I can't take it anymore - once and for all, who is in charge of balance?

In the last week alone I've seen no less than 7 different groups of people blamed for the changes GGG make/said they will make. I don't know what to believe anymore. Here I am, some poor sap who thought all along that GGG made balance decisions based primarily on their wants, followed by internal testing, followed by general feedback. Clearly I'm wrong. Educate me.

http://www.strawpoll.me/11054501

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innervation wrote:

In the last week alone I've seen no less than 7 different groups of people blamed for the changes GGG make/said they will make. I don't know what to believe anymore. Here I am, some poor sap who thought all along that GGG made balance decisions based primarily on their wants, followed by internal testing, followed by general feedback. Clearly I'm wrong. Educate me.

http://www.strawpoll.me/11054501

Where is the "Thankfully not you" option?

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elwindakos wrote:

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innervation wrote:

In the last week alone I've seen no less than 7 different groups of people blamed for the changes GGG make/said they will make. I don't know what to believe anymore. Here I am, some poor sap who thought all along that GGG made balance decisions based primarily on their wants, followed by internal testing, followed by general feedback. Clearly I'm wrong. Educate me.

http://www.strawpoll.me/11054501

Where is the "Thankfully not you" option?

This + where is "All of the above" option?

It doesn't even matter how they decide balance. There is always at least 1 group of people who will whine about it. Everything is either too easy or too hard depending on who you talk to.

Reach existing tells me either Internal QA does a lot of drugs or has no clue how to build a fucking bow character.

So I'm gonna go with decree of Chris Wilson.

it's complicated

Basically GGG have stated in the past that while they don't mind to much if a skill is broken it would almost certainly get changed usually before/with the next new league.

To see how badly a skill is broken, they check the people who play with that skill and threads relating to it.

The look for stuff like, how many are playing the skill, what their builds are how much or little investment is needed, either through gear or passives
The QQ threads about it...well i'm sure they look at them, but they would be a lower priority compared to other methods (lets face it most of it is knee jerk idiocy and QQ)

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Reach existing tells me either Internal QA does a lot of drugs or has no clue how to build a fucking bow character.

So I'm gonna go with decree of Chris Wilson.

I think the reason Reach (and voidheart) ended up the way they are is that they were given some last minute buffs, and not given proper testing/balancing.

I think Voidheart was a good idea to improve melee. The problem with it is that it's too strong with some skills and doesn't do enough for most other melee skills. I have a feeling it was changed at the last minute and not tested (probably only caused bleeding and they thought it wasn't enough so they added another mod).

As for the topic, nothing is ever black or white. Some changes are caused by streamers, some whiners, some metrics.

But I do find it hilarious to ask the community how changes are made when the community can't find their ass with both hands.

Does it really matter if the results of said balancing efforts are consistently poor?

Personally I don't let it bother me anymore, I just adapt to whatever they decide.