Does PoE's design successfully trick its players?

I get what you're saying.

I just would respond with... a great game is a great game, right? I've never felt like great games get stale. I could play Guild Wars 1 for the rest of my life, if only the rest of the community agreed and the game was still alive.

This whole "stale" thing always looks like ADHD to me. In every game, not just PoE. Master one build? Go master another. Surely, there's enough interesting and fun builds in this game to last? Why does everyone need keys jangling in front of them all the time? Why do they need Leagues to "keep it fresh"? Most people only explore ~5% of the game, between all the different classes, builds, content, etc. And they're the same people that will say, "Game is stale, when's the next League?" Just so they can do the same few things all over again, but because of a forced reset because they need the game to tell them what to do.




That got a little more ranty than I intended when I started typing, but oh well.

OH well indeed!

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ShadyC#1006 wrote:

Or do you acknowledge the sneaky design and like the game despite it?




GGG sets you up for smooth sailing so you can enjoy your character and have fun. But they're afraid that you'll get bored, so they force you to die every now and then, deliberately. That way, you can't feel like you've finished your character! Clearly you need to work on it some more. Or maybe some enemy takes 100 years to kill, so you have to work on your DPS now!... But then it's back to the smooth sailing again. Back to enjoying yourself. Back to reminding you that, hey, don't worry, look over here! There's still fun to be had, it's not a brick wall, don't be discouraged! Just a friendly reminder that you still need to waste a bunch of time getting little tiny upgrades!! Keep playing our game!! Play our content!!!

Its not your fault and you're not the first or thousandth person to feel like an ARPG is trying to "leverage" them into playing more. but your viewpoint looks at the design of the game from a very very skewed perspective. Not that I am suggesting GGG gets all the balance right (they don't). but a lot of those things you point to are actually considered good in an ARPG designed for replayability.

Also it should be pointed out that game design fundamentally is the art of manipulating players into caring about overcoming the design.

Let me explain:

So ARPG's evolved as a distilled hack and slash gameplay loop based off of D&D basically computer based D&D sans Role Playing. Killing goblins and taking their treasure, without the thee's and thou's.

Early ARPG's were a ton of fun but were over too fast, people wanted more, they eventually wanted "endgame". Excuses to keep playing. This is where "grind" came from. Excuses to continue playing became; perfecting gear "uber bosses" and D&D style character build min maxing. (good enough gear > better gear > perfect "GG" gear)

So whats happened is that younger gamers view this as "trying to force me to keep playing" because younger gamers never thirsted for the hack and slash to go on "forever" like older ARPG boomers (such as myself). And/or They didn't experience the desire to keep playing because they didn't love the gameplay loop that much that they "want more reasons to keep playing"*

So the things you're percieving as being "forced" are in fact meant for people who love the gameplay loop and who "want an excuse to keep playing". Looking at this with the idea that its meant to manipulate you (while certainly true in some cases, or some degrees more or less) is not really the base motivation or where it all started.

* Source: literally me and people like me posting on Usenet, Diablo 1 forums most early ARPG's and Diablo 2 forums. I lived through this and gaming is still my passion, its the cheapest and most varied and longest lasting hobby in human history. None of this is meant to be snarky. I've just lived through and thought a lot about this subject being both a DM, indy/amateur/armchair game designer and hard core gamer.

It is fun until you get bored.

Then you realize the grind is so dumb.

The Gauntlet always was what I enjoyed the most In PoE 1. Playing PoE 2 now, HC only since day one. I just got baited cause the devs promised arpg/souls-like hybrid, like less of all kinds of autistic PoE1 shit, more of a gameplay w/ proper balance where skill do actually matters, lol.

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ShadyC#1006 wrote:

It feels like buying volcano insurance from the Family Guy door salesman... and then a million other insurances for all these other ridiculous things as well. And then the moment I say I cannot afford any more insurance coverage, I'm told "SKILL ISSUE!"

If that's the challenge, it doesn't look like an action game at all. What defines a video game in the first place, what makes a person a good gamer? Some brainpower-hungry brain activities. Like, fast decision-making, better cognitive performance. I'm afraid there is no demand for these in PoE.

PoE1 is not Elden Ring, nor Valorant, obviously. It's some weird and still poorly done IRL economy simu with autistic math fkery in ugly ass isometric arpg environment. The "challenge" is to figure how to "crack the system", something that considered cheating in games and is quite opposite of competitiveness. The "top player" gameplay: one shot everything before it does anything. When Ziz played ER dlc recently w/ Steelmage they abused zone reset tech (is possible only in community mod) and surprise surprise he said it to chat straight: "ofc I'm cheater, I'm poe player". Well... lmao. To OP, I can see your argument there.

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PoEFreshie#2504 wrote:

Also, I didn't agree that the game is designed poorly. I just stated that your observations of game mechanics was correct. The game introduces problems to solve, you are unable to solve those problems when making a build. That frustrates you & instead of solving those problems, you blame. So, I suggested you find a more simple game, Runescape is quite fun.

Also, speaking of complex gamers and problem solvers, lol. That not gonna be you who will figure how to "crack the system", yeah even this weird "counter-videogamy" shit probably not gonna be your achievement. But hey ability to copy things still can be amazing achievement, right, that's what you get when the game is "about builds".

What are you even on about?