Is lowering numbers really less lazy than increasing numbers?

I kinda feel that the "just increasing numbers is a lazy development style" was a jab to Diablo 3 (which is fair, but then again D3 is mostly a power fantasy so i don't personally mind)

But then lowering numbers in players power and increasing numbers in enemy monsters health is a better one..? Personally im not really convinced.

what should have been done is lower the bullet hell playstyle so we can actually anticipate what is going on and then nerf stuff. Nerfing stuff without changing how the game is played just destroyed non-meta build makers.

The purpose is to slow down the game.
The other increases the speed, the other decreases it.

Quite simple math to be honest.

It being lazy or not doesn't really matter.

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Fapmobile wrote:

The purpose is to slow down the game.
The other increases the speed, the other decreases it.

Quite simple math to be honest.

It being lazy or not doesn't really matter.

The point is you can decrease the speed by increasing certain numbers too. Monster life, for example, which was explicitly pointed out in the developers' Balance Manifesto as how other developers keep the treadmill going.

So instead they took the genius not-lazy (sarcasm) route of just lowering player damage instead.

Unfortunatley, it turns out there are a lot of unintended (or perhaps intended in some cases) side effects to taking that approach instead, which is probably why most developers don't do it and why it turned out that re-inventing the wheel might not be a very good idea. One example being how it affects leech, which lay another straw on the camel's back with only some of the camels realizing it (IE, lots of players are dying and running out of mana faster, and only some realized it's in part because they aren't leeching as much, even if just a part adding with all the other nerfs of course)

Of course, one of the biggest is the psychological factors involved between the two. Other developers don't just buff current monster life but instead introduce new content where monsters have higher life (again, this is what was actually stated in the manifesto as how other developers deal with it. They don't buff CURRENT monsters. They introduce NEW ones that are stronger)

GGG meanwhile decided to not introduce any new content (besides log books, which are more of a side-advancement of content rather than "the next level") and just buff current monsters and reduce current players' strength. It turns out there's a reason why developers don't typically do things that way. Turns out other developers realized that between choosing "slowing the game down" and "introduce new harder content that the players will have to go through", the latter tends to get better results (in terms of player retention, player gain, and player fun). And is actually less lazy too since the developers need to create new stages or enemies instead of only twiddle with numbers.

Meanwhile in Path of Exile we have "Play the same content over again, but you're slower and weaker this time!" No wonder why tons of players are mad and leaving.

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Tuomari wrote:

I kinda feel that the "just increasing numbers is a lazy development style" was a jab to Diablo 3 (which is fair, but then again D3 is mostly a power fantasy so i don't personally mind)

No its pretty much game design 101, it probably is also a jab at blizzard but frankly that's because they are lazy with that type of balance (or more appropriately don't care).

Its much easier if you visualize it as a volume mixer where one control is higher than the others, you can move that one down to return sync or you can move all the others up. If you start to move all of them up you then spend all day moving the others up as you try to restore balance to the sound.

Obviously a simplification but a rough visual for why. Its difficult to specifically say what choice is right for GGG as they've allowed things to frankly become a total mess to a stage where they have to move everything anyway.

The game is definitely better than in 3.14 so no I don't think it is lazy design. However I don't really know GGG wants to achieve with this, PoE lost a big chunk of its playerbase last patch, a playerbase that it will never recuperate imho if the trends keep going this way.

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galuf wrote:

The game is definitely better than in 3.14 so no I don't think it is lazy design. However I don't really know GGG wants to achieve with this, PoE lost a big chunk of its playerbase last patch, a playerbase that it will never recuperate imho if the trends keep going this way.

The goal with this patch was to reduced overall player power.

By reducing it across the board by a significant amount they can see difference in skills, ascendancies, items, etc, better.

By doing so this should in theory, allow them to target things more directly and see where some of these underlying issues/power creep is coming from.

Their goal overall is to reduce player power but to bring up lower tiered skills and bring down higher tier skills so the gap between them isnt soo large. Which is good for build diversity because ideally, youd want people to play what they have fun with, be able to complete the game with it, so long as they build it correctly, have the skill to utilize it and the gear to back it up.

They cant fix any problems however without reducing player power regardless, weve gotten nothing but power creep every patch and it just cascades the current issues even further. Theres a lot of intertwined aspects of power creep that are really deeply rooted at this point that cant easily be fixed, GGG see that and they want to fix that.

For example. How do they fix ground loot and make it more appealing when players can use crafting methods to easily make things better than anything that can drop ? That problem is entirely to due with the crafting power creep theyve introduced over the years and the fact that player speed has increased dramatically over the years.

That same issue ties into unique items. They cant make cool unique items really because the design space is soo overwhelmed by the crafting aspects and power of the current rare items.

For example, im currently in the process of making an Aegis 2.0

The shield i can potentially create is literally better than legacy Aegis. Blatant itemized powercreep. Aegis is well known for its "Immortality" AKA ability to pretty much resist all damage in the form of regeneration. It was at the time the strongest item in the game by far, uncontested.

Yet now i can just spam harvest life rolls and get " # life gain on block, % life gain on block and % energy shield on block ". Are you kidding me ? LOL

(Ideally youd get either % life + Es with block chance or % life + flat life on block + block chance but with the prefix hybird ar/block you honestly can forego the suffix % block).

So now, in order to make better uniques they would have to make items, cooler, and better than what i could easily craft myself. Itemization has completely stagnated thanks to all the crafting options which directly has an impact on the economy as well. I barely buy items because as of now, its more cost efficient to make them myself in most cases.

The lower-mid tier item category doesnt exist now which hurts the market because youre really not selling anything unless its good or exceedingly good, or niche. Im pretty sure many people who utilize crafting see this as well, theres no reason to waste your currency on those items that in the past, would have sold very easily. For casual players thats especially true as not being efficient means youre hurting your progression with your time constraints.

I mean i could go on forever about this kind of stuff but you get the idea.

The result is: online on the 3rd week is exactly as online number at the 3rd leagues month.

Lowering numbers works well.

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

By reducing it across the board by a significant amount they can see difference in skills, ascendancies, items, etc, better.

By doing so this should in theory, allow them to target things more directly and see where some of these underlying issues/power creep is coming from.

I can tell you one thing for certain it isn't this, any experienced player could answer basically all of these and i'm sure the developers can as well. If you have the mathematical skill to write the formula you have the mathematical skill to extrapolate why the value is high.

I'm gonna cherry pick my favourite incredibly obvious example from the past that they just nerfed

Diamond flask, the best DPS flask in the game for the best DPS scaler in the game. Abundantly obvious to anyone and everyone yet allowed to persist until now *shrugs*.

You don't need to nerf anything to see that - I personally think all nerfs are tied to PoE2 because they have this desire for it to be a fork to the same endgame as PoE1 which means it has to play like PoE1, or PoE1 has to play like PoE2.

There are very limited routes to that goal, uncouple the games, nerf PoE1 substantially, buff PoE2 substantially.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

By reducing it across the board by a significant amount they can see difference in skills, ascendancies, items, etc, better.

By doing so this should in theory, allow them to target things more directly and see where some of these underlying issues/power creep is coming from.

I can tell you one thing for certain it isn't this, any experienced player could answer basically all of these and i'm sure the developers can as well. If you have the mathematical skill to write the formula you have the mathematical skill to extrapolate why the value is high.

I'm gonna cherry pick my favourite incredibly obvious example from the past that they just nerfed

Diamond flask, the best DPS flask in the game for the best DPS scaler in the game. Abundantly obvious to anyone and everyone yet allowed to persist until now *shrugs*.

You don't need to nerf anything to see that - I personally think all nerfs are tied to PoE2 because they have this desire for it to be a fork to the same endgame as PoE1 which means it has to play like PoE1, or PoE1 has to play like PoE2.

There are very limited routes to that goal, uncouple the games, nerf PoE1 substantially, buff PoE2 substantially.

Disagree entirely with the diamond flask and most meta builds werent using diamond flasks, they were using a variety of either 4-5 unique flasks and generally 1 health potion.

TOH/Vinktars/Dying sun/Cinderswallow/Witchfire, etc.

Also Diamond flask is hardly "nerfed", if you throw on the new orb you can get 90% increased duration or 50% increased effect. If you go into any flask modifiers you can further increase this effect, or alternatively you can go into duration and make the flask last way longer than the original could.

Its 4.8 seconds with 20% quality on a normal flask, with a 40% duration roll on the flask goes up to 6.72 seconds. With the implicit off the enkindling orb for 90% increased duration you gain an additional 6.048 seconds. I think it rounds down but this equals 12.7 seconds of flask uptime. So regardless of the fact that crits no longer roll lucky, your flask is effectively up for double the amount of time.

TLDR - Flasks nerfs werent actually nerfs (some unique flasks aside), in many cases its about on par if not buffs if you use the new orbs, which just further added power creep.