Game balance, the Meta and the audience

[Heapheaus]

Your username make me think this entire account is bait, but I’m bored so

@thepowerofmediocrity

And when these TDM modifiers are removed or altered because of how much they warp players’ expectations, they will march right here and say their builds are “demolished” because their Ravager kill times went from 7 seconds to 45 seconds.

Removing TDM potions wouldn’t make that much of an increase

@thepowerofmediocrity

Thankfully, this person doesn’t go around to our build threads that don’t use these potions and calling these builds garbage, but this is exactly the mentality that chasing metas creates.

Also not what I’m doing. The best builds are builds that can utilize the TDM potions, not every build uses both. Builds that use neither struggle heavily and have numerically worse performance than builds that can use one or both potions. it’s an objective observation I’m giving feedback on.

I’m also one of the people creating the meta, not complaining about it

@thepowerofmediocrity

And this cycle - with exactly the pattern I demonstrated in an above post - will repeat again, with more people thinking it’s appropriate to make it their mission to personally harass the devs.

The closest thing to harassment I do nowadays is @ zantai in discord like once a month.

Edit:

@thepowerofmediocrity

The thing I’m trying to warn about is the new, unspoken expectations where just because 1-2 builds reach a new benchmark, that becomes the new baseline where people now judge builds.

If we use the old standards of, say, beating Ravager in 1-2 minutes, there are tons of builds that can do that, even the ones that were “destroyed” by nerfs. But assuming that any build worth its salt can beat Ravager in 7 seconds is really setting people up for disappointment.

I’m not mentioning TDM potions just because my mystic runs them. I have sub 30 sec ravager builds that can’t handle the hp/sec of sangrinis, and I have builds in the 30sec - 1 minute range that can handle both, it’s kinda specific in my experience. This could also just be my playstyle / buildstyle. I am however observing that many prominent builders are specifically building around being able to utilize these potions because the benefits are so extreme. They are also not the only potions people have mentioned feel overtuned, I’ve seen the armor potion mentioned many times as also being overtuned. I still have not got that recipe to try it.

[Heapheaus]

@Udgard1

Tangent 2: what even is an unrealistic GDStashed build nowadays? Even a full set of specific ascended affix probably takes less time than what farming a single double rare with specific affix used to take. Doesn’t feel like there’s truly any build that’s unreasonable to achieve.

Certain very rare items (not really), certain items that are incredibly hard to roll well and very important for a build. IE max roll every attack speed item so you can change a component or an item etc. In my current FoA testing I haven’t really encountered it. Now that reroll prices have dropped I think most builds, even 100% WPS builds are “reasonable” to achieve. You would spend longer getting your winterspring frostsaber in wow.

[Udgard1]

@Serafim_94

@Udgard1

what even is an unrealistic GDStashed build nowadays?

Magi rings.

Fair

@Critical_Miss

@Udgard1

what even is an unrealistic GDStashed build nowadays?

Anything requiring kilrian’s shattered soul

H, hey, it’s not… that bad

[duckie0012]

My first character when I bought the game a month ago was a pure Cadence+Warcry Soldier with a smidge of Occultist, just for Blood of Dreeg. Leveling did not feel rough. It felt fun. It’s still fun. My casual play isn’t being killed at all. Not slow, tedious, or boring.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

@Heapheaus

Your username make me think this entire account is bait

Nah, it’s not bait. Just an old relic from pre-Youtube days when posters like this were in vogue:

@Heapheaus

I am however observing that many prominent builders are specifically building around being able to utilize these potions because the benefits are so extreme

This is what I’ve noticed as well and the reason why I made a thread about these potions specifically. The benefits are just so large that they warp expectations around them, especially since they can have permanent uptime. Builds / Sets / Classes live or die to whether they could incorporate them and sets new standards for what a reasonable build’s survivability should be.

Especially when most enemies have an initial cooldown before they use their main attacks, that initial countdown becomes a huge test as to whether a build kills the enemy before the attack goes off or whether the enemy uses the attack and makes things that much more dangerous.