As the tone on the forum has recently turned somewhat bitter on occasion, I feel the need to preface this by saying I am genuinely curious about the intentions behind some of the changes made since FoA, this is in no way meant to bash the dev team or belittle the work they have put in.
So, let’s all take a deep breath, settle in, and talk about FoA. Yes, again. When the new expansion launched, it appeared to have a very clear sense of direction of where it wanted the game to go. Enemies in the new areas hit hard, Ascended Mode brought up the intensity of the campaign to adjust to what endgame builds had become in recent years, and in return, we got some new toys to play with to pulverize bosses and beavers alike with a gusto not seen before. Oh, and of course immaculate vibes on top.
It seemed to be a very purposeful trade-off: We get more powerful, but so do the things trying to kill us. Great!, I thought. Don’t we all love a strong independant developer who knows what they want in bed in their game? The new class was beefy, capable of incredible damage output and came with a slew of changes that made especially auto-attacking feel better than it had in a long time. Of course, something newly added being slightly overtuned was inevitable, no amount of play testing can compete with the sheer creativity and willingness of thousands of players trying their hardest to break your game. It would be foolish to expect any developer to test for every eventuality.
That being said, it is difficult to argue there was no intent to push the boundaries of what builds could do before. Berserker boasted, among other things, the best DAR in the game, the best WPS in the game, a massive AOE rr-shred, easy access to the new onslaught mechanic, two really good capstone skills and TDM for all things beastmode, alongside huge QOL in an incredible movement skill. You can’t tell me this class wasn’t designed to be a little extra. And honestly, I’m fine with it? It’s new toys for us to play with, reign them in a bit if they go overboard, all good.
The ascended affixes are perhaps the most obvious example of simply adding MOAR to the existing power level. Even if all else stays the same, adding ascended affixes to existing builds from two-three years ago would just simply make them better. That is powercreep in its purest form, adding extra effects to items will always make them perform better than not having them, simple as that.
Aaaand all of that got us to single digit Ravager kills. Alright, alright, maybe a bit too much power, fine. But let’s not beat around the bushes, endgame builds (piloted by very capable players I might add, my kills certainly don’t look like that) have been treating the Big Bad of Barrowholm as little more than a speedbump for years. Acting now like this is a development that has to be dutifully curbed to preserve the health of the game is a little… late, at the very least?
The changes made to the game ever since FoA dropped looked a lot more directionless in comparison to the expansion itself. First some new enemies from Asterkarn areas got nerfed, now Ascended Mode as a whole is getting watered down. On the player side, some WPS-builds were leaving everything else behind, yes, but that did very much not warrant a nerf to the entire mechanic, and it rightfully got reverted. TDM pots were a controversial inclusion to begin with and the nerf necessary for sure, but… how did you not see this coming, if I may ask? Again, if all else stays equal, 110% total damage will quite simply always be more than 100% damage. If the plan here was not to up the power level, then what was it?
It is difficult to tell where you want the game to be headed right now. On the one hand, we have clearly left the late-FG power level behind in the dust, on the other hand, all we get in terms of your idea on where this new power level should settle is the occasional cryptic comment from Zantai. Yes, writing opinion pieces takes time (I know lol), but some sense of what you expect endgame performance to look like would be really helpful, especially for the multitude of people actively testing your new builds and leaving feedback. You are clearly willing to listen to the community in some regards, yet appear hellbent on your path in others… some insight as to what you want or do not want would go a long way, in my opinion.
/they’re not mutually exclusive even if performance floor and ceiling both shifted, we might just disagree on where it shifted “to”)
Almost no one plays CR and it gets more balance than SR that is played far more…
