Thank you for sharing the results and for communicating with the playerbase.
Ya not too happy about it but I was expecting it. Especially since it was in the same survey. Probably seemed like a good âcompromiseâ for a lot of people. Not nerfing clearly overperforming interactions will lead to little build diversity especially in MG IMHO.
Any chance you are planning other things to make this less impactfull especially in a trade enviornment? Soft/Hardcaps on rarity/xp or any other ideas to not make it so extremly punishing to play off-meta in MG?
Maybe I am wrong but the way I see it right now is that I have to check if the handfull of OP builds for the cycle look interesting to me otherwise there isnât much point in playing if you want to play MG.
Iâm gonna be a bit pedantic here and argue I didnât say we âneed to rely onâ external tools, but that it is within the realm of possibilities that the data beyond the top 50 already exists and itâs a matter of UX, not data collection. That said, the fact you werenât surprised that site exists means you probably have âreliedâ on it for build planners or game info at some point. This is not something new in ARPGs.
Secondly, as I mentioned elsewhere, âmild bugâ is subjective and having EHG decide on rankings in a gray area is gonna lead to as much controversy. The intent in the OP seemed to be to allow players to decide for themselves what should be âbrokenâ and what not. Having the ability to filter ingame would be nice, but I can understand not wanting to hint at something and be seen as a promise, then have people complain it isnât there due to some technical limitations.
A filter per patch would not be enough to simulate partial leaderboard resets, only full ones, so you need more data than that. Or are the Primalist rankings pre-patch suddenly no longer valid? Also, from the top of your head, can you tell me what patch 1.0.2.1 fixed and why that should be in the filter?
Youâre also ignoring the possibility that a mid-cycle patch introduces new bugs, at which point you need to filter a select number of patches.
And finally, this isnât a patch notes post, but a design philosophy one. Itâs clear to me just from the OP that they want to give players the ability to distinguish pre- & post-fix rankings for themselves. Is that somehow counter to what the survey results are? Would you rather have them not post anything until all details on their Leaderboard design are ready for patch 1.3?
Scenario 1: Due to oversight, lack of testing, a âmissâ during the design and vetting steps we end up with skills, items, interactions, that create the possibility for an extreme outlier that is overperforming compared to most other builds. It does 100m DPS and is âOPâ by most peopleâs standards.
Scenario 2: Due to a mistake made from a technical perspective - bad code, a misplaced decimal, etc - A build is âbuggedâ and doing 100m DPS.
This is very much a âCorporate needs you to find the difference between these two picturesâ situation for me.
With the exception of situations where something causes a technical issue for EHG on the backend, as was the situation with Smoke Bomb, I do not see any relevant difference between the two scenarios.
Youâre right. The majority of people enjoy OP builds. So who cares if one build is OP because of a bug, and one is OP because of questionable design/testing?
In both cases things are not working as intended.
EHG is NOT intentionally creating builds/skills/items/interactions that are OP and extreme outliers. I donât think itâs really debatable that extreme outliers are factually not working as intended.
I donât really think it matters âwhy thereâs two builds doing 100m DPSâ. If doing 100m DPS is âOKâ then itâs OK. That simple.
Consistency to me is that builds that do 100m DPS either are, or are not, OK. You either do, or donât fix them regardless of the underlying reasons for them overperforming or being OP.
Iâm conceptually fine with them taking a bug situation and going âOk, top end builds are doing 100m DPS, this is doing 100b DPS, weâre gonna nerf it down to 100m DPS because it should actually be like 10m DPS ⌠but we donât wanna mess up peopleâs build in the middle of the cycle, so weâll just wack it down so itâs more in line with other top end buildsâ - Thatâs OK.
But why would it need to get nerfed down to 10m DPS? Just because itâs a bug?
Like you said - People like their OP builds. And thatâs fine.
I do see, and hear you, about the survey responses and people caring about the distinction. I just personally think thatâs an issue with critical thinking skills from the respondent and Iâm not particularly in favor of democratizing things to the point where we do things poorly just because itâs what people voted for.
The question should have been âShould we make changes to things that are not working as intendedâ it should have never been about if itâs a âbugâ or not.
I want them to be consistent in how they rectify situations where things are not working as intended. Not drawing an arbitrary line in the sand between âwell, itâs OP because we didnât test item/skill interactions properlyâ and âwell, itâs OP because we misplaced a decimalâ. Both are ânot working as intendedâ and they should be consistent in their stance in addressing both scenarios, meaning the same stance and tact applied to both.
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The CT program is/was open to literally anyone.
Feel free to apply to join if you believe you can contribute in a better way.
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Couldnât agree more with your postâŚ
Considering that there will be no mid-season nerf for wildly overperforming skills/items that arenât technically bugs, Ladder should not be reset. All that will do is narrow the ladder and playerbase into the one or two builds that donât get nerfed because it wasnât technically a bug.
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Thank you for sharing the results, and really a good way to listen for the community, we are with you 
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Im struggling to see how much use distinguishing the 4 post patch rankings actually is in practice tbh
I think you made great valid points. But I donât think there is a need to push the devs into a corner over a public exchange. Otherwise, itâs just going to make them not want to engage at all in the future?
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Thank you guys for caring about the player base. This approach is new for me, but really makes it feel like you care.
It SHOULD be considered a badge of shame⌠maybe a seperate badge of shame leaderboard or seperate leaderboards for each patch⌠I find it highly unbelievable this survey result on that 1 particular question went that wayâŚ
There is noway (unless you are 1 of the 10 or 50 or so people on the leaderboard currently), that someone would vote to keep the leaderboard as is for someone who exploited a bug to be over powered, and keep them in the top position KNOWING the bug was fixed and you will never beat them out⌠That one thing tells me this survey was nonsenseâŚ
Also why was there no question asking us if builds that werent over powered on other classes should be buffed to compensate the overpoweredness of a build you WONT be correcting? Too much work?
Or fix bugs as reported promptly. There is no reason bugs reported in ct or known months in advance should make it to live content.
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A pragmatic, measured approach. Couldnât ask for anything more. Also, Iâve found itâs really difficult to get large audiences to take part in surveys â and you nailed it! At least one of those questions had 70k+ responses? Thatâs phenomenal. Thanks as always, for the updates and concise communication.
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Split your cycle leader boards in to 2, one leaderboard for first part of cycle and one leader board for mid cycle bug fixes. Leaving over performing builds on the leaderboards just makes the leaderboard experience obsolete as you have bugged/exploited builds sitting at the top, gg.
If the node says 4% and it gives 40%, thats a bug. Hope this helps.
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I think it has to do with âwe found a perfect combination that exploits how all these skills
items, and passives function together which massibely scales damage/health/w.e.â vs âhaha dev made typoâ
Those two finds dont deserve to be in the same category. Especially as the former gets less and less common as time goes on. Finding a build that breaks the game is a goal, exploiting a bug is just cheating. Take it from someone who had a ball with an old glitch that made fire auras infinitely build, i never played it outside of SSF even in early acces. Its just weird to do so imo.
Donât even know why I answered the survey. Iâm not playing Cycle ever! LOL
And I donât care for leaderboards either.
This is why even though I may not always like the direction you guys take, I always speak so highly of you. I have never seen a company that cares so deeply about their player base and will own up to their mistakes or even change their perspective/vision of their game. Thank you for your hard work and allowing us all to be a part of this amazing world you have created.
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STRONGLY AGREED with you. The developers ask the community for permission, whether it will allow them to fix broken things/too strong things in THEIR GAME. 