Quote (ChocolateCoveredGummyBears @ Oct 20 2023 05:30pm)
cool little evolution of the "items on the ground" stemmed from the good ol alt-key to show items. brevik's intended purpose for this was to remove clutter from the ground and be part of the looting experience (can't remember the interview).
even poe 10 years ago followed this same principal. you had to hold alt. then players wanted a "always show items on the ground" option. which was added by pressing z.
then, poe got to the point of holy sh*t batman there's way too many items on the ground, we're gonna implement a loot filter system for players!
next, the zoom zoom meta is so bad on poe, players just wait for their item filter to make their custom sound effect they added, and stop to pick up the loot. the entire process of walking over, manually pressing alt to show items, and sifting through items or "wall of text" is rare. i'd argue this is a degradation of the looting experience and hinders the potential of good itemization to shine. i recognize a lot of players like it, but i personally don't believe in it
now the complaints of "holy shit dave, the floor is just littered with items, there's just too much clutter!" are still rampant. which begs the question.. i wonder why? the devs who were onboard for the implementation of the alt-key know!
Personally I don't like games that are extreme zoom either. Like the difference in pace between D2 compared to D3. It's like with each new iteration the heroes are on more and more crack. There's a balanced version of mobility and monster slaying, but most of the latest games keep exacerbating this problem like you mentioned with poe. At a certain point your character becomes so fast you aren't taking in any of the game environment that's carefully constructed. I guess that kind of makes sense now since the environment in D4 is pretty bad. They expected people to just zoom past everything.
Elden Ring had this perfect balance between monster slaying and artistic designs getting lost in the vistas seen throughout the adventure. Even the original Dark Souls had some areas that were just jaw droppingly eerie as well as being an incredible environment at the same time. I still think my best dungeon dive feeling from a game was ER. Nothing has really topped it for me when it came to delving underground. The later sequels in Diablo franchise totally lost that vibe. I don't feel immersed or dungeon divey at all. The first 2 games had down the vibe and immersion. The later has more of this super hero syndrome and marvel esque fatigue.
This post was edited by BlakeXeal on Oct 20 2023 04:19pm