Reap what you sow. Sow dead simple repetitive gameplay and get players who can't handle gaming

Bestiary was too complicated, Synthesis was too complicated, Harvest was too complicated. The truth is these leagues were TOO DUMBED DOWN trying to make them dumb enough for the clear speeder to engage in actually made them worse for the actual gamers who like making meaningful choices. So you pleased no one trying to please everyone.

GGG has sown a game that is about deleting entire screens of monsters with a single button, a game that used to be dangerous because you got hit by other monsters while you (somewhat too slowly) killed its pack mates, has become a game where you are in danger only if you're not one shotting screens, or going slow and getting killed by the left over corpses exploding.

So here we are, GGG is an office full of gamers, I've listened to the Front Seat gamer podcast, I know you guys are avid gamers... I also know that not a single "harvest is too complicated" type has a clue about gaming as a hobby and has never heard of it. They don't care about your nuanced view of game design.

And yet you're getting trashed every time you make a SLIGHTLY complicated league mechanic... Even when you dumb the mechanic down.

Why are you Dev's getting trashed? You let the game slip into a binary pachinko machine of "one shot packs or get one shot". Gameplay with rewards so fucking attenuated that only playing like CuteDog makes the game feel rewarding. Only mowing maps FEELS GOOD; and anything slower is just unacceptable. its no wonder then when opening a door becomes a bone of contention because you've balanced the game around doing 200 maps a night to feel any dopamine hits. 7 Seconds WAITING FOR A DOOR TO OPEN?!?! REEEEEEE!!!

You've filled your player base with players who can't game to save their lives... Players who babyrage at throwing a net, or a flare, or setting a Synthesis tile or placing a fucking pilon. Something that took me 3 seconds to intuit made them quit the league LOL.

You sow shallow gameplay as the best way to get reward and you end up with a shallow playerbase that shreds your hard work on reddit before they've even played a minute of it.

You keep leaving the slightly complicated league mechanics out of the core game, and putting the clear speed leagues into core. You reap what you sow when you do that.

writing the necronomicon gives huge brain damages ,apparently.......

I share your opinion, but have adapted. In this world you either adapt or perish. The design of PoE has gone the way that "more is better" always takes a game. It spirals out of control. It's chaos. But that's the setting we're playing in. Embrace it, or move on. It's not going to change no matter what "true gamers" want.

Players:You reap what you sow.

GGG(Tencent):

Given how complicated PoE is and how difficult it is for new players - even otherwise experienced gamers - to understand how to be successful in it, I think folks who think it’s braindead simple are in quite the minority indeed. For those who’ve been playing league after league for years, who have mastered high-risk rng crafting, a league like Harvest just vomited out OP gear. For everyone else, it simply made crafting accessible.

It’s not that these leagues were ever too complicated, but some were certainly too confusing. You have to admit GGG never explains poop in this game. A lot of people really hate having to minimize the game they’re playing to look up youtube guides for basic mechanics. It feels like work and isn’t fun.

In any case, GGG is in a bind trying to offer endless entertainment for those who’ve mastered the crap out of their game and have total amnesia about what it was like to not have mastered it, while simultaneously bringing in new people who could master it if they aren’t turned off by its inaccessibility.

Casuals will be casuals; I have nothing against them but I’m not worried about them (and GGG can only expect minor spending from them, if any). The thing is you don’t have to include them in the discussion in order to acknowledge PoE’s complexity; I think it’s pretty silly to suggest otherwise. If THIS is braindead simple, what the heck arpg are we comparing it to?

I believe his criticism is about the gameplay being braindead simple, not the character progression.

Which I am a sympathetic with to some extent. The only things providing player interaction are bosses and (sometimes) league mechanics. Alas, PoE is free to play at it's core so the whole "reduction to appeal to the most possible" was kind of inevitable. PoE couldn't live off of D3's failures for that long.

I can easily say that today PoE has gameplay as poor as D3, but it still has pristine character progression, freedom and variety. Well above any other ARPG.

The way it affects me personnaly, is that I make characters. And as soon as I feel my "plan" worked, I get bored of it in 10 maps or so. I reroll, or I go play other games.
That's why I find myself always curious about PoE leagues, but only "consume" what I like of the game. PoE is still very much worth my time. Just not that much of it :D

2-3 weeks is my sweet spot.

Also I like the pre-league brainstorm. Patch notes day is probably the day I enjoy PoE the most :)

People who have fantastic motor micro skills and love speeding through maps don't like being drawn up to a screeching halt and forced to go pore over 6 different websites for hours trying to piece together how a league mechanic works. WHodathunkit?

"

alhazred70 wrote:

Bestiary was too complicated, Synthesis was too complicated, Harvest was too complicated. The truth is these leagues were TOO DUMBED DOWN trying to make them dumb enough for the clear speeder to engage in actually made them worse for the actual gamers who like making meaningful choices. So you pleased no one trying to please everyone.

Are you for real lul?
bestiary was you randomly find 4 mobs in a map - you kill them. Thats whole league mechanic. Everything else was crafting, power creep abuse.
Also had 4 beast bosses.

Synthesis was crafting and nothing much else. Had some bosses. Thats it.
Same for harvest.

All these are boring, deadbrain crafting leagues. Crafting is not gameplay. If crafting is gameplay, then item and currency flipping is gameplay. People dont like these games because its boring. Its very profitable and boring.

"

webas wrote:

Synthesis was crafting and nothing much else. Had some bosses. Thats it.

i have to stop you right here. THIS is the actual synthesis league. THIS was bad:

The Synthesis board would've been amazing if they gave it some love (maybe letting you turn puzzle pieces, changing up drops, fixing the fog mechanic, etc.) It was rough to see how they just abandoned the league instead of trying to fix it. The concept was great.