Balance is horrible

[Tom Cruise]

This patch is just a mess, none of the classes feel enjoyable to play and require you to force the same strategy over and over instead of playing reactively with what you have. The opponents build is often a counter to your own or just the same force builds that prevent you from having any ability to experiment in ranked.

I think badges in general are a mistake, they enable a select few to make incredibly overtuned builds while for the most they are bait when they appear for you or enabling your opponent to have a crazy build. There should be more focus on expanding the items available for certain buffs/debuffs and combinations not adding gimmick items.

Also reaper underpowered af make vampirism playable

[Xyntech]

Badges aside, the game has never felt more balanced since Early Access started. Badges need some tweaking, but they aren't throwing things off too badly.

Ranked, at least at Platinum and increasingly as you climb higher, is not the place for highly experimental play. Grandma ranked players know what they're doing when they play in an adaptive way to the items they get, they aren't trying things out to see how they work. That's something to do in unranked play.

I've found that more off-meta builds are becoming more viable now. The Rapier was already great and it just keeps getting buffed. Try some different strategies, look at what builds your opponents are using and then take note of which ones are beating you when they don't have badges or meta-builds. Try what those builds are trying.

If you notice something being used all the time, build to counter it.

I do agree that Reaper needs some love though, but it's still quite viable.

[BunnyBunny]

Isn't hex rapier reaper one of the fastest killing build ? (besides 20 luck ranger ). I mplaying it in platinum and reaper is pretty consistent.
Vampirism can't be the focus of your build because it doesn't scale dmg.

[Xyntech]

Also vampirism items aren't very easy to get a lot of, compared to say heat, poison, luck, blind, mana...

[_T_]

...require you to force the same strategy over and over instead of playing reactively with what you have

The opponents build is often a counter to your own

You just contradicted yourself within a single sentence. Yes, some "meta builds" are strong. It's not a single one, especially not once you factor in counter builds that might be weaker in general, but work well within the current meta. If you want to maximize your chances, it's still better to react to what you get within the broader context of the meta than to blindly try to force one specific build every time.

Yes, if you veer wildly from the current meta your winrate will suffer. That describes every single PvP game that has ever existed. You can still go for any build you want and have fun, you just can't expect to win all the time if you're doing that. It's not like you're getting a prize for having a high rank, though, so nothing's really stopping you. Hell, if you stick to unranked, you can win pretty consistently with any wacky build. Maybe consider that if you're not having fun playing ranked?

Same goes for badges. They are a high-risk, high-reward play. They do exactly the opposite of what you're complaining about: make it harder to always hit the "ideal" build, and make it possible to vary up your build in ways that might be very strong or pretty weak depending on your shop luck. Sure, it "sucks" to lose to the one guy who high-rolled an absolutely insane build with badges, but remember along the way you probably got a few free wins against people running badges who got nothing but a diluted item pool for their efforts. You just don't remember the easy wins you got, and fixate on the times you lost. In PvP games, it's never going to be all easy wins for you. It boils down to that.

[Bone]

Can't agree. Maybe OP is some high Diamond or higher rank and things condense there but it's by far the most varied I can ever remember in upper plat.

I played 30 hours of the demo and have 50 hours+ in this and it's easily the most varied - I remember when all you saw were either the same 2 crit builds on ranger or potion nuking on Reaper.

People ♥♥♥♥♥ about some builds now that I literally might see 1 out of 10 matches; the double fortuna's grace setup for example is one of the more common but I still don't see it a lot (and double moon/sun shields + a crit helm makes it beatable on a number of builds unless they've really juiced it.) Chainwhip is starting to get a bit of flak but I only see it once like in 20 fights(it is really good right now.)

Pet builds, Vamp builds, Poison stackers, Ranger pet/food setups, Eggscalibur setups, hell I've seen some really cool deerwood guardian and stun stacker shaman setups (stun stacking shaman + Hammer + knives will be immeidately OP if they nerf shields ever.) I see a lot of varied builds in high plat to diamon on all my chars.

I think they might nerf some crit setups, and maybe nerf moon/sun shield cause double shield is pretty much always great, but I see all kinds of builds and never the same build in a row right now.

[Blanc]

Originally posted by BunnyBunny:

Vampirism can't be the focus of your build because it doesn't scale dmg.

Bloodthorn is one of the original scaling items. It gains +2 damage per hit, +1 damage every pineapple proc, +1 damage for any other of the numerous thorn & not-so-numerous Vampirism sources.

The problem with Vampirism's damage scaling is the fact it is tied to buffs, unlike Steel Goobert, unlike Double Axe, Flaming Sword, et cetera. Without a way to protect those buffs, its damage is easily, EASILY cleansed. Garlic, a common item is specifically designed to counter it, without even mentioning the Discomfort Caps, Dark Hearts, Chainwhips & more.

[Jman]

The balance is flawless. They made a ranking system to show how good or bad your personal RNG is in the game. If you wanted a skill based game maybe look at RTS games. This game is purely luck based. As long as you have a heart beat and a connected mouse or controller the only dividing factor is what kind of gear the game chooses to show you. You cannot buy the good gear if the game does not display the good gear and the good gear outclasses the bad gear by miles.

[Xyntech]

There are games like FTL where I get annoyed by how much RNG can screw me over, but in most games (even including FTL) you can manage your RNG quite a lot if you know what you're doing. I guarantee you nobody in Master rank and above is worried about RNG determining their rank. It's sort of like the difference in blackjack players between people playing the game by luck and basic strategy, vs people counting cards.

[An actual duck]

Originally posted by Xyntech:

Badges aside, the game has never felt more balanced since Early Access started. Badges need some tweaking, but they aren't throwing things off too badly.

Ranked, at least at Platinum and increasingly as you climb higher, is not the place for highly experimental play. Grandma ranked players know what they're doing when they play in an adaptive way to the items they get, they aren't trying things out to see how they work. That's something to do in unranked play.

I've found that more off-meta builds are becoming more viable now. The Rapier was already great and it just keeps getting buffed. Try some different strategies, look at what builds your opponents are using and then take note of which ones are beating you when they don't have badges or meta-builds. Try what those builds are trying.

If you notice something being used all the time, build to counter it.

I do agree that Reaper needs some love though, but it's still quite viable.

Balance implies every build/subclass should be viable. Fact is they aren't, especially in higher ranks. There are 5 subclasses per class, so 20 total builds each with some minor variation. I see 3 main builds on repeat in diamond. Having to build specifically to counter a common build only indicates that that build is so strong and shows up so frequently that you need to make an entire build just to deal with it. That is the opposite of balance. One build should never be so prevailing that a specific counter needs to be worked out.

I am having loads of fun with the game, but just because I recognize that the game is fun and addicting doesn't mean I'm going to ignore really obvious problems. When at least 50% of the subclasses are being used regularly in diamond I'll start praising the balance. Until then, it's important to be critical

[Bumc]

50% sounds quite hopeless, but even "more than one per class" would be a good spot to aim for

[An actual duck]

Originally posted by Bumc:

50% sounds quite hopeless, but even "more than one per class" would be a good spot to aim for

Alright, I'll concede to that. But only as a first step! Hopefully we can see even more variety as time goes on

[Xyntech]

Originally posted by An actual duck:

Balance implies every build/subclass should be viable. Fact is they aren't, especially in higher ranks. There are 5 subclasses per class, so 20 total builds each with some minor variation. I see 3 main builds on repeat in diamond.

I won't make any arguments against continuing to improve the balance of the game. Every build/subclass being viable is a bit of a tall order though. Meta will always make some things more viable than others, no matter how good the balance is. Also, The fact that you can make viable builds that rely almost zero on class or subclass abilities and items only make the number of things to balance grow even larger.

Balance is the best it's been and it seems to be continuing to improve, but I'm largely looking at it from the point of view that you can play any of the 4 classes and be competitive, since that's how the current rank system is divided. Certainly many subclasses could use some tweaks, while the Reaper has more wrong with it's sub-classes than it has right. The fact that you can still win competitively with Reaper doesn't mean their subclasses are balanced, but it's in a better state than it was a few weeks ago.

I disagree strongly with any of the chuckle-heads who try to say there shouldn't be any buffs/nerfs until after the game leaves early access, because improving the balance is always important. But while the game is still in early access, I'm willing to cut a little slack while the devs tackle multiple aspects of the game.

Originally posted by An actual duck:

Having to build specifically to counter a common build only indicates that that build is so strong and shows up so frequently that you need to make an entire build just to deal with it. That is the opposite of balance. One build should never be so prevailing that a specific counter needs to be worked out.

When I said build to counter it, I mean take it into account by adding an item or two if you need to, not to design your entire build and strategy around countering them. Some builds need help to counter specific builds, while others already beat those builds easily. Some builds just will never be viable against other builds, even if they are good builds in general, so there's no point even trying to counter builds that hard counter you, you just gotta take those L's when you run into them.

The meta will exist no matter how well the game is balanced. Some players are lazy and if they latch on to a popular build, you'll see a lot more of that for a while. You can choose to capitalize on this by playing builds that crush them, or you can play however you wish. But if your goal is to win, factoring in ways to counter things you know you'll be up against will always be necessary. Clearly continuing to improve the balance of the game will improve the situation, but it will always be something to factor in.

Originally posted by An actual duck:

I am having loads of fun with the game, but just because I recognize that the game is fun and addicting doesn't mean I'm going to ignore really obvious problems. When at least 50% of the subclasses are being used regularly in diamond I'll start praising the balance. Until then, it's important to be critical

Fully agree. 50% of subclasses is a pretty reasonable number to reach, as long as by "regularly" you mean seeing them every few games and seeing them winning a reasonable amount of the time. No matter how good the balance gets, the meta will always have some builds showing up unusually often based on trends at the time. This is no excuse not to balance things, ideally much more than 50% of subclasses should be quite viable, even if some see less use than others.

I still don't agree that the current balance is horrible, considering that the classes themselves are all technically viable and that the trajectory of balance is towards improving. But if it were to go full release today and never get patched again, I'd agree that the balance is bad.

Being critical is always important. Appreciating improvement is also important. I'd rather have the devs current approach of smaller incremental changes rather than giant over-corrections, but unfortunately this approach can make it feel like nerf after nerf or buff after buff happens without things getting fully fixed.

Love 'em or hate 'em, badges are not currently the biggest balance problem in the game. Reaper is indeed the most in need of late game buffs and sub-class item improvements, but the class is not unviable. Vampirism is a bit of a joke, but that's been the case since Early Access started, not a new problem with this patch. Not everything can get fixed at once. Even factoring in badges, I don't think there's been a single patch that hasn't improved the balance of the game, so I still disagree with the premise of the thread. But we can agree that balance does need a lot more ongoing work.

[TekDragon]

High diamond, low master level player who has been playing the demo almost since it came out. This is the worst state I've seen the game, and it just keeps getting worse.

This game was a careful balance between RNG (what you're offered) and skill (what you buy and how you use it). But the developer has bloated the item offering pool with so many dozens of new items, while offering no increase to shop capacity, that it's completely wrecked the skill quotient of the game. Once you hit master, you stop seeing anyone having fun. No more people experimenting with magic torches or hammer dagger, and when you do see those rarities, 9 times out of 10 they're an easy win.

Instead it's just spamming the meta, and the meta are the builds that are the easiest to put together for the highest reward, because while many builds may be stronger, they're just too unreliable to put together with all the item bloat. Combos in the rare tier, especially, are being ignored because the item bloat just makes it too hard to get what you need.

[ZwoBi]

I don't get why so many people cry about the balancing atm
I played 700h in Demo 300h in Early Access now and it's the best meta we ever had. There is much more playable than you think.
Every class of mine is in Master and played my Berserk to Master~63 today and my last played Builds were Magic Torch with Manathirst, Chainwhip with Fancy Rapier, Hammer Dagger and Bloodthorne. Every class has so much stuff that you can play successfully in Diamond and even in Master. Reaper is the only class that struggles the most in Master.

[Mr.neverwin]

Originally posted by TwoBiers:

I don't get why so many people cry about the balancing atm
I played 700h in Demo 300h in Early Access now and it's the best meta we ever had. There is much more playable than you think.
Every class of mine is in Master and played my Berserk to Master~63 today and my last played Builds were Magic Torch with Manathirst, Chainwhip with Fancy Rapier, Hammer Dagger and Bloodthorne. Every class has so much stuff that you can play successfully in Diamond and even in Master. Reaper is the only class that struggles the most in Master.

Im 350hours player and 4classes gm
1.This version is indeed the most balanced version. It is difficult for every class to reach the grandma level.Dark Sword reaper is also very suitable for this environment.It also has good combat effectiveness before R8, allowing you to comfortably enter the subclass.
2.What really makes most players uncomfortable is being beaten to pieces by mindless bds.
3.I believe most players can understand that dev's understanding of item strength is problematic. For example, the anvil can be cut in half, compared to version 0.90,become completely unavailable.
3.1 In fact, I should be the first one to play + promote Falcon blade + Anvil. R8~The survival mode is great, but after passing the survival mode, it is weak.Moreover, the Falcon blade itself is not that easy to synthesize, and its combat effectiveness is very weak before synthesis.What happened to sacrificing so much in exchange for a stronger period?On the way to synthesize the Falcon blade, you may not be able to find the gloves and die suddenly. The gloves are the weakest item before R8.The routine from beginning to end deserves to be nerfed,but not this one. And if you have to grab both the gem box and trying to synthesize the Falcon Blade, do you know how easy it is to get killed?Are there statistics on berserker who were killed while holding the Hero Sword?

4.In my opinion, Berserker almost became the first class with perfectly balanced sub-classes.
But the devs got it all wrong about how to make the game more interesting.