Idea for avoiding burnout.

NorthernPolarity

Toxicadam wrote:

Before I taget this one piece of text, I want to commend you on a very well-written piece that I agree with .. but ..

Psykopathic wrote:

It's kind of a hard concept to explain so I don't know if I'm coming across clearly, but the season rewards are very lackluster and on top of that they changed individual placement rewards to be very lackluster. They've put us at each other's throats this season to obtain victory, then swiped all the actual benefits away. I know it's my own decision to compete. I just wanna be able to compete and be properly rewarded for my victory. Not spend hours grinding out to 1400-1500 for covers I maxed 4-6 months ago.

The reason the season awards are so lackluster was to help prevent burnout. You DON'T have to compete so hard to get roughly the same prizes. Just look through all the rosters of alliances from teams 4-20. You will see many users scoring sub-400 scores in bad PvP events and some not even competing at all. They are still going to get (roughly) the same prizes as you are.

It's only at the VERY top where the pressure to score 1000+ in every event is evident. That's strictly due to peer pressure and competitive nature, not anything the devs of MPQ have done through incentives or event structure.

Event structure still has a pretty significant impact on this. If the next tournament didnt count towards season points, there would clearly be a change in how players participate in the event. While players that just want to be the best would still grind up to 1300 or whatever, players like clint and myself who place highly in tournaments solely for the prize support are clearly going to be taking a more relaxed approach to the tournament. I think its silly to assume that a change like this would have little to no impact on the outcome of the tournament because of the "peer pressure" that exists at the top.

Unknown

So, Phantron makes a few really solid points and a few absolutely baseless ones, which isn't his usual style. As much as I often disagree with his analysis, I usually respect that it's thought through and based on long-term anecdotal observations and logic.

Solid points:

Burnout for the top 3 alliances is definitely exacerbated by our own tendencies. We've definitely pushed ourselves in this first season and the need to win is responsible for some of this burnout on our end. Cologno/Phantron are right on this point. We don't HAVE to take 1st, as there is no discernible in-game advantage to be gained in terms of rewards for us taking first. In fact the sunk cost of taking first is at least a small part of what has caused us to re-evaluate how we'll be approaching season 2, as 1st is no longer a profitable enterprise.

We've proven what we needed to prove to ourselves as a team this season, and while we'll likely continue to score highly in season 2, we're planning to manage our own burnout and take it from Warp 9 to Warp 7.5 or so. That part is on us. If that means we drop into the Top 10/Top 25 as a result, none of us are going to cry over it as we know what we're capable of and if rewards for an individual event warrant it we can always suit up (Iron Man or Stinson style, take your pick) as needed. Fair observations from Phantron on this from where I'm sitting.

Squishy points:

The ridiculous assertion that outspending is what separates us from 2nd/3rd. All the top 3 are monitoring one another very closely throughout events, and I can tell you that shield hopping is happening quite frequently with our esteemed opponents right now as it is with us. We don't spend HP on boosts or health packs, as has been reported with other teams. And even our close observation of our opponents doesn't give us enough firm data to make any kind of definitive statement on how spend is impacting rankings at the top. Unless Phantron's got an API hookup I'm not aware of, I'm inclined to exuberantly dismiss this point out of hand.

I've said it before, I'll guess I'll have to say it again. My shield spend both before and after the advent of seasons has not been out of purchased HP, but EARNED. I have earned enough HP to spend on shields as I see fit. I don't think my shield spend during season 1 has been wise, or in line with my preferred playstyle, but it has certainly not come from opening up the cash register. Even without the winnings squirreled away from the 500HP reward days, I would still be playing on HP earned reserves and not purchased HP. Frankly, these P2W accusations are wearing reeeeeeeally thin.

The point we're all glossing over:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I don't think this is a fair assessment of the suggestion. Suppose that rubberbanding was completely taken away from PvE. You could make the exact same argument of people want to maintain their competitive ranking without having to put in the same amount of effort, and I doubt that the majority of the playerbase would agree with you because there is obviously a limit to how much time even the most hardcore people are willing to put into the game, and repeatedly grinding down PvE events every refresh obviously wouldn't work with most players. I don't think that seasons is quite at this level yet, but I think being able to take an event off every now and then would be a nice change of pace and make the tournaments that actually matter more meaningful, while giving more covers to lower tier players as well.

I don't think you're making an argument that makes sense here. First of all, it really doesn't matter whether the majority of the playerbase would like a change, because that's not what we're talking about here - the majority of the playerbase didn't like having rewards reduced either and I can't see how that relates. Also rubberbanding is the exact opposite of what we're discussing here - rubberbanding allows the laggards to catch up to the leaders, in other words, it narrows the gap between first and last. Allowing alliances to count only a subset of their members sounds like it would do the opposite: allow the top alliances to maintain their lead with less effort. And players in alliances already have the ability to take an event off every now and then - they'll just lose ground to alliances that don't, which is exactly the way it should be. Heck, most alliances already have people who are contributing significantly less.

theHappyDance wrote:

Exactly. What it really boils down to is that some people want to play MPQ for fun, instead of as a primary or secondary job. Match-3 is an inherently casual format, so they alienate a significant portion of their player base if they only want to cater to professional gamers.

What does this have to do with anything? If you want to play MPQ for fun, I don't see anyone stopping you. If your in an alliance and your alliance wants to be #1, then you'd better be the type of person that feels that going for #1 is fun, other wise you're in the wrong alliance, or a masochist. if people's personal goals aren't in line with the alliance goals, then either the person needs to change or the alliance does.

If people are feeling alienated because they feel they're being forced to participate (even though nothing is forcing them), they need to actually examine what they're doing rather than blaming Demiurge.

(Perspective: I'm in an alliance that is usually in the middle of the top-100 pack. I'm also one of the strongest contributors - I'd be one of the top contributors in a top 3 alliance, but I choose not to be. I like cover rewards, but I have no particular desire to be in the #1 alliance. This means that I can slack off in an event without detriment if I chose to.)

Moon 17 wrote:

I think the people who are interpreting this as "1st World Alliance Problems" are being kind of silly. This isn't primarily a S.H.I.E.L.D problem. It's a problem for players at all levels. I'm in an alliance with mostly people I actually know (and some people I had to recruit through the fora), and my alliance mates are mostly in the 2* and transition phase of the game. Since season 1 started their progression has been mostly halted, and this is after playing hard and shielding their way to higher scores than they were reaching 3 weeks ago.

Working twice as hard for a smaller reward: that's a recipe for burnout, plain and simple. Every conversation isn't a conversation about the race for 1st place.

No, what's a recipe for burnout is when you start to refer to playing a game as 'working.' When you start to do that, you are already in an unhealthy mind-set where you regard playing as something you have to do. When that happens, you really need to slap yourself upside the head and ask **** you're doing, because you're already burning out.

NorthernPolarity

walkyourpath wrote:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

Beat me to the punch. To elaborate on wyps example, average joe earns 800 points per tournament and is in a borderline Fury alliance. He obviously can't take any events off or else he'd be letting his alliance down as those 800 points that he contributes could be the difference between his alliance getting Fury and not. The core issue at hand is how to tweak the system to better deal with burnout, and I would imagine that something like making one out of every 3 or 4 events not a season 1 tournament would go a long way in letting players like this rest and better handle the constant pressure of placing well in the tournaments for the fury cover. I also don't see why you guys are so resilient against making a change like this: it wouldn't impact your play at all, and can only help these guys, so why wouldn't you make the change? The only reason I can think of is that Demiurge could think that user engagement for those tournaments are down, but I'm guessing that the burnout prevention is more than worth this change in activity.

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Well, tone aside, Phantron is right. What this suggestion boils down to is that some people want to maintain their competitive ranking without having to put in the same amount of effort. If top alliances want to take it easy in season 2, they're perfectly free to do so, and if that drops them to #23 in the standings, well, that seems reasonable enough.

And if the members of those alliances can't deal with being that far down in the standings, then it really seems like the problem is with them, not the game.

I don't think this is a fair assessment of the suggestion. Suppose that rubberbanding was completely taken away from PvE. You could make the exact same argument of people want to maintain their competitive ranking without having to put in the same amount of effort, and I doubt that the majority of the playerbase would agree with you because there is obviously a limit to how much time even the most hardcore people are willing to put into the game, and repeatedly grinding down PvE events every refresh obviously wouldn't work with most players. I don't think that seasons is quite at this level yet, but I think being able to take an event off every now and then would be a nice change of pace and make the tournaments that actually matter more meaningful, while giving more covers to lower tier players as well.

Competition was far less intense in the first iteration of heroic Oscorp with no rubberbanding. I recall most people finish with rather humble scores in that event because there was no way you can compete against someone who was actually hardcore. People say stuff like 'oh it's just Daredevil so won't bother', and yet Daredevil is at least a hero you won't have max covered at that point. What would someone who can compete for #1 in seasons ladder get from 40 heroic tokens?

And at the end there's no difference between walking about from the first heroic Oscorp (which is indeed very hardcore) because Daredevil just isn't worth it compared to walking away from a seasons bracket because getting another 10 heroic tokens just to sell them back isn't worth it. We're not talking about guys who are worried about missing Nick Fury covers here. I got #1 in Heroic Oscorp and that took way more effort than any PvE event I can think of. That was something I chose to do so I don't complain about why they should nerf all my competitors so I won't have to work as hard to get #1 compared to other events. It's been said quite a few times that the reward structure is now pretty flat so it's not like whoever got #1 gets 10000 HP so if you don't stop him now the gap just gets bigger over time. If you can walk away from Heroic Oscorp, you can also walk away from seasons 1.

I would say that scaling was the main reason why Oscorp wasn't competitive. If you took away the wall of 230s, i'm guessing that far more people would end up grinding the event and increasing the rate of burnout. I'm talking about a situation where the top cover was desirable and you would be locked out from it if you didn't grind like a madman, which I can see happening in future events.

Colognoisseur

"walkyourpath wrote:

The point we're all glossing over:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

tl;dr the first iteration of anything in MPQ is never perfect and this time the mid tiers got the shaft on progression.

This is like everything the devs have tried for the first time there are always unintended consequences. The unintended consequence was the fierce competition for high point totals in the various individual PvPs and each alliances inability to know how much is enough to make sure you get the Fury cover. Most of us erred on the side of pushing a lot because we had no idea how this was all going to play out. I know personally I set a target of top 10 for every PvP I was figuring that would see me help the alliance and put me in good shape and it has. I now realize I could relax that to top 25 easily and still be pretty well off. The hardest thing is because those of us who don't need these rewards want the overall season 1 reward we are keeping the mid tiers from progressing. I would hope that Season 2 is PvE which would be a little more interesting and I would like it to be a grand PvE with the community progression bar opening up new maps every time we hit the target but that the scaling becomes a little more forgiving for a long term event like that.

My original point holds in regard to burnout that is in the hands of the players who are feeling burntout you perpetuate your own perceived pain and you are your own best solution to it.

Unknown

Another quick point I feel has been overlooked - reducing the number of events that count towards Season totals doesn't make it any easier for teams to maintain an edge with less effort. There's still a level playing field with equal opportunities for all teams to score highly in the events that do. If they included LRs in Season totals, would you still be saying "If you want it bad enough, just deal with it!"? Doubtful.

Unknown

walkyourpath wrote:

The point we're all glossing over:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

The thing is, there will always be a cutoff for a given reward, which means that there will always be a bunch of alliances on the edge. Every one of those alliances will always have to choose between a) pushing harder b) getting higher scoring members or c) losing the reward. This is not a unique situation and has nothing to do with burnout - this is an inevitable consequence of having alliances and having rewards. If you have fewer events, the same problem would exist. If you adopted one of the "count only 16/20 scores" proposals, the same problem would exist.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Beat me to the punch. To elaborate on wyps example, average joe earns 800 points per tournament and is in a borderline Fury alliance. He obviously can't take any events off or else he'd be letting his alliance down as those 800 points that he contributes could be the difference between his alliance getting Fury and not. .

I would be curious to see what the 'average' score of each player is in a 'borderline' alliance. I know that my alliance is a borderline top 10 alliance and we average far less than 800 points per event, per person. It's more like 600-700 points per person on a typical event.

--- // ---

I think people are overstating the burnout effect. These are 2.5 day events where you can easily play for just 60-90 minutes and earn 500-900 points in that play time. Netting about 5000 ISO, 50 HP and a few covers in the process.


Also, using the rhetorical device of "think about the little guy" when discussing any issue with MPQ kind of reminds me of when people say 'think of the children' when discussing bad language, drug legalization, violence.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

Moon 17 wrote:

I think the people who are interpreting this as "1st World Alliance Problems" are being kind of silly. This isn't primarily a S.H.I.E.L.D problem. It's a problem for players at all levels. I'm in an alliance with mostly people I actually know (and some people I had to recruit through the fora), and my alliance mates are mostly in the 2* and transition phase of the game. Since season 1 started their progression has been mostly halted, and this is after playing hard and shielding their way to higher scores than they were reaching 3 weeks ago.

Working twice as hard for a smaller reward: that's a recipe for burnout, plain and simple. Every conversation isn't a conversation about the race for 1st place.

No, what's a recipe for burnout is when you start to refer to playing a game as 'working.' When you start to do that, you are already in an unhealthy mind-set where you regard playing as something you have to do. When that happens, you really need to slap yourself upside the head and ask **** you're doing, because you're already burning out.

This is asinine. Your deliberate misinterpretation of a word I used legitimately is not an actual argument.

Bowgentle

Toxicadam wrote:

I would be curious to see what the 'average' score of each player is in a 'borderline' alliance. I know that my alliance is a borderline top 10 alliance and we average far less than 800 points per event, per person. It's more like 600-700 points per person on a typical event.

We're #87 and we've 134727 points, that's 6700 points per member.
With 8 PVPs, that averages out to 842 points per member per event.
Of course that includes shield training for some members, but still.

So don't assume that alliances outside of top 10 are able to take it easy or take events off.
I'm pretty sure that without my 1100 average we'd be outside of top 100.

Clintman

Moon 17 wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Moon 17 wrote:

I think the people who are interpreting this as "1st World Alliance Problems" are being kind of silly. This isn't primarily a S.H.I.E.L.D problem. It's a problem for players at all levels. I'm in an alliance with mostly people I actually know (and some people I had to recruit through the fora), and my alliance mates are mostly in the 2* and transition phase of the game. Since season 1 started their progression has been mostly halted, and this is after playing hard and shielding their way to higher scores than they were reaching 3 weeks ago.

Working twice as hard for a smaller reward: that's a recipe for burnout, plain and simple. Every conversation isn't a conversation about the race for 1st place.

No, what's a recipe for burnout is when you start to refer to playing a game as 'working.' When you start to do that, you are already in an unhealthy mind-set where you regard playing as something you have to do. When that happens, you really need to slap yourself upside the head and ask **** you're doing, because you're already burning out.

This is asinine. Your deliberate misinterpretation of a word I used legitimately is not an actual argument.

Ok, that made me laugh

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

The point we're all glossing over:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

The thing is, there will always be a cutoff for a given reward, which means that there will always be a bunch of alliances on the edge. Every one of those alliances will always have to choose between a) pushing harder b) getting higher scoring members or c) losing the reward. This is not a unique situation and has nothing to do with burnout - this is an inevitable consequence of having alliances and having rewards. If you have fewer events, the same problem would exist. If you adopted one of the "count only 16/20 scores" proposals, the same problem would exist.

That's nonsense. You can have a competition, with a cutoff for a given reward, and structure it so that it doesn't require playing every day for 20 days. It's an inevitable consequence of having season events that are always rolling, not of having alliances.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

This is asinine. Your deliberate misinterpretation of a word I used legitimately is not an actual argument.

It's not misinterpretation. When you use the word 'work' to describe a game, you are, consciously or unconsciously, revealing your attitude about that game. And whether you can see it or not, someone who regards something as 'work' is far more likely to burnout that someone who regards it as 'play.'

Words have meaning. Deal with it.

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

I would be curious to see what the 'average' score of each player is in a 'borderline' alliance. I know that my alliance is a borderline top 10 alliance and we average far less than 800 points per event, per person. It's more like 600-700 points per person on a typical event.

We're #87 and we've 134727 points, that's 6700 points per member.
With 8 PVPs, that averages out to 842 points per member per event.
Of course that includes shield training for some members, but still.

So don't assume that alliances outside of top 10 are able to take it easy or take events off.
I'm pretty sure that without my 1100 average we'd be outside of top 100.

The cutoff right now appears to be about 130,000 or so. (Taken from the events forum.)

There have been 8 completed PvP events in season 1.
Count Loki as half an event since it's still got 22 hours to run.
Count Shield as 1.5 events, since scores are much higher there.

Call it a total of ten events.

That's an average score of 650/person/event for top 100.

NorthernPolarity

ZenBrillig wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

The point we're all glossing over:

There have been a notable number of borderline Fury tier alliances members posting in this thread (thank you for sharing your perspectives, btw!) that the pressure of having every PvP event count towards Season 1 totals is adversely impacting team cohesion and their enjoyment of the system. This is not an issue that's just impacting the 1%ers *long sloooooow eye roll*, and I can't help but think that if anyone but a SHIELD member had made the OP that the discussion on this topic would be focused where it needs to be rather than making it about SHIELD. I don't care whether we end up 1st or 50th for Season 2, but there is merit to looking at tweaks to the system to make it more enjoyable for all the alliances, whatever their level of competitiveness.

The thing is, there will always be a cutoff for a given reward, which means that there will always be a bunch of alliances on the edge. Every one of those alliances will always have to choose between a) pushing harder b) getting higher scoring members or c) losing the reward. This is not a unique situation and has nothing to do with burnout - this is an inevitable consequence of having alliances and having rewards. If you have fewer events, the same problem would exist. If you adopted one of the "count only 16/20 scores" proposals, the same problem would exist.

Had a response, but Impulse said it better than I.

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

We're #87 and we've 134727 points, that's 6700 points per member.
With 8 PVPs, that averages out to 842 points per member per event.
Of course that includes shield training for some members, but still.

So don't assume that alliances outside of top 10 are able to take it easy or take events off.
I'm pretty sure that without my 1100 average we'd be outside of top 100.

Shield training is a big "but". Scores can range anywhere from 0-2200.

Unknown

Well, yeah. Words have meaning. Like, the #1 definition of "work" even on a **** online dictionary is "activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result." Placing in an event is "work" in this sense in the same way that lifting a remote control is "work" in physics--regardless of whether it's easy or enjoyable.

mohio

Look I don't know Clint so I'm not going to say I know his motives 100%. To me it seems like this is a guy who really loves this game and sees something that could potentially be driving players away. As a member of an alliance around the top 50 range even I have seen it first-hand in my own alliance (not to mention felt like I'm getting awfully close there myself). Burnout is a real problem that has caused people who previously loved the game and played a lot to feel too much pressure and have to take a step back. It seems like there are a lot of people here who just don't care about those guys; if they can't handle the competitiveness then take a step back or quit. Well, that's exactly what's happening. Is that really where you want this game to be though? I don't think it's self-serving for Clint to want future seasons to be a little less grindy so that EVERYONE can have a little more peace-of-mind, with the side benefit of being able to spread more covers around to the people that could actually use them.

HailMary

ZenBrillig wrote:

I don't think you're making an argument that makes sense here. First of all, it really doesn't matter whether the majority of the playerbase would like a change, because that's not what we're talking about here - the majority of the playerbase didn't like having rewards reduced either and I can't see how that relates. Also rubberbanding is the exact opposite of what we're discussing here - rubberbanding allows the laggards to catch up to the leaders, in other words, it narrows the gap between first and last. Allowing alliances to count only a subset of their members sounds like it would do the opposite: allow the top alliances to maintain their lead with less effort. And players in alliances already have the ability to take an event off every now and then - they'll just lose ground to alliances that don't, which is exactly the way it should be. Heck, most alliances already have people who are contributing significantly less.

Your contrast against rubberbanding makes absolutely no sense to me. Rubberbanding is about allowing more relaxed players to catch up to perpetual grinders: agreed. But, how is this the opposite of the OP's proposal? S.H.I.E.L.D is already dominant, even when some of its members take breaks, because it internally compensates for said breaks. Many other alliances don't have the luxury of being filled with stellar players who can crank out an extra 200 points per head just to cover non-participants. Sure, this will make it easier for S.H.I.E.L.D, but it'll help weaker alliances much more.

ZenBrillig wrote:

The thing is, there will always be a cutoff for a given reward, which means that there will always be a bunch of alliances on the edge. Every one of those alliances will always have to choose between a) pushing harder b) getting higher scoring members or c) losing the reward. This is not a unique situation and has nothing to do with burnout - this is an inevitable consequence of having alliances and having rewards. If you have fewer events, the same problem would exist. If you adopted one of the "count only 16/20 scores" proposals, the same problem would exist.

As a Djangolier, I don't really care much either way, because we could probably have two mid-range members wink completely out of earthly existence and still stay comfortably within Top 50.

But, for alliances near a meaningful ranking threshold, esp. those that are filled with mid-tier rosters being obliterated by the new PVP schema, this change will reduce burnout, since they wouldn't need to literally have everyone pushing all the time. Sure, it's not going to magically do away with the fundamentally competitive nature of the game itself, but dismissing the good for the sake of the perfect is a non-argument.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Well, yeah. Words have meaning. Like, the #1 definition of "work" even on a **** online dictionary is "activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result." Placing in an event is "work" in this sense in the same way that lifting a remote control is "work" in physics--regardless of whether it's easy or enjoyable.

I like how you truncated the definition in that **** online dictionary.

The full citation:

exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

Of course, including words like "labor" and "toil" would undermine your ludicrous assertions, so I can see why you'd omit them.

Carry on...