As Im gonna get of subject of the open letter thread and I dont want to hijack threads Im breakin this off.
What got me thinkin is that HT said "A players behavior cant be change but the result of his/hers behaviour can be" (freely quoted, hope you dont mind).
This statment is not necessarily true. Actually in most cases its false. Behaviour CAN be changed but NOT if you try to change the persons behaviour directly. Contradiction? Well actually not.
Inorder to change a persons (now we are talking person in general not player in specific) behaviour you first have to influence him/her to change his/hers attitude. Note that I said influence because its he/she that does the change in attitude him/her self. You cant do it for the person but you can influence the person.
What attitude a person has towards life, work, other people, gaming, ect ect determins how the person behaves in life, work, towards other people, in games ect ect.
Its what attitude I have towards the game and the people in game that determins how I behave in game.
If someone tries to change a persons behaviour directly or tries to influence a persons behaviour that person will get very defensive and possibly agressive. Why? Because his attitude is unchanged.
Behaviour leads to results. Each behaviour has a result. Though the behaviour is just the "middle man" between the attitude and the result. The result is directly a result of ones attitude.
If a person has a negative attitude "I will fail this mission because its too hard" then that person will behave in such a way that leads up to a failur and he/she will say "I knew it all along" (recognize your self in that situation? Most of us do). After the failur the person will just say "I knew it would fail and I proved it doesnt works so there is no point in trying again".
On the other hand if a person has a positive attitude "Im gonna make this, its gonna be hard but Im gonna make it, there´s no stopin me" the person will behave in a way that leads to a much better result. Note that he/she might fail but with the positive attiude the reaction to the failiur will be "Damn that was close, Im gonna make it next time if I do it like this instead" and he/she rushes out to try again. Eventualy the person will succed.
Inorder to make the first person succed you have to influence him/her to change his/hers attitude.
If you change the result of a persons behaviour. You do not change the persons attitude. If you change something be it behaviour or result for a person who is not willing to change his/hers attitude you will fail with your intentions.
Being able to easily change the results of a persons action is not an option usually available in RL. Its a "privilage" that game developers have because they are in "god mode" over the players world.
There are basicly 3 typs of persons you will deal with. The individualist, the "go with the flow" person and the egoist.
The Indivudualist is a person who mesures his/hers acomblishments against his own results. This person also takes responsibility for his/hers actions and the consequences of these actions. This person is very aware of his/hers attitude.
The "go with the flow" person is the person who adapts really well in most situations. This person does not take responsiblity for the consequences of his/her actions because he/she sees him/her self as part of the big picture and everything is the "fault of" the big picutre and/or someone else. This person is not really aware of his/hers own attitude. This person is very easy to influence into changing his/hers attitude in both positive and negative way.
The egoist. Its all about this person and this persons results. This person also lacks alot of empathy and really doesnt give a shait about anyone else other then in situations where his/hers results can be measured against others in a way that suites that peson. The egoist can have both a positive and a negative attitude but will always influence others with a negative attitude inorder to ensure his/hers own success.
When you change the results of ones behaviour you will see the following reactions.
The egoist will get furious and blame everyone around him for change in his/hers results. This person will influence all the "go with the flow" people to have a negative attitude inorder to make things fail so he/she can get his will through and once again achive the results he/she wants.
The Individualist who is aware of his/hers attitude and behaviour can react in two ways. IF that person sees the need of the change in results he/she will adjust his/hers own behaviour without any problems. But if this person does not directly see the need of these changes that person might get very frustrated and start projecting a negative attitude. Though this person is not an egoist so as long as you influence this person that the changes in result are needed he/she will change his/hers attitude.
The "go with the flow" person will basicly just accept the changes. Though if that person doesnt like em he/she will blame others, once again adding to the negative attitude. Since this person is so easily influenced by others he/she will most likely inherit the attitude of the ones around him/her.
So basicly if you change results without changing attitude you will get a very negative attitude. Its actually WORSE then changing a persons behaviour because they feel that they are in no control of their own situation what so ever. The feeling of beeing helpless towards a situation is the biggest cause of stress.
Trying to change behaviour will as you said fail but it will "just" piss of people. Not stress em out and make em feel -><- small.
The problem though for you is that its sooo easy to change the results, its just code after all, but influenceing a change in attitude is managing the soft sides of the community and that is HARD.
A way, note this is just one way and Im not saying its the right one, to influence players to change their attitude is to reward the change in attitude. Currently the attitude is very much "I want to win and get easy kills" this is because of a high number of "go with the flow peole" and egoists. If you can reward the Individualists for a change in their attitude they will bring this attitude upon the "go with the flow people".
A way to reward a change in attitude is to increase the perk pay out for flying on the outnumbered side.
Anyways what Im trying to say is changing results is very very dangerous, changing behaviour can be done if you influence the people to change their attitude.
Tex.
