Build Diversity

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exsea#1724 wrote:

ultimately i think all talk of build diversity is pointless. true diversity comes with a low difficulty ceiling. the more harder content thats introduced, players need to hyper optimize.

no no no no no no no no NO!!!

You talk of CEILINGS as being the thing that needs to be lowered for build diversity and so many other things. A ceiling is the tippy top. The HIGHEST point possible to achieve. Only a TINY portion of the overall playerbase sits there. And that HAS to be the case. Without that, we end up with a cakewalk easy piece of crap game you finish in 3 days and never come back to because there is no growth required.

Your thoughts are so misguided BECAUSE if this simple misconception in all your posts. You say the talk is pointless, only because YOU are setting impossible boundaries which completely shuts out ANY discussion of difficulty, scaling, balance, builds, or ANYTHING.
You talk as if everything and anything should be EQUALLY achievable in the game, regardless of skill, time, effort, experience, build, gear quality, etc. THAT is what a CEILING discussion represents.



It is NOT a low difficulty ceiling that is needed! It is a steady progression where the MIDDLE is reasonably "easy" to achieve. THAT is the huge problem with arguments like this! Folks keep going to the highest and the lowest, and ignoring the MASSIVE middle that 90% or even more than 90% of this game lays in.

Crashing the ceiling down on the game results in death. To fit more into the "house" that is PoE, the ceiling needs to be ever expanded UPWARD to allow for far more space underneath. That's why.....basically EVERY game does this when it comes to expanded content and design.



And OF COURSE you are going to need to hyper-optimize to reach the ceiling. That's literally WHY any sort of "ceiling" exists in games. It is the reach. It is the reason to keep playing. It is the pinnacle. It is the BEST that you can possibly make your character, in gear, build, playstyle, attention, experience, and everything. In what game EVER do you not hyper-optimize to beat the hardest content? ESPECIALLY in a loot game?

You don't use a team of freaking Pidgeys to beat the Elite 4.....

The point is that every step BELOW that ceiling requires LESS optimization, MORE diversity and ideas....but a game cannot be designed where any willy nilly idea or build can just be taken straight up to the top.

lol as i said, i know this is my SUBJECTIVE opinion. i just stating it out and not really invested enough to debate coz its just my opinion and i ll quickly agree to disagree.

its not a misconception. or anything. you prefer a game where the ceiling is high. and as you said, that you dont want players to have a cakewalk. the reality is the higher the ceiling the more you have to optimize. is that not fact? anyway have a good day.

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leonheartlly#3342 wrote:

My theory is that items for attribute-stacking builds have had values and bonuses far above what they should for a long time.

You can find items that give “+38% increased Attributes”, gems that give “+15% to Intelligence”, and rings with “+163 to Intelligence.”

Maybe the solution isn’t necessarily to nerf these items, but to buff other options so different builds can actually function.

The solution is diminishing returns. They can set the curves differently and tweak them from league to league. It would still allow for GGG to have top meta builds, but also allow non meta builds to have enough success that players could use them into the end game.

Otherwise, we'll just be headed for a day when players ask: "How do I get my 4 sextillion DPS stacker to do more damage? I don't do enough damage to take down the new UltraCheesyGlitch boss, and I need the +58,000 all stat, +400% ring he drops.

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DalaiLama#6738 wrote:

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leonheartlly#3342 wrote:

My theory is that items for attribute-stacking builds have had values and bonuses far above what they should for a long time.

You can find items that give “+38% increased Attributes”, gems that give “+15% to Intelligence”, and rings with “+163 to Intelligence.”

Maybe the solution isn’t necessarily to nerf these items, but to buff other options so different builds can actually function.

The solution is diminishing returns. They can set the curves differently and tweak them from league to league. It would still allow for GGG to have top meta builds, but also allow non meta builds to have enough success that players could use them into the end game.

Otherwise, we'll just be headed for a day when players ask: "How do I get my 4 sextillion DPS stacker to do more damage? I don't do enough damage to take down the new UltraCheesyGlitch boss, and I need the +58,000 all stat, +400% ring he drops.

Attribute stacking has diminishing returns inherently because all bonuses are additive. The difference in damage between going from 1000 to 1500 strength and between 1500 and 2000 are stark. If you really wanted to nerf stat stacking you'd simply adjust how much %attribute scaling you can stack

The big issue build diversity is ultimately that it entirely depends on the player. People who are decent at making builds and are willing to invest a bit of time can take any skill and do all content with it, t17 and ubers included.

Getting 20-50 mio dps isn't anywhere close to difficult nowadays and it's more than enough for any content in the game except maybe crazy valdos and 4 digit delve. Aiming for 100 mio + dps is mostly just squeezing out a few extra seconds during bosses and bragging rights, that level of dps is NOT needed. Not to mention that many, if not most skills, even the garbage ones, can get to that dps level as well if one really wants to.

Meanwhile the vast majority of players are simply no good at making builds and are stuck between either constant failure with their own builds or playing meta stuff. It's impossible to balance the game for both groups and there will never be any agreement between them either since neither group is willing to put themselves into the others shoes.

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Heli0nix#0378 wrote:

Now, it is clear that it may not be as fast and powerful, some core mechanics of the game definitely allow to reach incredibly high amount of damages and clearspeed, but it's not a majority, many skills are going to sucks super hard no matter how you play them, because they did not receive much love, sometime for years, and/or were initially not designed in a way matching current content of the game, etc.

My conclusion is that "the lack of build diversity" is rather a perspective issue.

Well, yeah, I guess it can be a matter of perspective, but if you step back from streamer hype and popularity contests, build diversity is in one of the best spots it has ever been. You can pick almost any skill, progress smoothly, earn enough currency to fully refine it, and experience all content without major issues. Of course, some skills could use a buff here or there, but there is nothing that is truly unplayable or downright bad. You can still reach numbers high enough to clear content and not slog through the game doing nothing. The only time you really fail is if you make a completely terrible build and end up getting farmed by Pixel all day, which means zero progress. But even that comes back to the basics: having a solid understanding of how things work. That includes simple things like defense and offense. For example, if you try to play a glass cannon but cannot actually deliver the damage output expected from one, it goes horribly wrong. It really is as simple as that.

Every skill can work well if you know the fundamentals. You can make any ability viable enough to earn big currency, clear all content, and push just as far as anyone else without falling behind in speed by a lot. Even currently unpopular abilities or builds, which some players would call off meta, can make you absurdly strong or rich. Nothing is truly stopping you from reaching the same heights as more popular builds, it is just a matter of understanding the game’s basics. In fact, many bow builds, even if they no longer appear in the top five lists, outperform most popular builds in pure mapping speed. Popularity does not define performance, and even builds that have fallen out of favor can be incredibly efficient.

Take Righteous Fire as a perfect example of why popularity does not equal power or viability. It is not a particularly strong build and has never been known for amazing performance. Its single target damage is average at best, and if you try to prioritize clear speed, it falls behind quickly because it cannot match the efficiency of projectile or non-dot damage based abilities. It is also one of those builds that peaks early with very little investment, then hits heavy diminishing returns with a very low ceiling. Even as an all rounder, many other builds outperform it in every way, faster clearing, stronger scaling, and more consistent results. Yet Righteous Fire keeps appearing near the top of popularity lists. Not because it is secretly overpowered, but because it is comfortable, easy to gear, and widely recommended to new or returning players.

At the end of the day, popularity has nothing to do with viability. Mixing the two is exactly why some players keep claiming diversity is dead when in reality it has never been healthier. Every skill can carry you, let you make serious currency, and let you tackle every corner of the game. Build diversity is alive and thriving for anyone willing to learn the fundamentals, and nothing popular or streamer approved changes that.

When I read that attribute stacking builds have to be nerfed, I realise how clueless most players are.
The reason we got to those builds dominating is because of the continued nerfs. For the last 4 years that I started playing i only see nerfs.

Auras, Armour, and Determination nerfed (lol?), then life nerfed on the tree (like roflmao), suppression numbers on gear nerfed, then damage nerfs on the tree, now suppression based nerfed. The tree is so useless nowadays that only provides attributes, so guess what builds work the best. GGG wants to remove the passive skill points from an arpg.

You guys really must change your way of thinking and start discussing about buffs.

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panikouk#7916 wrote:

When I read that attribute stacking builds have to be nerfed, I realise how clueless most players are.
The reason we got to those builds dominating is because of the continued nerfs. For the last 4 years that I started playing i only see nerfs.

Auras, Armour, and Determination nerfed (lol?), then life nerfed on the tree (like roflmao), suppression numbers on gear nerfed, then damage nerfs on the tree, now suppression based nerfed. The tree is so useless nowadays that only provides attributes, so guess what builds work the best. GGG wants to remove the passive skill points from an arpg.

You guys really must change your way of thinking and start discussing about buffs.

Player power has only gone up and the average item power level has rose significantly. You like to focus on the negative and ignore the positive, because

1) new top tier bases like night weave robe and necromantic chest have buffed overall survivability. the nerf to grace and determination was done to compensate a little for the generic buff all players receive from benefitting from better base gear

2) rage rework was a godsent for both melee and ranged attack builds. it has a lot more synergy with the passive tree now and it's easier to introduce it into builds that before couldn't really utilize them (just see wanders this league)

3) league mechanics grant significant borrowed power (Affliction, Tota, Merc, this league...)

4) keepers buffed the hell out of a ton of underutilized skills that have become viable in endgame finally

Just to name a few.

Like, I'm having fun while you sound like the opposite, but I'm supposed to change my perspective? What's up with people wanting everyone to be miserable like them, hell nah.

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

1) new top tier bases like night weave robe and necromantic chest have buffed overall survivability. the nerf to grace and determination was done to compensate a little for the generic buff all players receive from benefitting from better base gear

And this is a great point of what happens when you RAISE the ceiling, and not lower it. It ALLOWS (and almost necessitates in some cases) higher power options for everyone. This allows more players "access" to MORE content than they previously would have been able to do.

Plus we went through the massive buff on all skills, and on rolls on gear too. It has never been a BETTER time to be a below-ceiling player, BECAUSE the ceiling was raised with t17s and ubers.

That’s something I genuinely find baffling. We’ve had massive buffs to life rolls, and baseline defenses like ES, evasion, and armor are stronger than ever, while max resistances are easier to increase than ever. Yet somehow there are still players who insist that 3k life counts as “high” while running around with zero defensive layers. Then they turn around and complain about the death penalty.

At this point, building a reasonably sturdy, well-rounded character has never been easier with all the defensive buffs we’ve received, while still leaving plenty of space to throw in more than enough offensive value than actually needed.