Unpopular Opinion: Removing leftclick/move Skill IS GOOD

I disagree with GGG for many things, but I kinda understand and agree with this change.

For starters, when immortal cry was first introduced it was a good way to improve survivability for all users. in fact it over performed and was nerfed along the years and eventually gained the guard tag to prevent abuse.

i bring up immortal call because it was a solution that GGG introduced to help players to play SMART. encourage smart play. to react. see big telegraphed hit coming but you dont think you can get out in time? slam that guard button!

you dont need to be a dev to brain that the intention behind guard skills is to be used right BEFORE getting hit.

it was also genius that you could use guard skills as a failsafe by having it linked to CWDT so that when you receive a large amount of damage, you will have a few seconds to recover.

the issue is guardskills were being exploited. yeah i said it. its being exploited. instead of being used the way it was originally designed for, players bound it to left click which was also used for movement.

from this exploit, players would have uptime of roughly 1 second every 4 seconds. indirectly a 25% buff to whatever.

instead of using it in a smart way proactively, players figured it was more efficient to have a 25% uptime and leave it up to chance.

i m not sure if there are other skills that players use this way besides guard skills.

but i for one think that this exploit has been going on for so long that GGG has could not make changes to it without giving an olive branch in return.

the new supports which somewhat allow for autocasting in my humble opinion is a good compromise.

most of poe player base may not like it because guard skills on left click was way more powerful with less investment. to me its fair.

we have that same treatment with curses. curse on hit, blasphemy. everything automated comes at a cost. self cast must always come with a benefit.

if anyones gonna say "no its not an exploit". the fact GGG is removing the functionality is proof beyond doubt that GGG was not happy that players used it that way. it was an unintended interaction that GGG did not like. this is similar to exploiting hot swapping. GGG left it in until they felt the need to take it out.

in fact with these new supports, i hope GGG can actually BUFF guard skills so that self casting and smart play is adequately rewarded rather than just being relegated to being a self buff that has a 25% uptime.

There's one big issue with this thinking.

Using guard skill proactively hasn't been realistically possible for years now due to pacing and lack of visual clarity of the game.

So what do those of us who do not like to use LMB to move supposed to do?

I already have to give up a skill slot for force move to be able to use my keyboard hand to move, now I am going to have a dead button on my mouse as well with prime real estate?

There are many uses for the LMB besides guard skills, self cast curse/mark, detonate mines, withering step, phase run, bone armor, just to name a few.

There should be no limitation on which commands/skills are bound to any button or key.

There should also be a hotkey for force move that is not on the skill bar. Not everyone wants carpal tunnel syndrome.

Also, not mad at the new supports. They could be added without the change to LMB.

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ExiledSarin wrote:

There's one big issue with this thinking.

Using guard skill proactively hasn't been realistically possible for years now due to pacing and lack of visual clarity of the game.

i agree. this is something GGG has to address. ggg definitely needs to start somewhere, and i believe this is one step in the right direction.

guard skills need to be buffed hard and make them unaffected by duration bonuses. they need to last a short period of time but be strong enough to be worth it.

for example it needs to be able to tank exarch ball phase's balls. it should be strong enough to tank a stray ball or 2 but not strong enought that you can just run around into 9-10 balls and laugh it off.

guard reworks cannot happen until ggg removes the left button functionality and make it worse for autocasters.

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cacmeister wrote:

So what do those of us who do not like to use LMB to move supposed to do?

I already have to give up a skill slot for force move to be able to use my keyboard hand to move, now I am going to have a dead button on my mouse as well with prime real estate?

There are many uses for the LMB besides guard skills, self cast curse/mark, detonate mines, withering step, phase run, bone armor, just to name a few.

There should be no limitation on which commands/skills are bound to any button or key.

There should also be a hotkey for force move that is not on the skill bar. Not everyone want carpal tunnel syndrome.

Also, not mad at the new supports. They could beadded without the change to LMB.

this is a fundamental issue with POE1 where we are starved of skill slots on our gear and on our hotbar.

GGG actually helped us a lot by allowing us to have an alternate hotbar. in my opinion, interact/move button should be bound to 1-2 buttons and have NO further functionality.

personally i feel that all skill shortcut keys on the hotbar should only trigger whatever they are supposed to trigger, nothing more and nothing less. but gamedevs realize that this can frustrate players when their target is out of range. so instead of letting the players spam click the button and have nothing happen or have the player make a noise saying "target out of reach" 100 times, game devs coded it so that the character will move towards the mouse location in order to try getting into range of the skill so that the skill can actually be fired off.

i would argue MOST of POE community has taken this QoL for granted and have exploited the dev's good intentions by making it into an "auto trigger".

skills buttons should fire off a skill and nothing more.

the devs are finally reining back this functionality. i can understand all the outrage, but i m also on GGG's side for this.

Guard skills are the smallest issue about this change. If you look at the 1k+ comments reddit thread, barely anyone mentions them.

People are upset because they lose sockets, struggle with mana in early and midgame, have way clunkier mines and because the change is presented as "QoL buff" when it isn't.

OP, you're calling it a good change because of one positive aspect in your opinion, disregarding all the other aspects. I wouldn't exactly call this an unpopular opinion but instead call it lacking or incomplete and the focus on "exploit" seems weird.

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ExiledSarin wrote:

There's one big issue with this thinking.

Using guard skill proactively hasn't been realistically possible for years now due to pacing and lack of visual clarity of the game.

this

If GGG truly had a problem with guard skills being "exploitative", as OP suggests....they could have easily reduced their effectiveness or increased their cooldowns.

Instead they gut an entire mechanic that only PARTIALLY involved guard skills. And then the support skills offered to create the same effect have TWO negatives added on as well: increased mana cost and higher cooldowns.

I agree with the above comments....I don't see it as much of an unpopular opinion but rather a very specific potential game issue that is only tangentially related to the actual change being presented.

Plus the gameplay itself doesn't even support this change. It would only be a "step in the right direction" if they nerfed monster damage or otherwise changed reactionary gameplay to compensate what appears to be their desire for people to ACTIVELY use these skills more often. As it stands, its actually a step in the OPPOSITE direction.

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Scarletsword wrote:

Guard skills are the smallest issue about this change. If you look at the 1k+ comments reddit thread, barely anyone mentions them.

People are upset because they lose sockets, struggle with mana in early and midgame, have way clunkier mines and because the change is presented as "QoL buff" when it isn't.

OP, you're calling it a good change because of one positive aspect in your opinion, disregarding all the other aspects. I wouldn't exactly call this an unpopular opinion but instead call it lacking or incomplete and the focus on "exploit" seems weird.

it simply is an exploit, i pointed out in a different reply that skills should fire off when pressed and nothing more.

the game devs added a functionality where the player character would walk toward their curser if the target is out of range or is on cooldown.

players "forgot" that this is a QoL thing but players have incorporated this behaviour into the game to automate their skills rather than to actively press buttons.

the game devs want players to press buttons intentionally. they want players to use up all the short cut keys/hotbar and press the buttons.

personally speaking, i think most of the people complaining are just using the lack of shortcut keys as an excuse.

they're simply angry that GGG forced them to manually press a button rather than have it trigger automatically while trying to move.

but i do acknowledge that we really are starved on shortcut keys as well as skill gem slots.

Edit: want to add, exploits are not necessarily cheats but also include behaviours that was not intended by the devs. for example hot swapping.

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exsea wrote:

behaviours that was not intended by the devs. for example hot swapping.

....except that this unacceptable "behavior" WAS accepted for almost the entire lifetime of the game until now. Additionally, it was GGG that allowed instant skills to be bound to lmb, which also caused movement. If this was "unintended" they could have easily fixed it in a bugfix, the next league, the next expansion, the next year, etc. They did not.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

"

exsea wrote:

behaviours that was not intended by the devs. for example hot swapping.

....except that this unacceptable "behavior" WAS accepted for almost the entire lifetime of the game until now. Additionally, it was GGG that allowed instant skills to be bound to lmb, which also caused movement. If this was "unintended" they could have easily fixed it in a bugfix, the next league, the next expansion, the next year, etc. They did not.

it was coz GGG has this bad habit of letting things be the way things are for a god damn long time until finally they decide to do something about it.

took them forever to get rid/rework dodge.

the fact that they finally removed it now means they feel strongly enough that they finally pull the trigger.

if they found it as acceptable behaviour they would just leave it and just give us the new supports without the need to remove it.

i would even say that GGG's div card change also reflects this. GGG didnt like the fact that players could get rewards without actually engaging with said content.

they did not lift a finger for damn long. i would say div cards definitely isnt an exploit, but just a huge oversight where the devs brought it upon themselves.