Failed game balance if Melee nerfed again next league, Build diverse and bad game design

"

Echothesis wrote:

:) Yes sir, sorry sir, I humbly stand corrected, let it be 2 screens, not 3. In case it needs to be said, I couldn't care less what exact range is in meters, as long as it is way beyond standard AI detection range. Original point remains.

Thats not even my point.

You're original claim seems to think that just because something can fire offscreen its somehow better.

Which isnt true.


Again, I suggest learning a bit more about the game before commenting on archetypes you seem to not have any clue about.

As well as understanding there are more mechanics and benefits to an archetype; other than just how far it can clear.

This is basic game knowledge you need to acquire.

"

Pashid wrote:

Honestly you can expect some melee adjustments ahead with the next league as they did went a bit over board with some of the changes.
Is it going to kill melee? prob not as the archetype was also already fine to play prior the change.

They'll prob tone down the benefits of endu charges some and also nerf autoexertion in some way.

Curious what you think specifically they got wrong?

For me it feels about right, most of the overperformers on HC are because of the rune enchants or extra cheese rather than melee specifically.

I think banners need looking at again, I haven't looked to see what anyone else is doing but I really cannot justify spending passives on such an inconsistent buff with so many rules attached to it. Banners would have to provide a colossal buff to be worthwhile.

The damage one is obviously fine for the investment of 1 jewel socket.

Warcries are back, but I think the duration needs buffing on a couple of the actually buff related ones to stop it being reductive gameplay.

Andddd the swing time bug still exists, its better than it was but its still significantly worse to play a default swing skill vs a heavy strike/boneshatter type swing skill - this still my #1 fix required.

I can't think of anything i'd actually straight nerf

"

Echothesis wrote:

Do you know many other games where projectiles can do damage 3 screens away from you, and fire in up to 360 degrees angle, and have enough power to delete all non-boss enemies, all at the same time?

Yes. If we're talking arpg's, D3 and D4 are good examples. You can do it in Wolcen and to some degree even in Last Epoch. If we're talking different genres where being ranged allows you to ambush enemies before they can react, in no particular order: Core Keeper, Terraria, V Rising, Baldurs Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Warframe, Afterimage, Hollow Knight, Dark Souls 1 - 3, Bravery and Greed, Children of Morta, Hades 1 & 2, God of War, Valkyrie Elysium.. just to name a few that I actually played.

"

Echothesis wrote:

My point was, as long as this is present in the game, no kind of melee can ever compete in clearspeed, which (considering poe droprates) has the most influence on player income.

Melee is very competitive (fun fact, always has been - it just wasn't popular or higher investment) and in some cases even faster than ranged builds on a similar or equal budget.

"

Echothesis wrote:

Poe is all about clearspeed of trash and rare mobs, measured in screens per second and maps per hour.

Not necessarily. Actually far from it. Blowing up massive amounts of monster is the main appeal, I agree on that, but as far as currency goes there are about a couple hundred ways and more to be competitive.

"

Echothesis wrote:

As for what skills are popular this or that league, it bears no meaning related to the topic in question, as this data comes from smaller core of most active players, which stay here for years, and their choice of build is strongly influenced by the latest changes.

Ah, yes. Let's dismiss actual data and facts then to support your narrative, hmm?

What you dismiss as "bears no meaning" is exactly what seperated this game from its competitors and established a new golden standard. The game undergoes a soft reset and meta shakeup every couple months - and sorry to burst your bubble, but those who play leagues and contribute to said data aren't what you call the "smaller core of most active players". They are the majority. Poe.ninja doesn't lie.

"

Echothesis wrote:

People play whatever gets buffed this league to try and squeeze some new experience from same old game, they don't need peak clearspeed possible if they know all farming/trading gimmicks already.

Again, your point is? The main selling point of this game is having new toys and gimmicks to interact with after every soft reset. Of course people are more inclined to play and tinker with the new, buffed or reworked stuff.

But I get it, you are stuck in Standard - ever so stagnant and narrow minded. You wouldn't understand.

"

Draegnarrr wrote:

Curious what you think specifically they got wrong?

They've turned endu charges into Jugg lite charges and the current 4% per charge does feel quite overpowered at the moment. They'll probably rework charges once again next league or cut down the the numbers by 1 or 2%.

They probably nerf the Autoexertion gem next league or increase the base CD of warcry abilities as you don't really even have to invest much or at all into it to gain crazy uptime on 24/7 auto extered attacks. Doesn't play like a typical GGG intended change tbh. Everyone who's around for longer knows how much GGG likes their friction and the current state of warcries and auto exerted attacks simply doesn't really part well with their expectations.
It's debatable if it's good or bad but I can see the two things being part of the next league patch in some way.

Yeah End charges are definitely dubious you are right, but its kinda nice they are better too? I don't know though, i'd rather they kept endurance charges where they were and just shaved 10% off all the games spell damage tbh and just called it a day lol.

It was a big chunk of power to give to some other parts that probably didn't need them.

Autoexert is definitely comfortable feeling but I think that is primarily because GGG set us up with a variety of warcrys where we don't care about the buff - they could tweak this but i don't really think they should.

I have played 100% melee this league aside from a void sphere character i've had in PoB for 4 leagues and its been great I really don't want to go backwards.

There are only a few basic concepts for Melee Vs Ranged.

) Melee does more damage.
) Melee has more survival.
) Melee has more mobility.
) Melee has more CC potential.

The difference can be any of these or multiple but PoE has none.

Don't even get me started on Melee Reach. You pretty much have to hump an enemy's leg to deal damage. That would probably be ok in a game that doesn't have 50 mobs on the screen.

SS is in every way better than Max Res thanks to the addition of Exposure.
You might say oh but Degens. Too bad right side gets Lethe Shade.

Far as Endurance Charges. I'd say they help fix this difference.
They just need to kill Smashing Strike anoint and isolate them more.

1) Endurance Charges are fine. Ralakesh boots + Badge/Slayer are not. remove them and suddenly Endu Charges are suddenly 'just' something you have to invest into that happens to work. but while 'all charges all the time' + 'get double/tripple max charges per investment' is in the game it gets silly.

you need ~13 endu charges to match what spell suppression does. let that sink in before anyone claims that endu charges are a problem. suppression is a f.. huge problem. and the fact you can get BOTH, without actually speccing a single endu charge on a tree. Badge and Ralakesh - these two are warping the game around itself.

2) melee.. is not fine.
- all the actual buffs (not moving %damages around) are more or less tied to one mechanic: warcries. banners without warcry mastery DO NOT WORK. rage without warcries work, but Berserk - barely. that 'warcry pump' is massive power multiplier that is pretty much mandatory.

Overexertion support is just.. dumb? it is needed and it makes slams 'en par' with competition but tying ALL damage to one mechanic is just bad.

- skills with limited warcry compatibility (hello Cleave and its kin) either invest into warcries just for the 'pump' (and get banners and more sustainable rage) or just suck.

- they suck because the actual RAW melee buffs were not that great (all that attack speed + totems gave A LOT of power) and if you cannot utilize the power spike of warcries/banners/rage, you are in 3.23 still

3) poe.ninja stats show that 'melee' is fine, actual melee isnt
- lightning strike. great base numbers, hits TWICE (the lousiest 'trick' imaginable), great vaal skill, compatible with dumbest mechanic (return proj), doubles damage with Nimis
- molten strike. great base numbers, Zenith, compatible with dumbest mechanic (return proj), doubles damage with Nimis
- (lesser known) steel skills that happen to work VERY efficient with return projs due to obscure and unintuitive mechanics
- bleed. hit once, run in circles. it is melee and stuff but should all melee builds play bleed now?

then there are slams - very strong because GGG actually did the entire rework around them

4) scaling. bleeds need phys weapon, but any other sub-type is universally better with 'stacking'. Ephemeral Edge, energy blade, XXXstacking - all can reach damage numbers no phys weapon could ever reach. and phys damage is only good for bleed or conversion - impale is strong but it just isnt enough. phys multiplier is 'taken as' - these add together with shock and other sources, this is weaker than 'more multipliers' elemental damage gets

5) there is still not a single content that actually favours melee above anything else. boss design is - despite all the marketing stuff - terrible and anti-melee AF.

6) defences - spell suppression (and game being balanced around it) is a HUGE problem. it is too easy to get, too strong and works vs things that actually kill you (spell damage and spell caused dots). i understand the intent - evasion + SS. but 50% is just too much

"

sidtherat wrote:

1) Endurance Charges are fine. Ralakesh boots + Badge/Slayer are not. remove them and suddenly Endu Charges are suddenly 'just' something you have to invest into that happens to work. but while 'all charges all the time' + 'get double/tripple max charges per investment' is in the game it gets silly.

Even without the boots it's not hard to maintain max charges at all times or at least the charges you care about 24/7, unless you throw in some maps with "steals charges on hits" mod only to go all surprised pikachu face about having struggles to maintain charges

"

2) melee.. is not fine.
- all the actual buffs (not moving %damages around) are more or less tied to one mechanic: warcries. banners without warcry mastery DO NOT WORK. rage without warcries work, but Berserk - barely. that 'warcry pump' is massive power multiplier that is pretty much mandatory.

Have you even played the game since the patch or during any of the last few league or something more recent lately? Melee was already pretty solid before the skill buffs and quality rework and is just more smooth now as you have to invest less to make builds feel nice.

"

3) poe.ninja stats show that 'melee' is fine, actual melee isnt
- lightning strike. great base numbers, hits TWICE (the lousiest 'trick' imaginable), great vaal skill, compatible with dumbest mechanic (return proj), doubles damage with Nimis
- molten strike. great base numbers, Zenith, compatible with dumbest mechanic (return proj), doubles damage with Nimis
- (lesser known) steel skills that happen to work VERY efficient with return projs due to obscure and unintuitive mechanics
- bleed. hit once, run in circles. it is melee and stuff but should all melee builds play bleed now?

poeninja is not a solid way to determine of what's fine and viable and whats not. It just shows the sheer amount of the current most popular builds and what people copy paste from their fav streamer builds and not whats all possible.
You can pretty much slap on any skill of your desire, make a shoelace budget build out of it and slap all of the existing content. slap a little bit investment on and laugh at all the uber fights.

"

5) there is still not a single content that actually favours melee above anything else. boss design is - despite all the marketing stuff - terrible and anti-melee AF.

There's also not really content that favors other archetypes more over others, it all comes down to what you as a player want to play and get good with. Melee is "too hard" for you, well there are two options just play something else with easier gameplay or get good if you want to enjoy melee.

"

6) defences - spell suppression (and game being balanced around it) is a HUGE problem. it is too easy to get, too strong and works vs things that actually kill you (spell damage and spell caused dots). i understand the intent - evasion + SS. but 50% is just too much

spell suppression was never really a big issue for this game. It's a good defensive layer yes but you can skip it entirely while playing on the left side and still be fine. And you're even more fine now with the big buffs to other defensive players.

It feels like you try to come up with silly excused to make melee look bad simply because you struggle to play melee properly. Often if not most of the time lack of skill or practice is not a indicator that a game design is bad

it is not hard.. maybe. but it isnt cheap. you also conveniently ommited the 'Badge issue' - where getting +max charge gives you 2 (or 3 if slayer). this is what makes the setup broken. boots or amulet alone are still very powerful but combined these are just dumb.

melee wasnt solid. replica alberon with any skill of choice was solid. melee - wasnt.

you act as if majority of players are idiots that missed the good thing (old melee). that people play weak things just because they are popular. yeah.. people with 400+ divs in character are following the herd, yeah right

melee wasnt solid, and as a general concept STILL isnt. Ephemeral Edge Lightning Strike is not melee. show me Cleave build doing what you claim - doing ALL ubers on a reasonable budget (doing == in one portal most of the time).

"

You can pretty much slap on any skill of your desire, make a shoelace budget build out of it and slap all of the existing content. slap a little bit investment on and laugh at all the uber fights.

and stop with the insults and innuendos - it got old long time ago.

"

Ulsarek wrote:

But I get it, you are stuck in Standard - ever so stagnant and narrow minded. You wouldn't understand.

Very civilized. If you are so sure you know the most about the game, why not try this crown argument of yours on other people in this discussion? They definitely play more than me, yet also seem to be saying the opposite of what you say about archetype balance.