I'm sick of zoom meta. (Speed creep created bad combat and game balance)

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jsuslak313 wrote:

On the other hand, your "pointless" comments earlier, as well as the judgment on This is a direct judgment on how other people play
[snip]

Or perhaps you are going uber metaphysical and saying "all life is pointless", and our individual cares and desires and fun is irrelevant.

Its not got anything to do with judging how anyone plays. Its about how people get in their own way. It shouldn't be controversial to say that games are a pointless entertainment for fun. So when someone says "leveling is pointless only endgame matters" or words to that effect like this is some sort of objective fact my response was "endgame also doesn't matter" which where my comment comes from.

If you want to say this person means to say "only endgame is fun for me personally" then sure, say that and I'll have a very different reply.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

On the other hand, your "pointless" comments earlier, as well as the judgment on "illusory" goals of OTHER players

I don't recall saying "OTHER players" pretty sure I didn't, I don't know why I would have said that because its certainly not accurate wording. I've literally noted that I've done this to myself so I'm not sure why you think I'm excluding myself. Except that maybe feed into a bias you keep displaying, where you want me to be an elitist to forum PvP with.

I am talking about illusory goals of ALL players myself included. They are goals that exist in a game. Many of which we simply fabricate at league start like trying to quickly get into maps as fast as possible for optimal "Economic PvP" (which actually only applies to a tiny % and is mostly who cares after a few days) and the "100 push" many of which are barely relevant to even the people who do them. Almost no one (even many who are playing the game) gives a real shit about them. So yea illusory. I think its entirely reasonable language and not sure why you find it insulting. I fucking love this hobby and I've done way more expensive and even "prestigious" hobbys and this one is the best. But the goals and achievements of gaming are mostly just fleeting, unimportant, sometimes completely silly FOMO driven illusions "I have to have a HH by week 2" stuff or "I have to down all Ubers on Heavy Strike bleed" type stuff.

My illusory goal that would be an "achievement" for SSF-R is to have Frostblades ignite cruc node on both a shield a weapon and an El'Abin's Visage helm, literally no one would ever give a shit were I to manage it.

Or maybe some people are offended to find out that their game achievements aren't important likely in any context at all (outside their own enjoyment)?

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jsuslak313 wrote:

As for how all of that relates to the original topic: I agree that fun is the main point.

If you aren't having fun with the zoom zoom, then either don't play zoom zoom or give the game a break and find another game that provides the fun you want!

There's potential with the game. It just devolved due to zoom.

I don't think it's really valuable discussion to say "Yeah, you dont like zoom, dont play! doesnt matter how much you liked the game before it started spiraling in this direction."

I think the problem with zoom is that it's a short lived power fantasy.

I think PoE does well with density in some cases, but it's by and large become the norm to just blow up giant swathes of things before you can tell what they are and fly across every map. (At least, it as for my group, and we've since focused on rushing leagues then going to D2, as per my description in OP)

GGG balancing around the current FLOOR of speed creep has resulted in poor loot/combat/monster balance. (this includes the 1-shot annoyances and invisible/single pixel/invisible degens. You guys remember delirium when it first came out before the adjustment patch? couldnt see SHIT)

You can even experience this in better received mechanics (non-timed like ulti) vs. timed mechanics.

Timed mechanics are dog water because they all have to be balanced around that floor IMHO. Timed mechanics are OK if it's for mostly mechanical stuff (dodging, etc. like lab or monsters if they're designed better than FLY AT 500MPH TO BOOP YOU ONCE, 1SHOT IT AND DONT GET 1SHOT)

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alhazred70 wrote:

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SilentSymphony wrote:

What?

well assuming that you're sincerely asking: I mean the moment to moment enjoyment of taking on and surmounting problems, dealing with obstacles etc. (aka gameplay) is the only "point" and not the illusory ones people sometimes like to pretend are important like being the first to 100, finishing the game, killing all bosses, etc.

Regardless of those goals/points, I think that the moment to moment is degraded by the poor balance that resulted from PoE's over indulgence in catering to speed addicts.

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Kaboinglefop wrote:

I don't think it's really valuable discussion to say "Yeah, you dont like zoom, dont play! doesnt matter how much you liked the game before it started spiraling in this direction."

I think the problem with zoom is that it's a short lived power fantasy.

Yeah you know what gets tiring? People who like the accidental/out of GGG's intended design scope gameplay meta, telling the original intended D2 spiritual successor audience to go play another game. This phenomenon started happening right around the Vaal Fireball Bakedchicken days when most significant POE streamers were still all HC except Mathil. I remember getting full on shat on by Bakeedchicken reading a reddit post I had made were he literally told me the game was never made for me and I should go back to D2 or some shit, live on his stream while I only had some fucking text on a forum to respond with. Let me tell you it sucks when someone with a platform flames you even when he was very obviously wrong.

Anyway I'm still here, since launch (different account due to steam) and that last line really rings true. Short lived power fantasy... Still reading regular posts about how if I don't like the devolved cookie clicker combat I should go play ... what exactly a shallower less interesting game?

Nah thats okay I'll just keep asking GGG to make their game less mindless thanks.

Anyway I'm really curious what GGG intends to do guess we'll know more in a few weeks.

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alhazred70 wrote:

the original intended D2 spiritual successor audience

How many of that original audience remains? How many of those players are still actively playing or even playing games?

The player base has grown and surely changed a bit since then.

I'd be curious to see a breakdown of when people who are actively playing the game started to play.

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insectbrain wrote:

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alhazred70 wrote:

the original intended D2 spiritual successor audience

How many of that original audience remains? How many of those players are still actively playing or even playing games?

The player base has grown and surely changed a bit since then.

I'd be curious to see a breakdown of when people who are actively playing the game started to play.

I'd be curious too. Personally I can't prove anything but I suspect the real try hard clear speeder segment of players who actually play autobomber level stuff is actually smaller than people like to make out

I also think POE's growth is as much to do with being pretty much cutting edge in live service model. There's a reason Chris was invited to talk about their model at the GDC.

THere are tons of games of all speeds and descriptions that pander to players, I would equate catering (not hard nerfing) the speeds in POE with many other systems that make games trivial like flying mounts/fast travel group finders in MMO's making your game shallower and easier to progress (high drop rates pandering to casuals) like DIablo 3... but most of them don't grow over time, they shrink. Most importantly though few of them deliver big chunky game changing patches every 3 months. Personally I think players and Chris himself conflate clear speed with the growth of POE when IMO POE mostly grew because of a big 3 month content cycle, a complete lack of competition and extremely high replay-ability due to GGG's 100% correct philosophy about multi Axis RNG and complex systems to dig into.

People forget that the game was already growing before VFB clear speed meta in 2.X. IMO POE's streamer eco-system is also huge and only some of them are real CuteDog speed types(Empy Baylor, Grimro etc.). POE's biggest streamer is also a REALLY slow player which is also fascinating (but probably unconnected). If i was to guess and I've said this before, I suspect the average POE gamer who comes back and plays multiple leagues is doing about .95 of a ZiggyD per hour, or 1.15 Quin69's per hour (so to speak)

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AintCare wrote:

streamer=popular opinion. popular opinion=sales. Sad to see but I don't think the change in this direction is just correlation with GGGs acquisition by a corporate entity

Similar to alhazred, I question how popular of an opinion this really is. In the PoE bubble you hear it a lot (but even here it's divisive, as shown by how often threads like these pop up).

Any time PoE comes up in a more mainstream context, it always gets criticized for a) content bloat b) one-button gameplay c) speed. The first one makes the game inaccessible for new players. The latter mean there's no 'carrot' (ie. engaging gameplay) as an incentive. I haven't played D4, but from what I hear it largely manages to avoid these pitfalls, and it seems to be working out well for them.

as someone who has been playing for 2 years. i wouldn't be playing poe if i started in the early days, the campaign can take like 12 hours sometimes already i couldn't imagine how long it would take if they do ops route

i dont see how poe is mindless, maybe you have just gotten to good at it lmfao, ive played for 2 years and it takes me so much concentration lmfao

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Delv wrote:

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AintCare wrote:

streamer=popular opinion. popular opinion=sales. Sad to see but I don't think the change in this direction is just correlation with GGGs acquisition by a corporate entity

Similar to alhazred, I question how popular of an opinion this really is. In the PoE bubble you hear it a lot (but even here it's divisive, as shown by how often threads like these pop up).

Any time PoE comes up in a more mainstream context, it always gets criticized for a) content bloat b) one-button gameplay c) speed. The first one makes the game inaccessible for new players. The latter mean there's no 'carrot' (ie. engaging gameplay) as an incentive. I haven't played D4, but from what I hear it largely manages to avoid these pitfalls, and it seems to be working out well for them.

It definitely seems like they tried to take notes from failures of other ARPGs (including d2!)

Again, combat doesnt have to be slow or bullet spongey to feel fun and impactful. People seem to be ignoring that point. Leagues have to end shorter and shorter because the floor of our power is so high. (There have been some good ssf leagues though. like OG harvest)