zoomer meta gamer mentality ruined poe1 and will ruin poe2

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mrxkon#5764 wrote:

Very interesting read and I do agree with all your major points.

But I also have to say that the every-other-character or alternative gameplay ( higher scaled bosses etc that in theory already exists :) ), won't solve the "zoomer problem" unfortunately.

It runs a bit deeper than how it might look and you're focusing on the wrong people in my opinion.

Talking as a developer from this point on, we can agree I believe, that one problem that all arpgs ( and various other genres ) have is "balancing". This is a self-inflicted problem because there's always a multitude of affixes and percentages and pools of x,y,z attributes that inevitably create unwanted interactions and game-braking mechanics.

I say self-inflicted because the team that makes the game decided for those, nobody forced them to do so, it's their design and they usually end up shooting themselves in the foot by making it so vast and complex because it looks ( and is ) interesting, that ends up in a big pile of calculational problems and from a point on it's just un-manageable.

So the meta/"zoomer" vs "non-zoomer" is a "choice", given to you.

It's up to you, the player, to either enjoy the game as was "intended" and explore all the options etc in a supposed normal state, or "exploit" it into eternity and beyond. A good example from other game genres are the speedrunners, their "fun" is to figure out all the broken things in a game and finish it within 1 minute instead of a 50hour "normal" run.

And usually what happens in the case of an arpg, is that the team will try to "balance" things out, while in parallel introducing something else that inevitably breaks other calculations and it goes into a vicious cycle that never ends.

So the problem isn't really the "player" and the problem will always be there on every game that exists.

I do agree completely on the aspect of every-other-character and "not give up the rest of my social life", but that's a different thing, unrelated to the zoomers and the metas in my opinion.

Those guys will still find a way to "zoom" through everything :).

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lucidliving#4160 wrote:

I agree. I hate how arpgs have devolved into the most braindead gameplay. Hold one button down walking simulator. I hope they give the zoomers what they want then add a ruthless mode for those of us that don't want that. This way everyone wins.

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clarebunny440#7952 wrote:

When you can get one shot out of seemingly nowhere, the most viable builds are the screen-clearing zoomer ones. The faster you clear, the longer you'll live. It is the most logical consequence of the way things are currently. I need my zoom zoom to be zoomier.