How We're Approaching the Melee Rebalance in 3.7.0

sounds like the fix for melee is to just add some tags and have every skill be supported by everything spells can use

like what is one actually “channeling” when they cyclone?

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cgexile wrote:

sounds like the fix for melee is to just add some tags and have every skill be supported by everything spells can use

like what is one actually “channeling” when they cyclone?

Channeling the tears of joy from all the melee players, it gives enough power to spin continuously for years to come.

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Edit: And Cyclone is now a Channelled skill.

Crap! now they are messing around with my skill... well it was fun while it lasted.

So what now, Bronn's Lithe is useless for Cyclone because it is not Movement anymore but Channeling? Really GGG what the hell are you doing.

First you made me stop playing RF Chieftain that I did play since 2.6 and I loved it, you ruined it with 50% to Fire on Chieftain that i CAN'T TURN OFF for some reason, unlike in some other aRPG.

Now I found some silly Cyclone with Ngahamu for my Chieftain, because RF is not an option, and you are literally going to kill the reason why I am playing PoE, again?

I just like to stick to one build that I like and ejoy, changes like that I do not like.

What now, next league when I will swap over to Holy Totems or whatever that skill was, is that your next target?

/complain whine

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Elf_97 wrote:

Ridiculous, play it without appropriate gear and come back

"See, it's TOTALLY not broken! It's possible to make it suck if you actively try, therefore it MUST be balanced compared to all the other skills that barely keep up with 1S Winter Orb with 6Ls!"

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Aias_o_Telamonios wrote:

I hope all this is actually tested and we're not playing melee beta in the next league.

I can assure you that it will be a very beta experience. Just like EVERYTHING new and reworked we see in PoE. This won't change until/unless GGG realizes that if they want to be taken as seriously as other major developers of online games, they need to follow the same things they do and operate a PBE.

For some reason Chris Wilson & Company think that there's a value that keeps attracting players by making everything be a goddamned "Surprise" on release day. But by now, the old players know well enough what the "surprise" will be: buggy, unbalanced new content, and reworks that either overcorrect, don't go far enough, or, sometimes, both.

To secure a real future, GGG needs to swallow their pride at being the only big company to run a major online game with zero outside testing (and, from what Henry_GGG and others have told us, zero real INSIDE testing) and just operate a separate beta server 24/7/365. I mean, they're ALSO looking to try to push more supporter packs, and if they just keep it restricted to players with one of the latest series of packs, that'd be a big incentive, no?

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eX0A wrote:

Honestly I don't want to "keep coming back" to poe, I want it to be a full time game because it has everything any type of player would want. The main discouragement of this game, for me at least, is the ridiculously high prices of the mtx's. I know it's free to play, but so is dota and apex and they have more value for money for their mtx's. I honestly believe a lot of people would spend more money more often on the mtx's if they were more affordable, because that's one of the most satisfying character customization of the game.

That's a REALLY good statement to start with. I think GGG doesn't even realize that there's a difference between a game that periodically draws its old players back temporarily, and one that just retains a huge number of players consitently. (a good example of each in PvE terms would be World of WarCraft vs. Final Fantasy XIV)

And yeah, the MTX prices remain a big artifact of the early days, when the game's monetization scheme was "continual crowdfunding;" back then their income was dominated by big-cash donors, who wound up with large stacks of GGGold and nothing to spend it on. The high prices ($42 per cosmetic outfit in a game where your character fills only a tiny spot on the screen?) is owing to that; they set it as a "sink" for those with hundreds or thousands of dollars' worth of MTX currency.

Since then, the selection has grown a lot, and the overall demographic of their audience has shifted; small-time pack buyers account for the vast fraction of GGG's income. (this was a mix of the initial big-money donors being tapped out, and also simple growth: big-money donors were pretty much ALL attracted early on, leving smaller-money folk as the only real growth category in the past 5 years) They've only made some minor concessions to this, such as the introduction of seasonal supporter packs that don't go above $60.

In terms of cosmetic MTX regimes, PoE's has to be one of the worst. Sadly, they've done this when one of the outright best has been staring at them from across the aisle the whole time: Warframe's greater affordability AND flexibility (you can recolor ANY item to match items from different sets, something we only WISH we could do here) has made it far more appealing MTX-wise.

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yavvyred wrote:

The mirage archer for bowers was just over the top. Melee needs a similar support i.e (every few seconds a clone teleports to a close random enemy and aoe strikes it).

To be honest, I feel that Mirage Archer needs to be outright removed from the game... Or given a (nerfing) rework that is tantamount to its removal from the meta.

As long as it's there, GGG can fix Melee all it wants, make it super fluid all they want... They could, in fact, make it not even require stopping to attack AT ALL (e.g, you keep running right through enemies as you rain molten strike projectiles down on them) and it STILL would be inferior to ranged, just because of Mirage Archer.

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Broliciously wrote:

Please, for the love of god, do not forget about unarmed mechanics. Up the base attack speed and gimme some crit chance (without needing Rigwald's Curse, rework that one to completely treat unarmed as claws, so that not every claw node is semi useless and we can maybe use some more skills with it).

This is a big one: I've tried a lot, and because Rigwald's Curse doesn't let unarmed use claw skills, benefit from Claw crit multiplier (only crit CHANCE) and also not apply other nodes that apply to claws but don't EXPLICITLY name claws, (e.g, "one-handed weapons") it's hardly worth anything.

And that mod SHOULD be eligible for a retro-fix, since as far as I know NO other items or passives in the game use the same effects as those; this means GGG can retroactively change all existing Rigwald's Curses by just changing those effects.

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HybridBoy wrote:

also, rework armor.
98% of people just ignore it.
its not intuitive and not worth investing into.

You're correct that it gets ignored and it's not too intuitive... But it's definitely worthwhile. The only "fix" that'd satisfy the people who don't want to touch math would be... To make it exactly like ES: just make your HP bar bigger. That's >90% of the reason people prefer ES or even just plain HP stacking (which is the squishiest of them all) is because they can see a bigger number there, and they can comprehend it without thinking much.

Truth is... Armour is how you trivialize some of the game's most hated encounters. Syndicates and Minotaur? Are so reliant on physical damage that if you build strong armour, they just can't scratch you. And no, all the people going "armour doesn't protect against big hits" people are just showing that they don't understand the math. If you built it right, it WILL cover those big hits, too.

TBH, to make it more readily accessible, GGG just needs to adjust content, and scale things back to rely more on physical damage. (and reduce/eliminate the absurd "monsters gain 110% of physical damage as extra fire/cold/lightning damage" map mods, which are free quant for ranged/ES builds, but are murder exclusively for melee armour users. I'd replace them with mods like "enemies' physical damage chills" and "enemies' physical damage can shock")

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Biszek wrote:

So what now, Bronn's Lithe is useless for Cyclone because it is not Movement anymore but Channeling? Really GGG what the hell are you doing.

Incorrect: gem tags are hardly mutually exclusive. Charged dash is another movement+channelled skill. The change here means two main things:

• Cyclone will benefit from things that affect channelled skills; both passives, and allow you to use Cast While Channelling instead of just Cast on Crit.
  
• You'll be able to stop or redirect Cyclone instantly, rather than waiting for it to finish its current animation.

Single target melee skills feel like shit. Unless you have a target name locked you will miss. So Multistrike of course. Now you have Resolute Tech niche, and a 66.67%, chance to hit.

How about hitting things in melee range, without putting your mouse exactly on it first.

If that's what you mean by less clunky, then I am all aboard.

As cyclone will become a channeling skill, and Vaal cyclone can roll on the spot, why not let cyclone roll on the spot by pressing button like Shift？

Half these posts: omg cyclone ruined fuck ggg

Meanwhile, me: CwC 100% convert cyclone when?

What if Cyclone actually becomes worse?
What if Cyclone actually becomes better?

Who knows, lets wait an find out.

* Wait for the league to end *

GGG,

First of all, I'm glad that you are addressing rebalancing melee.

You definitely have to success rebalancing melee for future PoE. To do it, you should share quickly what you think now about it. Until now in most cases, which the details of a fix is announced to players who cannot join internal test was after its specification was decided completely. But this time, you shouldn't do such an approach. I'd like to point out your fix if it is not suitable before I'm disappointed by reading 3.7 release note.

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Edit: And Cyclone is now a Channeled skill.

If you realize it, should add strong Channeled ATTACK Support Gem together. Otherwise, next league will be just CwC Cyclone league.