I would just note here that: this is literally the only thing a playtester can also do. Tester or not, our only difference is that we just get to try things first - give feedback and report some bugs - otherwise we are exactly the same.
In another typical “Crucible discussion” thread people recently were talking about Cruci balance. Some moderator or praetorian (sorry, can’t remember, who it was) said that 99% dont’ play crucible at all
Remember another argument of Lee and Z, when Angrim’s armor bonus was nerfed). Z said smth like “99% don’t play minmax”
I often see such indirect references
As far as anyone can really tell, 94.3% of players don’t play Crucible:
That is the most commonly owned Crucible achievement on Steam, and Steam makes up an obscenely large proportion of the total playerbase, so its statistics aren’t to be far off the mark.
Further, about 95.1% of players don’t make much headway into Ultimate:
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I know. That’s why I said
Which is why I said
The ~95% of players that haven’t met those above objectives aren’t going to be satisfied or unsatisfied with the balancing that Crate does - they’re likely to just not care or even notice such changes to begin with. The remaining 5% of us, Crate’s favorite(
) vocal minority, are to be the beneficiaries of most of the balancing decisions.
So, if you don’t speak up then just who do you imagine they are going to base their results upon? You better git in where you fit in then if you want even a shot of your voice being considered.
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This ->
What’s that supposed to mean?
Yes I already saw what you typed before 
It means you better keep giving that feedback if you want to be heard and considered. Git in where you fit in. Just a lil expression here in 'Murica.
All feedback is going to be considered - it doesn’t matter if you’re a Praetorian or a regular poster on the forum - I’ve even seen first-time posters get their feedback implemented into the game. Zantai really doesn’t give a fuck if you’re a Praetorian or not - he doesn’t play favorites like that.
You just need to be clear and state your case. He is either going to agree with it or he isn’t. It’s just how it works. You need to keep in mind that most feedback he has seen some version of - most likely - many, many times over the years. You better be convincing. Also, don’t make it too long. If you send him a novel you just reduced your chances that he’s going to pay it close attention. Get to the point.
Also, remember:
Just because they haven’t responded (either privately or here on the public forum) doesn’t mean that you weren’t heard. You might end up surprised and see your suggestions/feedback make it into the game some months later.
As for the “feedback” of this OP tho I can tell you that it is highly unlikely that they are just going to “stop” balancing the game just because you want them too. Some things are just common sense how it’s going to turn out. This is the kinda topic that’s just going to make theirs (and ours) eyes glaze over like zzzzzzzzzzzz another weekly same ol’ same ol’ rant thread. Oh boy… can’t wait to read it.
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I would like that devs see the difference between OP build and well done polished build.
Like the latest 2H Spellbinder. It’s purely unique build, and its power is all up to the author and his creativity.
That’s all well and good but it doesn’t change the fact that Zantai clearly has standards for what he thinks is acceptable and what isn’t. Rarely does anything actually get nerfed that frikkin’ bad that it’s no longer viable. Being no longer viable in 5 minute Crucible runs is a WHOLE lot different than being no longer viable anywhere.
People really fucking need to learn to be able to tell the difference already.
The problem is that sometimes this is the same. It’s too complicated, but the simplest example:
Nerfing damage -> longer killtime -> more incoming damage and debuffs without additional save abilities -> death
Then it sounds to me like that build was therefore not intended to be able to do 170 Glad. That’s between the builders and Zantai then in being able to convince him that he made the wrong call… either that or you need to work out a way for him to make the build viable without breaking his “rules” on acceptable times.
I agree there’s noticeable difference between strong and overpowered build,but you’ll get a grip, just by seeing it or playing it. If you’re experienced player, no need even to see the times.
But timings are little artificial standard though. One build that can do 6:10 is fine but one doing 5:50 isn’t? Actually lot of times 10-20 seconds on the clock come in expense of safety, defenses and QoL. I personally don’t want to go this road but s hobby of some players to drain a build to the last drop.
My point is that we as community need to make this feedback and be objective as possible. To explain why something is working correctly and also to try repair something that isn’t. No matter if it’s under or overpowered!
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And here we go to
Absolutely agree.
I consider the experience of a player to be absolutely irrelevant. If a build is capable of doing what John Smith does then IT IS still capable of doing it no matter who is piloting. Just because Average Joe is an average pilot doesn’t make the build any less OP.
Sorry, it’s very-very wrong.
Though I have been playing GD for a long time, but even now such pilot as John is able to cut 30-50 sec on my builds. And there are very few such players not only on this forum, but in the whole GD community.
Guess we just have to disagree. In the end it’s up to Zantai to determine if something is violating his laws of “physics”. Then it is up to the players to convince him if he made the right call or not.
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I want to comment on this usual argument while i have a chance.
There is a saying in our country: revolutions are made by 10% of population. Political scientist and publicist usually disagree with this, they say revolutions are made by 2%.
This analogy is a bit far fetched but i don’t have anything better on my mind right now. The point is, 90% of the “playerbase” will roll with whatever the game offers them. They don’t want to participate in game state and balance discussions, or in forums at all. But they WILL make their decisions whether to buy or not to buy the new expansion based on the state of the game.
5% of players help the devs to maintain the state of the game, to keep it fresh and relevant. If Crucible is the tool to do so, Crucible is affecting everyone, even if they don’t know the gamemode even exists. We can call the most active diehard fans a “vocal minority” but let’s not get carried away replicating this argument in any thread about “what players want”. 5% is core playerbase. In any game, GD is no exception. And they mean a whole lot more than 5% of average player who bought the game, tried it for couple of evenings and moved on.
Another note. Ok, 95% of players didn’t complete Crucible or even full MC. How many hours do they have combined? How many expansionsdid they buy and the most important question, will they buy Crate’s next game because it’s Crate’s game? In fact, how many of them know what Crate is? Smth to think about.
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Indeed, and this is the reason why the “You shouldn’t nerf builds in a noncompetitive game!” argument doesn’t work (not that this argument is necessarily being made here, but I’d bet solid money we’ve all seen - or made - the argument somewhere).
To put things in perspective, though, for how much of a minority these forums are: Z recently acknowledged that the base Grim Dawn game had sold two million copies. 5% of that is 100,000 people, and that is many magnitudes higher than the peak concurrent forum users to ever browse these forums. If on average there’re around 500 users on these forums (and that’s a generous amount; I recall from the old forums an average of around 200 users), lurking or posting builds or bugs or whatever else, that’s merely 0.025% of Crate’s audience. While everyone’s opinion matters, I think it’s unwise to assume 0.025% of a population can reasonably gauge what the remaining 99.975% finds fun or is hoping to see in the next patch of the game.
Edit: What this boils down to is that the best any of us can do in offering feedback is describing what we find fun and why, that Crate can try to emulate such designs in the future. We can describe what isn’t fun and why, that Crate can avoid such things. And we can push things to their limits, that Crate can see how far their creations might go. If we can take them too far, than they get to decide how to dial things back. We, the dedicated, diehard minority comprising these forums, can do this reasonably well. We have the best chances of ascertaining and understanding this information and communicating it to Crate. And we have to hope that our experiences are in some way reflective of those of everyone else.
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