Development Manifesto: Game Balance in Path of Exile: Harvest

TLDR; GGG philosophy on change is chaotic.

GGG is in dear need for new design pillar to address how and when change is necessary and define methods to apply it. Clear vision what they really aim to achieve from the change in big picture that holds it value on future to maintain current players coming back and snowball new ones in. Game has changed so much past years and word "nerf" have evolved to "complete erase". New always replace old, means anything you learn now can be forgotten knowledge in matter of time. More game changes, more it frustrate it's player base, one way or the other on long run. Change can be good or it can be bad, GGG ways is most of the time latter. Word "Change" have power to enable or disable certain elements, but there can be middle ground too. Unique builds are on path of forgotten realm if you want to be decent in the game, because how balance works, it's either good or bad based on the new change. Poe has potential base to be the ultimate game with player freedom and choices, but still they focus on nerfs more than buff the weak, this is also enable/disable logic, but there can be ways to move one closer and one down while maintain it own identity. What is the point of making something new if most of old is covered in the dust, there is no balance, no design rules. It's 50/50 to force new metashift in every 3 month, some may find enjoyment to get new and fresh, some hate the change and what they suffer because of it. Equal balance can be near impossible to achieve, but to make change less impactful if the problem is not in realm of broken. I miss the old days and ways i played the game like a real boomer do.

All of these changes seem good, but I'll hold my opinion until the patch notes.

Bold move with the dual wield nerf, might be overkill since it's already getting shadow nerfed as a result of the two-handed buff, but we'll see.

10/10 cyclone nerf, exactly what it needed to take, but maybe consider pushing some of it's offensive power now that it doesn't provide stun immunity?


Well, we'll see tomorrow/tonight. :)


EDIT: I just remembered the only complaint I have with this logic.

Cluster jewel crafting was NOT too easy, we just had a LOT of currency from the Delirium explosions.

I know everyone and their mom was crafting herald jewels, and I understand the feeling that you need to make it harder, but consider the weighting on the mods carefully so that builds that are undeserving of nerfs get shot by the nerf shrapnel.

For example, crafting a best in slot physical attack wand large cluster jewel was hard. Not as hard as making the bis herald jewels and other ones like deep cuts etc. but it was still quite an investment.

There are many not so popular builds that would suffer a lot from a new league without as much loot dropping in raw currency if this change is made as a blanket one covering all mods on jewels in my honest opinion, and I really hope you do the numbers justice.

I was torn to play certain characters before they released this. Now I have no clue at all. Haha

People are cracking me up with they say "RIP CYCLONE" LOL.
Like GGG says, "melee attackers are usually more resistant to stuns" anyway.

Cyclone is still going to be hellla strong. Not to mention there are ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ways to compensate, whether it's through the tree or gear or jewels etc....There's always something you can do to make it better.

We deal with these negative nancy and debbie downer posts every patch and most of the time, the builds end up being just fine.....

"

CrawlnBrawl wrote:

Why does "balanced" have to mean unusable? this is very disappointing on all fronts

F cyclone
F DW
F HH selfcurse
F pantheon
F archmage
F VMS

Cyclone is fine. Stun immunity wasn't hardly needed. Most melee builds have way more health and physical reductions than other builds and it constantly moves, You shouldn't be getting stunned hardly at all.

This was an awesome read. Thank you. I love it every league.

Just read over again and realized I missed the crit nerf. Oh yeah, just run the playstyle into the ground to elevate your new melee/2H/Slam archetype to the forefront... not to mention removing Dual-Wielding's unique damage property. This doesn't make your new Slam shakeup work. It makes melee actually overall weaker, same as with Brands - you add more stuff simply to mask the illusion of what you're really just taking away. The meta will simply shift and realign but I think you'll be surprised how little it will change this time.

Nerfing crit multi along with dual wield is going to make dual wield do like 50-60% less damage and 2h do 30% less damage. But hey you're giving 2h 15% more damage across the board so...slams are only slightly nerfed?

Sounds like it will be a spell/minion league and all melee will be trash. Those new nodes on the tree better be white hot fire. Only the patch notes can save us now.

Sounds like Totem league again.

So you beefed up all monsters and bosses recently to account for huge power creep.

Now you are tackling power creep, massive nerfs DW, archmage, BL, others, but monsters remain at the same level.

So...... I guess you are trying to force us all to follow the next meta more than ever.