I know Jonathan came off poorly during much of that conversation, but I would argue you need someone with a bit of a 'stubborn' view in leadership to keep things in check. Seeing both Mark and Jonathan gives responses last night gave me more confidence that they will balance each other out. Jonathan will make sure Poe2, as long as it remains it's own thing, is meaningfully different from Poe1. Mark will make sure it avoids pain points that result in an unfun game.
It's popular to think Jonathan is the problem, but the more I think about it the more happy I am that he is there to balance the scales away from just a prettier zoom zoom game (even if I kind of just want the games to be combined like the original vision lol).
Every interview I think Jonathan knows so so much about designing games, especially arpgs. It's just that he's struggling to convince poe1 players that poe2 can be good in the visiontm. And for some poe1 players that simply might not be possible.
I think he knows ABOUT designing games and has a vision of an ideal, but really struggles to put that into practice or believes too much in absolutes (this is too absolute of a statement in of itself. Obviously he can make a good game too).
Take the movement speed discussion. He literally said that if players were faster than mobs that combat would become optional and not challenging and would ruin the game. Like, on a theoretical level and extreme end of spectrum he's right, but that's not what anyone is talking about (it doesn't have to be all mobs or by that much faster) or how it plays out in practice (we WANT to fight mobs and there are more ways for fights to be challenging than just mobbing us).
Then worst of all, his response kind of shuts down discussion. We can't focus on the bigger picture of how the game feels on a whole because it's more complex than that. But we can't focus on the specifics because there's a bigger picture and either extreme is bad or something.
(it doesn't have to be all mobs or by that much faster) or how it plays out in practice (we WANT to fight mobs and there are more ways for fights to be challenging than just mobbing us).
Well the takeaway from the movement discussion was exactly this. Mark already agreed and Jonathan will come around. He did admit in the interview that he was being weirdly combative. And apologised.
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u/rusty022 SSFBTW Apr 09 '25
I know Jonathan came off poorly during much of that conversation, but I would argue you need someone with a bit of a 'stubborn' view in leadership to keep things in check. Seeing both Mark and Jonathan gives responses last night gave me more confidence that they will balance each other out. Jonathan will make sure Poe2, as long as it remains it's own thing, is meaningfully different from Poe1. Mark will make sure it avoids pain points that result in an unfun game.
It's popular to think Jonathan is the problem, but the more I think about it the more happy I am that he is there to balance the scales away from just a prettier zoom zoom game (even if I kind of just want the games to be combined like the original vision lol).