LET ME PLAY 0.1 AGAIN!

"

sweetbread21#6814 wrote:

Oh god a video game of all things actually required its audience to learn its mechanics, engage with its systems, and dared to occasionally have the atrocity that is an actual win condition.

This guy gets it.

"

sweetbread21#6814 wrote:

I hate to break it to you, but they did it, they managed to break the immutable laws of the universe and make a skill-based IARPG that wasn't composed entirely of crafting gear and then just holding right click while your screen exploded. The entire point of this thread and the dozens of other ones like it is that that game already DID exist. It was 0.1. And boy was it a breath of fresh air for anyone who enjoyed both IARPGS and games with actually interesting gameplay. A real unicorn.

Did we play the same game ? How was 0.1 a skillbased arpg in any way shape or form? That patch was insanely broken in terms of balancing and player power. It just felt a bit harder early on in the campaign because of gear scarcity.

"

sweetbread21#6814 wrote:

I hate to break it to you, but they did it, they managed to break the immutable laws of the universe and make a skill-based IARPG that wasn't composed entirely of crafting gear and then just holding right click while your screen exploded. The entire point of this thread and the dozens of other ones like it is that that game already DID exist. It was 0.1. And boy was it a breath of fresh air for anyone who enjoyed both IARPGS and games with actually interesting gameplay. A real unicorn.

You're so delulu it's crazy. but yeah. you just wanna relive a time when you were just bad at the game. lmao



0.1 was literally exploding whole screens with heralds and permafreezing or one shot Hammering bosses. again, you're having nostalgia cuz you sucked. it's fine

"

Argonlo#6237 wrote:

Did we play the same game ?

Nope. Personally as a PoE 1 player I loved it. Got my teeth mashed in several times because I wasn't prepared.

The rest of you just complained to make it easier. All my build crafting was useless. You just cried until everything was nerfed and it didn't matter what my build was.

You're ascribing things to me ive never said or thought. I never wanted the game to be nerfed that much. Even patch 0.2 where most of the community was crying for some reason, I enjoyed.

The fallacies in this thread are never ending.

- 0.1 being better because it was harder. It was harder because we had no experience with the game. More difficulty is not more better.

- The combat not being "meaningful" or having mechanical depth because it doesn't fit a person's expectations or taste. Mechanics are the rules and systems that govern player interaction with the game world, regardless of how much hand-eye coordination is required. Claiming that RPG elements aren't mechanics because they lack a physical dexterity requirement is a fundamental misunderstanding of game design.

- Optimized 1-2 button builds and zoom builds are bad because you don't have to fight the bosses. Interacting with the RPG elements of an ARPG does not make hand-eye coordination based combat you experienced in previous runs less meaningful, it recontextualizes skill from pure reflexes to tactical decision-making and planning. The synergy between real time mechanics and statistical systems is the point of the game.

If you feel like at a certain point in the game that stats overtaking physical dexterity shouldn't be how it is, that's just your opinion. You can also play SSF or impose restrictions on yourself to get the game feel you want. If GGG see it as a problem they will act, we will see in the next patch notes. If it's not a problem in their eyes, you are probably have the minority opinion.

"

comnom#5629 wrote:

I like this thread. Can I be in both camps?


I want the more challenging game. I also see that mass appeal requires a less challenging game.

Technically the zoom people are correct. PoE 1 proved it. (Well, many casual games before did) People don't want challenge, they want the illusion of it to justify the fact that we're just clicking pixels and wasting our time.

The amatuer developer in me just won't let that fly though. Players should have to engage with mechanics. Victory and success should be earned. If the game isn't enganging in that sense you should just not play it. It's feeding a compulsion rather than being a neat puzzle to solve or challenge to overcome.


But money's a thing, gotta have it to do anything, so we have this compromise. I find it fascinating. Sway me on the artistic vision vs. mass appeal PoE forum. You haven't yet.

Can the vision turn profit?


Personally I'm gonna give em another league with .5. If my old ass can do hitless boss runs with a half assed build, I'm out.

Well, that is all we ask for. A Ruthless campaign within the same trade league would give us a challenging beginning that translates into a very fast-paced "zoom" end game later on. You get to have both worlds, and best of all, it would be fully optional.

People complain because they are addicted to feeling smart, telling others what they want or need for no reason, and they are completely wrong.

Regarding your point about "But money's a thing, gotta have it to do anything" - if you mean developers need money, that argument makes no sense here. We literally paid to get into Early Access because we wanted to support the exact vision we saw back then in the 0.1 version of the game. GGG already made millions based on that original version, which is gone now. Offering this wouldn't even be a compromise. It would simply be an OPTION.

"

Cicsero#2961 wrote:

The fallacies in this thread are never ending.

- 0.1 being better because it was harder. It was harder because we had no experience with the game. More difficulty is not more better.

- The combat not being "meaningful" or having mechanical depth because it doesn't fit a person's expectations or taste. Mechanics are the rules and systems that govern player interaction with the game world, regardless of how much hand-eye coordination is required. Claiming that RPG elements aren't mechanics because they lack a physical dexterity requirement is a fundamental misunderstanding of game design.

- Optimized 1-2 button builds and zoom builds are bad because you don't have to fight the bosses. Interacting with the RPG elements of an ARPG does not make hand-eye coordination based combat you experienced in previous runs less meaningful, it recontextualizes skill from pure reflexes to tactical decision-making and planning. The synergy between real time mechanics and statistical systems is the point of the game.

If you feel like at a certain point in the game that stats overtaking physical dexterity shouldn't be how it is, that's just your opinion. You can also play SSF or impose restrictions on yourself to get the game feel you want. If GGG see it as a problem they will act, we will see in the next patch notes. If it's not a problem in their eyes, you are probably have the minority opinion.

You are completely misunderstanding the difference between a game being unfamiliar and a game being genuinely challenging. Knowing a boss's mechanics does not mean the fight should instantly become a cakewalk. In almost every other video game genre, you master the mechanics on a normal difficulty and then step up to a harder difficulty to keep the game engaging. That is exactly what Ruthless would do.

If GGG is going to systematically lower the baseline difficulty from the original middle-ground we started with, they need to introduce a higher difficulty option for the exact same trade league.

Your argument about your build out-scaling the content makes perfect sense for the endgame, but applying it to the campaign completely kills the experience. You do not need to out-gear the campaign to beat it easily right now. It is just inherently undertuned. The entire fun of an ARPG is min-maxing your gear specifically to overcome a brutal challenge. If the baseline content is so easy that your gear choices barely matter during progression, the tactical decision-making and planning you are praising completely loses its purpose.

Telling people to "just play SSF or self-impose restrictions" misses the point of what an ARPG sandbox should be. We shouldn't have to isolate ourselves or pretend the game is hard just to find enjoyment. Wanting a developer-supported Ruthless option isn't about demanding special treatment, it is about recognizing that a game as deep as PoE2 has room for both playstyles. Providing this option lets the core audience chase the high-stakes, engaging gameplay they love, without taking a single thing away from the casual player base.

I really liked the launch 0.1 difficulty, especially how it naturally pushed players to group up for boss fights and made encounters feel more dangerous and coordinated.

I think there’s value in preserving that experience: non-SSF could stay (or return) closer to the original 0.1 tuning, where bosses felt slower, harder, and often encouraged spontaneous teaming up.

At the same time, SSF could keep the current reduced difficulty for players who prefer a solo-focused progression without that pressure.

That way both experiences are preserved — the original “co-op emergent difficulty” feeling in non-SSF, and the more accessible solo progression in SSF.

"

Burn4#0434 wrote:

You are completely misunderstanding the difference between a game being unfamiliar and a game being genuinely challenging.

This has become the new gaslight reason they are repeating now, along others. Failing to understand how experience plays such an incredibly minor part in this. Especially in the beginning of the game where it's the most obvious how much easier it is then before.

No, my gaslighting friends, the thing that plays the major difference is not experience... it's the changes they've made to the game itself.

And this is incredibly easily disprovable too...

For example, if any of these people have played any souls-type game (which I highly doubt).. I invite them to remember how hard each boss was for them to deal with the first time... and then humbly ask them to play the game again and tell me if they vaporized the bosses on this second try with their experience and if the bosses didn't pose any threat to them now because of said experience. Just the first few, you need not go too far.

You'll be shocked to discover that you'll still die a lot despite your experience.