Severe lack of balance once again ruining the game

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Celestriad#0304 wrote:

Reviewing some of the opinions on item design and balance serves as a useful reminder that game development is a complex discipline best handled by experienced professionals. This thread illustrates that point well. While GGG is not without its shortcomings, the vast majority of the time they demonstrate a deeper understanding of these systems. Design decisions such as Mageblood, particularly within the ARPG genre and Path of Exile’s itemization framework, are strong examples of this expertise.

Mageblood, and pre-nerf HH were absolutely gamebreaking items and mageblood at least continues to be gamebreaking items. This is mostly due to their significant impact across ALL builds, rather than a smaller subset of options for massive power.

While they are not ALWAYS the best option, they offered such significant power that it shaped the development of the entire game around their existence. It was a mistake from GGG's "expertise" to let these exist in the game, because it backed them into a corner.

We won't ever know the exact specifics of HOW these belts effected every aspect of the game, but we for sure know they did. HH and Legion created such a massive issue that both HH AND Legion were nerfed. Mageblood likely directly played into the design of t17s and newer bosses, because overcapped resistances and high armor values became far more common. Hell, AN in general was likely an attempt to clamp down on HH tangentially too. They also nerfed inspired learning and other mods that did similar effects to HH.

We would be absolutely stupid, head-buried-in-the-sand, to assume that some of the tweaks done that impacted these items were simple one-and-done adjustments. No....any content released after these items likely needed to include thought on how these items' existences would play into the new content. And so things scaled accordingly.

VERY powerful items aren't inherently bad design, but TOO powerful items can be incredibly harmful to game development. Consider all the broken items that live in the standard graveyard....that is where mageblood and HH should have ended up years ago.

Mageblood is not op or gamebreaking, its a convenience item which improves gameplay alot but not the strength of the builds itself.

The problem is that rare items have no good mods to be more attractive than mageblood.

The only competitors for MB are other unique belts for special builds.

It may also help to move flask nodes towards center of the skill tree, perhaps than MB loses value then.

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Heidern2880#3500 wrote:

Mageblood is not op or gamebreaking, its a convenience item which improves gameplay alot but not the strength of the builds itself.

The problem is that rare items have no good mods to be more attractive than mageblood.

The only competitors for MB are other unique belts for special builds.

It may also help to move flask nodes towards center of the skill tree, perhaps than MB loses value then.

That isn't true though. There are several belt bases that have strong effects such as Stygian Vise and Micro-Distillery, and some of the influenced mods on belts have strong effects like %attributes, RR or CDR.

Some builds benefit more from Mageblood than others, and then the opportunity cost of acquiring an expensive item like that is steeper than the benefit compared to a cheaper alternative, and that money would be better invested elsewhere.

I am not saying that rare belts are on par with Mageblood by the way, if that's what you are thinking. Your view is just very narrow and you forget entirely about even not-so-edge cases like attribute stackers wanting synth bases.

Still, Mageblood is an overpowered item there's no denying that. The sentiment has been that while it's undoubtedly overpowered, it is still balanced because of its scarcity.

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MrEpic#2507 wrote:

Another ragebait by master-troll Celestriad?

Someone being better at the game and disagreeing with your opinion doesn’t make them a troll. That said, I do appreciate you giving me the “master” prefix. With time, you may develop a deeper understanding of fundamental game mechanics, balance, and itemization, and perhaps look back on this thread and realize that no one was trolling, except maybe yourself.

Edit: I was too late and the quoted posts got removed anyway so... nevermind.

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MrEpic#2507 wrote:

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Celestriad#0304 wrote:

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MrEpic#2507 wrote:

Another ragebait by master-troll Celestriad?

Someone being better at the game and disagreeing with your opinion doesn’t make them a troll. That said, I do appreciate you giving me the “master” prefix. With time, you may develop a deeper understanding of fundamental game mechanics, balance, and itemization, and perhaps look back on this thread and realize that no one was trolling, except maybe yourself.

Who's better than me at the game? Still out here on the forums trying to talk smack behind your hidden profile I see xD

Buying more microtransaction packs doesn't make you better than anyone bud. I understand PoE very well don't worry about it

I consider opening my profile the moment you know what it is like playing with 2+ voidstones socketed in your atlas. Bonus points for when you caught up on Sirus, Maven and Exarch. Perhaps you can start with Atziri? You can dm me on discord and I'll give you guidance.

@piratedude

scroll up celestriad was the guy who wanted to make the comparison, I don't think it matters when it comes to analyzing a videogame through common sense and logic but apparently he does and he wants to be a D!ck about it

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MrEpic#2507 wrote:

I guess we'll just have to take your word for it then? Also wouldn't it be hilarious if you were actually a softcore player trying to flex his voidstones on a HCSSF, I guess we'll just have to assume you are HCSSF as well?

Like I said keep that profile private bro I bet you don't want anyone to see it for real

Voidstones aren't a flex when you never even utilized them. It's like giving a crisp 200€ to a child. They know it's cool but don't understand the value behind it.

My offer stands though. If you need tips for Atziri or other older content hit me up. Always happy to help new and struggling players ☺️

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

once you buy it - it has no drawbacks

Fomo much or what's going on?

In this sense there's not a single drawback to any item in the game. Expensive crafted item? No drawbacks once you crafted it, item with natural drawbacks as a modifier? no drawbacks once you've build around those drawbacks. expensive item? no drawbacks once you got your hands on one.

You could use the massive upfront cost to deck out your entire character and have a powerful one without mageblood, and grind currency to buy a mageblood for an even stronger character. Or you could put a mageblood on a terrible build and still have nothing but a terrible build. Totally well balanced item in this sense as it's gated behind a larger upfront cost or a low drop chance.

It would be unbalanced if it was a t4 unique and literally everyone would have access to one for the price of a single alc orb. But I can see how the rarity and price affects some players fomo, cause if I can't have those items it's not okay and fair for others to have access to powerful items.

Mageblood stands out because so many of the other unique belts are terrible, including the ones with higher (but not as rare as mageblood) rarity. This is not an issue with belts specificaly but with uniques as a whole. There are so many terrible endgame uniques in this game whose power scaling was forgotten years ago that the ones that DO look "good" stand out. Another good example is the defensive value of "defiance of destiny" relative to other defensive choices for unique amulets.

For example, when's the last time someone used a harbinger unique item in their build?

Buffing up a gigantic assortment of ignored endgame unique items (especially weapons) is low hanging fruit for the devs that would provide MASSIVE replayability value for POE1 players, including those who don't treat endgame like a job.