On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

Can you give a free lvl 90 characters to test this more easily and more widely by us. I got a lvl 9 character in Beta. It'll take me over a week to get to test these seriously, and I'm sure more people are in same boat.

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RestInPieces wrote:

Here is what Mathil, a popular streamer, says about the changes. Now I am not a fan of that softcore scrub or watch streamers, but he apparently tests over 10-15 successful builds in each league, is one of the most famous community members and he doesn't seem to be working with you according to his opinion about these changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdbVESdwE0&t=0s

<3 Mathil. He's so fair, explicitly hyping up the good things first before getting to the criticisms.

And the criticisms are just so on-point. It's clear that the GGG balance team is incredibly out-of-touch regardless of how high Chris's opinion of them is. "1000 hours" is nothing (I have more than 1600 on steam, which certainly feels like nothing compared to the _actual_ experts like Mathil), and further, "practice" done without guidance, by morons, is not actually useful. So 1000 hours of practice by an idiot could be less useful than 100 hours of practice examination by someone that knows what they're doing.

You are so full if it that your eyes are brown. Its obvious your balance team has never even played your own game.

I don't like the changes but I think you should stick with the direction you guys went, if for nothing else than to see what actually happens when all the supporting mechanics and items are finalized and the game is in the hands of the entire playerbase.

Then, if it isn't going as planned- make changes or roll some of them back. If you decide to back down now, you are essentially giving up creative control over your game and that is a bad precedent to set - never be afraid to make big changes to any system in the game, otherwise, you might become paralyzed creatively out of fear of sparking a couple of days of negative threads.

Plus, most of it is memes done in jest. And keep in mind that the forums and Reddit are probably 10% of the people that play the game, if not less.

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liquidSG wrote:

Plus, most of it is memes done in jest. And keep in mind that the forums and Reddit are probably 10% of the people that play the game, if not less.

Statistically, it's a pretty decent indication of what the player-base thinks.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Power Charges now grant 30% increased Critical Strike Chance per charge (down from 50%) and 4% more Spell Damage per charge,
and Frenzy Charges now grant 4% more damage with Attack skills (as opposed to 4% more Damage). You can see these changes in the Charges page of the Charcter Panel.

While i agree on the idea of rebalancing charges, i strongly believe that the separation between attacks and spells is the wrong direction to take!

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Chris wrote:

While processing player feedback in preparation for 3.0.0, we found four requests that we could address simultaneously with our proposed charge changes:

• Nerf total crit chance available. It was getting too close to cap, too easily.
• Nerf the Assassin. This was frequently requested.
• Provide more uses for power charges on spellcasters (especially non-crit ones).
• Make it less mandatory for general damage dealers to invest in frenzy charges.

Instead of saying what we don't want, I think it is more beneficial to define the core mechanics which we want to see represented in the individual charge types. For me personally those are:


Endurance Charges: increase "tankiness"
The current version is pretty much on the spot in my opinion. The only thing that would make an interesting addition would be something like increased stun recovery per charge.

Example:
4% reduced physical damage taken
4% increased elemental resistances
10% increased stun recovery


Frenzy Charges: Faster attacks, faster casting, faster movement - faster everything!
The MORE damage buff they received some leagues ago was welcome (more power always is ;)) but went in a slightly wrong direction in my personal opinion.
Instead i'd much rather see the "faster" part on attacks and spells be turned from an increased to a MORE multiplier, while the damage buff is turned into a small, general increased one - or even left out entirely in favour of a slightly higher speed bonus.

Example:
4% more attack and cast speed
4% increased movement speed
6% increased projectile speed
(5% increased damage)


Power Charges: More damage and crits!
Power charges were mostly useful for crits and often got outshined by frenzy charges when looking for maximum DpS - safe for Assassins ofc.
Instead i would rather see them as something like "if you want to deal big hits, look here!".

Example:
4% more damage
30% increased critical strike chance
6% increased critical strike multiplier


[TL;DR]
Instead of separating attacks and spells, I would much rather see a stronger general theme for each charge type:
Power charges --> bigger hits
Frenzy charges --> blazing speed
Endurance charges --> more survivability

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RestInPieces wrote:

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liquidSG wrote:

Plus, most of it is memes done in jest. And keep in mind that the forums and Reddit are probably 10% of the people that play the game, if not less.

Statistically, it's a pretty decent indication of what the player-base thinks.

As if GGG would balance for the so called silent majority. They clearly don't understand or care about game balance. Let them farm dried lake in peace and leave balance to the vocal and dedicated players who have sunk thousands of hours into the game.

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RestInPieces wrote:

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liquidSG wrote:

Plus, most of it is memes done in jest. And keep in mind that the forums and Reddit are probably 10% of the people that play the game, if not less.

Statistically, it's a pretty decent indication of what the player-base thinks.

Maybe, for the super active playerbase. The vast majority won't care and will just take it as it is, just like they don't care about trading or going to poe.trade, etc.

ITT: People confusing build diversity with their "diverse" standard build that is now broken.

Logic being, there is now one less build available, so it must mean less build diversity.

People seem to miss the fact that for example taking bloodlust meant an easy 12% more damage every time you had an empty socket for it. It had no competition. Which limits diversity. Now as a spellcaster you have to consider is the cast speed worth it, or would something else be better?

Destroying builds doesn't always mean there is less diversity. It could also mean that there are now several options to a case where there previously was only a single optimal solution.

Chris is basically saying: "Sorry guys, for thinking ahead.. We'll apply a bandaid to appease you guys for now, but when this comes biting you in the ass later on.. I'll say 'I told you so.' -Thants."