The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Harmful Content

Excellent post and read.
Agreed on most points.

Regarding unique creation: I believe that user-made uniques should be revealed a week before they are actually released, to give time for the userbase to discuss and rework/tweak it before it is actually released for everyone to farm for. This would easily avoid the release of overpowered no-downside uniques as well as give users a chance to theorycraft up and prepare for the uniques for new builds etc.

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pneuma wrote:

What I do want to see is progress toward fixing the things that are unbalanced. This includes listening to the posts made on the forums ad nauseum and not being afraid to make changes in the game. If there is one thing crippling GGG above all else, it's being terrified to make changes. They've adopted this stance since they started accepting closed beta donations and it has absolutely smothered progress in this game.

Emphasis mine. This follow-up sentiment is the one I agree with the most, as I've been suspecting the same for some time. Since OB, it does seem like GGG somewhat feels the game has already been released. One needs only to look at and compare the scope and content of patch notes from 0.9.1-0.10.0 with notes from 0.10-0.11.x.

I really hope someone from GGG addresses this post in some manner, and the rightful accusation above.

Just sayin. "A bit rude". During fucking beta.
But yeah, if you want to know what really happened between CB and OB, GGG switched from being a gamedev to a corporation.

Very nice post, full of usefull and accurate informations, and well structured. Impressive

I'm just sad to say, that nearly everything you said, had been said, over and over again, in different posts, without that perfect structure. But everything you adress in your post is on the table since OB launch. We have seen some hesitating steps from GGG, one forward, one back , on the left etc . But months and months after, CORE problems are still on the table.

Just one funny fact : Even Chris GGG make a post saying that Lion's Glare is badly designed because it has no drawbacks. If even him thinks that and nothing had change (will reduce the power of all Lion'sGlare user now ?), what can you expect ?

The point of that post isn't about lioneye. It's about the fear of changing something because they feel it's "rude".

Do they care more about small temporary forum PR than the game?

I cant but agree with the points Pneuma brought up in the opening post. I have, too, been testing tons of builds and skill combinations ( including melee ) during closed beta and i enjoyed that. I didnt feel forced to build my character in any way, as most of my ideas managed to reach merciless just fine.

Perhaps its just my natural love to a skill that, after some months of testing different gem combinations and feeling like i couldnt do anything new with this one anymore, makes me say this, but i dont want to see Freeze Pulse shotgunning ability to go away. Then again, i read the post by Lyralei, and i see him talking about alternatives.

That in turn makes me think about arc for instance, and how another game that i played since forever, Heroes of might and magic, had this similar skill working as chain lighting. And i think it would be cool if arc was changed to chain lighting that has a 150% damage effectiveness for the first monster struck, and reduced that effectiveness by 25% for each additional enemy hit after the first, and also chains more then two times. It makes me think how arc could be used as good chaining ability, and potential single target ability for shocking the target, making the support gems, such as added lighting, a lot more useful.

Or arctic breath, which was more more often used to crash someone's else client back in the day, than as a main ability. The DoT idea, and perhaps longer chill, is a nice thought ( Alongside making the skill not lag, and i also look at you, ice shot ).

Then you have Righteous fire that i feel is in a tough spot right now. The recent changes made life based Righteous fire characters basically impossible to make. Perhaps Life regeneration/Life reg. while on low life and/or maximum fire resist as the gem levels could help.

The current monster system should be changed so there is less emphasis on more and yet even more life/energy shield, and the skill points can actually be put somewhere else, and not make your character stuck in fellshrine because you chose something else. Less burst dmg, more interesting synergies ( As pointed by Lyralei and his example with puncture ).

Last point that i argued about a long time ago, is that perhaps the armor formula could use a change from 12 to 10 or even 8.

Personally, i am quite interested what is there for us coming with the release of the rest of the third act.

Absolutely, we should de-emphasize numbers and focus on interesting mechanics. If both player spells and monster mechanics were less about numbers and more about creating fun, unique AND efficient ways of killing monsters you will definitely see a variety of builds flourish and in turn, unique uniques flourish.


Its a great thing that pneuma brought this up. It lets us scrutinize the problems presented and go beyond that to find the root. No more I-WIN uniques. More "Aha! This is what I need to let my build hit the sweet spot". Which brings me to the point of build-based unique tiers.

There should be build-enablers (i.e: facebreakers - things that MAKE the build possible) > build-complements (Deodre's Damning - things that only specific builds can make use of) > general uniques (i.e: Lioneye's Glare - things that are just good for most people) in that order of strongest to weakest where the general uniques are stepping stones between you and the next tier of rare further superseded by the best rares in the game. These don't even have to have drawbacks so long as a rare can replace them. Or they can be irreplaceable and come with an equally strong drawback.


And low level super powerful uniques are fine. Sandima's Touch comes to mind. Fun, powerful and replaced relatively easily. But it little edge early on.


P.S: If Arc had diminishing damage on its chains but full effectiveness on frozen targets it would be crazy cool. They're as close as possible to being wet right..they conduct better then.

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Xendran wrote:

Spoiler

Just sayin. "A bit rude". During

BETA

BETA

fucking beta.

BETA

BETA

But yeah, if you want to know what really happened between CB and OB, GGG switched from being a gamedev to a corporation.

GGG seriously should stop caring about players feelings that much. This is the last chance to make things right. If it can't be done in beta, when it will?

If some players will have hard feelings and decide to quit the game after changes made for the sake of game's balance, game's future, let it be that way, it will be their loss not GGG's

Well whatever option GGG chooses, they will get bad forum PR anyways.
You change the unique to have a downside, QQ will flood the forums.
You keep OP and completely broken uniques, there is still QQ, albeit slightly less.

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Acrosis wrote:

Well whatever option GGG chooses, they will get bad forum PR anyways.
You change the unique to have a downside, QQ will flood the forums.
You keep OP and completely broken uniques, there is still QQ, albeit slightly less.

But if they get QQ either way, why not just make it so the game is better after the tears flow away?