Development Manifesto: Balance in Path of Exile: Conquerors of the Atlas

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Some modifiers no longer appear on Shaper or Elder items, like the "increased Physical Damage and Socketed Gems are Supported By" modifiers on Two Handed Weapons.

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ACGIFT wrote:

Seriously, reading over a lot of these "development manifestos," it becomes increasingly clear that the decisions at the top are being made with little to no actual experience of what your own game plays like... And an erroneous assumption that you can get all you need by "reading the telemetry" and "listening to what the streamers are parroting."

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Some modifiers no longer appear on Shaper or Elder items, like the "increased Physical Damage and Socketed Gems are Supported By" modifiers on Two Handed Weapons.

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xX999Xx wrote:

I dont like their meta balance approach.

Why buff overall Monsters every 2 leagues (especially high tier maps), instead of nerfing overpowered skills?

That way the trash skills which do not get a rework, are even more crippled.

Sometimes I really have the impression, that at GGG-HQ's only "specialists" work, that are unable to see the bigger picture. (no Generalists there, which have a more complete oversight of the game?)

It's like with diseases, if you are using certain pharmaceuticals, it will not bring healing, but rather achieve a slight suppression in the accompaniments.

Therefore, the outbreak will come again and again, without ever achieving true healing (balance).

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Natalia_GGG wrote:

We felt Raise Spectre was too easy to get a third Spectre at gem level 21, especially with Necromancer’s Unnatural Strength passive. The third Spectre is now granted at gem level 25, giving a more challenging threshold for characters to strive for.

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ACGIFT wrote:

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Natalia_GGG wrote:

The "Can have multiple crafted modifiers" mod has been changed, now granting "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers". Multi-mod crafting an item was proving too powerful for too low a cost compared with rolling an item of relative power. We'll be keeping an eye on the modifier to see if further changes are required.

I can already tell you what further changes are required: reverse it.

It seems that when something particularly powerful comes along, GGG's response is "Well, let's keep the power, but make it harder to get." This does NOT solve power creep: it just turns it into a power GAP.

There will still be players running around with super-twinked items... They'll just be fewer of them, while most players, who previously could count on reliably getting a half-decent weapon thanks to multimodding, are now SoL.