POE2 disrespecting our time (Post-0.4.0)
" It's not just that. There's extremely common and loud examples of them swinging the pendulum too far towards player power, and if they have to pull back on it, people going into rabid fits of anger due to "why do they always nerf the fun stuff?" They've learned by now that if they aren't careful in ramping things up, people act like children that got told they can't have cookies for dinner, and now when balancing, they have to consider their decisions based on knowing they have that kind of an audience. It's basically safer for them to make things too weak instead of too strong and reign it in, because they can notch things up, which makes people happy when it is. Does it suck to have it slowly work like that? Yeah, absolutely. But we kinda...proved we can't be trusted with the alternative at any point in history with GGG, tbh. It's too bad. |
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You seem like a nice guy. And I completely understand your point because I have two daughters and a normal life. I wouldn't mind an extra mode for people like us who don't want to participate in the rat race. That's all.
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" I understand the psychology behind your argument (Loss Aversion). Yes, players hate nerfs. It is psychologically painful to have "power" taken away, like the cookie example you gave. However, GGG is currently flirting with a much more dangerous emotion than Anger: They are flirting with Apathy (Boredom). • An Angry Player goes to Reddit, types a furious essay, and usually logs back in because they are passionate. • A Bored Player just presses Alt+F4, uninstalls, and never comes back. Right now, by "playing it safe" to avoid future anger, they are creating present-day boredom. That is a lethal mistake in a live-service market. The Solution is simple: Communication and "Voided Events." If they announce: "For the next 2 weeks, we are doubling drop rates in SSF to test progression. This is a VOID event, nothing transfers." Then nobody can complain about "nerfs" when it ends, because the expectation was set from day one. Hiding behind "Players will get mad" is not an excuse to let the game stagnation during a Beta phase. I'd rather have a player base that is "rabidly angry" about balance than a player base that is "silently quitting" because the loot is dull. |
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Gamers asking for their games to be easier is so common now people actually don't realize they're doing it
I've played through the campaign a bunch lately. I sure hope they don't shorten it because you think not having extensive time to play means games should limit themselves for you. I cannot agree about the emptiness, altho they recently did scale back the mobster count for other people complaining about challenge. Maybe they could fill that space back up. Ask yourself how people feel about d4, and about blizzard, how they feel about level skips, how people feel about wow changes and level skips... Maybe consider why it's not such a great idea to skip the campaign. I don't really get why running maps would be better anyway, you'd still surely only have 2 hours to play. Unless you're gonna ask for level skips too what's the big difference? And ssf is a challenge because they don't just hand you things to replace trade. That's the whole damn point. This stuff is so depressing to read. I work a full time job. I feel my time is very respected. As is my dollar. The more they cater to players like you who use other full time workers like me as a scapegoat the worse they'll make their game. | |
" People can and will always complain It's not about losing their characters strength, it's the perception that they were having fun, then ggg changes something and then they can't have fun It all starts with the fact that a lot of folks don't consider the game they actively choose to play to be fun, apparently. They will call a less exciting league bad and unfun and awful and ruinous, implying they're not enjoying the base experience. Which I truly can't comprehend when there's so much else you can play. But imagine you don't enjoy the game itself, something gets added you like, then gets removed... You'll complain regardless what expectation was set. | |
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Just wanted to chime in here.
I disagree with OP. Y'all asking for a rush here are used to effective slot machines. :D I don't have 16 hours a day. I'm much more along with Tri. Campaign is really good. By far the best part of the game. Including the downtime (which bluntly I don't even feel, it's very easy to zoom through.) Problem is endgame sustain because the systems are too shallow and there's too little to do both in mid endgame and after you've done the bosses. On Youtube recently, the algorithm showed me PoE1 closed beta gameplay for some reason. If it were up to me, I'd design the game around that pace. As players want faster gameplay, there's a middle ground to be had. That's fine. I can live with a faster vision. But the pace shouldn't be too fast. The point isn't actually to speed to maps. The campaign shows the potential of PoE2, it's so good. It is not the area that needs attention. It's also fine that a few areas are a little slow. Even the starry heydays of Impossible Standard Of Polish Blizzard had really, really sucky levels, zones, designs, encounters, depending on the game. Games are still classics. The benefit of live service model is that they are expected to continuously tinker at weaker elements, but one zone being a bit bad was never what broke a game. And if you have to run for 30 seconds every once in a while because you missed something, that's not the end of the world. If you always have to run 30 seconds to somewhere you missed, you're not pathing the zones correctly. If I were to prioritize dev time, it's the endgame overhaul that's already being worked on, and getting more skills and weapon types into the game. Make the game wider. It's fast and tall enough. Another point of feedback I do think is needed here. It's telling that a lot of players are frustrated. I do think GGG has pulled back a bit communicating why certain changes are made. They're still far and beyond the industry standard, but there have been a few puzzling choices that weren't well communicated, and it was always better explained when Chris was overseeing things. Right now I'm playing through campaign for fun with a grenade mercenary. Me and two friends had a session for 3 hours this Sunday. It was hilarious. People that dislike this do so because they're missing out on divs/hour, and I hold they're then missing the trees for the forest, reversing that idiom on purpose here. Last edited by Skadrel#3812 on Jan 11, 2026, 7:35:00 PM
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" Let's be very clear: I am not asking for the game to be Easier. I am asking for it to be Denser. You asked: "What's the big difference between 2 hours of Campaign vs 2 hours of Maps?" The difference is Action Density. 2 Hours of Campaign: I spend maybe 40 minutes actually fighting. The rest is walking through empty zones, listening to NPCs, waiting for door animations, and backtracking for quests. That is Downtime. 2 Hours of Adventure Mode: I spend 1 hour and 50 minutes actually fighting monsters. I don't want the mobs to be weaker. In fact, make them harder! I just want to spend my limited time fighting them, not walking towards them. Walking is not "Hardcore." Walking is just Cardio. And regarding Diablo 4: People don't dislike D4 because of the "Campaign Skip." In fact, the Skip is one of the few features the community universally praised. People dislike D4 because of the boring itemization and lack of endgame depth. Conflating "Quality of Life" with "Bad Game Design" is a logical fallacy. You can have a deep, complex, hardcore game that respects your time (see: Last Epoch or even PoE 1's current mapping). I am glad you feel respected. But looking at the retention numbers, many others feel like they are working a second job, not playing a game. |
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" I think you are mistaking Passion for Hatred. When someone writes an essay about why a league feels bad, it’s not because they "don't consider the base game fun." It’s usually the opposite: They love the core mechanics (the combat, the engine, the atmosphere), but they are frustrated by a specific layer of friction that prevents them from enjoying that core. It's like owning a Ferrari with flat tires. I complain about the tires because I want to drive the car, not because I hate the car. Telling me "If you don't like driving on flat tires, maybe you just don't like driving" is missing the point. And regarding "There's so much else you can play": That is the most dangerous advice you can give to a community. Because eventually, they will listen. And when the "complainers" (who are often the most dedicated players) finally leave to play something else, the player count drops, the trade economy collapses, and the game enters maintenance mode. On Void Leagues: If the "Base Game" feels unfun after a temporary buff is removed, that is valuable data. It proves that the base game needs that buff permanently. We shouldn't be afraid of finding out what is fun just because "people might complain when it's gone." That is a paralyzed way to develop a game. |
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" I respect your perspective, especially regarding the "social fun" with friends. That is definitely a highlight. However, your argument about "missing out on divs/hour" completely misses the mark for us SSF players. I play SSF. I literally cannot trade. "Divines per hour" is a meaningless metric to me. My currency is Time and Fun. When I complain about the Campaign, it’s not because I want to rush to a "Slot Machine." It’s because I want to play my build. In the Campaign, my build is often incomplete, mana-starved, and gated by fetch quests. In Maps (Endgame), my build actually functions as intended. You say the Campaign is "by far the best part of the game." I agree—for the first run. It is cinematic and beautiful. But asking me to re-watch the same 40-hour movie every time I want to try a new character isn't "enjoying the art"; it's being held captive by it. We don't want to delete the Campaign. We just want an Alternative (like Adventure Mode) for our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th characters so we can actually explore that "Wider Game" (more skills/weapons) you mentioned without paying a 40-hour entrance fee each time. |
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" Asking seriously here, are you presenting these numbers without making an overstatement? I know you're frustrated, but accuracy would help a lot here; I do not believe you're playing campaign efficiently with these numbers, and if I were to to believe you, I'd say your efficiency needs severe improvement, and GGG would not be reasonable restructuring the campaign around your experience, since you're at new player pace, in which case inefficiencies and mistakes are teaching moments which they mindedly aren't usually bothered by (by new player, I don't mean ARPG veterans, I mean new player. Like if I invited my girlfriend to play). Or, bluntly, you're zooming so fast that noncombat content actually takes so much of your time, in which case you're such an efficient corner case of a player that it'd be insane for GGG to implement systems wide changes around your experience. Like, I just don't trust the numbers. Do you seriously think 66% of your time in campaign is spent on walking, phasing animations, environment animations and unskippable dialogue? |
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