About POE 2 and Last Epoch - The games offer different things and that's ok!

[Airowird]

@Kulze

And for the Last Epoch answer it’s really really easy:
The provided content. Be it the story, be it beating Monoliths, be it beating all provided content in the game once or beyond be it reaching a specific level of gear, a specific amount of corruption or arena-waves or even setting a time-limitation for yourself on beating specific content. All of that are obstacles, you need to put effort into it to overcome them, because they don’t finish themself.

None of those goals are inherent to the rules within Last Epoch, thus by your own definition, it’s not a game.

Unlike Monopoly, Last Epoch doesn’t have a “The winner of the game is the one who …” rule.

That’s why running competitions exist in different formats. You say the fastest runner ever “wins”, (that’ld be Usain Bolt atm) but he wouldn’t be near the podium in a marathon race, which is also about running! Heck, ultramarathons are performed at a fraction of his speed, often taking days to complete, yet they’re something he’s never done before, so how can he win at it?! (Also, if someone runs faster tomorrow, does that mean he never actually won at all?)

Running competitions use running as a means to compare, but the winner is called on “meta-rules” about where the race ends, just like a championship (e.g. Formula 1) meta’s a bunch of races together. None of the championship points are inherent to the mechanical rules about what an F1 car is allowed to be though. The fact we have races, sprints and even sim-racing should point that out. The car rules here are a tool, not something inherently having a victory condition.

There is a competition someone is starting on the LE discord that’s about collecting uniques, I believe. If I’m not in that, does that mean my copy of Last Epoch is no longer a game? If I chose to just play my character without a specific goal in mind, am I then not playing a game? If that character gets to 300+ corruption without it being my personal goal, is it any less of a game than when my neighbor actually wanted to hit 300 corruption?

Why do you insist that a game MUST have a goal or obstacle to overcome for it to be a game? Why is someone who simply enjoys the process of playing the game not enough for you?

And you must have had a really shitty childhood if you only ever learned to enjoy reaching certain achievements. I know plenty of children who simply play games without trying to meet some goal. I also know plenty of adults who can enjoy a nice view or being in good company without there being a goal to achieve or some form of improvement to gain. If you really only ever get that dose of dopamine when gaining things, knowledge or achievements, I truly feel sorry for you, you’re missing out on all the good stuff in life.

[Kulze]

@Airowird

None of those goals are inherent to the rules within Last Epoch, thus by your own definition, it’s not a game.

You just picked up the expression of what the rules of a ‘game’ are wrongly then

Once more: Win condition /= challenges to overcome.

To provide a prime example, a interactive story: In an interactive story you as the user pick the answers. Some answers lead to different scenes, albeit if the outcome is generally the same then it’s solely that… a interactive story.
The second you have branching choices influencing the outcomes though to a percieved better/worse state though and hence changing the story it’s becoming a ‘puzzle’, with the aspect of finding the respective routes provided within the game’s limitations.

A prime example of such a puzzle interactive story is ‘Long live the Queen’, albeit it goes into more detail by having a full-fledged game mechanic of - albeit miniscule seeming - choices of focusing on specific skills in-between the weekly events. It’s a manyfold branching storyline with a myriad of trigger-events which have a manyfold of triggers which also are looped with other trigger events dependant on pass/fail conditions.

In comparison ‘Layers of fear’ (the first one) is barely a ‘game’ but still one. A so called ‘walking simulator’ as it misses the majority of game elements, those being reduced to the absolute minimum. The focus is entirely on the storyline itself, as well as the small changes related to some outcomes. Still a ‘game’ but at the brink of becoming a full-fledged ‘interactive story’. Removing the states for the different endings would make it into a full ‘interactive story’ without any gaming elements present, only a more immersive type of storytelling then commonly is provided on the market. Which… is still a fantastic thing though!

A story is in no way inferior to a game for entertainment, the difference is simply the type of ‘fun’ derived from it.

@Airowird

That’s why running competitions exist in different formats

General competitions, yes. Which are all basically ‘games’ with a different ruleset. Being the best in ‘Ruleset A’ does not ensure you’re the best in ‘Ruleset B’. Hence providing different competition environments. The human mind is very easy to please and become competitive to derive rewards from comparing yourself against something else. Hence why I said ‘nearly everything can become a game’.

@Airowird

Why do you insist that a game MUST have a goal or obstacle to overcome

Because that’s the case Plain and simple.
You just fail to realize what an ‘obstacle’ is described at in this case. Pong was clear-cut, bring ball behind the moving rectangle of the other player. Nowadays it’s just more complex of how this ‘obstacle’ is provided. We have dozens… hundreds… thousands of them in a game, shifting and changing of what type and difficulty they provide to overcome them. Open to the person playing said game to pick their own most enjoyed type of obstacle to overcome and focus on it.

@Airowird

I know plenty of children who simply play games without trying to meet some goal.

Oh, do you? That would be a first psychologically seen. Please provide them for studies, it would be a massive outlier and probably bringing forward behavioural studies by leaps and bounds!

Just because you don’t understand the goal or are not even aware of them yourself doesn’t mean the don’t exist.

@Airowird

I also know plenty of adults who can enjoy a nice view or being in good company without there being a goal to achieve or some form of improvement to gain.

Sure! That’s not a ‘game’ though It’s another type of enjoyment. You mixing and matching random types of enjoyment together willy-nilly is your own incompetence of understanding of the topic there, not a shortcoming from my side.

[Slappi]

You’re absolutely right—there’s no real comparison between the two games. POE2 feels like a stripped-down version of POE1, stuck in a 1990s design mindset that’s completely unplayable today. Loot identification? No stash tab sorting? A miserable, fully RNG crafting system? One-shot mechanics? XP loss on death? Not to mention the endgame, the miserable trade system, and the total lack of good loot drops. Seriously? GGG should be ashamed. Meanwhile, LE gets everything right.

[Airowird]

@Kulze

@Airowird

None of those goals are inherent to the rules within Last Epoch, thus by your own definition, it’s not a game.

You just picked up the expression of what the rules of a ‘game’ are wrongly then

Your expression:

@Kulze

A game has inherently something to ‘overcome’

So you say Last Epoch has no endgame, because there is nothing inherent to overcome.

@Kulze

Once more: Win condition /= challenges to overcome.

To provide a prime example, a interactive story: In an interactive story you as the user pick the answers. Some answers lead to different scenes, albeit if the outcome is generally the same then it’s solely that… a interactive story.
The second you have branching choices influencing the outcomes though to a percieved better/worse state though and hence changing the story it’s becoming a ‘puzzle’, with the aspect of finding the respective routes provided within the game’s limitations.

So if someone out there self-imposes a challenge to find the ‘right’ scenes in an interactive story, it becomes a game? If different routes to the same ending are possible, is it then not still a game, or merely an interactive story with a puzzle? Or does only the ability to have different endings matter?

Is Halo not a game because the “interactive story” always leads to the same result? Is the Last Epoch campaign?

@Kulze

@Airowird

That’s why running competitions exist in different formats

General competitions, yes. Which are all basically ‘games’ with a different ruleset. Being the best in ‘Ruleset A’ does not ensure you’re the best in ‘Ruleset B’. Hence providing different competition environments. The human mind is very easy to please and become competitive to derive rewards from comparing yourself against something else. Hence why I said ‘nearly everything can become a game’.

Correction, it can become part of a game. The Warcraft story exists both as standalone movie, and as a piece of the strategy games, but is not a game itself. Similar, running is not a game, but part of it. Yet it’s scientifically proven you can get enjoyment from running. It’s even proven that there is less enjoyment from completing running competitions (‘games’ as you describe them) than from a non-challenged run. Turning running into a challenge is, scientifically speaking, removing fun from it. (Or at least the fun/calming chemicals in our body)

Plus, humans are only trained to be competitive when we keep rewarding them for it. It is actually not a natural instinct to challenge one another. If it was, we’ld never have evolved co-operative communities turned civilisations.

@Kulze

@Airowird

Why do you insist that a game MUST have a goal or obstacle to overcome

Because that’s the case Plain and simple.
You just fail to realize what an ‘obstacle’ is described at in this case. Pong was clear-cut, bring ball behind the moving rectangle of the other player. Nowadays it’s just more complex of how this ‘obstacle’ is provided. We have dozens… hundreds… thousands of them in a game, shifting and changing of what type and difficulty they provide to overcome them. Open to the person playing said game to pick their own most enjoyed type of obstacle to overcome and focus on it.

@Airowird

I know plenty of children who simply play games without trying to meet some goal.

Oh, do you? That would be a first psychologically seen. Please provide them for studies, it would be a massive outlier and probably bringing forward behavioural studies by leaps and bounds!

Just because you don’t understand the goal or are not even aware of them yourself doesn’t mean the don’t exist.

By your definition, if I’m not aware of a goal, I am unable to have fun playing a game, because I have no challenge to overcome. That’s literally the definition of a challenge; a call or invitation to test something. Yes, adults have goals when letting/making kids play games like memory or whack-a-mole or whatever. But the fun the kid is having is not dependent on my goal for their playtime!

Sandbox games like SimCity or Factorio (or, arguably, most ARPG endgame loops) are made without an inherent challenge. Your entire argument here then basically comes down to “Last Epoch itself is not a game, it’s only a ruleset I use as part a game I make up in my head!” like it’s no more than a DnD rulebook. If so, any of your arguments as to what Last Epoch should need to be a better game are irrelevant, because it’s not a game, but a specific heap of sand.

@Kulze

@Airowird

I also know plenty of adults who can enjoy a nice view or being in good company without there being a goal to achieve or some form of improvement to gain.

Sure! That’s not a ‘game’ though It’s another type of enjoyment. You mixing and matching random types of enjoyment together willy-nilly is your own incompetence of understanding of the topic there, not a shortcoming from my side.

No, I’m trying to explain that simply playing a game can be fun in itself. Just like someone can enjoy the process of painting more than having completed a painting, people are capable of playing a game without aiming for some sort of challenge to overcome. I can play Tetris, Vampire Survivor or Last Epoch, or some semi-idle clicker without having a goal or challenge in mind.
My enjoyment there comes purely from my interaction with the ruleset without having a pre-determined obstacle.

But whatever, go through life never experiencing intrinsic motivation and fulfillment.
Next you’re gonna try and convince me MTX bundles are a waste of EHG’s time, because they don’t add to the mechanics of the challenge in the game and therefor are unimportant to players.

[Kulze]

@Airowird

So you say Last Epoch has no endgame, because there is nothing inherent to overcome.

Absolutely wrong.
You have something to ‘overcome’ in many many places, end-game exists, is lackluster though. It’s ‘bad’ since it offers vastly less directions for ‘overcoming’ things.

A obstacle provided by the developer is usually creating a stronger urge for a large portion of people compared to a self-made obstacle.
You could push corruption levels, you could push your character gear directly (min-max), you could push for reducing boss-killing times. All viable personal metrics.

The issue with LE’s system though is that the pace of top-tier itemization is extremely slow (progressing from the equivalent of PoE’s yellow tier map progression directly over into post-end-game with nothing in-between step-wise) and this directly influences the ability to overcome those other obstacles in a major way.
Crafting doesn’t do a fantastic (a decent though) job to alleviate those inherent downsides of the tier-setup and affix spread combined with the drop mechanics of the game.

But it absolutely has a myriad of obstacles to overcome, they are just not those which a large portion of people deem ‘worthwhile’ to handle. Much like many people play chess but nigh nobody goes along to become a chess master.

@Airowird

So if someone out there self-imposes a challenge to find the ‘right’ scenes in an interactive story, it becomes a game?

Yes, while not inherently created as a game it can become nonetheless a game. Much like someone saying ‘whenever a specific term is heard in this movie we drink’, which is the definition of an example of a ‘drinking game’. The movie nonetheless isn’t a game… the people make it into one though. But it’s not set up as one inherently.

@Airowird

Is Halo not a game because

And there you fail to take all the other game mechanics into consideration. Enemies to overcome, positioning, reflexes, weapon choice, targeting precision, overall control precision.

But no, Halo’s story presented as a movie format is not a game, you’re 100% right

@Airowird

but is not a game itself.

Obvious, which is why it’s called ‘Story’ and not ‘Game’. Kinda self-explanatory.

@Airowird

Plus, humans are only trained to be competitive when we keep rewarding them for it.

Seems at first look though but is factually wrong.
If you don’t provide a competitive environment with other people then humans create competition against other things, and if it’s the world itself.

Prime example: Kids skipping stones over water.
Competing is a natural aspect of a majority of living beings. Be it about territory, your personal standing in society, standing inside a tribe, pack or whatever else social environment or even solely honing the mastery over your own body.
If we go extremely in depth then it’s a inherent survival instinct derived from natural selection simply taking different forms and not being as straightforward as ‘the strongest wins’ since a group of animals which have a vast variety of positions to make their respective society function will have a respectively larger and larger variety of aspects to vie for.

@Airowird

If it was, we’ld never have evolved co-operative communities turned civilisations.

Also factually wrong.
Humans also have similar positions as pack animals. This decides why we listen to the suggestions of specific individuals more then others, even if those individuals have less realistic reasons to be listened to. Their social standing is a form of power and this causes us to put more weight behind their actions and thoughts.

Otherwise we wouldn’t have celebrities. No group leaders or similar things. But we have.

@Airowird

a call or invitation to test something.

Yes, be it against yourself, another person or even the laws of friggin physics.
It’s a well studied aspect of basically all mammals that deprivation of stimuli causes depression and even leads to outright suicide in most species. Influx of information or self-rewarding behaviour, often showing in… playful behaviour of some kind. Playing is a form of learning for the brain. Influx of information or honing of skills.

@Airowird

But the fun the kid is having is not dependent on my goal for their playtime!

100% right! Your expected goal does not need to align with their personal challenge they wanna overcome.
A kid shooting a ball against a wall and letting it bounce back for example is - even if the kid can’t voice it or isn’t aware of it - a training for precision and body control. Your goal of ‘having them out of your hair for 15 minutes finally’ does clearly not align with that… doesn’t change that both parties have a goal for their actions.
No action ever in the history of living beings has been observed to ever de-rail from this simple concept. At best the logical connection is fragmented between goal and action, not aligning with the outcome in reality, but the basic principle is a unbroken one.

@Airowird

Last Epoch itself is not a game

And there you once more failed to understand the whole line of argumentation, repeating from the start.

@Airowird

No, I’m trying to explain that simply playing a game can be fun in itself.

Yes, and now think of ‘why is it fun?’ and ‘what does ‘create’ this fun in my brain?’ and you’ll find the answers to the whole discussion from start to finish.

[Airowird]

So Richard Dawkins is factually wrong, things are games because you say they are, and every study on intrinsic motivation simply failed to see the overcome obstacle in the room.

Yeah, whatever.

[Llama8]

I feel like he subscribes to the Kryten definition of fun.