Crucible: Helpful Test for Build Variety or Menace?

[thepowerofmediocrity]

Due to the stream of whining and outright vitriol toward the Gladiator Farmer thread creator in the past couple of days, I decided to make this a separate thread and have people slug it out here. Crucible is going to be updated with the next version update, and if we’re going to be ranting and grunting about it, might as well be quarantined in this thread so it doesn’t contaminate every build thread that springs forth once it hits.

Update v.1.0.4.0 is out! Test your builds against the new Crucible and vote if you like the way the devs treated it. Poll Results before the update 1.0.4.0:

First Option: 8
Second Option: 3
Third Option: 3
Fourth Option: 5
Fifth Option: 7
Sixth Option: 27

Made a poll, pick answer that suits you, explain your thought process in your post, provide things that devs can actually take action on instead of assuming that if you just insult them enough times, they’ll do exactly the thing you wanted, but were too busy insulting them to actually list the thing you wanted in the first place.

[Tycho]

Where is the poll Eggman there it is, that’s weird, I didn’t realize the thread posts before the poll

I kind of like Cruc for build testing, because even if you eat shit on a double Maiden wave or something similar you still get a decent idea of your build’s capabilities, but I also kind of don’t like it because for optional content it’s so much objectively better for farming important gear than most places in Campaign. I don’t understand why people are flinging poo at each other over it though.

[Zantai]

provide things that devs can actually take action on instead of assuming that if you just insult them enough times, they’ll do exactly the thing you wanted, but were too busy insulting them to actually list the thing you wanted in the first place.

This part made me lol.

Throwing insults at us regularly is a great way to have your threads ignored.

[Stupid_Dragon]

Due to the stream of whining and outright vitriol toward the Gladiator Farmer thread creator in the past couple of days

I didn’t really participate in the above, but maybe some of the Gladiator farmers should tone it down with their claims that builds worse than X are not worth posting and that “rubbish” builds make their eyes bleed?

[Chthon]

I didn’t really participate in the above, but maybe some of the Gladiator farmers should tone it down with their claims that builds worse than X are not worth posting and that “rubbish” builds make their eyes bleed?

This is the problem we were discussing thepowerofmediocrity (we need a nickname for you, I can’t type that name every time :p). Glad crucible builds were getting posted even before AoM but suddenly in AoM anything not doing Gladiator is looked down upon. This is the attitude that’s problematic.

I voted for the last option since even before crucible was out, “kill times” were the thing that were used to measure a build’s performance. So it is true that people always do have something to bitch about but the crucible seems to have made it much worse.

This part made me lol.

Throwing insults at us regularly is a great way to have your threads ignored.

The only thing you can do in this situation is improve campaign drop rates from challenge dungeons and locked rooms (fields of despair, chamber of souls or flames of valbury) so that people who don’t want to do the crucible for loot still have an alternative. I am fine with crucible being the better loot source but MC’s drop rates could use a buff.
Besides that I don’t think much can be done from the developers part on this matter.

[MortalKombat]

Glad crucible builds were getting posted even before AoM but suddenly in AoM anything not doing Gladiator is looked down upon. This is the attitude that’s problematic.

It’s because current Crucible doesnt include enemies from AoM content (and those are much harder in general and enemies from classic content).
Crate will release Crucible update soon, with AoM content added to it.
And if build feels weak in current Gladiator Crucible, imagine how it will feel in updated Crucible, against Gravatul’s, Kupacabras and tons of other damn strong AoM enemies that come at them at larges numbers?
I am 95% sure, that when Crucible with AoM content will be released, the number of builds that can farm Gladiator efficiently, will shrink substantially.

About loot - yes, Crucible drops lots of legendaries and MI’s. But sadly, it drops very little amounts of crafting components/materials (or doesnt drop some at all). So i still have to farm campain for those, on regular basis.

[Ptirodaktill]

I didn’t really participate in the above, but maybe some of the Gladiator farmers should tone it down with their claims that builds worse than X are not worth posting and that “rubbish” builds make their eyes bleed?

That statement was made in Gladiator crusible best farming build tread. I dont know why ppl get so upset about it and i dont find it offencive in any way. There is a formalized condition for a strong build in this tread - to reliably farm crusible. Ofc builds that cannot do it just dont belong to that tread. Dont like that attitude? Dont read dedicated tread, its simple, lol.

[Ptirodaktill]

This is the problem we were discussing thepowerofmediocrity (we need a nickname for you, I can’t type that name every time ). Glad crucible builds were getting posted even before AoM but suddenly in AoM anything not doing Gladiator is looked down upon. This is the attitude that’s problematic.

Why? I dont see any reason to look down on fun builds. Or not post a fun build that cannot farm Crusible.

[actuanpanda]

That statement was made in Gladiator crusible best farming build tread. I dont know why ppl get so upset about it and i dont find it offencive in any way. There is a formalized condition for a strong build in this tread - to reliably farm crusible. Ofc builds that cannot do it just dont belong to that tread. Dont like that attitude? Dont read dedicated tread, its simple, lol.

That comment was a reply to mine, I didn’t agree with his tone but I couldn’t care less, and I don’t get why some other guys were so dramatic either.
For this poll, people will always find the current hardest challenge to be the build benchmark, be it Crucible or MQ or Fabius, it’s always been like that.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

I didn’t really participate in the above, but maybe some of the Gladiator farmers should tone it down with their claims that builds worse than X are not worth posting and that “rubbish” builds make their eyes bleed?

The whole mess started when Zhuugus mentioned in his Battlemage thread that builds who farm Gladiator reliably won’t be able to facetank Mad Queen’s aura and that gave license to other posters to snark, “oh, he’s the ‘MUH CRUCIBEL!!!1!1!1!11’ guy,” and then the mess spilled over to the Gladiator farmer thread and disregarding the massive amount of work he’s doing to make his compilation in the first place, so I could understand if he was a bit heated when he posted that.

This is the problem we were discussing thepowerofmediocrity (we need a nickname for you, I can’t type that name every time :p). Glad crucible builds were getting posted even before AoM but suddenly in AoM anything not doing Gladiator is looked down upon. This is the attitude that’s problematic.

I voted for the last option since even before crucible was out, “kill times” were the thing that were used to measure a build’s performance. So it is true that people always do have something to bitch about but the crucible seems to have made it much worse.

I took my name from those DeMotivational posters so I don’t know what nickname you can give me, TPoM works fine.

Outside of a few posts, I haven’t seen a real presence of people talking down to build creators because their builds aren’t Gladiator-worthy. If your anecdotes about people hesitating to post their builds because they’re not the 1000% top tier builds are true, then I truly feel for them and wish we could do something to get rid of their atmosphere. If a build has a real unique concept and does well enough in campaign, they should not worry at all about posting it.

How is Crate going to buff specific items that people rely on them are just that close to making a really good build if people don’t post their builds with the caveat, “hey, my build could be really, really good, but it’s simply too weak / squishy / too much adrenaline from almost dying so much to go the extra step,” how will the devs know what items to buff?

You can’t on one hand blast Crucible for killing build viability and then on the other hand refuse to list the builds that would be viable if it weren’t for Crucible. Hard content forces people to take their build concept and optimize it to the best the game’s items allow that, and I’d rather have a higher ceiling where Crate can get a good handle of what is underperforming than to have a mass of people complaining how easy it is to faceroll everything and the difference between a good build and a ‘terrible’ build is a 25s dummy time vs 1 min dummy time.

[Norzan]

A dev correct me if i’m wrong, but i recall someone saying that Crucible wasn’t gonna affect vanilla balancing and this became a bunch of bollocks.

Sword and Board Physical Commando/Witchblade was nerfed because of the Crucible. I’m sorry, but i can’t see it any other way because this build was actually not that strong in vanilla, with killing times much lower than a lot of builds. There’s probably other builds that were nerfed solely because of Crucible performance.

And i think this is the main reason why i despise the Crucible so much: it actually started to affect vanilla. Side content that has NOTHING to do with the main campaign, not linked with it in any way, started to affect vanilla.

[MortalKombat]

Sword and Board Physical Commando/Witchblade was nerfed because of the Crucible. I’m sorry, but i can’t see it any other way because this build was actually not that strong in vanilla, with killing times much lower than a lot of builds. There’s probably other builds that were nerfed solely because of Crucible performance.

It was nerfed because it was OP. Yes, campain content at that time was ridiculously easy (and BTW, many players complained about that), so you didnt “felt” his tankiness unless there happened some dire encounters - like Crucible or Iron Maiden, at least.
And even after nerf, he remained to be one of the strongest builds.

A game without hard endgame content has no good future. Players will get bored to quickly and abandon it, with bad feedback. Before AoM and Crucible, Grim Dawn was exactly that sort of game! Gladly, Crate understands the necessity of hard endgame content for game’s future. That’s why they made AoM really hard, and for that, i’m grateful.

[Chthon]

I took my name from those DeMotivational posters so I don’t know what nickname you can give me, TPoM works fine.

That’s the one I had in mind

If a build has a real unique concept and does well enough in campaign, they should not worry at all about posting it.

This times a 100

How is Crate going to buff specific items that people rely on them are just that close to making a really good build if people don’t post their builds with the caveat, “hey, my build could be really, really good, but it’s simply too weak / squishy / too much adrenaline from almost dying so much to go the extra step,” how will the devs know what items to buff?

I am not sure what part of my post warranted this reply but to your post I can say that in the Krieg Nerf Thread I did say that if threads related to item sets pop up then the best thing to do imo is to contribute whatever knowledge one possess to achieve the best possible balancing

You can’t on one hand blast Crucible for killing build viability and then on the other hand refuse to list the builds that would be viable if it weren’t for Crucible. Hard content forces people to take their build concept and optimize it to the best the game’s items allow that, and I’d rather have a higher ceiling where Crate can get a good handle of what is underperforming than to have a mass of people complaining how easy it is to faceroll everything and the difference between a good build and a ‘terrible’ build is a 25s dummy time vs 1 min dummy time.

This is completely true except both Crucible and Vanilla have different end game “build types”. I think Bleed Trickster, DW Cold Breaker are solid in MC but they do suffer a little in crucible, these are just two examples I can think off right now. They’re not even exotic examples, they’re literally solid MC builds but they’re not suited for crucible unless we change a bunch of the core concept
Not everyone is interested in testing crucible performance of builds as not everyone enjoys it. The forums and particularly the builds section was fine with this attitude in vanilla, I am not sure what went wrong but these days it seems everything needs to solo crucible gladiator in 20-30 minutes.

Why? I dont see any reason to look down on fun builds. Or not post a fun build that cannot farm Crusible.

This is what I am saying, it’s perfectly fine to post such builds.

…

I can understand most reasons for hating on the crucible but this is a little weird one, I am not sure why balancing shouldn’t factor in crucible. It might be side content but it is in many ways the end game as well. So balancing stuff around it is fine imo

[Norzan]

It was nerfed because it was OP. Yes, campain content at that time was ridiculously easy (and BTW, many players complained about that), so you didnt “felt” his tankiness unless there happened some dire encounters - like Crucible or Iron Maiden, at least.
And even after nerf, he remained to be one of the strongest builds.

A game without hard endgame content has no good future. Players will get bored to quickly and abandon it, with bad feedback. Before AoM and Crucible, Grim Dawn was exactly that sort of game! Gladly, Crate understands the necessity of hard endgame content for game’s future. That’s why they made AoM really hard, and for that, i’m grateful.

In vanilla it wasn’t really OP. There were several builds that had much higher killing times and because vanilla is more lenient with defense, that build tankyness wasn’t really all that necessary.

But because enemies in Crucible have much less health compared to vanilla and a lot of tankyness is required, that caused it to be nerfed. Which is why the “Crucible will not affect vanilla” is a lie because Physical S&B Commando/Witchblade was not that strong in vanilla.

I can understand most reasons for hating on the crucible but this is a little weird one, I am not sure why balancing shouldn’t factor in crucible. It might be side content but it is in many ways the end game as well. So balancing stuff around it is fine imo

Because they said Crucible balancing wasn’t gonna affect vanilla balancing and guess what happened? Meaning now builds that are not that OP in vanilla can get nerfed because of the Crucible due to how strong they are there.

And what about people who don’t play Crucible or don’t care for it? Now they’ll have their builds affected by something they don’t even play. I genuinely think the Crucible was a mistake, even if it was a kickstarter goal. Because vanilla and Crucible are two completely different metas, it’s basically trying to balance two different games at the same time.

[DonnieDarko]

I find the Crucible obsession quite worrying. I must admit none of my builds was ever able to beat 150 Gladiator, so I must feel some envy to those who can, but I know the reasons why I didn’t succeed - i never really wanted to.

The requirements to Crucible builds are different than the ones in main campaign. There are a number of must-have things every Gladiator-clearer should have, such as capped CC resists, mobility skill, circuit breaker, etc.some of the classes have that (to some extent) from the box, but many don’t. In this case, you have to deliberately gimp your char, changing the build appearance or synergies to get that one or two stats you cannot get otherwise. You also need a few godly greens to cap resists in most builds, that you cold never ever see drop.
In the end, you’ll probably see something like a spellbreaker, that was supposed to be pierce/cold, wearing 50% green gear, with half of his other gear having no synergies witn NB whatsoever, a mix of poison, ret tank and pet devotions, chaos components/augments and so on, to just get that 100500% resist to all. Stonehide stoneplate stonegreaves of stone ©
And I don’t like this concept at all.

I understand that building such a toon is a challenge many like to take, so all good. It just seems like there’s a notion that builds that can’t do Gladiator are not worth the time, which may discourage people from sharing their “failed” builds.

[Autentist]

I see forum build section and all that there is are rehashes of almost the same concept over and over again. There is no creativity left. People are really obsessed with Crucible like no tomorrow.

Every thread there are people asking if this build can beat Crucible. Every time a new build is posted it’s 90% will show you the first image being of beating Crucible. There is literally no Campaign content left anymore. Heck, people go as far as saying Crucible is the hardest challenge in the game, completely forgetting about Ravager and Mogdrogen. But their case is another story, anyway.

Crucible also promotes heavy elitism. Apparently, from what I witnessed yesterday, your build is only good if it can beat it. What, it can’t? It’s rubbish then. It doesn’t matter if it can solo the whole Campaign content on Ultimate, or even HC Ultimate - rubbish, end of story.
There is also this strange metric of valuing builds only upon their strength, as it’s the only standard. Characters can have specific traits, like RET are heavy tanks, or they can survive on ADCtH only - but nope, your damage, the time you need to complete the last 10 waves are the new norm now. Pet builds suffer greatly from this kind of thinking more than any other build.

Crucible is also boring as heck. It suffocates in monotone, mindless grind, which brings zero innovations to the table. Mutators are also luck-based and random as fuck. One run you are a god, because mutators are good, the other one is trash, because you weren’t so lucky. If it wasn’t for nice rewards, I’m pretty sure people would dismiss it as a mistake.

I know people and streamers who didn’t even touch the Campaign content because of Crucible. They are sitting there all the time, endlessly farming for equipment. Is this really a good design decision? Ask yourself.
Also there is an issue of dead farming as well. Grantly, it’s still a single-player game, but if Crate cares so much about balance and nerfs too OP builds, then why allow something like this to exist? Makes no sense to me. And yes, they nerf builds based on their Crucible perfomance as well. It’s incredibly silly, especially when it was expicitly stated that it won’t affect the main game content.

People are constantly saying that it’s some sort of the endgame. But it’s a DLC. An optional content. Why doest it affect the main game to such an extent?

[Norzan]

I see forum build section and all that there is are rehashes of almost the same concept over and over again. There is no creativity left. People are really obsessed with Crucible like no tomorrow.

Every thread there are people asking if this build can beat Crucible. Every time a new build is posted it’s 90% will show you the first image being of beating Crucible. There is literally no Campaign content left anymore. Heck, people go as far as saying Crucible is the hardest challenge in the game, completely forgetting about Ravager and Mogdrogen. But their case is another story, anyway.

Crucible also promotes heavy elitism. Apparently, from what I witnessed yesterday, your build is only good if it can beat it. What, it can’t? It’s rubbish then. It doesn’t matter if it can solo the whole Campaign content on Ultimate, or even HC Ultimate - rubbish, end of story.
There is also this strange metric of valuing builds only upon their strength, as it’s the only standard. Characters can have specific traits, like RET are heavy tanks, or they can survive on ADCtH only - but nope, your damage, the time you need to complete the last 10 waves are the new norm now. Pet builds suffer greatly from this kind of thinking more than any other build.

Crucible is also boring as heck. It suffocates in monotone, mindless grind, which brings zero innovations to the table. Mutators are also luck-based and random as fuck. One run you are a god, because mutators are good, the other one is trash, because you weren’t so lucky. If it wasn’t for nice rewards, I’m pretty sure people would dismiss it as a mistake.

I know people and streamers who didn’t even touch the Campaign content because of Crucible. They are sitting there all the time, endlessly farming for equipment. Is this really a good design decision? Ask yourself.
Also there is an issue of dead farming as well. Grantly, it’s still a single-player game, but if Crate cares so much about balance and nerfs too OP builds, then why allow something like this to exist? Makes no sense to me. And yes, they nerf builds based on their Crucible perfomance as well. It’s incredibly silly, especially when it was expicitly stated that it won’t affect the main game content.

People are constantly saying that it’s some sort of the endgame. But it’s a DLC. An optional content. Why doest it affect the main game to such an extent?

Just all of this. A nice, clean and concise text with why i utterly despise Crucible. I want more challenge, but not with something as atrocious as the Crucible.

[Rhylthar]

I really agree to this posting.

Later, if I have time, I might post possible solutions although I doubt that they could be implemented.

[Tycho]

I honestly think elitists will be elitists, Cruc or no Cruc. Crate can’t exactly modify human behavior. If it weren’t Cruc, it would be Mog, Ravager, maybe Mad Queen. Dickmeasurers gonna dickmeasure.

[Avyctes]

I haven’t loaded up the crucible in many months, because of where it pushes the meta. Defensive builds are not fun for me. I like glass cannons. The crucible eats glass cannons for breakfast. These two things are uncompatible in the extreme. So I treat this dlc as my own little loyalist upgrade, Crate made a few dollars and that’s where I shall leave it.