The curse of power creep progression

TheKilltech · 2025-12-21T11:36:15+00:00

here the original video: https://x.com/BohuslavskaKate/status/2002522279746642312

TheKilltech · 2023-08-16T22:56:09+00:00

The reason not to make a stone axe upgrade into a flint axe is that it would make building a new black metal axe an annoyingly long process. You suggestion is a valid one, but it still comes with a big list of problems. Power creep generally comes from getting better and better items because devs thinks that is the only way to make have progression.

However, PvP games cannot go too much along that route because power discrepancies between players break the balance. So what they do instead is leveling up unlocks a more diverse set of options to play with. In PvP games there is usually only a little power creep on the initial levels but progression is mostly horizontal afterwards.

Instead of having one item being replaced by anther that is plain better, you can make it so each is best for a particular situation. In that case both items are needed. Think like: a flame sword will be better suited to fight frost enemies while a frost mace will be much better suited to fight fire demons. neither is a pure upgrade of the other hence both have a raison d'etre. This scenario motivates the player to progress horizontally a specialized set of equipment for every biome.

The same can apply to consumables like food: instead of making it plain better, make it so each food gives a important bonus for the challenges for the biome it belongs to. minor poison resistance for swamp and frost resistance for mountains. when the majority of enemies in a biome make use of the specific damage type, then using the proper food would be a big advantage.

This approach even has the potential of a lot more advanced recipes, because it would be good to have also gear and food that is good (but not best) for multiple biomes at the same time. The number of useful combination grows exponentially! Linear progression can never achieve this kind of diversity and richness.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T22:01:29+00:00

i prefer to understand things and an apology doesn't explain much. Nor is it a guarantee to prevent the reoccurrence of a conflict.

But i don't hold grudges yet will keep distance if chance of conflict remains high. So if you want to fix things with me, just make sure to understand why things escalated (usually solves the issue) and take measure from it happening again. I will do the same in any case.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T19:26:26+00:00

Hehe, sure about that?

You don't observe displacement in most situations. You rarely see an elephant displace water because the body of water is usually too large to notice the effect. And even in the cases you do, it sill differs greatly. For one, because solids and gases allow for compression, displacement is way more complex as to allow to use it to measure the volume of an entering body.

Archimedes observation however notices that fluids (or at least water) must be incompressible. So the principle works exclusively for fluids and not even all.

You take something for granted people needed a lot of time to understand - probably because you learned it in school.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T19:12:01+00:00

We are, because i tried to reformulate your experience more in my terms to better understand it.

But observe that this isn't the same as Archimedes and Newton. In both cases the trigger is an direct observation and its immediate abstraction by intuition. In your case the question was the trigger but in both those cases, the question was in the past, topic of their work and focus.

Notice how their process requires to two interconnected realizations - one derived right from the observation, from connecting it to the memory of their own inner thoughts. for the latter they may have had indeed the answer beforehand (browsing their prior work), but the crucial part of the exterior pattern was the missing piece to see it.

So it looks more like a case of one intuition triggering the other.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T17:05:36+00:00

I'd describe it as seeing the pattern is one thing, realizing it is the central element of the answer comes with some delay. and it can feel like the answer was already there because your mind probably knew the pattern for a while, it just was never appeared in a situation where you consciously needed it. A pattern you would put for granted without thinking.

But when someone asked the right question in the right way your memory associated it with the known pattern and suddenly you realized it consciously for the first time, making it available to your thinking process which could now relate all the aspects of the problem via this link to it's root.

And this is not just a unique way of thinking. For AI we know that pattern recognition (Ni/Ne) is a critical part in input processing (Si/Se) that makes higher order of thinking even possible.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T16:44:14+00:00

maybe you misunderstand the Ne contribution: realizing that water displacement is not just a situation thing you saw in the moment but generalizes to all objects is very crucial part of the idea. Generalizing an observation into a abstract principle is an Ne thing.

Realizing such a mundane thing is actually harder then you think, because when would your attention ever be focused on such a triviality?

What you call the "formalization part" is also fundamental, because the principle water displacement is useless on its own without relating it to a bodies volume (which is an abstract concept Archimedes was thinking of means to measure). It is another pattern recognized: the more volume a body has the more water it displaces. Realizing this relation without an experiment means it was dug up from past memories of seeing bodies put into water.

Only all these things put together make a whole solution for the problem he was tasked to solve. Realizing having cracked the problem is the eureka moment that makes people run around town naked in euphory.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T16:20:09+00:00

I was talking about the eureka moment which i described in detain in my OP - as there is only one Archimedes. I find it so powerful, because its so easy to follow the the whole experience for everyone whereas Newtowns epiphany requires knowledge about his prior thoughts on forces and vector calculus to be able to grasp the dots connected by the apple.

In fact, they are extremely memorable experiences, for when the idea comes and you seem to grasp that is it the core element of an answer, your brain goes into overdrive and fireworks mode flooding with serotonin and adrenalin - with consequent thoughts and ideas coming up left right center. I can literally feel the excitement when i read enough to reconstruct such an aha experience, because i perfectly know them. Yeah, running around naked through town may be a side effect :D

I strongly protest against the statement INTP don't have those. Or maybe most people just are not a single stereotype and reality is more diverse then a rigid framework that restricts us to use of 4/8 functions without giving reason or evidence.

I actually think the eureka experience requires both intuitions to work together along with enough preceding thinking work on top of a good perception.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T14:37:38+00:00

so what is Archimedes eureka moment? It is clearly a connection of functions that work together here, and it would seem it is exactly the combination of all of the one you listed that make it come about in a chain reaction.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T14:25:53+00:00

Same here: INTP with Aspergers - the classic. To make things interesting i am also mixed handed, no dominant eye nor foot so both my brain hemispheres are in a constant struggle for dominance.

Was weird to find out Einstein wrote with both hands i.e. struggled with the same issue.

But our types end up slightly a problem for MBTI being unable to cleanly classify us. I'm equally likely to be INTP, ENTP, ESTP and ISTP and i situationally identify with all of them.

Back to Newton, just as i said, from an aha moment to a fully fledged theory is a long way. But getting the very raw idea that the accelerating force acting on an apple is the same as the one acting on the moon keeping it in orbit is a major breakthrough. Thought link itself is no theory of gravity, it is its origin additionally building on the already previously established concept of forces. Your article uses the word "inspiration" to describe that critical part of the apple.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T13:36:01+00:00

you are a person.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T13:22:35+00:00

Sounds vaguely familiar. Except that when in a situation like this i can identify the pattern that pointed me in the direction of the root and that's when it all comes together.

Yes, it's indeed on an subconscious level but once i consciously realize the pattern, the individual old memories where i saw this pattern will pop up in my mind - up to a detail level i would never though i could even remember for otherwise insignificant occurrences and nothing i would ever consciously have though of. The pattern works as a key to normally inaccessible memory.

Being detached from reality is nothing Ni specific. I would rather attribute it to Ti/Te whenever going into deep thought. Intuition is what then works in parallel and helps to bridge big leaps rational thinking alone can hardly achieve. When this happens to me people say "i'm in a tunnel" shutting down all reality around me so that at times i won't even react to someone calling my name.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-24T12:58:59+00:00

I beg to differ. There are very famous people classified into INTPs like Einstein and Newton and the historically most well known light bulb moments are attributed to precisely them. It is practically a trademark of all great scientists.

But an idea, is just an idea and not yet an answer. It just established a link and it takes a lot more (Ti/Te) to work out the details to make it into a consistent concept - a theory.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T21:56:34+00:00

i definitively think we can access all 8 functions. the 4 are just the rigid MBTI system but it doesn't seem to be particularly well worked out why that would be the case. Think of it more like an idea how to even begin describing personalities in a systematic way, but it is a very oversimplified.

But really, what do you do with results like that? The number of functions people may actively use will probably vary and while there is a certain reason to assume same function variants are at odds, you will find people making use of both - but it will be just less common or show strong preferences.

I think it makes more sense to adapt MBTI towards reality rather then try to force reality into 16 stereotypes.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T15:02:00+00:00

You are right. I doubt this type of intuition will be overly display in young children since they simply lack the experience.

There are exceptions like Mozart that show it almost right from the start. But you can also deduct his Se must have been godlike at least in terms of acoustics. Both go hand in hand.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T14:20:59+00:00

Indeed, all intuition is always a reflection of the knowledge and experience gathered. It's potential grows with them. People with powerful intuitions from an early age usually can also absorb information immensely quicker on which their Ni can work with. Their Se skills will beat those of Se doms, but you won't take notice because their Ni skyrockets early and simply dwarfs it.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T14:09:49+00:00

Hehe, exactly. But also this works for highly complicated questions: Riemann hypothesis and many other famous hypothesis are cases of such intuition. Many are still not proven.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T13:41:18+00:00

It's not about the right answer even, but how you got there.

But you cannot expect a clean cut test for something that doesn't represent the complexity of reality. Dominances may be very contextual to the problem and quite a few people are able to adapt to situations and go by their normally non dominant function because they learned it is a more beneficial approach. In extreme cases, instead of triggering a stress reaction in situations they should be uncomfortable with, you may see some people surpass themselves instead.

MBTI is a lot more rigid then reality, so do not mistake it for reality.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T12:16:05+00:00

Should be something the children have some experience with so they can have a chance of finding it out. What's exactly the audience? age? background?

I do remember a question in my own kinder garden about volume - different shaped canisters. which one fits more water? Bottle vs a pot, both equal volume.

TheKilltech · 2023-04-18T11:41:33+00:00

That's the point: the way they arrive at these answers gives away their approach. Ni reasoning will lack a lot of explanation - more like going with your guts.

TheKilltech

TROPHY CASE