Season 2 Balance Feedback - Week One

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

Qarl, just make sure the buffs and nerfs are separatedbetween lld and HLD. What maybe needs a small nerf in lld, needs a bigger nerf in HLD, vice versa. Most people here are talking about lld, so keep in mind what and how to balance between lld and HLD.

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Qarl wrote:

I thought I'd make a few comments about Firestorm as its a very hot topic here.

(1) There is a Firestorm build that has suddenly cropped up. Its power doesn't just come from getting Firestorm gem, and throwing the Stun support on it. I don't feel I should discuss the build any more beyond that, as that is their build, and its not my place to make it public.

This makes it hard to discuss.

(2) Despite some people saying that we weren't warned about Firestorm before the season, none of the balance feedback I received before the Season suggested this. There were complaints casters were ruined, and their were explicit requests to increase the damage of Firestorm. This includes one of the most reliable sets of feedback we got, which was compiled from a wide variety of PVP guilds by one of the PVP community members.

(3) When someone looks at the current balance, and the meta, and makes an awesome build that dominate their opponents, that is awesome. It is living the dream, I imagine what a lot our PVP members want to do.

When someone succeeds at this, I don't want the immediate reward to be a swift nerf, and that build never being seen again.

(4) I think its still early to say how much of the power here from skill and build, and how much is from the tools available. I don't think we should rush out anything. I am also curious to see what turns up in the Swiss we haven't seen elsewhere yet.

I also want to note, what while I am the one posting here, I am trying to be representative of discussions in the office rather than just presenting my opinion. (And trying to reasonably open about where there are points where its hard to know what to base our decisions on).

Nick is currently leading PVP balance. He has shown very good instincts for predicting what will happen based on changes. Also, when you guys are saying Season 2 is more diverse, all the good results are from final decisions Nick has made.

We do take your feedback very seriously, and try to incorporate it. I have used the term bias before when referring to peoples feedback. This is not intended to say feedback provided is bad, or that we feel people are trying to trick us, just explaining why its hard to assess feedback, and why we might not act quickly, especially mid-season.

I'll try be careful with my tone, but assume these are words are happy, and from a team who loves to see the PVP season unfold!

Also we love to watch video of PVP, but for usefulness in assessing play vs build strength, and also because it is entertaining. More streaming and recording, please!

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Qarl wrote:

I thought I'd make a few comments about Firestorm as its a very hot topic here.

(1) There is a Firestorm build that has suddenly cropped up. Its power doesn't just come from getting Firestorm gem, and throwing the Stun support on it. I don't feel I should discuss the build any more beyond that, as that is their build, and its not my place to make it public.

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Emro wrote:

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Qarl wrote:

I thought I'd make a few comments about Firestorm as its a very hot topic here.

(1) There is a Firestorm build that has suddenly cropped up. Its power doesn't just come from getting Firestorm gem, and throwing the Stun support on it. I don't feel I should discuss the build any more beyond that, as that is their build, and its not my place to make it public.

The firestorm build has been known for loooooooong time. The build is strong and doesn.t need a nerf. The problem is the lack of information about what kind of events there would be in this season 2. The firestorm build is perfect for blitz because you get full flask charges each round. The reason why people didn't speak about firestorm before season 2 was because we didn't knew what events there were going to be.

The firestorm build can't compete in FFA. I can defeat it in 1v1 ladder as bow user. I don't think dsfarblar guy will win the swiss tourny. Its a normal build that is really good in blitz events. And because 90% of all events are blitz events, of course guys gets angry. If there were more diversity more different events there wouldn't had been a problem Qarl.

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Emro wrote:

The firestorm build has been known for loooooooong time. The build is strong and doesn.t need a nerf. The problem is the lack of information about what kind of events there would be in this season 2. The firestorm build is perfect for blitz because you get full flask charges each round. The reason why people didn't speak about firestorm before season 2 was because we didn't knew what events there were going to be.

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Lordsidro wrote:

He did well last season and won a swiss with it on SC with terrrrrible gear.

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Qarl wrote:

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Emro wrote:

The firestorm build has been known for loooooooong time. The build is strong and doesn.t need a nerf. The problem is the lack of information about what kind of events there would be in this season 2. The firestorm build is perfect for blitz because you get full flask charges each round. The reason why people didn't speak about firestorm before season 2 was because we didn't knew what events there were going to be.

So, your specific feedback about how Blitz would play it was: "Blitz 1v1 gonna be all Facebreaker cyclone builds who rush enemy." This makes it hard to take the, "well we knew it would just be like it is", hard to take seriously.

Almost all the pre-season feedback was melee would be completely dominant.

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Kaysee wrote:

Hi Qarl... Is there any reason why AU (and SING) servers can't have their own ratings and queues?

I appreciate that these servers don't have the populations for PvP events and PvP Season Points, but is there any extra cost in providing a LLD 1v1 Rating Ladder like: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1200314

There is no need to supply ladder ratings for all forms of PvP, just the most basic, entry level version of PvP. Sure, initially there might be only 50 or 100 players on it, but even the US rating ladder above has < 600 characters (with multiples from the same account).

AU players can already challenge and dual one another in PvP zones on the AU server, but there is no way to join a queue and find other PvPers out there (aside from adding them to a friends list when you stumble across them).

A LLD 1v1 Ladder (and queue) could be initially provided. Then if the demand is there expand to add a LLD 3v3 Ladder. This would save the players from just duelling on the AU server, allow them to join a queue, complete Leo's dailies more easily and see where they rate on a ladder. No rewards, no events and no invitations are required.

Cheers.