The Balance Team needs a shake-up

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sidtherat wrote:

Spoiler

sure, game makes money. selling cheap fast food also makes money. but it is difficult to recommend going there for a lunch. same with POE, i cannot force myself to recommend this game to anyone. there are ethical issues (mounting ones) and there are gameplay issues

- significant part of the skills available in the game is BY DESIGN crap. if one selects this skill while leveling there is NO CHANCE he will be successful

loosing on the character selection screen is a first sign of a failed balance/game design. currently in POE you CAN make your character rubbish even before loading the game

- when some - seemingly equivalent - mechanics/playstyles/archetypes are just BETTER in every f. way then - again - you have a failed design. crit/non-crit is the prime example. elemental melee (only fast weapons matter) is more niche one. current life/ES disaster.

- end-game content is unreachable by certain characters/classes/concepts. im not talking about immunities - these can be pruteforced with time. given average skill and average gear killing shaper with 1h/shield mace RT build is impossible. not difficult but simply impossible. it is again fail at the character creation screen - some builds will simply never be able to reach and complete the game. regardless of how these are built. this is utter balance failure.

- power gap between normal builds (well made and thought out 'generic' builds - mostly melee) and 'meta' builds is beyond insanity. no serious game can afford this kind of design. it is unsustainable and attracts power-junkies and fail-lifes that require some for of success and this game gives them success on silver platter

- non-existing communication between various guys doing this part of the game. uniques with WILD power discrepancies, uniques with horrid stats, skills that even kids know are broken.. who leads this team? because it doesnt look like a team effort

- push for 'new instead of fixed old'. this snake has eaten its tail and is now happilly chewing of his own head..

if today one was to do a speed run to shaper or 100 he would have like 4 builds total to do it. because these few builds have a power rating of 5000 while others hover around 100.

imagine this: you brother/sister/spouse (someone you know and like, someone you want to have fun with the game and experience it all without your constnt supervision) asks you for tips:
would you recommend playing 1h RT melee? or melee at all? or non-crit bow? or any non-meta build? because i sure wouldnt. id start with a long list of stuff you should not touch ever and a very short list of stuff that works stupidly well.

game diveristy


soem might say 'but how does this affect your gameplay'.. this oneliner makes me laugh each time it happens.

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goetzjam wrote:

You don't necessary have to change up the balance team's members, simply certain ideas that have lead to the list of complaints you have. GGG isn't likely going to fire anyone or reassign anyone to do something else, just because of a post like this.

I think the feedback would be far better, IMO if it was more focused on the reason why you think they come to do the changes that they have, rather then criticize them directly.

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allbusiness wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

You don't necessary have to change up the balance team's members, simply certain ideas that have lead to the list of complaints you have. GGG isn't likely going to fire anyone or reassign anyone to do something else, just because of a post like this.

I think the feedback would be far better, IMO if it was more focused on the reason why you think they come to do the changes that they have, rather then criticize them directly.

The track record of the team is absolutely abysmal. It's not like they haven't been given chances; they are literally absolutely failing for years.

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pathofplaying wrote:

new player here, unfortunate enough to make a duelist as first char. got to 80 before i realized why my char was doomed from level 1 to not compete into end game. I still had fun along the way, but they caught me in their noob trap (lower half of tree casts a wide noob net). now i'll roll a witch and simply go along with the meta

is the game still fun? sure. is it fundamentally flawed and absurdly unbalanced? yeah thats pretty clear now.

am i mad the game lays down large noob traps to trick newcomers into making failed characters? i guess less mad than i'd be if a new league wasn't about to start up.

i assume thats the goal; noob traps = character needs to be rerolled = player continues playing the game. but are those players going to be willing supporters who buy things in game? i cant speak for others, but they won't be getting a dime from me now.

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Fruz wrote:

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allbusiness wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

You don't necessary have to change up the balance team's members, simply certain ideas that have lead to the list of complaints you have. GGG isn't likely going to fire anyone or reassign anyone to do something else, just because of a post like this.

I think the feedback would be far better, IMO if it was more focused on the reason why you think they come to do the changes that they have, rather then criticize them directly.

The track record of the team is absolutely abysmal. It's not like they haven't been given chances; they are literally absolutely failing for years.

If it would be the case, PoE would be dead.

It isn't, reaching ideal, fair balance for every archetype / build ( as much as I would like it ) is definitely not what GGG is aiming at, you should probably somewhat fix your expectations.

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allbusiness wrote:

And two, if GGG isn't aiming for a range of balance between each build archetype, how are they balancing then? Creating a nonsensical 'competitive' metagame like DotA, MTG, or Hearthstone? That's nonsensical when you're trying to apply it to a primarily single player experience.

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Fruz wrote:

This create dynamism in the game, that creates hype, that allows them to conveniently create new micro-transactions transactions for some particular skills that are supposed to be fotm for a while, etc ...

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Fruz wrote:

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allbusiness wrote:

And two, if GGG isn't aiming for a range of balance between each build archetype, how are they balancing then? Creating a nonsensical 'competitive' metagame like DotA, MTG, or Hearthstone? That's nonsensical when you're trying to apply it to a primarily single player experience.

Those 3 games are all PvP, in a direct fight.
Your comparison is already meaningless.

They are creating FotM skills and they are fine with the fact that some skills are not good and that they do not want all skills to feel the same power wise.
There are Tiers in between skills, they are aware of it and are fine with it, you should deal with it, and it's nothing new.

This create dynamism in the game, that creates hype, that allows them to conveniently create new micro-transactions transactions for some particular skills that are supposed to be fotm for a while, etc ...

Now I don't think that nobody has said that the balance was perfect even considering this, there are obviously things that would have needed more testing, but overall, if you are not seeing that - all skills being balanced *equally* - has probably never been the aim of GGG, then you are mistaken.

Chris actually did explain such phenomenon in a podcast, State of Exile or Lioneye's podcast, I don't remember which one, they were showcasing a Chimera fight I think so prolly Lioneye's podcast.


And if the balance team had been "literally absolutely failing for years.", the game would be pretty much dead, or close to.

You seem to fail at seeing the big picture here.