Note: This is likely not as neat an analogy/example as I would like, but it seems relevant.

I used to be an actual heroin addict, many many years ago. Finding the next hit every day/every couple of days was nearly as satisfying as the actual rush of the drug itself.

In fact, this effect was so powerful, that the "come thru" message from my dealer, and driving over to his, would make my withdrawal symptoms subside nearly entirely, well before I'd actually taken the drug.

Brains are crazy.

> In fact, this effect was so powerful, that the "come thru" message from my dealer, and driving over to his, would make my withdrawal symptoms subside nearly entirely, well before I'd actually taken the drug.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system#Anatomy

Though I've not read any articles on heroin or these long lengths of time specifically, opitates are known to have these anticipatory responses in the brain like the one you describe.

Brains are indeed totally crazy.

I imagine you saw a bit of a dopamine spike when that message came in. Was it enough to mitigate the physical symptoms at all, or was that purely mental, I wonder?

Genuinely mitigated the runny nose, aches and pains in my back, etc.

I wish I could trick my stupid brain like that. (not saying that your brain is somehow easier to trick than mine or whatever. My brain is just stupidly stubborn when it comes to feeling pain)

I'm really very deeply glad you kicked that habit and killed the dragon. This internet stranger is rooting for you :)

It's mental either way.

Randomness of rewards has been repeatedly shown to increase duration spent with skinner boxes. There seems to be a magic middle spot where the small rewards are frequent enough to avoid disillusionment and the big rewards are infrequent & random enough to feed addiction

It's called a variable ratio reward schedule [1]. It's at play in slot machines for example. Very effective at getting rapid and persistent responses.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Gambling_%E2%80%...

Huh, I've always heard "intermittent reinforcement" used to mean this, rather than just any not-every-time reinforcement. Thanks!

mmm, almost all of the most addicting games I know are some variation of small bars filling up over time to unlock more small bars to fill up. I'll give one specific example:

Destiny is a loot shooter (or "looty shooty" if you're in polite company) which has rare drops as part of it's core gameplay. Certain rare guns can only come from high-level activities, and some weapons have randomised rolls that encourage people to re-play those activities to get gear that is marginally better. A lot of the best parts of the gear drop design are lifted from peak WoW. But that alone isn't what makes destiny addictive.

Destiny 1 had "gun leveling" where you would need to get kills on certain rare weapons to unlock the rare features that made them useful, along with individual numbered levels for each gear slot, and that's before you get into the quests and bounties. There was always a reason to hop on, because you always had some new weapon that you could power up to see what it did. Tiny bars filling up.

When Destiny 2 shipped, they dramatically improved the loot system, simplifying the ways people would get drops and making them more consistent overall. But they also tried to remove a lot of the other "grindy" aspects of the game like gun leveling, but the result was the game didn't feel like you had compelling reasons to log in. Fewer bars = fewer hooks.

It's only now that the game has had several significant expansions and added a host of new quests (many of which simply require using certain types of gear in certain activities) that the game is approaching those same levels of addictive.

What you are describing is the most common model of progression. Guns, weapons, characters, skills. Something needs to be leveled. That's fine and great but it also takes the excitement away because all of the progression is 100% guaranteed( you kill an enemy, you get some exp for whatever you are leveling) vs random scarce drops being the main way to progress.

You are talking about different types of players. If what you are saying were true for everyone, then all those top grossing builder/clicker games wouldn't exist.

100% agree on your point about WoW and MMORPGs in general. Progress shouldn't be so formulaic and you need "asymmetries" of sorts between classes and tiers of progression to make every step memorable. I remember how grand raiding and high end content felt in the past but with how accessible that stuff is today( in fact you are expected to raid) the whole game just feels so much smaller despite having more stuff to do.

Yeah, basically every decision from the early game that they later 'smoothed over' turned out to be important somehow. Except for spell and ability scaling with gear, they messed that one right up at the start and didn't fully fix it til the end of Burning Crusade.

I could write an essay on this subject but the two I'll mention now are cross-server dungeon/BG finder (which destroyed much of the social aspect to the game) and loot tokens instead of loot drops.

I would also add that constant, small incremental progress is also easier to monetize and it's also more successful at doing so. Look at the model that Candy Crush popularized. It lures that dopamine hit right in front of you, just within reach - but the "reach" costs 24 candy crush coins or whatever they call it.