Aura Reservation and Reduced Mana Support Gem Change

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Rory wrote:

We're also planning to increase the power of Mana passives in the tree that will give mana constrained builds more access to larger total mana pools.

STILL WAITING FOR THIS. All that was done was giving people who decide to invest into auras 30% free radius for the same ammount of points. That's not really reservation, is it?

I don't mind changing things around, but when every build I try to make is impossible to use any mana skills without a lv4 enlighten and a 5/6 link (especially if I'm trying to add generosity).

I wouldn't mind making more aura nodes on the tree and them being spread out to make people invest more, but also recieve more. But changing nothing is definetly the worst option.

Unhype.

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melodia1 wrote:

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BIGLITRO wrote:

2.0 The Awakening patch notes:

Balance changes:

-We decided to buff the richest/rmters/nolifers and nerf the average/casual/ players by moving reduced mana reservation effects to enlighten.

This.
Not a surprise since most of the changes in 2.0 are aimed towards buffing veterans or unconventional builds and nerfing newcomers or standard builds anyways. My DPS will drop at least 20% without my auras, thanks GGG.
I can't be the only person hoping 2.0 will take as much time as possible to arrive, preferably taking so long that it'll come after act 4 lol.

Which is kinda sad. The game has been in a steady decline since I joined (~2011/2012).
Honestly I hope 2.0 is never going live for the sake of the game. There is neither a concept nor a general idea behind this anymore. No balance, abundance of trash uniques and even more being introduced (items that aren't used for either leveling, being build defining, or end-game), standard economy is garbage, half of all skills are gimmicky at best.

I can't see the point of this change other than to make Enlighten extremely valuable. It screws anyone relying on multiple auras who doesn't have one. I run Hatred and Purity Of Elements and want to squeeze in Discipline or Haste but that will be impossible with this change unless I find an Enlighten, and I may die of old age before then.

Did the devs even think this through or is it a hasty reaction to a problem that's not really there to begin with?

Our reduced mana gems will be useless. Nobody uses them to reduce skill cost. Nobody. They have one purpose and one purpose only: multiple auras.

And wtf with saying not everyone has reduced mana gems so we're changing how auras work, but giving their functionality to a rare gem?

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As they no longer work with Reduced Mana, we can make reservation costs less mana intensive for characters that previously wouldn't have access to Reduced Mana

Reduced mana is a quest reward. Everyone has access to them! It's a common gem and there's literally an unlimited supply of them. Wtf devs?

just add on quality for all gems with mana reservation :

+0.25% mana reduced per quality


Exemple : for aura 50% with 20q (so 5% reduced)

New cost for this aura is : 47.5%


Quality on aura is usless actualy, so it's a good way for player to take Q on aura

I've also found a glaring discrepancy:

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Rory wrote:

These are the intended results of the change:
As they no longer work with Reduced Mana, we can make reservation costs less mana intensive for characters that previously wouldn't have access to Reduced Mana, and reduce socket pressure for players that previously would have needed a Reduced Mana support to reach the same reservation levels.

It's worth noting that a very high level Enlighten gem can reduce aura reservation costs to the point of the old Reduced Mana support and below, and that aura reservation costs are now often lower than otherwise possible until player level 45. We're also planning to increase the power of Mana passives in the tree that will give mana constrained builds more access to larger total mana pools.

First bolded part says we will have the same reduced mana reservation that we had with our old reduced mana gems. Aura mana reservation is lowered to a point where the same reservation levels are reached without a reduced mana gem. That's an intended result.

Second bolded part says only a very high level enlighten gem can reach our old reduced mana gem levels.

These statements are completely contradictory, and that contradiction happens literally one sentence later.

The reasoning they are using for this change makes no sense at all. Yet another single player nerf. I agreed with 95% of the changes they have made since closed beta but this is not a good change. Going to wait and see the changes to the tree. That will determine if this game stays on my hard drive or not.

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elitedesolator wrote:

Are there any planned mechanisms to ensure that a high-level corrupted Enlighten isn't a necessity for these builds?

It's quite the opposite. They made sure that a level 4 corrupted Enlighten is a necessity for almost all builds. ^^

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NeroNoah wrote:

I'll play devil's advocate: how low should reservation reduction in Enlighten that makes it a choice rather a no brainer?

I like the idea of this change, but ONLY with good implementation.
Reservation cost reduction, granted by Enlighten, should be much, MUCH lower, than Reduced mana previously gave - so it wont be a no-brainer choice.
Also, i think it should stack additively with other reduction sources (like passives), so only dedicated aura builds would gain decent benefit out of it.
And when i say "lower", i mean it - around 2% reservation cost reduction per Enlighten level.

I dont understand whats the point of nerfing to the ground and "balancing" every aspect of a game that's 99.9% PvE oriented.
Game-breaking stuff HAVE TO exist in this kind of games, because when you reach a certain amount of gameplay hours you should feel free to have overpowered stuff after all that grind, its part of the fun.


Also, this doesnt seem like balance, its looks like you want to make the game "feel" more difficult by fixing something that wasnt broken at all.
If GGG wants to make this game more challenging there are a lot of ways to do it, and this is not the right one IMHO.