One-week "Resistance Penalty Testing" Hardcore Ladder Race
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Race Summary:
I rolled 1hand/shield groundslam marauder this time round, having never played the build beyond level 10 before. Found it noticably faster/safer than previous event builds in normal/cruel; this started falling off in ruthless, mostly due to the build being so weapon dependant and the rng not providing a noticable improvement for said weapon. I also didnt enjoy the playstyle, mainly because of how clumsy melee skills are to use without holding shift the whole time i play (which i cant do anyway with my hotkey setup). By late merciless i finally aquired a weapon with more than 100 damage (thanks Spacke!) but had lost interest in the build and respecced to fire totemancer (one of my previous 1week event builds that had worked out well) a day before the nerf occurred. Due to a combination of the subpar damage of my underleveled gems, the incredibly annoying chronic desync in pyramid runs and no guarantee id have enough time to take a top 10 finish or even keep top 20, i retired the character at lvl60, donated all my useful orbs/gear/maps to Spacke and returned to the standard HC league. Race Feedback: Resistance Penalties: A failure. They created no interesting decisions; i simply prioritized one numeric increase over another at times. Choosing a unique that changes my playstyle over a rare: Interesting. Choosing a different gem setup that also changes my playstyle: Interesting. Choosing a rare with more res and less life over a rare with more life and less res: Not interesting. None of the gear adjustments i made due to the penalties (mostly ring swaps for different areas, occasionally shield swaps) had any interesting gameplay effect at all. The penalties will force a bit of extra grinding on many builds, however, which is the last thing any arpg needs. Consider instead a linear elemental damage increase throughout the game, where the elem damage is balanced for a specific level of resist that the player can be expected to have by the time they reach that act/zone/difficulty. Currently, normal mode elemental attackers are extremely strong compared to their physical counterparts, to the point where one burning menace crit or a few sparks can kill a character that could take 10+ physical hits; endgame elemental damage, otoh, is completely ignorable with a decent life base and some regen/leech. Balancing for say, 25% resists in normal, 50% in cruel/ruthless (since theyll be merged soon), 75% in merciless and 80% in maps / other potential endgame areas would produce the same end balance as the penalties without the harsh jump in damage with each new difficulty and also without the requirement to have multiple resists on every piece of gear come endgame (similar to the problem iiq working on map drops had in previous patches). Id also like to anecdotally mention that my main (lvl81 Shadow, #3 on HC ladder) didnt have 75 allres until lvl79, and still cant switch in better gear pieces without going below max in one or more resists. I doubt im alone in this either. The "easy max resists" so often commented on tend to be enjoyed by a few specific builds that generally use the marauder starting area and/or an angel kite shield. Everyone else is already making choices to sacrifice life, es, whatever to have max resists, and this doesnt change until extreme endgame where multiple godly gear pieces potentially become available. Groundslam Nerf: Wasnt necessary. A fine skill early on, groundslam falls off to average at endgame level yet still has a much larger risk associated with it when compared with many other, similarly powered endgame builds. What was necessary was some balance between the melee skills, ie making cleave, sweep etc more attractive and having melee in general give more reward (damage, cc, whatever) for the risk it requires, as ranged builds can generally put out similar or superior damage while being in nowhere near as much danger. Also, simply tieing groundslams attack speed to the weapon would have been a nice balance change without being a direct nerf. Boosting: Glad to see someone made this blatantly public. Looking forward to seeing it balanced or removed as a result. Other: Itd be nice to also have 1-2 week events with time restrictions. League open during a 2-3 hour timeslot each day, closed otherwise. Not so different from a series of the 2-3 hour races we have now, except with character continuity, more first-clear and first-finish sidequests and a corrospondingly increased prizepool. The End: See you all again next race! IGN: KoTao Last edited by KoTao#4717 on Oct 2, 2012, 4:57:56 PM
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" Good post KoTao, I agree with all your resistance comments, and also the GS nerf ones. The resistance change will as I mentioned before drastically increase grinding which as stated, is something we DON'T want. and the GS nerf was the wrong way to do it. |
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I eventually died this race and didn't care to re-create but I agree with you KoTao on the resist penalties.
I tried to go melee shadow for the very reason of it looking very weak to this as there as no easy way to pick up anything in the tree and the lack of any decent gear on a fresh league was really annoying in ruthless and on. And basically wearing anything but a the piece with most resist was out of the question. Thanks to TEBird for really bringing this multibox issue up to the surface. and Hillbert... I don't even.... |
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" I like the concept but rather than a time slot maybe a timer of 2-3 hours every 24 hours within which you can play. We all play at different times given lifestyle and time zones a time slot would be very limiting. |
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" Of course you are not alone... This whole 'easy resists' thing must be just some wrong interpretation of data. I agree with everything in the post (I wrote my very similar feedback somewhere already). " I like this concept but I can see a problem with time windows. Perhaps there could be two windows open and you would be allowed to pick one a day. ✠ ✠
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" I believe better option would be to have the league open for everyone at all times, but limit the maximum hours per character can play during the week total to something like 15-30 hours. Would be more balanced for everyone, not mattering which time zone you at. IGN: Rollface Last edited by grindis123#7879 on Oct 2, 2012, 11:29:33 PM
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@ TEBird,
I don't know how or what cracked my visual persecption but I always viewed your name with a 'D' in it. ^_^ Anyways, as seeing no reply from any GGG, this thread is still the 'One-week "Resistance Penalty Testing' thread, I think it needs it's own, or if now sensible solution is created, shut it down, unless there is an endless supply of popcorn.. NVM, I think responses are fitting. Also, has any Alpha member spoken on here? I'd like to know their thoughts on the 'Resists' during their test. "literally the worst feeling in the world is talking to someone about something you really love and just watching the interest fade out of their eyes" - Thebrotherswinchester Last edited by Spacetiger554108#4483 on Oct 3, 2012, 6:26:53 AM
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" I went Templar starting with Ground Slam looking to transition to Minions. Got stuck around levels 40-50 at end of Ruthless, I took +50% in resist nodes, helped Oak every time, but did not have any survivability. Traded for a great weapon which is how I got to 50 at all. Minions did not work out at all, I imagine I would have to go 100% commit into that type of build. Ended up grinding Western Forest to 50 and stopping because the progression was too slow and I could not continue. Lots of ring swapping up until this point, I wish I could equip by right-clicking. With my best rings, and my +50 resist nodes, I could get 2 of my resists to about 50% and the other to 0%. Long story short: a lot of grinding, crappy gear, could not progress, and gave up. IGN @dime
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" Right on, I'm done anyway, I'm not responding anymore, I put my popcorn hat on and I'm done replying. I'm just handing out popcorn and drinks from here out. *hands spacetiger a cold beverage of choice.* Looking for more guild members for races/4 month hc leagues, pm for info
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Thanks for the reply, dime. And Bird, rarely do I ever munch on popcorn, more uber rare in theaters unless forced by family/friends, answer is because it is ultra uber rare that there is a supply of toothpicks. .. . -_-. and I have bottles of water with me as always, one for pissin the other for sippin. I kid I kid ^_^ "literally the worst feeling in the world is talking to someone about something you really love and just watching the interest fade out of their eyes" - Thebrotherswinchester
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