On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

First of all I love what you guys are doing and the amount of work you guys put into this game.

I actually like the Changes made to charges. I am absolutely fine with the changes to power charge, it is actually good for non crit casters now and gives a reason for casters to pick it up.

As of frenzy charge if it had more generic mods such as increased move speed or increased projectile speed along with the nerf to spell damage, it would be awesome because casters who need it can still use it, it introduces a variety of different influences to the charges enabling builds and not damaging the current ones.

Thanks and looking forward to buying the new supporter pack.

PS the pet looks freakin awesome!!!

Chipping in two cents: (1) appreciation for the attention to the "four requests," especially #4 and (2) apprehension about the design-by-focus-group aspects of the beta and reddit feedback loops.

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Chris wrote:

There's a common misconception in the community that our balance team doesn't play Path of Exile. They actually do play it, a whole lot. We have people with level 100 hardcore characters, multiple famous community members who have come to work for us and you may not even know it. The minimum requirement to join our QA team is 1000 hours of PoE experience, and we still turn people with that prerequisite away if they're not good enough at the game. Our design, balance and QA team are experts at Path of Exile. I would not accept any less. They put substantial work into each change, planning out not only what it affects now, but what it affects in the future. These changes are all considered in the big picture of the other planned changes.

I am having the utmost respect for you guys as game developers. You are very creative, clever and great with the community in general.

But, having played for over 3k hours on steam and even more on standalone I am having an extremely hard time believing this. It is very hard to fathom how these "specialized charges" changes won't damage one of the main reasons that make this game great, build diversity.

Same with the ailment changes. We have been waiting for changes in order to make ailments be useful on bosses. From the way you guys described these changes, one can only assume that the opposite will happen.

If you guys think of some bigger picture you have to share it with the community in order for it to understand, OR implement these changes along with all the planned future changes for that specific part of the game. Personally I would think it's best that you emphasize on the immediate future instead.

Here is what Mathil, a popular streamer, says about the changes. Now I am not a fan of that softcore scrub or watch streamers, but he apparently tests over 10-15 successful builds in each league, is one of the most famous community members and he doesn't seem to be working with you according to his opinion about these changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdbVESdwE0&t=0s

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Chris wrote:

While processing player feedback in preparation for 3.0.0, we found four requests that we could address simultaneously with our proposed charge changes:

• Nerf total crit chance available. It was getting too close to cap, too easily.
• Nerf the Assassin. This was frequently requested.
• Provide more uses for power charges on spellcasters (especially non-crit ones).
• Make it less mandatory for general damage dealers to invest in frenzy charges.

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We make this game for you guys, so if you don't want the change, we aren't going to force it in purely to solve long-term problems. The short-term and build continuity do matter as well. We hope to get feedback from your playtesting in the next few days of the beta, so that we can make a decision this week about whether it remains in this form, is reverted, or is made in another form.

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Thank you for your time, support and occasional overreactions. We expect nothing less <3

Hello GGG,

I do play this game less than other people, due to the fact that I take my joy purely out of build crafting and testing and therefore get bored in the late game or when I see that one mechanic fails or works, since than I have already accomplished my goal with that character.

Still, I want to provide you with 2 useful informations:

1) A good game is most of the times not that game, that a community wants, but what one team developed. Why is that? Because a lot of people do not understand the game in its full potential and they are, as you said, fixed on short-terms. That means, they want the so-called "power creep", because they want Improvement in comparison to the last time they played. The Experience must be better and better means in this game go faster and easier with even more builds. They do not think about the fact, that once when the game is to easy, builds are not important anymore, because when I can clear all content with a white stick, why would I want a maxed-out character?
On the contrary, a game that tried to stop the power creep, was Division from Ubisoft. So they introduced new health mechanics, so when you previously could complete a full mission alone, this was not the case anymore. Many Players got frustrated by this and the game was down even faster, although they exactly did what the playerbase wanted. Everyone was crying that this or that is too op .., just the other way around.
So my Tip is: Make YOUR game and let others enjoy it, but never forget: People want to have a better experience in comparison to the last time they played this game. Still you got a lot of new upcoming stuff and new uniques and new league and better playability etc.

2) I kinda think the charge-development was very clever: You accomplished nearly all of your tasks (reducing crit, improve non crit builds, nerf assassin). I do not think, that ES changes and the removal of double dipping kills build diversity. Shotgunning was actually a comparable mechanic to double dipping and we all survived those changes. Nah, the frenzy and power charges (though you get crit chance on power charges and cast speed on frenzy) will simply not be worthwhile anymore for a Build to pick up. This is easily testable via Path of Building. So if you want crit chance on an attack build you will not path via 3 nodes to power charges (only 2 is worth now) and as a caster you probably will not pick up frenzy at all, since cast speed is not that huge of a stat. What remains? Crit-Spell builds will take power charges and i think not even benefit of that, because to crit cap as a caster is not that easy, the new trickster changes COULD lead to power+frenzy on dot, Physical Attack-Builds will take frenzy (since they are cheap to come by e.g. blood rage) but not take power charges. Discharge builds will kinda get balanced out by these changes due to more spell damage but less crit chance. It could make some discharge builds unviable, while discharge builds with romira will benefit a little bit. What is new: some non-crit COULD take power charges on kill.

What does the changes lack: Well, Tinkerskin with this charge-change feels like a joke for the majority. Understandable, because most traps are spell-based. Power Syphon should get a rework, otherwise this skill is pure irony. I like that though :P. You will have to look at all possible Unique-Charge interactions to really tell if this change is good or not.

FRENZY
- Mastersapper > same problem as tinkerskin
- Blooddance > will not be used by spell-builds anymore, such as rf, since you will not benefit of those more damage charges, while it ruins your cast speed. Only for life regeneration, but thats probably not worth.
- Tulfall used with spells will not make any sense.
- Green Nightmare Jewel will loose its power for Dodge - Spell Charakters.
- the main problem is, you force frenzy charges to be better for attacks. In this game that means you restrict them to attacks, since you always want to min-max your character...

POWER
- Deaths Hand looses its power as a stat stick
- Hegemony Era looses power
- jaws of Agony, as a way to generate power charges, will still be used for crit - attack builds
- romira will probably benefit of those changes
- Brinerot Flag COULD be better, since you can use power charges as spell-based non crit
- Void batteries could be used for non crit builds
- same problem as frenzys, since 30 % crit is maybe not used when you have to path mroe than 2 nodes (15 % per node is possible on every crit chance node in the tree without the need to generate power charges) and spell-crit will suffer from this as well, since reaching crit cap is more useful than the more damage for those spells (I THINK) but will be forced to do, but non-crit will benefit slightly (though they will not path to extra power charge).

>>> So I THINK, that with those changes, power charges and frenzy charges won't be picked up anymore unless you fit in the category Spell-Crit for POWER or Attack-Based for FRENZY. I THINK it will not be worth to take both charges.

That is why I think your changes restrict build diversity, but I do not think that those changes are a huge game changer and, honestly, I do enjoy every change on the game, since, as I said at start, I take my joy purely out of build testing.

I wish you good luck in the last phase and the most important part is, that YOU like your game. I bet the community will, as a consequence, like it aswell.

"We have people with level 100 hardcore characters, multiple famous community members who have come to work for us and you may not even know it. The minimum requirement to join our QA team is 1000 hours of PoE experience, and we still turn people with that prerequisite away if they're not good enough at the game."

That is exactly what is wrong with GGG balance approach.

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jfd004 wrote:

"We have people with level 100 hardcore characters, multiple famous community members who have come to work for us and you may not even know it. The minimum requirement to join our QA team is 1000 hours of PoE experience, and we still turn people with that prerequisite away if they're not good enough at the game."

That is exactly what is wrong with GGG balance approach.

Yeah bullshit.

Not everyone in this community is a little whiny bitch like the morons on reddit. Unfortunately the community has become more and more stupid over time.

I for one am very happy with the changes. The power creep was out of control and needed the nerfs.

Can't wait for the new league and thanks again for all the FREE content.

Don't listen to the haters.

So I guess all those frenzy based caster items which have been around for so long are gonna get changed too? In one week, right? Cause if thats not the case maybe that change did not come at the right moment?

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GGG_Neon wrote:

Charges

We will re-evaluate the Power and Frenzy charges situation over the weekend. It would be very useful to hear your explanation of why certain builds or items have been damaged (or improved too much) by the change, with specifics and explanations. Many of the posts so far have just said "X is ruined". While the initial feedback has been somewhat helpful, proper discussion and analysis from the community will really help us fine-tune (or abandon) this change.

I don't actually have a problem with the power charge change its nerfing frenzy charges under the guise of making them less mandatory, you didn't touch how mandatory they were you removed the ability for casters to use them via offloading the bonus to power charges instead, that is a direct buff to any spell crit based build because once the salt mine diminishes people are going to realize 4% more spell is worth way more than 20% crit chance, its easier to get higher dps with the more spell damage than it was with the old full crit.

It does however, devalue power charges for attack skills (less reason to travel outside to area), devalues frenzy charges for casters (significant nerf to hipster deadeye/raider/pathfinder casters) also again less likely to travel to areas outside of your original specialization. There are quite a few gems/items currently suitable for attack skills and/or spells which now generate either a useless (frenzy) or diminished (power) charge.

What it comes down to is power charges are mandatory for crit builds I get that you might want to change that, but you almost never see a caster being "compelled" to take frenzy charges most don't bother at all, attack builds take them because its so unbelievably easy to run blood rage on any character.

When it comes to shock/chill/freeze you simply have to understand player goals, freezing bosses is OP so it should be difficult, however they should probably apply a significant chill to bosses. Chill is a good defensive ability so should require some investment to get a full effect one out but realistically its much like temp chains so don't make it too hard.

Lastly shock, shocking trash is irrelevant if the trash isn't tough so your current incarnation is absolutely pointless as you have moved shock from a very low chance to shock a boss to a very low effect of shocking a boss, so little its worthless to invest in.

Currently if you can just about manage to shock a boss you are much more likely to keep them shocked as the 50% damage increase helps you boost the duration so you can get the full effect, the new version you just do 5% bonus damage if anything, that isn't a buff you've taken a mechanic that's already bad and made it even worse to invest into I don't think there is a single situation where the new shock mechanic will outperform the old one, and the old one is awful.

So now you have to remove 50% of life to apply shock with 50% increased damage? On bosses with increased HP? so reality will be you never shock bosses or if you miracly do it, increase damage taken will be how much? 4%? Great decisions really.