the "arrow of depth" as game design principle to integrate different player types

Hello community.
As you may have noticed, there are many different types of players in this forum who want to play a different kind of poe 2. In an interview Johanatan said that he thinks about it like a Venn diagramm: there is an overlapping zone of player preferences were both sides can enjoy the game.
I see it often more as a negative polarisation: If the game becomes enjoyable challenging for one player, it becomes frustratingly hard at the same time for another player. But making it significantly easier to make the experience better for more casual players will make it at the same time boring and without challenge for those good at video games. Every step for a player type is also a step against another type of player.

So here is my idea how to largely resolve this, I call it "arrow of depth".

Basically you design the game around a few core principles:
-balance: every skill is useful in some situations, but none stands out overshadowing the others
-depth
-slower gameplay
-combo gameplay
-allowing for and rewarding skill expression
-engaging moment to moment gameplay
-constant challenge
-attrition gameplay during boss fights
-deep and meaningful engagement with complex games systems
-running past mob groups is a high danger activity

But wait a minute Elena, isn't that simply fully designing the game for a certain player group while ignoring what the other players want?
Yes, it would be. But what I described so far is only the upper part of the arrow of depth. The opposite of depth is accessibility. So on the other end of the arrow of depth you can make a different experience:
-ease of quick and fluent mob farming
-player power fantasy
-game breaking uniques
-becoming overpowered via trading
-combos not being neccessary, you can play skills just because you like the visuals and sound effects
-running past mob groups is usually safe, so they can easily be skipped
-a game to play to relax after a hard work day or while being drunk
-recommened skill gems and passive tree builds + import function for meta builds
-tutorial windows on how to engage with certain game mechanics

I believe it's possible to fully design a game around a deep and meaningful combat experience while also allowing for a completly different kind of experience to be made. It's important that the former isn't compromised for the latter. The more accessible experience can be easily created: e.g. if we reduce monster health by 50%, players would clear mobs far quicker and do not neccessarly need to use skill combos or optimized support gems anymore. Such a simple change would make for a drastically different experience.

During the campaign we could simply scale it towards different challenge levels. The technology for that seems already to be there in the form of the cruel campaign.
During maps we can split maps into levels 1-12 for the accessible experience and 9-20 for the challenging experience.
Players could stay within there prefered game mode from beginning to end of the game, if they want. Or they could over time change their preferences: be it engaging on a deeper level with the games systems and move upwards on the arrow of depth or playing the campaign on easy during a new league to get a quick look at new endgame mechanics.
The importance here is that the developers can create 2 truely different kinds of experiences for different player bases and you are not forced to engage with the kind of gameplay you do not like.
Last edited by Elena#1466 on Apr 29, 2025, 7:00:05 AM
Last bumped on Apr 29, 2025, 6:58:21 AM

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