Game Balance Development Manifesto Post

I think we need this.

Do GGG even want a balanced game? Organic Metagame?

Or do GGG intend to dictate the terms of (competitive) play always?

A manifesto post outlining GGG's game balance philosophy would be much appreciated. Has it remained the same since the conception of PoE or is it a moving target?


At this point I don't even care about new content. Nothing would excite me more than the next major patch being dedicated to performance and balance improvements.
GGG, you seem to be uncomfortably quiet on game balance issues. Please communicate. These issues are important, probably more than you realise.

Isn't it obvious they don't really care about balance, they introduced massive power creep with AC classes and didn't have the foresight to introduce it with additional hard content. They allow one of the most OP combinations to go untouched practically since its introduction, but neuter any interaction that is viewed as strong\cheap, instead of broken and costly.

They cannot stop making new content to do what you ask, it literally is impossible, however they should have at least some more dev time available inbetween and during leagues to work on issues because only 1 league idea.

I reckon we'll see a couple of extremely hard nerf next major patch like the removal of double dip (the recent buffs on DoT and voidheart may hints that) and a rework of CoC.

I mean it's been 9 months of one shotting uber with a stack of mines, that's pretty retarded even by GGG standards.

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IceDeal wrote:

I reckon we'll see a couple of extremely hard nerf next major patch like the removal of double dip (the recent buffs on DoT and voidheart may hints that) and a rework of CoC.

I mean it's been 9 months of one shotting uber with a stack of mines, that's pretty retarded even by GGG standards.

The only relevance mines have though is the ability to do these multi stage bossfights, so just nerfing mines into irrelevance doesn't really do anything, plus it isn't like other builds can't do uber either.

A broader metagame will most likely result in a more robust economy.

The issues aren't just with PvE power creep. How do GGG justify the development/existence of Earthquake when we have skills like Cleave.....?

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

A broader metagame will most likely result in a more robust economy.

The issues aren't just with PvE power creep. How do GGG justify the development/existence of Earthquake when we have skills like Cleave.....?

I would say that implementing new skills, powerful skills creates hype, attractive content and curiosity from players.
Reworking old ones much less, and they need to be careful because in many cases some people might be using it also.

So it looks much more beneficial and less risky, but I agree that many old skill would have a use for some rebalance / rework.

Well earthquake is somewhat limited in how you build around it and the weapon choices you can use. They are both melee skills but don't serve the same purpose.

Part of the issue with cleave is it doesn't actually display the radius of the skill properly which means people think you need more AoE or that investing into aoe isn't helping. Another issue is that items that were once really good with it, no longer are, like BoR and such.

You can make a cleave build and clear fast, but is it fun sitting there in place while attacking, not necessarily. Earthquake lets you be mobile and do damage, but doesn't infinitely scale with attack speed and such.

Perhaps I should clarify. The only thing "wrong" with Cleave is that it's shit, and it doesn't have to be.
New skills completely invalidating older ones is wrong on so many levels.

Comparable investment vs Earthquake and it's pretty much no contest.

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

Perhaps I should clarify. The only thing wrong with Cleave is that it's shit, and it doesn't have to be.
New skills completely invalidating older ones is wrong on so many levels.

What makes it shit in your eyes or what can GGG do to fix it?

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goetzjam wrote:

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

Perhaps I should clarify. The only thing wrong with Cleave is that it's shit, and it doesn't have to be.
New skills completely invalidating older ones is wrong on so many levels.

What makes it shit in your eyes or what can GGG do to fix it?

Are we derailing or can we take the point at face value?