You have no idea? You are just arguing my idea is going to kill build diversity and saying to build a character that can do everything, you should address the other points I made.
Yes, trying to tell people to just “group up” has never worked, it’s been this way for years on all of these game types for the reasons I said and that was just a small fraction of them. I have posted for grouping up in games and in forums, and in other games when I used the group finder it was difficult to find players in the same gear/skill level, most people don’t want to bother with it.
I am not ignoring the replies, I am considering them and making a case for my original post still.
OK, here’s another point of your’s I’ll address. You are making so many assumptions and I do not know where they are coming from, certainly not from this thread tho. Who said focusing on one build the entire season? Nobody.
Who said focusing on one build inspires diversity? You are the one suggesting to focus an entire character into a specialized job such as ‘boss killer’ - that’s pretty specific, it’s a single-target job. There’s a limited number of effective single-target masteries. There are only so many single-target abilities per mastery class. There’s only so many single-target abilities that are tuned well enough to be considered effective or good, right now. Some single-target abilities are pretty bad. There’s only so many uniques that support specific single-target abilities, and they aren’t applicable to every class. Only certain stats support single-target. I could go on and on, and I could say the same things about AOE. Do you see why that narrows build diversity now? You are taking options off the table by creating incentives to narrow a characters build down to a specific job, for only certain content.
Many of the replies to this thread have been pointing out that having super specialized jobs narrows build diversity, due to the constraints of that specialized job. You are reducing the pool of available abilities, gears, stats, and masteries down to single-target or AOE but not both.
Alternatively, in the current system, each character has to be sufficient at most content, we aren’t respeccing to go clear monos, and then respeccing to kill a boss. At least not frequently, and that’s not the intention EHG had when creating respec system. Currently, there is a lot of build diversity in the game because the content is diverse. You are asking to narrow the build diversity to specific content for specific characters.
You are asking for a more deep and concentrated meta, where only a few builds will prevail at each available job such as ‘boss killers’ or ‘mono farmers’ …
And what I and others have said is that the more diverse the content that a character participates in, the more diverse the builds that would be considered effective, viable, etc.
Certainly from this thread, what is implied when you say to build a “diverse” character that can do all content? You are implying that instead of people making boss killers or mono farmers, they instead continuously try to build up one character and make subtle tradeoffs for what they would prefer to clear faster. “The fact that you can’t always be good at both with every build inspires diversity of build thru tradeoffs.” What you are saying to me is to hyperfocus on a single character to achieve progression goals. Am I wrong with this assumption? It seems like you are very much against the idea of specialized characters and you are worried that my suggestion will concentrate it even more.
“You are taking options off the table by creating incentives to narrow a characters build down to a specific job, for only certain content.” What I am really trying to do is give a use to my Shaman after 800 corruption because bone spire AoE can one shot him as well as a few other AoE abilities. I no longer feel like using him for anything outside of bossing and I am asking for an extra option for his capabilities.
“You are reducing the pool of available abilities, gears, stats, and masteries down to single-target or AOE but not both.” I think you are wrong on this one, this is how the game is currently right now anyways, I can’t just use anything I want on a specific character, things are optimized in a very specific way. Introducing ideas similar to games that are doing well(Path of Exile) is worth trying out. If it really does start limiting the build options in the game then it will create incentives for the Devs to come up with new abilities and new items, this is healthy for a game. Every time I play I have created specialized characters into what I enjoy doing the most, there’s nothing wrong with that. After I have farmed gear and currency I start building a character that these replies have been mentioning, the “do all” character that is capable of clearing all content at a reasonable speed while not getting one shot by everything.
Considering the Mono progress isn’t shared, your boss killer or mono farmer still needs to figure out how to get there and you will still need to create this diversity you speak of to a certain point.
Maybe it will be easier to get the point across with an example.
There are currently a bunch of Hammer Throw builds on LETools. Most even use the same skills.
However, they are usually quite different. They use different gear, they use different passives and they use different skill nodes. This is due to the preference of the build creator to have it deal more ST, or more AoE, be more tanky, etc.
Your suggestion would effectively get rid of all those builds and replace them with a single Hammer Throw build that is 100% AoE. It uses all the best uniques, passives and skill nodes to make speed clearing optimal.
There would be no point in making another Hammer Throw build because it would be inferior to the optimal one.
Likewise, there are a bunch of sorcerer builds that use Static Orb. They use frost claw, glacier or fireball. With your system, there would be a single one with just Static Orb and 4 support skills and going all out on ST.
There would be no point in making a different Static Orb build because it would be inferior in everything.
Right now you have that build diversity because people need to clear stuff, so they take frost claw, or glacier, or fireball, or lightning bolt with spark charges, or whichever skill they prefer to help with the clear.
They have to balance their tree, gear and passives to be able to both deal ST and AoE. And each person will balance it in a different way, because they prefer more speed, or more ST. You can make dozens of builds that are all different because they place themselves a little differently on that spectrum.
However, if you only need a character to do ST and nothing else, you only have 1 build which is the optimal way to deal ST. Likewise for clear.
As I already pointed out before, you simply end up with 3 builds per mastery:
-Optimal balanced build that lets you reach 300c or 500c or 800c, whichever is your goal
-Optimal ST build for boss killing
-Optimal AoE build for farming
You must not play at a high corruption, “There would be no point in making another Hammer Throw build because it would be inferior to the optimal one.” This is how it is already… Why bother making any other Hammer throw build besides bleed hammers?
We have different ideas of diversity on this topic, you want a single character to have diversity in it’s strengths, to have a very fine tuned set of stats on gear so it has multiple capabilities. I want diversity in multiple character options, having the incentive to build multiple characters that can either specialize or become what you are describing and being able to do everything.
Even if people did end up with 3 builds, what’s the problem with people having fun and enjoying their 3 builds? Wouldn’t you agree it feels better to have 3 useful characters over 2 collecting dust and 1 semi optimal one?
Yea we see it in PoE already, which is the leading game in this genre, what is bad about it?
You can already create those 3 characters if you want. That’s why meta exists. The difference is that now you have several different bleed hammer builds and they all have a different flavour, because of how they place themselves on the ST/AoE spectrum.
With your suggestion, we’d have only one bleed hammer throw build that would be 100% AoE because they wouldn’t need to fight bosses ever.
Likewise for static orb. You currently have a dozen different builds with different AoE support skills because you still need to do echoes. With your suggestion you’d have only a single static orb build going 100% ST because they wouldn’t need to use Frost Claw or Glacier for clearing.
So instead of dozens of different builds you have 2. I did make this exact example before, which you ignored.
Like I mentioned that this is what already happens in PoE, which you also ignored. If you search for lacerate builds, there’s only lacerate gladiator. There isn’t any point in making any other build because that build serves the single purpose of killing bosses. There is no other lacerate build that will do better than that one.
If, however, you also had to clear maps with that build (which is what happens in LE), you’d have a dozen different builds, where some sacrifice a little ST, some sacrifice a lot, some sacrifice a bit and use a 2nd skill for maps, which would have several variants, etc.
That’s what we mean when we say that specialization removes build diversity.
Leading game is arguable. Although there’s no way to know for sure it’s almost certain that D4 has a lot more players than all other ARPGs combined.
But I’ll use your exact argument. PoE doesn’t have any campaign skip and is the (arguably) leading game in this genre. So what is bad about it? Seems you should be advocating for removing the dungeon skips instead, then.
“With your suggestion, we’d have only one bleed hammer throw build that would be 100% AoE because they wouldn’t need to fight bosses ever.” This isn’t the case because if you want to progress your corruption and start farming at 400c instead of 300c you will need to kill the bosses.
You are assuming that everyone will be forced to play a certain way, this is also not the case. People can make their own decisions and I believe this would have a minimal effect on majority of players.
“Like I mentioned that this is what already happens in PoE, which you also ignored. If you search for lacerate builds, there’s only lacerate gladiator. There isn’t any point in making any other build because that build serves the single purpose of killing bosses. There is no other lacerate build that will do better than that one.” I didn’t ignore it, I have many hours on these games. Have you considered that maybe the build needs to be looked at by devs to get some buffs or that maybe they made it this way on purpose because they believe certain characters have certain roles and it might fit some peoples playstyles? Is there any point in playing a hammer build right now that isn’t bleed? How about a different Sorc build like disintegrate?
“But I’ll use your exact argument. PoE doesn’t have any campaign skip and is the (arguably) leading game in this genre. So what is bad about it? Seems you should be advocating for removing the dungeon skips instead, then.” What a ridiculous point to make, I am focusing on the strengths of a game, not the weaknesses. This game has huge strengths over it’s competitors such as the loot filter option and stash tabs but we would still considering it lower in ranking because of how new it is. Lets focus on coming up with new ways to strengthen the game and move it forward rather than weak arguments on how to keep it where it is.
Do you even read the stuff we write or do you just skim it? I have said multiple times that you’d have a balanced build (much like you already have leveling builds in PoE) that would get you to whatever corruption you want and then you switch to your single build for either boss killing or AoE.
The end result is the same. You’d end up with a character that uses the single Hammer Throw build available, because it’s the optimal clearing build and another character with the single Static Orb build, because it’s the optimal boss killer.
So each mastery would have 3 builds: 1 for pushing corruption, 1 for speed clearing, 1 for boss killing.
If you implement a campaign skip and it’s an obviously more optimal way of leveling, even the people that like doing the campaign will never do the campaign again. You can see this in D3 and D4. Both adventure mode and helltides are so superior to running a campaign that if you like doing the campaign and run it you’ll feel that you’re not being effective and are just wasting time.
You seem to keep missing the point. Because PoE has specialization, you have 1 (one, as in just that build and no other) lacerate build. Because it’s the most optimal lacerate boss killer.
In LE you might argue that there is no point in making any hammer throw that isn’t bleed, but just for bleed hammer throw you have half a dozen different builds, with different gear, different passives and different skill nodes. Because some are faster, some are tankier and some have more boss damage. Because your character has to do all content, you end up with several different builds just for bleed hammer throw and they all feel different.
Is campaign skip a weakness? Just looking at this thread I’d say that’s debatable, at the very least.
Also looking at the numbers, I’d say that campaign skip isn’t relevant because PoE kept growing over the years even despite flat out refusing campaign skips.
You see, that’s only what you’re doing. Me and several others have already said that it’s much better (and easier) to simply buff the campaign so it’s more fun (whatever that means, since plenty of people have fun playing it and others don’t).
You’re the one that doesn’t accept that and keeps hammering on campaign skip is necessary.
Honestly, you try to make it sound like “campaign skip will make LE a better game” when all your suggestion reads is “I don’t like early game, give me a leveled up character so I don’t have to spend time playing it”.
There’s a big difference between “keeping it where it is” and shutting down bad ideas.
I don’t think anyone here wants to “keep it where it is” but I see a lot of people who want to see it grow in a way that emphasizes it’s strengths which are different than POEs strengths.
LE’s greatest strength in my opinion is it’s build diversity, and freedom of customization. I don’t want to see that having to be spread amongst multiple alts in order to complete the content optimally. The Harbinger Eyes have already introduced an incentive to switch from character to character to collect eyes and then beat Aberoth. As soon as the most recent seasonal characters went to Legacy in the refresh/wipe, I started fighting Aby on my strongest Legacy character, because there was now an incentive to do that, instead of continuing on my weaker season character who collected all the eyes.
As somebody who has been disagreeing with you on your OP … You may ask yourself, then why would he do the thing he’s arguing against? Because optimal is not the same as optional. And I’m only human, so like everyone else, I will lean towards optimal even if it’s labelled optional. I think this is fair proof of why Im not a fan of your OP idea.
Do you even read the stuff we write or do you just skim it? I have said multiple times that you’d have a balanced build (much like you already have leveling builds in PoE) that would get you to whatever corruption you want and then you switch to your single build for either boss killing or AoE.
It seems as though you aren’t reading what I am writing, while simultaneously forgetting what you typed earlier.
With your suggestion, we’d have only one bleed hammer throw build that would be 100% AoE because they wouldn’t need to fight bosses ever.
You still have to fight bosses to increase corruption and get the desired blessings, which means you still need to optimize your character at some point for all of the content
If you implement a campaign skip and it’s an obviously more optimal way of leveling, even the people that like doing the campaign will never do the campaign again.
Glad we can agree that people prefer an optimal and efficient playstyle which is what this would implement, it will not completely remove aspects of the game from certain characters. A boss killer still has the ability to farm a mono but as higher risk and high effort and might still want to do so since magic find will be better at 700c compared to the mono farmer at 300c.
Because your character has to do all content, you end up with several different builds just for bleed hammer throw and they all feel different.
This is highlighting in bold the statement I made earlier about hyper focusing on one build, most people that do this don’t have many alts(reducing diversity of different builds being played in the community). This sounds like you would prefer to have d3 loadouts
You’re the one that doesn’t accept that and keeps hammering on campaign skip is necessary.
Just a sidenote, Aberoth was already available in legacy a few days after season start. You didn’t need to play cycle for it.
No, you keep not reading what I wrote. Or you’re purposefully ignoring it or misinterpreting.
You won’t need to fight bosses with your hammer throw build. You’ll have build A, which is a corruption pushing build. When you’re at the level of corruption you’re aiming for, you switch to hammer throw and now you never need to fight another boss, because it’s itemized. You’re fully specced into clear.
You also don’t need to re-farm blessings, because blessing respec already exists. So you can farm those on the balanced build.
Not to mention that I asked specifically, at the start of this thread:
To which you replied:
So obviously that’s not an issue for you.
No. What we agree on is that some people prefer to play optimally.
What happens is that the people that don’t prefer to play optimally will feel like they have to do so with a system like this. Which will make them feel bad if they don’t play optimally and will lead to burn-out if they do. It’s exactly what happened to me on PoE and to a bunch of other people.
I think you’re deliberately misinterpreting things so this will be my last post. Especially when I have previously said that your suggestion does the same to build diversity as D3 loadouts and that it’s a bad thing.
Some people hyper focus on one character on PoE as well as on LE. However, in PoE you have very little build diversity for any given skill and in LE you have a lot of diversity for any given skill. That was our whole point which you keep ignoring.
There is a difference between there existing dozens of options and you’re only using a few, to there existing only one option and everyone having to use that.
Sorry, that was my bad, confused it with another thread. Ignore that part.
I don’t want to see that having to be spread amongst multiple alts in order to complete the content optimally.
It’s already like this, nobody is building a summon wolf build to struggle through the game after they witness a totem build delete it all in seconds. Though you probably could still grind for a long time and spend all season getting a summon wolf build to beat the content, some players will do this.
I’m only human, so like everyone else, I will lean towards optimal even if it’s labelled optional. I think this is fair proof of why Im not a fan of your OP idea.
Good thing the meta shifts every season then, players find a way to make certain builds more optimal than others, it’s inevitable and there will always be characters that have a specialization. I proposed another alternative for peoples alts so they don’t get shelved and ultimately lead to people quitting and moving on to another game. You might find it fun to constantly put on new pieces of gear, despecialize skills, respec passives and waste a ton of time to go back and forth killing bosses or farming monos but I believe that majority of players do not prefer this.
Exactly. I do not respec from mono-clearing to boss-killing. I build a character to be sufficient at both. I do not want to go back and forth between farming monos OR killing bosses. I want to do both. Thanks for proving my point
You’re right, most players don’t want to have to go back and forth as in your suggestion in OP. Most players want to be able to do both sufficiently.
Exactly. I do not respec from mono-clearing to boss-killing. I build a character to be sufficient at both. I do not want to go back and forth between farming monos OR killing bosses. I want to do both. Thanks for proving my point
You’re proving my point with what I said earlier, to which you replied
Who said focusing on one build the entire season? Nobody.
It was an implied You building a character to be sufficient at both requires focusing on one build for a majority of the season. At least for anything above 300c which it doesn’t seem like either of you have achieved yet with the way your arguments have been presented.
Most players want to be able to do both sufficiently.
Most players with this mindset will do this anyways, regardless of if my suggestion was implemented. It is something that I myself would be doing at some point during the season and am currently doing now.
You won’t need to fight bosses with your hammer throw build. You’ll have build A, which is a corruption pushing build. When you’re at the level of corruption you’re aiming for, you switch to hammer throw and now you never need to fight another boss, because it’s itemized
This sounds to me like you are interpreting my suggestion as shared Mono’s which isn’t what I am arguing for, they would stay the way they are now. You can’t have build A get to a corruption for build B and then start farming corruption without fighting another boss, you will need to fight bosses in order to get the corruption up. Itemizing the boss for build A does not raise the corruption for build B, the corruption can only be raised from killing Orobyss and killing a boss will only apply a stack of Gaze to the one who actually killed the boss. You cannot have build A do everything for build B otherwise you would be right, it would kill the need to even think about how to diversify a build in order to clear content.
Some people hyper focus on one character on PoE as well as on LE. However, in PoE you have very little build diversity for any given skill and in LE you have a lot of diversity for any given skill. That was our whole point which you keep ignoring.
I think you need to tune into Path of Exile’s “build of the week” YouTube videos because there is tons of diversity going on, way more than any other game by a long shot.
Why would you assume that? It’s not implied that anybody picks one build and sticks to it for an entire season. Such a strange assumption for you to make, with no evidence whatsoever. What makes you say that?
My builds evolve as the difficulty of the content increases, especially when pushing corruption and pinnacle content. Are you really suggesting that people never change their builds, or make adjustments? Previously you seemed to indicate that people do change their gear, stats, abilities, passives, just a moment ago in fact … So which one is it to you?
I think you’re confusing “build” with “character” maybe … But even still, I often play multiple characters per season/cycle.
I am watching your arguments fall flat on their face in real-time and dwindle into incoherent character attacks against those who disagree with you. Ad hominem use is a sure sign that somebody has run out of valid points to make.
It seems this discussion is concluding. Thanks for participating, appreciate you taking the time to make your case. I remain unconvinced of this new system you would like to see, it’s just not my taste. Good luck and have a great night.
No, that’s not what I’m interpreting. What I’m interpreting is this:
-You make character A. Let’s say a paladin. You use a balanced build, let’s say warpath. With warpath you get to 500c and farm blessings. When you’re done, you respec to Hammer Throw. At this point, that character never has to fight another boss. Because all you want is to farm echoes endlessly.
-Then you make character B. Let’s say a Sorcerer. You use a balanced build, let’s say frost claw. With frost claw, you get to 800c. Then you respec to Static Orb. Now you never have to do another echo ever again, because you’re getting the itemized bosses from character A.
Total number of builds used: 4.
From this point on you use your character A to endlessly farm echoes and getting the boss items (which you never fight) which you then pass on to character B which does only bosses exclusively (and never does echoes).
And everyone will use those exact same builds, much like in PoE. You’ll still have plenty of builds to cater to personal preferences, but each skill will be reduced to a single build, or two at most, like in PoE.
Which is not what happens now in LE. For each skill you have a dozen or more variations because each build needs to be able to do all content.
Sure, you can do all sorts of janky stuff for fun. However, there is only one lacerate build for boss killing because there is no better one. Anyone that likes lacerate and wants to do a boss killer build will use that single build.
Sure, some of them have 2 or 3 variants (at most) with different classes for slightly different results, and some people like to fool around and create funny builds or even meme builds (like the infamous one quack man), but most skills have the 1 build that everyone uses.
And, also unlike LE, almost no one plays their build from start to end. You use a leveling build, switch once you’re around level 70-80ish. Because PoE does incentivize the specialization you want.
To be fair, I also think there will come a time when LE will also become specialized. But that is when there are many more endgame mechanics, like PoE does.
Just for monos, in the current state of LE, I don’t think your suggestion really improves the game. It will simply eliminate a bunch of build diversity without the need for it, when the current build diversity is one of LE’s strongest points.
From this point on you use your character A to endlessly farm echoes and getting the boss items (which you never fight) which you then pass on to character B which does only bosses exclusively (and never does echoes).
Most players aren’t even getting to 500c so I don’t see anything wrong with this, it takes plenty of time to reach 500c on one character and then to get another character to 800c… lots of build diversity and decisions that you speak of to get to this point. Now after all this if someone has spent this much time, what is wrong with them being able to save some time and min max their characters how they wish?
However, there is only one lacerate build for boss killing because there is no better one. Anyone that likes lacerate and wants to do a boss killer build will use that single build.
With your logic if you just spend endless hours on a specific character you can make anything happen.
I think we can agree to disagree at this point since you already stated in your previous response that it would be your last reply.
I am watching your arguments fall flat on their face in real-time and dwindle into incoherent character attacks against those who disagree with you.
This is hardly an attack, get over yourself, everything I have said has been coherent.
Why would you assume that? It’s not implied that anybody picks one build and sticks to it for an entire season. Such a strange assumption for you to make, with no evidence whatsoever. What makes you say that?
I will say it again, “At least for anything above 300c”… most players, with how much time they are able to actually spend on a game, will have to focus on one character for majority of the season in order to push higher(lets say a goal of 1000c). That is why I would assume that, it’s not a strange assumption at all.
My builds evolve as the difficulty of the content increases, especially when pushing corruption and pinnacle content. Are you really suggesting that people never change their builds, or make adjustments?
Now this is a strange assumption after everything I have said in previous replies and it is not what I am suggesting, I am well aware of the changes that need to go into progressing a character, especially when they get past 300c.
It seems this discussion is concluding.
Glad we can agree on something, it’s unfortunate that no other solutions for adding to the end game content and player QoL were made by the opposing views, maybe another time though, take care.
