Balancing is pretty sad.

Hi, newer player here just started at the end of betrayal. Quite like the game, hence why i support it. However, the league stats via poe ninja are pretty pathetic. When you have over 60% of all league players playing 3 specs that is downright embarrassing. I can't even watch anyone stream this game. Everyone is playing the game the same exact way.

When I started playing(im still a noob) I thought the passive skill tree is a genius idea and thought it would bring a lot of skill diversity. I'm really disappointed. I'm more disappointed to find out that a lot of specs are straight up dead and have been dead for awhile.

Another point is melee is in a not great spot at all, and has been from my understanding. Takes 3x the cost/effort/time. Basically is there just for shits and giggles.(which stinks for me, I don't like casting spells and running away like a bitch). Annoyingly this wasn't even addressed. From a new players perspective i see this as follows: " We know no one plays these other specs but were still gonna make a speedrun, faceroll meta, O and here's a buff for caster builds that everyone fucking plays already"

I get it, I'm a dumb noob and I'm sure I'll be wrong on some points here. But I would think when you make a new season you would try to open up some build diversity a little bit instead of buffing the people at the top.

"Balance" isn't something any online multiplayer game is interested in; if all classes were the same then there would be no reason to have more than one.

"Meta" is what they care about, and the meta is what they focus on pushing. They got exactly what they wanted with this league; an uptick in Tricksters and a steady population of Occultists.

If you know how to gear, you can play almost anything. Some classes will get to endgame easier/cheaper than others. This changes often, and coupled with the 3 month resets, gives players new experience each league even if the game doesnt change all that much.

Balancing to equality is ridiculous of course. But when you could delete 3 full classes from the game and it would affect less than 15% of the playerbase I dont think that's good for any game. Wtf is the point to even having them.

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LowBudget780 wrote:

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ExcretusMaximus wrote:

"Balance" isn't something any online multiplayer game is interested in; if all classes were the same then there would be no reason to have more than one.

What about playstyles? Some people prefer melee over ranged etc. All classes could be completely balanced and people would still choose their favourite class since you know it's an rpg.

This.

Doesn't have to be perfectly balanced but it shouldn't be so retardedly off the power balance scale that anyone with their own mind and coherent thoughts recoil in horror at the imbalance that currently exists in this current iteration of PoE.

I have zero faith that it will be addressed in any meaningful way in the next patch either. Zero.

The only reason those builds see so much play is because they have proven to have the fastest map clear, the shortest boss kill times, be the most efficient farmers, and so on. That doesn't mean that other builds and skills are unplayable though. Once you know how to gear properly to support the skill you want to use, you can use almost any skill you want.

Some skills are stronger than others, that's a fact that won't change. But again, that doesn't mean that other skills are garbage

The viability threshold is somewhat subjective but the game is complex enough that obtaining a greater margin of diversity than what currently exists now without intentionally overbuffing something only to over nerf it in a few leagues seems unlikely.

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Unknownone wrote:

The only reason those builds see so much play is because they have proven to have the fastest map clear, the shortest boss kill times, be the most efficient farmers, and so on. That doesn't mean that other builds and skills are unplayable though. Once you know how to gear properly to support the skill you want to use, you can use almost any skill you want.

Some skills are stronger than others, that's a fact that won't change. But again, that doesn't mean that other skills are garbage

You are right.

However, it is also fact that just a few type builds account for more than half of all. It is mean that this game is dominated by players who play the game just by copying streamer's build guide as is. Such playsers feel fun to complete quickly all of contents with min-max method without own thinking rather than playing carefully while various skills try.

I'm afraid that players like them will decide the future of PoE.