Bex: Rare monsters in past league content is something we'll review for 3.19.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

So please take it with all respect when I say that 'tension' you're talking about, the thing that keeps you coming back, I think it's a bit of a cop-out. That's the 'but it's not always bad' strained whimper of the willing. Because if it weren't, and things really were 'good', it wouldn't be 'coming back again and again'. It'd just be...staying. Sure, there'd be breaks -- they're healthy in any relationship -- but you wouldn't see the end of those breaks as 'coming back and again', any more than we say 'I keep coming back to consciousness' when we wake up every morning.

Man I feel like a fuckhead for saying that because dude, if you enjoy the game, honestly, I can't and won't disparage that. It was just the wording there. Like what Chris said, something about it begged me to read into it. I suppose it's impossible to have a simple relationship with a complicated game, especially when part of that complication skews towards browbeating its players into giving it a lot of time and effort, and doesn't always justify that with what it gives back.

Whoops, that wasn't my intention at all. Few words can sometimes say a lot more than they should I suppose. I was trying to say that tension (good or bad) tends to bring people back. Whether it's to play, or poke fun at the state of affairs. But either way they are there, and eventually they find themselves sucked in again.

I don't necessarily agree with the way GGG creates tension with their huge meta shifts, over the top lead up to leagues, large systems being changed in one fell swoop without much notice or feedback, and attractive MTX/boxes that create desire through unhealthy addictions. The three month cycle is something I've panned on for years. It's there to keep bringing people back quickly so they don't leave long enough to forget. It drives revenue through hype rather than memory of prior events or satisfaction with current events. And it all comes at the cost of quality.

It was merely a statement about how this cycle works. GGG creates tension. Players love/hate the tension. Players still pay attention. Players play or get sucked into playing. They rarely actually leave. If it was no tension and boring, they would just leave. I guess that was the point I was trying to drive home.

LMAO rare monsters aren't the problem.
IT'S THE ARCHNEMESIS MODS AND THEY APPLY TO MAGIC MONSTERS TOO...

"

Nubatron wrote:

It was merely a statement about how this cycle works. GGG creates tension. Players love/hate the tension. Players still pay attention. Players play or get sucked into playing. They rarely actually leave. If it was no tension and boring, they would just leave. I guess that was the point I was trying to drive home.

No worries re leaving: they do say you never actually stop being alcoholic either, even if you never touch a drop again for the rest of your life.


I do agree with the love/hate relationship with tension but...christ, there had to be a but...it's not true of every game. I don't think it's true of even *most* games. Probably because 'no tension' and 'boring' aren't necessarily the same thing, even with gaming. If anything, I think 'tension' as a means of keeping your game 'not boring' a bit like the Dan Brown approach to bestsellers (yay book analogies -- you knew you'd get one if you kept me going long enough): a cliff-hanger at the end of every chapter, but not really much else in terms of quality compared to much more enduring works (classics, as one simple example, but there's plenty of compelling, *good* modern fiction of course). By that metaphor, every league reveal near the end of the current reveal is the cliff-hanger, while the league itself is more like going through the motions to get to that next cliff-hanger. Sometimes that process is enjoyable, but sometimes, as with 3.18 (which they clearly don't intend to really 'fix'), it can be quite punishing and you wonder why you bother. But you know why you bother: because you're already committed to the long haul, you love those cliff-hangers and the hype inherent to them, and maybe next league will be better. It's not...always bad...

Yeah, I'm back at the abuse comparison. Whoops.

But okay, let's consider THE most popular PC games out there right now and see if they match the 'tension=not boring=keep 'em hooked' hypothesis. Google ahoy, brb.

Needless to say, every mag and their dog had a list, but this one, from April 2022, seems based purely on a quantifiable MAU (monthly active user) figure from across 37 countries (not including China, of course). As good a list as any.

https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-20-pc-games

Well, shit. I was wrong. Most of these are all about the tension -- specifically, PVP. So much for the quiet brilliance of your 4x games and your survival sims and, of course, the MMOs. Okay, in order:




Okay, phew. So what can we conclude from this? One: PvP tension is waaaaay stronger than PvE, with fpses, BRs and mobas still ruling the roost. Two, there is a market for low tension games that hit other pleasure spots, such as truly friendly coop, exploration and...lego. Three: when there is PvE tension, it's offset by a vastness of the game/variety of things to do itself rather than its 'vast' mechanics. And four: not every game on this list can be considered a 'long termer' but MOST can. That one surprised me the most, to be honest -- I thought there'd be more 'current hits' (Lost Ark, CP2077), but as it turns out, gamers are incredibly loyal to their chosen poison.



But not a single one of them has what I'd consider PoE's sort of tension, being a regular reset of the playing board forcing 'returning' players to learn, essentially, a bunch of new sub-rules, some of which might be incorporated into the core game. Some of which also invalidate other sub-rules players learned and incorporated into their playstyles mere months before.

Just typing that makes *me* tense, FFS.

Fuck, I've forgotten my point. Hang on, rereading.

Oh, right. Tension = not boring. I think that's 100% true for PvP (assuming the game is done right), and only somewhat true of PvE. And of the PvE tension types I found lurking in that list, most are, well, based on great boss design with really satisfying rewards. Not something you'll find much in Wraeclast and probably even less outside of it but still in PoE.

So I guess here's where I DO disagree with your argument. I think PoE could be much less tense and still not boring. If anything, I'd argue it could be less tense *and more interesting* because instead of spending all that time learning those sub-rules, getting your soul crushed by new and very arbitrary layers of difficulty, you could be actually playing the game without feeling a constant urge to make sure you're doing everything right. I get it: That's an ARPG thing, especially when respeccing is a bit of a pain. You'd better believe I keep pausing Sacred 2 to look up guides and hints because that game has NO respeccing and a bunch of early game options build-wise. My attempts at just 'playing' the various classes and their 'aspects' (ie skill types) have varied wildly from 'oh fuck no' to 'oh fuck yeah'. BUT I know once I get my rhythm going, once the systems go from 'pause, think, worry...restart?..' to 'cool another level...and done' that I will be fully immersed. I don't think that EVER happened with PoE. The closest I came to immersion with this game was mindless map grinding that I knew was safe. Fucking. Yawn.

The crux then: if PoE would be 'boring' without that tension, and that tension is largely based on unnecessary difficulty, complexity and ad hoc, punitive rule changing, AND that all of those are generally bad game design (especially in ARPGs), could one argue that PoE is, in fact, not boring because it is, by modern and popular game design philosophy, bad?

By extension -- would be it boring if it were, by those same standards, 'good'?

I say yes to the first, but no to the second. But then again, I still believe GGG care more about the quality of their game than the money it makes them. Deep down, I really do. Surely were that not true, Exiles would see the truth and stop supporting.

Surely.

The way I am treating it is a way to combat my own burn out.

Instead of waddling through a league I'm not really having a whole lot of fun with I'm just going to put it and my goals on the back burner and check back with 3.19 when they can make more significant changes and hope the league mechanic isn't about exacerbating the issue.

Healthy mind and all that. At least they're hitting it out of the park with the atlas tree though so that's something I continue to look forward to.

"

Aynix wrote:

AN rares would be fine even after 1st nerf (we have like 4 nerfs at this point?) but if they would appear only outside other league mechanics.
AN made me hate my favorite league mechanic which was Blight.

Nah, they're still shit outside of other league content. They added annoyance without adding reward or reason. Most non meta skills went from almost useless to trolling. They can nerf it 4 more times, and it's still shit.

Nah im sitting it out and deal with the archnemesis mods. however if they remain here next league im gone aswel just like all my friends and guild already quitted.