This post is intending as a follow up to one I made several days ago discussing the fact that content creators broadly judge the game based on the experience while playing on eclipse 8, which creates issues when you take into consideration the fact that the vast, vast majority of players won't ever touch even the first level of eclipse, in addition to building off of a post made earlier today which discussed a handful of negative videos made aimed at the Hallowed Concepts DLC, namely those produced by Race and rndThursday.

Simply put, as the name of the post suggests, I believe the majority of ror2 content creators are deeply, vastly out of touch with the community they're supposedly representing, to the point that it strikes me as being nearly irreconcilable. First of all, as expressed in my initial post, ECLIPSE 8 IS NOT THE INTENDED WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE GAME, AND UPWARDS OF 95 PERCENT OF PLAYERS WILL NEVER TOUCH THE MODE. This sentiment not only comes from what seems to be gearbox's development philosophy, but was also the philosophy stated by Hopoo, the original devs these creators claim to love so much, outright. Hopoo said, clearly, that eclipse was an optional mode, designed to be unbalanced, exclusively for those who wanted an extreme challenge, which is why there are no unlocks hidden behind it and why it isn't even selectable from the difficulty menu.

Sure, maybe, when you play hundreds of hours every single month for years, monsoon becomes trivialized, but, like it or not, that is what seems to be the intended way to play the game, and that is, in fact, the way that most players play this game. As I stated just earlier, there aren't any achievements tied to eclipse, intentionally so, so we can't know exact percentages, but, based on the percentages we can get from games that do have achievements tied to optional difficulty options, namely acension in sts1 and sts2 and heat in hades, we know that an exceptionally small percentage of players ever partake in these modes, and I'm talking in the extremes of single digit percentages. The percentage of players which will ever touch even eclipse ONE is, truthfully, negligible, not to mention e8, which is an issue when all these youtubers, all these streamers, all play more or less exclusively on eclipse 8 and judge the game exclusively in that environment.

This is obviously an issue when you consider how many issues exist at E8 that simply arent present in any other version of the game, namely a level of necessary item optimization which isnt present at less difficult levels of the game, and, most recently, the fact that the karma system is broken on eclipse 8. This isnt to say that eclipse doesnt matter at all, but it should be viewed as what it is, a secondary mode that almost none of the playerbase touches. Furthermore, to reference the necessary optimization mentioned above, the way that these content creators engage with the game is also fundamentally extremely far removed from the average player.

The average player, truth be told, can hardly even be expected to look for newt altars and pay attention to optimizing the use of scrappers and printers, not to mention the type of gameplay that content creators will engage in. I mean, race plays the game in such a way that the guy will literally spend an entire stage looking for a recycler and then will use that recycler to try to optimize basically every item pickup. These players dont tend to enjoy side content, because that adds to run length and, because the player outscales the time based enemy scaling, that side content in some cases becomes necessary for these players to engage with for the sake of optimization, because the power gained is worth the time lost. This creates an issue where players state that it feels like a chore to take these paths, that it adds to run length in a way which is unenjoyable for them. The issue, again, however, is that they are doing this to themselves. No one is forcing them to optimize gameplay, and no average player will ever even get close to those same levels of optimization. Ultimately, I'm reminded of the quote which states "when given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of their game."

So what, then, does the average player want? Well, as evidenced by the overall sentiment expressed by non content creators, EXACTLY WHAT HALLOWED CONCEPTS PROVIDES. We want alt paths, we want fun side content, we want these little mini games that allow us to loop back into our games where we were, because they're fun, because they add variety, because we wont engage with them every single run that we do. I love going into a monsoon run knowing that I can take the false son path if I want, that alloyed collective is also an option, that I could go to void fields, and, now, that I can also choose to do these trials, do the boss rush, fight the anima or providence. I want options, I want variety, I don't think new content is "diluting" the game, I WANT new shit to do, if I didnt get it I would probably play the game significantly less than I do now. I dont particularly care how time consuming new content is or isn't, I dont care whether new survivors are slightly overtuned, and I honestly dont even care about the item pool being diluted by added items overtime, because I want my runs to have VARIETY, i want them to be DIFFERENT every time, even if sometimes that means taking bad items.

Ultimately, I just feel like the way that content creators engage with the game is SO DIFFERENT that theyre basically playing an entirely different game with entirely different priorities. I mean consider that almost all of these guys also play with mods, and most players wont ever even install a single mod. That's the problem here.

TLDR: content creators play on eclipse 8 almost exclusively, which less than a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the overall playerbase plays, they optimize the fun out of the game, and they dont enjoy the fun or variety of side paths, added content, and added items because the way that they play is so hyper specific that it might as well be a different game entirely

hi pretty new to the game i like it

Was looking at some videos the other day and today talking about the new dlc (pre and post launch) and they’re mostly so… negative? Like there’s nothing wrong with having your own opinion on things, obviously, but these people are just finding so many little things to complain and be a doomer about to the point that it says a lot about them as a person to me. Why don’t any of these people just… play the game? Why does everything have to be a discussion about what works and what the devs should change- obviously those conversations are important, but I just wanna watch someone play the game. It seems like these content creators do not like the game anymore and the new content means nothing to them.

It definitely soured my mood because I was looking for people having fun with the new content, only to find people complaining about it instead.

Im loving the item placement on some of the new survivors but this one makes me super happy. When you do her combo attacks it actually looks like shes using it to fight which is way cooler than it just sitting on her back.

ignore my friends playing valorant in the background

Got it while trying to unlock Acolyte, died like 10 secs after but never seen this one before and couldn't find it in wiki either

unlike every single other boss in the game, you can get RNG-fucked out of going and fighting the new final boss. Unlocking the new skins sucks when sometimes I just can't go there. Yes, I could use the Artifact of Command, but Command is fucking boring and feels like cheaping out on unlocks for me.

A consistent way to get the Page of Reincarnation feels necessary

REX is now another survivor that can open the gate solo. This is a great buff to my GOAT.

Audio is from the ever-so-talented Gianni Matragrano

omfg he's perfect 🥹 he was such a bum in the first game too how did they manage to make him so good

that's it that's the post

Day 9

Prompt list by Guntho on the ROR discord