Discussion: Should OP builds be nerfed?

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

This thread: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51596
is a great example of two different viewpoints on the game.

One is that the game should be a challenge to complete.
The other is that the game should reward your playtime by giving you an OP end result.

So who’s right?

Here’s my thought. If you leave those “OP” builds in the game, and make other builds viable but not OP, then you cater to both viewpoints. The people who want a challenge can avoid the OP builds, and the people who want to be rewarded for 100s of hours of playtime can steer toward the OP builds.

The biggest argument is that “OP builds make everything else unviable”. I disagree. OP builds may overshadow other builds, but that doesn’t take away my previous point. Some people get satisfaction from reaching the OP point, and others get satisfaction from making a “weaker” build viable.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I just thought of a good analogy - cheat codes. Those who want to be OP use them, those who don’t will just stay away from them. The only difference is that cheat codes don’t take any effort, whereas OP builds do, which I think justifies the people who want to use them.

2

Since we’re just posting opinions. I am going to post mine.

Well i log into the game to release tension.
And every once in a while i do enjoy playing with something overpowered, where i am not at the edge of my seat and can just watch stuff die. Maybe not out-right broken but definitely a “tier-1” cleaner

That’s just me

P.S

I do not mind dying in any game just so we’re clear (unless we’re playing Dark Souls cause i smashed my controller on the wall there :D)

3

Well, I kinda already wrote my point of view in that thread, but I reiterate and re-phrase it here.

I don’t think that builds should be OP. I think that gear that people spent some unimaginable time farming for, or got devilishly lucky to get, should, when added to a good-planned build, produce a nice OP result. In-between those OP geared builds they will clearly differ. Theoretically — defender kills MQ in 30 sec, attacker kills her in 15 but have to drink a pot — x2 more time difference, pretty huge in comparison, but the timeframe itself is reasonably low.

Any good-planned build should be able to reach this stage with hard work and dedication. No one of mines are probably will though, as I don’t like extensive farming, and prefer to start a new builds once I done most of the game challenges with old. Maybe, someday, they will collectively be able to get a nice OP gear set-up though. :wink:

Also totally dig Chton point of view. That’s why I still farm Aspirant Crucible with one of my guys from time to time, to get into this sort of trance, switch my brain off and enjoy the fireworks :slight_smile:

Could be done on easier difficulties, with most lvl 85 chars, though.

4

Just to clarify, when I say “build”, I include gear.

I would say OP Masteries should be nerfed, but not OP Mastery/Gear combos. Which is what you said if I understood correctly.

5

Read my sign, and you will understand why… The problem is that if you leave these OP builds around (by OP, I mean, REALLY OP ones, which are the ones being affected mostly by those nerfs), then the players will start bitching that the game is too easy, and that the game needs to be harder, but they forget that the game needs to be balanced to make most builds viable, and not only for these OP builds. They’re literally only thinking on themselves and that only they should have fun.

6

Yeah, exactly. More like “not any nicely build mastery/OP gear combo”, maybe.

7

If they don’t have the creativity to make another build, or even the willpower to try out a non-OP that someone has made, then should they be the ones being catered to?

Also, it’s my opinion that less people have that opinion than you think.
The thing is, most people don’t bother to post if they think the game is fine (unless it’s a response), so you’re only ever going to hear the people whining about the game, making you think there’s a larger percentage of them.

8

I DON’T think strong builds should be nerfed. If someone spends a huge amount of time farming for gear and makes a clever build that works well then their build gets nerfed and it was all a wasted time (like what happened to my build that I spent hundreds of hours farming for) then it’s just unfair.

Now some people say it lowers build diversity but I think nerfing builds does that. If a build gets nerfed because it can have great survivability and damage then that’s saying builds should only have one or the other then that is less build diversity.

9

Then if people make an op build they shouldn’t complain. My build was strong and I never complained the game is too easy because it isn’t and making a strong character doesn’t change that. Instead I was happy that all my time farming and planning paid off.

10

A lot of people here playing “the same” Acts over and over again (including me). It is logical that many of us have almost “all” of the BiS items or whatever. It is logical that someone is capable to create really overpowered build.And then maybe someone will shout - it is easy. Expansion is solution for this IMO. I think that Crate must shift some difficulty and balancing things because of that. Yes, game was released, but not finished. Expansion is slowly coming just in time IMO. So dear Create we really need another 2 or 3 expansions… :wink: After expansion, it will be different. If there is going to be only one expansion then will be right time to speaking about “end game” balancing. Just my opinion.

Edit: Like I said somewhere else. I think that player should be able to create build which can beat game content without struggling. Finally it is a form of achievement, so this kind of build determine -> GAME OVER, lets play another char…

11

Sure any op build has zero right to live.

But before we burn them we must think about the conditions that led to their existence.

Otherwise we will never arrive to such a thing as balance. Do not argue, much like this situation that some builds will be by default much stronger than the others, but, for me, is a dead-end path of development.

12

Well, of course truly OP builds should be adjusted. The real question is: at what point is a build OP and at what point is it that other builds are UP ?

I believe that when I have a good build and the best gear I should be ‘OP’. If I have a good build and great gear (as in: the game does not offer much better gear, except for a great rolled MI), then I should be OP.

If a good build is not, despite this gear, then that needs to be fixed. This can be fixed by bringing the other builds and the difficulty down, or by buffing the UP build.

The goal is to have a wide variety of strong builds, whether you achieve this by buffing some or nerfing others and the game itself.

If a build + gear is truly OP compared to pretty much everything else, then yes, that OP build / gear (depends on what causes the OP-ness) should be nerfed.

13

I think there are several levels to this.

Broken

OP

Viable

Weak

Unplayable

The goal here is to eliminate Broken and Unplayable.
In my gaming experience, it’s impossible to remove OP and Weak, because tier 1 builds will always be labeled OP, and un-optimal builds will always be Weak.
My argument is that the developers should stop nerfing OP builds. Sure, nerf Broken builds, but nerfing too many OP builds kills off half of your playerbase.

14

Good summary!

Broken were the CDR builds which were killed some time ago (with Time dilation etc) - these trivializes the entire game content since you could have 0 CD on Mirror so you are practically unkillable.
Crate did the right thing and adjusted the devotion (though it could use a small buff in its current incarnation).

OP were the Markovian builds - they were excellent if in full BiS and truly shined in Crucible. But they werent in no way broken - you could still die if not careful, you did below average dmg and your aoe was horrible.

In many people`s eyes Crate mistook OP with Broken in this case and turned the OP build into Weak one.

Its understandable that Crate cannot afford a full time QA team who could potentialy run all kind of char builds from 1-85 etc test all aspects of the game. Balancing comes as Zantai explained from feedback, observations, mathematical calculations etc, but rarely from hands on experience.

Same could be said for DW Pierce Blademasters - from Hero to Zero in few patches.

Mistakes are bound to happen in this way, but at least Crate are willing to admit when they make one and adjust accordingly.

I could recommend to Crate in order to lessen the community frustration and the yo-yo effect of all the nerfs/buffs - try and play a build self found before moving to drastic nerfs. Small adjustments are fine most of the time if they make sense and are healthy for the game longevity.

15

Yeah I had a time dialation build but wasn’t anoyed when it was nerfed because being 100% unkillable no matter what while killing bosses like the mad queen in less than 10 seconds was Broken.

However people saying markovian was broken are wrong. Was it overpowered ? Sure but it was fully bis and required a lot to get.

Also my markovian with full overcapped resists, 40% phys too, 70% block with 100% recovery, 16k hp and 1300 hp regen was one shot by zantarin and fabius…

16

My point of view is that of someone who comes from a background of competitive games (CS, Dota2, WoW arena). This will bias my opinion, and it’ll likely not reflect the average player of the game. Anyways, here it is:

  • Balance is always important. In a game like this, you’ll always have more efficient set ups. In fact, it’d be horribly boring if this was not the case. Crafting your build is like half the enjoyment of the game. However, outliers should be dealt with. A sorcerer/pyromancer/bladmaster should all be able to reach essentially the same level of efficiency. ± 5 % DPS aint the end of the world, but damage output/survivability should be in the same ballpark given the same level of gear and build optimization.

  • This game is far too easy. More skill dependent mechanics should be introduced. I find myself forced to think of ways to set up a charcter to where it’s not just LMB + 3-4 buttons and win. The hardest difficulities should not be possible to complete this way! If you wanna take down the toughest enemies, it should take some Korean 200 APM to do so.

What’s the point of this little rant? I say some builds will always be better than others. However, let’s make sure the best ones are the ones that are actually hard to play well. Balancing should be done in such a way as to steer players towards difficult gameplay for optimal performance. Most popular games actively do this.

TL:DR: Balance should be maintained IMO, to the point where different mastery combinations perform at least similarly. Balance patches should also steer players toward more active builds that are tougher to execute if they want top level performance.

17

OP Builds must be nerfed at most to moderate extent. Nothing more. I think with a little nerf, they could be stay at “a little bit” op that will not have huge effect of clearing.

18

problem is “OP” in Grim Dawn barely even qualifies as OP in other games. OP in Grim Dawn can still be smoked in a nanosecond by stuff like Sentinel, Mad Queen, or Mogdrogan if you stop paying attention.

what i will say is that RDPS and casters still need buffs- mob immunity to CC (for every mob that matters) and extremely high crit chance and crit damage against players compared to other ARPGs makes melee the go-to for almost every situation in Grim Dawn. the trick is to buff casters/RDPS without accidentally buffing melee further.

19

I think people often justify OP by saying “Oh, it took so long to get all this gear.”…It’s a problem many ARPGs face. The difficulty of getting something, or the rarity of it, doesn’t affect its power. Something could you take 1000 hours to get and be insanely weak, or really strong. The time doesn’t make it better or worse, and there is ZERO feasible way to change that.

That said…If the time doesn’t affect the power, then how much time it took you to get it shouldn’t justify the power level, high or low. Especially because where it may have taken someone, say, 5 characters to complete one set, another person may have found every piece while leveling their first character.

As far as nerfing OP builds…I think it should be done, within reason. But I think people are viewing OP in context of other ARPGs, and that’s not helpful here. GD is not even 1/8 as fast as POE or D3. So people saying, I killed a boss in 30 seconds…That’s awful in POE/D3. That’s stunningly amazing in GD, though.

IMO, in context of GD, a tanky build killing a high end boss like MQ or whatever, in under a minute…Is way off. That’s measuring by the standards of other, faster games. In GD, taking maybe two, three minutes to kill MQ would be 100% reasonable if you’re safely tanking her the whole time. If you’re safely tanking her and killing her really quickly, then that goes back to what I said in the other thread: Being really tanky and doing really good damage is OP. I’m not saying good damage can only be done by really squishy people, and tanking can only be done with no damage. There’s a balance to be had, where tanky characters can kill everything, just…Slowly. And DPS characters will do so much faster, but will be at much higher risk as they do it, especially if they get snagged in a CC or mobbed.

I suppose I rambled a bit. In general, if there was NO community, then nerfing anything would be less urgent, simply because there’d be less exposure, less minds thinking on the same game. In the end though, if there’s X amazingly OP build, that can do it all and safely to boot…Why would you play anything else? Few people like to voluntarily make things harder on themselves, despite wanting a challenge. It’s one thing to play a hard game, it’s quite another to ACTIVELY go out of your way to make it even harder while playing it. You could, for example, try and make a GD character with no weapon, ever. Why would you? There’s no value in it. Why make your life harder? The OP builds work the same way. If you have the gear to do this amazing thing, why do anything else? It’s just making life harder on yourself.

That’s why we need OP builds balanced out, so that people can look at builds and see meaningful differences and reasons to play multiple builds. There’s never going to be perfect balance, some will always be better…But GD has done a wonderful job making it so many builds have similar tankiness in different ways, similar damage output in others, and so on. There are a few outlier builds, that are far too good, and they’re dealing with those as they can.

…Lost track of myself here. Hopefully some of that made some sense. Admittedly I am very, very tired right now.

20

This can’t be more wrong… If time and effort do not justify it, what will? Luck? No. People need sense of accomplishment, if game does not give you that through effort and time, people would stop playing it. I can’t believe someone said effort and time should not be rewarded. It is only legal way to get items lol. I am not saying “1000 hours person must dominate 100 hours person fully” but rather it should win over less effortable guy at least?