Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

Im still optimistic about the full patch/league notes, the nerfs in the manifesto arent really that bad

yet another season where mageblood is played in 100% of the endgame builds taking all the variety of belts and not receiving a nerf.

Of course, the nerfed pathfither and the nerfed flask refills, so that you have more obligation to put on a mageblood

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JoeShmo wrote:

Wow ... 115 pages in a day.

That has to be a record for GGG. Doom manifesto is not joking around.

just wait for some "balance" of the posts by the community team ...

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tador88 wrote:

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idrankyourbeer wrote:

Gotta love this :)

On a serious note, why not wait till the patch notes / reveal when actual (new) skill info is released to dump the hate?

People aren't waiting because people lost the trust in GGG. Too many broken promise, too many mistakes, but mostly a game that from fun became just a frustration fiesta (at least for most of us). Right now, neither the best league announcement will not be able to fix the damage made by this manifesto.

in fact, the worst thing is all the mass of information that they keep secret each time. Even core websites (poe.db or craft of exile) or streamers can't keep it up with that. And thus there is NO WAY casual players (the very vast majority of players and thus of customers) can keep up and still manage to make something barely working. And thus no way to even guess if patch notes are this bad.
Old builds are trash. I Just deleted some of those in standard, they can't even farm T15 now as they could defeat shaper back at the time. Just because old lines are keeping trashed and new one are the new fashion. But you have to play months, spend weeks reading sites and watching videos to get informed of few new options to barely keep track.

I've said for years now :
1/ GGG need to stop spitting on players (starting with the so called "forum" that even a 10 years old phpbb would male a joke of)
2/ GGG has to rework completly its business model, tons of real QoL feature to sell instead of useless doll playing mtxs (but at least they would need to read point 1/ )
3/ GGG need to fix all the coding issues : graphical, combat calculations, servers. It is not as painfull as during the 18 months starting from delve to end of metamorph but still a joke accross gaming world, same as the graphical vomit.

Can I ask GGG few questions:

1. How many builds are capable to do hard core content and kill most of content?
2. How many builds will be able to kill all content in softcore?
3. How many people will be able to gear those builds referred in previous 2 questions?
4. How many builds that are not capable to do most of content are affected by the nerfes in this character balance manifesto?
5. Do you think is a good practice to dismantle some structural parts of all builds just to nerf those top tier builds (i think 6 meta builds) that were able to do all content?
6. Is it normal for a game with so many combination of skills and items to have only a few builds that are capable to do all content?(with god tier investment?)
7. Moreover, when talking about trading, 99% of the players have no idea what those meta builds are and what items are needed for all of them, and so the 1% who usually zoom through acts in 3 hours get most of the expensive items, and start to price fix the market. So, if you are a casual player wanting to try lets say a build with frenzy charges, by the time you get out of maps with a crappy build, and start getting some currency, the frenzy items are already 20 ex. and they grow in price every day. Is this what is wished from trade?
8. There will always 20 builds that mostly played. Why do you always nerf the top performers? Is this what balance means to GGG?
9. Why not work to make changes so more skills are able to do the uber bosses?
10. I am literally curious of how many players were capable to kill the uber bosses? (and not the ones that have 20000 hours - because they will always play the meta, the players that were not playing the 6 meta builds)
11. What i wonder, is it possible to take one skill at random and make a build that is capable to do all content? If not, maybe you should work on that.
12. Why is it, that most of leagues, when someone shows on youtoube a build that looks amazing, can do all the content and it is tanky, most of us see it and say "that looks really cool, maybe I should try it next league" - the one who made it says that the build is about several mirrors, and the next league GGG destroys the build? (what is the thinking behind this? you have about 30 people getting the actual currency to be able to make the build - that takes a shit load of time, and usually the people who play 8 hours a day or more can get that -, and you have 20000 people that watched the video on youtoube, never had the chance to even try to gather the currency to put the build together, because not many of us can have that time/currency investment and GGG already destroys the build, and more than that, when they nerf that build, they nerf globally most of builds for the losers that struggle to get to level 95. Not only the ones that dreamed to play a build that looks awesome, have no chance because it is financially impossible, but now the builds that they were struggling to get some currency with will not work).
13. How do you imagine casuals that play lets say 1 hour a day, will ever get the currency to buy mirror tier items? (they make 1 - 2 ex per hour for 90 days, that is 180 ex. I really want to know what kind of build will you have with 180 ex that will be able to kill uber bosses? - how many builds cost that much? - so basically lets say that is 1 build, by the 90th day he will have a chance to kill uber bosses)
14. Lets take the new players, most of them try builds on their own, and they struggle with the acts. They see the youtoubers playing awesome builds into a league, and next league that build is destroyed. What idea do those new players get?
15. Lets assume that you give every player in the game at the start of the game, a mageblood and Ashes. How many builds will those players make with those 2 starting items capable to do uber bosses? 10? 20? (my bet is they will play 5 of the most op builds, because the rest are not capable to kill uber bosses and do all content)

On a personal note, you play a game to have fun. To have fun in this game, you need to know all the mechanics. To know all the mechanics you need at least 20k hours and to have played it since 11 years ago constantly 8 hours a day. If you start later, you have no idea how the meta builds are and what to build. I bet most of players at a start of a league google builds on redit and try to look for youtoube tutorials of what to play. There are 500 people maybe, that are capable to figure out and theory craft builds, but for the rest 1 million players or more, it is just monkey see, monkey do. You are basically making a game available for 500 to 1000 people, and 1 million idiots that copy what they do. And if you are not lucky enough to find the build that works in that league, the next league will not be an option because GGG already F....ed it. Is this what you want for your game?

Ow, and one more thing, when talking about skill - you would think that skill refers to three things
- knowing how to build a character
- knowing how to farm currency for that character
- knowing the mechanics of the fights

If so few players are able to play the game at its fullest extent - that is doing all the content and bosses - because only a hand full of people can actually do that - why does not GGG take action to raise the skill of the 99% of the players that struggle with the game. All nerfs are making the game harder for 99% of the people that already cannot do most content. Why is it that GGG only takes the best players as reference when they are literally 500-1000 of them? Is that normal? It is like the Gov of a country looking only at the billionaires and making tax and law changes only taking them as etalon and reference. You say that putting more than x auras on a build is too OP. Look at how many people afford to stack that many auras on a build? maybe 30 players? The rest of population struggle to get a head hunter in 2 weeks.

why are you censoring this since im not saying anything rude??

GGG you are soooo out of touch with your own game and comunity, its grotesque
like, who plays and test your game? those guys that said ARCHNEMESIS was fine and working as intended????

so you are shocked that the minion archeotype class holds most minions build in the game? how surprising

now tell me what exactly spectres will do with Unholy Sh*te? and what other classes can use spectres properly?? ohhh thats right, NONE of them

also do you realize that animated guardian NEEDS the gravy mode you just deleted? on top of that more than the players, minions NEEDS auras in order to stay alive, auras you can only get with reservation you just removed.

you had extra time to work on balances since 3.17 and all you could come up with was +2 to cleave range?
what about the other 30+ skills in current state of unholy sh*te?

but i get it, i get it...
will released a new meta of overpowered new skills and sell the respective celestial mtx

i wonder how is the player retention these days btw

Back to 3.14 plz ........

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Appletree2k wrote:

I'm a minion player and I'm exited about the new itemization options. Refreshing changes.

Looking forward for the league 👍

0 challenges, hidden characters zzzzzz

As a minion player I'm exited to play seismic trapper in a new league and dont even think about minions until i have at least few houndred exa in my stash...

There is a reason, why GGG used *invest* 23 times in their manifesto...

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Atlantis_arch wrote:

... GGG need to fix all the coding issues : graphical, combat calculations, servers. It is not as painfull as during the 18 months starting from delve to end of metamorph but still a joke accross gaming world, same as the graphical vomit.

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MisterAbsence wrote:

... On a personal note, you play a game to have fun. ... If so few players are able to play the game at its fullest extent - that is doing all the content and bosses - because only a hand full of people can actually do that - why does not GGG take action to raise the skill of the 99% of the players that struggle with the game. ...

I'm agreeing with everything from your posts (not only the quoted parts). But I try to keep my posts short because nothing from all this isn't new. All are requests that community made for years already. Including that "fun" is a personal note, and the most players personal understanding of "fun" is totally different from Chris's understanding (and we get his promise that he will pay attention to this).

I, like a lot others, just lost the trust that GGG pay attention to, or appreciate his players more then any other company from the market. Now was the moment to prove we wrong, with a manifesto showing us at least a part of our request being listened. Instead of this we just get the nerf of something that was buffed only 2 leagues ago, a deletion of half of the builds that was still playable in this mess and a pathetic try to rage control with "we will buff over 100 unique items".

None need to be amazed that people aren't waiting for the patch notes, that players aren't hyped for league announcement and that nothing from what will be in the next 2 weeks will not be able to delete the bitter taste that we feel right now.

I took 7 days off work for this League,I get to do this once a year because I need to do this, please the woman that... and I just wanna have fun, playing my stupid computer game.

Cant remember for my life when there was a Patch where stuff got buffed (like really buffed). Its all going to shit, every time. When d4 comes out and its a halfway decent game im done with you.

Minions got absolutely murdered. Alone the extreme nerf to charges makes me not wanna play. No money from me fools