Do people want this game as slow as Titan Quest?

"

suszterpatt wrote:

I think the ideal speed is somewhere between this and this.

I don't even understand how that is possible.. any of it. I'm lucky if I can figure out how to get more than one buff and even luckier if I can run any faster than a quicksilver.

"

suszterpatt wrote:

I think the ideal speed is somewhere between this and this.

It's funny how relevant pack size becomes as a danger amplifier when all white mobs require up to three hits to kill.

Imagine those sextanted full pack size maps with this amount of clear-speed.

Then throw in some rares with aura's effecting all of that.

I'd say we have a challenging game again, god knows the community doesn't want that.

Gotta go zoom zoom and ignore 99% of the game to be a good game.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

"

suszterpatt wrote:

I think the ideal speed is somewhere between this and this.

It's funny how relevant pack size becomes as a danger amplifier when all white mobs require up to three hits to kill.

Imagine those sextanted full pack size maps with this amount of clear-speed.

Then throw in some rares with aura's effecting all of that.

I'd say we have a challenging game again, god knows the community doesn't want that.

Gotta go zoom zoom and ignore 99% of the game to be a good game.

Peace,

-Boem-

It's a low tier map and hes using headhunter. This really highlights how much more rewaridng mid tier maps are compared to end game maps(15-16).

"

Nephalim wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

"

suszterpatt wrote:

I think the ideal speed is somewhere between this and this.

It's funny how relevant pack size becomes as a danger amplifier when all white mobs require up to three hits to kill.

Imagine those sextanted full pack size maps with this amount of clear-speed.

Then throw in some rares with aura's effecting all of that.

I'd say we have a challenging game again, god knows the community doesn't want that.

Gotta go zoom zoom and ignore 99% of the game to be a good game.

Peace,

-Boem-

It's a low tier map and hes using headhunter. This really highlights how much more rewaridng mid tier maps are compared to end game maps(15-16).

Are you trying to convince me people don't one-shot packs on t15/16 maps?

I mean, i played the game for five years, that's going to be a hard sale neph.

Peace,

-Boem-

Not going to lie, I am a sucker for builds I've never tried, and I haven't tried a Shield Charge one yet. I found a Cospri's this league, but I don't have the keystone chest piece.

But a piece of me wants to try that out tonight lol!

"

grepman wrote:

what I like about i_no's posts is that there's a clear correlation between her interests and post coherency

This was a very astute observation.

The few times I've seen him/her slow down and write properly about PoE it's been to get a very good point across. The rest is typically mouth-frothing, troll-foolery and foot-stomping. I think it's his/her way of resisting becoming an out-and-out anti-GGG posting machine. It seems to be working.

"

Phrazz wrote:

The solution is NOT to "force" down the clear speed. The solution is to provide reasons for players to WANT to "slow down". Reasons to "explore" a bit. Reasons to pick up some rares. Reasons to re-roll strong boxes.

But this was the winner for acuity. GGG TRIED to give players a reason to slow down when they introduced the Labyrinth. That didn't go down so well, despite the rewards being probably the most significant power-jump a typical character can receive. The sheer amount of entitled backlash we have seen to the Labyrinth proved, decisively I think, that people aren't content playing the PoE GGG want to make, to rise to the challenges inherent to that. And since the players are the boss, you're never going to see another serious attempt by GGG to force players to slow down. Ever. You'll see some leagues that require more patience and paying attention but they'll probably be divided by Breach-alikes, by crowd pleasers.

I have no idea how this all came about, but at some point GGG realised they can't make the game they really wanted to make. Now they're making the game that keeps the game alive. That isn't to say that it's not thriving; concurrency numbers with every new update/expansion/league gimmick indicate that PoE isn't necessarily on life support...but it does need a big shot of adrenaline to its torpid heart a little too frequently for it to be called 'healthy' overall. The poor game gets worked far too hard after each wake-up shot, and it's done a month or two later. Cue a month of exhaustion and ennui. Cue the hype for the next shot. Repeat. That's not healthy at all.

But this is just a more dramatic way of describing the model of seasonal spikes and dips GGG likely always planned. What I think they didn't plan for was the steepness, rapidity or sharpness of the inclines. And I'm fairly certain they have no idea how to take control of any of it without breaking this reckless roller coaster. They're just riding it out now, making sure the next spike and dip is enough to justify everyone staying or getting back on board...

None of which makes much sense if we get back to this idea that players are the boss. If that is true, and GGG are all about making the game people want to play, then the current speed is fine. It is a result of GGG responding to various calls and requests. But there's a lack of self-awareness and honesty in how this all came about. The game has changed as a result of these adjustments and checks, both losing its original identity and evolving a new one. Those who say, 'yes, the game should be slower' remember and perhaps liked that original identity; those who say, 'no, the game is fine' have, I think, embraced the new identity even though it hasn't been named or recognised.

PoE is no longer a hardcore ARPG and its players are no longer ARPG diehards. It looks like one and for the first, oh, ten hours or so, it feels like one. But as a friend of mine who lasted about 15 hours on PoE pointed out, it doesn't take long for the game to shed its ARPG skin and reveal it's much more about online interaction and gear checks, and that the result of ceding to those demands is you mostly just do the same things you were doing before, only faster.

Speed is the solution to every single obstacle in PoE. How quickly you can clear. How fast you can get through the labyrinth. Speed is the prime requisite of a race event. I'm not saying there isn't skill to that -- going-fast and not-dying typically requires a lot of skill. But I suppose the moment GGG used the term 'race' to describe their events, we should have been ready for this eventuality. You CAN go slow, and plenty of people do, but you won't win any races that way. And for a lot of gamers, that's tantamount to losing. Why compete if you know you're going to lose?

Why play a game if you're not playing to win?

'Because you enjoy just playing' is a cop-out. It's my favourite cop-out and I use it all the time, but it is a cop-out. We who say that are just trying to pretend we're not in the bicycle lane comfortably winding around the mountainous race track, built and designed to challenge finely tuned machines of speed and power. Ugh. I'm at my limit for expanding on analogies. Do it yourself if you care to.

Anyway. Can't make players slow down or even want to slow down when everything you've done has had one message: this is a race.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

But this was the winner for acuity. GGG TRIED to give players a reason to slow down when they introduced the Labyrinth.

Did they, though? Did they really try?

- Ascendancy points are no motivation to run lab more than once
- Traps only give a reason to slow down for characters below a certain movespeed, otherwise you can just blaze through them
- Chests drop nothing you can't find in maps or buy cheap from others
- Helm enchants can be farmed by running through the whole thing as fast as possible

Ostensibly, sure, the goal might have been to slow players down. But the Lab failed utterly at achieving that goal.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

None of which makes much sense if we get back to this idea that players are the boss.

The players should never, ever, be the boss. Ask players what they want, and 99% of the time they'll just ask for more of what they already have. That's exactly how games end up in a situation where every update is just more power than the last, and nothing new or interesting is added.

Make a good game, and people will play it. Make the game people are asking for, and they will quit from boredom.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

Spoiler

"

grepman wrote:

what I like about i_no's posts is that there's a clear correlation between her interests and post coherency

This was a very astute observation.

The few times I've seen him/her slow down and write properly about PoE it's been to get a very good point across. The rest is typically mouth-frothing, troll-foolery and foot-stomping. I think it's his/her way of resisting becoming an out-and-out anti-GGG posting machine. It seems to be working.

"

Phrazz wrote:

The solution is NOT to "force" down the clear speed. The solution is to provide reasons for players to WANT to "slow down". Reasons to "explore" a bit. Reasons to pick up some rares. Reasons to re-roll strong boxes.

But this was the winner for acuity. GGG TRIED to give players a reason to slow down when they introduced the Labyrinth. That didn't go down so well, despite the rewards being probably the most significant power-jump a typical character can receive. The sheer amount of entitled backlash we have seen to the Labyrinth proved, decisively I think, that people aren't content playing the PoE GGG want to make, to rise to the challenges inherent to that. And since the players are the boss, you're never going to see another serious attempt by GGG to force players to slow down. Ever. You'll see some leagues that require more patience and paying attention but they'll probably be divided by Breach-alikes, by crowd pleasers.

I have no idea how this all came about, but at some point GGG realised they can't make the game they really wanted to make. Now they're making the game that keeps the game alive. That isn't to say that it's not thriving; concurrency numbers with every new update/expansion/league gimmick indicate that PoE isn't necessarily on life support...but it does need a big shot of adrenaline to its torpid heart a little too frequently for it to be called 'healthy' overall. The poor game gets worked far too hard after each wake-up shot, and it's done a month or two later. Cue a month of exhaustion and ennui. Cue the hype for the next shot. Repeat. That's not healthy at all.

But this is just a more dramatic way of describing the model of seasonal spikes and dips GGG likely always planned. What I think they didn't plan for was the steepness, rapidity or sharpness of the inclines. And I'm fairly certain they have no idea how to take control of any of it without breaking this reckless roller coaster. They're just riding it out now, making sure the next spike and dip is enough to justify everyone staying or getting back on board...

None of which makes much sense if we get back to this idea that players are the boss. If that is true, and GGG are all about making the game people want to play, then the current speed is fine. It is a result of GGG responding to various calls and requests. But there's a lack of self-awareness and honesty in how this all came about. The game has changed as a result of these adjustments and checks, both losing its original identity and evolving a new one. Those who say, 'yes, the game should be slower' remember and perhaps liked that original identity; those who say, 'no, the game is fine' have, I think, embraced the new identity even though it hasn't been named or recognised.

PoE is no longer a hardcore ARPG and its players are no longer ARPG diehards. It looks like one and for the first, oh, ten hours or so, it feels like one. But as a friend of mine who lasted about 15 hours on PoE pointed out, it doesn't take long for the game to shed its ARPG skin and reveal it's much more about online interaction and gear checks, and that the result of ceding to those demands is you mostly just do the same things you were doing before, only faster.

Speed is the solution to every single obstacle in PoE. How quickly you can clear. How fast you can get through the labyrinth. Speed is the prime requisite of a race event. I'm not saying there isn't skill to that -- going-fast and not-dying typically requires a lot of skill. But I suppose the moment GGG used the term 'race' to describe their events, we should have been ready for this eventuality. You CAN go slow, and plenty of people do, but you won't win any races that way. And for a lot of gamers, that's tantamount to losing. Why compete if you know you're going to lose?

Why play a game if you're not playing to win?

'Because you enjoy just playing' is a cop-out. It's my favourite cop-out and I use it all the time, but it is a cop-out. We who say that are just trying to pretend we're not in the bicycle lane comfortably winding around the mountainous race track, built and designed to challenge finely tuned machines of speed and power. Ugh. I'm at my limit for expanding on analogies. Do it yourself if you care to.

Anyway. Can't make players slow down or even want to slow down when everything you've done has had one message: this is a race.

If you can't find the power to tell people to piss-off when they are requesting things out of your original design goals then that is not on them.

That's not me saying that's an easy task, but it does inherently mean that they will say one thing while their actions do something else.

FFA loot is an example of that. They could have perfectly told everybody
"nope, piss off, that's not the kind of game we are going to make" but they didn't.

Behaving like that tells me one thing, don't judge those people on their words but on their actions. Because they will butter you up real good before a cold shower and cave under enough pressure.

Peace,

-Boem-

The FFA caving was the beginning of the end of GGG's 'hardcore arpg' PoE. I *firmly* believe that. It triggered the speed meta because people no longer needed to be tanky to get first dibs on the loot. Thus they could play ranged with no real drawback. Melee is suddenly irrelevant. GGG need to find ways to make ranged play more challenging. Almost all of those ways make melee that much harder to play and balance, and most of them involve a glut of projectiles, significantly higher monster life and reflect damage. The significantly higher monster life means ranged players need to up their damage game, which then turns reflect into a serious threat. But instead of being a challenging threat, reflect now runs counter-intuitive to this demand that players increase their damage without worrying about balancing their defences. So GGG cave again, and neuter reflect.

And so on.

I can't say if GGG not caving on FFA would have killed the game but it is true the thread about FFA was over 900 pages long. GGG didn't cave easily. Which means they probably seriously weighed things up.

But whatever else, allocated loot was the first real step PoE took away from being the hardcore ARPG we tested in beta.

The clear meta would of evolved regardless of FFA, it's not like you only want/need to go fast in a group setting.

The real creep imo came from fortify support and ascendencies making every build want to use shield charge if it can, whirlingblade/leap slam if not. Or if you can't in the case of bow builds you get insane flat MS from frenzy charges on raider and other sources like onslaught, vectors etc...


Removing reflect as a random modifier also JUST did a gigantic number on people being wary when sanicing through maps.



Bring back a check like reflect, give bow/spell-staff/wand users a viable movement skill and let it use fortify or remove fortify support gem. It doesn't really solve anything but at least those builds wont be dumpster fires moving like syrup.