Player power and its current design choice

[Ravenkid9266]

I have attempted to keep this as factual as possible, as well as to remove any hint of a shadow of the illusion of being colored by opinion.

How we got here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/704436959


That evolved into: Gear is a problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSpBd-j_COM


Leading to: "I don't know how to fix it one thing is just nuke all the damage mods off every skill" mike
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1490051190?filter=all&sort=time


Confirmed here: mike
https://clips.twitch.tv/JoyousShinyWalrusFailFish-jATux_QLDNn2vi17
https://clips.twitch.tv/TriangularHotRutabagaAMPTropPunch-BJHjX3NePQooZy-B


Then it evolved into this: dan/judd+zizaran 15:35 Timestamp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI5J7FrnXok&t=935s


That is a lot of videos so here is a quick TLDW, with the sources above.
Gear is a problem-> it is such a problem the only solution is to nuke all of the damage off of all of the skills-> Endgame items should contribute the most power and I know they do not-> We don’t want to aim for gear to be as high of a portion of your total power of build customization as other games though. Some of that is actually quite intended but we do want to pull more power into gear than the current state it’s in.

(You are free to judge this as opinion, and watch for yourselves as I have provided all of my sources.)


That was 10 months back according to the most recent youtube date.

Opinion: Fingers crossed, I personally hope that EHG is able to make the changes they themselves said they wanted to make.

https://steamcharts.com/app/899770#6m

Edit: for people who do not know who Lizardirl is, here is a quote from mike, as well as a quote regarding player power from the reddit:
"Lizard is probably one of, if not the, most experienced LE players in the world at this point. Part of the issue here is just skill balance and has little to do with gear in general.
The big problem comes from how the optimal way to build most skills is just to search for the more damage nodes"

Edit2: LE wants you to get to 10 to clear the content. Currently you get 9 from your passives/skills and 1 from walking out of the highly telegraphed attacks designed to one shot you. Now the newer items might allow you to get a few additional numbers from gear, but do you need it? This is the problem people are attempting to highlight. Even if you dial player power from gear up additional numbers there is only questionable need to go and get it. If you increase gear power to the point that it properly overshadows player power via skills/passives you end up in D3 dealing trillions of damage.

Edit3: 1.0 patch notes just dropped and despite all of the "adjustments" this problem has 100% been rolled into a feature.

[Quillithe]

İlk olarak Ravenkid9266 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Quillithe tarafından gönderildi:

There's a difference between a unique with an obvious plan that just doesn't work and one that just doesn't even effect skills though - Lament of the Lost Refuge has a clear, if unusual, plan.

+1 to Level of Poison Spell Skills is SO weirdly under-supported that it can currently impact at most three skills - Entangling Roots, Drain Life, and maybe Aura of Decay (honestly not sure, it doesn't have the spell tag itself). And both of the ones I'm sure it works with need a damage conversion first before it gives the skill point.

I dunno, I think it stands out when there's a gap like that so I'm not too surprised.

Familar with the MtG card "One with Nothing" ? it baffled players for its use for years and years, this was because Wizards of the Coast used to use a "throw it at the wall" style of card design. It later found an extremely niche use many years later. To hold up a niche item like that ring as justification for a good chunk of a class being worked around it is silly.

If anything I think its more of a rogue item, mostly Acid Flask (if AF had the spell tag) due to the dodge. I do wonder though, if the warlock poison spells are even coded as hits, because if not it feels like a wasted stat line (chance to poison on spell hit) and if so it would be basically mandatory for all poison warlocks.

As it stands though you are correct poison + spell combo is underused, did I mention the next mastery is for the mage and also not a minion class. Something to keep in mind.

If any damage type/tag is under used it is Void + Spell, especially given how thematic it would be to apply curses as a viable void DoT. Continuing to condense classes by damage type feels very samey, and I think it tends to lead to build condensing rather then variety.

Most damage types aren't really that condensed by class, just void (most excessively so outside of a few uniques meant to make void damage viable on a mage and stuff) and necrotic

I'm aware of One with Nothing but there are a lot more magic cards than uniques! It's a bit different design.

[Ravenkid9266]

İlk olarak Quillithe tarafından gönderildi:

Most damage types aren't really that condensed by class, just void (most excessively so outside of a few uniques meant to make void damage viable on a mage and stuff) and necrotic

No not to that extent, English is hard, I mean in the same base class + mastery. Like Acolyte has a fair bit of Necrotic, so does Necro, and Lich, so Warlock has to have some as well. Yes there are some variations but like that samey. Especially silly given how little the damage type matters.

When you design in such a way it becomes more about your delivery method, excluding stand out abilities. Like tri element mage, tri element RM, tri element sorcer, tri element spell blade. What it does it say so you want to play tri element? we got melee tri element, ranged tri element, "Lolz im so random xd 90's tri element. That sort of thing.

[Quillithe]

İlk olarak Ravenkid9266 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Quillithe tarafından gönderildi:

Most damage types aren't really that condensed by class, just void (most excessively so outside of a few uniques meant to make void damage viable on a mage and stuff) and necrotic

No not to that extent, English is hard, I mean in the same base class + mastery. Like Acolyte has a fair bit of Necrotic, so does Necro, and Lich, so Warlock has to have some as well. Yes there are some variations but like that samey. Especially silly given how little the damage type matters.

When you design in such a way it becomes more about your delivery method, excluding stand out abilities. Like tri element mage, tri element RM, tri element sorcer, tri element spell blade. What it does it say so you want to play tri element? we got melee tri element, ranged tri element, "Lolz im so random xd 90's tri element. That sort of thing.

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that elements should be more restricted? Like that fire shouldn't have a melee option, etc?

[Ravenkid9266]

İlk olarak Quillithe tarafından gönderildi:

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that elements should be more restricted? Like that fire shouldn't have a melee option, etc?

Getting a little off track but no. English is hard. Show montage footage of each of the mage classes to someone who has not played LE. Its all just generic tri-element footage. That is what I mean, by keeping such strong design elements you loose that identity. Now do the same with Primalist, I would bet most people notice a different feel.

However more reveals are coming, because no one could foresee such an obvious situation so to pivot to that. Lets see what the actual numbers are, thanks to LEtools they seem to be quietly updating with the numbers a bit after the reveals, you just have to dig around for them.

[RhodosGuard]

The Scalebane have poison casters.
Those dont seem like Warlocks to me? So why design a Subclass for a dark caster that fills the same, in universe, role as scalebane?

at this point all I can hope for is that there will be a different way to play Warlock and that that way is not handicapped by them having decided you WILL play a poison caster.

[Quillithe]

I'd assume there are at least two general paths, that seems to be the setup so far

[Ravenkid9266]

I see your Disintegrate and its 300% scaling and raise you Ghost Flame and its 600% scaling.
Additional options for free triggered spells (marrow shards), automation, and perhaps finally a home for all those "while channeling tags" the ability to move when channeling GF, Plus the option to turn it into a self centered AoE.

Not exhaustive just things that jumped out to me.

[Ravenkid9266]

İlk olarak RhodosGuard tarafından gönderildi:

The Scalebane have poison casters.
Those dont seem like Warlocks to me? So why design a Subclass for a dark caster that fills the same, in universe, role as scalebane?

at this point all I can hope for is that there will be a different way to play Warlock and that that way is not handicapped by them having decided you WILL play a poison caster.

Soul Feast has some bleed support, but stacking multiple sources of ward generation on the option to turn SF into a mana generator with increased effects for having high mana seems like a much more viable option. A lot of these Warlock skills feel like Throw Hammers. A lot of neat synergy with intense competition from the, yet to be determined when we can more easily dig into the numbers, clear winner.

As more of the skills get teased out warlock I think will feel distinct as the "combo" caster, with from what we have seen the benefits to applying X then taking advantage of it seem to be a core feature. Well unless its automation turns it into Righteous Fire, in the same way we saw with the RM sequencing.

[Ravenkid9266]

According to Karvarousku Dynamic DR is getting a rework, at the earliest 1.0. So I am sure they are going to have plenty of time to test it. However I found the two statements a bit confusing.

"It's also gonna be more visible to the player and still bridge the gap between very low damage builds and very high damage builds"

Strange given how reluctant developers are to tell people about Dynamic DR in the first place, but how? How are you going to "bridge the gap" when they went on to say

"The new mechanic won't cause the player to deal less damage"

10 is far less then 100, if you want to bridge that gap you can increase 10 bringing it closer to 100, or you can lower 100 bringing it closer to 10.

[RodHull]

İlk olarak Ravenkid9266 tarafından gönderildi:

According to Karvarousku Dynamic DR is getting a rework, at the earliest 1.0. So I am sure they are going to have plenty of time to test it. However I found the two statements a bit confusing.

"It's also gonna be more visible to the player and still bridge the gap between very low damage builds and very high damage builds"

Strange given how reluctant developers are to tell people about Dynamic DR in the first place, but how? How are you going to "bridge the gap" when they went on to say

"The new mechanic won't cause the player to deal less damage"

10 is far less then 100, if you want to bridge that gap you can increase 10 bringing it closer to 100, or you can lower 100 bringing it closer to 10.

Or the fudging of numbers happen somewhere else and use semantics to claim your not actually causing less damage, just the boss has more health for you (or somesuch)

[Ravenkid9266]

Well the warlock has been revealed so I guess now is as good a time as any to bring up the next problematic shadow system that will come into play with Falconer.

Been a bit since we had a minion class, so who remembers snapshotting?

Who thinks its going to be fixed? or will it be rolled into a "feature" with this the last minion class for quite sometime.

[Ravenkid9266]

So I did some quick math and it looks like the Warlock can comfortably stack

-40%, -24%, -20%, -8%, -2% (per curse) less damage taken quite comfortably using the channeled movement kit of Ghost Flame. Not to mention it comes with quite low mana costs (making reduction quite strong), despite the various increases/decreases along the way, and the nifty trick of gaining 70% of current mana as ward. If that was not enough using GF we can also tack on the Anguish, and Decrepify curses.

Then you can take this walking simulator of a build in a lot of different directions, because as Ghost Flame is often compared to Rebuke, GF comes with movement and damage.

These numbers are likely going to skyrocket once you factor in the items we already have on top of the bundle yet to be revealed.

[Ravenkid9266]

Despite all the claims that all of the classes would have all of their skills in the 1.0 patch it seems not to be the case. Quite strange as judd was boasting about how EHG added a new skill with every patch at gamescom.

Live stream 2.2.24
Time stamp: 35:03-36:34

The classes missing all of their skills are: Paladin (3.5 skills according to mike), Shaman, Lich, Marksman, Blade dancer.

Seems EHG is fine with this by adjusting the meaning of the term "all" to adjust the classes from 5 to 4.

[Ayk-]

İlk olarak Ravenkid9266 tarafından gönderildi:

Despite all the claims that all of the classes would have all of their skills in the 1.0 patch it seems not to be the case. Quite strange as judd was boasting about how EHG added a new skill with every patch at gamescom.

Live stream 2.2.24
Time stamp: 35:03-36:34

The classes missing all of their skills are: Paladin (3.5 skills according to mike), Shaman, Lich, Marksman, Blade dancer.

Seems EHG is fine with this by adjusting the meaning of the term "all" to adjust the classes from 5 to 4.

In a "1.0" launch that will not have the story chapters completed, this reveal hardly comes as a surprise.
Not that it matters a lot, people who have played enough just search "more" in skill trees and pick a skill in that metric anyway, saves us the trouble.
And of course we have the white knight team on standby, with "sMaLL InDie GaMe" as their first line of defence, giving this a pass as usual.

[Radix]

Nobody cares