The neurological basis of why Civ V is boring (and Civ IV was not)

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Probably because all the hyperbole and sensationalism gets old. Why are you so defensive?
 
well actually you've got it backwards.

its intermittent rewards that really draw people in, not constant rewards - people will play things for a longer time if they are not sure of the reward they'll receive (or if they'll receive a reward at all). this is the basis for gambling: do you think people would play slots if they knew that the 500th time they hit the lever they'd win 490 dollars (or whatever the probability is) or that they'd win 90 cents for every dollar they put in? or is it that they're hoping the first time they hit that lever, they'll win 490 dollars (ignoring the fact that they'll lose the next 499 times they put in a dollar with a nice fat long term loss)? its that excitement and chance, perhaps, that really keeps people coming back for more (and is the basis for addiction).


so when you say civ4's rewards are constant and predictable, that doesn't speak to its durability - it has to be something else (on that note, i miss the random events of civ4 and the little quests). pop psychology has its appeal but its not really applicable in this instance (or accurate). civ5 has fundamental problems but hopefully they're fixable. and i don't think its dopamine that causes us to put it down after a few hours - except by the fact that the game isn't pleasureable for some, thus dopamine levels might be low.

anyways, im an (un)licensed mental health professional so take what i say with a grain of salt. but i don't think your argument really works though intriguing. but game designers should pay more attention to psychology since it definitely informs game design and may have helped in civ5!
 
Where did the idea of rewards come from anyway? People are starting to actually talk like marketing men. "Rewards" seems to be understood in some posts above to mean eye candy and other manifestations of the game pretending it's a movie, or some kind of entertainment that isn't a computer game.

Computer games, and especially the kind that Civ players have traditionally been keen on, are primarily mind candy. I don't believe a TBS fan plays a game, at least after the first 20 hours or so, to be entertained by whatever superficial ideas of rewards it has like "something happening" or "something to do" whatever those mean. The rewards the TBS player wants are in the form of challenge, of figuring out the puzzle to winning each game. That mental zing you get when you lean back with aching shoulders and shake your fist at Mansa Musa in satisfaction of a hard-won victory.

If there's anything like "rewards" involved along the way I would liken them more to a carrot on a stick, where we're the donkey. An exquisitely designed and balanced TBS game like Civ 4 keeps the carrot about 1cm away from our nose at all times, close enough to smell it and raise the dopamine, but not so far as to let the stimulus drop. Something relatively inaccessible like Europa Universalis sometimes lets the carrot get a bit too far away except for those with a strong sense of TBSmell. Conversely some "other games" :)mischief:) might be accused of letting the donkey eat the carrot a little too soon, in their eagerness to appeal to fans of racier game genres.
 
I would like to point out, again, that if people only play civ for the constant rewards why do a lot of people enjoy playing at slower speeds? I myself can't understand how people manage to play an entire marathon game, but they frequently do. (I actually intend to try one once I own 22 civs, so I can have every setting at the maximum, except difficulty, I"m not a diety yet.)
 
i have my own theory. the arts in Civ V is just BLAND and unexciting! Really, there are so many eye candies on Civ IV and Civ IV: Col spread on its maps. Not so much in Civ V. I don't complain about the game play much, except the fact that building takes forever!
 
I would like to point out, again, that if people only play civ for the constant rewards why do a lot of people enjoy playing at slower speeds? I myself can't understand how people manage to play an entire marathon game, but they frequently do. (I actually intend to try one once I own 22 civs, so I can have every setting at the maximum, except difficulty, I"m not a diety yet.)

Well, Civ IV seemed blindingly fast even on marathon, in comparison to Civ V. In layman's terms, (because I don't know all this neurological mumbo jumbo) Civ IV offered an almost constant stream of things to think about, things to react to and things to do, just from the sheer amount of content. In this way, marathon games take a while to complete but they feel full and vivid. In Civ V, you spend a lot of time just clicking "next turn" and waiting for things to happen, for earlier goals to finally come to fruition. Marathon just exacerbates that..
 
Firaxis should hire a psychologist. :)

Its worked for companies before.

Here's one I just read about.


When Betty Crocker started producing instant cake packages back in the day, they polled housewives to find out if they would be popular. The response was very positive, so they create the cake packages to have everything you would need to make a cake...just add water and the oven.


The item did very poorly on the market. Betty Crocker hired a pyschoanalyst to interview women and find out why.

What they found was that women found the packages "too easy". They felt guilty that they were not really contributing to the making of the cake...there was no satisfaction if you were.

So the new packages required an egg to be added....and the packages began to sell like hot cakes.
 
Rewards may not be the most appropriate word to use, if you want to describe what caused the "...one more turn syndrome" in CivIV. How about suspense?
Playing CivIV kept you on your toes turn after turn, constantly leaving you with the feeling to lag behind and trying to play catch up for most of the game. Success felt "self-made" in a way.
However, ciV is not really an extension of its precursor and wants to open a newly defined era of civilization. I admit to bias, being a CivIV fanatic, but at the same token, although not great and with lots of shortcomings, ciV has all the makings of becoming its worthy successor. Give it time.
 
Scientists, is there some connection between dopamine and addiction?

Yes indeed there is. Dopamine, is apart of the brains reward/pleasure system, among other things. Many addictive drugs act on dopamine as part of their action and the addictiveness of those drugs is related to dopamine altering effects. Cocaine, amphetamines, opiates are some of these drugs. The OP has an interesting theory, of course we cant be sure of whether or not it is valid until we conduct an experiment. Randomly selecting people to play civ 4 vs 5 and measure dopamine release. Even then it would be difficult to isolate what exactly it was that caused a difference in dopamine release, if any was found, but the OP has a good starting point for further investigation.

Honestly, no one is likely to conduct this experiment, the OP was merely expressing his personal opinion and theory as to what causes the large element of "suck" present in Civ 5. Those of you who try to ridicule the science in the OP's post well, give me a break. He has a good idea.
 
Take a shot when someone, somehow, manages to start talking about World of Warcraft.

Take a shot every time someone sarcastically mentions 'streamlining.' Take two shots if they've somehow managed to use it inappropriately.

A great game but I read these forums at lunch and I'd get fired for being drunk at work :p
... after 10 minutes of reading.
 
Pretty good theory by the Op.

I think that could go a long way in explaining why Shafer 5 feels so unrewarding to play.
 
top shelf post matey, Civ 5 sux, I don't care what anyone else says
 
Well, Civ IV seemed blindingly fast even on marathon, in comparison to Civ V. In layman's terms, (because I don't know all this neurological mumbo jumbo) Civ IV offered an almost constant stream of things to think about, things to react to and things to do, just from the sheer amount of content. In this way, marathon games take a while to complete but they feel full and vivid. In Civ V, you spend a lot of time just clicking "next turn" and waiting for things to happen, for earlier goals to finally come to fruition. Marathon just exacerbates that..

Mmm.
Don't know about that. Hard to say of course since I have not had much time to put into Civs lately, but overall the pace I recall was slower in general.
But Civ4 just had so much to keep your attention in to warrant it.

Civ5 just feels like "clikety click and you have entered new era".
Units you just got tech to build are getting old before they are finished!
None of the buildings actually are worth building because of time they require and lack of benefits!

With 4 I was always thinking about what to build next. I wanted to build all if possible, but what I needed most... In 5, you have few buildings and that's it.

I think what hooks up in Civ4 is sense of achievement. I bloody DID it! It might have felt hard or slow or whatever... But I managed to do something which had real, lasting effects.
Civ5 has streamlined things too much.

All games end up being unable to really challenge you once you get skilled enough, but Civ5 has so low level of losing the challenge factor that it does not survive for long.
 
Sorry the late answer; as I stated before, Civ V has sort of left my life. This might change again now that it is out for the Mac (for free to those who have the PC version, it seems, which shows that at least somebody at 2K has half a brain), since I can just fire it up from time to time with out all the hassle that is Windows. Anyway:

Lost, assumed, or hand-waved are all the steps connecting the two.

First, I'm sorry you missed the humor. The other people in the thread seem to have grasped that there was a certain tongue-in-cheek element here. I apologize for not having made that aspect clearer for all readers.

Second, yes, there are steps missing, and there is a lot assumed here. However, may I ask which form of evidence you would accept? Comparisons of fMRI scans of groups of Civ IV and Civ V players? A brain biopsy? Radioactive tracers? None of the things I can think of would be remotely affordable or otherwise realistic. Even with the humor, it is a theory that fit the facts as I see them (and it seems others do here, too). If you have a better theory for the same facts, I'd be glad to hear it.

Having theories that fit the facts, however imperfectly, but don't have the steps in between all worked out is actually quite common in science, by the way. Astronomy, for obvious reasons, pretty much has to do without experiments and proof in the classic sense. If you're upset here, I'm wondering what you think of such constructs such as Dark Matter. Oh, and you might want to look up the explanation of why you sneeze when you look into the sun. Last time I checked, it was something like "because" with more hand-waving. Scientists, remember, don't even know for sure how we pee. They just have lots of theories.

Third, somebody (I don't think it was you) questioned if this model was still recent. I assure them it is. For example, Rick Hanson, who is a real neuroscientist, uses the monkey model in his discussion of the neurological bases of meditation (see Taking in the Good), except that he's a far better story teller than I am. Specifically, he discusses how to use this knowledge to stabilize attention.

By the way, Hanson and another real neurologist Richard Mendius have published an interesting book called Buddha's Brain with lots of neurological background. Some people here might want to take a look at it to combat their "Civ V rage": It's about the neurological basis of happiness. Though it doesn't seem to involve building world wonders, which seem strange.

Now excuse me while I'm off to see if Civ V is any better on my Mac than on a PC.
 
good luck with that. :lol:

Yeah ... well ... ah ...

This is Aspyr, and, full disclosure, I hate Aspyr, ever since they made such a mess out of the Civ IV port that I was forced to buy the PC version. So my expectations were low. But did I believe that not even the entry video would work? No. I had honestly expected them to get at least that right.

Other than that, it's just as slow as with Windows. Sigh.
 
Can someone explain to me what the small rewards are that everyone seems to agree are present in civ 4 and not 5 but refuse to give even a small example of? Just like list 5 or so, so that i know what you are all talking about.
-No unit to move on an average at peace turn: On average in Civ 4, you'll have some units to move around. Several workers, some missionary. In Civ 5, you have no worker to move (they can't stack to accelerate work, they take a lot of time to build stuff which provides little benefit, and are expensive to keep-up so you have few of them). No missionaries.
-No changing building production. In Civ 4, it's common to have a building produced at one of your cities. In Civ 5, this is a rare event.
-Less unit promotions to choose during war time because less units.
-No need to look at your civics and re-assess the situation to check whether or not you want to get into slavery now, depending on the anarchy you'd get, the upkeep it would cost, and your neighbours. No need to re-assess religion either, based on the spread of religion, your neighbours and the knowledge of your neighbours.

These are those I feel are missing. My daughter is used to entering 'cheat-mode' and changing everyone's terrain and cities in Civ IV, I don't know whether it can be done in Civ V, but since worldbuilder is external, I don't think she could (and exittign Civ, launchign another program, exitting it and re-launching civ doesn't count as a valid/fun option).
 
For me it seems there are two issues with Civ 5, expectations and balance/playtesting.

1. With all the hype leading up to the release I was REALLY REALLY pumped about getting the game. At this point I feel a little disappointed by the whole experience. maybe it was my fault for setting my expectations too high, maybe 2K promised something they couldn't deliver (or probably a bit of both)
2. I knew there were balance gamepaly issues to be resolved, however it really hit me last night as I finished up a game. Early in the I had managed a decent tech lead, and had a few potential high production cities, so I decided to go for a spacelaunch victory. First step beeline to rocketry to build Apollo program, Next step beeline to first spaceship tech, and so on until I discovered the secrets of nanotechnology. At that point I went back to fill in the tech tree while building parts only to realize I have the ability to build a ship capable of going to another star system, without having first learned things like Metallurgy, Combustion, and everything else along the bottom half of the tech tree WTF??? not to mention all the other gameplay issues.

Disclaimer: these statements are opinions (and only opinions) of myself and no one else and are not statistically significant in anyway, nor do I implicitly or explicitly presume to speak for anyone other than myself
 
Civ IV produced a constant stream of rewards. Small stuff, yes, but you were constantly making some decision or seeing the result of an earlier decision. There was always something somewhere that functioned as a reward. This constant stream of rewards, so the theory, produced a high and constant level of dopamine, and kept your attention on the game. In fact, your dopamine level might have been so high that even if your girlfriend came in the room in those "special clothes" (wink-wink nudge-nudge), your attention stayed on the game.

So true..
Look at this, Sid Meier keynote in a thread i'm about to write now, where i describe how the devs obviously failed to comprehend anything the FATHER OF THE SERIES himself explained.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9935523
 
Problems with OP-s theory: it predicts that late game is more interesting than early or mid game. When in reality the opposite is true, with civ 4 at least.
 
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