About the "boots should always have movement speed" feedback

It's no secret that this is one of the most pushed feedback points that are still not addressed, and I just want to say I'm not fully sure I agree with it.

Don't misunderstand me, I agree that at endgame at least +20% movement speed is kind of a must. But having the movement speed be an explicit affix adds progress to what makes usable boots, which makes it so:
* gear progression is more, well, progressive.
* the slot becomes more flexible. For example, if I have no money I can still go for res or max life at reduced cost compared to what people with money want, because they want that and movement speed. Then at some point I may decide that even though I still can't afford good boots with MS I want MS, so I will remove my infernoclasp so I can fit in chaos res in my belt to make the MS boots I want cheaper. In other words - I opted into QoL.

But MS is not QoL, it is defences.

Partially wrong IMHO. When doing pinnacle content, or even particularly certain bosses, MS is defences because you need an out of certain things. There are some movement skills available yes, but I don't think it's an excuse for MS, they're different enough to warrant different management I would say. But you can quite comfortably do 3 affix t15s with -10% MS. It won't be fast or efficient, but it will work, and you can use that to build up to be able to afford better boots. Think about it this way - in PoE1, removing builds that need the belt slot for something specific, would it not feel better and be more efficient to have a Mageblood, even with a roll of just a couple of flask slots?

I think that what should be done though is removing the armour movement speed penalty. Defences aren't balanced to make some tankier than others, but rather to have different ways of building around their weaknesses. Therefore, it's kind of unfair that different defences have different movement penalties.

To me movement speed should be removed entirely

1st bcs it makes it harder to balance the game, if you have a lot of MS some attacks and mechanics end up being trivialized, like the game difficulty just turns into easy mode, 2 early and obvious examples to me are Geonor and Tor Gul The Defiler, if you don't have movement speed the average player struggles a lot in these fights

2nd bcs it makes co-op worse, having a huge gap in MS kills all the fun in this mode for me

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

To me movement speed should be removed entirely

1st bcs it makes it harder to balance the game, if you have a lot of MS some attacks and mechanics end up being trivialized, like the game difficulty just turns into easy mode, 2 early and obvious examples to me are Geonor and Tor Gul The Defiler, if you don't have movement speed the average player struggles a lot in these fights

2nd bcs it makes co-op worse, having a huge gap in MS kills all the fun in this mode for me

maybe you were the one, but someone said why not make characters 20% faster then remove movement speed bonuses altogether. it makes the players happy because they are no longer painfully slow, and it makes balancing mobs easier since MS is arguably the hardest thing to balance around in a methodical combat ARPG.

Imho movement speed is a bad mechanic because being faster than base speed always makes the game instantly more enjoyable. It's anti fun to have to start from a place that just feels bad or never being able to use some actually good boots because without movement speed it just means playing will feel like a chore.

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

To me movement speed should be removed entirely

1st bcs it makes it harder to balance the game, if you have a lot of MS some attacks and mechanics end up being trivialized, like the game difficulty just turns into easy mode, 2 early and obvious examples to me are Geonor and Tor Gul The Defiler, if you don't have movement speed the average player struggles a lot in these fights

2nd bcs it makes co-op worse, having a huge gap in MS kills all the fun in this mode for me

maybe you were the one, but someone said why not make characters 20% faster then remove movement speed bonuses altogether. it makes the players happy because they are no longer painfully slow, and it makes balancing mobs easier since MS is arguably the hardest thing to balance around in a methodical combat ARPG.

I was not the one who said that haha

But that is a good suggestion, i don't see the reason to not add something like that, it'd make the campaign at early levels way better imo

Well I don't like being super slow in general, so I just always equip the pair of boots that dropped with the highest % move speed. Anything else is instant trash. A unique that rolled 17% move speed? Unusable.

If that's how it's supposed to be then fine I guess. Makes the boot slot a lot less interesting IMO though.

I don't get why they don't just increase the base % of the characters because end game imo you need at least 25% to be able to dip n dodge.

I've also had like 65% total movement speed thanks to a buff and that was actually way too much for trapped areas in the trials of sekhemas. I ended up accidentally flying into traps.

with all the modifiers to players movement speed there are characters running around with anything between -20% to +50% movement speed.

Some monsters need to be faster than the players, that means the fastest players.

I honestly believe combat is not designed to be attempted without movement speed boots.

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

To me movement speed should be removed entirely

1st bcs it makes it harder to balance the game, if you have a lot of MS some attacks and mechanics end up being trivialized, like the game difficulty just turns into easy mode, 2 early and obvious examples to me are Geonor and Tor Gul The Defiler, if you don't have movement speed the average player struggles a lot in these fights

2nd bcs it makes co-op worse, having a huge gap in MS kills all the fun in this mode for me

maybe you were the one, but someone said why not make characters 20% faster then remove movement speed bonuses altogether. it makes the players happy because they are no longer painfully slow, and it makes balancing mobs easier since MS is arguably the hardest thing to balance around in a methodical combat ARPG.

I would go middle. Give all characters 10% And make boots go only to up 10% .. so effectively reduce 10% of the current bonuses. So you still have a step up.. but only at very late campaign

I delete boots without ms even if they have the craziest rng rolls. Just out of spite and also they are worthless without ms. Completely worthless.