[Ruthless] Clever way of making Ruthless the default league

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1eyedking wrote:

Given the current state of the community, I'm pretty sure the reason they don't remove zoomy mode is because the result would be nothing short of apocalyptic.

Yeah, because it's a shitty idea. Not everyone wants masochist mode. Why would you make masochist mode the default?

Personally, I'd keep the current default mode (which is the default for a reason), keep ruthless as the masochist mode, and add a speed mode for the casual players who just don't enjoy the mindless grind all that much.

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1eyedking wrote:

If you take that same argument to a--frankly hilarious--extreme you end up at D4 levels where they're flat-out asking for ladder resets not to happen because players supposedly don't have time to level up characters again...

Yes, it would be really weird and unheard of if PoE had a permanent league where you don't have to re-level your characters. Would be even weirder if they called it "standard".

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alhazred70 wrote:

"Onslaught mode" come on guys its pretty obvious what they should call it. XD

I kind of expect that clear speed meta will be a mode soon, probably called Onslaught... Its either that or lose the Grimro Baylormage and Empy type players.

Ofc its always possible that "engaging combat" in POE2 will devolve into clear speed meta and thus be a failure.

FWIW I enjoy ruthless but there's zero chance they make it the default mode. The default mode will be POE2's "engaging combat" hopefully with a reworked loot system that does resemble ruthless in number of items that drop, but not in stingy-ness of good rolls, or the absolutely gutted atlas tree.

I'm fairly confident they'll make the switch come PoE2, though personally I wish it'd happen sooner.
It's the perfect time to do it: veteran players will be busy and entertained with the new campaign, new players will know next to nothing about previous power creep, and streamers will run the risk of losing new viewers if they get into "doom-and-gloom" mode when everybody else is having a blast with the new toys.
If it's the other way around and they don't make the change: given they'll be getting a *lot* of new players, and you take into consideration the current state Softcore trade is in, they'll be running the risk of absolutely decimating their game as trading, progression skips and power creep spiral completely out of control.
So yeah, I'd say there's a definite possibility Ruthless (or something very similar) will happen in PoE2.

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Char1983 wrote:

Yeah, because it's a shitty idea. Not everyone wants masochist mode. Why would you make masochist mode the default?

Personally, I'd keep the current default mode (which is the default for a reason), keep ruthless as the masochist mode, and add a speed mode for the casual players who just don't enjoy the mindless grind all that much.

The default mode is default because things spiraled out of control, and due to poor/greedy decisions GGG made in the past (which in their favour is much easier to see now in retrospect) that make it very difficult to put the cat back in the bag.
It's also default because players have grown way too comfortable and accustomed to current power levels, and have a low and ever-diminishing degree of tolerance for friction, to the point they throw a temper tantrum each time a mana reservation nerf is announced or an overpowered gimmick gets removed from the crafting toolbox.
As for the mindless grind, it ironically happens precisely because loot drops are in a ridiculous state with an excessive focus on currency orbs and crafting: it gets mindless because you can know with a very high degree of determinism what the outcome of a given 'grinding' session will be (X amount of currency in Y hours), and knowing what the chances of hitting certain affixes will be while crafting with a ~95% confidence level. Even if they add some variation to currency drop weights and affix weight tables per league though it soothes the symptoms, the disease still remains.

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Char1983 wrote:

Yes, it would be really weird and unheard of if PoE had a permanent league where you don't have to re-level your characters. Would be even weirder if they called it "standard".

PoE Standard never gets new league mechanics: D4 players want to play out the new season mechanics with their previous characters.
They basically want a ladder reset not to be a full ladder reset, which is incredibly lame, and takes all the fun away from what makes leaguestarts so exciting and unpredictable.
This is what happens when your playerbase is casual to an extreme. Ofc this isn't the case with PoE, but judging from recent Reddit uprisings one could say we're getting nearer each passing day.

Your post is so far removed from the reality of the average player that I am not sure we can even have a useful kind of discussion.

That being said, I liked the PoE of 5-8 years ago better, too (well, I liked a lot about it better, not all of it), but Ruthless doesn't get me back to that, it just makes the current situation even worse (for me, at least).

I think it would be helpful for you to realize that what you find fun and exciting isn't necessarily what everyone else (or the majority) finds fun and exciting. The majority clearly doesn't find Ruthless more exciting or entertaining than the default mode, otherwise more people would play it. And that doesn't even account for all the people that don't play the default mode of PoE because it doesn't cater to what they like in a game like PoE (like me).

EDIT: Besides, why do you care? You can select Ruthless if you want to. I can't select the mode I want to play because it doesn't exist.

the problem with ruthless: there are no "bragging rights".

you play a mode which ggg themselves advertised as "no huge time investent went into making it, we promise", people pitty you rather than admiring your skill.

i thought that it would be fun even for a casual like me to play ruthless to reach my "point of no progress" (usually before the big fights) a bit slower but it's not that.

i came to the conclusion that ruthless is for those one digit percenters who easily beat the game in poopsock mode.

there neds to be more incentive to play ruthless, like poe2

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vio wrote:

the problem with ruthless: there are no "bragging rights".

I have very limited sympathy for people who play video games for "bragging rights", especially ones like PoE. Those people usually have bigger problems in life, and are typically not the kind of people it is enjoyable to have around.

Play it if you like it, if you don't like it, don't play it. If the game by itself isn't incentive enough to play it, well, don't play it. Why would you need extra incentives to play something? Shouldn't playing be an intrinsically fun experience?

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Char1983 wrote:

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vio wrote:

the problem with ruthless: there are no "bragging rights".

I have very limited sympathy for people who play video games for "bragging rights", especially ones like PoE. Those people usually have bigger problems in life, and are typically not the kind of people it is enjoyable to have around.

Play it if you like it, if you don't like it, don't play it. If the game by itself isn't incentive enough to play it, well, don't play it. Why would you need extra incentives to play something? Shouldn't playing be an intrinsically fun experience?

+1 to this. I can't imagine anything less important than someone else's accomplishments in a video game. The game is the journey, play it to have fun.

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Char1983 wrote:

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vio wrote:

the problem with ruthless: there are no "bragging rights".

I have very limited sympathy for people who play video games for "bragging rights", especially ones like PoE. Those people usually have bigger problems in life, and are typically not the kind of people it is enjoyable to have around.

Play it if you like it, if you don't like it, don't play it. If the game by itself isn't incentive enough to play it, well, don't play it. Why would you need extra incentives to play something? Shouldn't playing be an intrinsically fun experience?

i get it, you don't like all the players around you and that's fine by me.

as soon as you play an online game, you directly compete with all the other players around cause the game is designed to provide fun for the best of them.

if you're not one of the best, you will probably never beat the game and see all it's content and most of the problems mentioned here are about that: the game being too hard.

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vio wrote:

as soon as you play an online game, you directly compete with all the other players around cause the game is designed to provide fun for the best of them.

I mean, no? Or more specifically: "yes but that's a different kind of competition".

It is of course true that anyone who posts here or otherwise gives feedback to GGG is, in some diffuse sense, 'competing' - not for in-game success, but for developer attention. I would, in some idealised reality, love for GGG to read my occasional thoughts about how I'd like the game to be and adapt it accordingly. But I wouldn't say it's really even a remote goal I'm trying to achieve, and to frame that "competition" as the same as "competing with other players for bragging rights" is surely not reasonable. They are very different 'strengths' of a 'competitive spirit' and competing over different things. Moreover, not everyone is in either group and needs to be competing at all.

An online game is just one that connects to the internet. I don't play POE any differently than I play, say, Grim Dawn - a singleplayer ARPG about killing monsters and upgrading characters. The internet connection is irrelevant. Whether I'm the 'best' is irrelevant. There's nothing to brag about, and that's fine.