The Game Feels Overly Complex and Time Demanding

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

i don't like the idea of alt tabbing the game just to check some stuff, like information about skills interactions, crafting or how to obtain a certain item.

Would the game become casual if we could learn these things from inside the game? In the end the only true difference would be the number of clicks needed to access this information.

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ShingoYabuki#8098 wrote:

Gambling Simulator, yup
Even with newer currencies, still a big fricking ugly Gambling Simulator.
Imagine obtaining hard-earned PERFECT Exalted Orb, to only get really stupid modifiers like 35% Lesser Requirements.

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karsey#2995 wrote:

I think most people would agree that what the game shouldn't do is tell players what to play, or how to play it. That sort of stuff stays in as the player's puzzle to solve.

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iHiems#0168 wrote:

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SalamiHaze#9389 wrote:

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karsey#2995 wrote:

As harsh as this sounds i think that the majority of developers nowadays aren't actually good enough at making games for everyone.

Take games made by old school Blizzard like D2, Classic WoW or Overwatch, the reason people still play these games is because they managed to achieve the perfect balance of being casual friendly and being engaging enough for hardcore players. People just don't appreciate this aspect enough.

It`s not only about those games balance but also about time period they released. D2/Classic WoW - these are like 20/25 yrs old. Hands up who remembers average game back then but sure as hell i remember most of them required minimal effort to engage with them. Example - in morrowind we had to read log for quest directions. Is it outdated? Yes. Are current open world solutions better? Definitely not.

That`s why i find two things weird:

1 - People literally have games suited for them. Why do they want to bruteforce some stupid casualization in poe? There are plenty not "overly complex and time demanding" games. Even within arpg genre.

2 - People literally have easiest time to get game-knowledge nowadays. Why do they ignore that completely? For fuck sakes, today there are 100 milion money printing content creators doing not only long formats but also 15s knowledge-packed short you can literally watch while taking dump. Back then? Forums or fanmade websites at best. Is it really that hard to search "poe2 defence" in youtube and spend 10 minutes one in a while?

Please, I just don`t want another d4 or retail wow because of casual feedback.

That's the kind of black and white I was talking about.

I crafted a ton, most of my income is from crafting so I feel comfortable talking about it. Lets go back to my crafting example:

Last season we had omen of homogenizing. How did you use it? You had to know the characteristic of each affix, know if they're prefix or suffix, know their weight, level, their tier and a bunch more things just so that you could block some or be able to use others

Of all of that info, the only thing present ingame is if they're prefix or suffix and the tier (which you won't even know at what level starts appearing, for ex 35 mov speed for boots is only on 82ilvl so it's a 82+ilvl affix). You can guess "cast speed" has "caster" characteristic or "level of all chaos spell skills" has a chaos characteristic, but it's all a guess until you actually open a 3rd part website and see it by what would be the equivalent of data mined info

Another simple example is desecration. Not to mention knowing the lord specific affixes, there are many, many affixes you can only get through desecration and they're specific to certain pieces of gear as well as specific to suffix/affixes slots. Unless you study this game like a bible, there's no way you can remember even half of them or where they go, even the relevant ones

All this could be made much less complicated by simply giving the player some good qol, and making a UI that actually makes sense for new players instead of being all guesses from the moment you get your first aug orb

All of this doesn't make the game "easier", but more accessible for new players and casual while also helping hardcore players be more comfortable

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karsey#2995 wrote:

There's probably a suitable compromise that exists in the middle here somewhere that would probably satisfy 80% of everyone on both sides of this table.

I don't think anyone disagrees that it would be really nice to have certain kinds of information in the game, like lists of modifiers, affix tags, and other things of that nature which would otherwise need to be data-mined or brute-force reverse engineered.

When the game is just hiding information from you for what seems like no good reason at all, it feels really unnecessary. It also leads to distrusting the game itself - what else is it hiding?

A player will think, "Why should I even bother trying to learn anything when getting all the information to do so means collecting and comparing information across some unknown number of different external data-sources, and THEN coming up with a solution?". That's a mentally exhausting proposition for most people.

For example, when you drop an omen that says "guarantees a Kurgal affix", it would be nice to be able to open some sort of in-game compendium and look up what Kurgal affixes even are, what bases they can roll on, and at what tiers/ilvl, etc.

Another example - look at how many people take their armour rating at face value. "I have 90% damage reduction" is a common takeaway by most players when they open up their character sheet, and you can't blame them for it because it looks like that's exactly what is being communicated to them. I'm sure people are going to read this comment right now and be like "wait... that's not how it works?" - because that's basically the only way for people to learn about it. What other parts of the game aren't being honest with the players?

I think most people would agree that what the game shouldn't do is tell players what to play, or how to play it. That sort of stuff stays in as the player's puzzle to solve. What I originally commented on in this thread was mostly related to that aspect - the player attitude of not desiring to engage in any recreational problem solving purely out of preference, and how you can't really design a game to fully appeal to everyone's preferences.

If the issue isn't about whether a player minds solving problems or not, but would feel discouraged from doing so - even if they wanted to - because it would required them to embark on a directionless information foraging excursion where all they know is that they don't know things, there is validity around the idea that this aspect is an unnecessary source of friction on top of everything that's already required to understand and be successful in the game.

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2836742981#3689 wrote:

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iHiems#0168 wrote:

That's the kind of black and white I was talking about.

I crafted a ton, most of my income is from crafting so I feel comfortable talking about it. Lets go back to my crafting example:

Last season we had omen of homogenizing. How did you use it? You had to know the characteristic of each affix, know if they're prefix or suffix, know their weight, level, their tier and a bunch more things just so that you could block some or be able to use others

Of all of that info, the only thing present ingame is if they're prefix or suffix and the tier (which you won't even know at what level starts appearing, for ex 35 mov speed for boots is only on 82ilvl so it's a 82+ilvl affix). You can guess "cast speed" has "caster" characteristic or "level of all chaos spell skills" has a chaos characteristic, but it's all a guess until you actually open a 3rd part website and see it by what would be the equivalent of data mined info

Another simple example is desecration. Not to mention knowing the lord specific affixes, there are many, many affixes you can only get through desecration and they're specific to certain pieces of gear as well as specific to suffix/affixes slots. Unless you study this game like a bible, there's no way you can remember even half of them or where they go, even the relevant ones

All this could be made much less complicated by simply giving the player some good qol, and making a UI that actually makes sense for new players instead of being all guesses from the moment you get your first aug orb

All of this doesn't make the game "easier", but more accessible for new players and casual while also helping hardcore players be more comfortable

This is exactly why I don't craft. It is very tedious and have to search 3rd party websites and also take it up another level and simulate crafting on craft of exile to make sure you don't waste your precious omens since they can be so expensive. It's better to sell the crafting materials and buy the item directly from the market.

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gscarano1123#7928 wrote:

Another concern is the heavy reliance on RNG. Many rewards and achievements feel like they depend more on luck than effort. Even when players understand the systems and optimize their builds, it can feel like pulling a slot machine lever thousands of times hoping for the right outcome.