Incentives

ppl find incentives very confusing.

like u say "the game design creates an incentive to do X. it punishes you with Y if you don't do X. X is bad. the game shouldn't incentivize X."

they reply "you should have done Z" or "doing X is being a jerk" or "here is a way to try to cope with the downside, Y, so you suffer less from it" or "Y is not a punishment because if you do Z then it's still possible to get a good outcome despite Y".

they get upset with you b/c you're pointing out an incentive to do something *bad***. and they read it as you advocating doing something bad.

you're actually complaining the game incentivizes doing something bad and punishes you if you don't. you don't want to do something bad and don't want to be punished either. but that's too nuanced for people.

people are also very bad about incentives when it comes to economics or laws, not just game rules. you get lots of the same problems.

say a guy is proposing a law to try to reduce pollution. you might reply, "that law you're proposing creates an incentive to pollute more because..." then people will commonly reply with things like "don't do that" or "what an asshole you are to think of responding to the law that way" or "we're trying to stop pollution here. why are you looking for ways to increase it?" or "just don't pollute anyway, you don't have to follow incentives".