Zoom is not fun. It's loot FOMO

"

yosheee89#3525 wrote:

I like fast builds because generally I'm much safer when I can clear the screen. The longer I spend with mobs and more buttons I have to press the higher chance of me taking damage and potentially losing that sweet XP.

So XP FOMO?

Technically, yes. Fun and FOMO are not mutually exclusive, they can be both at the same time. But as you said, you are playing fast builds because you don't want to lose XP. Not because you are having more fun.

A thought experiment I use, is to imagine whether you would play that build if gained experience 90% slower. Of course you wouldn't, and that's because the XP rate is the deciding factor, not the fun.

Now if you feel your response to that thought experiment being "that's absurd and unreasonable. Of course I wouldn't, no one would", well that is the point.

If instead your reaction is to think "They would never do that, so this thought experiment is dumb", then that is beside the point.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

But what you will never see, is a top meta build, which is not excellent at farming. And that is because, people are playing it for its farming capabilities, not because it is fun, in most cases.

agreed, though we can conclude that for a large amount of people fun comes from loot and testing various strategies, not from some gameplay elements.

Right. The fun comes from the loot acquisition, not the play style.
Hence, if they could obtain the same loot, especially relative to other players, with a play-style which they would choose absent any knowledge of how "effective" it is, then that is the build which is the most fun. But because those incentives are crystallized, not abstract, builds are chosen with loot incentive in mind, and the best builds for farming loot are those that clear fastest.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

Or people just love clearspeed zoomies, we have a large number of instruments for this style in poe2 already. why take away fun from people? find your own fun.

Because that play style already exists in PoE1, and rather than having duplicate balance conducive of the same play style, I don't think we should take away the fun for people who prefer an alternate style.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

Current league is just boring.

You win some, you lose some.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

Same with poe2: people need content bigger than alch and go t15s. and game gonna be more interesting and more ppl gonna stay longer into the league

Endgame patch incoming.

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

and the best builds for farming loot are those that clear fastest.

It mostly depends on league content. In Affliction maps took extremely long time, especially if you played CWS/poison caustic. It was far from zoomzooming, though oneshotting screens of monsters was present.
Another example of giga juiced farm with mega drops is blight. It takes a lot of time and you cannot speed it up (im not talking about ravaged or blighted maps, but about juiced magic/titanic blight on map). but the rewards are great, and you need both dps and survivability, and movespeed is... idk, not very important. + in poe1 we have quicksilver flask. in poe2 we do not, only specialized sources of movespeed like tailwind or right side of the tree. quicksilver would make a lot of sense in poe2

speed is king in low-investment farms like alch and go (it exists in poe1 too) or farming inventories of heist blueprints chasing simplex and replicas. in more hard content speed is 2nd thing.
titanics and meatsacks are not even doable if you invest too much in speed and forget about ehp and damage. and they are singular rewarding strong mobs, not screen of buffed magic monsters

and no one prohibits you from playing slow build like thorns in poe2, if its fun for you - do it.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

and the best builds for farming loot are those that clear fastest.

It mostly depends on league content. In Affliction maps took extremely long time, especially if you played CWS/poison caustic. It was far from zoomzooming, though oneshotting screens of monsters was present.
Another example of giga juiced farm with mega drops is blight. It takes a lot of time and you cannot speed it up (im not talking about ravaged or blighted maps, but about juiced magic/titanic blight on map). but the rewards are great, and you need both dps and survivability, and movespeed is... idk, not very important. + in poe1 we have quicksilver flask. in poe2 we do not, only specialized sources of movespeed like tailwind or left side of the tree. quicksilver would make a lot of sense in poe2

speed is king in low-investment farms like alch and go (it exists in poe1 too) or farming inventories of heist blueprints chasing simplex and replicas. in more hard content speed is 2nd thing.
titanics and meatsacks are not even doable if you invest too much in speed and forget about ehp and damage. and they are singular rewarding strong mobs, not screen of buffed magic monsters

Sure, but now we are splitting hairs bit <insert effective loot farmer meta here> The exact style that represents that loot farm, is pretty much irrelevant. If you could show that the "slow methodical engaging" combat style was the best at loot acquisition, somehow, then the same exact principle would apply. But at least we wouldn't have another screen-cluttered mindless one-click screen clear epilepsy meta. Well, with some additional changes. Like reduced monster density, increased monster life, reduced monster damage to eliminate one-shots, and the removal of instantly replenishing player sustain which make monster one-shots mandatory.

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

Sure, but now we are splitting hairs bit <insert effective loot farmer meta here> The exact style that represents that loot farm, is pretty much irrelevant. If you could show that the "slow methodical engaging" combat style was the best at loot acquisition, somehow, then the same exact principle would apply. But at least we wouldn't have another screen-cluttered mindless one-click screen clear epilepsy meta. Well, with some additional changes. Like reduced monster density, increased monster life, reduced monster damage to eliminate one-shots, and the removal of instantly replenishing player sustain which make monster one-shots mandatory.

the only 2 examples I can think of extremely rewarding mechanics which fits your description are valdos and meatsack. meatsacks stacked loot when you pathed them through natural monster corpses. so its not mindless zooming. both valdos and meatsacks were extremely popular and ppl enjoyed them.

and torm spirits, though... I don't think most people liked them in juicing strats (as its too easy to 1shot them) and now they are nerfed to the ground anyways. the only people who actually abused them were party players who had special "ghost buster" running forward and triggering ghosts/applying "touched". and extremely fun strat with ghost atlas memory from affliction. buffed ghosts + affliction and giga loot. again, not mindless gameplay.

in poe2 they gave us wisps in dan of the hunt and they are complete joke. slow and unrewarding, with miraculous chance of getting good gold charm.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

Sure, but now we are splitting hairs bit <insert effective loot farmer meta here> The exact style that represents that loot farm, is pretty much irrelevant. If you could show that the "slow methodical engaging" combat style was the best at loot acquisition, somehow, then the same exact principle would apply. But at least we wouldn't have another screen-cluttered mindless one-click screen clear epilepsy meta. Well, with some additional changes. Like reduced monster density, increased monster life, reduced monster damage to eliminate one-shots, and the removal of instantly replenishing player sustain which make monster one-shots mandatory.

the only 2 examples I can think of extremely rewarding mechanics which fits your description are valdos and meatsack. meatsacks stacked loot when you pathed them through natural monster corpses. so its not mindless zooming. both valdos and meatsacks were extremely popular and ppl enjoyed them.

and torm spirits, though... I don't think most people liked them in juicing strats (as its too easy to 1shot them) and now they are nerfed to the ground anyways. the only people who actually abused them were party players who had special "ghost buster" running forward and triggering ghosts/applying "touched". and extremely fun strat with ghost atlas memory from affliction. buffed ghosts + affliction and giga loot. again, not mindless gameplay.

in poe2 they gave us wisps in dan of the hunt and they are complete joke. slow and unrewarding, with miraculous chance of getting good gold charm.

The point is that which play style is the most optimal/effective does not matter. What matters, is the principle that players will be incentivized to play them, regardless of whether they are fun (play-style wise). That is why the most popular builds are not an indication of what is most fun. They are an indication of the most well-known effective loot farming play styles.

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

The point is that which play style is the most optimal/effective does not matter. What matters, is the principle that players will be incentivized to play them, regardless of whether they are fun (play-style wise). That is why the most popular builds are not an indication of what is most fun. They are an indication of the most well-known effective loot farming play styles.

and why is it a bad thing? most people who plan giga builds use league starter to farm currency and then reroll to the build they wanna actually play. as there are builds like Kinetic Blast of Clustering from current league in poe1 which does not work without Whispers of Infinity/Indigon (depending on version) at all. In poe2 lifestack does not work without rare and expensive jewel and uniques, etc.
I don't think its a bad thing people leaguestart with builds which WORK from the very start. And then they play the build they like from the point of gameplay part and enjoy. And do some content

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

and why is it a bad thing? most people who plan giga builds use league starter to farm currency and then reroll to the build they wanna actually play. as there are builds like Kinetic Blast of Clustering from current league in poe1 which does not work without Whispers of Infinity/Indigon (depending on version) at all. In poe2 lifestack does not work without rare and expensive jewel and uniques, etc.
I don't think its a bad thing people leaguestart with builds which WORK from the very start. And then they play the build they like from the point of gameplay part and enjoy. And do some content

There is nothing implicitly bad about that principle itself. All it means is that the most popular builds are not an indication of what is most fun. They are an indication of the most well-known effective loot farming play styles.

There is no way around this, it will always exist. Players will always be incentivized by a play-style's capability to acquire loot at a high velocity. It doesn't matter if that style is slow, or fast, if it giga farms, it's meta.

So why do we care then? We care, because it means that the meta does not tell us what is fun, play-style wise. You have to figure that out another way.

This is how I figure it out: "Not thinking and just clicking so that monsters are wiped off the screen before I even see their mechanics, is boring.

This is how you figure it out: "I don't want to PvP white monsters and 'slog' through the game". Or something like that, I think.

So which is right. Well that is up to you of course. But why does PoE2 have to be that way, when PoE1 already is. I can only submit that whatever 'image' you have in your mind of an 'engaging combat system' probably isn't the one that I am thinking of, and that any system that is different from the completely shallow non-system that we've had for 14-odd years, is better.

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

So which is right. Well that is up to you of course. But why does PoE2 have to be that way, when PoE1 already is. I can only submit that whatever 'image' you have in your mind of an 'engaging combat system' probably isn't the one that I am thinking of, and that any system that is different from the completely shallow non-system that we've had for 14-odd years, is better.

mostly because of focus of developers is fully on poe2 now, and poe1 is abandoned. we had 12-month long settlers and 3.27 nerf fiesta with 0 attention from developers.
so some part of poe community feel betrayed. and as poe1 players are a large (probably major) % of poe2, then playerbase's way of having fun is probably the same as has always been in poe1.

again, no one stops people from enjoying thorns or 1handed mace abilites or other badly balanced and, as a fact, weak and slow builds. I feel that it's much better to give GGG feedback of how to add proper non-zoomzoom farming strats to poe2 and how to make non-zoomy builds find their niche for players to enjoy. as for now, alch and go being pinnacle content without any dps and ehp check (and there should not be one, as it is the most basic endgame especially helpful for new audience) is where speedsters are kings.

Nerfing the only fun we have to the ground gonna repeat 0.2 with even larger scale and gonna be bad for poe

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

"

WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

So which is right. Well that is up to you of course. But why does PoE2 have to be that way, when PoE1 already is. I can only submit that whatever 'image' you have in your mind of an 'engaging combat system' probably isn't the one that I am thinking of, and that any system that is different from the completely shallow non-system that we've had for 14-odd years, is better.

mostly because of focus of developers is fully on poe2 now, and poe1 is abandoned. we had 12-month long settlers and 3.27 nerf fiesta with 0 attention from developers.
so some part of poe community feel betrayed. and as poe1 players are a large (probably major) % of poe2, then playerbase's way of having fun is probably the same as has always been in poe1.

Okay so first of all, "poe1 is abandoned" is a little dramatic. They've released two leagues since then, with the promise to continue on a 4 month cycle. And yes sure, Settlers was a very long wait for a new leauge. But are you saying that after years of the fast clear meta in PoE1, you want to ruin the fun of players who want a more methodical style, because you had to wait some additional time one league while they were doing their initial development, launch, and new hiring?

PoE1 players are a large % of PoE2's player base. But if we're talking about 'betrayal', let's consider this for a moment. Leading up to the release of the game, GGG did say that they would be returning to a slower methodical play style, which everyone expected in 2~odd years leading up to its release. And because of that, PoE1 vets and new players alike all bought into PoE2 EA with that expectation. So for them to suddenly bait & switch by changing PoE2 to be more like PoE1, not only would make PoE1, almost obsolete; but it would also be a 'betrayal' of sorts to those who were promised something new and specific.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

again, no one stops people from enjoying thorns or 1handed mace abilites or other badly balanced and, as a fact, weak and slow builds.

But that is not completely accurate. For this point, if you're unfamiliar with the concept, it would be useful to google "Positive freedom Vs Negative Freedom".

But here is the gist of the concept.
- "You can play any build you want!"
- "But it will be suboptimal, or technically nonviable if it does not conform to the balance established by the clear-speed meta which is prepared to one-shot players who have immense amounts of life-regen, and who are expected to clap those monsters into oblivion just after their sprite renders on the edge of the screen"

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

I feel that it's much better to give GGG feedback of how to add proper non-zoomzoom farming strats to poe2 and how to make non-zoomy builds find their niche for players to enjoy.

So, I agree. and if you search back through this thread, I'm pretty sure that I and a couple others discussed the idea of having "multiple endgame content options", each of which would offer favorable conditions, conducive for various "play style archetypes". And putting aside GGG's difficulty of creating balance between these different endgame options (as we've seen, the most profitable would become the meta play-style), but putting that aside, it would work sort of like this: a slower methodical style content which is demanding of player defenses, and rewards that play style by (work out how much slower it farms) 15x the base item quantity, to compensate for the much slower progression.

This is fun to think about; however, I don't know if it is practical, because it would be extremely difficult to regulate how a faster play style could not also find a way to be "effective enough" at the slower content, to out-perform slower methodical builds. (They were afterall, the meta for a reason)

So unfortunately, the game has to be balanced one way or the other. And we already have PoE1, and promises were made.

"

SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

Nerfing the only fun we have to the ground gonna repeat 0.2 with even larger scale and gonna be bad for poe

It's not the only fun, there is PoE1. What about the fun of those who want a different style; that is conspicuously absent from your estimations of who is going to "miss out" on something by cloning PoE1.

0.2 was an amalgamation of many factors happening at once. New combos, hype for new class, the specific implementation of more difficulty without fine-tuning, the lack of new content beyond wisps, the particular zeitgeist and group think propagated by content creators, and the attraction to puritanism and familiarity of the first game, gate keeping and elitism, and finally, yes, some people genuinely like the AoE screen clear and very easy campaign of PoE1. But you know, we don't need more of the same.