Zoom is not fun. It's loot FOMO

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karsey#2995 wrote:

The power fantasy of deleting screens and bosses in a few clicks turns the game into a mindless cookie-clicker casino and I don't understand the appeal of that for any significant amount of time without having what is essentially a gambling addiction.

What kind of gamers advocate for game design that enables them to circumvent gameplay?

It's people who aren't there to play the actual game! They're there for another reason, and the game is mostly in the way.

That last line raises an interesting question -> I wonder what percentage of AoE screen-wipe advocates are also 'pro campaign skip'

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arandan#3174 wrote:

Something - which is not true - that I see repeated in regards to both games is that you need to clear 3 screens away in order to not be killed.
No, you don't.

I don't think that's been brought up here yet, but that's fair. The idea is more about easily wiping the screen. That you are basically walking and clicking while everything dies.

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arandan#3174 wrote:

There are ways to build very tanky characters even in poe2, the problem lies in how easy (or rather difficult) it is compared to going full glass cannon.

Life scaling on the tree doesn't exist and building anything remotely survivable based solely on it requires extensive game knowledge coupled with late game items that have multiple sockets.

ES is much easier to scale, but also not very intuitive to the average player, since it's limited to one area of the tree and it will never occur to people with armour or evasion based characters that they perhaps need some layer of it on top of their health pool.

Hence we have a scenario where an average player is funnelled into building a 4-5k EHP character and thinking that they should be able to tank some hits with that. If that were the case, then anybody who knew what they were doing would be essentially immortal and the game would be even more broken than it currently is.

What we have here is a repeat of the exact same mistakes that poe1 has made.
We incentivise speed and screen clear not only via the loot structure, but also via how much easier and more intuitive it is to build low EHP, high damage characters.

That is largely true. The bottom left section has little choice but to scale mitigation, which is "life mileage" in effect. The top can scale ES or Mana with damage taken as Mana. etc

But unfortunately, just being able to scale Life on the passive tree alone, won't solve this issue. Just as it hasn't for PoE1.

The reason is that the incentive structure is intrinsically tied to loot acquisition, which is tied to clear speed. So even if the option to scale defenses existed, the 'correct' method for optimizing loot acquisition would still be to focus on clear speed.

If, the game were able to tie the incentive of gaining loot to defenses, then we're probably onto something. The game does/did sort of do this with the limitation of 1 portal. People didn't like that kind of punishment; possibly because they were still playing with a PoE1 mentality and didn't adjust to the demands of the new system, but also because of the real legitimate grievance with being punished so severely when the endgame at the time was half-baked and getting killed by a damage spike or on-death effect was so common.

So, I think a better way must exist. The game needs some sort of very lucrative endgame activity that is designed with an emphasis on demanding adequate defenses.

Investing into defenses would also naturally become a more appealing proposition if players didn't feel like it was a wasted effort after still being one-shot, and if multiplicative scaling didn't exist -> why get some defenses, when more damage is exponentially scaled. Exponential scaling is a problem.

And in order to remove the one-shot potential from monsters, players can't be able to instantly regenerate/leech their life pool back. These things are just not compatible. Monster one-shots exist necessarily to one-shot a sustain character's entire life pool, because it is the only way to kill those characters.

These issues are solvable. They just have to do it, and we just have to keep asking for it.

Cheers.

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

Well there is hope. I realize that there are numerous things that would have to be looked at: Energy shield, leech, regen, life on hit, and so on. But I don't think this is as large of a task as it first seems, to change those numbers. The work comes, in them having to then balance around them accordingly. Which means reducing monster damage immensely, and (I think wise, to also help with visual clutter) reducing the mob density (and appropriately increasing the loot/xp rewards, proportion to the time spent killing them, so no xp/loot is actually lost)

Thanks for your answers, they were good. Cheers.

You just reminded me life on hit exists. Yeah, they do need to revisit the sustain methods.
I'm happy we agreed in the end, that's not that common turn of events on the internet forums :D.

As for the Speed - ye I was initially assuming you meant overall speed, not only dps. It wouldn;t change much in my approach, but it would significantly increase the value of such option and many would just go for it to play market.
BTW i made a dodge-only build with Ab Aeterno and Queen of the Forest this league. Decently fun on mapping - and pretty much immortal. Bosses however took quite a bit of time...

The answer is PoE 2 ruthless, with dodge pre first patch, where you could be blocked by a mob. You want easy and zoomy you go normal (as it already is that), you want a fight you go ruthless. Can't come soon enough.

it's true - but there are no any meaningful itemisation. Only abyss provided something above the null + to flat or + to % dmg and so on. Afixes need rework with class/weapon specific afixes and so on.

and zooming should be a thing of poe 1 and not 2. We are to early to strong... end-game is about "game breaking" game by our builds - but problem is.. do characyter should be to strong from killing milion crabs and it grants us power to kill the gods? no.. we should be over-powered after the pinnacle boss content - after killing gods, but it should stay to it's core combat with synergies. Now only playable builds are one-skill builds. Which is kinda sad

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Rabarbar_Lichy#7553 wrote:

The answer is PoE 2 ruthless, with dodge pre first patch, where you could be blocked by a mob. You want easy and zoomy you go normal (as it already is that), you want a fight you go ruthless. Can't come soon enough.

At first glance introducing ruthless mode this early into PoE2's development came across as a terrible idea but reading the quote below on the wiki and thinking about it for a while made me love the idea.

"This mode was designed as a pet project of Chris Wilson and other senior developers over 18 months. Features of Ruthless mode will have little to no impact on the core gameplay of the rest of the game. It is intended as a testing ground for radical changes and experiments. A change in Ruthless does not indicate that the change will also be made in the regular game."

imagine if 0.4.x had ruthless mode and frequent balance changes (read obliterating nerfs) throughout the league to maintain a vision of a mechanically difficult game which can be made easier with knowledge, items and skill but never trivialized.

now that's a version of poe2 i'd like to play!

"

arandan#3174 wrote:

Something - which is not true - that I see repeated in regards to both games is that you need to clear 3 screens away in order to not be killed.
No, you don't.

There are ways to build very tanky characters even in poe2, the problem lies in how easy (or rather difficult) it is compared to going full glass cannon.

Life scaling on the tree doesn't exist and building anything remotely survivable based solely on it requires extensive game knowledge coupled with late game items that have multiple sockets.

ES is much easier to scale, but also not very intuitive to the average player, since it's limited to one area of the tree and it will never occur to people with armour or evasion based characters that they perhaps need some layer of it on top of their health pool.

Hence we have a scenario where an average player is funnelled into building a 4-5k EHP character and thinking that they should be able to tank some hits with that. If that were the case, then anybody who knew what they were doing would be essentially immortal and the game would be even more broken than it currently is.

What we have here is a repeat of the exact same mistakes that poe1 has made.
We incentivise speed and screen clear not only via the loot structure, but also via how much easier and more intuitive it is to build low EHP, high damage characters.

This is very true when it comes to defenses. ES is the only way to realistically be tanky while still doing damage without several hundred divines.

There is no life scaling. Evasion is still 100% luck based. Armor was improved but still needs more help on big hits IMO. If I invest into a super slow pure defense character I should be able to be damn near immortal. Having that option should exist. Just like having the option to be glass cannon "zoom" should exist.

Why does everyone here want changes that LIMIT play styles instead of expand on them?

I have seen several suggestions like loot from 30 zoom maps should equal 5 slow maps. OK, lets think this full out... HOW would you even attempt to balance that? Is it a toggle thing? AKA a hard or challenge mode thing? What stops the "zoom" build from doing the same mode but faster? There is no legitimate way to balance something like that.

Another suggestion I have seen is extremely limit regen/life steal. Ok, lets think this one out... Blood mage...gone, Blood magic node.... gone, Life tap skill gems.... gone. Do we really not even think 5 seconds into the future when ideas like this enter your head?

Most people I have seen here seem to enjoy the idea of character progression. That's good. That's what this entire game is about. BUT, if I max out my progression and still need to "work for it" to kill stuff then the game is a failure because for it to still be a challenge for a maxed out progression, its torture difficulty for someone trying to do it the first time. This will drive people away OR drive them into an even more concentrated META build.

The argument about not having fun playing a zoom build makes no sense as well. DONT PLAY IT THEN. You have options. You can make the choice to slow down, use combos, parry to victory etc.

So the only follow up to it is loot/trade. Which means you are one of two types of players. A person who wants to be rich in the game but doesn't play or trade enough to be one or a person who wants to be gifted the same levels of wealth no matter the play time or trade activity.

SSF players don't care about it. They don't trade, they don't need to run META to stay relevant with trade.

HC players set their own rules on their trade and normally play way more reserved and slower builds.

Based on the feedback here, you all should try one of those two modes. You don't want to be behind the market in trade and you want to play slow. Both of these modes sound like what you are all asking for. You wont see "zoom" builds in these modes without heavy time investment. You wont have to worry about being behind in trade because you want to play parry etc.

I say this in all these threads....

In a zoom game, you can play zoom or slow.
In a slow game, you can ONLY play slow. Zoom is not allowed.

This is what you are all advocating for. Most people who play zoom builds for any of the reasons weather it be speed, fun, "easy", etc. But none of them are saying they want to remove methodical game play if that's what you want your build to do. It is always the other way around. Those who want to play slow and methodical are demanding zoom be removed. That is limiting options, not adding them.

Yeah actually. A lot of ppl have co.plained about the increase speed at tbe sacrifice of meaningful combat. Personally the " action" part of this game is what makes it uninjoyable just give us a good rpg and this game would explode in popularity. I know everyone likes to compare poe to other arpgs but all titans in the gaming industry beat others in the same catagory and other categories at the same time.