1 that resets every 2 weeks and comes with a PATCH that introduces small/medium Nerfs or Buffs. (Every time a new buff comes, even a small one, it would make people interested in trying it or theorycrafting for it which will keep their dopamine up for the entire cycle.
This way people will even be less likely to abuse bugs because they’ll have to invest time in making “that” build knowing that in less than 2 weeks the bug will be patched, so it would just be better to choose to play what build they actually wanted to try !!!
If they wanted to try that build anyway, then they still get their 2 weeks of powerfantasy overpowered play and still remain with a working character afterwards.
*Also pls put a cap on ward based on max HP (at least for LOWLIFE).*strong text
Instead of 2 leaderboards or resets why not have the leaderboards available 2 weeks (or so) after a cycle started?
That way the devs have time to smoothen out balance and get rid of bugs. And the leaderboards can stay untouched for the rest of the cycle.
Personally I dont think there is a need for leaderboards right away when a cycle starts. It might put too much pressure on casual players who might have their character leaderboard-ready after some time… appox the time the leaderboard is available.
Because then you will have a per cycle leaderboard and nobody gets mad because their run got removed
and you still get one in wich you can compete more fairly, giving players a reason to still try the ladder again
Just wipe the leaderboards, and give everyone a one-time item that lets them start at their highest attained level - 10… per character. Characters that can still complete after the bugs are fixed will keep their spot on the ladder.
Easiest solution: stop pandering to the e-peeners and scrap the leaderboards and then balance is irrelevent and the devs. can focus on new content rather than as Blizzard have shown so many times, waste years of dev time trying to balance the unbalancable simply to appease the 1%-ers.
My opinion on “mid-cycle” balance changes is they should let people opt out of leaderboards and “unsubscribe” from all significant non-server crashing nerfs, to let them keep leaderboards integrity / competitive health in what we’d call lets say competitive/hardmode and at the same time avoid people going off their rocker for their builds getting wrecked, since absolute majority of people absolutely don’t care about leaderboards but absolutely do care about their huge time investment / gold spent getting invalidated / fun removed. Lets call it casual mode / soft mode.
Game with full offline option and 2 item acquisition factions already can’t really argue against further playerbase fragmentation that much.
That way everyone’s happy.
You can pose additional conditions e.g. can’t party with players who haven’t opted out, so as to not boost them(somewhat fair).
Maybe even can’t sell items on trade as MG to not influence economy (imo too strict, just for clarification, nerf to item stats would apply if held by player who hasn’t opted out regardless).
Mb opt-out applies to your whole account for that cycle.
Get removed from leaderboard or moved to separate no-balance flagged one.
Then they can also have more leeway for dealing with removing abusive leaderboard standings who refuse to come clean.
Essentially alternative to greatly requested migrate offline option that’s apparently too hard to do, where you can still have some casual party play if you choose to.
(imo migrate offline should be available regardless of implementation of opt-out and as many times as you want, with full creative/sandbox mode officially supported offline to “try on” items etc).
Another possibly equivalent option once it’s cycle 2+ - option to forfeit leaderboard standing and instantly migrate to legacy, have legacy not receive any midcycle nerfs (though how fair of alternative it is depends whether cycles get exclusive content you’ll be missing out on).
Since there’s offline option i don’t see them realistically being able to do too hard stance as even now you can say fuck it and recreate your character offline with save editor or w/e, with earlier version of game even.
I don’t see people accepting their builds getting destroyed mid-cycle, e.g. if fix of some quirk moves you from s tier to b tier.
And having you quit or go full offline over it is still much worse for them than having you online mb with some restrictions.
I’d say most types of leaderboards could simply wait to go live until after the major balance patch for that cycle (assuming they go that route). This wouldn’t work for cycle start races though.
and how those leaderboards would be any different? You will take a place on both at the same time, just one resets after 2 weeks, thats stupid