Friction is becoming such a boomer thing

TLDR: Item ID is good friction in early game but bad friction in end game.

You can't really call item identification bad friction outright. It's bit of a grey area.

It has a purpose like it had in D2. You get used to it when you're new to the game or starting a new char where every rare is worth something to you.

Gradually as you progress and get fully decked out in decent rares, you're no longer thrilled when one drops.

By the end of the campaign you are rarely picking any rares.

Once you hit the maps, picking/IDing rares is downright hurting your progress.

If there were an atlas passive that says, 'dropped rares are identified' you might actually see a rare worth picking up in a dozen maps. Otherwise they are just there to slow down the game.

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hasatt0 wrote:

TLDR: Item ID is good friction in early game but bad friction in end game.

You can't really call item identification bad friction outright. It's bit of a grey area.

It has a purpose like it had in D2. You get used to it when you're new to the game or starting a new char where every rare is worth something to you.

Gradually as you progress and get fully decked out in decent rares, you're no longer thrilled when one drops.

By the end of the campaign you are rarely picking any rares.

Once you hit the maps, picking/IDing rares is downright hurting your progress.

If there were an atlas passive that says, 'dropped rares are identified' you might actually see a rare worth picking up in a dozen maps. Otherwise they are just there to slow down the game.

i agree, there still is some anticipation for ID ing items.

i would point out that undecember handles item ID in a different way.

everything is ID'd by default except uniques. gear that has top tier rolls are unid and may cost multiple id scrolls.

people actually run out of id scrolls in that game.

if you get basic loot, you can see it as is and decide whether or not to keep it. but if you find something unid, you KNOW its gonna at least have something strong on it

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Paradoxoglanis wrote:

An example of good friction would be socket colour weighting. It adds to the games complexity. It gives base items varying values depending on what build you are playing. It balances builds into certain archetypes, at least until you are rich enough to overcome the weighted odds.

I like this, when you have low odds to colour sockets as you want them to be, and it clicks, you make it work. Satisfying moment. Indeed add some value/meaning to item bases.

That's how it is in Ruthless BTW.

I'm currently reading up to beat the act 10 boss for the very first time (excitement !!), and I'm still picking up whites to sell (when convenient, by now), and of course I pick all the blues (much less yellows !), but then have to pick and choose which ones I sell for scroll fragments, and which ones I identify.

Which is probably a good thing, but I'm starting to get a bit annoyed that the drop item filter functionality doesn't also work for inventories too... and the inventory search-highlighting cannot really be automated, can it ?

P.S.: Then there's the D2 way, where (IIRC) yellows are limited to tier 2 affixes at best, while only blues get to have tier 1 ones - but this is not the case in PoE1, is it ?

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BlueTemplar85 wrote:

That's how it is in Ruthless BTW.

I'm currently reading up to beat the act 10 boss for the very first time (excitement !!), and I'm still picking up whites to sell (when convenient, by now), and of course I pick all the blues (much less yellows !), but then have to pick and choose which ones I sell for scroll fragments, and which ones I identify.

Which is probably a good thing, but I'm starting to get a bit annoyed that the drop item filter functionality doesn't also work for inventories too... and the inventory search-highlighting cannot really be automated, can it ?

P.S.: Then there's the D2 way, where (IIRC) yellows are limited to tier 2 affixes at best, while only blues get to have tier 1 ones - but this is not the case in PoE1, is it ?

i havent actually played ruthless, but i did play d2. back in the, friction was the gameplay. we LOVED friction, because we havent gamified everything yet.

when i play monster hunter i used to be at awe out how the monsters attacked or behaved. but nowadays i have to jedi mindtrick myself into forgetting that its programmed or how some monsters actually share the same skeletal rigging/attacks.

i actually wouldnt mind if in poe2 blues would commonly be better than yellows. thats how it used to be. players should not become godlike.

There is a huge difference between incorporating problem solving in a game, and adding tedium to waste the players time to keep them playing. Seems some people can't tell the difference.

Sure, Legend of Zelda would have been a lot easier and faster had I not had to find hidden locations and the NPCs would have just told me exactly where to go. But then how would that have been fun? What fun is the game if there were no puzzles to solve?

Figuring out worth while puzzles is a good thing for the human brain, we need to use our brains or we turn into whinny people who want to be spoon fed with instant log in and "Hey, I'm at maps in 5 min".

Giving you a quest requiring you to run around a mountain for 20 min to pick up and item, then running back, to turn it in and be handed another quest to run right back around the mountain and pick up another item that was right next to the first.... Well that is wasting a players time. That is a huge difference between actually having to solve a reasonable puzzle. But also, making the puzzle so complex and time consuming having to search 5 web sites and use 3 web tools just to be able to solve a puzzle is also wasting the players time.

So it comes down to how does a developer respect the players time and not making a game hard just because they think hard = fun. Just like Asmond said the other day, Blizzard's idea of hard was "Hey we gave the boss 100% more life and 100% more damage, and they thought that equaled fun". You beating a reasonable challenge and solving a reasonable puzzle what fun is, not beating your head against a wall longer.

Where the problem comes in is what is reasonable in who's eyes. To tell the truth Neon and Chris Wilson are much better players than the vast majority of the player base. So to them reasonable is nearly impossible for the average player. The higher your skill level is what is reasonable to you becomes very hard or impossible for the average player. This is where the disconnect comes from in most of the community today. Players with a very high skill level who think everything is easy are actually in the top 1%, but think they are average players.

Oh, also, not having to identify items would however allow for a much more specialized loot filter, allowing you to even highlight specific affixes (that you are looking for) and their ranges !

IIRC the new Median XL has implemented something like that ?

You can't find the excitement you seek in a game against AI, especially in our era where everything is a keystroke away (from a faq to build or the famous "services").

Only games against other players could give such thrills.

And to be honest only POE with so frequent introduction of new leagues (good ones or even bad ones) could keep someone's interest even for a while.

I agree this partially.

I think too many conveniences will wreck the gaming experience.So the artificial inconveniences created in POE is still necessary. But after more than a decade, so many contents were added to the game. So those artificial inconveniences definitely need a review and to be brought to a reasonable level.

If you want a 'hardcore', complex and not-so-straightforward game, friction is a must.

In my eyes - in a season based ARPG - the most important factor in any league, is new problems to solve. New difficulty to overcome. And maybe new ways to solve old problems. Some people will call all of this "friction" because everything isn't linear, clear or straightforward (or "easy", if you like).

That does NOT mean that all friction is good. Far from. And lack of QoL features often becomes friction over time. PoE is filled to the brim of examples like this. They added ctrl+click everything in iventory to trade window, but won't do it for your stash; why? They refuse to give you direct access to your stash from the map device (like they did with allflames); why? And those are just two of many examples.

When it comes to trading, there is of course also too much friction. There are NO reasons why trade searching/indexing shouldn't be implemented into the game client. And while I think GGG is right to stay away from offline, asynchronous trading, there is no reason why accepting a trade can't be as easy as a LITTLE pop-up telling you you have a trade offer. Pressing this whould let you see the offer, letting you accept or decline, and once accepted, the buyer can just go to your HO and pick up the item.

TLDR: There is good friction and there is bad friction. So you can't say that friction is neither good or bad; it's both, depending on what.