That’s not quite true in context though. The big difference between high and low numbers, is the gap between bad, ‘good’ and best builds. The bigger the numbers, the greater the gap from S tier to trash and the more obvious it suddenly becomes to everyone how ‘bad’ their build is compared to the best, especially if monster numbers scale infinitely too.
Now that could technically still be the same ratio, but that’s not how it plays out. The meta sees power creep, but often the baseline doesn’t change, it just gets materially worse all the time. Your build that did 100K damage used to be ok because meta was doing 150K, but now you’re doing 125K and the meta is doing 1.5M, feelsbadman.
The key point really though is that infinite scaling in itself isn’t necessarily bad, but, the game must have a point of balance. In Grim Dawn it’s SR30 or Crucible 150 Gladiator. In PoE it’s (kinda, they don’t really balance much) T16 Maps, LE sort of stated at ~300c. For LE, it needs to be clear (i.e. just set c500 and make it notable) and the devs have to show they’re balancing around that.
Exactly, if used as a design principle. Hence, D3 leaned into this heavily. Torment difficulty changes because screw balance, new forced meta each league apparently works well enough. PoE just does new leagues and has such breadth of skills, content and build options that it takes time for the meta to emerge within the *new thing.’ The boredom is there though, look how the numbers always drop back to ~5-10K each league, and who knows how many are bots in that.
to me there needs to be a lower ceiling. the ceiling is too high. the reward for infinite scaling should be more rewards instead of better rewards or even exclusive rewards.
regular abby is a good example of a goal for players to tackle. he has exclusives but most players are expected to get there.
ubby abby, on the other hand is practically telling players. you want the best gear? dont explore the game. just follow a build guide.
its a bad feeling to have being told your self made build sucks ass just because its not overperforming. but that is what pinnacle content does to players.
and if we’re being honest, after reading about how the community voted AGAINST mid season nerfs, it pushes the narrative of following meta builds even harder.
i m so disgusted with uber abby and the fact that certain classes are overperforming to such a huge degree i kinda stopped playing LE altogether.
in fact. i’m taking a break from this game. might come back after an expansion or two. i m not gonna stick around if the games gonna end up funnelling players to play a certain way.
Oh, which ceiling? We have no defined ceiling, it’s ambiguous, that’s the whole issue with it!
If LE would provide a clear-cut progression road without even introducing corruption up until the point where you’re expected to kill Aberroth and then switching over? Nobody would complain about it being unclear! You get step 2 after step 1, it’s simple! Our brain understand it, caveman genes are happy ‘do stuff get stuff’ achieved, no abstract concept to wrap the mind around.
Suddenly Uberroth is not such a big issue anymore. ‘Well, progression’s over anyway, it’s just a bonus!’. Why? Because it’s not in the same position as Aberroth. It’s not the pointer anymore to gesture at you back and say ‘You’re inadequate to reach this distinctly special thing which is not abstract progression slob’, the expected corruption level of an Aberroth kill still being ‘0 Corruption’ at that time and only unlocking corruption after killing the boss of end-game? Hurray! Not only is an actual unlock in it but it’s also enforcing distinct limitations on balancing. ‘Oh, my build can’t get proper gear to actually kill the boss… hmm… guess something needs to be done since I’m stuck half-way in end-game to the actual end-boss!’
No excuses suddenly for EHG, no more ‘150 corruption builds barely able to progress without distinct player-skill rather then progression through core mechanics like itemization’ and similar.
Yeah, which is another issue. EHG introduced a aspirational boss which is basically impossible for nigh every build. I got no clue what they were thinking.
Do we have 50 other bosses of all kinds to test out mettle at them? Is it really the point in time to implement something which usually is done as a singular instance happening in MMO’s like WoW during a full-fledged expansion at best? Is the game so saturated with content it feels fitting to have as it ‘completes’ the overall scale of experiences they can design?
Or… is it rather a implementation which friggin 75-100 players out of your roughly 75k individuals will even be able to beat in a timely manner while there’s damn issues existing that affect 40k of those people?
Dunno, kinda seems badly weighted to waste development time in this segment when there’s 2 dozen problems available which likely will need less development time to fix then implementing a new boss when item factions are still messed up, campaign balancing is all over the place, build balancing is even more over the place, outdated class designs never updates are still prevalent currently.
Kinda makes me wonder what the focus is on, definitely not a good thing.
Don’t get me wrong, the boss is a nice addition, but like mastery-respec, like dungeon skips or charms for friggin lizards simply… missing the point for the here and now rather then what would be good in the future.
Adding content nigh nobody is able to attempt while also implementing methods to skip content in a friggin content-starved game for the genre is simply wild. It’s having a fat target right in the middle of your sight and you’re shooting in a wild circle around it… it’s not like it’s generally heavily over- or underestimated. No… it’s both, which is what baffles me so much
i actually LIKE aspirational content that “no one” is expected to clear. its just that ubby doesnt feel optional.
it reminds me of how in POE1 back when GGG started pushing the the ceiling. before maven, most content peaked at t14 map power. you could encounter “endgame” league bosses at t14 so if you werent strong enough you still could farm for their loot albeit at t14. you didnt necessarily have to do them at t16. then GGG introduced maven and the ceiling just skyrocketed into oblivion.
i always find it horribly ironic. POE has the most flexible and vast skill tree allowing countless builds. but by them increasing the ceiling, they have effectively forced players to hyper optimize. the gap between a decent build and a good one was between 100k dps to millions and billions of dps. what is the point of having such a vast skill tree with 1001 different skills/supports when the best way to play is to follow optimized build guides?.
i find it horribly sad that players who actually WANT to explore and experiment a game dev’s hard work and effort is rewarded by the knowledge that some of the best rewards are just simply out of reach if they chose to play that way.
the easy solution is just to follow a build/play something meta/overperforming.
to me following a build guide is akin the game playing you, rather than you playing the game. exploration. experimentation. all has zero value. you are punished for “fully enjoying” the games mechanics.
i’ve come to the conclusion that i dont like d-likes anymore. or at least, i dont like what most of the community likes about d-likes.
LE is the closest to my dream d-like. but its going back to the same path of poe.
in fact, i’m now play survivors like. its a braindead distillation of all d-likes. 1000 hours of grinding boiled down to 1 hour of gameplay. i get power fantasy, i get to explore builds, get loot. the bosses can have some mechanics that i need to learn. but i dont feel punished in any way. i never ever once felt like i needed outside help. i dont need carries. i dont need trade. because the game is balanced around not having that.
everything feels optional.
there is no ceiling but at the same time, i want to keep pushing. why? that is the beauty of the premise of the game itself. i want to challenge the game. i dont need exclusive reward drops. a lot of people keep saying “if theres no exclusive reward, then people wont have a reason to kill ubby”.
to me thats a good point. but i come from an opposing mindset. people should want to kill ubby simply to challenge themselves.
in poe there are a lot of pinnacle content that has no drops that i want. but i challenge them anyway. why? because i want to test myself against them.
being in various forums, i find myself exposed to many who always need an excuse to do content. if theres no reward, people wont do the content. more rewards are not enough for them. they want exclusive ones and very powerful rewards in fact. whatever happened to doing content because you wanted the challenge.
similarly theres a notion of players losing interest in seasonal content if they clear it too fast. they get bored. what about players who continue playing seasonal content because they like the content itself.
it seems to me modern gamers dont know how to enjoy games anymore. the devs need to follow the money and cater to them.
the fact that majority players voted against mid season nerfs to me makes me feel that the gaming community is fucked beyond repair. they’re fine with things being imbalanced because they WANT to enjoy playing something OP.
this is actually the same as D4. the devs listened to the community and did not implement any mid season nerfs. tons of players were playing spirit born.
if i still enjoyed d4, i would be STUPID if i did not play spiritborn. i could farm all the hardest content and get all the best loot for my permanent character.
similarly i feel stupid for not rolling sentinel and clearing ubby to farm his relic.
instead. off feeling all this negativity. i just tell myself. why am i too heavily invested. i already got burned by POE. over a decade of heavy copium.
i really want to enjoy LE, but in its current state/direction its heading, i m not too keen. i’ll just play something else. i m done trying too hard.
Oh but they do spend an awful lot of time and effort telling us how exciting all the things in their games that deserve our money are though!
And then along come games like BG3 and Clair Obscur that show you when a company just builds a game they like playing, with no extra ‘incentives,’ we do too. Amazing.
And honestly, Grim Dawn is your answer here. It’s single player, balanced, incredibly replayable and doesn’t try to dig holes in your pockets (actually it’s too cheap!) It’s not designed to keep your interest for two weeks every quarter and the team has never grown beyond the game’s scope and appeal. Also check out The Slormancer, which just released out of EA. Pretty good casual blast with no live service/cycle system and plenty of content, Even if a little repetitive after a while, it’s fun.
I hope LE finds the balance between live service and core product. If they build out the campaign more with optional, engaging content, extend build variety (new skills/classes) and put effort into actual proper balance, while not growing the company to the point microtransactions/packs become their primary income incentive, LE could have a long and growing stay in everyone’s ARPG roster. I would quite like LE to adopt a yearly ‘expansion’ release cadence, with QoL and minor feature releases in between. Do a quarterly ‘ladder’ like D2 if you want, but don’t rely on ‘cycles’ to sell the game, I think it’s a bad incentive.
Seconded on Grim Dawn. It’s a game that doesn’t try to put you on a hamster wheel and isn’t balanced around refreshing MTX every “season”. It’s also simply fun and probably offers the best balance there is on the market of arpgs.
I still have characters made a few years ago in GD and they are perfectly playable.
LE has to find its identity, but I’m pretty sure the “vocal majority” which is perfectly fine with 2 weeks on-10 weeks off “seasonal” schedule will drive the game to be yet another Diablo 3 clone.
The big difference between GD and LE is that GD doesn’t have servers to pay and maintain. Nor do they need to put out new stuff regularly. Once every 2-3 years is enough to keep people happy.
So if LE were to go the GD route, they would shut down the servers, you’d get single player only and they would release an expansion every other year.
It’s definitely an option, but not a likely one.
GD is great. Along with D2, it’s a game where I return to regularly. Usually once a year or two, I will go back and play for a couple of weeks.
I usually don’t go back to it more often because it doesn’t offer anything new. It’s just reviving the experience (which is a very good one). So I tend to go back to LE instead. Occasionally even going back to PoE or D4 as well.
GD doesn’t support modding. They allow modding. Not the same thing.
Games that support modding are games like BG3 that have a mod manager integrated with the game, which GD doesn’t.
But they do put stuff regularly. There have been many free content updates via patches. Some added new zones and bosses, others - new items. In fact Crate pumped a ton of free content into the game, despite it not being exactly a part of the “live service” business model.
Their balancing has been also top notch and overperforming things were mercilessly culled to a point where have a TON of viable builds. There’s still stuff that’s stronger/weaker but that’s OK. There are no outliers like Falconer or 1.2 Paladin there.
You may want to wait for the “Fangs of Asterkarn” expansion (in development) for a complete experience. Should be released this year.
What do you consider regularly?
1.2.0 added new stuff in Jan 2024. Before that, only 1.1.9.0 had added new stuff in Mar 2021. That is pretty much 3 years apart. And 1.1.9.0 barely added anything. Just a few new zones for SR, 3 new legendary sets and a visual update for another set.
Yes. When you barely add anything new, you have lots of time to fiddle with balancing. Balancing is harder to achieve when you keep adding new things that mess with that balance. Which is why they usually have a ton of changes/fixes after adding new stuff.
Not to mention that GD’s balance didn’t start great. It was tuned over time.
Uh no they have a modding guide, various sections in their OFFICIAL forums for modding, and frequently reference modding related changes in their patch notes.
Its pretty well supported.
When did you get new stuff that regularly, though? Maybe in the first couple of years.
As I mentioned, it was almost 3 years before GD added something new after 1.1.9.0. You had a few minor stuff added before that, but mostly they just do balance patches.
And it’s already been over a year since 1.2.0 and no new stuff has been added since.
There were, though. Retaliation builds were always an issue until they managed to balance them. Very early on, it was easy to make an immortal warder that didn’t die to anything.
This is expected though, balance is tricky. Even after all these years you still have outliers like forcewave (every soldier levels as forcewave because it’s so strong and easy to build before switching to whatever you want).
That’s fair. I usually only consider a game supporting mods when they actively incorporate them in their game, like BG3, NwN, etc.
But that might be too strict a stance from me and I will concede that point.
Now that i have experienced Abberoth which is static difficulty and if you get better build you win him easier/ faster/
Have to say i personally favor to get rid off infinite scaling corruption and replace those static levels e.g tiers.
I think infinite scaling could be just other game mode or different activity rather than implemented core mechanic (mapping)
I just think it confuses people and devs are on nightmare when they need to put balancing needle on somewhere and then numbers start to flow.
Its way way nicer to read ” did you kill abby” yes = build is good.
I killed abby in 7sec = okay your build might be nerfed
Than this numbers game ” i got 667 corruption”
I farm in 2005 , devs stated 300 is everything you unlock except uber boss which is in 500 but its recommended that you can do corruption level 1000 comfortably so you have nicer time to attempt him but this still doesnt guarantee you anything cause bossing and echo running are different.
But again balancing is always gonna be a thing and OP , underperforming is gonna happen. But i just think its way way better to feel those my build got better when i can blast tier 10 so much faster than
I can now do 436 faster than 400
And then i dont want to go so deep that im gonna lose to enemies. Like i rather try to make my hardest content easier for myself than just play on lvl 100 corruption and say ” not gonna go further so i can stay strong”
Its psychological thing i know but it still gives me this weird feeling that i need to increase something until i lose to measure my build strength vs just get bettter time like in car racing, same track > get better time by adjusting the car and learn curves etc
I did. I used GD stash, mostly. At some point I used a few like the DPS meter (removed it because I didn’t really care about that) or one that increased base movement speed.
In all those cases, it was just either a program that ran separate from GD and accessed the same files (like GD stash) or it was something you downloaded and added to the game files.
Never did I have to go into the game and select which mods I wanted to run. They were either there or not.
But I did concede that my definition for supporting mods was too strict and I will agree that they support mods.
That’s not a mod, that’s (as you know) an external thing to access/backup/modify/etc the saves/inventory. It doesn’t change how the game plays or add anything.
Well you’ve missed out. The D2 conversion for GD is awesome & Xmax for TQ was similarly fun. You download the mod files, stick them in the appropriate folder then load them in-game.
