Zoom is not fun. It's loot FOMO

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

What I like about PoE2 is that it does not force me to go full zoom. I can play slower if I want. Yes, it is not as competitive, yes, I might not be as rewarded as the turbo farmers, but honestly, who cares. I am responsible for my own fun, not theirs.

+1
Agreed with your every word, and want to throw an idea about how poe1 actually succeeded in rewarding slow gameplay.
In poe1 we have a number of endgame strategies which do not even scale from movement speed or scale slightly and with the level of power required to do this content player won't be able to sacrifice any stats for speed:
1) Valdo maps. Extremely well-geared character is required and gameplay itself is not "mindless zoomzoom". On the most dangerous maps, player need to kite ghosted feared with 100% delirium and they also take 90% less damage (if you put one of your rings or amulet off). And it is extremely rewarding with high range of rewards such as unid watchers/sublims/etc uniques like grand spectrum to magebloods and progenesises. No zoomies no exploding the screens.
2) Blight in atlas maps with titanics or bloodlines scarab. Again, this blight cannot be sped up unlike pumps on blighted/ravaged maps, its hard if properly juiced and rewarding.
3) Various juiced big scary rare/unique monsters: meatsacks, titanic scarab strats, archnemesis, funny torm spirits atlas memory from affliction, etc. No zoomies but rewarding content.

Probably there are some more examples of non-zooming thus rewarding and very competitive, sometimes even meta-defining farms. But TS already stated that all these things are not "meaningful combat". So TS' definition of "meaningful combat" is definetly souls-like style pvp with white mobs forced to all the players. And all zooming is deleted.

and also there is a number of farms which are basically: reach some encounters on map, ignore everything else (most of the monsters) and go next map. Beasts, ultimatum, harvest (though you need to find red/blue altars for more lifeforce), safehouse rush, usually people add passives for svalinn hunt to such strats too. and what, TS you also want to delete such strats? you want to force us "meaningful combat"? without killing all the white roas on map 1 by 1 (because aoe is deleted) you cannot activate other content?

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

As for zoom-zoom-zoom extreme paced map running, PoE has always leaned that way. It has never been a slow paced ARPG and it probably never will be. That is just its identity.

PoE1 has always leaned that way maybe... for PoE2 the devs specifically said they wanted to make the combat meaningful ... they even used the word "soulslike boss mechanics" in one of their promotional videos. You don't say that and then make every boss and all content in general a skill-less joke. If they wouldn't have made such statements I wouldn't even been here. If they don't stand by those claims they should at the very least publicly say it was false advertising or make a statement they were incapable of reaching their goals and gave up.

Just to reiterate again... people didn't come out of nowhere asking for better combat.. that was what THEY have said they will make.

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

I say that as someone who has been playing ARPGs for 20 plus years and whose favorite is one of the slowest, Titan Quest 1. Even then I would not demand changing the tech for EVERYONE just because I like to stroll instead of sprint.

Slow or fast doesn't mean anything.. OP tried to explain that as well. Slow or fast is not what zoom zoom means here. You can literally have a slow walking build with a shield that procs chain explosions by doing nothing and killing screens of enemies... that's still "zoom zoom" in his opinion, as well as mine.

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

What I like about PoE2 is that it does not force me to go full zoom. I can play slower if I want. Yes, it is not as competitive, yes, I might not be as rewarded as the turbo farmers, but honestly, who cares. I am responsible for my own fun, not theirs.

That's just wrong. It absolutely forces you to go full zoom. Literally every content you play is trying to fill your screen with monsters at the moment. You don't have a say in it, quite literally. You either zoom, die, or don't engage with anything... and at that point you can just quit the game.

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

What you can do instead is suggest adding more content that does not require zoom-zoom-zoom map clear and that you would personally enjoy. That is a win win, you get your thing, they keep theirs.

This is the most sensible thing you've mentioned here, and I would agree with you... but that is highly unlikely to work out.

The matter of fact is that, to make the game good to play and require actual skill... the game needs better enemy AI, more complex regular mobs in general, proper balance, overhaul of a lot of systems and so so so many more things. These things would require vastly more effort then what current zoom zoom style requires and can't just be done by having a separate game mode.

On the other hand, zoom zoom playstyle can be achieved rather easily as a side option... because it's literally just a result of letting numbers go wild without any guardrails. And there is a very good example I can give of that... if you are familiar with Marvel Rivals... they've recently had a zombie mode as an event which pretty much made it a zoom zoom fest.... and of course it was much much easier to do.

That being said, I'd still argue against this because there is simply no need for it considering all ARPGs right now are mostly of the zoom zoom variety. Moreover, PoE1 is still up, running and still being updated. You also don't even need better graphics for a game like that... quite the contrary... better, more complex spell effects and visuals get in the way of "zoom zoom"... I'm sure everyone is familiar by now with the "visual clarity" issues.

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allanballan6ix9ine#1114 wrote:

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

Poe2 gained its audience because of Poe1 being absolute king of ARPG genre.

hi!

hi!
I already mentioned that there were examples of actual slow gameplay in poe1 which were rewarding and did not scale from clear capability of player's build or its movespeed.
About your question with bars in map device:
1) In poe1 each mod on t17 maps (t16.5 maps also have t17 modifiers in its pool, though they are 50/50 with normal modifiers and its harder to roll mega juicy maps). Each t17 mod is extreme (some of them even too extreme and cause player's outrage, which I also share about a couple of mods). For example, there is mod "Area has Searing Exarch runes". Those are giant AOEs which deal dot damage and prevent recovery when you stand on them. This mod is not as harmful as others. it gives +15% packsize. Other mods give more maps, more scarabs, more currency or just generic rarity/qiantity. Each strat needs to roll the required mods. For instance, if you farm scarabs you roll maps for more scarabs. This system was introduced not so long ago and still kinda "beta". Before this system, we just ran 8-mods bought from trade mostly for big quant and packsize.
So they can add hard mods which actually require you to dodge staff (for example volatile core, as I remember it's also present in poe2, but in poe1 its damage is extreme and scales from map mods. also we have "fiends" (mobs which spawn large 1-shotting circles, also lethal).
Among the mods I personally hate the most is "you deal no damage for 3 out of 10 each seconds". Not because its hard, but because it causes lags and cannot be countered properly (players stacked almost full possible "debuffs on you expire faster" and this mod still causes freezes when you play clearspeed ability like Kinetic blast).
If they get rid of some absurd build-bricking mods like "players minions are 70% slower", "cannot regen mana and life" (because its very bad for casters) and ofc "deal no damage" this system IMO is fine. Hard mods = rewarding content.
Also big problem is t17 layouts. Juicy maps, though they are all narrow labyrinths which makes almost any strat bad doing on t17 and ppl go to 16.5. Also on 16.5 you can scry any divination cards you want and they gonna luckydrop sometimes. Also t17 cannot drop on t17 and they cost a lot, so 16.5 is better for almost any endgame strat, t17 is mostly for scarab farm which require no league content.

2) In current poe1 you kinda have the "bars" you mentioned, but in form of scarabs. You can farm titanic strat which is slaying singular dangerous unique monsters or go for some magic mobs strat, for instance, magic blight strat which is killing big packs of blue monsters in form of tower defense. previous league we had magic alva, same but even more monsters with Scarab of Evolving.

3) Again, I cannot imagine how other people who zoom can ruin fun of people who do not. Find the content you enjoy and have fun. That's the only way of having fun in ARPG gameplay, no?

.

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

I cannot imagine how other people who zoom can ruin fun of people who do not.

my apologies, i should've explained my pov better, the reason i didn't is because i feel as tho "my side of the argument's" perspective has already been elaborated upon quite extensively in this thread.

my pov: i do not care about what/how other people play and i'm not experiencing any fomo over it, nor am i arguing to limit anyone's way to play the game in any way unless it transforms the game into something completely different than what the marketing was, reminder: it sure as hell wasn't: poe2. it's poe1... but with better graphics.

main poe1 critique: visual clutter is horrible and every build i've tried plays and feels samey, running around in a circle, stutter stepping, maybe i'm just ignorant (only 700h played) but that's my experience.

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SoColdO_O#1989 wrote:

1) & 2)

a lot of that and other examples you have given sound amazing and i'd love to have that content in poe2 in 0.4.0 or at a later date.

my feedback (and others here, i think) to the developers is: the current balance and ways of scaling the game are boring, bad and all boil down to time spent in game (aka mindlessly grinding), i already did that in diablo2 25 years ago, i want something different this day and age.

I've made a lot of edits to the original post so that people entering the conversation will have more context and less ambiguity. I'll continue adding more to it, in the hopes that this discussion will continue.

I've read the more recent replies and I think there are some interesting points made in them. I'll be responding to many of them soon.

I want to thank you guys for sharing your thoughts, and showing that people care about this issue. We all want PoE2 to be a fun and interesting game; so we're talking about the actual game-play aspect specifically here. We all might have slightly, or vastly different opinions about what that means, but hopefully it's a shared desire to make the game-play feel deeper, richer, more interesting, and fun.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

On the other hand, zoom zoom playstyle can be achieved rather easily as a side option... because it's literally just a result of letting numbers go wild without any guardrails. And there is a very good example I can give of that... if you are familiar with Marvel Rivals... they've recently had a zombie mode as an event which pretty much made it a zoom zoom fest.... and of course it was much much easier to do.

This is a very good point. Credit given in the OP for this.

Totally agree with you here. I'd like to see a lot more build be viable end game in terms of loot progression. Should not have to worry about loot fomo because I am playing a different build.

Written with rare clarity and eloquence. I agree with everything said, and I do not intend to play PoE2 if zooming is the most efficient way to play.

As soon as my build got to a point where the whole screen was getting cleared at a push of a button, I got bored and stopped playing the beta. I refuse to play a game with no gameplay substance, just for the dopamine spikes. I prefer to get my dopamine spikes while I'm also being meaningfully challenged.

I'm hanging around only because of the super high production values of this game, hoping that late game gameplay eventually becomes fun.

If I were GGG I'd look into hiring this guy.

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allanballan6ix9ine#1114 wrote:

my feedback (and others here, i think) to the developers is: the current balance and ways of scaling the game are boring, bad and all boil down to time spent in game (aka mindlessly grinding), i already did that in diablo2 25 years ago, i want something different this day and age.

yeah, we just need to give GGG some time to cook.

In current state andgame is dull and in alch and go no damage/survivability/etc is needed, only speed.

Also, ascendancy balance is bad in poe2, absolutely forgot about this. IMO deadeye and amazon are the only 2 specs from all that we have who have 4 big meaningful ascendancy passives. Like you usually take 2 tailwind passives and 2 +1 proj/far shot passives on deadeye and accuracy stuff and weakness on amazon. Deadeye's +1 proj, 10% movespeed and good defensive mechanic are not too strong, everything else is too weak and its hilarious.
For instance, top meta from 0.1 was stormweaver sorc and it had 3 big passives only, and for 4th ascendancy you took 2 smalls usually. Ritualist has 2 meaningful passives, Bloodmage spear build has 3 meaningful big passives... And some classes like PF, gemling after nerfs, warrior ascendancies are complete useless joke. On the other hand, some potentially good classes like witchhunter (in poe1 his explodes would become meta 100%, and in poe2 endgame they are simply not needed yet) do not play because they lack proper content.
I don't know they should GIGA BUFF every ascendancy which is not amazon and deadeye. And if they just nerf 2 working ascendancies nothing gonna effectively change: balance will stay bad now with 0 good classes.