Zoom is not fun. It's loot FOMO

I'm about to head home from work. So I'll respond to you later.

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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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.

I didn't say I wasn't enjoying a faster playstyle. From a technical point I play fast to avoid XP loss, not to farm currency faster. I'm not sure that I would enjoy playing a slower/methodical build in endgame, it's fun for me to begin that way in the campaign and then progressively gain in speed and power.

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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.

idk, I saw trailers where quicksilver flask was present and when poe2 was initially presented as updated poe1. memed because of pre-release information on poedb with hilarious support gems like "+1 chain and deal 50% less damage" and "gain more flask charges from slain enemies". the vision was bound to fail as for me. and 0.1 was very poe1-like, just lacking content. great patch with great retention rate

about not zoomy content rewards - you can simply add unique loot. like catalysts and gamba with random t0s/divines or inscribed strat in poe1 ultimatum, oils + fractured items + stack decks/div cards from blight ravaged maps, sanctum specific loot (sekhema loot was actually great before 0.2 nerf fiesta, same for trial of chaos, and now loot from them is useless except good against the darkness).

and if we are talking not about tile loot but juicing content: i dont feel that more "methodological" content with strong singular monsters must give more or less loot than more classic strats with aoe clearing. just make them +- equal. so tanky and hard hitting builds gonna prevail in some content like necropolis meatsack/archnemesis etc where you need to deal with dangerous rares or uniques and clear builds with coverage or prolif which gonna thrive doing juiced abysses/alvas/legions. isnt it good balance in that case? and its not complicated to make them equal at all. add torm spirits/titanic equals for singular mob strategy. crazy pinatas!

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yosheee89#3525 wrote:

it's fun for me to begin that way in the campaign and then progressively gain in speed and power.

same for me, and for lots of other people. that's what ARPG genre is about to begin with. cool progression = fun basically, from twilight strand to pinnacle content

I think fun for me would be to begin with low ability - doing relatively basic things like comboing 2 skills together developting into a more challenging and deep experience: more complex enemy movesets and abilities to respond to, 8+ skills to manage and use at the right time, higher risk of dying when making a mistake, succesful gameplay requiring better tactical decision, bosses getting more complex with multiple phases etc.

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yosheee89#3525 wrote:

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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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.

I didn't say I wasn't enjoying a faster play style. From a technical point I play fast to avoid XP loss, not to farm currency faster. I'm not sure that I would enjoy playing a slower/methodical build in endgame, it's fun for me to begin that way in the campaign and then progressively gain in speed and power.

Right. I'm not saying that you can't have fun with any particular play style. Fun is subjective, and for any given play style there will be a player who finds it fun. I am also not saying that outlier cases don't exist where people play builds and disregard fomo completely. Or in your case, a different incentive separate from (but not exclusive of) having fun.

An analogy. You might have fun filling your car with gas, you might not. But the car isn't going anywhere without some gas, regardless of your enjoyment of it. This isn't "putting down" the merits of gassing your car; it's a necessary part of driving the car. But what it is saying, is that the claim "people love putting gas in their car, because look how many people do it" does not follow.

Also the case against AoE clear meta is not an argument against power progression.

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Elena#1466 wrote:

I think fun for me would be to begin with low ability - doing relatively basic things like comboing 2 skills together developting into a more challenging and deep experience: more complex enemy movesets and abilities to respond to, 8+ skills to manage and use at the right time, higher risk of dying when making a mistake, succesful gameplay requiring better tactical decision, bosses getting more complex with multiple phases etc.

That sounds cool. I would love for the 'power progression' curve to be the development of more complex interactions and tactics, rather than your left click simply scaling to a point where the combat is reduced so screen-wiping.
Thanks for your input Cheers. =)

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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.

idk, I saw trailers where quicksilver flask was present and when poe2 was initially presented as updated poe1. memed because of pre-release information on poedb with hilarious support gems like "+1 chain and deal 50% less damage" and "gain more flask charges from slain enemies". the vision was bound to fail as for me. and 0.1 was very poe1-like, just lacking content. great patch with great retention rate

That's because PoE2 was to be an expansion to PoE1, early in its development. But once they decided to separate it into a new game, to remove limitations, that changed, and many people were on board with it.

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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.

you can simply add unique loot. like catalysts and gamba with random t0s/divines or inscribed strat in poe1 ultimatum, oils + fractured items + stack decks/div cards from blight ravaged maps, sanctum specific loot (sekhema loot was actually great before 0.2 nerf fiesta, same for trial of chaos, and now loot from them is useless except good against the darkness).

The problem with this idea is that it's subject to market pressures and how players place value on specific items. Currency is more consistent standardized across the market, so it's a much easier way to scale as a reward between play styles. They could do both though, more currency + unique drops.

The overall concept seems like a solution to me. But I don't think it would work in practice, for the reason I already described in a previous post.

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

and if we are talking not about tile loot but juicing content: i dont feel that more "methodological" content with strong singular monsters must give more or less loot than more classic strats with aoe clearing. just make them +- equal. so tanky and hard hitting builds gonna prevail in some content like necropolis meatsack/archnemesis etc where you need to deal with dangerous rares or uniques and clear builds with coverage or prolif which gonna thrive doing juiced abysses/alvas/legions. isnt it good balance in that case? and its not complicated to make them equal at all. add torm spirits/titanic equals for singular mob strategy. crazy pinatas!

Nice in theory, but if it were true, you would expect to see that happen naturally. Yet clear-speed builds still dominate the meta because that 'organic balancing' does not happen. So I'm afraid there would have to be some explicit & intentional currency balancing between the play styles.

This is why I don't think trying to cater to the style existing in PoE1 is worth compromising PoE2 for.

Yeah, you can cure the FOMO pretty fast: install a loot filter.

I know, I know - "but what if that random white item I ignored was secretly the chosen one?" It wasn't. Endgame doesn’t care about your emotional support garbage. If it’s not currency, an upgrade, or something you can actually use, it’s just desktop clutter with extra steps.

If you want something easy that still lets you tweak things, check out FilterBlade. It’s solid: comes with pre-made "levels," and you can adjust it however deep you want. Start with a preset, then tune it as you learn what matters.

Same vibe as build guides: presets are great when you’re new, and later you eventually become the person who says "I make my own" unironically.

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

Yeah, you can cure the FOMO pretty fast: install a loot filter.

I know, I know - "but what if that random white item I ignored was secretly the chosen one?" It wasn't. Endgame doesn’t care about your emotional support garbage. If it’s not currency, an upgrade, or something you can actually use, it’s just desktop clutter with extra steps.

If you want something easy that still lets you tweak things, check out FilterBlade. It’s solid: comes with pre-made "levels," and you can adjust it however deep you want. Start with a preset, then tune it as you learn what matters.

Same vibe as build guides: presets are great when you’re new, and later you eventually become the person who says "I make my own" unironically.

??? Loot sorting has nothing to do with this topic.

This thread is about FOMO shifting the game-play meta way too heavily towards 1 button waveclear builds and how that is potentially pushing players to play the game differently than what they would most enjoy and lean towards naturally.