Counterintuitive to the current clear speed meta: Slow the Game Back Down

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Entropic_Fire wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

@Fruz: My point with StarCraft 1 (not SC2) was that balance was handled by third-party (community mapmakers). We remember it fondly as a superbly well-balanced game, but that wasn't true with the initial map pool (which tended to overly favor Zerg due to rush distances). In the most competitive tournaments the maps weren't official Blizzard, they were finely tuned creations which finished Blizzard's balance work, using terrain as the final lever. New introductions to the map pool also caused for racial balance revaluations and provided that steady flow of additional meta shakeup content, all without direct Blizzard action.

So, to ask those against third-party solutions in game design, well, there's a shining example of third-party success.

How would third party balancing work in a game like this though? I can't really imagine it.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Entropic_Fire wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

@Fruz: My point with StarCraft 1 (not SC2) was that balance was handled by third-party (community mapmakers). We remember it fondly as a superbly well-balanced game, but that wasn't true with the initial map pool (which tended to overly favor Zerg due to rush distances). In the most competitive tournaments the maps weren't official Blizzard, they were finely tuned creations which finished Blizzard's balance work, using terrain as the final lever. New introductions to the map pool also caused for racial balance revaluations and provided that steady flow of additional meta shakeup content, all without direct Blizzard action.

So, to ask those against third-party solutions in game design, well, there's a shining example of third-party success.

How would third party balancing work in a game like this though? I can't really imagine it.

I can't either. But it's like a personal Philosopher's Stone to me; if I ever figured it out I'd guard it jealously and start a Kickstarter for my own ARPG title.

Which I guess means I'd say this even if I could imagine it.

But seriously I haven't.

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Spoiler

@ScrotieMcB But when the theorycrafting involves near maximum potential (all 20/20 gems with mirror weapon) vs content that require a much lower potential (weapon that is 15-20% of max potential and level 15 gems) that is were we have problems.

If I start at 2k dps at dried lake, and every 3 hours I farm dried like I gain 1k dps. After 30 hours I now have 12k dps. Now I have 6x the damage needed to clear dried lake and if I start maps I can plow through all of the low-mid tiers.

After that point it will continue to scale further and further past the content. It becomes trivial because you "earned" the right for the content to be trivial. GGG like I said has two options to go about this, either up the amount of content that requires a much higher potential (latest expansion) and then nerf the shit out of everything to lower max potential. Making you move through said potential much slower.

Even then at some point you'll hit the amount of potential power to make all content trivial, which is the goal of every character.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Spoiler

@ScrotieMcB But when the theorycrafting involves near maximum potential (all 20/20 gems with mirror weapon) vs content that require a much lower potential (weapon that is 15-20% of max potential and level 15 gems) that is were we have problems.

If I start at 2k dps at dried lake, and every 3 hours I farm dried like I gain 1k dps. After 30 hours I now have 12k dps. Now I have 6x the damage needed to clear dried lake and if I start maps I can plow through all of the low-mid tiers.

After that point it will continue to scale further and further past the content. It becomes trivial because you "earned" the right for the content to be trivial. GGG like I said has two options to go about this, either up the amount of content that requires a much higher potential (latest expansion) and then nerf the shit out of everything to lower max potential. Making you move through said potential much slower.

Even then at some point you'll hit the amount of potential power to make all content trivial, which is the goal of every character.

Kind of like how level 100 is a goal. Or perfect gear in every slot is a goal.

It's a design disaster when those goals are actually met. XP becomes meaningless; gear upgrades, never again. It's idiotic design to put such a thing on a silver platter and make it readily accessible; it should be so heinously gated that it's all but inaccessible.

Those goals are the end. Fin. Game over.

Don't get me wrong; I agree it should still kinda happen. Allow the truly dedicated players who happen to be truly atrocious pilots satisfaction, by allowing them to arduously grind to the point where all piloting is easy. I have no problem with that. But that shouldn't be the norm, because trivial difficulty is almost always a game-killer.

Modding doesn't work AT ALL with PoE's revenue model. Which is a shame.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@Fruz: My point with StarCraft 1 (not SC2) was that balance was handled by third-party (community mapmakers). We remember it fondly as a superbly well-balanced game, but that wasn't true with the initial map pool (which tended to overly favor Zerg due to rush distances). In the most competitive tournaments the maps weren't official Blizzard, they were finely tuned creations which finished Blizzard's balance work, using terrain as the final balance lever (although Blizzard deserves credit for getting balance close enough to make this possible). New introductions to the map pool also caused for balance revaluations and provided that steady flow of additional meta shakeup content, all without direct Blizzard action.

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Personally, I think a big part of the clear speed meta is characters jump in power in leap and bounds instead of small increments.

For example I use a shitty weapon until let's say a Bino drops (or I save some to buy one). Then suddenly bam I'm 300% more powerful.