"Autistically over optimizing ruined the genre" is such a lazy scapegoat. Players didn't invent optimization out of nowhere. Games reward it and systems create incentives. When efficiency determines progression speed, access to content, economic power, or social leverage, people will optimize. That's human behavior 101 in structured systems. Blaming players for engaging with mechanics the way they're designed to be engaged with is backwards.
And this idea that optimizing automatically turns you into some joyless "content vampire" is just moralizing preference. Some people genuinely enjoy understanding systems deeply. They enjoy squeezing efficiency out of builds, they enjoy the mastery of that, being subject matter experts, competing with others, etc. That's not sucking the fun out of the game, that
is the fun for them. You say it's "more fun to just play with people who are fun to be around." No duh. Nobody is arguing against that. But the false dichotomy is pretending you must choose between competence and camaraderie. The best experiences often come from groups that are both socially enjoyable
and mechanically capable. Just like
@Quaid said, some of my best experiences in gaming were with people at the "top" of the game/food chain.
And let's be honest about what's
actually "unfun" for a lot of people. It isn't optimization, it's asymmetry. It's when one or two players are carrying the mechanical load while others refuse to engage with even baseline expectations. That tension doesn't disappear because you declare efficiency toxic.
But the bigger point here and kind of why I started this whole argument is that "optimization" isn't going away. Not in 2026. Not in any MMO (or any game at all, for that matter) with shared spaces, contested resources, and progression systems. You can design around it, mitigate it, etc. it but you can't wish it away by framing it as socially corrosive. This is what gaming is now. Love it or hate it, you WILL have to interact with it on some level and at some point. If your personal signal that "it's time to quit" is when you start caring about efficiency, that's fine. That's
your relationship with games. But projecting that onto the entire genre as if optimization is inherently destructive misses the reality that many players find depth, challenge, and long-term engagement through mastery.
