Friction is becoming such a boomer thing

Friction is good. i ll be the first to say that. without challenge things become too easy and thus boring.

but on the flipside, GGG has recognized that friction should not be slapped every where unnecessarily.

back in the day, the more friction we had meant more things to do within a game. the journey became longer.

but also back in the day there was less games, less competition. standard/permanent league was the default league.

d4 devs did reveal that one of their pitfalls with d4 was that they analyzed d2 "endgame" and thought letting people grind mindlessly the same way people did in d2 was what players wanted. especially since d2 had a legendary status.

for sure it was the best way to grind but that was because we didnt know better.

now a lot of things have changed. standard still exist but arpgs are typically balanced around seasons/temp leagues. things are way faster now.

gaming has bled into the mainstream.

things are not the same as before. GGG had no competitors, no options. gamers have matured. gamers have changed.

personally i find myself as a working gamer, who used to be at the mercy of my parents pocket money. i know how much fun a single game can have and how i would toil away at a single game as i had nothing better. on the flipside i loved every moment of it. back in diablo 1 i was young and did not realize how we could reset the game. i broke every single chest/barrel, went back to town and sold EVERYTHING. but it was fine. i did not care about optimization and i dont care for the harder difficulties.

things were a lot simpler back then, and as gamers, we just accepted all of it as all the friction was part of the game. and we enjoyed the friction.

but now i m older. i dont have that much time, i respect my time much more. even if the game is good or "is the current best", i no longer bend over backwards just to enjoy the game. for sure there are friction that makes the game, but theres also unnecessary friction.

seeing how ggg evolved their game and their decisions in poe2 is really.... surprising. the gems system was a core part of poe's identity.

i remember 2 friends that quit poe after they failed to get a 5L. pfft.. they dont have what it takes.. well thats how i taught previously. to me 6s ing and 6L then colouring is all part of the process of POE.

but after playing this game over and over again i realized. it has become a chore. i do not enjoy the process AT ALL. in fact i started to resent it.

GGG revealing their new system in the first exile con was a breath of fresh air. its very interesting that they recognized that it was friction that made the game feel worse. it went from "still need to socket on gear" to "socket on gui" to "all sockets are white".

pruning unnecessary friction. they recognized that it was getting in the way of gamers having fun.

i ll bring up what asmongold said about gatekeeping gamers. they want to keep the game hard as making it any easier devalues their accomplishments. getting a mirror means nothing if everyone has a mirror.

i remember how i used to give a lot of feedback, and in many cases there will be boomers/gatekeepers who would tell me my feedback and suggestion is bad or how things are fine the way things are. interestingly despite getting such responses, getting downvoted to oblivion on reddit. i see my suggestions actually being taken into consideration by ggg and actually get implemented somewhat.

i even remember how some players were being negative towards a suggestion for adding an in game clock.

its a whole lot of weird. i always keep asking people and myself. "wont it be better for everyone if the game was better?"

asmon's statement on why gamers gatekeep answers that question.

i find it damn satisfying to see GGG remove so much friction in POE2 as well as in the recent teasers.

for me, in a selfish way i feel vindicated. i'd like to think that GGG took my feedback. but whether or not that is the case and that it just so happened aligned with what i wanted, it feels good. all the boomers/gatekeepers can only hold their tongue now.

Weird take but okay. Maybe, just maybe, we should wait for the full release to make such statements and assess how much of that oh so bad friction is actually gone, or shifted elsewhere.

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exsea wrote:

but also back in the day there was less games, less competition. standard/permanent league was the default league.

d4 devs did reveal that one of their pitfalls with d4 was that they analyzed d2 "endgame" and thought letting people grind mindlessly the same way people did in d2 was what players wanted. especially since d2 had a legendary status.

for sure it was the best way to grind but that was because we didnt know better.

now a lot of things have changed. standard still exist but arpgs are typically balanced around seasons/temp leagues. things are way faster now.

gaming has bled into the mainstream.

things are not the same as before. GGG had no competitors, no options. gamers have matured. gamers have changed.

Torchlight Infinite, Diablo 4 and Last Epoch are really ramping up their seasons now and they offer a lot less friction for new and returning players. The early and mid games are easy and if you want to really want to min/max the grind is there. GGG seems to really want to make players leave in the first 10 hours.

Will PoE stay the course and put out another Necropolis league? We will find out in less than a month. Two Necropolis type leagues in a row? Oof.

some release dates:

torchlight infinite July 4
last epoch July 9
hearthstone July 23
poe July 26 (guess)
diablo 4 Aug 6

hoho *sips coffee*

Way too much analysis there ex.

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

Torchlight Infinite, Diablo 4 and Last Epoch are really ramping up their seasons now and they offer a lot less friction for new and returning players. The early and mid games are easy and if you want to really want to min/max the grind is there. GGG seems to really want to make players leave in the first 10 hours.

Will PoE stay the course and put out another Necropolis league? We will find out in less than a month. Two Necropolis type leagues in a row? Oof.

some release dates:

torchlight infinite July 4
last epoch July 9
hearthstone July 23
poe July 26 (guess)
diablo 4 Aug 6

TLI's "gem system" is so close to what poe 2's gem system is currently announced to be on launch. the game system allows so much class flexibility and you really dont need a build guide unless you want to push really high tier content. really an underappreciated game.

as for POE1.... the very idea having to resocket, relink and recolour is such a turn off.

reminds me, almost every league its the same shit where i m jeweller/fuse/chrome starved then somewhere in the middle i finally make it then suddenly all these currencies become valueless mid league.

"

xPiranha wrote:

hoho *sips coffee*

ho ho oh no no no

There, there. *hug*

Probably ignoring Occam's Razor here though. It's not that they took your feedback -- it's that your feedback accords with the most likely move based on the current climate.

Been there, done that.

Take small pride in being right, even when you're far from the only one feeling that way.

I'm keeping it really simple now. I'll play whatever attracts my eye, and if it doesn't stick, I'll move on. I don't make games; I don't dictate the trends. And should the day come that game developers stop making games I can somehow enjoy (whether through familiarity or, better, surprised delight), I'll just play the games they've already made that I added to the pile at some point. Surely we all have pretty insane backlogs by now.

This is the sort of attitude GaaS devs really hate because it is the opposite of the vaunted 'forever game', and I take great joy in indulging it. You should own your games, own how you play them -- not the other way around.

The bad bad "game isn't just 100% instant gratification and all watered down yet" Friction hoho
shocking

"

exsea wrote:

i remember 2 friends that quit poe after they failed to get a 5L. pfft.. they dont have what it takes.. well thats how i taught previously. to me 6s ing and 6L then colouring is all part of the process of POE.

I love this part of new league, when I have a piece of gear and start working on it - the moment when it links or when desired mods rolled… One of the best moments in league, feels a lot better than getting a mirror.

"

exsea wrote:

but after playing this game over and over again i realized. it has become a chore. i do not enjoy the process AT ALL. in fact i started to resent it.

There is so many other games, why stick to a title you „resent”?

"

exsea wrote:

i remember how i used to give a lot of feedback, and in many cases there will be boomers/gatekeepers who would tell me my feedback and suggestion is bad or how things are fine the way things are. interestingly despite getting such responses, getting downvoted to oblivion on reddit. i see my suggestions actually being taken into consideration by ggg and actually get implemented somewhat.

People disagree with each other, this is normal thing - but calling them names (or using ageism) just because they have different opinion is not fine.