This patch is frankly unacceptable.

IMPORTANT: I don't care at all about having to respec. This isn't about being inconvenienced. It's about the direction they are taking the game.

This most recent patch to effectively remove trigger gems from the game is not what POE is about. POE is supposed to be a game about making cool builds that exploit the mechanics in cool ways. POE is not a game about 50 different ways to "self cast skill to deal big hit".

It's bad enough that this was done without a free respec. It's bad enough that what is being nerfed wasn't even really overpowered but what's really messed up about this change is what it signals about the philosophy of those making the game. The direction that this signals the game moving in is frankly a punch in the gut. If I look back at POE builds I enjoyed they're all wacky wild things: Corrupting blood Wander Slayer, Impending Doom Poison, BAMA, Storm Brand. I don't enjoy just swinging a sword to hit for a big number.

This can't be the direction that GGG is trying to move the game in. I get wanting to appeal to the masses but to dumb everything down and leave only boring mechanics with no real build diversity where builds are more of a skin on top of "I selfcast to hit big" instead of the truly beautiful metagame that was POE.

If this is the direction the game is going to go in I don't know if I will keep playing.

Brother, they even gutted my normal boring lightning invoker monk build with tempest flurry and charged staff. I generated power charges by using combat frenzy but now that white mobs can't be electrocuted nor frozen, my build is absolutely ruined. My weak piss poor build got drive-by'd because of the cast on crit madness that the nerf was intended for. I spent like 50h getting to lvl 80 and now I can't even play the god damn game

“It’s EA, they’re going to make changes”

That’s fine, but they’re selling the game to the public. Everyone calls their games “EA” now, doesn’t mean a thing honestly. Are you trading MONEY for access to your Game? You’re selling a game, the “it’s EA” mantra you repeat to yourself before you fall asleep at night means squat compared to that.

Now, on to the solution, all they have to do is a find a way to occasionally give respecs to characters that were bricked by nerfs - during EA only (as they won’t do big sweeping nerfs like this post launch… right… RIGHT???).

Honestly that leads into the second issue, trust. The way they’ve handled balance changes just a few days into EA leaves a lot to be desired, I’m not sure I’d sink my time into a game until they can convince me they won’t continue behaving this way.

Yea I'm not sure what GGG is trying to accomplish by doing all these nerfs, My Minions are almost dead, Lowered the ignites,res, and ES, Murdered COC and COF builds, so not sure what they want us to play, most builds are dead or not able to get into maps..Games getting kinda boring when you cant do dmg or survive to be honest..

"

Celz#1763 wrote:

Brother, they even gutted my normal boring lightning invoker monk build with tempest flurry and charged staff. I generated power charges by using combat frenzy but now that white mobs can't be electrocuted nor frozen, my build is absolutely ruined. My weak piss poor build got drive-by'd because of the cast on crit madness that the nerf was intended for. I spent like 50h getting to lvl 80 and now I can't even play the god damn game

While my initial reaction was "it's early access" [but thinking "beta testing"] and I think GGG warned us that they would nuke skills from orbit if they seemed to overperform so it should be expected that builds would be bricked.

After more consideration it would probably be good to have a temporary [permanent?] reduction of the costs to respect by one or two orders of magnitude.

This way people can play with other skills and experiment more which to me is part of the point of this exercise.

YMMV

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pattw555#0071 wrote:

“It’s EA, they’re going to make changes”

That’s fine, but they’re selling the game to the public. Everyone calls their games “EA” now, doesn’t mean a thing honestly. Are you trading MONEY for access to your Game? You’re selling a game, the “it’s EA” mantra you repeat to yourself before you fall asleep at night means squat compared to that.

Now, on to the solution, all they have to do is a find a way to occasionally give respecs to characters that were bricked by nerfs - during EA only (as they won’t do big sweeping nerfs like this post launch… right… RIGHT???).

Honestly that leads into the second issue, trust. The way they’ve handled balance changes just a few days into EA leaves a lot to be desired, I’m not sure I’d sink my time into a game until they can convince me they won’t continue behaving this way.

Thats not how it works. EA is not what you want it to be. Even full wipes are not out of question. Changes will happen and will happen often. Thats the entire point of EA in the first place. Its not for you to play the game, its for you to test it and dev to fix it.

"

Celz#1763 wrote:

Brother, they even gutted my normal boring lightning invoker monk build with tempest flurry and charged staff. I generated power charges by using combat frenzy but now that white mobs can't be electrocuted nor frozen, my build is absolutely ruined. My weak piss poor build got drive-by'd because of the cast on crit madness that the nerf was intended for. I spent like 50h getting to lvl 80 and now I can't even play the god damn game

I was doing an Invoker with Cast on Shock with Ball Lightning triggering Lightning Conduit. I Invested everything into proccing shock and energy generation. It was a build entirely of my own design and It made me so happy that it was working. It wasn't OP, it was just functional and strong enough to play the game and have fun. Skills like Lightning Conduit aren't even viable to selfcast. The Ailment Thresholds were already super overtuned and I had to invest massively just to reliably shock.

It's just not okay to move the game in this direction. They're going to turn it into D4 with extra steps.

"

kuciol#0426 wrote:

Thats not how it works. EA is not what you want it to be. Even full wipes are not out of question. Changes will happen and will happen often. Thats the entire point of EA in the first place. Its not for you to play the game, its for you to test it and dev to fix it.

I don't care in the slightest about the inconvenience or having to respec. My issue is the direction this moves the game in of eliminating every build with interesting mechanics other than "I selfcast this skill for big hit damage". They already made poison boring by removing the infinite stacking. Hexblast doesn't scale with curse number. Now trigger gems are functionally useless. It really just seems like every build is meant to just hit enemies with a self-cast ability which deals the most damage per hit possible. It's literally just "stack number going up". It's a rejection of the entire thing that made POE1 amazing.

My issue is that I have no idea what to respec into because when I look around at what other people are playing everything is just self casting some skill for hit damage. Maybe they combo 2 skills for hit damage. It's just boring.

I'm probably a little too down in the dumps to come up with another build right now and I will look at rolling a new character tomorrow because
A: I don't want to just delete the entire build I came up with when I honestly don't believe this patch can stand and maintain the integrity of the game
B: I don't see any other avenues of creating something else interesting on this class considering I just finished spending all the currency I had on gear for this build

That fact that overpowered skills that automate gameplay get nerfed during what is essentially a beta is not only natural, but expected. We knew this coming in. And this is doubly true of exploit level performing skills. Offering some respect points is a nice idea, but to whom? Everyone? My feeling is that if you make a build which employs one of these one and done builds, expect to see if balanced out and if so, move on.

Certainly no need to whine and moan here about how the latest balance change ruined your life and GGG are monsters. Seriously, this is a game built for gamers by gamers which has been free since its inception and will be again in a matter of months. A game with more depth and variety than just about any other in its genre. A game which has never, not one single time, offered pay to win microtransactions. I played POE-1 for months without spending a penny, finally buying sets and packs because - frankly - GGG deserves support.

I guess I will never understand that level of entitlement, must be a generational thing.

"

inethil#2258 wrote:

That fact that overpowered skills that automate gameplay get nerfed during what is essentially a beta is not only natural, but expected. We knew this coming in. And this is doubly true of exploit level performing skills. Offering some respect points is a nice idea, but to whom? Everyone? My feeling is that if you make a build which employs one of these one and done builds, expect to see if balanced out and if so, move on.

Certainly no need to whine and moan here about how the latest balance change ruined your life and GGG are monsters. Seriously, this is a game built for gamers by gamers which has been free since its inception and will be again in a matter of months. A game with more depth and variety than just about any other in its genre. A game which has never, not one single time, offered pay to win microtransactions. I played POE-1 for months without spending a penny, finally buying sets and packs because - frankly - GGG deserves support.

I guess I will never understand that level of entitlement, must be a generational thing.

You have literally zero idea what you are talking about and bringing up fox news level talking points to try and refute any criticism.