Balance is NOT possible - PROVE ME WRONG

I would say if 80% of players play exactly the same build/archetype then there is a clear issue with the balance. Of course it is not possible to make everything similarly viable, but at least each ascendency should have one meta-build which can clear content with similar speed to other meta-builds. Because, eventually, it is a speed which is a big factor here. It determines which build is good and which isn't. I'm guessing there are warrior builds out there which can do all the content game has to offer with ease, but they are so slow no one wants to play them. While in other hand you have lightning builds clearing entire screen with one button and at the same time they have tools to clear bosses as well. Then why would you play anything else?

Maybe issue here is that skills which have huge AoE are doing too much damage at the same time? Maybe their damage just scale too high? What is the point of Hammer of Gods skill, which is extremely slow and have small AoE, when it will never do more damage than some basic lightning skill spammed during the same period of the time? Not even mentioning area both covers. So there is an issue with skill balance. Scaling of some basic skills is simply too high. They supposed to be used early game only. At higher levels you should switch to better ones which provides better scalling. But it doesn't happen at all.

I think there should a negative relationship between skill speed/cost/area and damage. That should address an issue of a single skill builds, which clearly are not available for every single weapon type, which leads to issues with certain classes and/or ascendencies being completely underplayed.

Huh? I don't believe this is correct. Yes they clearly will need to spend some time crunching numbers etc. at some point if they want to take balancing seriously. The game is balanced pretty damn well during an initial play through the campaign that didn't happen by accident.

But yeah after that the game kind of goes bananas.. but I imagine most of their focus is on getting new content in the game because that's really exciting for people to return for a new league.. plus probably wanting to get out of the early release phase of the game. Just guessing.

That said I wish they would prioritize this issue in some form right away because the game right now feels so anticlimactic and a bit demoralizing. I can't imagine I'll ever have the level of gear I got this league yet I'm still getting insta gibbed by bosses that even when killed drop jack shit lmao.

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Innuendos#5095 wrote:

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AceNightfire#0980 wrote:

People come up with new builds every week. And the reason why we don't see more is, that there are some realls trong and quite cheap builds. Why go for something that is expensive and mediocre if you can just play a meta-build? So yes, there are thousands of different builds possible, but many of them don't make sense because of the current meta builds that outshine them.

just because you want to count every different variant of a build, as its own, build... doesnt make it true.

spark is spark.... regardless if you have a spark build with coc comet... or a spark build with coe arc, or a spark by itself build.

its one build. spark. its the button you press.

just because someone runs a lich minion build with ants... and one has blasphemy despair... and one has self cast despair... and one has temp chains... all with ants. doesnt mean its 7 different builds. its still a lich ant build.

when someone asks a bloodmage what build they run. they say spark.

not

spark with coc comet, coe frost darts, crit based, es...

like seriously.

A pretty poor way to think about it.

The skill is not the primary defining thing of a build.

The passive tree is. Alongside a build defining unique, if you are using one.
Followed by what affixes you want on gear.
And only then the skills you use.

My crit build that uses spark and my lightning build that uses spark are ABSOLUTELY two completely different builds.
And when you asked me what build I'm playing, I would not answer by saying "Spark" as either of those characters.

On one character I would say "Oh this is a spell crit build, I built for crit chance and I'm wearing Maligaro's. I made it a Blood Mage for the extra crit chance, so I through in passives for life-casting."
It all stems from crit, spark is circumstantial.

On the other character I would say "Oh I wanted to do a lightning build, so I invested in lightning clusters and stacked intelligence to go with the Pure Power notable. Made it a Sorc to go Stormweaver."
It all stems from wanting lightning, and the int stacking. Spark is circumstantial.

In both cases it wouldn't even occur to me to mention Spark as being part of my build.
Because it's not. It's the arbitrary skill I happen to be using because of what the build actually is.

I've got an Amazon Crit Accuracy build with Maligaro's.
I could use literally any bow or spear skill I felt like, because the build is all in on accuracy and crit. There's no specific investment in any particular element, nor in the weapons.
Currently it's using Ice Shot for packs. If I swap out Ice Shot to use Lightning Arrow for packs, that is not a different build. Either way it's just me picking a skill that can spread for use on hoards of mobs, while I keep a different skill on for the single targeting of bosses.

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AceNightfire#0980 wrote:

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Zar_Wagash#5933 wrote:

I suggest a very simple solution: gamedevs need to do a damage cap on the boss and a damage per second cap on the boss. Now let the meta builds instead of the boss's oneshot fight with him and execute like everyone else :) It would also be nice to balance the broken damage from some bosses' skills. Then the game will become much better.

Exactly what I have argumented against:

"Ofc, some say: Just "cap damage". Yeah... no. That's not how you create an interesting game. This way, 80% of the builds will cap their damage and focus the rest of their skillpoints and equipment modifiers into defensive stuff. End result would be: Everything feels similiar/identical. It would make the game boring. Everyone loves to see their dps increase when they put on a new weapon or level up their gem. Capping that would remove enjoyment for many people and would take away lots of freedom/build diversity."

This is a huge reason GGG can't put anything in to the game that challenges players. There are so many defensive options to reduce or completely negate various mechanics like chilled/ignited ground but nobody is actually willing to take them because "me no see dps number go up me angry" and so they just nerf or remove things.

I don't know if dps cap is an answer, but ggg should be forcing players to take more utility and defensive options. Multipliers to numbers are the biggest source of uneven balancing. It's a tight rope between too simplistic and too complex to possibly balance it all. Maybe they can train an AI on all the mechanics they are working on and have it point out infinite scalability they didn't anticipate. Most broken builds are simply due to oversight, with so many moving pieces it's hard to spot everything.. but thousands of players eventually will.

That's why putting caps to everything DPS,MS, Defences, Gambling can bring a perfect balance in game that mixes ton of things.

[Removed by Support] Becouse in the name of profit GGG decided it's better to satisfy specific players.

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Poutsamol#5656 wrote:

That's why putting caps to everything DPS,MS, Defences, Gambling can bring a perfect balance in game that mixes ton of things.

Wrong. What you are defending will:

Destroy player creativity and individual builds
It will collapses build diversity into a cookie-cutter "cap builds"
It flattens the sense of progresion and reward
It makes the game static instead of dynamic
It confuses "fairness" with "fun

POE would suck if everything was balanced. The controlled chaos that evolves each leagues is why this game is so popular.

Hard caps would sterilize that chaos and the game would die.

Putting hard caps on DPS, MS, defenses, or gambling wouldn’t balance PoE 2, it would amputate everything that makes it interesting. The game thrives on pushing systems to extremes, finding broken synergies, and chasing that next absurd upgrade. Caps don’t create fairness, they create sameness.

You’d end up with every build feeling identical, every drop meaningless once you hit the ceiling. PoE 2 chaos is it's balance, removing that freedom would turn it from an ARPG into an Excel sheet with loot tables.

Crafting is already a spreadsheet manager, don't make the game itself an Excel spreadsheet.

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Oinkaments#6390 wrote:

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Poutsamol#5656 wrote:

That's why putting caps to everything DPS,MS, Defences, Gambling can bring a perfect balance in game that mixes ton of things.

Wrong. What you are defending will:

Destroy player creativity and individual builds
It will collapses build diversity into a cookie-cutter "cap builds"
It flattens the sense of progresion and reward
It makes the game static instead of dynamic
It confuses "fairness" with "fun

POE would suck if everything was balanced. The controlled chaos that evolves each leagues is why this game is so popular.

Hard caps would sterilize that chaos and the game would die.

Putting hard caps on DPS, MS, defenses, or gambling wouldn’t balance PoE 2, it would amputate everything that makes it interesting. The game thrives on pushing systems to extremes, finding broken synergies, and chasing that next absurd upgrade. Caps don’t create fairness, they create sameness.

You’d end up with every build feeling identical, every drop meaningless once you hit the ceiling. PoE 2 chaos is it's balance, removing that freedom would turn it from an ARPG into an Excel sheet with loot tables.

Crafting is already a spreadsheet manager, don't make the game itself an Excel spreadsheet.

Absolutely no. You could invest in ton of other things...So get boring isn't an issue. Only lazy players find OP builds interesting. Becouse they wan't moving more than one finger in their palm.

Bad Take.

Balance is not needed nor wanted.

ACCEPTABLE BALANCE is.

Right now the difference betwin the meta builds and non meta builds is astronomical.

That is not acceptable.

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Zourouswel#3170 wrote:

Absolutely no. You could invest in ton of other things...So get boring isn't an issue. Only lazy players find OP builds interesting. Becouse they wan't moving more than one finger in their palm.

That argument misses the entire point of what makes PoE2, PoE2. Calling players "lazy" for liking strong or creative builds is just hand-waving away the actual design problem. The thrill of PoE 2 isn’t pressing one button, it’s building the button that works. Players invest hours theorycrafting, testing, farming, and fine-tuning their characters. When you hard-cap systems, you delete the reward for that investment and flatten every playstyle into the same mid-tier mush. "Just invest in other things" ignores that every "other thing" will also hit a ceiling. The result isn’t depth, it’s uniform mediocrity. Good ARPGs thrive on freedom, not forced equality, and labeling that freedom as "laziness" just shows a lack of understanding of what player agency and progression actually mean.

there are so many variables at play here it's probably an impossible task to "balance" things. maybe the best they can do is try to find outliers that will drastically over or under perform and fix them before a league release. Although it was very obvious to everybody what would be overpowered this league, so they might not even need to be that sophisticated about it. Just proactive would be enough to start with.

after they get proactive and patch the thing the streamers see instantly during the reveal trailer, then they can start getting more sophisticated through simulation or ml models or something.