You break the game, or the game breaks you

"

Bars wrote:

About the "competitive" part - I won't waste my breath arguing about something which should be obvious to anyone with experience in true competitive pvp games. Not to mention it's besides the point. This thread is about the player vs. game power balance which has nothing to do with player vs. player balance.

The fact you perceive this as such, doesn't somehow bend reality to that shape.

PvE balance has a direct correlation to PvP balance.(in light of PvE content)

If a build is able to farm quicker compared to another build (pve + pvp balance) then it needs to be contained if a number of potential down-sides are not met.

And this is all done to keep the ladder and PvP scene interesting and balanced. Do note, this is about player vs player action in a PvE setting ,so doesn't aim directly at player vs player content.

The moment GGG decides competition is no longer desired and they actually remove the ladders from the league's and perma league's, creating an environment where players no longer compete with one another in a fictional race setting, then your points hold more merit.

But until that day, every balance decision will be based around that competition and it's impact on it.


Example :

Flameblast OP --> relevant in a non competition setting? Not at all, nobody would care how fast another person can reach top-content with minimal investment.

Relevant in a competition setting? Obviously yes, low "buy-in" price to reach end-game content. Easily achieved high EHP ratio's with offensive capability's to boot.
High economical powers because not a lot of end-game maps need to be rerolled, yielding higher overall economical power in the ladder.

Result : flameblast nerfed so it doesn't dominate the meta and has reduced economical power at end-game.
(lower clear speed now and higher "buy-in" price to get it going)

Flame totem is next, for obvious reasons. And not because people will want it, but because the competition demands it.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit :

Can i ask, where you around for the H4V0C debacle where he broke the game with the RF summons?

Simply put, if the game was "not competitive" by design/nature like you suggest, nobody would have cared about that.

The out-cry on the forums however indicate an opposite sentiment. People felt personally insulted by h4v0c and GGG that the competition had been so severely undermined due to this abuse case. So much in-fact that GGG allowed it's existence for the remainder of that league as to not "skew" the competition for other people.

In fact they allowed this abuse case and only fixed it at the end of the league, which clearly demonstrates a competitive oriented balance design.

In therms of competition, economical power is your macro management and your character itself is micro management. And at the top-end your not playing FFA, it's group vs group.

"

high level content is gated behind a mind-numbing grind to prevent quick leveling.

This is my biggest issue with this game. Why is it such a forbidden and ludicrous desire to want to level to 100? What is the purpose of not letting people level?

I don't want to be HARDCORE and play the game for 12 hours a day. I want to play it for a couple hours here and there, and still be able to get to the higher top tier stuff and have fun doing it.

It is not fun to run level 74 maps while you are 84, netting you 2.5 bars of exp and a chaos orb or two... I don't get it. Why aren't we allowed to level?

I want to feel powerful and strong along my way, not like some wimpy little chump who is terrified of the shadows. I have been playing this game for 2+ years and I have only just now broke the level 80 barrier, I've only ever found One exalted orb, and I've only ever found one 6 Link item. All of this happened within the last week.

I want the feeling of progression and growth, and not feel as though I am in a stagnant pond of filth, trying to claw my way free for another 4% Hp node. The amount of points needed to invest into Defensive Nodes is far too high imo. Everyone needs at least 170% Hp and 200% Mitigation.

Maybe I want to build a character for pure damage, I don't want to be tanky. I don't care if my items have resists or health no them. Why am I not allowed to do this? I want to hit every single Dagger/Physical/One handed/Dual wield/Crit node within reach. If you were to do this you wouldn't make it out of A1 Cruel.

"

Boem wrote:

Can i ask, where you around for the H4V0C debacle where he broke the game with the RF summons?

Simply put, if the game was "not competitive" by design/nature like you suggest, nobody would have cared about that.

The out-cry on the forums however indicate an opposite sentiment. People felt personally insulted by h4v0c and GGG that the competition had been so severely undermined due to this abuse case. So much in-fact that GGG allowed it's existence for the remainder of that league as to not "skew" the competition for other people.

This is incorrect. The Cast on Death abuse was patched out within maybe a week after the cat was out of the bag.
I doubt it was that guy who figured it out though, BM Specters were popular in the league after the AoE scaling rework made them very strong, and many people played with them, but I don't think he was one of them. It was just a decent budget build without CoD with almost no endgame scaling.
He simply decided to exploit it while he could, and then started streaming it when too many people found out. Him abandoning his primary build just to be able to deliberately exploit surely contributed to the community backlash.

"

sephrinx wrote:

Maybe I want to build a character for pure damage, I don't want to be tanky. I don't care if my items have resists or health no them. Why am I not allowed to do this? I want to hit every single Dagger/Physical/One handed/Dual wield/Crit node within reach. If you were to do this you wouldn't make it out of A1 Cruel.

You aren't allowed to do this because players get defenses only if they have to. If it is possible to play the game without any defense at all, just one-hitting everything and not dying, people would only go for that. It would be too one-dimensional and easy and would reach the opposite end of the game-player balance (player being completely overpowered) which is just as bad as an impossibly punishing game.

"

Zed_ wrote:

This is incorrect. The Cast on Death abuse was patched out within maybe a week after the cat was out of the bag.
I doubt it was that guy who figured it out though, BM Specters were popular in the league after the AoE scaling rework made them very strong, and many people played with them, but I don't think he was one of them. It was just a decent budget build without CoD with almost no endgame scaling.
He simply decided to exploit it while he could, and then started streaming it when too many people found out. Him abandoning his primary build just to be able to deliberately exploit surely contributed to the community backlash.

You are correct, apologies.

It was in fact patched out 1 month prior to the league ending.

Do note, that havoc reached level 100 with that build at week 3 or something. so it stayed active for a full two months and a week before eventually being patched out, giving the gross part of the community the ability to abuse it if desired.

Nemesis ended 23 February 2014

The cast on death patch happened on 20 January 2014.

It's safe to say it was allowed to skew the ladder when it was most relevant.(the three first months of the league) League's used to be 4 months then right? Or was nemesis already a 3 month league?

Anyhow my main focus was the community out-cry, clearly reflecting the principle that competition has a strong impact on the core game.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

Anyhow my main focus was the community out-cry, clearly reflecting the principle that competition has a strong impact on the core game.

The community outcry clearly reflects the principle that the community will always find stuff to cry about, as we discussed previously in this thread.

I remember a post 2 days after the start of Warbands/Tempest by some guy who was raging because he started playing 3 hours after release, then went to sleep, then woke up and found out the good racers are already in merciless while he was still in Normal or thereabout. He was so angry - "I missed my chance for a laptop", "these guys must be cheating, this is impossible", "I shouldn't be punished for wanting to sleep", etc.

Pretty funny stuff.

But wait, the game is competitive at its core... lol

Lol I break the game and the community cries for nerfs.

Completely agree with OP.

Challenging games over Punishing games.

Mechanical Boss Fights over One-Shotting Bosses.

Grind over Trading.

Effort over Faceroll.

Smartness over No-Brainer.

Challenge Surpassing over Masochism.


Reward your players GGG. STOP punishing them.


But OP, we all know that this game was made for those who likes to feel "Heh, i'm on the top. I'm the 1%."

Read the forums a little bit, you'll find enough of these to make you want to puke over egocentrism.


But, again, it was the best thread i've read this month about this game.
We also know that Path of Exile is an AMAZING game ruined by aspects that could change in a blink of eye.

Thanks for the amazing thread op !

"

Bars wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

Anyhow my main focus was the community out-cry, clearly reflecting the principle that competition has a strong impact on the core game.

The community outcry clearly reflects the principle that the community will always find stuff to cry about, as we discussed previously in this thread.

I remember a post 2 days after the start of Warbands/Tempest by some guy who was raging because he started playing 3 hours after release, then went to sleep, then woke up and found out the good racers are already in merciless while he was still in Normal or thereabout. He was so angry - "I missed my chance for a laptop", "these guys must be cheating, this is impossible", "I shouldn't be punished for wanting to sleep", etc.

Pretty funny stuff.

But wait, the game is competitive at its core... lol

I don't disagree with the bolted part, however you are not presenting any counter arguments to what i am stating.

If anything your post enforces my point.

Clearly that user considers the competition a driving force for his actions or lack there-off.

It is quite common for community members to neglect there own place within it and create a delusional concept based on those neglections.

Is a "regular" user able to compete with members like havoc, hellman and other prominent members, no they are not. Do they like to convince themselves how exceptionally good they are and can indeed compete with those members, surely some do.

In fact the whole "havoc summoner abuse" boils down to this. Users trying to attribute havocs position and skill to this abuse and nothing else in an effort to elevate there own skills compared to his and try to undermine his position in the competition.
(to gain a more favorable position themselves as an underlying motivation)

It's quite simple really, the game has a ladder and an economy. Both are dictated by the competition and allow a "natural" balance to evolve over time in a league.(currency/item ratio's and the abuse there-off for relevant experience progression in the ladder)

Are there players that don't care about the competition at all. Obviously there are.

Are those players somehow not effected by balance and the competition, your OP suggest's they are not, which is indeed the case.

I wouldn't mind a league without a ladder, with experimental balance value's that expires in a void league. I don't care for competition one bit.

However i don't elude myself into thinking i am not effected by it and that it doesn't play a major role in how the dev's decide to balance. And as a result shapes my gaming experience.

Peace,

-Boem-

I so wish GGG actually gave a sh*t about all the good stuff posted in here. This post sums up all my feelings for PoE!