Why are we Ok with metas arbitrarily changing?

Actually yeah this is how a game stays fresh. Also most of us aren't stuck with 1 char and make new builds all the time, or have a a lot of chars. Meta needs to be changed sometimes to keep the game dynamic not static and these changes were needed in GGG's opinion ( i agree with most changes) and that's about it :p

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Blakwhysper wrote:

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LowBudget780 wrote:

I highly doubt that. I agree with him. My favorite character is still rocking the same CI gear because eventually the pendulum will swing the other way.

You are right Johny Snows comment also rivals Shagsbeards for the dumbest thing I have ever read on here. Shifting metas is one of the most asinine game decisions i have ever seen a company make.

No, its always the same thing. A group of complainers don't want anything go get nerfed, which means the only changes in the game should be buffs, which leads to a spiral of constant buffing of underpowered things until people start farming shaper in all blue gear and everyone gets bored of clearing everything with 0 resistance.

What is your counter point to this, smart guy?

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Nephalim wrote:

Can't blame ggg too much when half the nerfs are being driven by the vocal minority and reddit. Remember how many daily threads pre 3.0 had demanding CI be nerfed to the ground?

Other than the stupid nerf to power charges and the death of CI and melee from the aoe nerfs, I would say 3.0 as a whole is more balanced than many prior iterations of the game. I did not want that to sound sarcastic but there is just no way of defending aoe nerfs now.

^Sums it up pretty good.

- CI was nerfed on to many interacting fronts at the same time (base value's/passive tree/mechanical interactions/ crafts), some builds can still get away with it but the way they handled it was just putting a dynamite stick on-top of the whole thing and watch it crumble.

It feels like they had four people to nerf CI and nobody knew what the other dudes where doing.

- aoe nerf was a good move and justified, but the increased radius value's on leveld gems coming in a league later was dumb to say the least and shows the disconnect of their entire shifting process.
Melee could get full screen aoe, nobody would care because it still wouldn't be top tier in therms of clear.
And the whole single target vs aoe was nuked from orbit some time ago.

I imagine they wanted some "good feedback" once they introduced the +radius modifications to leveld gems, funnily enough most of the community already moved on to the "projectile" tag.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Burgingham wrote:

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PayneK wrote:

Who ever thinks 99% of the builds should be useless and only 3-4 meta builds be viable every league to keep the game "fresh" is a fkin retarded morron.

Game doesn't go stale if all builds are viable, game becomes stale after you get burned out of those 3-4 viable builds and realize the next meta builds are boring as fuk compared to what you were used to.

Manye builds ARE viable. People are just too dumb to realize it. They see the 3 big streamers play the same shit over and over and assume that they have to copy it. That is how a narrow metagame is created. Doesn't mean it is the only thing out there. I have always played off meta builds the last leagues and farmed Shaper or whatever I wanted to farm just fine with them.

Also those proclaiming a company shouldn't intervene how the Meta works...that is how every card game and many other strategy games are designed. To be changed by divine intervention when things get stale. And you know that GGG drew a lot of inspiration from Magic the Gathering to create PoE, yeah? So it isn't too surprising they are copying such design mechanics as well.

Not true at ALL. I don't copy-paste meta builds i spend hours theorycrafting new viable builds and if you would do the same you would realize too that 99% of skills are trash.

For example:

Kinetic Blast - fires 1 projectile, no pierce no shotgun, 146.6% weapon dmg, so you need GMP, Pierce, Chain, a ton of shit to make it work (which severely gimps dmg)

Ice shot - fires 1 projectile which also explodes, 146.6% weapon dmg

Why the hell would anyone use Kinetic Blast since it has literally zero AOE effects? Nobody ever used Kinetic Blast and nobody ever will because it makes no sense to shoot a single projectile that does nothing with mediocre damage.

Meanwhile kinetic blast + barrage wanders are on top of the leaderboards, rofl.

I don't mind in the least, I don't play meta builds, as I found meta builds boring as fuck.

ES / VP combo was OP - I'd say ES numbers were bit too big, but that was not the problem. Problem is VP, as can be seen in these DP Zerkers being the thing now. Your usual meta build - 0 defenses, as large as one can get buffer + VP, pretty much same as in the past, just the type of buffer changed.

You see exile, "meta" is illusion that blinds you of choices (aka kills build diversity).

P.S. When those supposed melee nerfs happened? I played few melee builds lately and they are better than ever.

@PayneK The fact that there are a lot of actually kind of meta KB builds while there is none with Iceshot shows me you might not be as much of a build designer as you think you are. I am not claiming I am, but a bit surprised by that particular comparison.


@TheAshmaker: But people ARE coming up with builds. It is just those complaining choose to ignore them. I find builds every league nobody seems to give a shit about that can comfortably clear Guardians etc. and there are lots of them.

I agree that ES got hit too hard, nontheless there have been ES builds on budget gear popping up lately, clearing the game. The creators of those builds were laughing pretty hard at how cheap ES gear has become for them. So while the nerf might have been over the top, a big part of it not showing up in the meta anymore is people amplifying this with their constant whining and the general perception.

Even some of the big guns like Mathil show constantly how many different things are possible, if you just go and try and are not terrible at theorycrafting. His latest poison build is a good example how people cried way too hard that poison is not viable anymore. I am not saying it is great and I am very well aware that a good part of Mathil's build strength come from his mechanical abilities so he can always go full glasscannon. Nontheless the general possibility to create poison builds that clear endgame shows that people once again overreacted.

Meta changes are forced, and intentional. And it doesn't matter who's ok with it, or not. As this way of rollercoaster balancing is common to a certain business model. Heavy meta shifts and disposable content.
So this approach to game balancing will never change with this game.

CI is a perfect example. Does anyone remember how many buffs it had, before it was gutted? It was the increase of the ES base. Then the T0 prefixes. Then essence metacrafting. In addition, it was backed up by synergies with certain mechanics, which led to a variety of extremely powerful builds.
Is there anyone to think that this wasn't intentional? It's naive and delusional to even consider it.

At the end, they didn't nerf CI. They deleted it, and switched to the HP meta. Again, absolutely intentional.
It means all the CI gear which zombified farmers have acquired for months and months of grinding, turns into trash. All the play time is nullified. All the time spent in trade chat/poe trade is wasted. All the builds are done and gone. Useless.

GGG erases all the progression, and gives the players another motivation to keep running the hamster wheel. Until the next drastic meta shift.

Whoever wants real balance, better switch to P2P games. The balancing in these is often driven by other motives.

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ShadyC wrote:

Handful of specs get nerfed down from viable tier, other specs get buffed/created to replace them. And you guys eat it up with the broth dripping sloppily from your chins.

This isn't how a game stays a fresh experience.

OP builds must be nerfed, to bring other out from junk tier.

Some builds were nerfed, but only those abusing instant leech + massive ES pool were destroyed. Because they were TOO op.

For example, you think HoWA is dead? Bullshit, my guildmate is doing life-based HoWA, and he's very satisfied with it.
Same for ES RF, etc.


At the same time, "non-meta" builds arent necessarily weak and uncapable of slicing throgh game's content. Hehemony's Era builds were no worse than ones based upon Atziri's Disfavour (before crit nerf in 3.0), though the difference in gear costs for those two build was huge (because "meta").

I consider it good game design to constantly shake things up (mess with skill power, skilltree, etc), otherwise people get stuck playing the same builds for multiple leagues in a row, burnout and quit.

We get new leagues for kind of the same reason (forced start from scratch again so people dont have their favorite toys+existing wealth, and get new league mechanic)

Forced meta change is a way to make you rethink how you are playing the game and encouraging you to leave your comfort zone to try something new.