Why did everyone hate Synthesis?

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1453R wrote:

Henry Ford, inventor of the automobile, was known as saying "If I'd asked the people what they wanted, they would've told me 'a faster horse'." Nobody wanted a car until Henry Ford made one, and even then it was a rocky road. Look where the cars are at now.

Nobody knew they wanted MOBAs until some yayhoos modded Defense of the Ancients up. Now we can't get away from the bloody things.

Nobody knew we wanted mass online brawlers until PUBG/Fortnite came out and the world exploded.

Nobody knew we wanted an ARPG until, twenty-odd years ago, Blizzard made a game and said "HEY! Y'all like this? We do!"

If Grinding Gear is never permitted to try anything other than "what makes it great", Darth - if they're never allowed to try new things or experiment with the genre - all we'll ever get is a faster horse. Of course players want "more ARPG"; they have no idea what the next Super Cool Thing they'll like even better is. We would never have gotten Delve if Grinding Gear had listened to people cawing about wanting "a great ARPG and not this other shit".

I would rather Grinding Gear keep doing Bestiary or Synthesis than do another Legion. Doing more ambitious leagues that don't quite work, a'la Blight or Betrayal, or even doing ambitious leagues that don't work at all, a'la Synthesis or Bestiary, is going to do better long term than just shitting out another barely-reskinned Breach league every three months until the heat death of the universe. That way lies stagnation, decay, and eventual death.

They need to figure out the New Hotness, and Chris Wilson knows it. It's why they've been working on, and hyping, 4.0 for the last year and a half. People may not like the growing pains, but we have a better game now due to rocky leagues in the past. if people want aboard this whole live-service gaming train, here's one of the prices we all pay.

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1453R wrote:

What it boils down to, I think, is that there's a significant subset of players in Path of Exile that don't like anything they can't intuitively grasp the first time they do it, as well as anything that makes them change their playstyle.

People despised Bestiary up until it was turned into "do what you normally do, just with Einhar tagging along saying hilarious shit". I honestly think it works better this way, but that doesn't change the fact that Bestiary was the worst-received league in my memory of the game when it came out.

People despised Betrayal because they couldn't grasp how the board worked the first time they looked at it - they needed to do research, think about it, and figure out how to play the Betrayal board, and none of that was zooming through maps popping critters. That and Intervention ambushes could turn anything into a boss fight at any time, and people already complain about one-shots more than they should as it is. Though lemme tell you, the time an Intervention team hit me while I was fighting a possessed map boss on a Critter Crit map? That was a hairy friggin' moment...if also one I was super jazzed to squeak through by the skin of my ass.

People despised Synthesis because it was as deep and headspace-y as Betrayal with a significant style change baked in. You needed to work to get a grip on the league mechanic, you needed to change how you played from moment to moment as well, and the league was not QA'd as much as it needed to be. The result was people reacting to it violently because for a lot of folks, the Diablo-esque "get a themed buff, then do what you always do" is exactly what they want.

Do what they always do, but with more rewards for it than in Standard.

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1453R wrote:

And yet, Darth, people can't get enough of Delve. Which was "escort mission: the league" and everybody was prepared to hate the hell out of it.

If every single league from now until the end of time was "Breach, except green this time!", would you still be playing it a year from now? Would you still care about it?

Players are notoriously awful at telling developers what they want. Players are horrible game developers. A player can recognize what works and what doesn't, but they often can't tell why, or misidentify why something doesn't feel right. It's one reason why playtesting is a double-edged sword; you absolutely need it, it's invaluable, but asking the average player of an online game what they want would net you...

Well. You've seen the threads people post in this place. Do you want any of these nitwits designing the game?

You keep saying that "the base ARPG players" don't want anything but an infinite field of critters to grind into lootable paste, and that the numbers don't lie. Well, if that was true, then why are there leagues in the first place? Why does Grinding Gear keep trying new things if, as according to your assertions, they don't need to do that? They could make no changes to the game at all and instead just run three-month economies to fix the game's awkward loot issues, make Standard the default/only way to play, and save themselves a ton of time, sweat, effort, and money. But instead they keep trying new leagues, keep doing new things, keep trying to push the boundaries.

Why would they do that if, as you say, 'The Base ARPG Players' don't want any of that and would be satisfied with no new content ever for the rest of the game's lifetime?

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1453R wrote:

Since when was crafting part of the "Core ARPG Experience"? (Also since when was what PoE does 'crafting', but that's a different talk).

What are totem builds if not man-portable Tower Defense: The Character, with you as the thing the towers are defending?

There's this constant idea whenever they try a league that isn't 'find thing, kill critters near thing, get lewtz' that Grinding Gear should NEVER do anything that puts the least complications or complexity into the game. It's ridiculous, hateful, and harmful to the game. This is Path of Freaking Exile; nobody runs this game over Diablo 3 for its easy, mindless grindability.

Complexity is baked in. This game is so complicated and has so many moving parts that this idea people have that leagues need to be hypersimplified murderfests with no extra content, no extra layers, no extra depth or ability to engage with the game is not only ludicrous but actively mind-boggling. Why the bloody hell are you even here if you're not willing, even eager, to tolerate complexity in your game? Diablo is over there, GO PLAY IT.

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1453R wrote:

Blight isn't deep and thought-provoking, no. It's a twist on kill grinding, closer to the Breach standard than the Betrayal standard. Find an event, kill an asston of shit, get loot. That said? It's an interesting spin on the Breach standard, with a bit of extra mechanical depth that some players appreciate.

Legion was a shitshow, and I am legit disappointed it went core.

People can be different, yeah. You tell me that the numbers mean I'm wrong, and we should all be content to just grind critter carnage because the best-performing leagues are the ones with minimal mental engagement beyond the core gameplay loop. A'ight.

Then why is Grinding Gear still making those leagues? If the numbers never lie, why are they still trying these more ambitious, more involved leagues? Why would they not simply do Breach, Breach again, Breach a third time, and then follow it by running Breach yet another time after that?

According to you, folks who like a bit more crunch in their ARPG lunch should pack up and leave and let the rest of y'all have your murder grinding in peace. If Grinding Gear agreed, why haven't they doubled down on just making every new league a less and less reskinned clone of Breach?