On Balance Feedback and Charge Changes

GGG got infiltrated by D3 spies simulated 1k hours of being afk in poe ;)
Now they succeded to rule the nerfs and enrich game build divercity to dust! :D
Also great work about `optimization` infiltration..

Cheers!

But.. seriously. May be this is true?

Bumpity bump bump

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D3izhistory wrote:

Bumpity bump bump

This post just looks silly now lmao

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_Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

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D3izhistory wrote:

Bumpity bump bump

This post just looks silly now lmao

What's silly about "Our design, balance and QA team are experts at Path of Exile." ?

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Chris wrote:

There's a common misconception in the community that our balance team doesn't play Path of Exile. They actually do play it, a whole lot. We have people with level 100 hardcore characters, multiple famous community members who have come to work for us and you may not even know it. The minimum requirement to join our QA team is 1000 hours of PoE experience, and we still turn people with that prerequisite away if they're not good enough at the game. Our design, balance and QA team are experts at Path of Exile. I would not accept any less. They put substantial work into each change, planning out not only what it affects now, but what it affects in the future. These changes are all considered in the big picture of the other planned changes.

<3

Do all of your so called experts also make money streaming your free game on Youtube and help price fix the economy? Or is it just half of them?

haHAA

This thread is a great example why I usually dont participate the community.
A serously addressed topic is trolled by a minority of players who think they know all about this game because they know how to exploit some top-notch gear and game mechanics for super specialized builds. Of course, this requires some knowledge and skill but this makes these people specialists but not general experts, and the later GGG is talking about. It is for sure that a specialist always excels in his field but it also for sure that a specialist often have difficulties when it comes to consider the bigger picture. So for the sake of seriously improving a great game, please stay fair and stick to the topic. There is a rule of thumb which should be common knowledge: The more unhappy you are with something the more constructive you should be with your feedback to have a better chance having your oppinion to be considered.

Having said this, I am pretty sure that the team at GGG is smart and professional enough to know the added value of every kind of feedback.
Thank you, GGG, for keeping the communication alive.

Anyhow, back to topic: Please find my humble feedback below.

A brief orrientiation on my experience and play style: Playing 2 years now with some focus on number crunching but in a more casual way and I like to take it slow and less meta, playing usually SSF and do not trade. And, yes, I am part of the more silent part of the community.

I can confirm that it is very easy to crit-cap just by using what the passive skill tree and the ascendancy classes provide. A key factor in achieving crit-cap is using power charges (but alone they cant do the job). Even with little knowledge on game mechanic, this is very easy to figure out. On top, the assassine exels on power charges and can make so much more out them. So I am happy to see that this is currently addressed by the ballancing team.

Simplified I would conclude the current situation as follows.
Pro: Some very interesting builds (e.g., using the 100% chance of ailment on crit or other effects triggered by crits) are enabled in a very effordable way. (Please consider this when adjusting ailments.)
Con: It makes builds not using power charges feel less powerfull, particularly when comparing assassine builds with non-assassine builds.

A good solution should be able to keep the Pro alive but mitigate the Con, which is hard to achieve in this case to be honest.

While crit-cap enables new builds, it makes these builds very powerfull at the same time.
A possible solutions could be rething how ailments are applied. Maybe power charges could add less to crit chance but a chance to add ailments on hit. While this works for ailments, it probably does not work for other builds using triggers on crit generally.
Another idee could be that it becomes more difficult to keep charges at maximum. It is hard to say, if that is even an valuable option. I think that it is one of the key features of charges to keep them constantly up just like a buff. Having said this, there are lots of mechanics removing charges which could be a hook to explore the idea of removing charges as a source of buffs rahter than just as a nerve.

There are many skill gems transforming charges into buffs (like Immortal Call). My impression is that such skills are very popular for some very good reasons. Immortal Call for example trade the endurance buff of the charges for a temporal invulnarability.
Why not explore this mechanic a little bit more? There are many of these skills in the game but not all are usable for all builds possivle (e.g., attack vs caster). Again there are good reasons. For example does melee damage scale differently than caster damage does. Therefore additional effort is necessary when considering different scaling mechanics for different builds.
IMHO it has a high potional added value for the game overall to have more skill gems using charges to provide temporal buffs. For the reasons of ballancing this should come with a reductiuon of the effect charges provide themselfes. This potencial nerve could be compensated by adding or adjusting skill gems using charges of that kind. In this case charges are treated more like a resource that certain builds can create, sustain, and utilize while others can not. Additionally there could be made more use of mechanics that make profit of not having charges (i.e., by reducing the maximum to 0). This would be great counter weight to the very power full charge mechanic we currently have. In the best case, the decision of charges are used or not is based on prefered play style rather than damage and survivalbility alone.

Thank you for reading and have fun playing / developing the game.

Charges not balanced at all, endurance charges useless and weak compared to other.

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TreeOfDead wrote:

Charges not balanced at all, endurance charges useless and weak compared to other.

lol.

Nothing more to say.

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diablokiller1 wrote:

Nerfs are a good thing.

All previous OP builds must be nerfed. ES was OP. Kill it, make people play Life.
Assasin was op -> kill it

Correct,

And i am not being sarcastic.