The biggest obstacle to balance and build diversity.

Since I've heard GGG talking about adding more staff to their balancing team, I thought this was a good moment to bring this topic into discussion.

So what is the biggest obstacle to balance and build diversity? It's simple, it's how scaling works in this game. More specifically, the "MORE" multipliers layering.

I think everyone that's played Path of Exile for at least a little while knows this.

The difference between a meta build and an off-meta build is ridiculously huge.... a balancing issue which in turn limits build diversity drastically despite the apparent many possibilities offered by the huge passive tree.

And what makes a build meta? Just how many more multipliers you can slam into it. That's really the core of it.

This also has a "trickle" effect... causing balancing decisions on the content itself (monsters, bosses, etc.) to be made in general around the builds that cram on average more multipliers then the rest... resulting in even less build diversity in the end. It also creates the "one-shot or be one-shot" problem because of how ridiculous scaling can get.

Double-dipping is also a huge factor that isn't talked about a whole lot but is a big issue as well and adds to it.

So what is GGG's approach towards this currently? Essentially, let it run rampant.. see what sticks out and try to balance certain interactions at the end of a league. In essence... a perpetual band aid that doesn't really fix the issue. Why? Because new content is also added with every league, and with every new thing added, new things to break the balance of it all.

I think there is a fundamental issue here that needs to be addressed.

In my opinion, there are two big ways that this could be addressed.

1. Change the scaling methods and remove the multiplication aspect.

OR

2. Introduce soft caps to "more" multipliers to limit their effectiveness reducing this way the differences between meta and off-meta builds.


GGG already implements hard caps and soft caps on defensive mechanics:

Examples of Hard Caps: Resistances, Block
Examples of Soft Caps: Armor, Evasion

So, it's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to believe they could do it to damage as well in some capacity.

Of course, there might be other ways that I can't think of.. so those are just my opinions. But something needs to be done about this regardless. I welcome others to share their ideas.

Infinite player sustain is a bigger issue imo, as it makes risk of player failure scenarios narrow down to one-shots mostly.

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Evergrey#7535 написал:

Infinite player sustain is a bigger issue imo, as it makes risk of player failure scenarios narrow down to one-shots mostly.

I don't personally believe it's the bigger issue... because I've personally played a build that could evaporate all content without much sustain, but I would like to hear you expand a bit on this, if you'd like to.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 написал:

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Evergrey#7535 написал:

Infinite player sustain is a bigger issue imo, as it makes risk of player failure scenarios narrow down to one-shots mostly.

I don't personally believe it's the bigger issue... because I've personally played a build that could evaporate all content without much sustain, but I would like to hear you expand a bit on this, if you'd like to.

Players have infinite sustain, so GGG tried to implement some sort of failure scenario in the game, right? Right.
And since long fight makes no difference when player have infinite sustain, they implemented one shots everywhere.
Now, players facing being one-shotted often, instead of building tankier (like GGG intended), just went full glass-cannon to shorten the fight and therefore almost close the window of possibility to be one-shotted.

So the build you are using is pretty much a result of adaptation to how the game has directed the combat.
I explained more here:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3879355

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Evergrey#7535 написал:

Players have infinite sustain, so GGG tried to implement some sort of failure scenario in the game, right? Right.
And since long fight makes no difference when player have infinite sustain, they implemented one shots everywhere.
Now, players facing being one-shotted often, instead of building tankier (like GGG intended), just went full glass-cannon to shorten the fight and therefore almost close the window of possibility to be one-shotted.

So the build you are using is pretty much a result of adaptation to how the game has directed the combat.
I explained more here:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3879355

I see, so if I understood correctly, what you're trying to say is that what leads to players always choosing to make builds that one-shot bosses is the fact that bosses can one-shot players. And the reason bosses can one shot players was a conscious decision by GGG to counter infinite sustain, is that right?

I don't necessarily know if that was their train of thought, but regardless of that, I can definitely see how sustain could be a problem like that... but I'll be honest and say that I'm not aware of how powerful sustain is currently in PoE2 since I can't say I've taken that kind of approach to it to test it.

Regardless of that however, I still think that what I've talked about in my original post is still one step above in terms of importance (not to say your point isn't extremely important as well).

And I say that because, even if you eliminate said infinite sustain and bosses one-shotting you... that would not eliminate your ability as a player to one-shot bosses still. and people would still take that approach because it would be the most efficient.

And what I'm essentially advocating for is to drastically reduce scaling of multipliers which would in turn eliminate the ability to one-shot bosses as well.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 написал:

Double-dipping is also a huge factor that isn't talked about a whole lot but is a big issue as well and adds to it.

I am compelled to point out that they've actively designed their systems to prevent double dipping. That's not a thing.
When you convert, only the modifiers for what you convert to do anything.
Nobody talks about double dipping because it doesn't exist.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 написал:

I see, so if I understood correctly, what you're trying to say is that what leads to players always choosing to make builds that one-shot bosses is the fact that bosses can one-shot players. And the reason bosses can one shot players was a conscious decision by GGG to counter infinite sustain, is that right?

Yup, exactly that.

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And what I'm essentially advocating for is to drastically reduce scaling of multipliers which would in turn eliminate the ability to one-shot bosses as well.

I guess the best would be to synch all these together. Otherwise we'd create another series of alarming outliers somewhere - I'm sure about that.

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The_Song#4903 написал:

I am compelled to point out that they've actively designed their systems to prevent double dipping. That's not a thing.
When you convert, only the modifiers for what you convert to do anything.
Nobody talks about double dipping because it doesn't exist.

Maybe the wording I've used is not quite correct, what I meant was these kind of ways of scaling that use one type of stat to give another benefit at the same time:



Which results in these kind of things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM0KGPl22bU

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Evergrey#7535 написал:

Infinite player sustain is a bigger issue imo, as it makes risk of player failure scenarios narrow down to one-shots mostly.

This.

I agree, the "need" for one-shots is the biggest problem. It is extremely frustrating to the player, even when a game is performing smoothly. But when you toss in visual clarity, latency, then toss in death penalties like losing all your juice it becomes ragequit-inducing.