Big Ducks killing it on whats wrong with the game and how to fix it.

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

Now if you want to try and engage in content you used to do and had fun doing it, you're now required to run one of a small handful of meta builds, because everything else is either nonviable or way too expensive.

Completely arbitrary and disagree with what is said here. Go tell me how meta SRS is and it does just fine. I left the league early cause burnout/mechanic boring/friends not playing.

Same with toxic rain its not meta this league, and it wasnt the last either. Same powerlevel as before I could load up standard and do what I did last league as it was untouched. Completed uber bosses last league on Tr as well.

Its not so black and white with "you have to roll meta". A lot of it is skill/knowledge gap. Just look at mathil, or me.

Depends what you even mean by build diversity/viability in the first place, where are we setting this goalpost? End of campaign? T16 maps? Juiced T16 maps? How much Juice? Regular Bosses? 200 delve 500 delve ???Uber bosses? 30 sim??

Build diversity so far has no argument behind it with any data whatsoever, and it means completely something different for each person.

"

auspexa wrote:

It's true, some skills take more effort, or more gear, or more skill to make it work compared to its counterparts. But this is not a negative thing for the sake of diversity.

Someone who has more time to play can opt to play a build that takes good gear to shine, like flicker strike or divine ire.

Someone who's good at boss fights and stuff can afford to play a build that takes more skill, like most summoner builds that need to press 10 buttons every fight.

This in itself creates diversity as well. If every build was equal in power, everyone would just play simple shit that take no skill or gameplay like wardloop, rf, autobombers etc.

Someone isn't grasping the concept of "build diversity". When you have to invest copious amounts more to achieve similar performance levels, that's not because something is "in a good place" but because you're paying a ton more to make something work, not because it was effective in the first place.

The lack of build diversity is that you're almost guaranteed to have to invest into multiple layers of defense before finding something you can fit in that scales up well enough to make it worth while.

Kalandra is easily the least "popular" league since I've started. Normally when a league does poorly, its the league mechanic alone. But Kalandra's problem has largely been the changes to the base game and the integration of archnem mods that only saw any "real testing" as a build your own boss and fight when ready, not a randomly spawned blue or yellow.

If things were as good as some people like to claim, there wouldn't be much need to defend it as the complaints would typically be minor and/or frivolous. But if you've looked at the history of posts since league launch there have clearly been common themes often making the same points.

As the game stands right now, sure I could "adapt" yet again. The problem is I personally no longer have the desire. Part of it is being annoyed at seeing nerfs to aspects I only started using because the game's dynamic pushed me in that direction in the first place. The other big factor was nothing effective felt fun. Potentially fun skill combinations I would enjoy wouldn't last long because the poor performance would ruin it eventually. Like a meteor charge up assassin in D2, while it feels more engaging the lack of efficiency makes it a moot point anyway.

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

I don't know what developers you know of, but build diversity is the exact opposite of what you described. The more builds that can tackle (non-uber) aspirational content, the better the build diversity. Nerfing everything into the ground, making "crafting" way too unapproachable for players with low currency, and frontloading most of the power onto gear and thus making it expensive has done a great deal in hurting build diversity. Now if you want to try and engage in content you used to do and had fun doing it, you're now required to run one of a small handful of meta builds, because everything else is either nonviable or way too expensive.

Let's put it another way: Before 3.19, we had a lot of builds, now most are setups that fail, thus there was a decrease in build diversity.

The only time build diversity should be lowered is for uber aspirational content. You're fighting bosses above and beyond what is normal, you should be expected to pump a lot of currency into being able to tackle them.

As I've said, you can clear non-uber content with ANY skill, ANY class, ANY build in the game. You can even clear ubers with most skills if not all.

There are hundreds of people on these forums, on poe.ninja who're consistently killing uber bosses on non-meta builds. Some of them have mirror tier gear, yes, but that's not the case for most of them and I'm pretty sure even meme builds can do nonuber content on less than 20 div budget. And there's a reason those people were able to obtain mirror tier gear in the first place, they farmed it with the so-called nonviable build, because nonmeta doesnt mean nonviable. Personally I made more than 300 divs this league playing an explosive concoction scion, and how many people play it on poe.ninja? It was 3 people the last time I checked, including myself.

Was shockwave totem dogshit? It wasn't meta, it hasn't been changed this league, so by your logic it should be either nonviable or too expensive, right? Well no, mathil made a build and shat on the whole content including ubers. If you look closely, there are hundreds of builds like this. Just because you couldn't make a build/skill viable, doesn't mean it's actually bad

"

SeCKSEgai wrote:

Someone isn't grasping the concept of "build diversity". When you have to invest copious amounts more to achieve similar performance levels, that's not because something is "in a good place" but because you're paying a ton more to make something work, not because it was effective in the first place.

The lack of build diversity is that you're almost guaranteed to have to invest into multiple layers of defense before finding something you can fit in that scales up well enough to make it worth while.

Kalandra is easily the least "popular" league since I've started. Normally when a league does poorly, its the league mechanic alone. But Kalandra's problem has largely been the changes to the base game and the integration of archnem mods that only saw any "real testing" as a build your own boss and fight when ready, not a randomly spawned blue or yellow.

If things were as good as some people like to claim, there wouldn't be much need to defend it as the complaints would typically be minor and/or frivolous. But if you've looked at the history of posts since league launch there have clearly been common themes often making the same points.

As the game stands right now, sure I could "adapt" yet again. The problem is I personally no longer have the desire. Part of it is being annoyed at seeing nerfs to aspects I only started using because the game's dynamic pushed me in that direction in the first place. The other big factor was nothing effective felt fun. Potentially fun skill combinations I would enjoy wouldn't last long because the poor performance would ruin it eventually. Like a meteor charge up assassin in D2, while it feels more engaging the lack of efficiency makes it a moot point anyway.

I didn't say to "achieve similar performance levels", you're not reading. Some builds need more gear, but scale way harder and this is part of what diversity means.

Tell me a build you want to play, but you can't because it's not good and I'll make it uber viable. Go ahead.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

"

mentos1308 wrote:

You are very nervous. Actually, if you really want to see if your build is worth anything, you should check it out in Hardcore or generally start playing hardcore or SSF there, you will learn what build variety looks like.

It really shouldn't have to be mentioned at this point anymore but this game is NOT balanced around hardcore or SSF. Those modes are nothing more than self imposed challenges. If build diversity there is lower and you don't like it then don't play those modes. Bringing them up in regards to balance and build viability is utterly pointless.

The game should be balanced around hardcore, not softcore. People in softcore should have more freedom even if they don't quite know what they are doing with their build. Most importantly, I do not like that auspexa is calling other people from "stupid" because they have problems with their builds or have different opinions about the game than he does

"

SeCKSEgai wrote:

Someone isn't grasping the concept of "build diversity". When you have to invest copious amounts more to achieve similar performance levels, that's not because something is "in a good place" but because you're paying a ton more to make something work, not because it was effective in the first place.

The lack of build diversity is that you're almost guaranteed to have to invest into multiple layers of defense before finding something you can fit in that scales up well enough to make it worth while.

Kalandra is easily the least "popular" league since I've started. Normally when a league does poorly, its the league mechanic alone. But Kalandra's problem has largely been the changes to the base game and the integration of archnem mods that only saw any "real testing" as a build your own boss and fight when ready, not a randomly spawned blue or yellow.

If things were as good as some people like to claim, there wouldn't be much need to defend it as the complaints would typically be minor and/or frivolous. But if you've looked at the history of posts since league launch there have clearly been common themes often making the same points.

As the game stands right now, sure I could "adapt" yet again. The problem is I personally no longer have the desire. Part of it is being annoyed at seeing nerfs to aspects I only started using because the game's dynamic pushed me in that direction in the first place. The other big factor was nothing effective felt fun. Potentially fun skill combinations I would enjoy wouldn't last long because the poor performance would ruin it eventually. Like a meteor charge up assassin in D2, while it feels more engaging the lack of efficiency makes it a moot point anyway.

where have I called people stupid for disagreeing with me?

Maybe not directly, but for example:
"Melee is fine, people are just too stupid to dodge things so they perform better on ranged builds and incorrectly assume that it's the archetype's fault."

"What the fuck do these ppl want anyway? 1% representation for 100 different skills?"

"

mentos1308 wrote:

Maybe not directly, but for example:
"Melee is fine, people are just too stupid to dodge things so they perform better on ranged builds and incorrectly assume that it's the archetype's fault."

"What the fuck do these ppl want anyway? 1% representation for 100 different skills?"

sorry then, I'll rephrase it

Melee is fine, people are just too unskilled to dodge things so they perform better on ranged builds and incorrectly assume that it's the archetype's fault

there you are

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

It really shouldn't have to be mentioned at this point anymore but this game is NOT balanced around hardcore or SSF. Those modes are nothing more than self imposed challenges. If build diversity there is lower and you don't like it then don't play those modes. Bringing them up in regards to balance and build viability is utterly pointless.

we WISH it was balanced around SSF that means everything is less rare, useless time-destructive layers of RNG just removed... As it should be

"

auspexa wrote:

I didn't say to "achieve similar performance levels", you're not reading. Some builds need more gear, but scale way harder and this is part of what diversity means.

Tell me a build you want to play, but you can't because it's not good and I'll make it uber viable. Go ahead.

I know you didn't say achieve similar performance levels, that was the whole point of me pointing out your interpretation of build diversity differs from quite a lot of the rest of us.

I originally installed PoE to see if I wanted to get D3, but after playing PoE and a demo of D3 Poe offered flexibility and D3 in comparison was really cookie-cutter archetypes.

Its been a few years since then and that flexibility has effectively faded into obscurity. You end up needing to meet certain thresholds and those goal posts have moved a LOT over the years. You find something fun and you can expect it to be nerfed heavily if not outright gutted if it becomes a more popular choice.

The problem you didn't understand the first time is that there isn't anything I want to play. Anything that might "feel" fun to me now is not worth the time and currency investment (or simply not practical) to bother taking serious. Dev team has been so focused on inflating artificial difficulty that fun factor is forgotten.

Let's take Delirium for a comparison. Like Kalandra, Delirium introduced higher difficulty challenges. Delirium pushed the envelope at the time, but new items introduced new possibilities. Simply put, things got harder but it was more fun and rewarding.

Kalandra has been largely negative in contrast. You're getting too much loot, so now you practically get none. We've tested archnem extensively (and that's why we've had to nerf it over and over again). We see most people are taking this so it must be providing too much so its now nerfed.

To put it bluntly, it wasn't Kalandra's league mechanic that killed my interest, but base game changes that created a lot of negative experiences in such a short window after they disregarded feedback that nearly ruined the league prior. Like one instance, I fought Dominus for 20-30min and didn't even die once. I've never fought a pinnacle boss that long aside from maybe maven and all her phases.

So to clarify, I honestly can't pick a skill/build I want to play because I no longer want to play any.

"

auspexa wrote:

"

mentos1308 wrote:

Maybe not directly, but for example:
"Melee is fine, people are just too stupid to dodge things so they perform better on ranged builds and incorrectly assume that it's the archetype's fault."

"What the fuck do these ppl want anyway? 1% representation for 100 different skills?"

sorry then, I'll rephrase it

Melee is fine, people are just too unskilled to dodge things so they perform better on ranged builds and incorrectly assume that it's the archetype's fault

there you are

I can distinctly remember walking into a simulacrum and dying instantly upon moving and having the repeated experience until the portals were gone.

That's not to say the same experience couldn't be had on ranged, but there is nothing to dodge. Melee didn't fall out of favor because people were failing to dodge, but because of the things that can't be dodged.

Why is LS one of the last "melee" skills still using popular use? Because its not melee in the truest sense with a ranged component.