Dear GGG, are you balancing around the ladder or the content?

Hmm it's hard to describe what i mean with this sentence but i will try to give it a go.

I will be taking block as my main example for obvious reasons.

In the current passive tree we have, a hefty point investment is required to gain near immortality vs physical attacks.
If one wishes to extend this feat towards spell, one has to invest in very specific utility unique's that offer very little other benefits to the builds in question.

This leaves a person with an extremely butchered passive tree and gear choice.(butchered as in devoid of a lot of other options/choices, it is very "go all-in" centric to make a functioning block build in the current game state)

Now a question arises,

Can this near immortality be allowed to function in this game? And if so, then how can one justify it's existence compared to other build's and choices?

Now my thread tittle starts to become somewhat relevant.

When viewed from a "ladder and competitive perspective" the answer is (imo), Yes it can and should.


When viewed from a content perspective, the answer takes a drastic turn and becomes a solid, no this should not be possible, content should not be trivialized.

Now why is this relevant?

It's very simple really, if a block build is balanced around content then so should all other builds.

A block build might trivialize content due to it's nature to negate all forms of damage if build properly and so it is rightfully re-balanced to a more happy medium, it still serves a function, but is no longer a reason for centric investment.

Now then we take another type of build, the one which i played during the 1 week-race a tornado shot/puncture crit shadow.

And we apply the same reasoning to it like we did with block builds.(if that makes sense and you are still reading, congratz)

Balance around the ladder.

-i cleared 78 maps in roughly 4 to 5 minutes each including bosses.
-insane xp/hour + farm/hour
-investment in gear is almost non-existent.(i played this almost entirely self-found except for a rat's nest i bought)
-investment in the passive tree is incredibly easy (all nodes are aligned and close to one another, minimizing travel cost, at lvl 84 i had everything i needed and was just putting points in "whatever" and this included roughly 40% move speed investment already which is optional)

Balance around the content.

-trivializes every single form of content due to it's virtue of high dps coupled with range.
Dead content is trivialized content in my book.

So i wanted to ask GGG, what are you balancing around? ladder or content competition?

If it's content, your not doing nearly as much nerf's as you should be doing.

If it's the ladder, your doing way to much nerf's and should tone it down.

As a result of these two viewpoints with a different approach to balance for each of them, choice is getting a major set-back. Because your balancing some builds and choices for players around A while balancing other choices around B. Leading to a very confusing game-state where choices are non-existent.

I write this after fiddling with the 1.3 skill-tree update we just received and seeing some melee builds i am constructing ending up with less dps and ehp then there ranged counter-parts. Simply because a melee has to invest roughly 35% of his total points in defenses where a ranged has no need for that.

Muh this became a clusterfuck of a text and congratz to anybody reading it, even more so if you grasp what i am trying to point at.

Peace,

-Boem-

tl;dr ranged > melee by virtue of inherent advantages when considering game content, while lack of consideration for this is clearly visible in game balances being made.

Agree with op, the nerfs do seem almost random at times. We'll see what the new gems do to the game though. It's hard to talk about nerfs and buffs when half of the information is unavailable. The new melee gems could be total shit or they could be orgasm-inducing OPness. These new 8 gems could drastically alter the balance of melee and ranged or they could be just for funsies. The wand gem at least looks op as hell. I'm predicting the new wand gem is the new fotm if it works like I think it will.

Having said that, if the new uniques are the main reason for the balance changes and the gems are the least important addition, I will rage big time. This game is too centered around uniques as it is. And the fact that there are 25 new ones does not lend credence to the idea uniques are going to tone down anytime soon.

The stupid part to me is that not even block can keep you alive, at least not playing solo. I had a character with 6.5k life, max/max block, large armor (IR with grace, etc), like 16 or 17k DPS with soul taker, etc. I walked through Atziri like nothing. Yet I died on a 66 map (level 93, so you do the math as to the level of the monster that one shot me) to a beyond boss using Vaal Detonate Dead.

It's all just a cycle of shit they do to keep the game meta changing each league. There isn't really anything that is unkillable, as there will always be some cheap thing you didn't see coming, even after year(s) of playing. For me that hurts the game a lot, since I play solo. I can't just relevel and acquire that gear back as fast as dedicated parties/friends can. Oh well. They nerfed block, so now I guess I'm 100% fucked rather than <100% fucked.

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BoltThrower87 wrote:

The stupid part to me is that not even block can keep you alive, at least not playing solo. I had a character with 6.5k life, max/max block, large armor (IR with grace, etc), like 16 or 17k DPS with soul taker, etc. I walked through Atziri like nothing. Yet I died on a 66 map (level 93, so you do the math as to the level of the monster that one shot me) to a beyond boss using Vaal Detonate Dead.

It's all just a cycle of shit they do to keep the game meta changing each league. There isn't really anything that is unkillable, as there will always be some cheap thing you didn't see coming, even after year(s) of playing. For me that hurts the game a lot, since I play solo. I can't just relevel and acquire that gear back as fast as dedicated parties/friends can. Oh well. They nerfed block, so now I guess I'm 100% fucked rather than <100% fucked.

The problem i have while reading this is, what cycle in the meta? It's exactly the same meta with this new tree as the current one we have. Only in the older one you could at least go for a sub-optimal tank (in terms of xp/farm per hour, so ladder based view) and be like "Can't touch this bitches" while you mowed down maps at a snails pace compared to the current ranged meta.

So i wonder why exactly these god-like immune builds that run 2 maps per hour needed to be toned down. Compared to the ranged meta that runs roughly 10 maps per hour while having the same impunity because of being ranged.

Meh i'm in a fuck ranged to easy cheesy in PoE mood after toying with the passive tree and playing a ranged char in the 1-week race.

Lvl 91 in 1 week, while my melee block char took 2 months to get to lvl 92, like seriously....tha fuck is wrong with this. . .

Peace,

-Boem-

PoE cant be competitive game when trading is involved.

Trading brings to table too many balance issues and dark-side issues.
Only way to make PoE competitive and to make ladder matter, they would have to introduce SF league or fix high lvl PvP. Neither of this will ever happen so just no. PoE wont be competitive game, thus they cant be balancing around ladder.

I guess they just want people to die more, or take longer to level. That's all I can get out of it. Or worse, maybe to encourage people to not play solo.

It makes me think that the way they want you to play if you are melee, is to level a ranged character first in order to farm so your melee can be less crappy than it would be if you started out with it, but will never apex your ranged no matter what.

One hell of a sentence, but there it is.

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Xtorma wrote:

It makes me think that the way they want you to play if you are melee, is to level a ranged character first in order to farm so your melee can be less crappy than it would be if you started out with it, but will never apex your ranged no matter what.

One hell of a sentence, but there it is.

This is exactly how i made a lvl 92 melee lol.

I read a developers blog a long time ago when they nerfed d3 into the ground (patch 1.3) basically went along these lines. "we have decided it's more fun for players to blow through mobs than have to stack defenses all to hell and are tweaking game-play to this style of play" they nerfed monster damage, no enrage, no elite healing, no invulnerable minions etc, meanwhile GG DPS went from 50K dps to 150K DPS in one patch.

I think PoE is following this line of thought with recent (defensive) nerfs (elemental adaptation, block etc) and lack of nerfs in the crit/ranger/srs etc type builds.

You can still play defensive but it's simply not worth it anymore as you saw.

I read your post all the way to the end, and coincidentally thought it made perfect sense. Until I read the tl;dr XD I didn't get a hint of "fuck ranged" out of that whole post, but I did get a whole lot about the "development meta" as opposed to the game meta. Some good points to be made there ^-^

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eragon1111 wrote:

PoE cant be competitive game when trading is involved.

Just to nit pick, trading is an inherently competitive act. This is important to note, because your post is incredibly vague. "It is a problem because it it a problem" sort of stuff.