Ladder was almost always like this, and no one cares about it anymore imho, the best achievement of GGG is that now most of the skills can do end-game content, like red maps and league stuff, so they do care. The problem is that balance as a thing is not an adequate parameter for PvE action RPG. Or you have to sacrifice diversity - in D3 builds are pre-determined by insane multipliers on items, players have a laughable choice. So devs just have to tweak 2 parameters for 2-3 builds per class to get them on the same GR level. In PoE gear/skill/tree choice is rampantly wild and such a balance equation can fundamentally have no possible solution. GD is somewhere inbetween these two games, as sets are still a dominating factor in gear choice (sets are general sign of devs lazyness to go into balancing multiparametrical stuff, so they force players to be less diverse), other slots have a very limited choice, but together with skill planning and devotions it is still quite variable.
My great disappointment with PoE is its fixation on economy, impossible inventory handling (sweet, sweet GD item assisntant, I love you), grindy-to-get boss encounters and loot not being exiting anymore, despite I make great profit from it, esp red tier maps, but the thrill of finding an upgrade is zero, because you know that all the stuff is in the market and not in the game.
I will try to capture peoples notion by an extreme example:
Imagine a new elite affix - āscrambleā: monster over two seconds noticeably charges a spell, then releases a meteor which, if it hits the player, randomizes all keybindings. So if you would normally have 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - RMB - LMB for abilities, now it something like: Ā£ - shift+p - alt+F4 - Š« - ā - b - mouse16.
Is it dangerous for the character? - not at all, is it making the game challenging? - no, if you dodge it (favourite argument for arcane defenders), is it hurting game experience? - YES, LIKE HELL, I would ragequituninstall after couple of these, this affix will be dreadfully feared and instant death would be so much more desired outcome. Given the choice players would better prefer 5x GravaāTul encounter over a battle with a single boss that can do such thing.
It can actually. How do you think the games with healthy community relations recieve balance changes and QoL improvements? Exactly like this. Anyway I can testify my personal experience of sending a message and getting a development reaction to it. And not in one game.
Focus itā¦or Yes, run away if you canĀ“t reach it immediately and try again a few seconds later (canĀ“t use GrimTools to look up how often they use it). Btw.: This is the way, DoT Builds (and other builds, too) handle Reflective enemies in Main Campaign.
Sets are a fundamental desire of players, either in ARPG as in MMORPG. Statwise, themewise and because of the look of them. Collecting a full set has always been a nice carrot on the stick.
Maybe you are one, not me definitevely! I despise sets as almost mandatory gear option (yeah players have to āchooseā them or to choose not to do endgame content at all, like some people said in this thread that their game content is leveling toons, but game gear choice usually means opportunities with comparable performance), though I agree with you that theme and appeal (transmog) are a good point.
Youāre wrong. Crate Entertainment does listen to their players, so is discussion is sound, it might see the day.
PvE isnt an excuse for poor balance, ARPG genre isnt either.
As for PoE, the real problem is an abundance of damage multiplier, overall developerās lack of insight and āoneshot metaā. Huge tree can be balanced, as well as skills and gear - but scaling/multiplies shouldnt be so wild.
Many strong builds dont rely on sets (at least, not on full sets), but i agree, pigeonholing players into specific sets is bad design.
You forgot to mention, how flawed and frustrating trading is. Sometimes you have to PM 20+ players before one responds, and if youāre seller, you get PMs while in Delve, ubar lab, etc and have to ignore them.
Not sure about others, but personally, iām against sets. I believe, that certain item combinations should have synergy ānaturallyā, not with bonuses from equipping few specific pieces, set by developers.
First, thatās not how aggro works. Second, where did I ever mention that I use 3rd party tools? If this is because of the existence of Grim Internals, let me inform you that I donāt use it. I insist that arcane heroes are the easiest to detect if you just pay a little attention. Third, there is a couple of thing you can do: you can simply kill the arcane hero first, they are not known for being particularly tough or you can bait them out of using the nullification orb and dodge it.
I donāt see the relevance of this hyperbolic example. A mechanic that affects a configuration outside the game that would make you rather face the nullification mechanicā¦ so?
I agree that Crate could maybe find a way to make the orb simply disable your persistent buffs by a couple of seconds, but as it is now I donāt find it as frustrating as many here make it look. I stand by my point that players donāt even bother to see what they are fighting against and just blindly dive in because they are just a bunch of trash mobs and heroes that couldnāt possibly harm me, am I right? Oh, but what is this? I got my buffs nullified by that purple guy while I was just standing in the same place tanking all the hits pikachuface.jpg
Iād argue itās not lazy, but clever Game-Design. ARPGās by itās nature and their Players are in Favor of getting random loot and grind for stuff. This aināt MMORPGās where you have many different Endgame-Dungeons and aim for certain Items, and have compared to ARPG only a very Few amount of loot, but rather it rains loot. And iād argue thatās the appealing Aspect why we and other ARPG Players are here.
The thing is however with all this RNG, it getās hard to aim something for in the Endgame. Try to keep the Affixes in your mind to look out for it, the sheer amount of combinations to get the right Rare Item would be insaneā¦ MIās is a bit easier due you can specifically farm for it, but still have this rng affixe. So Legendary generally is a pretty great Item-Concept for people to farm / aim for, now is the thing without the Sets it would be impossible to deliever synergiesā¦ and thatās why Sets for an Game are so vital for this genres because it offers some Itemconstellations with synergie for the more popular builds. In some other ARPGās there can be an issue, if the devs āonlyā focus on that, but GD so far it isnāt that a cases. Legendary Sets might be still the most popular choice and maybe the āeasiestā way to create an build, but overall MIās / Rares especially double Rares(though obviously the latter one way harder to get) can be viable too, or build outside of Legendary Sets (or work with them in an ācreativeā way)
They might be considered as ānicheā but itās not like you are ultimately limited to go only with the absolue best of the best builds with their legedary sets for doing most of the Content in GD.
The Issue is again, as often in this kind of topics, that this whole Build-Argumentation is watered down to min-maxing and being as effective as possible, or limit the argumention an very very few things in GD which are meant initially as hardcore challenge for very few builds anyway, but the fact that majority of the content is doable with a variety and diversive builds get ignored. Itās simply an fixation of every possible build with every type of items should overperform as the best buildsā¦ which IMHO is an utopian idea which scrapping item-sets wouldnāt fix eitherā¦
IMHO that lies on the misconception with the idea that ARPGās should roflstomp everything and facetank it with whatever kind of build you have, but forget, especially for Grim Dawn, that repositioning is part of the core Gameplay. Itās not Running & Kiting but simply donāt stand stupidly in stuff which can hurt you or avoid in this case an dispell. But people than act (imho) childish and blabbering something about āforced playstyleā. If Crate would cut every aspect of the Game, which sets rule for certain enemies and makes them challenging, than we wouldāve a repetitive borefest without any kind of Enemy mechanics and facetank everything even with glasscanon by stupidly standing on one spotā¦
Yu, I do not see someone asking for extremes, like āendgame top builds should roflstomp any contentā, or āit shouldnāt be challengingā. Or that the sets should be the only way of gearing or that sets should not exist.
The original theme of the discussion was about how unfun and gameplay-lacking some aspects of the endgame are. About what feels not challengening but bullshit nutpunching, about very important mechanics being thrown out completely.
I agree with you that legendary items are a good landmarks in the sea of item randomness, the argument is that some are straight out BiS, and I would honestly see the examples of endgame builds that do what best tier of builds do, but composed of like, half, green items. The concept of a loot rain in arpg means that if player looks through these ietms and eventually 1 out of 1000 items will be an RNG āwinā. PoE tackles this issue perfectly, but trade spoils all the fun, as nicely illustrated by others in this topic. On the other hand, GD solution is FINE, I donāt insist of Crate changing their approach, I just point out that if they make sets a centerpoint of gearing with some freedom in other aspects, some skills even have few sets to it, then they are resposible for balancing these to match the endgame expectation. Again, its not extreme solutions, it is about subtleties.
You mean like MIs? Because thatās even random and out of the control of the player than a legendary. And normal greens? You have to deal with the randomness of two affixes.
Plus, thereās absolutely no way to plan out your build. You are much more at the mercy of RNG with greens than you are with legendaries.
There are some fringe cases with builds that literally only work with specific legendaries, but a lot builds can function just fine with some mid tier items (some endgame items are sold in faction vendors as well). Now if you expect builds to tackle endgame content with average gear, then what would be the point of BiS items? There would be no content to test BiS items on. SR and Crucible are made for these builds.
legendary sets and some legendary non-sets are straight up BiS
because the legendary purple color is the highest rarity tier with green color rarity right below it. this makes most legendaries have the biggest amount of stat bonuses (and this doesnāt even include set bonuses). which is why its logical that legendaries are BiS most of the time.
however, some greens and MIās with specific affixes are considered to be BiS for many builds because of it specific bonuses and flexibility to general builds. getting the right affixes to drop is more painful than getting legendaries though. maybe well-rolled BiS greens should be considered the highest rarity gears above legendaries. legendaries donāt have affixes anyway (only rolls for stat numbers), which makes getting legs BiS easier rather than getting BiS greens.
which one is more satisfying? getting legs BiS or BiS greens? the rarest item doesnāt guarantee it will be the BiS item for every builds.
Most legendaries actually have piss for stat density. The general allure of legendaries lies in the stats that occur on them that are not otherwise easy to obtain in such combinations on rare items. +1 mastery, conversion, set bonuses, physical resist and various CC resists, RR, that one juicy skill modifierā¦ The reason legendary boots and pants just got buffed was because they had so few stats on them it was either a case of picking among 3-4 decent ones or stuffing an MI in the slot with one affix that gave it more stats than any of the legendaries.
I think RR and DA reduction are a couple of the worst mechanics enemies can apply because (at least in my experience) you often donāt even know itās happened or how bad it is, you just suddenly pop with no warning.
At least with arcane balls and hard CCās you have visible feedback and you quickly learn who does what and when to stay away from them.
Maybe a lot of RR attacks are telegraphed too but to this day after quite a lot of hours playtime, a large majority of them are a mystery to me because thereās nothing obvious in game that says your stats are all mangled now.
so many debuffs are constantly re-applied (you can see the durations of those refreshed in less than a second) with a variety of attacks and most of aoe apply them. Skill diruptions by player do not affect them, diruptions affect nothing honestly on bosses. You can use few nullifying abilities with huge cds, but debuffs will be refreshed in a secondā¦ What you can do is to dodge huge dot nukes, these are telegraphed well.
If you are referring to the screenshot, thatās me who is using GI, not toapeiron. I just left it on for demonstration purposes so you can see that the purple monster is the Arcane one (as opposed to the normal ones and the Vampiric one). Even without GI those Arcane mobs are still quite easy to spot, just look out for the purple fx on them.
In high SR shards when things are getting tough, sure. Thereās usually enough other monsters in a chunk to fill the bar so why take the risk when you can easily avoid them.
Sets are actually more work to design and balance, so they are literally the opposite of what you describe. Granted, if a game makes sets the only viable endgame path, then sure they can be an āeasyā route to balancing endgame.
Depends on what youāre looking for. If just some mere resists and damage - theyāre more reliable than legendaries. If perfect combination, etc - vice versa.
Not sure why some people got fixated on arcane heroes. For me (granted my experience is still small) the first place in single enemy cancer list goes to Grava followed by Kaisan. But the most frustraiting are not single enemies but boss combos. Couple of extra fast heavy hitters supported by a couple of spam casters is absolute shit and unfun to play against. And yeah, CC doesnāt do shit to these gangs.