Diablo 2 Creator David Brevik finds modern APRGs unengaging and 'kind of silly'

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tsunamikun#0433 schrieb:

I disagree strongly. This game plays itself like it does because the majority of the players wishes it to be like it is. Optimization is the keyword. And this even existed in D2. And this evolved for more than 20 years.

This evolved into cookie clickers. Sure, it has some auditory too, even Diablo immortal has (after all, it has the same gameplay as PoE 1, probably even better), but most players don't want to do anything with all these games, while they could enjoy playing ARPG with interesting gameplay, in fact it is quite demanded. But cookie clickers players usually saying "hands off from ARPG, this is genre for us, any changes are prohibited by law, don't even think about this! You know nothing about ARPG if you want to change it!". They react like this because they know, that after genre will actually evolve, much less studios will develop cookie clicker ARPGs, because potential auditory for ARPG with interesting gameplay is much larger.

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Suchka_777#4336 schrieb:

This evolved into cookie clickers. Sure, it has some auditory too, even Diablo immortal has (after all, it has the same gameplay as PoE 1, probably even better), but most players don't want to do anything with all these games, while they could enjoy playing ARPG with interesting gameplay, in fact it is quite demanded. But cookie clickers players usually saying "hands off from ARPG, this is genre for us, any changes are prohibited by law, don't even think about this! You know nothing about ARPG if you want to change it!". They react like this because they know, that after genre will actually evolve, much less studios will develop cookie clicker ARPGs, because potential auditory for ARPG with interesting gameplay is much larger.

No it isn't. Where do you get that demand? Show me sources of your claim. My sources are right here, look at the player numbers and how they evolved over the years as the games got faster. Or just about 20 minutes of discussion with people who played poe2 to endgame will confirm this. Yes the campaign was cool(and it is slow with meaningful trashmobs gameplay, bosses? nope, see earlier post) but after playing it once, people want to skip it. forever. Same with Diablo games. The most wished feature for D3 back then was the campaign skip, because actually slowing progression and fighting against mobs is not that awesome in the players eyes.
Even in D1 the game became that kingsword of haste chase in"endgame" with ever more efficient strategies.

@azimuthus

I actually like to min-max my screen explosions ;) Also poe1 crafting is almost at peak, and chasing that perfect item is, well, fun.

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tsunamikun#0433 schrieb:

No it isn't. Where do you get that demand? Show me sources of your claim.

Did you see player numbers at December 6? PoE 2 wasn't advertised as a cookie clicker game, it was clearly stated in the advertised that it is not, that that is the main difference. Here is your demand.

To be fair, many of them were PoE 1 players who just were sure it couldn't be a different game, but a lot of new players were very excited by early campaign gameplay. And a lot of people still asking for that type of gameplay here on the forum.

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Suchka_777#4336 schrieb:

Did you see player numbers at December 6? PoE 2 wasn't advertised as a cookie clicker game, it was clearly stated in the advertised that it is not, that that is the main difference. Here is your demand.

I'm one of those people. I only came back to PoE because of what GGG said in the past about what they wanted PoE 2 to become.

Sad to see they just made PoE 1 2.0

Anyone have the video OP is talking about?

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tsunamikun#0433 schrieb:

I disagree strongly. This game plays itself like it does because the majority of the players wishes it to be like it is. Optimization is the keyword. And this even existed in D2. And this evolved for more than 20 years. As a game designer he should have understood that. And its not exclusive to poe1/2 either. Just look at d3/4, Torchlight, last epoch, lost arc and many more. The genre itself evolved to this. Slow ARPGs like d1 are now found in 3rd person action games. A better format for that in anyway.

"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." - Soren Johnson

So yes, players will do what is optimal, but it is up the designers to limit how far that optimal can go. And this is something PoE2's designers are aware of, as they mentioned in that podcast interview they did, where A being super powerful means B is viewed as ineffective, too weak, not because it can't do the content, not because the player doesn't find B the more fun thing, but because A does the content much better.

But look at PoE2. It slowed the game play down, and it got a huge response for it. Except, of course, the end game, when it went crazy, becoming like PoE 1.25, and, well, as more people hit that, they have left the game. So no, I don't think you can say the vast majority want it to be that way, else all those players would be engaging the zoom-zoom end game, rather than waiting for the patch and its balance pass, plus new "classes" and ascendancies.

Note that I don't think it is entirely to be laid at the feet of the zoom-zoom play style. I think a big portion of it comes down to the game becoming vastly less rewarding once you hit a certain point. Leveling slows to a crawl, long grinds to do end game content, the game ramps up the frustration levels while it punishes the player at every opportunity, and a bunch of content is ported over from PoE1, meant for PoE1 play styles, that just don't work in what they said PoE2 would be.

Anyway, just because things evolved that way, doesn't mean the way it evolved is the optimal way, nor does it mean everyone should go that way. There are plenty of zoom-zoom games, like PoE1, and it doesn't benefit GGG to have 2 PoE1s.

Once a gaming company gets a taste of the easy money from doing the zoom zoom formula, it's difficult for them to get that taste out of their mouths.

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Axterix13#5693 schrieb:

I think a big portion of it comes down to the game becoming vastly less rewarding once you hit a certain point. Leveling slows to a crawl, long grinds to do end game content, the game ramps up the frustration levels while it punishes the player at every opportunity, and a bunch of content is ported over from PoE1, meant for PoE1 play styles, that just don't work in what they said PoE2 would be.

Depends if the goals are completed or can be completed to me. Have a new boss to kill? Cool, I'll try to get there. Need to farm 200hrs to fight the boss once? Nty, I'll stop and play another game. I didn't have much of a problem with that in POE1 since it was built from the bottom up.

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Assababud#2808 schrieb:

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Axterix13#5693 schrieb:

I think a big portion of it comes down to the game becoming vastly less rewarding once you hit a certain point. Leveling slows to a crawl, long grinds to do end game content, the game ramps up the frustration levels while it punishes the player at every opportunity, and a bunch of content is ported over from PoE1, meant for PoE1 play styles, that just don't work in what they said PoE2 would be.

Depends if the goals are completed or can be completed to me. Have a new boss to kill? Cool, I'll try to get there. Need to farm 200hrs to fight the boss once? Nty, I'll stop and play another game. I didn't have much of a problem with that in POE1 since it was built from the bottom up.

Yeah, the long grinds...

Adding more goals to chase, to make the end game more rewarding, is something GGG has said they aim to improve. And hopefully those new goals won't take 200 hours of farming to fight a boss once.

Overall, though, I think their end game is a mess in its current state, rushed in design, with too many ideas brought over from PoE1. They'd have been better off not rushing it in for EA, and instead worked on the story, taking more time to see how player power develops and what they want to the end game to be.

But alas, the genie is out of the bottle now, so too late for that.

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Yohak#7513 schrieb:

I so loved D1 & D2 and I soooo agree with David Brevik that mass mowing swath of monster to litter screen of stuff which one cant even find out what it is not a cool experience.

And its not only that what the fun hauling that litter again and again to multiple vendors go gain meaningless stuff again?

Simply all my gametime I am handling stuff that should engage me and be fun its that simple.

Check out David Brevik pod cast at video gamer he so nails it what APRGs fail to deliver this includes Diablo 4.

I consider D2 to be the superior game, I've played it since release. However I think it's a zoom fest, with very fast leveling progression (and very "taxi" friendly), with similar monster density (like Cow Level for example) and just as much loot you don't care about. If Brevik was talking about D2 having slower pace, more meaningful progression and less density - he lied.