Please make lots of balance changes for 3.22 (nerfs/buffs)

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Lonnie455Rich wrote:

Nerfing overperforming builds and bringing up underperforming builds is the definition of balance. You can't really hold game integrity without nerfing the top end. Its called power creep.

That is not at all true. You can buff the low end and keep the top end the same and still achieve balance. You bring up the floor to match the ceiling. There is nowhere that says you need to meet somewhere in the middle. That's just your own misinterpretation of "balance".

This is where developers and folks like you get things so wrong. In very very very rare circumstances are nerfs needed. This happens when skills are bugged to behave in unintentional ways. But power is not a bug. Budget power is not a bug. All this tells us is that the skills that are nowhere near as capable need a little help. When things work fine and people enjoy using them, don't change them. Change the stuff that is broken.

The scenario you're describing creates power creep. Like i said in my post that you quoted.

If you never nerfed the top end then every build would be hh winter orb from 3.14. Every build that was playable at least. A lot of skills functionally can never compete with that kind of power. You just cant let it exist long term. It lasts for the leagues its broken in and thats all (usually). They have said numerous times this is the stance they have taken. They like broken stuff but cant let it stay in the game.

I don't expect nerfs this coming league. Remember that GGG has said they're experimenting with a method of doing balance passes every other league.

We had nerfs in Crucible, meaning Trial should be a pass over.

And I'm glad. Summoners have been nerfed to shit and I really wanna see how poison SRS fares in Sanctum before they kill that next since I never tried it during the aforementioned league.

And speaking of summoner nerfs, I really hope they get some buffs. Zombies suck, spectres have lost viability as DPS due to specific monster nerfs, gem level nerfs, and mechanic fixes, reaper never had its chance to shine, and skeletons are now falling behind every other build.

This is why I stopped having discussions about the game, always the same takes that come up, idk what I was expecting.

1. Sorry but of course nerfing the top performing skills is how you balance a game and limit power creep, thinking otherwise is just naïve, and shows one has no clue about game design.

2. People complaining that summoners are already ''nerfed''... Jesus. Summoners are still broken. The archetype itself is broken, in the exact same way traps, totems and mines are. Passive playstyles in essence that allows you to offscreen or delete content without even having to interact with it really (no need to be in the face of enemies, dodging, being vulnerable). And last but not least, they all work really well on a budget and are overpowered in league start scenarios.

You can't just blanket statement summons, half of them are at a stage of being very poor now and need some significant buffs.

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

This is why I stopped having discussions about the game, always the same takes that come up, idk what I was expecting.

1. Sorry but of course nerfing the top performing skills is how you balance a game and limit power creep, thinking otherwise is just naïve, and shows one has no clue about game design.

2. People complaining that summoners are already ''nerfed''... Jesus. Summoners are still broken. The archetype itself is broken, in the exact same way traps, totems and mines are. Passive playstyles in essence that allows you to offscreen or delete content without even having to interact with it really (no need to be in the face of enemies, dodging, being vulnerable). And last but not least, they all work really well on a budget and are overpowered in league start scenarios.

Work really well on a budget. lol, lmao even

Maybe if it's poison SRS. All of the other summons have been nerfed to hell and require significant investment to keep up with budget non-summon builds.

Just because a build is a strong pick as a league starter doesn't make it OP. The problem with league starters is that they reach their ceiling early and no amount of investment is going to make them godly unlike, say, a lightning arrow ranger.

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

1. Sorry but of course nerfing the top performing skills is how you balance a game and limit power creep, thinking otherwise is just naïve, and shows one has no clue about game design.

Oh really. They've been using that technique for a decade now and skills are still not balanced. Not even close.

Perhaps you're the one who's naïve.

[Path of Exile] Quitting From PoE Nerfs? Don't!

That is Kripparrian's video from 2013 but could easily be from today. A decade of nerfs and still no balance. Nerfing works? When has it? When will it?

History repeats itself.

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Rippster wrote:

[Path of Exile] Quitting From PoE Nerfs? Don't!

That is Kripparrian's video from 2013 but could easily be from today. A decade of nerfs and still no balance. Nerfing works? When has it? When will it?

History repeats itself.

In fairness, that's because GGG does a flavor-of-the-month system of rebalancing that you see in games like League of Legends. They don't balance the game properly, because they don't want the game to be balanced. They want players on an archetype hamster wheel every league by nerfing what is popular to encourage you jump onto what they buffed, because that's where they want you to be.

I mean, look at the early comments on this very thread. People are chomping at the bit for nerfs to "shake up the meta" and have bought into this bullshit balancing system. They don't want a properly balanced game, they want the next seasonal meta until they get bored and bitch about how OP it is, perpetuating the cycle.

GGG could very easily take the time out to make sure all builds are on par with one another (or at least as close as they can, what with how many skills there are out there), but they choose not to.

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Lonnie455Rich wrote:

The scenario you're describing creates power creep. Like i said in my post that you quoted.

If you never nerfed the top end then every build would be hh winter orb from 3.14. Every build that was playable at least. A lot of skills functionally can never compete with that kind of power. You just cant let it exist long term. It lasts for the leagues its broken in and thats all (usually). They have said numerous times this is the stance they have taken. They like broken stuff but cant let it stay in the game.

HH is an item, and a broken item at that. Everyone knows its broken. What a stupid thing to bring in to defend your point lol. I would LOVE for GGG to tackle broken ITEMS long before they nerf the skills. The skills are RARELY the problem.

Power creep does not occur (right away) if the ceiling stays where it is. Power creep occurs when everything is middled...and then buffed. In fact, if GGG only stopped with the nerfs and kept fixing the low end the powercreep would have been FAR slower.

Let's arbitrarily assign percents to the skills as they perform:
1) Overperforming skills = 100%, Underperforming = 10-25%
2) If you simply buff the underperforming, you bring them closer to the overperforming skills.
3) The overall POWER remains at the same 100% it was at in Step 1
4) This gets repeated league after league. The top end doesn't get touched, but the skills that don't see usage get attention. No new power creep.

1) Now, if you nerf the overperforming and buff under = each side ends up at 50%
2) Then....everything gets buffed equally +25%.
3) 25% powercreep.


You WILL see powercreep in scenario one but it will be much slower, almost a full league or more behind where it is with this nerf/buff design. Plus...trust in the devs and fun in the game would be more consistent: the time and effort you spent learning a build doesn't go to waste because it was nerfed into the ground the league after you did it.

As I said, there are rare instances where skills are legitimately broken and need to be nerfed. But nothing you have described in this thread ever warranted a nerf. All that needed to happen, and STILL needs to happen, is for GGG to pay attention to the underused skills. Stop messing around with the well performing skills, let them be, and buff the rest.

This whole "controlling the meta" thing that GGG has going with nerfs is total bs. The meta will be controlled by new skills and supports, new mechanics, and new uniques. There isn't a need to constantly destroy the skills themselves, only to buff them back up a league or two later.