Development Manifesto: Game Balance in Path of Exile: Harvest

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Olympiacoz wrote:

Wow epic. It's crazy how you people "balance" this game. Of course VMS needed a nerf but the rest of these game changes especially impacting melee(which is underused except cyclone) is completely arbitrary BS.

So I come here to read arbitrary nerf of random, actually balanced PVE skills and mechanics in a PVE game get gutted even more? Do you understand this isn't a PVP game? It isn't. But you keep pretending it is. Why? The way you are basically coercing people who have to play balanced characters in HC and SSF into a churner to play your handpicked skills just fuckin sucks.

So Why do you keep cucking people's options just so you can push them to play how YOU want? Because that's what you are doing currently. Obviously impacts HC more than SC and that's why HC in this game is dead n dying. And you don't give a shit. SC balance only, because you people are apparently, both totally unable to balance and don't care to balance the game at all. Just a few decent changes. Rest arbitrary changes, rinse repeat for a long time. It's not that you balance anything, you keep killing skills for your meta. Who cares about your meta? IDC about ur fucking meta.

Melee is pretty much dead, cyclone, last decent melee skill is looking killed as well. Why does GGG balance for 4K HP Immortal Deathrushers in SC? Why does GGG hate melee so much? Why?

Hey balance dev have you ever made a BALANCED NON-SC HC melee character? Even with cyclone it's clear and late bosskilling is garbage compared to the investment(of other cast/spell/minion skills), and the mitigation and ENJOYMENT FACTOR is basically the only reason you live reliably and why would want to play melee at all, the enjoyment factor you ruin by unfairly killing skills.

+1

Herald of Purity RIP

stun locking was the one thing it could help two handed weapons
there could at least be a chance to bypass that by spending endurance charges or something
or else it will kill stun anyway

2-4seconds is longer than most powerful builds take to kill a boss with top builds =/

Cleave wasn't mentioned one time. Not once. Bummer. :(

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BlackBlackRainbow wrote:

im HIGHLY agreed with you
and i want to add that all buffs and nerfs by GGG are random impulsive actions without ANY good strategic view of the game itself or path where to go in general

all i see last 1 year is dumb changes and panic button slapped every time

oh we made OP Cyclone - panic button
Oh we made OP necro - panic button
Oh we made herald stacking - panic button

dude wtf just make it end end game hard to get bulds THATS IT


GGG WHO TOLD YOU that good and fun to play builds are BAD?

GG GGG WHO TOLD YOU that DUMB IDIOTIC literally 0 DPS clunky as bull ass skills(and builds) are GOOD?

pls answer 2 last questions.

I agree too.

Nobody did, the balance dev(s) magically convinced themselves it would be "cool" to punish the 1% while as a result punishing the 99% even more, because it was somehow "bad" extremely rich players could make a very good build. No it isn't. The people who played a lot deserved to make that/such build, and furthermore the market always adjusts itself to where it was very unnatainable for most players. So it's really good but not accessible. And that's fair in a PVE game. But GGG has some insane ideals and thinks among other things that everyone and everything "must be equal" in the videogame. And nah i never played herald b4 ppl go may go mental that i criticize their gods. Who are doing good with content and game development, but not balancing.

So you have kind of a situation with devs or balance dev as you said, where they make all these bipolar decisions, arbitrary destroying(not balancing) decent builds for this fake equality ideal they have, push and pull, but then on the other hand shoving BS in people's faces who basically just want to play what they want to play or maybe explore some new things on their own without much meta concern. Arbitrary crap when tons of totally dead skills that suck like HEAVY STRIKE, DOUBLE STRIKE, REAVE, CLEAVE, [INSERT SKILL] on and on and on, because they dont look at their own DEAD skill gems which is availible on https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds just go see how pathethic it actually is on both hc and sc.

This is how it basically works now,

*) Patch 1 releases in PVE GAME POE people spend many weeks playing, players figure it out and have popular builds to fit the content.

*)Then patch 2 comes, typically wipes most popular builds out for no real reason other than arbitraryness like this insane "lol 1H is better than DW now" bullshit le rinse and repeat 4Head

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Bex_GGG wrote:

new Fist of War Support doesn't work with the triggered Shockwaves

I hoped they will work together, Shockwave is near useless.

I get most of the changes. I don't like the fact that those "buffs" are not buffs as they are being called. They are direct nerfs, let's be honest. It's something that is happening since 2 or 3 leagues from now, every "balance/buff" is not treated as is but only as a nerf.

Bringing the DW power to almost match those non-crit builds (that's were your words) it's something, at least for me, kinda pointless. I mean, it is intended that crit builds should have more damage that non-crits, and it means to have a higher investment cost for this point, you should invest way more currency to achieve that "power spike" by going crit.

If you are playing a crit build that does almost the same damage as a non-crit one, then what's the point on investing currency on it? Maybe after we see the changes made on the passive nodes we realize that they don't affect the DPS that much, but it's something that we must see.

It's a fact that melee is getting slightly nerfed every league with small changes, I mean, if I want to play melee or everyone wants to play melee than any other archetype, then LEAVE THE SHIT OUT OF MELEE IN PEACE, that's why melee exists. That's why people choose to play melee and enjoy their melee builds. There's nothing wrong with it, I LOVE PLAYING MELEE BUILDS, I'm used to their mechanics. I simply love it.

Going back to the first point, I don't like those "balance manifesto" leading up to be simple nerf notes. "Buffing" something must be that, a buff. If you want to state that something will be a nerf, then simply use the "nerf" word instead of "re-balance", which is not this case (or the case of past manifestos from some leagues ago). If you say that you'll buffing 2H weapons nerfing the 2H weapons, then is not a buff, it is a nerf xD

Really, they nerfed dual wielding? WTH? It's a two hander league sure, but why nerf anyone wanting to play something else?

Nerfs!?...

I'll deal with it, when i feel it!