What do you consider a slog fest?

I'm genuinely curious, because there's such a massive difference of opinion. From players saying the game is fine and they appreciate the challenge (I'm among them) and others calling it a slog.

Now, I heard there are already some very intense players who actually made it through the campaign and it's only been a day. So, is it a slog if you can't be back at endgame on the same day a new league comes out? Is it a slog if it takes you an hour to beat an act? Is it a slog if you can't straight up run through areas with all mobs dying at the press of a button? Or is it a slog if you have to dodge and use a skill or two to clear a group of normal enemies?

I'm not asking this as a form of insult or "skill issue", I just genuinely wonder what your standards are.

Me, personally, if I don't fight a boss for long enough to get a feel for it's mechanics and attack patterns, that's just not a boss to me. It's a glorified unique mob. If I can kill normal mobs before I even see them, I'm not gonna bother picking up items or taking new skills because I don't need to.

On the other hand, if I'm killing a boss say... 4-5% HP at a time while having to dodge several attacks between each hit or, god forbid, wait idly while a mechanic expires (I don't think PoE has this) that's where I'd draw the line.

For normal mobs, as long as I can take them down within a rotation, it's fine. Multiple rotations would grow tedious.

I think the two sides arguing draw lines at very different places.

huntress tornado build, 6 buttons per cast...

Oh, for sure this is all generally just a discussion about lines drawn in sand. Most here fail to realize that there are very few "truths" in this, and it all just comes down to personal preferences. Nice to see someone just wanting to have a little chinwag about that :)


For me, it's similar in many ways. If a boss dies in seconds, it might be a short dopamine shot, but the game will get boring very quickly. White mobs (they're called trash mobs in many other games for a reason) are fine to die in large numbers very quickly. They are mostly there to keep the "ARPG power fantasy fly wheel" spinning for me.

A "slog" to me is when difficulty doesn't come from (mechanical or encounter-based) challenge, but tedium. Having to rotate through five skills to kill every single mob in a game is a slog to me, at least in an ARPG. To me, this genre is about speed and power, so that should be the focus. It should have a good balance between "blasting" (regular mobs, "brain off") and mechanics (bosses, "brain on"), with a healthy gradient in between (blue monsters requiring some minor attention, rare monsters some more).

I guess the dividing line for me is a simple question:
Can I get into a flow state, or something akin to that?

A slog to me are games that, due to their context (genre, franchise, supporters, audience), should be more on the relaxing side, but try to artificially place themselves on the "we'd love to be seen as difficult" side of things.

suppose it varies for person to person but for me it s 2 fold

having to combo for the weakest mobs a thousand times to prove what ?
and the most unsufferable is the biggest maps with the horrible move speed

just finished act 2, some of the maps at the end are horrible.
The Spires of Deshar for instance is really really painful

bosses that takes time no problem.
just note that when you used your patience on giant maps and white monsters, it could also feel like a slog even though i agree, too easy boss not good

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Stryfer#0953 wrote:

I'm genuinely curious, because there's such a massive difference of opinion. From players saying the game is fine and they appreciate the challenge (I'm among them) and others calling it a slog.

is the challenge to muster the physical and spiritual energy to continue doing something you're not finding fun?

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slogfest
noun
An activity or event characterized by a long duration and an exhausting, wearisome perception by its participants

the combat is relatively well designed and looks amazing. the bosses are awesome. but it's not fun to wade through 1km2 zones looking for the exits while having to engage with trivial white mobs that potentially take 3-4 hits to take down, 40x over per zone.

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Stryfer#0953 wrote:

For normal mobs, as long as I can take them down within a rotation, it's fine. Multiple rotations would grow tedious.

I think the two sides arguing draw lines at very different places.

it's a game where you can find a weapon that increases your damage by 400%, or not find that weapon.

It's a slog when it takes 5+ seconds to kill a white mob 10 levels lower than you.

Everybody's experience of this patch is going to come down to what class they are using, what control style, and whether or not they have a build guide / can come up with a good one on their own (aka game knowledge). If its taking people 5 seconds to kill a white mob, their build sucks. They blame the game for them sucking. If there genuinely is no way for that character to be good right now, then play a different character. The Galvanic Shards merc is melting the entire campaign with ease.

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Glowie_Zigger#5018 wrote:

Everybody's experience of this patch is going to come down to what class they are using, what control style, and whether or not they have a build guide. If its taking people 5 seconds to kill a white mob, their build sucks. They blame the game for them sucking. If there genuinely is no way for that character to be good right now, then play a different character. The Galvanic Shards merc is melting the entire campaign with ease.

well if you're using spears at the start of the game it takes 4 default attacks to kill a regular white mob, 3 if you find a spear with 45% inc phys.

which is absolutely thrilling.

Interesting, from some of these replies it sounds like the issue isn't so much the power of the mobs, but the amount of them relative to the size of the area.

Maybe instead of balancing around HP and damage, it should be quantity and movement speed/map size?

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Glowie_Zigger#5018 wrote:

Everybody's experience of this patch is going to come down to what class they are using, what control style, and whether or not they have a build guide / can come up with a good one on their own (aka game knowledge). If its taking people 5 seconds to kill a white mob, their build sucks. They blame the game for them sucking. If there genuinely is no way for that character to be good right now, then play a different character. The Galvanic Shards merc is melting the entire campaign with ease.

Dude, I'm a 91 Infernalist with stacked gear and 14 level 32 arsonist skeletons. White mobs of any level, much less multiple levels lower than me should just get deleted as soon as they show up on the screen. Watching all my boys toss their junk over and over at white mobs just feels bad man. It takes me like 5x as long to clear a map as it used to.

I'm fine balancing skills, adding to the challenge, or whatever. But just making everything drag ass like this just kills the fun.