zoomer meta gamer mentality ruined poe1 and will ruin poe2

i apologize if my tone is too harsh but i would like to share my thoughts and get this off my chest. i just want this game to become the best game it can be.

this was the worst thing about poe1. the way the community became so tired and disillusioned with the game that they wanted it to become faster and faster so people could zoom through the game and reach the end game content at a quicker pace. so anything that resembled a challenge was frowned upon. one league they nerfed the drop rates and countless members of the community vowed to never play the game again. meanwhile all that patch did was prevent the game from having extreme floods of loot filling the screen. the loot was still immensely greater than whatever we get in poe2 by orders of magnitude. it just outlines how fussy.... and small minded... the community would become.

The design of the game ended up centering around: "How can we make the game as easy as possible so these whiners don't quit?". Rather than ''how can we create an interesting experience that players can appreciate?''. The game became faster and faster with each passing year because players didn't appreciate the earlier portions of the game but beyond that the entire meta revolved around this whiny goliath vs david mentality... Where you are meant to feel like a god and every enemy and every boss is meant to be as weak as possible. So this meant melting bosses as quickly as possible. And if you couldn't do that the community would deem you a failure. so in order to not be a failure you were expected to follow this meta mentality. trading for the best gear so you can one shot as many things as possible while pretending like you're a big man. while the opposite mentality is true for me. you know what i deem satisfying gameplay? When you have to engage with a boss for at least a while and experience the mechanics and have a blast overcoming a challenging foe. solo self found for act 1-3 (mostly act 1-2) in poe2 has created a wonderful experience in this regard (until things became too too easy).

Those are the most iconic moments. Where you can die at the act 1 boss multiple times because your DPS isn't high and you get to experience these epic long boss fights. and yet in cruel... he went down pretty rapidly because my self made weapon just felt imbalanced and i didn't even have any runes on it. So there is a huge variation in possible experience and it has less to do with skill and more to do with just the power of your gear.

that aside... for poe2 sadly the community is devolving in much the same was as poe1. with some streamers this this mentality that ''everything sucks'' unless it is overpowered. a streamer for instance stating how he would try out a skill once and never use it again because it didn't meet his whole Kill Everything ASAP mentality. and there seem to be a lot of streamers who share similar sentiments and only care about pretending like their a big man by pressing one button and killing a screen of enemies. as if they earned something. as if a goliath vs david mentality somehow is rewarding... when it's a false induced god complex. what is satisfying to me is how i outlined having a weapon that isn't too powerful and having balanced/challenging boss fights where you actually have to engage with the boss on a meaningful level.

I feel sorry for the devs. So much time and effort put into all of these unique skills and abilities and we have these cynical doomer gloomer gamers who don't care for any of it. Why play monk in any other way? Might as well equip Ice Strike and bell and shut off your brain and since other skills don't stack up we can eliminate all other play options. This is how these types of streamers think. And I feel sorry for them for not being able to enjoy the game and what it has to offer. For all of these amazing bosses to exist and remarkable boss mechanics and we see solo self found players who do not follow guides or the ''meta'' having the most fun. as well as players who did NOT play poe1. while poe1 veterans are whining. it's really sad to see the blatant disrespect the poe1 community has for poe2 and the vision of the game devs. for a gameplay to be more intricate, methodical, meaningful, for bosses that actually matter, for normal mobs (with magic and rare enemies mixed in) to even be able to matter! imagine that. is it good game design if 99% of the mobs in the game bore you? I doubt it.


meanwhile streamers will just trade exalts for the best gear.... rush through the content... then complain about their experience being lackluster. an experience they degraded themselves by refusing to play the game on any even playing field. meanwhile players who have not engaged in those mechanics are having a much better experience and loving it.

It was so beautiful to see

and don't get me wrong. i understand the benefits of being able to trade. if someone gets stuck in the game it can make sense for them to be able to trade for better gear and be able to keep playing. i don't believe in gatekeepers players out of the game due to skill* factors or whatever else. I'd like the most amount of players to be able to enjoy the game. But I guess the culture of poe1 transferring over to poe2 is what ends up hurting poe2 a lot. this desire for the game to be ''fast'' and ''easy'' and any skill that doesn't stack up to the best best best overpowered skills is considered just not worth playing. meanwhile i'm having a great time playing a monk with non-meta skills. Gathering Storm, Siphoning Strike, chaos palm, staggering palm, and other fun skills. But having ''fun'' seems to be a foreign concept to some people because player's psychology shifts when they are exposed to this terrible concept of meta gaming. Where you are meant to feel inferior unless you are doing the same boring thing as the so called ''top players''.


Furthermore: the chat communities (global) are increasingly toxic with how they talk down to new players or insult people who are enjoying playing their own way. Insulting players for not being meta gamers or insulting players who link their loot because it's not some god tier item that they paid divines for. Or insulting me when I asked at the end of act3 cruel if anyone wanted to replay a boss. Because to me the boss in the molten vault was a fantastic experience... and instead i get some rude ''lol, why the f would anyone want to do that?''. and then you wonder why players like me come out of this disillusioned? it's not a friendly place and the devs i think need to speak out against the rude behaviors their own community is committing.



Possible addition I would like to see: The community likely cannot be fixed. That is beyond hope imo since I don't expect GGG to release any statements encouraging people to be more kind and respectful to people with alternate play styles (non meta). But... Please give us a more challenging game difficulty. And no, Hardcore is not it. The only difference between normal and hardcore is 1 life. I would like to see a challenging game mode where bosses have some form of damage mitigation and higher health so you are expected to have to see all of the boss mechanics come to fruition during an actual boss fight instead of being able to melt a boss rapidly with a good ''build'' or weapon. Because as it stands the difficulty in this game is entirely arbitrary and imbalanced. You find a good weapon and it's suddenly easy mode. Your gear is more important than anything on your tree. and if you combine good gear + a good skill tree you are basically a god.

A partial solution to the zoomer problem (: People will get sick of running through the campaign repeatedly. This is to be expected. What if for every character that you level from L1 to L60 you get 1 free character that you can start at L50 (Act 6?) with 2 ascendancies. Life is short. Not everyone will be able to commit to a ''give up the rest of my social life'' mentality for poe2. Most people aren't streamers and actually have real lives, jobs, families, and responsibilities. It only makes sense to allow people to have this kind of option. You will still have to level from Level 1 every Other character so the campaign will still have to be experienced. This is a great middle ground solution. And this will help prevent people from being disillusioned by repeat campaign playthroughs. If someone wants to experience 8 different characters... this is the most realistic and healthy way to achieve that.


TLDR: Meta gaming ruins the game and the environment. Trading for gear upgrades turns the game into an easy mode and a lot of players refuse to play a more meaningful game where victory is earned rather than just handed to you. Would like to see a more challenging game mode focused on longer more exciting boss battles. Give us a L50 character for every character that we level from L1 to L60.

Agree that PoE2 is already showing signs of extreme zoom.

I have several posts around this. At the very least, GGG should change their mind and let us have ruthless on poe2 with its own unique balancing around players AND monsters, focusing on slow methodical gameplay with endless loot treadmill.

If any, I like pacing to be like Diablo 2. You go at reasonable pace, not too fast or too slow all over the path to hell baal. (You indeed even slower in hell) But PoE 2 as I see for now is ... both too slow at first and too fast at late.

The game also rely heavily on gear/support gem than character progression. Feel like mobile game instead of good old arpg.

If PoE2 ends up with equal to or worse balance than PoE1 by the end of early access I'm probably done with PoE in general. There is definitely a lot of potential for PoE2, but I'm honestly a bit worried GGG will fumble it. Only time will tell.

Introducing new content that could help create that amazing balanced methodical gameplay experience. Please let me know what you think:




Adventurer Challenge Mode (name pending) -
A new, skill-focused gameplay experience where everyone competes on an even playing field.

Core Concept:
Find an NPC explorer who hires adventurers for fame and fortune. Bring them a special item to access these preset-character challenges, where you don’t play your own character but a uniquely designed one with locked-in skills, gear, and gems.

Scenarios:

A warrior navigating a dangerous dungeon for glory.
A monk scavenging relics on a cursed shoreline.
A sorceress escaping captivity with minimal equipment.
How It Works:

Preset Characters:

Locked-in skill gems, supports, and gear.
Level-scaled challenges: Level 32, 45, or 60 characters etc.
Gear is underpowered (mostly blues, one yellow).

Gameplay:

Explore randomized or pre-set maps, strategize with preset skills, and adapt to developer-intended mechanics.
3 lives per run; higher rewards for more lives left.

Unique loot system:
No conventional loot. Instead, win pre-identified gear, currency, and special items stored in an NPC's lockbox.
Pick your rewards (e.g., top 6 items, all currency).


Special Rewards:

Earn special coins for exclusive items like:

Hideout decorations (music tracks, monster taxidermy).
Rare items or crafting currency.

Why It’s Fun:
Skill-based Challenges: Test creativity and mastery with locked-in builds and non-meta skills.

Exciting Gameplay: Balanced fights, longer boss battles, and mechanics-driven combat.

Competitive & Watchable: A perfect setup for streamers and viewers to compare strategies and performances.

Stop spamming mate. You're not getting any perspective, you keep repeating the same things over and over.

Just play the damn game, and wait for updates.

"

nnilfoest#6766 wrote:

If any, I like pacing to be like Diablo 2. You go at reasonable pace, not too fast or too slow all over the path to hell baal. (You indeed even slower in hell) But PoE 2 as I see for now is ... both too slow at first and too fast at late.

The game also rely heavily on gear/support gem than character progression. Feel like mobile game instead of good old arpg.

D2:LoD and d2r and faster than PoE man. Terror zones means if you don’t have an enigma and play or meta build(or have a friend that does) you aren’t keeping up.

While I wouldn't be surprised if PoE2 looks more similar to PoE1 [at end-game] I'm not necessarily sure if that's the worst possible thing -- at least in moderation.

Sure I would tend to tone things down from the current meta endgame we see now for sure ... HOWEVER ...

My concern is that PoE1 and PoE2 likely will not coexist together in a form where EACH of those games can become the best they can be. I suspect GGG is small enough that, realistically, one game will succeed and one game will, comparatively, wither on the vine.


Personally some type of Frankenstein between the A1 & early A2 tone at league start mixed with some nods to a PoE1 style game wouldn't hurt. Perhaps fans of both could be happy with the result??

Note: It would be super hard to mix the games but if it's possible then you've got a real winner.

Incorrect....it had nothing to do with "zoomer mentality". It had EVERYTHING to do with the systems and skills that GGG themselves created and implemented that LED to the zoom zoom playstyle. And then continued to build on it.

One need only look at 3.14 to see how it most certainly ISN'T the gamers that are the source of this problem. GGG attacked power creep from nearly every possible angle....while also introducing Mageblood into the game.

We can see the same in PoE 2. GGG WANTED to make a more methodical, slow game. Yet they also included Temporalis, skills, and league mechanics designed for zoom zoom playstyle.

It is a GGG development team perpetual problem, not a "mentality" problem.

"

Introducing new content that could help create that amazing balanced methodical gameplay experience. Please let me know what you think:

This is immediately fundamentally a bad approach. You shouldn't need a "new balanced mode" for any game. The basic fundamental combat, enemy and progression design should be where the balance is. If the foundation is bad the entire game will be bad. Simple as.