Some notes on balance - part 1.

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tmaciak wrote:

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nheowitzki wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

To a point yes. And that point is when one can actually.get an amazing weapon. Which is no easy feat.

I actually joked, somewhat, with someone earlier that I had found a lvl 8 wand that i could use in maps.

i thought i had the best lvl 8 wand :(

Wow, my characters have to wait 10 more levels for an upgrade...

(and BTW this sceptre have seen maps, when I found it on A2 normal or cruel just after OB start, I haven't found upgrade to late 70 lvls...)

Game seems to just give everyone a lv8 wand expect it to last till maps, I guess. Didn't upgrade that till lv76.

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mazul wrote:

Have you considered that certain people choose to play certain builds knowing very well that they are far from the most efficient builds? Personal stubborness such "I refuse to play cookie cutter this and that" or "I will try to take this as far as possible despite being far less efficient compared to other builds" can be powerful motivators.

This is just one perspective. There is a lot of theorycrafting that flies to and fro between top players on Mumble(s) that never hits the streams. Yes, undoubtedly cookie cutters are extremely efficient but we've only just begun to touch the surface of potential builds.

One example is the whole CI vs Life debate and how people choose to take one or another side. Did you know that Syrtis has almost the same amount of EHP a CI user has while retaining the sustainability of a Life user? He is a hybrid build with ES/Armour/Life with the ability to do any map affix in the game, blood magic included.


When you step away from the cookie cutter paradigm, you'll open up to a wide variety of builds which are very strong. Its just that these players discovering them aren't the first ones to run up to everyone and tell the world about it. They get very little publicity about it.

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Lyralei wrote:

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mazul wrote:

Have you considered that certain people choose to play certain builds knowing very well that they are far from the most efficient builds? Personal stubborness such "I refuse to play cookie cutter this and that" or "I will try to take this as far as possible despite being far less efficient compared to other builds" can be powerful motivators.

This is just one perspective. There is a lot of theorycrafting that flies to and fro between top players on Mumble(s) that never hits the streams. Yes, undoubtedly cookie cutters are extremely efficient but we've only just begun to touch the surface of potential builds.

One example is the whole CI vs Life debate and how people choose to take one or another side. Did you know that Syrtis has almost the same amount of EHP a CI user has while retaining the sustainability of a Life user? He is a hybrid build with ES/Armour/Life with the ability to do any map affix in the game, blood magic included.


When you step away from the cookie cutter paradigm, you'll open up to a wide variety of builds which are very strong. Its just that these players discovering them aren't the first ones to run up to everyone and tell the world about it. They get very little publicity about it.

I don't ever watch streams in this game. League of Legends, sure. RF-Shavronnes-FP is one cookie-cutter build, CI crit dagger shadow is another, Kaom-Lioneyes bow-user another.

Tha ability to do any map affix, is not impressive. A lot of builds can do that. What is of interest is how efficient it is, both defensively and offensively.

Edit:

However, the point is, far from everyone do necessarely choose to play the most efficient builds. An unknown amount of the players choose to not to.

Will Qarls posts be included to the Beta Manifesto once finished?
It is a very interesting read one can only recommend when balance feedback threads come up.

As you said, 'gear matters' and 'gear have to matters'. My main worry is that, balancing via passive tree nitpicking and pity changes only will become impossible at some point (as I've said in other thread). This is specially bad if you take uniques into consideration, with an average of 3 uniques being added a week, but also matters for rare/magic gear. I'm not sure if Qarl is going to address this, as didn't post it in the original thread, and IMO is the crux of the balancing question.

One thing to take into consideration is, that some of these successful games you mentioned, usually rebalance 'item' stats if necessary and how they interact with character skills. Something you are (understandably to a point, given the nature of 'item hunting' game), very reluctant to do when certain items or mods become too dominant and a much optimal option than competing ones.

Also is utter important how you balance these possible mod rolls (and uniques) as a player approaches the passive tree and build making considering these too, the relationship is bidirectional. The ES vs. life question is one example, as having a better efficiency in ES stacking in gear minimizes the importance of stacking ES related nodes in passive tree (and also their more convenient placement); contrary to that, poor life rolls in gear make 'path of life nodes' a continuing theme since a long time ago (stack as much as possible and waste points travelling around the tree to get these nodes you are starving for).

How armour or evasion synergize between gear and passive tree I would call a good job done; how life synergize between gear and tree I would call a bad job at balancing (as it destroys a lot of 'build diversity' and makes the game plain & boring). This is only one example; an other important would be IIR/IIQ and how it marginalizes a lot of the character building and makes certain build too dominant and others pointless when it comes to efficiency (players having the 'perception' they are wasting time by not playing IIR/IIQ items; an other nail in the coffin of melee for example). I also hope you address if you balance taking in mind different game modes or just take one into consideration, if you expect people to build one way in one character mode or if viable choices would be better.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to write the thread and incoming parts.

I like this.

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mazul wrote:

Have you considered that certain people choose to play certain builds knowing very well that they are far from the most efficient builds? Personal stubborness such "I refuse to play cookie cutter this and that" or "I will try to take this as far as possible despite being far less efficient compared to other builds" can be powerful motivators.

On Anarchy, I build armor/EB wander templar and EB evasion/EB FP shadow. And for sure those builds will not be viable for high level maps, but it still fun to cruise low level content and crit everything.

Regarding builds, one should remember, that not everybody likes every skill. On my lighting strike templar I tried almost all strength melee skills and the only one I like is LS. The others don't appeal for me. Fortunately, it is also one of most efficient ones. I can say the same about FP, Power Siphon and RoA.

And all my characters are life based, I just don't like CI and I don't care, that going CI is more effective. I just wait for life buff. And no, I'm not interested in CI nerf, I don't care if somebody is more powerful or not, till my characters are as powerful I would like them to be at least.

And none of my characters will ever use dex oriented skills, as I just don't like them. Not only in PoE (so my ranger have more str than dex).

So, regarding continuous debate about "garbage build enabling uinques" I'm not happy when I drop 10th Quill Rain or something like it, because it make me think where to put it and if I should start vendor such uniques, and will never think if I should start new character.

What I'm lacking at the moment, are new interesting skills. Tweaking with small percents on passives tree is not so important. And yes, last changes were nerfs for may characters and I don't like them.

It maybe sounds selfish, but I bet that there is a lot of players with such approach.

I think the only way to fix gear balance (i.e. OP uniques primarily) is the allow for power creep.

Even though GGG denies it I think that they already have committed themselves to this.

And why not. It has several advantages.
1) You don't want the gear you find in the first 2/3 of the (finished) game to be all that matter. Drops in the later stage of the game (Act3.5, 80+ maps etc.) SHOULD be better than the current drops.
2) You don't arbitrarily shifts around huge amount of wealth by doing a specific nerf to eg. high ES armors, Kaoms, chaos resist gear, etc.
3) It would benefit everyone as the general balance would be better and more players will enjoy the game at all stages. The only ones no wanting power creep is the no-lifers which has everything on a plate right now: Facerolling everything while having gear worth in the 100s of exalt range all due to specific items being OP.

In the meantime GGG is applying small bandaids on the passive tree to alleviate the most devastating gear balance issues untill they can release more content and better gear.

Qarl, i can't help but feel this should have been posted in the Development Manifesto section of the forum considering "Information about our future plans and development philosophies".

The only problem with that area of the forum is the inability to reply to threads situated there, meaning feedback on it would end up scattered all over the place. it would be neat if you guys manage to update the forum software so you can lock that forum section but allow replies to specific topics within that forum section.

Also, please post each Part in its own thread so that we can see what players think of each part without having to navigate a several hundred post long thread.

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sevenOfDiamonds wrote:

I think the only way to fix gear balance (i.e. OP uniques primarily) is the allow for power creep.

Power creep does not work in this genre very well, and if it was chosen as a way of 'balancing' a lot of people would abandon the ship (myself included probably), and I'm not a no-lifer. I personally also dislike MMO's which follow this formula (mostly theme-park MMO's), contrary to MMO's which try to minimize it (mostly sandbox MMO's, and PoE is more of a sandbox than a themepark). Why power creep is not good in ARPG's and this infestation of MMO manners should stop:

1) There is no linear progression, you are not rewarded by your effort 'linearly' for completing static content, with (more or less) static rewards; you hunt your gear over dozens or hundreds of hours (sometimes trade for it with other stuff you have found, craft it, etc.).

2) It discourages 'coming back' to the game and devalues previous time investment in the game (something Chris has said he dislikes), unless the 'item hunting' system would be
changed completely to make acquiring the bridging gear trivial. Again this is a very importance difference with theme-park MMO's, as you can rapidly gear up there to get up to speed with the 'end-game'. 'Coming back' is a big part of ARPG's, I have not played PoE over months periods just to come up when I had more free time or new events started. I like to log on my old characters and see they can still complete content just like before, most players exhibit this behaviour in one way or an other too and is what will make them spend money time over long periods of time in the game.

3) End-game is not the only thing that matters. This is specially true for PoE over any other existing ARPG (at least the ones I know), considering the huge amount of 'events' ran by GGG, and one of the most important features of the game being experimenting and levelling several characters (otherwise, the game would be dead already; ad they can't keep up pumping new static content to keep player interest up, btw this is a formula that is also dying in MMO's with much bigger budgets, it's not economically practical and it's also poor way to keep the target customer interest in the game). If you make it trivial to acquire the bridging gear you are also screwing early and mid gameplay experience.

Some power creep in some things may be unavoidable at some point, but I hope it's not considering as a way to balance the game systematically or try to keep interest of a certain subset of playerbase at the cost of the rest. Not to say, that it would not work well with current game design and mechanics.