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

I couldn't agree more with the OP. He summed up perfectly my misgivings regarding the dog's mess that was made of balance this patch. Up until now, whenever I tried to articulate my misgivings I was met with the typical "go QQ somewhere else nublet" responses and, let's face it, deserved them because I couldn't adequately and clearly put into words how illogical I think the balance changes are. Boem solved this problem for me. GGG, please, please, please read through it carefully and consider his points in a reasoned, logical manner.

@Calamity, i actually suggested in another thread a 1% movement speed bonus per 10 str.

Obviously this would not be melee exclusive, but it would be as close as we can get i imagine.

Recently playing a ranged character with lots of movement speed made me realize just how much of a game changer it really is and how effective it could be at helping melee players out.

Both for xp/farm per hour results (moving between packs efficiently) and for positioning and strategical purposes.

@f4sak3n, thx for the kind words sir.

Also this post is just me rambling random thoughts do, after messing with the passive tree of 1.3 and recently playing the aforementioned ranged character.

The disparity is just so big and the decisions GGG is making seem irregular at best.

From my understanding, if your gonna nerf block, you should also nerf ranged dps (this is the "content trivializing viewpoint from my OP) since both offer similar results on that front.

And if your balancing around ladders and xp etc, you should not touch either and the player choice would determine his positioning within that ladder. (bad choices vs good choices and random "i can't be arsed to compete" is left alone and can enjoy there own designs)

However balance currently seems to go both ways whatever suits GGG's needs/goals best is picked, while disregarding the effect this has.

Peace,

-Boem-

I think the balance is around both ladder and content, but the gameplay philosophy is about not standing in one place. Both the new Brutus and Merveil encounter encourage positioning. So block gets the shaft, because block encourages walk in and tank everything instead of trying to avoid things.

If Life Gain on Hit and Life Leech can be linked to the new melee counter attacks, I can see meleers running through groups of enemies to better position themselves and survive while doing that. Range, on the other hand, doesn't have to run through hordes of enemies to try to get at that one target that needs to die.

"

Recently playing a ranged character with lots of movement speed made me realize just how much of a game changer it really is and how effective it could be at helping melee players out.

I agree with this. I would like to see melee characters having better access to movement speed in general than range characters. Melee characters need to position their characters faster and with whirling blades tendency to desync, that is hardly an option.

Some nerfs are random beacause all these skill tree mixing it's more RNG development than conscious decisions. Ofc some parts are nerfed on purpose to justify adding new skills and abilities but it smells like they are not worth it.

Exactly same here. To achive simillar defences i'll have to sacrifice some %Damage, AoE etc. All feels like 5-10 points more got to be invested to achive exactly saame results. In msot scenarios full recovery is not even possible.

I really liked your thread until you brought up the ranged > melee aspect because this was made up several times before and it's getting old quick now.

The problem is balancing in this game is not just about ladder/content. It's more than that. You have to consider way more aspects. Things like SC/HC or new players/veteran players come to mind aswell. If you nerf offense and buff defense than many SC players will rage quit because the SC players I know are just DPS whores. It's as simple as that. Even in HC, who would want to give up dps nowadays? Everyone is used to crazy damage and it would just be boring playing with lower dps.

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

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.

It's sad when Blizzard devs figure out that cheaply one shotting players is bad design before the GGG devs do.

"

dEus__ wrote:

I really liked your thread until you brought up the ranged > melee aspect because this was made up several times before and it's getting old quick now.

The problem is balancing in this game is not just about ladder/content. It's more than that. You have to consider way more aspects. Things like SC/HC or new players/veteran players come to mind aswell. If you nerf offense and buff defense than many SC players will rage quit because the SC players I know are just DPS whores. It's as simple as that. Even in HC, who would want to give up dps nowadays? Everyone is used to crazy damage and it would just be boring playing with lower dps.

Ranged vs melee in this threat if i remember correctly was in relation to clear speed and ladder position.

As in from a ladder and clear speed perspective melee could be a lot more safer to play, since they will never attain a competitive state with ranged character.

This is still the case today. You can make a leap slam build to facilitate movement etc while clearing a map, but in doing so your still putting yourself in harms way.

--> this means you need better gear to sustain that harm, which usually requires the "ranged" edge to farm content higher then your current gear level can handle.

So ranged turns into an endless cycle of having an easy time by virtue of competing in content that grants more experience and better items and melee has the opposite cycle.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

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

The way you analyzed this question, you made the "or" into an exclusive-or. I see no reason why they can't do both. When there is a conflict between the two sides, they can take guidance from the side where build / item / whatever is breaking the wall. For some things it will be the content barrier. For other things it will be the efficiency barrier. There can be other barriers beside just those 2 as well, and if something breaks one of those walls it may need a balance tweak to bring it back.

So I would say the question is ill-framed. You've created a false dichotomy of 2 choices, when there are many more choices than that, and they are not mutually exclusive either.

GGG has always balanced not around the ladder and neither the content, but around the cry posts in this forum. and this is a fact

there will always be people crying like a 5 years old kid because someone has a stronger character.
GGG should stop listen to these people, and TEST themselves a build or gem that is op, test everything for a longer time instead of taking a decision without testing it but just looking to the number of posts who wants that nerf

"

InAshesTheyShallReap wrote:

GGG has always balanced not around the ladder and neither the content, but around the cry posts in this forum. and this is a fact

Of course it is, but you should also note they did it only when there was something substantial to find in the witch hunt and it involved half the forum or more. 'Block is OP' or 'arc is useless' were perfectly valid, but they still got addressed after hell of a lot of nagging. In contrast, they usually don't respond to 'evasion/armor' is useless because there's little substance in such complaints, those that claim either is useless are just not using it properly.

Also, there currently isn't a massive movement among players to nerf enduring cry - immortal call, it's honestly a bit too good but many players rely on the combo and tend to be biased. Still, if they judge it necessary it will be done, remember the shitstorm when they tampered with leech?