A cool thread about Terminology, Expressions & Philosophy related to Path of Exile (:

As every time a patch nears it's eventuation, the language gets very dizzying in this forum and it's subreddit, so I thought I'd lend a hand with improving the comprehension of it a little bit.

Quality of Life

Quality of life is not automatic looting, easier drops or fights; quality of life involves improving the perception or comfort of the user with it's interface which does not affect their power levels. Better settings for colorblindness, less flashing lights, smoother mouse movement, more organized menu is Quality of Life.

Too Hard / Challenge

There are different kinds of hards in the game which all involve a completely gameplay loop and set of skills. It is hard to earn mirrors in STD, to get challenges in the Leagues, to get the first level 100 in HC, to reach the Shaper boss in RSSFHC etc. A seasoned SSF player might find it easy to reach level 100 while a STD mirror farmer might not.

There is no universal too hard setting. What is hard is subjective and depends on the player's goals. Games not having difficulty attached to them would not be games but just sandboxes - like buying a Call of Duty game just to shoot at the training dummies. If the game was as hard on the first hour as it was on it's 1000th, then you probably wouldn't play it much any further. So when you say that the game is "too hard", it doesn't mean anything unless you give it context.

Tedium

Although expressed as an inherently negative quality, every game has a loop which by nature means that there has to be some repetition which can be labelled as tedium. This is not a bad thing, and claiming that there is tedium, means in an essence nothing.

Meta

Meta just means that something is popular, by claiming that you are playing a "popular meta build", means that you are saying that you are playing a popular popular build. There is nothing wrong with playing a popular builds but that doesn't mean that they're the strongest. The reason why popular builds are often in the higher end of the power levels is because the whole game is centered around finding the best combination of the variables given, making the strongest combinations the most popular ones.

Waste of time

All games are essentially a waste of time as there is no productive or profitable dynamic involved. There are exceptions but they are exceptions, since most players play Path of Exile as a form of entertainment which is meant to be a waste of time - a completely normal part of a healthy, daily cycle.

Nerf - as a negative connotation

Although whenever something is nerfed, the saying goes that it was nerfed because "fun was detected", while in reality the complete opposite is the case. Perceptually it might feel bad, knowing that something is weaker than before but the alternative is that there is nothing novel in the game and we'd get bored faster than before. Seeing that nerfs are happening, just shows that the developer cares about the hygiene and well-being of the game because they know they'd get far less flak if they didn't nerf anything.

Not Balanced

Not a single game in the world is perfectly balanced and having a balanced game is not a goal for any successful modern online game. The goal for every game is to create an engaging game which players will play as much as possible with as high mood as possible. That is why traps, the most boring skills do the most damage and Cyclone alone is never the strongest skill.

Frustrating / Grindy

Some more misnomers that aren't anything special because again, having some frustration involved means that we're emotionally attached to it, which is normal for anything in the world; and having grind is what the game is about. Both are completely fine, in reality the complaints are about either perceptually unfair balancing dynamics or that the gear acquisition is too long, not that the mere fact that frustrations or grind exists at all.

I wrote this thread mostly to avoid doing chores but also because I see all these expressions used by players as unshakable arguments for their opinions but in reality these terms don't really explain their position much at all.

Your tedious, unbalanced rant was just a waste of my time. You think your ideas are somehow Meta, but, not only are they a frustrating challenge to get through, they add nothing to my quality of life. I'd rather grind out an Oni Goroshi than go through your post even one more time.

Go do your chores!

"

ChanBalam wrote:

Your tedious, unbalanced rant was just a waste of my time. You think your ideas are somehow Meta, but, not only are they a frustrating challenge to get through, they add nothing to my quality of life. I'd rather grind out an Oni Goroshi than go through your post even one more time.

Go do your chores!

Spoiler

Thanks, great post!

Mostly reasonable.

But tedium does exist and can be a very negative thing. For instance imagine you had to hit F 10,000 times before you could log in.

Hard? Sort of, due to length.
Interesting? No
Good for the game? No.

Why - because it is tedious.

Challenges that require simple repetition without skill fall into a category called tedious, which can destroy player fun, and destroy games and gaming companies.

Exactly what people call tedious vs real challenge is a grey area and are somewhat subjective, but that doesn't mean it is not real.

If you disagree, explain why you don't support a game where you type F 10,000 times before you log in without using some synonym or analog of tedious.

"

trixxar wrote:

If you disagree, explain why you don't support a game where you type F 10,000 times before you log in without using some synonym or analog of tedious.

You shouldn't give me positions which I haven't said I hold but I'll still engage with it.

If the game ought to give every player $1,000,000 every time they log in, that would be one of the least tedious games from the perspective of emotions as there is. Picking up items in PoE is also tedious but that also means that you have a chance of discovering something which can be emotionally very rewarding. This rewarding dynamic would not exist without the tedium.

The point of the tedium section was that the word in itself does not mean anything and just saying that something is tedious is redundant.

Tedium in gaming is what happens when the loop underpinning the gameplay is impossible to ignore. When the artifice overtakes the art. It is a negative game design trait. I don't see anyone at Blizzivision going 'yeah so the testers found this tedious, let's leave it in or better yet, let's do more of THAT'. They might STILL leave it in upon deciding what the testers felt as tedium was in fact something more positive, but if everyone agrees it's tedious first and foremost and can't be made more rewarding or interesting, then it's probably going to be removed.

Simple example: early, EARLY into the testing of PoE, there were more than 3 Rhoa nests in the Mud Flats. Some of them were empty. Testers found this frustrating and I imagine tedious. So guess what didn't make it to the live game? Empty rhoa nests. Instead you have 3. Only 3. One for each glyph. Is that realistic? Not in the slightest. Did it reduce potential tedium for the sake of gameplay flow and reduced player tedium? Absofuckinglutely.

Don't let your Exilebrain, exposed to years of GGG's loosy-goosy relationship with English, change the definition of words that have perfectly acceptable meanings already. Tedium is bad when a player uses it to describe a game they're playing. It is not the same as challenge, or busywork, or minigames, or repetition, even though all of those can, if not implemented correctly, definitely lead to tedium.

It's also subjective: I'm willing to bet most non-Exiles would look at the Mapping loop and call it 'tedious' because they're not engaging with it on the same level as a veteran Exile, who has found their flow in that so-called tedium. This is hardly unique to PoE; any hobby or interest, if taken to an extreme-enough level of engagement, will seem tedious to an outsider.

Tedium is banal. In most cases, if you're doing something you consider to be tedious you're either being paid for it OR are otherwise obligated to do it. Tedium is in fact great for creative thinking, which is why it's so closely associated with flow and daydreaming. The difference is 'good' tedium is just a catalyst, a gateway to a more worthwhile, productive state of mind. And that good tedium is zen-like. PoE can definitely trigger this, or so the few fans of my little PoE minigame have claimed.

But once a person who is actually engaged with a hobby on a level outsiders would consider 'extreme' starts to see the hobby as tedium rather than that zen or blissing out or flow or whatever else, that's bad. That's not 'nothing'. That's a problem. That's the beginning of the end of engagement. And while you may feel otherwise, I'd be willing to bet GGG agree with this stance. If a widely read review of PoE claimed it was 'tedious', that'd sting. They're not going to be popping champagne bottles over it. They're going to look at which part of the game struck the reviewer as tedious and wonder why. Ultimately they might disagree with the reviewer (likely), but there's no way they'd just ignore it. They might not be Actiblizz-levels of paranoid about players quitting due to perceived lack of streamlined UX, but something tells me they don't want their game to be perceived as 'tedious', even though it is rife with busywork, repetition, and micromanagement.

I applaud the attempt and effort you made though. Cool indeed.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I applaud the attempt and effort you made though.

This post is not good but I will still respond because I see you do this a lot and you engage with the forums a lot.

1) It completely ignores the core message of the section.
It's about that tedium as an expression is useless without auxiliary statements, not what the popular definition is.

2) Involves forced factoids.
We know that you were part of the early PoE, no need to force it into every post, it just makes you look awkward.

3) Needlessly long.
It might feel good to write long posts but it just shows that you are not able to produce a coherent thought, which is not a good trait.

3) Makes negative assumptions about by my intelligence.
"Exilebrain, exposed to years of GGG's loosy-goosy relationship with English"

4) Finishes it off with poisoning the well and patronizing me.
Stating that I "attempted though", meaning that I was not successfully at presenting a valid opinion, even though I put in effort. Being patronizing by acting as if you're the arbiter of valid ideas.

Again, I see that you want to engage with the forum but it should be obvious that this post is invisible for anyone who has self-respect. If you want this place to be less of a diary for yourself, you should do some self-reflection.