [I]even women[/I], will often perceive an overabundance or preponderance of women even though there isn't one. When it comes to bad events vs good events, [I]truly fair and equal[/I] probability does not [I]feel[/I] fair and equal. It almost always [I]feels[/I] incredibly biased toward failure! In order to prevent players from feeling like they fail all the time, you need to have success rates around 65%, maybe a bit lower. And yes, that means people [I]feel[/I] like they fail more often than not unless they succeed about twice as often as they fail! This is not a rational part of human psychology, but it's mostly pointless to try to fight against it. *I'm fairly sure this comes from studying Western cultures specifically, so it might be different for non-Western cultures. See, I find the latter half of this statement nonsensical. The [I]chance[/I] of failure is completely different from the [I]pain[/I] of failure or [I]rewards[/I] of success. You can have a 5% chance to do something completely pointless, like tossing exactly four heads in a row (p=0.0625), and a 95% chance to do something that will get you your heart's desire, or something that if you fail you'll curse that day for the rest of your life. An outcome being unlikely does not, and [I]cannot[/I], make the outcome more [I]rewarding[/I] or the lack of that outcome more [I]painful[/I]. It may, sometimes, make the uncertainty more (or less) dramatic, but it can't change whether one [I]cares[/I] about the result or not. [/QUOTE]
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