If you have this problem, or even if you don't - you probably aren't playing your own game enough. Play your own game. Every day. Then make it better.

In my opinion, "clash" is far too ambiguous. You need more specifics to provide an answer. There are many ways to give testers what they want while still doing exactly what you want. There are also a few ways to make them do what you want them to do while thinking that they decided to do it. But it is dependant on the context.

Umm, considering the audience I have/cater to , I would simply find ways to make the mechanic usable for user, even if it makes us change the mechanic itself but then leading to the same outcome. Coz in the realm of kids gaming usually the mechanics and not super complex and there are other ways of reaching the same outcome 99% of the time. For us if the game is not playable by the target audience it's of no use , sometimes you have to let go of the feature/mechanic you put your creative heart into , for the feature/mechanic which actually works intuitively...

Well first need to get clarity on what is it that player is not understanding. Once there is enough clarity on what is creating the clash need to do iteration on it. Running AB testing with different types of variation of the game mechanic. Use data from AB testing to validate the changes & finally go ahead with the changes.

This isn’t really a creative conflict—it’s more about not doing enough analysis and testing. The creative part comes after you get user feedback. They test your ideas about what makes the game fun or easy to navigate, and then you adjust. Creativity is about solving the problems the feedback reveals. So, it’s not about clashing with feedback; it’s about using it to improve and make something that actually works. Focus on testing, listen to what players say, and then get creative with the fixes. That’s how it’s done.