Exactly, because those content creators know the mechanics well enough to be able to create top tier builds, but the average player doesn’t.
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Yeah I misread the short part you quoted that I replied to initially.
Still bugs me, that a few sites have such a large impact on the game and how many players play it and don’t even test or try stuff out.
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I understand what you mean, but those players wouldn’t likely test or try stuff out anyway. Without a build guide, they’re probably fiddle around a bit and then leave (or not play at all), because they don’t want (or sometimes have the skill/understanding) to figure things out on their own in the amount of time they have available.
I don’t know, I think there is a large middleground between the players that will use a build guide anyway and the ones testing stuff out regardless.
I personally think there is a significant size of the playerbase that is between those camps and its a vicious cycle, because the amount of coverage and attention some of the builds and sites get makes it so everywhere people speak about it and then people asking about it and this goes into a spiral that a lot of people start playing those without really trying to get it a go themselves.
I just really think people are missing out on one of the single strongest aspects of LE, which makes it so you can make everything work.
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Yeah, that’s fair, I wonder if it’s a change in what new/younger gamers are looking for. That maybe most of them are looking for a shorter path, especially if they don’t necessarily understand the how & the why.
That’s an interesting take. When I was playing games when I was younger we didn’t have any guides or builds and there was no content to watch. There was no wiki you could go to.
I always had great characters as far as I knew, because I had no idea what others were playing. In the past few years I absolutely loved to play PoE, untill a friend I played with started sharing and talking about builds contantly, because it took away that feeling of my character being powerful. There were people that were doing a multitude of my damage.
But the younger generation has no idea what it was like to not know what other people were doing in the game. And they want to compare to what others are doing. They need to be as good as the streamers and content creators, or they’re not having fun. Would be interesting to see if younger players do indeed follow more guides.
comparison is the thief of joy
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Exactly, so we had to work all of this out ourselves, while the new generation of gamers has a lot more data at their fingertips, so I wonder if that ease of data collection hasn’t encouraged their curiosity & desire to work stuff out. Or maybe the ease of being able to get your views on what’s best (for PoE, never melee, despite what Mathil does) out there means that if you’re curious you can just google it & be given an answer, whether that answer is “correct”, or even if it answers your question is an entirely different kettle of fish.
I remember having to start up a hex editor & look in the game files to find stuff out.
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Not quite exactly… As someone who likes to both follow guides and theorycraft, those things are perfectly compatible to me. And often I do both at the same time, following a guide while theorycrafting on top of that guide to give the build my own touch according to my needs and feelings. But then again, I’m not exactly the younger generation… reaching the 40s already. Maybe that tells something.
But that guy is not making sense at all, anyways. Maybe according to him there shouldn’t even be a testing phase while developing the game, because god forbids if Devs themselves figure out what builds are strong… of course it should only be discovered by players (and all the bugs together).
IDK, all I can get after reading all his thread is that he’s maybe jealous he isn’t one of the ones testing stuff before everyone else.
Geez, you’re getting old indeed. Today they press ctrl+space in their desktop and get prompeted with a window to ask directly to their favorite AI. 
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While I typically agree with this. LE faced a far different situation where the top priority was having a smooth launch without game breaking bugs for it’s 2nd Season. Which they nailed!
Definitely isn’t there are 100’s of unexplored builds, have fun creating one.
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