Game Balance Development Manifesto Post

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2.0.0: "Melee is taken care of"

2.4.0: "Melee has been addressed"


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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

2.0.0: "Melee is taken care of"

2.4.0: "Melee has been addressed"


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I do not think that they will stop trying to improve melees .... but in the current state of the game, you just cannot bring melees at the same level of ranges ( unless by creating "fake" melee skills of course ).

I think half of the patch notes are still missing.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1666417/page/11#p13604187

The recent patch notes have raised a lot of questions.
Now is the perfect time to answer them, with a manifesto post.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

What I think GGG should do is make a check list of everything that might need rebalancing before doing any rebalancing.

I think they should discuss such a big changes with comunity before those upgrades are released. There are plenty of tips how to balance game on feedback forum.
I can´t see their philosophy here.


Fruz - melee or not, damage scaling with AoE (significantly, other aspects such as stun/freeze ability should be considered too), increasing monster´s ehp (no 1 shots on both sides).
f.e.: AoE skills can keep decent clear speed but strong singl target/close range skills should be a thing in boss fights.

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Entropic_Fire wrote:

Not reading through this thread, seems nasty, so apologies if someone brought this up already.

Chris has talked about top tier skills in the context of Magic the Gathering seasons. In that game (as I understand it, never played) you can only use a certain subset of cards in any given season. This forces players to keep buying new cards to keep participating in tournaments, but it also makes the game easier to balance because you only have a couple dozen different cards to consider instead of many 100's.

They want skills in PoE to function the same way, at least since 2.0. When they released Bladefall they made it crazy OP so that everyone would try it, then nerfed it later. When they released poison they made it crazy OP so that everyone would try it, then nerfed it later (sort of). They consider the new OP skills part of the active 'season' of PoE, and they intentionally cycle through which ones get the limelight.


I personally hate this development philosophy for an ARPG game, but they have to keep people coming back for new leagues somehow, and it seems they decided imba skills are the best way to do it.

Ok, Shrapnel Shot was released along with Bladefall and Blast Rain. But Shrapnel Shot is a fucking useless skill, despite being "just released" (so, according to your claim, it should be OP either).

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Qarl wrote:

Patch 2.4.1:

• In the Racecourse map, the Crusher of Gladiators now only reflects 15% of damage taken, rather than 75%. He now correctly displays that he casts a Damage Reflection ability.

Somebody needs to say it.

How the fuck. Does this even happen?

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

I think we need this.
Do GGG even want a balanced game? Organic Metagame?

No they do not want a balanced game. If that is not apparent to some players then they either
A) have not been playing long enough
or
B) lack the capacity for intelligent thought

I don't know what you're looking for on the "organic metagame" if it's a segue into your follow-up comment about dictating the terms of competitive play then I do think GGG strives (to a point) to force players into using specific skills/items for effective content clearing (technically there is no "completing" the game so I just say clearing here).

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

Or do GGG intend to dictate the terms of (competitive) play always?

They absolutely do intend to control the game direction and, historically speaking, their decisions are both arbitrary and frequently lack logical reasoning. Naturally, it's their game so they don't need to justify their decisions with logic nor do they need to provide a balanced product so I guess it is what it is. Either be comfortable in playing a sub-par game or move on as many have (for these exact reasons here in my case!).

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

A manifesto post outlining GGG's game balance philosophy would be much appreciated. Has it remained the same since the conception of PoE or is it a moving target?

I seriously doubt this is going to happen. They like the "mystery" and "surprise" their randomized nerfs/buffs create. Basically if they told you Cleave is going to suck for the next year you, as Cleave's #1 Fan, would quit. If they say "we're working on balance blah, blah, blah" and keep things generic you'll keep playing despite knowing in your heart that Cleave will always suck.

Part 2: It definitely morphed into its current state over many iterations. I think the shift towards "let's really make money" changed their design philosophy from innovative to rote. At some point GGG realized that to make money they are best served by
A) Sticking to a ridiculous release schedule regardless of how much quality suffers
B) Adding new items/skills (typically in a broken or OP state) to reinvigorate the player base every few months and keep people playing just to see how OP their newest build can be.
C) This ties into B but it's slightly different in that the passive tree has morphed over time as well to accommodate this (+AC): Keep the Creep Strong!! Power creep has gotten ridiculous because the player base has shown they love power creep so every iteration of the game gets a little more absurd.
D) Ignoring quality and balance for points A through C in order to maximize profits and minimize costs.

The short answer to this is YES it is a moving target because that keeps people playing which brings in more money for a lower investment cost. Quality releases and actual new content (not just absurd glitch-fest, particle-ridden boss fights) have a higher investment cost; long time players would appreciate both of these more but the sad truth is that GGG's desire is for new players to jump on and spend their $20 on stash tabs not to appease the players that already spent $100's ($1,000's in some cases).

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

At this point I don't even care about new content. Nothing would excite me more than the next major patch being dedicated to performance and balance improvements.
GGG, you seem to be uncomfortably quiet on game balance issues. Please communicate. These issues are important, probably more than you realise.

If you're just getting here now I feel like you're behind the curve a little. Players have been clamoring for years to improve existing content (QoL, balance, etc) instead of adding new content and GGG is completely deaf to these cries. Furthermore, QoL improvements that they promised (for free) were released YEARS after the fact and were released with a price tag (blatant lies though NO I am not going to track down the news posts because seriously who the fuck cares anyways). These issues are important to long time players but let's be honest they aren't important to anyone jumping on the game today and that's what GGG cares about. New players = new revenue sources; it's more important to put glitter on this shit game than it is to fix long time issues that have plagued it for years.

Vote with you wallet? Honestly though "just quit" is better as there's zero chance they are going to change things at this point. "If it ain't broke don't fix it". POE is a huge cash cow and at this point it's basically on cruise control so why would the Devs get sidetracked by issues like poor performance or glaring balance/design flaws?

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Fruz wrote:

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

A broader metagame will most likely result in a more robust economy.

The issues aren't just with PvE power creep. How do GGG justify the development/existence of Earthquake when we have skills like Cleave.....?

I would say that implementing new skills, powerful skills creates hype, attractive content and curiosity from players.
Reworking old ones much less, and they need to be careful because in many cases some people might be using it also.

So it looks much more beneficial and less risky, but I agree that many old skill would have a use for some rebalance / rework.

People keep warning about reworking old skills that might be getting used by some guy, but why would anyone complain about their skill becoming better? Don't really understand that.

Unless you somehow break a build with the theoretical change I don't think anyone would ever complain about IE cleave being improved to match the current skills in power.