You break the game, or the game breaks you

"

MatrixFactor wrote:

Isn't it obvious to you that player vs. game balance affects player vs. player balance?

Suppose the game is flipping a coin, and your score is the number of heads you've gotten cummulatively. Player's scores will just be a function of how many flips they've done. There's no decisions to be made. A auto-click script would be competitive with a dedicated genius.

Now if we have a more complex game where different decisions have different pay-outs (poker for example), then the good players are able to differentiate themselves from the bad players by making better decisions on average even if they make the same amount of decisions.

So making the player stronger against monsters in PoE would lower the effect of making bad decisions compared to good decisions, and make the overall "score" of bad players closer to that of good players. It would disincentivize tinkering with your build, and learning about game mechanics.

"

MegaDeth666 wrote:

"

MatrixFactor wrote:

Isn't it obvious to you that player vs. game balance affects player vs. player balance?

Suppose the game is flipping a coin, and your score is the number of heads you've gotten cummulatively. Player's scores will just be a function of how many flips they've done. There's no decisions to be made. A auto-click script would be competitive with a dedicated genius.

Now if we have a more complex game where different decisions have different pay-outs (poker for example), then the good players are able to differentiate themselves from the bad players by making better decisions on average even if they make the same amount of decisions.

So making the player stronger against monsters in PoE would lower the effect of making bad decisions compared to good decisions, and make the overall "score" of bad players closer to that of good players. It would disincentivize tinkering with your build, and learning about game mechanics.

Your first point auto-negates your second, your argument is invalid. There are scripts and programs capable of outperforming human players for most of the popular card/board games. Poker and chess being no exception. Being able to dodge screen wide one shot mechanics is not skill, nor is it fun. Imagine playing POE with 1 life, 75% evasion and 75% block, it would be absolute poop, and that's where the game is heading towards right now.

Reducing all damage would smooth out the outrageous difficulty spikes and allow players to broaden their builds, but it STILL wouldn't be enough. That's because monster mods can make pack dps vary up to 5000% , many of the act 4 monsters also have significantly higher base damages and the newly introduced map mods compounds this ten fold.

This would be an issue for a different thread, regardless, reducing all damage would help ALL parts of the game, including block and evasion.
Especially evasion since it's trash against things that can one shot you when they land and does not protect against spell damage, especially physical spells where armor and es would work, likewise, it works poorly with secondary effects and mechanics like stun, not to mention the painfully common exiles with resolute. All of which would be greatly improved with a tone down of monster and player damage.

It would be a buff to armor, but that could be adjusted at the same time.

What would also help is a condensation of health nodes; instead of 30 nodes with 4-5-6 hp each the tree could have 20 nodes with 6 ~ 9 hp each within the same area, that would greatly help out with build diversity.

"

Bars wrote:

I had a talk with a friend. He just finished his 30th or so full playthrough of Baldur's Gate 2 and said, "people whine how bards are useless but that's nonsense; I made this and this build and broke the game; I was overpowered". I replied that, in my experience, you can find a way to break the game with any class or combination. We started discussing various "overpowered" builds and quickly arrived at the same conclusion: you can pick any class and, if you know what you're doing, you can destroy everything.

All classes in BG are broken. Therefore, none are. It creates a rewarding gameplay experience where good decisions have a guaranteed payoff and many replay the exact same content over and over again just to find new ways to break the game. It is enjoyable. It is interesting. It is rewarding. The same can be said, in a general way, about Diablo 2.

Fast forward to PoE in its current state: it feels like PoE is the devs' child and they are outraged and offended when someone finds a build which breaks the game, so they immediately nerf it. Anything which makes your character feel truly powerful eats the nerf hammer. And it's not only skills or items, it's a general feeling about the game. Everything is done to prevent the player from becoming powerful: drops are atrocious; good skills, items and interactions are nerfed; arbitrary and impossible to prepare for killing mechanics are introduced with each big update; high level content is gated behind a mind-numbing grind to prevent quick leveling.

The result is a deeply unrewarding experience which quickly turns the game into a mindless grind where people replay the same level-inappropriate content and get the same laughably bad drops. You want good items? Grind your brain off and buy them with currency. You want high level? Grind your brain off. And, even at the highest gear and experience level, GGG is consistently trying to stop people from breaking the game, case in point - the destruction of endgame lowlife builds, ES in general, shotgunning, leech, the repeated gutting of block and eva/acro, the list goes on.

Seems to me, GGG are scared of people breaking the game because they think "oh, they will get bored and quit". So they try to prevent or slow it down by any means possible.

This couldn't be further from the truth. People play an ARPG with one goal in mind: to break the game. Their definitions differ - for some, successfully completing the storyline in merciless may constitute breaking. For most, it means having a high level character who can do the highest level content in the game with relative ease.

If there are lots of different and interesting ways to break the game, players don't quit when they reach their goal - they think "hey, that was fun - I created a well-made hero and was rewarded by the feeling of success and completion. Let's try that again with another build!". Thousands of hours later, when you've tried and done everything which interests you, you can sit back comfortably and think "well, that was fun!". And the best part in that theoretical scenario? New content! You get to seek new ways to break the game? Yay!

However, if the game feels incredibly hostile, and not like a good enemy, but as a cruel and unjust entity, it quickly turns people off. You can't break the game? Perhaps you aren't good enough. You try to improve and overcome the difficulty. But when you have the knowledge and the experience, you know you are doing everything right and you are unable to break the game because of arbitrary barriers (class/skill/item pigeonholing, gated content, bad drop rates), this is an instant turn-off. Interest dies, playing becomes grinding, players quit.

Something must be broken - and if it's not the game, it will be the player. If we explore the whole spectrum of player vs. game power balance, it goes like this:

- extremely punishing: it is impossible to break the game. You can never build a character who feels overpowered (example: Diablo 3 in the first 2 weeks after release). This is a terrible option. Players quickly realise the game can't be broken and they quit.
- punishing: it is theoretically possible to break the game but it takes an enormous grind and even then your character might be nerfed from godlike status to "meh". This is where I feel PoE is currently. Not rosy at all.
- difficult but rewarding: the game punishes mistakes and rewards good decisions. There are various way to achieve godhood. This is, IMO, the best option. Players love these games and play them for years on end - examples, Baldur's Gate 2 and Diablo 2.
- too easy: it's so easy to break the game that it becomes trivial and insignificant. Players quickly lose interest. Examples: Torchlight 2, Diablo 3 one month after release.

To sum up my wall of text, I have an appeal to GGG: please stop trying to "balance" the game and stop players from breaking it. I believe this design policy is deeply flawed and your game suffers from it. Let us break it - in as many different and interesting ways as possible. Let us enjoy ourselves and feel rewarded and you will be rewarded in turn with a loyal and growing fanbase.

With deep affection for a flawed but beautiful game,
yours truly.

"

Diphal wrote:

I just can't stand people which are crying "incinerate OP mimimi" because their build is weaker than mine. Is it weak? Then ask for a damn boost, but for god sake stop paying for nerfs of something you don't even use. It WON'T help your build!

"

Diphal wrote:

I don't understand why devs allways tend to nerf something what is really good, instead of boosting other useless or very weak keystones, mechanics etc.

"

Char1983 wrote:

"

Diphal wrote:

I don't understand why devs allways tend to nerf something what is really good, instead of boosting other useless or very weak keystones, mechanics etc.

There are probably two reasons:

a) GGG doesn't want the game to become too easy (which I think is good)
b) The higher you scale numbers, the harder it becomes to balance such a game (I have tried myself).


The real problem IMHO is not the builds that the nerfs were targeted at, but the other builds that are hurt. For example, GGG nerfed elemental proliferation and herald of ash in the last patch. I think there is a reason for it, but the problem is: I use both and they were fun, helpful, but not overpowered. I invested quite a bit into using that combo. Now, they are still fun, but a lot less helpful. So you do not only hurt the build that you were targeting, but also other builds that were not all that strong to begin with.

"

Bars wrote:

The bold part might be slightly exaggerated.

@MatrixFactor: It's a delicate balance but I'm pretty certain it's skewed in the wrong direction right now, especially in the maps and uniques department. Mapping is a chore and loot is bad to the point of becoming mere currency equivalents. Level 77+ maps? Alch and go, don't sink currency in them because there will be no returns anyway. What I look for in rares: more rings and ammies to complete the vendor recipes. When I see a unique drop, I think "oh, nice, that's half an alch orb".


This couldn't possibly be right.

About BG2 and Diablo 2: they were, indeed, very easy for the informed player. And much more interesting than PoE currently. This should speak volumes.

"

Bars wrote:

The bold part might be slightly exaggerated.

"

MatrixFactor wrote:

I never played BG2, but I don't think it makes sense to compare a turn-based single player game to a "economy driven" multiplayer game.

"

PaperRat wrote:

Kinda curious, do you mean Throne of Bhaal expansion? I did play it, was quite boring in my opinion, what with sloppily thrown together fights with nameless monsters all the time. Watchers Keep was the only interesting thing in it, from what I remember.