0.9.13 (Closed beta) was more balanced, and funnier

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XDementia wrote:

Disclaimer: This post aims at bringing constructive criticism to the current state of the game balance. If you think this game is flawless and shouldn't be changed a single bit, or if you opened this topic to jump at the reply button and stamp it with a "this is BETA" or "your build sucks", I suggest you simply close the tab as you have nothing to bring to the discussion.

Bit of backstory about myself, in spoiler tags for those who can't bother :

Spoiler

I discovered PoE in May 2012. Game was in its late 0.8 or maybe early 0.9, I can't really remember. I showed videos of this game to my girlfriend and it took us about 20 seconds to decide to buy a couple of beta keys. We played all evening, and the next day we both upgraded to a supporter pack. I picked Silver because that is the most I could afford but I really wanted to support this game.

My main class is a DW melee (sic) Duelist (re-sic), and my girlfriend used to play a summoner Witch (she switched to non summoner Witch in open beta). We have played this game a lot, through thick and thin. Even when desynch was a nightmare (more than now, yes), and the client would crash every couple maps, we'd still play, because we were completely hooked. When 0.9.13qq hit we decided to take a break to enjoy the Open Beta even more. We were both level 70something by then.

Ever since Open Beta launched, and up to a few days ago, my girlfriend and I have played this game whenever we had the chance, and enjoyed every moment of it, until we reached Act 3 Merciless.

I am now level 75, and she is level 72, as she remade her build 3 different times in an attempt to cope with the "nerf sledgehammer" CI, ES, and witches in general have taken in Open Beta.

After Act 3 Merciless, came maps. And after a while we both came to the same conclusion, the game isn't as fun as it used to be.

The balance between difficulty and fun in 0.9.13 was nice. Being a melee was hard, but doable, and rewarding, and eventho some things were still way unbalanced (I'm looking at you, Chaos Inoculation), running maps was fun and the game in general was much less frustrating to play.

Frustration is the word for the two of us right now. The difficulty in Act 3 Merciless, and in maps after that, goes full derp and takes away a lot of the fun out of the equation. I can't wrap my mind around some design choices that were introduced with Open Beta. -60% resists also applying to Chaos? The new CI? The new, higher levels of the mobs making armor nothing more than a joke?

And it doesn't look like we're the only ones with that feeling: the amount of "Melee is not viable", "HP passives are too godly", "builds are even more restricted than before", and similar threads are flourishing.

After a lot of thinking, I am left with a sour taste, and a big doubt. What if the new design choices that came with Open Beta are nothing more than an attempt at artificially lengthening the game, by making progress even slower, and ensuring people with less experience will have to reroll a few times before they find a viable build?

I think some of the design choices have to be seriously reconsidered. The game used to be fun, challenging, and extremely rewarding. Right now it feels slow and frustrating. Still fun of course, but way less than before.

And apparently I'm not the only one thinking that.

TLDR : Close tab, nothing to see here.