Zoom is not fun. It's loot FOMO

I'm just so tired of every single thing having a downside or penalty for using it.

All the hoops you have to jump through for some skills to do any amount of dmg. How insanely slow and clunky the entire game feels. The way they butchered charges. No one wants to build power charges to use a skill one time to still do zdps. Just give us old charges back. You literally have streamers laughing at you during your big presentation

Removing utility and unique flasks (one of the most unique things that stood out when i first started poe). The crafting bench. Six portals. Replacing alterations with 10 different currencies and on and on.

It's ridiculous because I know it's going to get fixed eventually no matter what Jonathan says rn, I just dont want to wait 3 years for their failed experiment

It doesn't help that GGG is incentivizing the zoom playstyle with the current death punishment. The more you juice your map, the more loot you get. However, the more you juice your map, the less portals you'll have in case you die. This means for players who want to play the game more slow and tactically, they're more at risk of dying and losing their map.

How does one solve this problem? Kill everything before they get the chance to kill you. Unless GGG stops pushing hardcore-like mechanics into the game, there's always going to be some kind of incentive that encourages playstyles which bypass it.

And let's not forget mechanics which exist in the game right now that provide more rewards the faster you kill stuff. Breach and Delirium come to mind. Both encounters have timers attached to them which means you have limited access to the content. How do players respond to this problem? Nuke everything as quickly as possible in order to bypass the time limit.

If GGG genuinely wants to slow down the build meta, they need to start by addressing the root causes.

OP builds destroying the game. End of the discussion. You want them in game? Then game will be with negative reviews in Steam.

What is funny is that all of this is meaningless if no one plays your version of the game. At the end of the day, this is business.

They tried to make POE1 harder, slower, more meaningful.

It is called RUTHLESS.

And barely anyone plays it. It does not matter if zooming is bad or not, it is just one of playstyles players have. Most players prefer it, some don't - and actually ruthless is a proof of that.

"

Everything_is_taken#0515 wrote:

What is funny is that all of this is meaningless if no one plays your version of the game. At the end of the day, this is business.

They tried to make POE1 harder, slower, more meaningful.

It is called RUTHLESS.

And barely anyone plays it. It does not matter if zooming is bad or not, it is just one of playstyles players have. Most players prefer it, some don't - and actually ruthless is a proof of that.

What has Ruthless to do with slower combat? It's just about extremely low drops but enemies have the same strength and speed. And that's shit ofc but it has nothing in common with PoE 2.

"

Everything_is_taken#0515 wrote:

What is funny is that all of this is meaningless if no one plays your version of the game. At the end of the day, this is business.

They tried to make POE1 harder, slower, more meaningful.

It is called RUTHLESS.

And barely anyone plays it. It does not matter if zooming is bad or not, it is just one of playstyles players have. Most players prefer it, some don't - and actually ruthless is a proof of that.

Yea becouse you can't give to some players a carrot and to the others a meal. That hurts. Justice is missing from this game.

"

Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

It doesn't help that GGG is incentivizing the zoom playstyle with the current death punishment. The more you juice your map, the more loot you get. However, the more you juice your map, the less portals you'll have in case you die. This means for players who want to play the game more slow and tactically, they're more at risk of dying and losing their map.

How does one solve this problem? Kill everything before they get the chance to kill you. Unless GGG stops pushing hardcore-like mechanics into the game, there's always going to be some kind of incentive that encourages playstyles which bypass it.

And let's not forget mechanics which exist in the game right now that provide more rewards the faster you kill stuff. Breach and Delirium come to mind. Both encounters have timers attached to them which means you have limited access to the content. How do players respond to this problem? Nuke everything as quickly as possible in order to bypass the time limit.

If GGG genuinely wants to slow down the build meta, they need to start by addressing the root causes.

Thanks for you input.
You brought up some good points, but I'd like to add my perspective to it.

What you are describing as part of the incentive structure is interesting. Because initially, I think GGG intended for the portal limits to incentivize building stronger defenses, to not die. But what I believe has happened, is that players who were playing optimized AoE clear had to be 'kept in check' so to speak, by balancing the monsters to have high bust damage to counter that play style. As a result, defensive players do not have a chance to contend with a balance that is designed to kill players very quickly. This is not helped by the expressed concern by GGG of making players "invincible" if allowed to reach high enough levels of defence. I talked about this a bit in the OP.

Another thing to consider, is that any additional 'incentive layers' such as what you described above, is not actually needed in order for players to gravitate to AoE clear (aka zoom) meta. Because the insurmountable incentive of obtaining loot permeates the entire game. They would need to actively disincentivize it, in order to affect the meta. But I don't think this is the answer, because the new meta would become achieving enough defenses to overcome the death threshold, while still being able to AoE clear effectively.

I think a better design is possible simply by 'flattening' the player power curve, and balancing the relationship between players and monsters, much like they're doing in the upcoming patch; lower density, higher HP. Which btw, is not going to be enough and other changes are needed.

You're absolutely right about the incentive for players to obtain loot. And that in and of itself is fine; it's intrinsic to the game. But they've allowed the game balance to fully realize that incentive in the form of complete trivialization. And that I believe, is a fundamental balancing issue.

cheers

"

Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

Is that true really? Do we care about loot?

If GGG tells me tomorrow: we decided that you get 1 divine per hour. Do what you want, 1 div is what you get.

What will I do according to you?

I will start cosplaying captain America and charge with a shield?

Swinging my hammer above my head for 3 seconds like a cartoon character?

And dodging, blocking, comboing?

Please...

I will go zoom zoom again.

Everyone would.

I definitely wouldn't.

"

Everything_is_taken#0515 wrote:

What is funny is that all of this is meaningless if no one plays your version of the game. At the end of the day, this is business.

They tried to make POE1 harder, slower, more meaningful.

It is called RUTHLESS.

And barely anyone plays it. It does not matter if zooming is bad or not, it is just one of playstyles players have. Most players prefer it, some don't - and actually ruthless is a proof of that.

it's a zoomer game with a zoomer community. the players don't care about it and pretty much no one is gonna get on poe 1 and just play ruthless. and poe 1 players are such zoomers they can't even stay on poe 1 for a long time. just check out the steam charts.

and stripping down all the contents of a zoomer game doesn't magically turn it into a good methodical game. a good game has to be built from the ground up with a specific intention. ruthless just feels like something cheap and not cared about, which is what it is lol. it's literally just less loot and less power from passives/ascendancy or whatever, which of course will feel horrible for both zoomers and methodical players. its the worst of both worlds...

ruthless being unpopular is therefore a terrible example of what you're trying to communicate and is not proof of what you're saying.

edit: i also want to add i don't think we should be okay with things like the over consumption of mcdonalds in our society. all these extremely toxic ways of living that people try to propagate as "just another preference like pineapples on pizza" is destroying society from the inside out. just analyzing zoomer gameplay at its most fundamental level and taking a brief look at the psychological effects that makes that type of content appealing turns out to be the exact same thing as mcdonalds and coca cola and vaping and gambling and microtransactions and all this other junk ppl are addicted to, you name it. it's factually degenerate lol. but w/e

"The Vision" gets ragged on an awful lot by the types of players who prefer the zoomy playstyle of PoE... but all of us who were excited for PoE 2 from the hype cycle leading up to the release of the game WANTED "The Vision". As you have quite reasonably outlined in your post, the methodical gameplay we were promised is completely incompatible with the gameplay of click once to blow up screen.

The people who prefer playing that way have interestingly deluded themselves into believing the rest of us do not exist, that "The Vision" is a joke, and that the only "fun" to be had in PoE is the end goal of turning it into a more complex version of Cookie Clicker. They have PoE, they have Torchlight Infinite, they have Last Epoch, they have Diablo III and IV, and they have post-Enigma Diablo II. We have... basically just Grim Dawn, Diablo I, and the leveling experience in Diablo II.

I don't understand why people can't look at what Jonathon Rogers has CONTINUALLY said was the vision for PoE 2 and just say to themselves "Nope, that's not for me, I'll stick to PoE". Instead they flood the forums with feedback trying to warp the development direction of the game back toward their style of gameplay.

I do hope GGG sees your post and takes it to heart, but at this point the zoom zoom players have the louder voices. However, Abyss league has already basically killed any hope I had for PoE 2. I no longer have confidence that the GGG is willing to properly cater PoE 2 to a different playerbase than the core audience of PoE.




PS: To the people trying to make this argument; No, Ruthless in PoE is NOT THE SAME as the type of slower paced combat OP and countless other people want. Ruthless is still just PoE, it still has all the one-shotty zoom zoom balance but starves you for loot and makes the journey to get there more painful.