Development Manifesto: Game Balance in Path of Exile: Harvest

I'm not sure when balancing the game turned into picking a build archetype thats been unpopular and then trying to force everyone to play it by nerfing the other options and giving the choosen build tools that are obviously too good for the game and will be "reworked" after the league and destroy everyones builds.

I get it, 2 handers have sucked since clearspeed became a thing but trying to force everyone into it by nerfing dual wield and facebreakers is a pretty uninspired approach. None of the changes to 2 handers address how to make slow powerful hits work in a game dictated by clearspeed. 2 hand users can rely on dash instead of actual melee movement skills because you're effed with no attack speed. Leech is garbage and touting about reaching 6.4% of hp leeched with some investment is so bonkers when you can just get regen and not invest into a dead stat, which is leech without overcap.

Bossing hasn't been profitable since before act 4 was added, and its hard to argue that clearspeed doesn't equal success in poe. How many mechanics have been added to poe that shut down a build that isn't fast enough, even if it had unlimited dps? Breaches and their boss zones, Legions, Blight, Zana, Delirium, Oba's, and a lot more that aren't as glaring but still somewhat dictated by the mantra that more clearspeed = more profit. You don't get more good drops, master missions, and Sirus encounters from doing more damage with slower hits, you get that from going fast AF. Nobody said 2handers had to do more damage and hit slower. It would be thematically correct if they had double AoE/Proj and that wouldn't make them worthless to the majority of players.

I'm not sure how this design philosophy is supposed to make PoE played forever when it's making me want to play less and less every league as nothing else interesting ever comes out just a new, broken, intentional meta is handed to us that becomes the new baseline for success, until its decided a few weeks later that it "breaks the game" and gets gutted next league. Support offical racing ffs and stop trying to cycle the meta and force people to buy a different set of MTX every 3 months.

Hello BrittleKnee!

GGG, don't touch VD or we are going to have a problem.... first advice

Reading that killed any desire to play new league. Its sad that GGG's version of making a [Removed by Support] skill or archetype good is to just make all the actually good and FUN skills and archetypes as bad as the [Removed by Support] one currently is.

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p0t wrote:

I'm not sure how this design philosophy is supposed to make PoE played forever when it's making me want to play less and less every league as nothing else interesting ever comes out just a new, broken, intentional meta is handed to us that becomes the new baseline for success, until its decided a few weeks later that it "breaks the game". Support offical racing ffs and stop trying to cycle the meta and force people to buy a different set of MTX every 3 months.

this.. i get the nerf and rebalance, but changing whole mechanics and builds, it's just for ur fkn profit.

OOF archmage is pretty much dead now :/

Nerf to brand for cluster abusing mechanic instead of just patching those bloody exploit permitting to clear a map without moving ...
This is pretty much unfortunate to nerf brand's behavior like this while releasing new ones. I mean starting brand this league is a very risky bet.

Can't find sweep in all those slow attacking skills update, i hope it wasn't forgotten, this skill needs love.

Nerfing DW is legit but wow this is much more than needed. Nerf to Deep cuts and impale was inevitable and necessary, nerfing the more multiplier from DW is understandable considering its defensive tools, but this plus nerf to crit multiplier nodes for melee and herald of purity's flat physical damage removal god ... I think that GGG don't want to see paradoxica in the meta anymore.

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Paultimate79 wrote:

I have been playing hack n slash games for roughly 25 years now. many can blindly say its for balance reasons, but i will tell you from experience this sort of nerfing philosophy (the builds i play were not hit with this) is one that goes down a easy but poor path. D3 did this. If GGG is starting to fail to understand the very important difference between a high effort high investment power build vs an average build, and nerfing the high-end so it doenst trivialize content, something is very wrong.

Add harder content.
Add harder content, add harder content.

Making sweeping changes like this suppresses your player-base because the volatile nature of changes like this leaves people questioning of their investment and time in PoB/Excel/Etc is going to be wasted after 3 months. This slowly leaves the hardcore playerbase only, and in turn scares new players away due to general elitism that surrounds that crowd by majority when trying to do simple things like craft a nice rare.

ALLOW people to make op builds. NERF them mainly in how hard they are to attain. be OK with content being trivialized. Its going to happen. When it does, create new keys and thresholds of power for player to open with new harder content that actually put their builds to the test. Nerfing things is the sign of a lazy developer that cannot detach themselves from how they push out boss battles. (why is every boss a humanoid?) If you don't want a mechanic skipped, THEN MAKE IT UNSKIPPABLE FOR THAT ENCOUNTER. and so much more. Don't make the game less fun for people, because that gets the community to make fun of itself, and we don't need that toxicity. Nerf lightly, content heavy.

Well said. Full stop.

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jvilamala wrote:

Hello BrittleKnee!

GGG, don't touch VD or we are going to have a problem.... first advice

+1

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p0t wrote:

Nobody said 2handers had to do more damage and hit slower. It would be thematically correct if they had double AoE/Proj and that wouldn't make them worthless to the majority of players.

You nailed it.

I am quite new at the game, but I think we have to wait the patch notes to make any judgement. DW and 2H for example, ideally they should have equivalent DPS, 2H hitting harder for easier stuns and DW hitting much faster to crit more often. Leech seems will be equivalent for both. So, my guess is that DW will have an attack speed boost instead to not lose general damage, just making it harder to stun and making attack exerts less efficient, as it is probably intended.

Herald stacking was obviously broken, everyone saw that coming. Maybe the nerf was extreme, only time will tell.

Those are some nice change. But the loud community freak out way out of control over some change. First you all complain about how PoE become too easy with the power creep of the player can achieve with all the new mechanisms added. And now a few over achiever build getting their damage reduced. Those change do NOT make them unplayable/dead. You just hit for less, and will still be able to clear all content.

The game was already too easy with player too strong. How you fix this, nerf the player to bring it more in line with a more BALANCED experience or buff the fuck out of the monster and make the game even harder to approach for new player.

PoE endgame feels bad when it's all about zoom zoom exploding screen with not even a button push (Old brand) and while I understand a LOT of player enjoy this play style. I'm sure there a lot more player that would want to see it a bit reduced (But still keep it fast).

Hopefully PoE2 make a good change toward player power creep and for the first few league before new mechanics are added the game isn't a MACH3 speed contest.