3.16 is disappointing, more powercreep for the wealthy and no toning down of OP content

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Bosscannon wrote:

You seem to read what I wrote but not understand it. Once again if you think 4500life and full res being not enough to not get burst down in split second in level 72 zone is supposed to be the correct state of the game - you simply crazy.

Devs giving defensive options to players is good. But those options become meaningless because they become mandatory because devs give monsters idiotic damage spikes. Instead of choice we get illusion of choice. I am done pretending. It does not take a great mind to just keep stacking defenses, it simply bores me.

What also bores me is the same old response to everyone who is voices their disdain for this state of things - "just get more defenses". Such "big brain" advice while completely missing the issue.

Right, thats what I thought.

Im playing according to the facts and deal with the facts as they are. If the Devs choose to introduce a deadly skill to keep us players on or toes or for whatever reason, then so be it Ill deal with it.

You are playing according to what you think should be good enough and then get mad when it isnt. You dont get to set the rules, thats what the Devs are for.

Just stacking life hasnt been enough for years. You pretty much always had have multiple defensive layers. Thats not newsworthy.
You simply could ingore that to some degree when the playpower was absurdly high and you´d dish out the 1shots. Now this power has been diminished, you find yourself on the receiving end and refuse to adapt.

Not only that, everyone else is at fault. The Devs and players trying to help as well. Good luck with that attitude.

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Orbaal wrote:

You simply could ingore that to some degree when the playpower was absurdly high and you´d dish out the 1shots. Now this power has been diminished, you find yourself on the receiving end and refuse to adapt.

In all fairness, and we've discussed this before, very few people feel incentivized to pick up more defenses than necessary to stop trash from killing you with a sneeze. I'm speaking, of course, about the content that penalizes or outright punishes you for not being strong and fast enough. Sure you can stack a bunch of defense to become nearly invincible, but that comes at the detriment of your DPS falling through the floor which means you lose access to timed content. The tankier you get, the more DPS you sacrifice. The more DPS you sacrifice, the more league content you'll have to abandon due to inability to complete them in the activity's arbitrary time gate.

The way I see it, so long as GGG continues to insist that this game needs timers, most players will see stacking defense as a foolish endeavor that ultimately takes away what they want to engage in. It's not their fault that GGG keeps enforcing this need to meet a DPS threshold, especially when said content is far more rewarding than almost anything else in the game. Simply running basic maps is going to be far less rewarding than if you added Delirium and minmaxed it with as much (timed) content that dramatically increases monster spawns such as Legion and Incursion.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be nice if the meta changed from being pure speed and DPS and more into a balanced offense/defense approach, but there's very little in the game to encourage this and instead a lot that discourages it. More will have to change besides simply nerfing damage on the players' side, and GGG just doesn't seem all that interested.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Sure you can stack a bunch of defense to become nearly invincible, but that comes at the detriment of your DPS falling through the floor which means you lose access to timed content.

This is where we disagree.
I dont have issues with timed events and can still build my character tanky enough to not die to trashmobs sneezing at me.
I would like to know what you are doing to get those results, because I just cant wrap my head around it. Stacking dps is fairly easy even after the playerpower got nerfed.

However thats besides the point. What I read in your statement is this:
The players are presented with a choice and cant have it all.

Thats a good thing. It means your choices do matter. You cant just slap some random stuff together and expect it work, which unfortunately has been the case for far too long in this game.
Players got used to it and then got mad when GGG took that away.
I understand that and I do blame GGG for allowing this for far too long. They should have acted years ago and should have nerfed accross the board like they did in 3.15


And maybe this is the core issue. I was expecting a 3.15 for years and Im assuming other players thought the previous state of the game was fine and should continue, should be the norm.
I felt the game was in a horrific state for years. It was far too easy and nothing was remotely threatening. I never had to think about consequences, because there were none. I like the current state of the game far better but thats obviously just my opinion on the matter.

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Orbaal wrote:

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

Sure you can stack a bunch of defense to become nearly invincible, but that comes at the detriment of your DPS falling through the floor which means you lose access to timed content.

This is where we disagree.
I dont have issues with timed events and can still build my character tanky enough to not die to trashmobs sneezing at me.
I would like to know what you are doing to get those results, because I just cant wrap my head around it. Stacking dps is fairly easy even after the playerpower got nerfed.

However thats besides the point. What I read in your statement is this:
The players are presented with a choice and cant have it all.

Thats a good thing. It means your choices do matter. You cant just slap some random stuff together and expect it work, which unfortunately has been the case for far too long in this game.
Players got used to it and then got mad when GGG took that away.
I understand that and I do blame GGG for allowing this for far too long. They should have acted years ago and should have nerfed accross the board like they did in 3.15


And maybe this is the core issue. I was expecting a 3.15 for years and Im assuming other players thought the previous state of the game was fine and should continue, should be the norm.
I felt the game was in a horrific state for years. It was far too easy and nothing was remotely threatening. I never had to think about consequences, because there were none. I like the current state of the game far better but thats obviously just my opinion on the matter.

The problem with 3.15 an,d 3.16 are that they did not reduce power.

They only reduced power for the not 1% and gave more power to them. The gap of power that was narrowed down during Harvest has increased again.

Yes the game needs to be reblanced damage wise, but for everyone including monsters AND the 1%. GGG needs to really reduce the power gap, yet srtill allowing top DPS builds that need mirror tier items to clean uber content.

If the power situation was moved to allow midcore players to finish some of the endgame in a reasonable time frame, both players and GGG would win out of this.

In the actual state of the game, GGG will only lose midcore and casual players.

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Azarhiel wrote:

The problem with 3.15 an,d 3.16 are that they did not reduce power.

It did reduce the average powerlevel, thats what matters here.

GGG never cared about players sinking tons of time into the game being extremely OP. There wasnt a single league in the past when this wasnt the case.
But you have to invest a ton of time to get there.

GGG wont nerf that, because it provides players with that much time on their hands with a goal and GGG also wont balance the game around these guys. They are an anomaly GGG simply doesnt care about and never did.


What they do care about is the average playerpower. If that spikes up too much due to for instance Harvest or a specific build can get there too easily, thats when the Nerfbat will hit hard.

GGG has a specific timeframe in mind how long it should take to get powerful enough for super lategame content. I cant tell you the specifics but I do know they have drawn this line in the sand and will defend this line - sometimes with drastic measures.
This is how they have been operating for years.

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Orbaal wrote:

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Azarhiel wrote:

The problem with 3.15 an,d 3.16 are that they did not reduce power.

It did reduce the average powerlevel, thats what matters here.

GGG never cared about players sinking tons of time into the game being extremely OP. There wasnt a single league in the past when this wasnt the case.
But you have to invest a ton of time to get there.

GGG wont nerf that, because it provides players with that much time on their hands with a goal and GGG also wont balance the game around these guys. They are an anomaly GGG simply doesnt care about and never did.


What they do care about is the average playerpower. If that spikes up too much due to for instance Harvest or a specific build can get there too easily, thats when the Nerfbat will hit hard.

GGG has a specific timeframe in mind how long it should take to get powerful enough for super lategame content. I cant tell you the specifics but I do know they have drawn this line in the sand and will defend this line - sometimes with drastic measures.
This is how they have been operating for years.

Problem: more work is needed to reach same results as before simply because GGG decided so.
Proposed solution: bro, just put in more work OR play tanks that offer zero variety after you invested 80% of resource into different flavors of same shit that is called defense layers.
Conclusion: game now is more boring than ever, fuck that.

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Bosscannon wrote:

Problem: more work is needed to reach same results as before simply because GGG decided so.
Proposed solution: bro, just put in more work OR play tanks that offer zero variety after you invested 80% of resource into different flavors of same shit that is called defense layers.
Conclusion: game now is more boring than ever, fuck that.

You are welcome to look at it that way and also free to play something else.
No one forces you to be here, but here you are.

So clearly you cant move on for whatever reason, you cant enjoy the game for what it is for whatever reason and the best you could come up with is endless bitching on the forums...

Its not going to help you. GGG wont give in and revert the changes.
If they did, they´d face the most intense shitstorm in the history of gaming and they know it.
Because if bitching makes them bend the knee, then guess what - it´ll be nonstop bitching over everything 24/7.


Maybe its time for guys to face reality and make a decision. Play the game for what it is or move on.

I agree with Orbaal but I don't think GGG do lol

if they cared about average player power they'd stop leaving 3 obviously OP builds for them to play, most of the time they aren't even new builds its just the same tat as last league.

If they did it properly It'd be good for the game in the long run but right now the slap dash quality of the damage changes stack up to make plenty of options feel straight bad compared to just going on cruise control with 20c of gear on a popular skill.

Glass cannon props up most of endgame building atm

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Orbaal wrote:

Maybe its time for guys to face reality and make a decision. Play the game for what it is or move on.

This 100%

Complaining about fixable issues like performance, trading, etc is understandable. But it seems some people here want the game to take on a completely different identity, with easy mode, harvest item editor and what not. Why not just play a different game at that point?

Well to be fair, many players are disappointed by GGGs sudden change of direction in 3.15 and 3.16 when they had been playing and enjoying the game for several years before hand.

Both the player retention data and the forum commentary outline the problem quite well.

Prior to 3.15 the elite players would blast through the game finding little difficulty or challenge, but they would still play each league for at least a short period and perhaps grumble that it wasn't as rewarding an experience as it could be. Casuals would also play and grind their way through the game and while there's always a level of discontent about something, they generally enjoyed the game.

Post 3.15 the elite players blast through the game finding the difficulty or challenge perhaps slightly better for themselves but otherwise they are still fine. Casuals however got left behind in the dust and have not enjoyed the experience the game now offers. For 3.15 they stayed away in droves and those that did try the league abandoned it at a rate previously rarely seen. For 3.16 the influencers were pulled into line so starting numbers were good, but the abandonment rate was astronomical.

The core problem to be solved is how to provide a challenge for the elite players while narrowing the gap for the casuals so they don't get completely destroyed. 3.14 may not have been the perfect state for the game, but for the broad player base it was a better state than what came after.

What GGG should have done instead is take all the lessons they've learned over the years and actually built a PoE 2.0. Not a patch but an entirely separate game where they could start from scratch. Why they insist on trying to put a Ferrari engine into a Model T chassis is beyond me, and then they keep trying to add all the hardcore racing bling onto the old steel body work as well. They could parallel run both versions of the game and have been able to offer something to both the elites and the casuals with such a strategy.