Don't kill stuff!

Is it bothering anyone else that more and more I am reading about strategies that involve actively NOT killing stuff to optimize gains?

It might just be that players are becoming bored with killing stuff and looking for creative ways to play, but some of these have been shown to be better than actually, you know..., killing stuff.

The new gauntlets, Southbound, that only allow you to kill frozen targets are revealing that it's often better to not kill something rather than kill it. That really bugs me for some reason I can't really place.

Got to wonder at why this is "gameplay"... it's more "game-not-play" in my opinion. Up to you though.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1432816 :)
Got bored with the idea of maximum clearspeed / dps.
Do not know why you should feel bugged.

Bugged is the wrong idea, I guess. I just don't like it when changes are made to the game that affect my play because someone else decided it was fun to play the game in another.

I'm also opposed to development along a line that's against the core assumptions of the game... that killing a monster should be more rewarding than not killing it.

Knowing what and when to skip has always been a significant part of skill in an ARPG. Time is the most important resource in these games, time management - one of the most important skills and skipping stuff is time management. It's not only about monsters, it's also about items and areas/maps - which ones to pick up/identify/run and which ones to skip.

Each time you do something in the game, you can ask yourself "could I spend my time in a more effective fashion?".

This is actually an important part of the game and it's what allows some players to go level up, farm or progress through content so much faster than others that they get accused of cheating.

You should watch some videos by racers (Thorz, RaizQT, Helman) - they are eye opening.

If the most effective strategy in the game was to kill everything and skip nothing, that would be actually boring. It's similar to the damage/offense nodes in the passive tree - players repeatedly complain of the necessity to pick so many life nodes, but that's part of what makes the game interesting - the choices, compromises and min/maxing you are able to do in it. If life nodes were unnecessary, everyone would go for damage only and builds would quickly become one-dimensional.

What you want is the game to lack a significant part of the time management aspect, i.e. to become simpler and more one-dimensional and I strongly disagree. If you want to ignore this aspect of the game, that's fine - but you'll have to accept the consequences. In this case - being much less efficient than players who think about it and are good at it.

For example, have a look at Helman's 1 hour 23 minute Piety kill - even if you watch only 10 minutes of it, it'll still be highly educational:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ummN5vYZg

This is what true skill in time management looks like. It is not everyone's cup of tea, myself included, but I sure appreciate skill when I see it.

Another interesting aspect of the skipping game is knowing your character's capabilities and potential. Power gradually increases and some actions which would have been unprofitable before may become a part of efficient farming. A more recent example would be warbands - when you start, they take a very long time to kill and skipping them is hands down the best option. But you will eventually reach a point when you dispatch them quickly and easily enough and their status changes from "skip" to "farm". This applies to all other monsters in the game, actually. So, even if mostly skipping stuff is the most efficient strategy at the beginning of the game, in endgame you'll want to mostly kill stuff with the exception of targeted boss farming (Dominus or Atziri).

I became really sad when I first learned the fastest way to level was to not level.

Rather soul crushing just running past all of GGG's hard work.....

All right, let's formulate it simply: what you don't do is important. It applies to everything, not only PoE.

You are complaining about fundamental facts of life :)

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Bars wrote:

You are complaining about fundamental facts of life :)

Oh, I wouldn't so readily agree with 'the best living is not to work' being all that obvious, that's some pretty advanced stuff, some never realize it :)

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raics wrote:

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Bars wrote:

You are complaining about fundamental facts of life :)

Oh, I wouldn't so readily agree with 'the best living is not to work' being all that obvious, that's some pretty advanced stuff, some never realize it :)

Not so sure about "best living is not to work". I didn't mention that what you do is also important because I thought it was pretty obvious.

Of course, of course, I don't think anyone assumed planting yourself in some corner and looking pretty was what I had in mind. Men spent entire lives devising how to work by not working and kill by not killing. Some also tried to eat by not eating, but those lives ended up being fairly short.