"Meaningful Combat" Is Anti-ARPG

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

just go play poe 1, leave poe 2 alone.

The same can be said to you. Go play Dark Souls and leave poe 2 alone. :)

I guess now it has devolved into whoever side scream louder for their preferred changes.

Decrease in Curse AOE now


So we have had a decrease in movement in several directions (rhoa, effectiveness of mods on boots)

And curse coverage



Think the writing is on the walls here. Slower gameplay is what is being designed.

Thankfully.

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The same can be said to you. Go play Dark Souls and leave poe 2 alone. :)

It cannot. I'm a new player for GGG. I don't play poe 1. Poe 2 was made to attract new people in the 1st place. And for old players they still keep supporting Poe 1. And this is where they all should stay.

"Meaningful" does not necessary mean slow just like the opposite, "Meaningless" doesn't necessarily mean fast.

It seems more like the original comment is about playing strategically vs ...unstrategically? Just spamming? and making a zoom vs slow equivalency?

If a brain-off spammy "meaningless combat" playstyle is your preference, do not kid yourself with justifications of "it feels good" in an argument for it - you are simulating a slot machine, not an ARPG.

There's just not really a way around that aspect. It "feels good" because intermittent reinforcement is an effective way to stimulate the human reward neural pathway. But you are not engaging with content when you play this way with spamming "meaningless" combat, you are circumventing it.

There is absolutely 0 A, RP, and barely a G happening when you are not making conscious decisions about how you are engaging with content.

"Meaningful" combat doesn't have to mean slow, it just has to mean that the way you are engaging in combat is strategic and conscious. There *is* a speed limit that that sort of requirement imposes, but that's still pretty far outside of "slow" territory.

The gambling aspect has a place in the game but it's to be complementary to the core "meaningful" gameplay - not the focus itself.

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karsey#2995 wrote:

"Meaningful" does not necessary mean slow just like the opposite, "Meaningless" doesn't necessarily mean fast.

It seems more like the original comment is about playing strategically vs ...unstrategically? Just spamming? and making a zoom vs slow equivalency?

If a brain-off spammy "meaningless combat" playstyle is your preference, do not kid yourself with justifications of "it feels good" in an argument for it - you are simulating a slot machine, not an ARPG.

There's just not really a way around that aspect. It "feels good" because intermittent reinforcement is an effective way to stimulate the human reward neural pathway. But you are not engaging with content when you play this way with spamming "meaningless" combat, you are circumventing it.

There is absolutely 0 A, RP, and barely a G happening when you are not making conscious decisions about how you are engaging with content.

"Meaningful" combat doesn't have to mean slow, it just has to mean that the way you are engaging in combat is strategic and conscious. There *is* a speed limit that that sort of requirement imposes, but that's still pretty far outside of "slow" territory.

The gambling aspect has a place in the game but it's to be complementary to the core "meaningful" gameplay - not the focus itself.

Asi I said before several times - people who defend zooming so hard are just gambling addicts who are afraid to lose their drug. Yes, they can still play PoE 1 but as every drug its effectiveness was slowly decreased over time. Now they need something new and bother common people with their addiction like every junkie out there. They attack others and call them "tourists" because they can't handle the fact they have serious problem.

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It cannot. I'm a new player for GGG. I don't play poe 1.

Nice credential discussing Path of Exile's gameplay depths.

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Poe 2 was made to attract new people in the 1st place.

Yep, tourists, I know.

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And for old players they still keep supporting Poe 1. And this is where they all should stay.

Without us there would not be Path of Exile 2 in a literally sense. We PoE1 are the community, the financial supporters, the word-and-mouth and persists through a decade introducing the game to new players, making contents on youtube, building communities, feedback for iterations.

Now you PoE2 tourists come here and tell us to stay out of PoE2 and tell how PoE should be with your 40 hours playtime. Disgusting.

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nagisanzeninzz#2697 wrote:

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It cannot. I'm a new player for GGG. I don't play poe 1.

Nice credential discussing Path of Exile's gameplay depths.

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Poe 2 was made to attract new people in the 1st place.

Yep, tourists, I know.

"

And for old players they still keep supporting Poe 1. And this is where they all should stay.

Without us there would not be Path of Exile 2 in a literally sense. We PoE1 are the community, the financial supporters, the word-and-mouth and persists through a decade introducing the game to new players, making contents on youtube, building communities, feedback for iterations.

Now you PoE2 tourists come here and tell us to stay out of PoE2 and tell how PoE should be with your 40 hours playtime. Disgusting.

Devs literally told you how the game was going to end up before 0.1 released yet you supposedly supported PoE2 financially despite it developing into what you hated so early? You bought MTX in PoE1. You didn't buy the direction of a sequel. With that logic, if they had developed a game for a completely different IP and hated it, then you would have supported that too. Do you always tell people how to spend the money you gave them in a transaction?

Its mindblowing to me how GGG very clearly stated from the start what POE2 is going to be and still there are POE1 players who try to make it another boring ARPG clone of all the ARPGs we already have.

As stated by GGG multiple times: the whole reason for making POE2 is to not make it similar to other ARPGs. To not have the typical zooming gameplay. To not kill the whole screen with one hit. To not beat bosses on the first try.

I get it, you like ARPGs and you are bummed out that this one doesnt fit your fantasy of what an ARPG should look like. But thats the point. Its not supposed to be like the others. Its supposed to attrackt a different kind of players. And it successfully did that. The "meaningful combat" crowd are not the bad guys ruining your game. We are the players this game was advertised for. You are welcome to hop on for the ride. But stop trying to change the game into another boring, generic ARPG of which we have so many already.

I think a big part of why the zoom crowd is so confused is pretty simple: the game WAS and HAS BEEN zoomy from the beginning, so they know it is technically possible. In their heads the logic is "if PoE1 can do 400% movespeed screen wipes, PoE2 choosing not to do that must be a mistake."

What seems to get lost is that PoE2 is still in early access and is very obviously being pushed in a different direction on purpose. If all they wanted was PoE1 with nicer grass, they did not need a sequel, they needed a texture pack and a balance manifesto. Personally I welcome the change, because if PoE2 was just a PoE1 clone I would… keep playing PoE1.

I also think "meaningful combat" gets people tangled up because everyone imagines something different. For some that means turn-based chess, for others it means standing still as an immortal brick, for others it is pure kiting simulator.

For me it is much simpler: I do not want to delete everything with a single passive button and call that "gameplay." I want to actually think before and during an encounter. Sometimes that is kiting, sometimes that is timing, sometimes that is just recognizing "this pack will kill me if I face tank it" instead of holding down right mouse and praying the loot filter dings.

And yes, doing that after a long work day is harder than turning your brain off and mowing down packs on autopilot. But if all I want is brain-dead doomscrolling with sparkles, I already have YouTube, TikTok and half the internet for that. I do not need an ARPG to pretend to be another feed of vertical content.

Active entertainment – games, especially action games – should actually be active on some level, whether that is mechanical, strategic or both. Passive entertainment can stay passive: books, movies, videos, shorts, etc. Right now a lot of the "bring back full zoom" arguments are basically asking PoE2 to be a slot machine with WASD. That can be fun in small doses, sure, but it is not the only way – or even the best way – to design an ARPG.

meaningful combat is literally arpg.

Poe1 is not arpg, its idle-clicker +slotmachine. There is no roleplay, no action.
Even d2 which is first of "arpg" (as it was claimed), in reality its topdown looter slasher. There is no roleplay in d2 (until players do it themselves), nor proper action besides pressing one button staying in place.

One of the most action-packed genres is fightings. And even fighting games are extremely fast (4f punch is beyond human capabilities to react), fightings are all aboud decision making and execution, no mashing one button.
Basically fighing games show us: high game speed and decision making gameplay is possible, and even already done lots times already.

It's just poe1 is brainless zoom, it doesnt mean you cant make game with proper meaningful combat in a beloved topdown slasher looter genre.