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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4130 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 9, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've just always felt like if I'm playing someone else's build I'm not really the one playing. Like, why not just watch a streamer at that point.

I have 1000 hours into PoE, so it's not like I just don't like the game or whatever. Maybe it's just an idiosyncrasy of mine. I'm the same way in card games like Hearthstone. I will not follow someone's deck. Why would I even play at that point?

Interesting! I'm the exact opposite; I use other peoples' builds in pretty much every game that allows them. I've tried making my own, but the truth is for POE I'm there for the loot, and figuring out trading is more than challenging enough. When you've got a guide, you still have to actually implement it, and that means finding enough value to get the gear, and that's an adventure in and of itself.

I feel like loot (by which I think we both mean currency) isn't a challenge because you can get it trivially without any risk. And at that point, you're just boringly grinding. Of course, you can choose to engage in harder content for more loot per hour, but you don't really have to because you can just grind easier content. And if the loot isn't a challenge, and your build wasn't really "yours" to begin with, at what point do you do anything that you're proud of and that you're responsible for? That's what I feel like is missing by just buying and following a build.

If you don't choose to do harder content then... you don't choose to be challenged? That sounds like it's not the game's fault.

If you don't choose to do harder content then... you don't choose to be challenged? That sounds like it's not the game's fault.

Generally, in these sorts of games, the developers put exclusive rewards behind challenging content so that players have no choice but to partake in the challenge if they want to advance. In PoE, since the rewards players care about are fungible and exchangeable currencies, there's little incentive to advance in content.

"Why would a player do something in a way that's not as fun" is a very naive impression of how gamers, and humans, operate. As @ZorbaTHut likes to point out all the time, the thing the player is striving for is not necessarily what will be fun - developers have to ensure that it actually is, and not assume players will stop what they're striving for and switch to the fun thing as soon as they discover it. In PoE, players strive for currency. If farming for currency isn't in and of itself fun, then you can't assume players will stop farming for currency and go do what's fun (the fun being the more challenging content).

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