Development Manifesto: Game Balance in Path of Exile: Harvest

Well now at least it won't be all about speed anymore. This became a speedy game due to some skills being too powerful and kills faster than other skills. I honestly think it's not as bad as these people complaining think it is. Just a more balanced overall game play where people can enjoy other builds without feeling the need to use overly speedy builds.

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Aias_o_Telamonios wrote:

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

Nah, they always do this. They revolve new leagues around changes to "some items" and everyone ends playing what they want.
Similar to the "bow league", almost everyone has had chosen anything else than a bow build. In fact, it was a "summoner" league almost exclusively, with the Necromancer at the top of picked ascendancies.

Surely there will be DW builds that adapt to these changes, myself included I'll try to adapt to these changes. I've played melee these last leagues almost exclusively, but sometimes I don't get the point on those "balances" they make when it's clear that they are only nerfing overall.

So I feel like these changes are singling out physical builds while buffing 2handers.

Are we trying to push people toward elemental melee builds? I guess that'd be fine but I feel like physical builds that didn't specifically invest in impale we not a problem...and it was/is in fact impale that's the problem here. Phys cyclone builds are powerful specifically because of impale.

Why not just directly nerf impale and leave, honestly EVERYTHING ELSE, alone?

You say you dont like the patch, your mom says you should stop crying and grow a pair of endurance charges, dry your little nebuloch, before she sticks foils in your kaom's way and forces you to watch her handle my two-handed mace.

O well if you wanted alot of player base to stop playing the game and having fun i gues u succseeded.

Herald stacking as casual player was not even close to Overpowered, sure it could have used a bit of nerfs coz of those people that could sink thousand of ex into it, but from 450% to 40% thats the most stupid thing i ever heard of.

Literally would have been better to remove that cluster option so that you dont remind people of how stupidly you nerfed it, it literally makes no sence.

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skuller06451 wrote:

You don't add harder content for one build, that trivialized everything, while the other builds have to play it regulary. If you are ok with content beeing trivialized, and just add harder content for those OP builds, it will result in the same bullshit that D3 did (good of you to mention it, this is the exact same stuff), where only one or two builds are viable for the end content, and the rest will need to be brought up piece by piece with random 3000% more damage multipliers on specific items/skills.

This is how you kill a game. Powercreep is good in small amounts, builds will get stronger and stronger each league, the issue is how fast this happens.

Take the herald stacking from delirium as an example. It was the most powerful build that ever existed in PoE, 90% phys mitigation 90% chance to evade, 90% max res, insane recovery, so much damage and speed that it literally did not even matter which skill you used, be it attack, spell, direct damage, dot damage, crit, non crit. it was superior to everything else. There is no point in making harder content for this kind of build, since it will be literally impossible for other builds to do the same kind of content unless they introduce another mechanic that will allow us to get the same amount of damage and mitigation.

They will add new content, the builds will become stronger and stronger, but simply saying "make it harder to obtain" is not a valid option, when this kind of builds exist in a league, it will lead to having the entire market catering to them. you saw it last league, over 40% of SC delirium classes were guardians, everything ES based was way more expensive than in any other league before.

Voices, megalomaniac with herald affixes, herald cluster jewels, all of those were super expensive, to a degree that they become undesireble to chaose for non Aura stacking guardians. The entire market will revolve around those super broken builds.
Its not healthy for the game, its a direct line to a stale metagame.

Herald Stacker and some Crit builds were the only ones able to clear the fully juiced BS maps you can craft between sextants, scarabs, delirium orbs, master missions, map device mods, unique watchstones, etc...
Most builds just couldn't touch content like that. And that is where the problem I outlined stands. It's not that they should make content catered to challenge OP builds. The problem is that content already exists in the game that allow you to buff the difficulty to a level that most builds simply can't scale to handle. Keeping the power level in a range that makes red maps challenging makes it so that basically people can't actually use all the options available in-game to their full potential. The Stacker build only existed not as a result of design philosophy but as a slip on ggg's behalf. And people were gated towards it because other builds couldn't run delirium well on harder maps.

They basically introduced hard content to the game in Delirium, which now is core, and the playerbase found an "exploit built" that most abused because they couldn't scale their characters to tackle the added difficulty.

One of poe's biggest advantages and innovations since it hit the market was that it gave players the ability to manipulate the difficulty of content they are engaging with by adding varying number of mods to the maps they are running.
Now we have more currencies we can invest into difficulty, so the gap between a red map and a fully juiced red map has grown huge. Yet the design philosophy is still revolving around balancing power level against 3 end game bosses and red maps.
And in time they will have to add even more stuff to the end game. how will they do that if we can't tackle current max difficulty? Remove other mechanics that are in the game so that you can't exceed a certain difficulty ceiling? Like remove scarabs or map device mods? Or maybe remove the option of vaaling your maps?

"WE WANTT TO PUSH BUILD VARIETY. So let's nerf everything to the point they can't tackle real end game and let them find the 2 builds that can do it so everyone plays them until next league when we nerf them into oblivion". Or do they just expect us to not use our currencies and keep running alc and go red maps on crappy builds league after league and still find it fun after so many years... just for the sake of their diversity ideal?

How the 2h finally will be the kings and queens of the damage?
Easy, nerfing dw.
We decided to buff 2h but not every single 2h, com on, let's start with some nerf to stupid weapon like hegemony and let's say, Starforge! yes, starforge was too strong better change it, and since swords overall are too good, let s buff the famous resolute technique world, how so? Nerfing crit multi all over the tree, ofc!
But u ll have warcry, and with them u will increase the new terrible 2h power, just think that now, even if u won t be safer than before, u will be capable to stun enemies without conspicuous investments, do u like the idea?
Sure, well, but we actually decide that a sort of stun immunity must be relatable with the big guys, like ehmm everyone.
Great!
I had great expectations for my Eq FB, and I was sure they would lower the flat damage of the gem, didn't thin they re gonna remove entirely.
Then I saw flat got killed almost everywhere, good, so far herald of purity, u were a consistent friend.
Then I thought we still have some good circle of guilt to help, but hey, no, lowered its buff, because because.
MemeCyclone nerf, one of the most stupid nerf ever seen, really really stupid ahaahah
Every damn patch along with some buff it comes, relentlessly, a memecylone nerf.
Com'on just stop, this was too stupid to be true ahaha

Couldn't you do something sensible with addressing the all-the-auras scaling builds instead of just flat out deleting them? With the high item requirements for building a 'Harold' why can't it be allowed to be a viable great (but not godly) end-game build?

I guess you all at GGG don't consider the EXTREME cost of cluster jewel builds... they are by FAR the most expensive to build. I might just skip harvest. i saved for 2 months to get the purposeful harbinger build off the ground. now i can't enjoy it for even another league... sionara!

Thank You GGG for all of this years. GGG have best devs, community and best game in the world. I wish you all the best and can't wait to play new league.