I have to admit - we have a problem here. Aberroth was already bad at his fight design (phase 5). But it was real to kill him with a plenty of good builds, and all overpermorming builds were just racing in corruption/arena numbers
In 1.2 EGH introduced UberevenmorecraponyourscreenBerroth, suitable for a very few overperfoming builds, gated op items, forced a lot of people to jump from variety of c500+ builds to at least S to obtain relic and gloves.
Uber catalyzed all op(snapshots, birdie etc) builds problems, I know bunch of players who left LE because of how unbalanced 1.2 is. Some cases.
Normal build after op starter - oh sh… , another one build - man, that’s bad… I’m out
Or after playing normal build as their starter, struggling with Aby, finally overcoming him just to realize, that it is just a merely a shade of that real pinnacle boss… So they have to abandon their characters to build an Uberkiller internetguided machine of farming… or abandon unbalanced game and move on
What exactly is bad about his Design and the last phase in particular? I think he is very well designed and it is all in your own hand how cluttered the screen is. if you play all the mechanics properly there is no screenclutter at all.
Poe had already been down the road of creating vastly overpowered content and the uber bosses. And I don’t think ubers ever had the intended effect there. Instead of encouraging most of the playerbase to stay in the game longer and seek new ways to beat uberbosses it had just caused most “normal” players to feel bad about their progression and how they have to abandon their chosen characters if they ever want to beat ubers. And respec to one of the relatively small number of uber killing builds.
LE had not yet shifted the best loot in the game behind its uber boss, and I hope it will stay that way. Ubers should be an optional content for the most tenacious players, not a mandatory requirement because of the loot. As long as this will hold, ubers won’t affect build variety on the scale OP claims them to.
No build needs those items though. So if they were “forced” to switch builds, they were forced by their own view of the game, not because of what the game offers. The game itself doesn’t force you to do Uby. You can play the whole game just fine without those items.
Much like you could already play the game just fine in 1.1 without a Nihilis.
Then the Devs need to change their design, because they are at fault for creating an environment for this and it will only get worse. To be clear it’s not just EHG it’s every modern ARPG but it’s EHG’s fault for following that trend and breeding toxicity and introducing content that rewards only a handful of builds. In a game that is based on POWER.
It’s up to EHG to fix this issue and create a ceiling and bring back what great games did in the past. Otherwise each Season from here on out there will be less and less builds as the power creep continues. No build diversity and that celing grows higher.
I’m not to blame, content creator’s aren’t to blame, the mentality the players have that there are only a few builds this season isn’t to blame. It’s EHG for creating this mentality through their environment and design.
I don’t want this toxicity in the game, I want this game to be casual friendly. I want people to have fun and feel like playing a couple 100c is okay. In order to do that though EHG has to change their game design.
Until then there is no build diversity. This situation will only get worse. If you don’t like the way I or other players look at things maybe blame the Devs for creating that situation.
There is a solution to this problem. It’s been mentioned. I hope Last Epoch becomes a game for the 99% not the 1%. Sadly the game is for the 1% which also isn’t good for player retention.
I just wish responders would be having the conversation the OP wants to have, versus responding to things the OP has said in the past.
OP is suggesting that build diversity increases if corruption is capped at 500.
I think that is correct, here’s the logic.
Right now, I think a ‘good build’ is at least A-tier, and I think A-tier can do 1000c? So the player community has collectively decided that 1000c is required for a ‘good build’. (which makes me laugh because I said this a year ago)
But if the cap is 500c, then a ‘good build’ is defined as, ‘one that can do 500c’. Without doing anything other than capping the game, build diversity has increased. I think that concept bothers people. It kind of bothers me, but at the same time, I think the logic is sound.
Maybe the folks that object to this conversation the most, are the people that just fundamentally dislike the ‘what is a good build’ conversation at all. But… you don’t have to be a part of every conversation.
The thing is that we disagree with his premise now, as we did in the past. Much like I disagree with your premise as well.
The build diversity doesn’t increase with a cap. There will still be the exact same number of available builds in the game. And almost all of them are as viable now as they would be with the cap.
What you would do with a cap is simply increase the number of builds people will classify as “good builds”, which has nothing to do with build diversity or with them being viable.
Because even with a cap, you’ll still have the same meta and the same tier lists. Because a build that can do 5k corruption will delete 500c in 0.1s while a build that can do only 500c right now will do it in a minute.
So nothing really changes, other than the ego of the entitled sweatlords.
No, the people that ovject to this are the ones that disagree with his basic argument that if a build can’t chain kill Uby, it’s not viable. It’s trash. It’s not worth playing and no player will ever use it.
Those are his exact words time and again.
If a build can do 500c-700c, it’s trash and no one will play it. Because it can’t do 1000c and it can’t do Uby. And if you say you play it and you have fun with it, then you’re a lunatic that isn’t playing the game properly.
So people aren’t arguing about what a “good build” is. They’re arguing about what a “viable build” is. And those are two very different things that, to Abomb, are the exact same thing. Only good builds are viable.
And that is a problem with being ultra-competitive and viewing the game from the perspective of the top 1% sweatlords, not the game.
It’s not that there is no build diversity, but that there isn’t much competitive build diversity. And that is a different topic, but which Abomb keeps deflecting.
The vast majority of players don’t care if a build can kill Uby or do 1k corruption as long as they’re having fun with their build, much like the vast majority of PoE1 players don’t care if their build can kill Uber Maven or do T17 maps either.
So, to answer the question asked: It’s false that there is no build diversity. There is a lot of it. Having a cap or not won’t change this, because the people that are having fun with their builds won’t care if they reach the cap either.
The only issue that needs to be addressed, and that it’s being addressed regularly and over time, is build balance, which is a very tricky thing to do. They’re bringing builds up a couple of masteries per season. In a couple of years balance should be better, although this discussion will never go away because meta builds will always be a thing.
Yes this very basic sentence is true, we can go further, remove empowered, now every build is viable.
I dont think that solves any problems long term. The issue right now is just perspective. And that wont change with a capped corruption, ES strike is still better then fireball even if fireball can do 500c.
“Build diversity” is a red herring in general, because there is plenty of diversity among the builds but players are unwilling to make any sacrifice what so ever. I can do 1000c on my shitty non crit healing hands vengence paladin. But why would someone not just play judgement, the playstyle is very similar but I just hate the mana mechanic of spam judgement. But these munchkin gamers see no reason to never not play the best. So the only solution to them is to simply make everything the best.
And if we just talk about optics of builds, well regardless of balance state, popularity is driven by the most eyes on builds. ES strike has more players then falconer despite falconer having a probably better clear/easier one. But ES was what streamers played more, and so it caught on better and its on a reworked class.
The devs themselves said that a good build is one that handles 300c corruption meanwhile OP states that the game starts at 1k corruption. There are so many good builds which handle 300c. OP is in the wrong for this and just becuase you guys feel like a good build needs to do a bajillion corruptio and Ubberoth then idk.
The thing is that I at least do not know how big is the difference in farming between 100 corruption and 1k corruption. For example I dropped Atlaria rings on both 1k and about 200 corruption while imprinted of course. What is the real odd difference in farming it at 1k? Do I have like 0.2% chance to drop at 200 corruption and 5% at 1k or is it just a 0.5%. Because at the end of the day the only reason I see for pushing corruption besides limit testing your character is the drop rate of the items. Of course if an item starts droping specifically at a corruption level is something else but none of them start dropping at 1k. So what is my super op build compared to the “shitty non viable” build that OP talks about really achieves if the drop for double/triple exalted items and more rare uniques is almost the same at higher corruption than the 300 devs talk about.
Sorry if it does not make sense what Im trying to say me kinda drunk atm and thats the best my brain could do.
Oh yeah also…what community decided 1k c is a good build lol? Its the first time I hear about that.
To be fair, they never said that, exactly. They said that a successful build is one that handles 300c. It’s not the same thing.
They’ve always avoided using any term other than successful. So 300c is what they consider to be the minimum for a build.
its just where the most effective farm rates are. basically if you can do 1k corr quickly you get the best favor rates/gear rates. if you cant farm 1000c safe/quick, 600c is your next good break point. its all about balancing clear/safety with reward. After 1000c the rewards take a massive drop off so unless you are limit testing going past 1000c does not serve much purpose imo.
And for most players id argue 600c is the ideal range.
300c unfortunately is a meme the devs need to update. with the gearing speed/power you get now, id say 500c is more realistic for most builds unless they are building around actual meme mechanics like a doom focused build or a spreading flames focused build etc.
I cannot disagree more. It is not the devs fault. It is modern gaming communities that are at fault for always wanting to play as “efficient as possible”, this is compounded with the fact that in today’s age there is so much information, data mining, build guides and all the other info available.
EHG still does need to try and balance things and they constantly do, but it is a neverending battle if they continue to add new things (which they should), to keep the game fresh and exciting.
Then maybe the OP should stop being an elitist arsehat & have conversations rather than monologues. It’s clear the OP doesn’t want to have a two way conversation.
Yes & no. If corruption was capped then skills could be balanced around reaching that cap, but there’d still be skills/builds that would be much faster than others and those ones would be the “good” builds.
Not entirely, while I can accept that EHG aren’t doing much to change the mentality, or steer the game in a way that minimises it, it’s the players (or some of them at least) that have the mentality & that’s not EHG’s fault. The players aren’t the victims in this scenario & content creators are at least as much to blame since they’re the ones that push the narrative that only X build is good.
Kinda. It’s the perception as much as anything else. If 100 builds can reach 500c, but only 5 builds can reach 1,000c then if the cap is 500c there would be 100 “viable” builds but 5 really freaking good builds & the devs could balance things more around that cap.
Exactly, which is why they’d need to have a cap then balance everything with that in mind. Granted, they could do that now just as easily.
It is a never ending battle, but IMO, I think they need to do better.
And yes, players wanting to min-max the shit out of a game is a player issue not a developer issue.
Yea sadly there is a group of players that don’t like me so they highjack and derail all my threads. Would be cool if we could just discuss the topic.
Yes it does.
Bingo, anytime you see a build video read the comments. Can it do 1,000c? Honestly most build videos players won’t even watch if it’s not showcased in 1,000c because that is how you know the build is viable.
I published a build on the Sentinel forums and waited till I was in 1,000c to make sure it was good enough to talk about. This mentality has been created because of the current game design.
Bingo and this is why D2 is such a great game. So many builds can do hell difficulty and farm. Now if D2 introduces Ultra hell the build diversity falls off because now you need builds to farm that.
Having a low ceiling is always best because it creates far better replayability and player agency to have fun with builds. The content is more engaging and not only that it’s content for the 99% not the 1%. So player rentention is way way higher.
True.
If you wanted to have an actual discussion rather than a monologue then we would, but that requires you being able to listen to & understand other people’s points of view which is something you have yet to demonstrate. Blocking people isn’t the sign of someone who wants to have a conversation.
So you just want the game to be easy? Why not get rid of empowered monos then? That way almost every single possible permutation would be “good” because it would be able to do normal monos.
This is why there is a disconnect between the Devs and the Players. The players decide what is a good build based on what the Devs design. Currrently the Devs designed an enviroment that means a good build is doing 1,000c. You are rewarded for doing that.
So a good build is 1,000c full stop. If the Devs want 300c to be the benchmark for a good build they need to cap corruption at 300c. Now the game and reward structure is based on 300c. Then the Devs would be right.
Again I’m ALL FOR CAPPING CORRUPTION so we have build diversity and the Devs and Players are all on the same page.
- I would love for nothing more than for someday a 300c build to be considered good and hope the Devs can design that game. I want a game designed for the 99% instead of the 1% elitist. This is the problem with modern games and game designers fall into this trap.
300c is an F tier build it doesn’t get to play the game. No one and I mean no one wants to play a build that can only do 300c. You aren’t being rational.
B tier builds are 500c. You think anyone looks up or is trying to play a B tier much less a build that can only do 300c? Haha no.
As you can clearly see, the OP doesn’t want to have any conversation. And keeps making the same arguments we criticize over and over again.
If you don’t think/play like he does, you aren’t a player.
No place to stand. Random “win or loose” if you can’t dmg skip or facetank it. Not fun, not a skill check. But a random pattern of crap n beams
Ok got ya.
But I have to shattered your perception: The Beams are not random.
Every time the beam is cast at you there is a small time window in which you can control/steer where it will go, when you develop a good timing sense you can preamtively move to the correct position already.
Then after a beam is cast all previous beams are cast at the same position there were cast previously.
All of this means you can lay down all the beams in a small angle if you want to maximize/optimize this. Realistallcy you will fail a couple of beams but you can still try to keep them in a quadrantor one half of the arena.
Aberroth is 100% a skill check, more than a build check.
So do I. Refusing to play meta 
I keep making weird things…
And watching people’s disappointment and complains, bad player retention etc