Step 1: Operant conditioning (with emphasis on successive-approximation positive reinforcement):
-Play a lot. Get achievements toward a new toy. Associate gameplay with new toy at set "achievement intervals" (press the bar 10 times, get better and better rewards leading to a Blutsauger). This is what we USED to have.
This sort of learning has been found to extinguish itself once the reward (achievements, new toy) is taken away... UNLESS it is followed by:
Step 2: Intermittent reinforcement
-After operant conditioning is done, only give reward SOMETIMES after long gameplay (Press the bar 4 to 400 times, get a Blutsauger). This is what we have now.
The combination of regular reinforcement followed by intermittent reinforcement is EXTREMELY potent in learning. Although this is in NO WAY what Valve had in mind, I think this mechanism might be to blame for why even the people who are vocal about the new changes play more than they did before.
(Really interesting background from Skinner, 1953:
-Pigeons peck a key, get food. They are conditioned this way for a while. Then, food supply is shut off. Very, very soon, pigeons stop pecking key.
-New pigeons peck a key, get food. Conditioned this way for a while. Then, food only comes every now and then with the pecked key. Pigeons will peck as much as (maybe more) ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND TIMES to get ONE piece of food).
Played for 3 hours today. It truly is the worst ever. I only got a pair of KGBs the entire time. And I got like 15 spy achievements and still no weapons. Lame.
Played for 3 hours today. It truly is the worst ever. I only got a pair of KGBs the entire time. And I got like 15 spy achievements and still no weapons. Lame.
If I read the blog right, they are working on making a change to allow players to influence which updates/weapons they get.
Weezer, I failed to get any sniper unlocks after ~20 achievements (including 1k kills). Not until I camped an idle server all day today have I unlocked 1 item for the sniper. It's lame for now, Valve needs to get on patching this system to something better.
Fortunately I have everything but the dead ringer at this point but my briefcase is almost full. I plan on deleting some things like maybe 2 of my 6 razorbacks??? Regardless, I now have 29 sniper and 29 spy achievements. The spy I can't finish til I get dead ringer and sapping 1000 buildings is a LOT! It's still upsetting that some other people who never play spy have had the dead ringer for awhile. Just doesn't make sense to me.
Camped an idle server and played some for a total of about 8 hours... the only thing I got was the Dead Ringer. It's a cool toy but for as long as I played, I shouldv'e gotten way more.
HAHA, I love that Valve seemingly made it this way to make achievement servers irrelevant, but in the process gave birth to another sick beast... the idle server.
I have received a total of 1 unlockable post update by playing 3.7 hrs in the last 2 weeks. It was the ubersaw, the only one that I didn't have that I wanted. Why do you guys hate this system so much? It gave me exactly what I wanted with minimal play time and no camping idle so it must be working perfectly [/sarcasm]
You still also get random ones, but achievements will also give you weapons.
I am still missing the Dead Ringer, which is apparently nerfed to hell now anyways, but yea. I have 30 spy and 30 sniper achievements. So if they "added" the old milestone system in a weird way, it still ain't working. I can only get 3 of the 4 ach left. Apparently inside those they have the milestones so maybe I just need to try it now. Earlier the update wasn't live...maybe I will log in with my new dead ringer conisdering you only need 17 ach for milestone 3....will update in a min.
Edit: Ok, I got one kill the it spammed all over the place saying I got this and that and this and I got like 6 or 7 things at once cause I also found jarate again lol. My briefcase has 3 spots left..eek.
Comments
Step 1: Operant conditioning (with emphasis on successive-approximation positive reinforcement):
-Play a lot. Get achievements toward a new toy. Associate gameplay with new toy at set "achievement intervals" (press the bar 10 times, get better and better rewards leading to a Blutsauger). This is what we USED to have.
This sort of learning has been found to extinguish itself once the reward (achievements, new toy) is taken away... UNLESS it is followed by:
Step 2: Intermittent reinforcement
-After operant conditioning is done, only give reward SOMETIMES after long gameplay (Press the bar 4 to 400 times, get a Blutsauger). This is what we have now.
The combination of regular reinforcement followed by intermittent reinforcement is EXTREMELY potent in learning. Although this is in NO WAY what Valve had in mind, I think this mechanism might be to blame for why even the people who are vocal about the new changes play more than they did before.
(Really interesting background from Skinner, 1953:
-Pigeons peck a key, get food. They are conditioned this way for a while. Then, food supply is shut off. Very, very soon, pigeons stop pecking key.
-New pigeons peck a key, get food. Conditioned this way for a while. Then, food only comes every now and then with the pecked key. Pigeons will peck as much as (maybe more) ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND TIMES to get ONE piece of food).
tl;dr: SCIENCE!
I have now unlocks the stupid useless boxing gloves twice now. wtf?!!
If I read the blog right, they are working on making a change to allow players to influence which updates/weapons they get.
I have received a total of 1 unlockable post update by playing 3.7 hrs in the last 2 weeks. It was the ubersaw, the only one that I didn't have that I wanted. Why do you guys hate this system so much? It gave me exactly what I wanted with minimal play time and no camping idle so it must be working perfectly [/sarcasm]
-Bobby
You still also get random ones, but achievements will also give you weapons.
I am still missing the Dead Ringer, which is apparently nerfed to hell now anyways, but yea. I have 30 spy and 30 sniper achievements. So if they "added" the old milestone system in a weird way, it still ain't working. I can only get 3 of the 4 ach left. Apparently inside those they have the milestones so maybe I just need to try it now. Earlier the update wasn't live...maybe I will log in with my new dead ringer conisdering you only need 17 ach for milestone 3....will update in a min.
Edit: Ok, I got one kill the it spammed all over the place saying I got this and that and this and I got like 6 or 7 things at once cause I also found jarate again lol. My briefcase has 3 spots left..eek.
I feel like I was the only person who read the blog post that said this was coming.
It was like Armageddon for some people despite what the TF2 team mentioned about the system.
worth it.