PSA: GGG sucks at balance

Balance is an illusion.

What happens is a shift in meta.

Yeah. Illusion.


Totem taunts nerfed mid league, meanwhile bv roflstomps anything (still).

If players got their way with their whines about balance, we'd be seeing ~20k health builds and quadrillion DPS snoozefests.

And quite honestly, balance shows itself with how many viable builds are currently out there and can do endgame. That number is constantly going up, not down = Balance working fine.

Are there a couple of things that are total gutter trash? Sure. But its really your fault to be so fixated on that one thing, instead of enjoying the other alternatives and waiting until what you want to be viable gets fixed up.

(and uniques dont all need to be endgame viable. they just need to do something unique)

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

We really don't want a balanced game. Really. We'd be bored with it by now. Take Sex's Dominating Blow obsession. Would you really want a game where nothing was all that different from anything else? Where none of our choices made any difference at all? A game without causes? We wouldn't be here discussing it.

Man, you really learned nothing in all these years. You are one weird human being.

"

Cataca wrote:

If players got their way with their whines about balance, we'd be seeing ~20k health builds and quadrillion DPS snoozefests.

And quite honestly, balance shows itself with how many viable builds are currently out there and can do endgame. That number is constantly going up, not down = Balance working fine.

Are there a couple of things that are total gutter trash? Sure. But its really your fault to be so fixated on that one thing, instead of enjoying the other alternatives and waiting until what you want to be viable gets fixed up.

(and uniques dont all need to be endgame viable. they just need to do something unique)

See, these arguments are pure trash, just garbage.

I will completely ignore the first sentence, it's so bad lmao

Next you talk about numbers and how balance shows itself through them... Can you back that up?

You got it all backwards, there aren't a couple of things that are total gutter (?) trash. There are a couple of things that are completely OP. And that part is pretty much the only thing that changes through patches, a lot of times the same stuff is being altered while well-known trash is not even being looked at.

What about melee vs ranged? (and pls no same old bs argument how melee can never be on par with ranged)


You sir have absolutely no idea what balance means.

"

JohnNamikaze wrote:

Would you bring a knife to a gun fight?

I hope you're cracking a joke here.

"

pneuma wrote:

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

We really don't want a balanced game. Really. We'd be bored with it by now. Take Sex's Dominating Blow obsession. Would you really want a game where nothing was all that different from anything else? Where none of our choices made any difference at all? A game without causes? We wouldn't be here discussing it.

That's not what balance means. Reducing variety is the simplest, most braindead way to get to balance, but it murders enjoyment.

Rock Paper Scissors is a balanced game with zero variety.

If you inject variety into the rules, via:
- If you win with Rock, you win 1 point
- If you win with Paper, you win 3 points
- If you win with Scissors, you win 10 points

... the game is still balanced but now is immensely more variable and fun.

To complete this exercise, now add "Gun" which beats everything and wins 20 points (splits 10 points to each player in a tie). Now the game is imbalanced (there are 4 options and only 1 is ever worth using) and there's no variety (because of that).

Aaaaand, ironically you made Shagsbeard's point. No one plays rock paper scissors for hours on end. It is balanced, and boring.

the argument that balance = bland and everything the same, is quite silly

balanced does NOT mean, everything is the same. bland balance makes everything the same.

balance means, most things have same relative amount of power compared to any other thing.

balance can have very different things, and be symmetrical or asymmetrical

a game that has six different factions can have two factions be good against two others and bad against two others. you know, rock paper scissors is a balanced game in which things are different from each other.

to translate it to poe, we even had that kind of approach initially. all defenses were pretty different. all had their weak spots and strong spots. until people started whining about THEIR builds having weak spots at all. then one form of defense was found that was stronger than others and had little to no weak spots and that could be gotten by stacking offense and taking one node.