I’m just going to point out to you a very important part of the forum that you and others might not be aware of. Posting publicly in the community is one thing and it’s always going to come with the risk that a good portion of that community isn’t going to agree with you but it is definitely NOT the only option available and at the end of the day it isn’t the community that you need to convince of anything. You need to convince Crate (or Zantai) that your feedback has merit:
And for the record, I’m one of those players that doesn’t give a damn about endgame and I’ll play GD whether it’s getting patched or not and when it comes to the games “balance” I usually offer NO feedback concerning skills and builds because I am essentially content with it no matter which way it lands. I’m content to let other Praetorians (and the rest of the community) haggle it out and bicker over such things because these things don’t appeal to me as they aren’t the core of why I play the game. I realize they are important in their own right but I also realize that there are an inordinate amount of voices carrying on that battle already anyway so I’ll just leave them to it and enjoy the game regardless of whether or not this build is better than that build or that piece of gear is trash and this one is BiS.
I also played hardcore primarily, for years. I play softcore mostly these days but MY softcore is usually just another version of hardcore. I almost always delete my characters manually if they die (this often includes shared stash files AND formula/blueprint files) or even just if I get bored with a build and feel like trying something else for a bit. Old habits die hard.
When you go to sleep and all the interesting stuff happens and you missed it
So let’s summarize the thread, someone’s wants more balancing, someone else don’t want more balancing, thread needs few hundred comments until the people find out all are on the same side, other than Praetorians, right?
Good to know there are HC diehards around here! Endgame is different for everyone at different times. Luckily, this game offers plenty of options to choose from, which is great. But certain game modes like SR and crucible are widely accepted as valuable farming routes for many players. I want to be able to farm SR consistently, with a variety of builds. Being forced to use “secret OP” specs is not something I love, but there’s literally not much choice. Again, I’m specifically talking about Farming as opposed to Record setting builds. The former is supposed to be reliable and relatively fast. The latter is a “score or die trying” setup, where you accept the high probability of a RIP.
It comes from growing up playing original NES (and games that often only had so many “lives”). Plus I’m definitely peculiar compared to most people, I think, in that if there is something I don’t like about a current playthru (of any game) it literally means nothing to me to delete hours and hours of play and start right back over.
This is likely why I am quite partial to rogue-likes and diablo-likes. I like that element of randomness, the RNG. It’s enough to keep a game (if I like it) fresh for me for a very long time. I prefer games that I can commit to, to that extent.
Do you think I live in some lil bubble and lack all of that? Rather, it is because of all of that the count gets so high.
If I’m in the middle of something with a character that I deem I don’t want to close down the game for whatever reason and “life” intervenes, then I just don’t close it down. I’m not some purist-type or anything or someone that’s gunna lie about it - there’s a nice bit of “afk” time in there as well.
I can say the majority tho is straight play time but as for how much -shrugs- never bothered to try to track such a thing (I have been playing GD pretty steadily since “Nov.-Dec” of 2013). I got asked to be a playtester/Praetorian around Dec’ 2015, which helped inspire even more playtime as a result.
The past 6 months to a year tho I actually haven’t played quite so much (nor had to leave it running much either) as I’ve been more focused, on and off, with writing a GD-related program (and learning how to write such a program). Wish I’d started learning a very long time ago. I got super interested in computers at the rise of public awareness and interest in the Internet, around 1997 (I was 19 and yes the dreadful tones of dialup still echoes from the past into my ears to this day) and began learning and dabbling with all sorts of computer-related stuff but I never committed to diving fully into programming. Lately I’ve been somewhat rectifying that.
-shudders-
Edit: @Aikimox - I would say just realize that “Praetorian” is literally just a tag that denotes that we get to help test new stuff for GD before it goes to everyone else. The primary goal being to hopefully catch any major bugs before that point. We don’t get paid any monies -you could argue that getting expansions freely as being paid tho but Zantai considers that a steal anyway And many of us actually buy more copies of the expansions and game anyway. I don’t even know anymore how many copies of the game I’ve bought and given away.
In the end we are just fans of the game like anyone else that hangs around these parts on a regular basis. Do some Praets try to use the slightly closer line of communication to Zantai to push for changes? Sure but if you sit back and think about it, it’s not that much of an advantage as Zantai does what Zantai wants to do and if you want to really get Zantai to change something with the game you need to be able to convince him of it - which is no easy feat. He has very clear ideas about things and the way they should go and I think it’s safe to argue that he knows the innards of this game better than you, I, and most everyone else not employed by Crate.
The reality of the situation is that ANYONE on this forum (and even the Steam forum) has just as much a chance to petition and put forth their feedback as everyone else (Praetorians included). He is inevitably going to pass his eyes over it all at some point as it is part of his job to do so I imagine. From his standpoint we are all the same and he’ll shoot us down as much as anyone else.
I just have to emphasize that because I (with sometimes the feeling to be “The Lone Ranger of Bleeding Builds”) have made a lot of suggestions about different things in the past. In old forum it was the “No-Reply-Section”, here it is the more direct approach. I am very very sure, all was read. Some changes were made, some were not. And I am no Praetorian.
While we are at acronyms from the past, here another one: FOTM.
As a long time WoW-Veteran (up to 2013) in a semi hardcore-raid with a playing time matching Powbam´s in Grim Dawn, I know about the “shifts” in balance. There are always some “groups”, which want to be satisfied or get angry, when they think they don´t get the attention they want. In WoW it was PVP, Raid, Casual (simply speaking), here you have Casual Players, Crucible Addicted, Hardcore Lunatics and SR Mad (Wo-)men (no offense meant to any of these groups ).
You can´t satisfy all equally. There will always be someone who thinks it quite unfair and something has to be changed. But It´s Crate´s/Zantai´s job to decide which has priority and is best for the game all in all.
As to FOTM:
We have these Vitality Builds right now. They are quite good, perhaps even too good (it´s not me to decide). They are, at the moment, “Favorite of the month” (for you younger people). Will they still be with 1.1.5.0? Perhaps Yes, perhaps No. But there will be others then. As there are always new ones.
And many of us actually buy more copies of the expansions and game anyway. I don’t even know anymore how many copies of the game I’ve bought and given away.
…am I so old, that it is outdated?
I just haven’t seen it in quite a while.
