The nature of a cycle based system means that progress is wiped clean on a regular basis. Allowing things to be performance outliers, either over- or under-performing, adds noticeable variety to each cycle.
The start of a new cycle is the perfect place to turn balance knobs. Turning those knobs to try to homogenize the game in the middle of the cycle will lead to things feeling too similar every time.
Many players will only play a small number of builds each cycle, and outliers incentivize people trying new things. If over-performing builds are hammered back into line as soon as they become known, what reason would someone have to try something that isnât proven to work for them?
Whether something is bugged or intentionally tuned to be an outlier doesnât matter, this variety is something that can only be a positive to this style of game and content cycle.
Something that isnât highlighted with the survey, its the interval, for example I would like to see fixes and some changes to skills , but only at the beginning of the cycle (similar to how PoE âfixes the leagueâ), or at least if a fix/patch is taking longer communicate that intent, so I can plan / play accordingly.
Why not have the leaderboards available 2 weeks (or so) after a cycle started?
That way the devs can smooten out balance and get rid of bugs. It also gives the casual players a fair amount of time to have their characters ready without the fomo.
Also the leaderboards wont need to be resetted imo.
Personally I dont think there is a need for leaderboards right after a cycle starts.
To me, I think balance should just be put out when its ready. I see no reason to sit on potential buffs/nerfs to the game until the cycle completes.
I can understand for arena players why this matters, but ill echo perryâs logic here, I think if you reset the leaderboards during each mini patch, Then that just gives more incentive for people to be constantly looking to improve instead of âfound a bug, now I will be pos1 on the ladder forever hahaâ
Part of the enjoyment of cycles and ladder is the ever evolving nature of them. if the ladder is changing weekly is that even a bad thing? You can always do another push, always min max around the new settings and get a new position.
And again, for nerfs/buffs, just put them in when they are ready. I really dislike the trend of the arpg scene being âwell we dropped 1.2, its really crappy have fun for 4 months : ^)â
I understand why there will most likely not be buffs during a cycle, you would like to let the dust settle and work on buffs for a good while before sending them. But for nerfs for overperforming things? Go at it, I would much like to enjoy trying a class that isnt blantently just broken.
Ive yet to find any enjoyment in warlock or falconer because it just feels like I am winning from the gate.
Hello, please turn your attention to the user interface issues and bugs and not to balancing right now. The user interface is not what a full release game should have as standards. The crafting menu is frustrating to interact with, thereâs no need to have the description of the shards constantly pop up, same for the runs and glyphs.
Some skill interactions and item implicits do not work, others have bugged tool tips, for example the point that converts dodge to armor in ghostflame doesnt show in the tooltip. This is , in my opinion, a way bigger priority than balancing the game right now.
Other thing that makes me fear for the longevity of the game is that it seems theres a lack of vision. People meme on GGG and PoE about their visionTM, but tbh thats what makes the game so good. Right now to me it seems you guys just want to please everyone which will never happen and i can already see a lot of problems in this community because of the way you openly interact with it. Theres a reason GGG stopped interacting with the community, specially on reddit.
Hey Dev Team, thanks for doing this. Spot on and continues to bolster the fact you all really do listen and engage with the community. Much, much appreciated.
please dont nerf too much so that it gets boring, just spread the owepowered things here and there so that when we find em we get the dopamine boost. i know im an addict.
Well, may be not âNERF EVERYTHINGâ, but warlock/falconer/runemaster indeed need a nerf (or, rather a multitude of various bug fixes).
Ideally, builds should be balanced around 300 corruption, 500 tops with godlike gear. But people pushing 3000 corruption means that something is very much NOT fucking okay.
Blatant bug abuse thatâs causing massive overperformance is clear as day nerf this asap.
A skill just being overly strong or a new powerful combination/interaction being discovered causing massive overperformance is obviously nerf next cycle.
Donât ruin peoples fun mid cycle if they are not abusing bugs, if they see a build thatâs really strong then they should be able to play it in that cycle without worrying about it getting nerfed before they can play it or finish it within that cycle.
However if that build is blatantly abusing a bug then they should absolutely expect it to be nerfed asap.
I dunno why this type of stuff needs so much polling and feedback, itâs kinda obvious.
My enjoyment from this game comes from developing my character to be as strong as possible. Player enjoyment comes from feeling powerful. I believe you need to consider what your objective of mid cycle balance should be, if that answer is these classes can achieve âxâ while these canât âxâ I would argue that is the status quo of the genre.
If also believe that trying to balance under performing classes in a reactionary way on a short timeline will sell yourselves short. Larger, big picture changes to a classes can breath life into it. On this short timeline you will be forced into tweaking numbers to make things feel a bit better but and this might cause you to not properly address the pain points of certain masteries. Youâve already identified that falconeer and warlock are outliers and hope to bring the other classes inline. I would argue the problem with some classes canât be fixed mid cycle effectively and hope you keep the same aspirations.
I started as a warlock, I played a few variations not using this bug for a majority of my time on the class. I then played with the bug. I found all iterations fun and worth my time and really enjoyed the process of developing my character. I am now playing another class because thatâs what is fun to me and Iâve already decided that I want to try and make forge weapon my next build. I know itâs not going to feel as powerful as what Iâve experienced. It doesnât need to. I look forwards to challenging myself to see what I can do with the tools in front of me.
If you did decided for mid cycle balance I would urge you to only touch the most over performing examples and I would argue that you should fix bugs in the most low touch way possible. Change the tooltip on the profane veil node to match the actual interaction, youâve fixed a bug but the loud minority will still scream from the rooftops because their problem isnât a bug existing, theyâre selfish.
Hypothetically if you were to balance the game in anyway leaderboards should be completely reset, I have no horse in this race but that is the right thing to do.
Mid cycle nerfs will become a witch hunt with the vocal minority, they will never be satisfied and Tall Poppy Syndrome will run rampant.
As a player I donât want to wake up one day to find out the build Iâve been enjoying does not function the same. This is something GGG did once that really burnt me after stating there would be no mid season balancing. If there was to be mid season balance I would hope there is a clear announcement a week in advance of the patch with patch notes.
I empathises with the position you feel you are in due to the vocal minority but they do not represent your playerbase. I rarely interact in this context unless I feel I can have a real impact. You guys have created a great game, by trusting your decision making. Donât stop now.
Im all in for bugfixes! As much as i would like to want balancing midcycle, it would most likely harm the enjoyment for the majority of the playerbase. Thats why those Bugs have to be fixed asap, before to many people jump on the bug-train
Asserts Iâm abusing infinite smoke bombs with no evidence.
Asserts that Iâm saying the build is gutted without being able to stack infinite damage/dodge/glancing even though thatâs decidedly not a part of what I said at all.
Attacks this fictitious position and then declares victory.
They donât have to nerf the fuck out of everything, just tune it down.
I totally agree with your point of âHave fun and ACTUALLY play the gameâ .
