I agree. I used to play Path of Exile a lot, recently joined the new league in Path of Exile 2 and the balancing is so bad you have to play a particular build to beat the campaign in a reasonable time. In a game that is all about build versatility...

Common responses from the playerbase: skill issue, build issue, etc. While the game clearly has a balancing issue (which is fair considering its not at v1.0 yet). Bosses should not outregenerate your damage. 90% of the playerbase is playing the same build.

Its just not fun following a particular guide just to play with the highest efficiency possible. What makes videogames fun to me (especially action rpgs) is the ability to make my own build.

Its also the reason why I do not play any multi-player games anymore. There are barely people who play for fun, everyone just wants to win win win.

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rkomorn 3 days ago | parent [-]

I'm an unashamed, unabashed, could-not-care-less "casual" when it comes to games, which definitely shows up even more in multiplayer.

I played Minecraft with some online friends and I was off messing around, exploring, and doing nothing worthwhile, and got back to "base" where they had like.. monster farms and stuff?! Because they were trying to finish the newly released IDK.. expansion, ASAP?

It was a very clear "oh you and I are not here for the same reason" moment. :D

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kartoffelsaft 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've found the way minecraft has evolved over the past 14 years to be unsatisfying for this reason. Most of the games systems feel like they exist for the purpose of being exploited, and the rest of the systems encorage the player to interact with the former.

As an example, if I want to go exploring, I'm thinking I'm going to want food, so I'll want crops either to eat them directly or to breed livestock. If I want to do that in a way that doesn't require waiting I'll need bone meal. But at some point they changed it so you require more bone meal to fully grow. And now the game has funneled me into building a mob grinder when I actually wanted to explore.

Sure, there are mobs out there you can fight who drop those items, and that's more engaging, but "fun" and "effective" are so misaligned in the game currently that I find myself avoiding it. So much so that I end up mostly either playing really old versions that aren't this way (b1.7.3 in particular) or modpacks that do a better job of this kind of progression.

	▲	rkomorn 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes! I also kind of hate feeling like I have to cheese the game to make progress at a reasonable speed. BUT, I will say I do get a kick out of seeing the strategies and workarounds other people find that I would never even have bothered to try looking for. Maybe I'm just lazy, or maybe I just feel like there's a way the game's meant to be played, and that's what I want to play. I'm also pretty allergic to games that make extensive uses of mods for the same reason.

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zwnow 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Haha I barely touched the nether in Minecraft, still had a blast with my friends. Unfortunately nowadays they exclusively play competitive games so I can not join them anymore...