Gironika
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Dragon Range
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 Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 10:43 pm Post subject: [SQEX-W5] The Paradox of Choice: Why more is less feat. Barr |
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et Wallace y Schwartz. As mentioned (actually not, but who cares) here , I'm currently reading this book from Mr. Schwartz.
It's a nice read, check it out if you into psychology-related stuff.
I want to focus on one of his psychological models, quoted here for convenience:
| Quote: |
| Missed Opportunities. Schwartz finds that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity's potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision. While psychologists have known for years about the harmful effects of negative emotion on decision making, Schwartz points to recent evidence showing how positive emotion has the opposite effect: in general, subjects are inclined to consider more possibilities when they are feeling happy. |
A textbox in Chrono Cross basically sums up this model/a huge part of the book, see for yourself:
 .
Now, this has been a thing that applied for me when playing JRPGs in the past:
I disliked having to chose a path in games where you didn't already have a map of the vicinity beforehand, since I feared that I might end up "missing something", be it treasure-chests/savepoints/whatever. So, decided to enter a room, got a glimpse of what lies ahead, went back into the room I came from, entered the next room, had a glimpse, went back again etc. - until I had an idea of what lies ahead. And then I had the problem to decide (again) which of the paths I had seen now is "the right one" to follow, since I didn't want to/often couldn't backtrack two+ rooms for each path that was offered.
This would leave me pondering options for a couple of minutes, halting my progress in the game for a short while (still, this was valuable time wasted for nothing), or even worse, if the game forced me to take one path for good, I'd feel that I might have missed out on something, exactly the pitfall that Schwartz outlines in his book.
And needless to say, I never finished any of the SaGa SNES++ era games due to that.
Being thrown in a game without any clue where to go, what to do, inevitably ending up running into enemies 20+ levels stronger than the best character in your party - this has to be the worst kind of game for someone who can't even continue four rooms onwards.
| Quote: |
| I might have missed something behind that second door. I could already have that chain mail I couldn't afford to buy in the last town. Maybe there's already the next boss behind that door! I'd have to heal my party, but that'd also mean wasting precious healing items, since I could sleep and replenish HP/MP if I reach the camp. But if I have to fight the boss monster now, I'd be gone in the first round, never being able to recover again … and I haven't saved since … what, already one and a half hour? F* that, I'll check out that left door I've seen earlier on |
Obviously, that poor soul turns around one room shy of the room that'd given him a chance to save, he runs into a batch of dwarfs that kills his party by casting a nasty spell and finishing up the lot by petrifying the sole character able to heal the other ones.
~GAMEOVER~
It took me a while to get rid of that behaviour and just decide to take a path and stick with it. This also might have something to do with VP, which made me realise (re: that infamous B-ending) that the core gameplay-mechanic of the game is worth being explored and more fun can be had than chasing after all the items you can/might get (if you decide to go left <and> right in that room offering you two doors).
I also tend to fuck up relationships with characters, if the game gives you the option of doing so. I am no tsun-tsun NPC-fan, neither do I like these
| Quote: |
"It's not like I have any chance, I have to come along or else you will be killed!"
-X joined your party- |
scenes in games. If I dislike a character in a game and can prevent him/her/it joining my party, I'll opt for that.
Yes, I ended up
- being unable to max some arcanas in Persona games,
- had hellish problems finishing some bosses since [sidekick character X has special weapon that can deal -30.000HP damage in one blow],
- missed out on optional epic storyline CGs
- etc. etc.
but I did never regret these decisions. I actually felt better, could live with the consequences (and Persona feels sometimes pretty adamant about teaching you that you'd better maxed those arcanas when you had the chance).
And, finally and tl;dr:
This brings me back to CC again, since you are given the choice to tell Kid (Susi in my playthrough, albeit hero-boy not named Calvin) to gtfo and bother someone else - something I obviously did.
Partly because I just can't stand the faux pirate-talk
| Quote: |
| Oi! gibberish em rou' ya?! |
and partly because I want to see how the game forces me to tag along anyway. But still, I was surprised that the game lets you do so twice in the first few hours, let's see how long it can keep this up.
So …… I guess that you can share your ocd-ish behaviours that are limited to games, but do not apply in real life (for reasons I can't figure out either. Maybe because I do not have that much choices?).
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