is GGG limiting build diversity with monster buffs?

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Aynix wrote:

No, we dont like the game being hard. We are so far away from it being HARD its just silly. Actually the game for the past 2-3 years was so god damn easy to the point you could watch TV while clearing maps with one hand.

I always find this comment stupid when posted by veterans of the game. You have been around for a long time. Of course you find this game easy. Goodness. You know all the mechanics, how builds and abilities work, how to progress quickly and efficiently.

My first real league was Delve. I died constantly. Had no idea anything going on. I legitimately thought the game was super difficult compared to others on the market.

I then played Betrayal, which went fine. In blight I was 3 unique maps away from full atlas completion (because I'm SSF so they never dropped and/or I didn't get all the staves for it). I beat every boss in the game (except cortex bosses as I never found a cortex map) including Uber Elder and depth 290 Aul. I beat hall of grandmasters. I died, like, 35 times total on my necromancer, then did a bladestorm glad and he also only died the same amount? Almost all to one-shot things.

First time I played Bloodborne it was a freaking slog. Second time I played Bloodborne I made it like 40% of the way through the game before my first death.

Of course you find this game easy, you have been playing it forever.

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rhoadesd20 wrote:

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Aynix wrote:

No, we dont like the game being hard. We are so far away from it being HARD its just silly. Actually the game for the past 2-3 years was so god damn easy to the point you could watch TV while clearing maps with one hand.

I always find this comment stupid when posted by veterans of the game. You have been around for a long time. Of course you find this game easy. Goodness. You know all the mechanics, how builds and abilities work, how to progress quickly and efficiently.

My first real league was Delve. I died constantly. Had no idea anything going on. I legitimately thought the game was super difficult compared to others on the market.

I then played Betrayal, which went fine. In blight I was 3 unique maps away from full atlas completion (because I'm SSF so they never dropped and/or I didn't get all the staves for it). I beat every boss in the game (except cortex bosses as I never found a cortex map) including Uber Elder and depth 290 Aul. I beat hall of grandmasters. I died, like, 35 times total on my necromancer, then did a bladestorm glad and he also only died the same amount? Almost all to one-shot things.

First time I played Bloodborne it was a freaking slog. Second time I played Bloodborne I made it like 40% of the way through the game before my first death.

Of course you find this game easy, you have been playing it forever.

Veterans often forget what it's like to approach this game with fresh eyes.

I have a friend who started a few months ago and it's been a real journey and even fundamentals like resistance capping and basic skill scaling are not things that come instantly to all.

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Nephalim wrote:

Look at the build meta. Half the players use miners or summoners to cheese the content.

The power balance between various builds power levels and their relative gear cost is whack.

People use something to cheese content. Wow, thats new.

As long as it is only about ease, efficiency or reliability there isn't really a problem with build diversity. Yes, some builds will always be weaker, some by a huge margin, but as long as the weaker builds can compensate in other ways (more skill, less c/hour, more careful gameplay etc.) they are still builds that are minimally viable.

The real barriers to build diversity are mechanics that cannot be played around. These include:
- Various timers (Incursions, Breach domains, some betrayal missions etc.)
- Big dps-checks (Shaper adds, degen from elder adds etc.)
- Unavoidable damage (...Sirus... but it cannot really stay like that.)

Most build-types can get enough damage to pass the dps-checks, so they aren't really a problem right now. The timers, on the other hand, need to be looked at after the hp buffs.

The diversity of builds is always relative in the eyes of who plays. I see hundreds of possibilities where others only see 4 or 5. Where I see hundreds of possibilities others can see many more. The problem of the people who complain about the "lack of diversity" is that they want to be able to kill the maximum bosses in the maximum of difficulty with almost anything that comes to mind and it is very good (excellent) that it is not so. Almost any build with almost any equipment can complete act 10. Many builds can clean white maps without problems. The amount of builds that can clean yellow maps without problem is quite minor. And the number of builds that can walk through red maps without inconvenience is reduced. And if you want red maps with crazy modifiers, the builds capable of cleaning them will be very few.
And that is precisely what helps diversity and creativity. And that's how it should be.
What I mean is that it is excellent that the final content, the most difficult, is not suitable for any build.

I just want skills to feel smooth and well-scaling, even if they take longer to kill x boss.

Every league, non-cyclone melee feels a little worse, whether it's animation canceling, or scaling problems, or multistrike.

Miner feels great now, but it's OP so it will get a nerf. Nerf damage? Nah, let's make it so you have to manually drop the mines in situ again. Double reservation cost of skitterbots. Something that makes it feel AWFUL.

Area denial on the scale of sirius doesn't feel so much like "difficulty" than "deliberate measure to strip your summons from you". I can't think of any other reason to have storms that can be moved manually. Zombies can't kite storms, but player characters can. That fight has a lot of fundamental bugs, but for those who have mastered the art of herding storms, it's a technical problem that's solved with a technical solution....unless you're a necro. That fight dunks all over summoners in every way, no matter how they decide to fix it, because of this mechanic, because it's pretty clearly hostile to summons by design. And that feels AWFUL. Yeah, skeletons don't address the main problem, which is area denial so severe that they can't even add ADDS to the fight. Desecrate gives you...citizens ahahahaha.

Meta at large is determined by streamers, since huge portion of player base is unable to create their own builds. This is in no way an insult, the game is extremely complex, and takes insane amount of time to understand well enough to make good builds.
And since majority of streamers where in awakener race most of them were summoners are nice it one of the most ssf friendly builds out there.
Just because player base does not use a skill does not make it bad. For example week ago storm brand was .2 percent on poe.ninja, despite the fact that it perfectly fits this league destroys metamorphs and bosses, from multiple screens of safety.
Once few steamers actually started playing storm storm brand it went from .2 to 2 in a week.

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Actkqk wrote:

The diversity of builds is always relative in the eyes of who plays. I see hundreds of possibilities where others only see 4 or 5. Where I see hundreds of possibilities others can see many more. The problem of the people who complain about the "lack of diversity" is that they want to be able to kill the maximum bosses in the maximum of difficulty with almost anything that comes to mind and it is very good (excellent) that it is not so. Almost any build with almost any equipment can complete act 10. Many builds can clean white maps without problems. The amount of builds that can clean yellow maps without problem is quite minor. And the number of builds that can walk through red maps without inconvenience is reduced. And if you want red maps with crazy modifiers, the builds capable of cleaning them will be very few.
And that is precisely what helps diversity and creativity. And that's how it should be.
What I mean is that it is excellent that the final content, the most difficult, is not suitable for any build.

So... Spending 10x more on a build to NOT be able to kill the endgame boss than another build who can do it with any equips even on 4 or 5 links is good design???? LOL.

So fun to waste currency just to do some white maps. Balance and diversity is yes to be able to do all content with all or at least most of the skills on a similar cost (10ex, 20ex, 10c I dont care, let the devs estipulate this)

What's the point of having a lot of "possibilities" if u wont do 50% of the game using it... ?

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IHellBoundI wrote:

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Boem wrote:

How are we defining build diversity?

Because people could argue that utilizing more supporting skills actually equals build diversity.

For example, instead of using "just cleave" now people might be using cleave/totem and a self-cast curse or some other wanky stuff to reach the damage threshholds.

Which could be considered an increase in diverse tactics to beat the game.

Peace,

-Boem-

Like physical cyclone, ele cyclone, impale cyclone, cwc cyclone, summoner cyclone, errr totem cyclone? lol. I love cyclone but not when its the only skill "melee" that semiwhat works... I tried to make other builds using groundslam, teutonic, lacerate, dual strike, sunder nah its all inferior in damage/survibiality. No matter the tree or equips if u just switch X skill for cyclone u will do more damage and live more (keep moving...)

I dont know why your going on about cyclone, i just used cleave as an example.

you can replace it with "fireball" for all i care and then add curses and other additional means to increase damage.

I don't disagree that cyclone is the best "melee" skill but i don't see how it has anything to do with my post.

Being forced to utilize more additional means for extra power-output could be considered as "additional diversity" in builds so that could be used as an argument of why high health sponges on bosses might push up diversity untill the next meta is established.

Peace,

-Boem-

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