3.20 Balance Manifesto: Monster Mods and Archnemesis

"

rubyloc wrote:

This is promising and makes one feel, albeit hesitantly, at least cautiously optimistic for an entertaining league ahead finally, instantly improving access to content for more builds -- granted, of course, that

- the stat bonuses conferred to rare monsters by their mods have been thoroughly reviewed, tested, and made reasonable -- especially in the context of characters that have not yet been min-maxed through several working weeks worth of hours of play. Presumably gone should be the days of hundreds/thousands of percent of health and damage stacking multiplicatively times number of mods, just to the extent that Shaper tier monsters now stay in boss rooms to be summoned on demand, not in my delve corridors, and

- that encounters that had to have their rare mob spawns nerfed due to the utter pox that was Archnemesis have been tested and changed back to be more in line with how they used to be, and

- that the other game systems that the out-of-control monster scaling of Archnemesis necessitated tying to the wall and flogging bloody have seen improvements/reimbursement over this dev cycle, like an unlimiting of Headhunter's buff stealing potential, the re-buff of things like essence modifier stat increases and Einhair beast mods, and perhaps a return to pack-based magic monster mods (you could consider it, like, monsters spawning together being part of a "gene line" or something).

Perhaps Legion and Harvest can be allowed to reclaim their identities as challenging rare-mob-centric content, leaving Abysses and Incursions doable without constant hole-puckering. Wake me up every once in a while, fair enough! Just maybe don't wake me up every 15 seconds over the course of a 10 hour gaming session anymore. Let me grind my way to incremental increases in character power as I listen to my damn trance mix and just chill thru the night.

Over the last two cycles there were so many casualties of the Bad Decision of 2022 being haphazardly tacked onto game systems balanced around the older mod system that I would just reiterate my hope that a serious amount of effort has gone into changing those systems back after the last six months of patchwork spot-nerfing.

With this news, hopefully some of those for whom the game has sat negatively reviewed and uninstalled since the Great Fun Nuke and its pervasive fallout shall follow with interest and try out the new league. Maybe even run with a build you haven't already felt forced to play for two straight leagues to deal with horror show rare mobs literally everywhere! Merry Christmas indeed. Now just for spell-based mana leech and physical immunity Immortal Call to make their returns and we're cooking both with gas and a viable Soul of Arakaali, respectively.

Hopefully the monkey paw does not curl on this one, the failure to mention what the stacking power of rare mod stat increases will look like going forward is not yet another deceptive omission ("oh yeah to compensate for the removal of bonuses granted by Archnemesis mods we bUfFeD mOb hEaLtH & dAmAgE bY 500 pErCeNt"), and we can just have the damn fun grind back. Good stuff. Maybe.