Metagaming Feedback Post: What exactly is going on lately?

[subtle epoch]

hop on dress to impress

[amber geode]

forced to wolfsblood

[dry swan]

R2 Assassin was decidedly different enough from Sage and still viable

ya fewer mobs in R2 but not an issue with the class specifically

[mellow onyx]

[amber geode]

I used it exclusively for speed in zenith now it just doesnt feel worth it anymore

[mellow onyx]

+1 max hp really changing that much

[amber geode]

I already decided after the mprot nerf that if it got nerfed again I'd drop it

also 25 hp looks ugly icl

[mellow onyx]

well thats on you 🤷

[amber geode]

ehhh

every nerf it gets make it feels less worth using it over wolfsblood

[fresh fiber]

yep

it also got a dmg nerf

dmg nerf magic prot nerf now health nerf

oh also it got nerfed in additive as well i think

[mellow onyx]

I still consider vinelash a very good item

[past lark]

I guess but you still run pretty glassy in r2 atleast that’s what I see most ppl running

[dry swan]

iirc my build is Evening Fervorous SotE and it still works

only loses thresholds against like 2 purple mobs and a lightgray mob

[spark iron]

i see what you mean, but i would disagree on having it open up more room - it does push people to use non shield options, but the builds that are available don’t change, especially if there isn’t any shift in anything else

maybe my real point is just “i think the shield tax is too high”?

[bronze cloud]

Fair enough

Though I should mention my point was in response to mgviral who's saying he'd use shields either way

[spark iron]

i mean truth be told i’d probably use shields either way. i play 270ms with ping spikes

i dislike shield tax being high cause to me “shield tax” also looks like “you live in asia tax”

the REAL solution, then, is to get asian servers

[trim flame]

Being able to block is insanely strong tbf

[bronze cloud]

its hard to exactly define how much shield tax should be

and I don't really believe ping is and or even should be a determining factor when it comes to deciding that

I think you mentioned using it for mscout as a crutch because you have high ping but does that mean you'd not use it if you had low ping?

[spark iron]

honestly? yeah i might not use shields on mscout if i had 30ms. theoretically you are capable of stunning everything but the issue is whirling has an inherent delay (the hitbox starts at your right) which combined with the ping diff is… bleh.

[bronze cloud]

bers for one isn't all too affected by ping but most players use shields just because they put so much value in the ability to negate 1 or more attacks during combat

[spark iron]

Adanartis or a similarly statted offhand could be usable there if I didn’t feel like shieldless combat was almost guaranteed to be a trade

devs have admitted (Scientists of Steelmeld Incident + An Unexpected Lesson Incident) that they don’t balance around asian ping and if the ping makes the game unplayable then… kick rocks

[trim flame]

there are a lot of items that i'd happily change to a shield in exchange for a measly 2 armor tax

[spark iron]

(*some devs. other devs did choose to implement alternatives)

is it two armor rn

[trim flame]

idk its an example

[spark iron]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[spark iron]

that seems like unfriendly game design to me though

[trim flame]

i mean it seems fair though it is unfortunate

you can't balance around player lag

it often comes at the cost of the overall experience

[bronze cloud]

I think it is somewhere around 2 armor/agility

[trim flame]

if you go that route

[spark iron]

i honestly don't know n this one

this one is something i would pull out to melee Twisteds so that i can negate five hits and then fuck off to recover

[bronze cloud]

actually its more around 1.5

[spark iron]

legit? isn't attack speed really expensive

[bronze cloud]

it is, shackled earth's boon is just understatted

[spark iron]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[fresh fiber]

hey! did you know the variety in question of chestplates is literally not a thing regardless of item power + cloak was meta anyways so why tf nerf thiefs and dakrstar

[fresh fiber]

shackled somehow getting nerfed when it was already bad is insane

[faint iron]

wow so many messages

I really do think feedback and discussion would be more well received by both parties if there was just a point form paragraph summary of why devs changed what each update and what community generally thinks about stuff

think i've seen the same discussions and points brought up and paraphrased so many times already and at this point I think we're past the 10k word requirement for our college essay ..

[raw bobcat]

“Community generally thinks about stuff” is a somewhat unreasonable ask imo

[void wadi]

we don't think around here

[raw bobcat]

Who even gets to decide that without the community expressing their thoughts first? Anyone want to go and read every single opinion expressed here afterwards and sum all of them up?

[tardy steeple]

can't imagine us telling community how community thinks would go well

do you mean like, expected sentiment around the change?

[faint iron]

idk ive popped in and out of here a few times bc bored and every time (specifically this thread) its either talking about spawner pickaxes changes or some random funny insult war and i think about shields and darkstar pauldron occasionally

and i'd imagine its pretty hard to keep track of what everyone thinks but if more than a few people bring up points about a subject and those points were grouped into an easier to read or reference specific paragraph

maybe that would help more than for example a dev wanting to change something about pickaxes again but having to scroll 5k messages to see what everyone thinks !

[tardy steeple]

ah, do you mean player collecting player sentiment from a set of messages and summarizing, and dev summarizes dev thoughts?

[faint iron]

something like that

[tardy steeple]

gotcha, that makes a bit more sense

I know for the shaman thread a while back i went message by message to collect a onenote doc of just about everything

[faint iron]

would be more transparent from both sides & makes idea organisation easier imo

[tardy steeple]

but that was... a lot, probably something like 5-8 hours spread out over a couple weeks digging through

[faint iron]

yeah and that's great and way less confusion tbh

[tardy steeple]

It can work, but it's also just a lot to do for each thread that comes up

there was a role that would have theoretically helped with that back in the day, but did not work out long term

[spark iron]

this is where we pull out the AI summary bot /j

[tardy steeple]

unironically, if it could figure out monumenta as a thing, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea

but since it wouldn't have a clue what monumenta is as a concept/design system/game, it would fall pretty flat

[faint iron]

oh yeah why didn't it work?

[tardy steeple]

well, when you make a role who's purpose is largely to collate a ton of feedback and bring it internally, it's a large and hard to complete task. think the closest we got was 1 or 2 near it's end that were more focused around things they raised discussions on around, but in general it just didn't work for a long while and was converted into the first set of beta testers i believe

been a long time, but it's just a lot to catch up on some of the threads, especially coming in late to the conversation

[faint iron]

hm

i mean if its a role anyone can sign up for

surely there's more incentive to the large amount of work than doing translating Xd

[tardy steeple]

The role has been gone for probably over a year now, it was comm reps

Now we've just got beta testers in that weird middle ground

[spark iron]

honestly? if there was a way to get the logs into an AI to process, i’d be down to proofread it

this one is just a matter of finding duplicates and patterns, and i was already reading the whole ass thread anyways so i should be able to edit the output to some satisfactory degree

and of course the community is welcome to edit the result i put out to be more accurate

[raw bobcat]

Do u just have a bunch of ppl play thru the update and then write a summary of their thoughts

[sacred parcel]

ngl this could be applied to most shields but more mob attacks would probably need to get (partial) shield piercing

[junior ruin]

idk about all the hate but big props to whoever made ss u

[spark iron]

mage changes banger as fuck

[vital linden]

I think Fwap made them? But i am not sure

[junior ruin]

the flame 1 is probably the weakest but the rest are fire

my fav is probably thunder . the particles are really cool

[verbal dust]

I dont think anyone hates mage changes

I just personally really dont appreciate getting hit with nerfs for months on end

First forgeflame and fol, then steel got shot, now randomly all my build became little bit less tankier, pick a bit slower

[golden meteor]

Surely these 0.5 agi nerfs are in preparation for MW5

[marble rover]

0.5 agility nerf -> mw 5 gives back 0.5 agility

[golden meteor]

And nothing more.

[amber geode]

crazy how arc feels stronger than both scout and alch now

[verbal dust]

Idk only way scout feels strong is covenmourn with brown arrows

So basically subscription based gameplay

No idea about alch post nerf or arca

[amber geode]

brown arrow covenmourn does feel pretty strong but I really dont wanna spend 40ar every poi

[verbal dust]

You will subscribe to brown arrows season pass and you will like it

And then they will nerf it

[hardy cedar]

:'( biero

[sacred parcel]

i lost over 8k arrows in the last month or two

[quiet orbit]

oh i sure love them

for no reason in particular

💥

[verbal dust]

gg

[verbal garden]

i wonder did any dev look at my thread about swords

cloak of immortals lololol

[halcyon tapir]

to be fair for assassin specifically i prefer thiefs

[hidden bridge]

I lost over 16000 arrows in the last week

failnaught gaming 🗣️ 🔥 🔥

[trail maple]

idk man pb on covenmourn feels horrible

I love using pelias arrows

[amber geode]

brown arroes are piercijg

[trail maple]

pelias arrows are also piercing

and same -proj

[amber geode]

then theyre pretty much the same apart from snipe 1 or pb 1

the point is it only feels strong with piercih

[trail maple]

oh

yep

and if youre not on scout or have no retrieval

say goodbye to all of your arrows

it already used like 40k from me 😭😭😭

[fresh fiber]

i think if i notice a problem i should probably at least given a chance for a balance dev to see it

where currently its uhhhhh basically 0

[foggy cliff]

if Boilerdrill gets nerfed next balance patch please don't let the nerf be droppin' it back to eff 1

this is the first time Boilerdrill has ever been good
-# so before it inevitably dies and becomes categorically worse than all contemporaries again for a year
please let me at least get on and enjoy it bein' good

I will say, though

it does feel a bit silly to nerf Purshard's efficiency from 2 to 1...and then, in the same breath, buff Boilerdrill's efficiency from 1 to 2

with no buffs to Pureshard to compensate for the substantially slower minin' speed

(friendly reminder that eff 1 diamond makes a pick slower than Dolabra by one tick)

[verbal dust]

doesnt matter what piercing you just need to use piercing

no piercing no party

drill is only defensively good on agi to be fair and sapper 1 is like... nothing

[foggy cliff]

in any event

the biggest issue I have with all of this, and the only real dog I can justify havin' in this fight as someone who at this point barely plays, is the sheer increasin' lack of proper communication from the dev team. most balance changes which seem pretty significant and worth detailin' have no explanations behind them, which leads to many bein' dissatisfied even with those few that are --- because why is this one change given a reason, but not any of the other changes in an update?

it makes people scared. scared that their favorite items could, on any given balance weekly, be gutted without prompt or reason even if said items are awful (shoutout to Lunacrest Solleret gettin' nerfed this update for, seemingly, no good reason, since from I can tell they're already not a particular popular option). this, naturally, leads to people becomin' increasingly volatile in response to balance changes, and causes them to lash out when items are adjusted for seemingly little to no reason past item popularity

a note to be made is that most items in the Ring which are popular are not popular because they're overpowered
they are popular because other options for their niche do not exist

the Ring, for all its hopeful advertisements of equal power to all items, does an almost comically poor job of actually providin' sufficient item variety for balance patches which nerf items to result in people tinkerin' with new options --- and that's not a problem that even full infusion refunds can solve, either. there's often a disappointingly poor variety of items available from each new piece of content, with the masterwork system servin' little purpose in that regard other than to encourage you further to use your favorites...which can be kicked to the curb at a moment's notice and may not fit the niche you grinded for them / bought them / took them from your guild's big shared gear storage / whatever-the-fuck-you-did-to-get-them'd for them for by this time next month
-# it's why I often say the Valley has better item variety than the Ring, despite havin' fewer items overall --- because a lot of those items are good on their own merits even goin' into the Valley's endgame, and multiple items can feasibly work as a solution to the same problem. because the Valley is designed in a simpler, slower fashion where many of the mechanics don't actively encourage you to be fast and high-damage (save for maybe high-end EEC, and frankly, the roots and complexities of the Corridors' issues and how one might solve them are enough to fill a full dissertation on their own), many item designs which fail to see use in the Ring work beautifully in the Valley, which helps dissuade concerns of one-note buildcraftin' even despite the Valley's many limitations (relatively few item enchants, no specs, no enhancements, no charms) and allow Valley gameplay to remain a fun exercise in usin' your favorite items even through the regular insistences of "wow nobody plays Valley content that's crazy"

-# I love the Valley
and through all of this, the dev team has refused to elaborate on many of the changes made to R3 items to seemingly make the landscape even more one-note than it already is --- either that, or to steadily poison it entirely to the point of the death of enjoyment. people are terrified to invest into and use their favorite items because the dev team may just decide one day, with no readyin', rhyme, or reason, to nerf said favorite items and devalue the investment --- all while said dev team seems to avoid actually discussin' the matters which the players bring up wherever possible

it creates a...negative positive feedback loop, if that makes sense
and that's gonna kill the game a lot better than some controversial item changes alone ever could

in mass-summation:
to whom it may concern at TM: please communicate with the rest of us more on why changes are made. people like it when the changes made to their favorite strats/mechanics/items/what-have-you are properly explained, and it can help lessen the impact of one's favorite items bein' nerfed. if those explanations are readily available and provided for most changes, and as long as discussion on those changes remains open and honest, I can damn-near assure you that the audience will be far more receptive and curious to even the most controversial changes

thank you for attendin' my TED talk for this feedback thread. I shall now go see what monstrosity awaits me for this week's pass missions

[crimson cypress]

I ain't reading allat

[foggy cliff]

in mass-summation of the mass-summation:
more communication from devs please

how's that

[summer narwhal]

Theres a tldr tho

Anyways agreed with thomas

I'll give tm the benefits of the doubt since may/june seems to be a busy for most. I'll hope they will improve next month

[verbal dust]

idk what explanation is there for stuff like solleret and aether

but point is ultimately one i agree with

[steady rover]

rude

[woeful shell]

i think the most depressing example of "popular because other items for the niche don't exist" is the fact that for armor projectile damage helmet and chestplate, and agility projectile damage chestplate, there is exactly One Item for each of those slots

i think some of that can be attributed to "scout rarely runs non-bis anyway" but i think that is sort of a problem that causes itself, at least in r3

there is no scout build variety because scout doesn't build for ehp because the pieces don't exist because there is no scout build variety

idk

[bronze cloud]

did "nerfed because popular" really just became the new "nerfed because of hexfall" despite them saying they don't do that

[void wadi]

yeah except some of the items in here were directly said because of usage rate lmao

not even sugarcoating it this time

[bronze cloud]

which exactly?

[void wadi]

Darkstar

[spark iron]

and thief's

[void wadi]

Thief's yeah

[bronze cloud]

As an example with Darkstar Pauldron, this one is often used in sets that are both too tanky and too damaging at the same time. As another, the MR chestplate, very easy choice to make when building rogue since the projectile fragility matters less with dodging This for instance has states reasons that dont only include "most used so it needs nerf"

[void wadi]

TOO OFTEN

[shell lance]

I mean nerfing just on use rates is kinda eeh tbh

[bronze cloud]

but the part where he mentions it being "too tanky and too damaging at the same time" doesn't stand out?

[void wadi]

and those reasons are literally just "used too often" in a fucking trench coat, because they're the only option! literally! It's "too often" in a fucking trench coat!

[shell lance]

If you just balance on use rate op niche items will never get chbaged

[bronze cloud]

Do you honestly believe its as simple as high use rate = nerf?

like there's 0 nuance

[plush wedge]

Oh so I'm hearing that even if they provide explanation, if it's disagreed with enough it'll be considered a lie. So perhaps an explanation would have never helped here 🔥

[spark iron]

yes

unfortunately

[bronze cloud]

Then how do you explain the nerf for items you dont believe are popular?

like Lunacrest

[void wadi]

An explanation would've never helped because, again, it's one of very few options we have, being nerfed

How do you explain "Yeah, we nerfed this chest plate since everyone was using it in sets due to various reasons, we don't wanna touch the other crap ass chest plates though"

[fleet berry]

How would you buff ex warden ruin

[spark iron]

what are lunacrest solleret usage hours

[fleet berry]

[lament sparrow]

You can disagree with the nerf and reasoning but usage rate being the only, sole, single factor alone is just not true

[bronze cloud]

no clue

[void wadi]

Can you explain the nerf behind SOLLERET

like

pause the argument for a sec

im genuinely curious

i am baffled

[bronze cloud]

but it seems like the players choose when to assume the Devs balance by playrate

[verbal dust]

Lunacrest solleret was used by me and my guildmates for steel specifically in cz and that might have pushed playtime up

[lament sparrow]

I don't play much scout nor do I play armor so I can't really tell you

[spark iron]

who made the change

[plush wedge]

"Its the only option" is someone else's "it's overperforming compared to other options"

[void wadi]

like the shield nerf right

[verbal dust]

Ok nah the real culprit is aether

[void wadi]

aether is in lootrun sets

high usage rate

[verbal dust]

It is not a good item it is not a used item

[void wadi]

it got shot

[verbal dust]

It is only used in speedsets

And that pushes usage rate up

And what we have as a result?

[lament sparrow]

Aether Threads should probably have its speed nerfed just so we're not locking bis speed boots niche to a pass artifact

[verbal dust]

I mean a LOT of niches are locked to sp arti rn

[fleet berry]

That's the fun part though...

Hrimnir is a recoil snowball thats locked behind pass

[verbal dust]

Only snowball with recoil

[void wadi]

"hey why don't we make some new speed boots"

[verbal dust]

Bis technique chestplate

[fleet berry]

Secret sun is a inferno piece in r1 locked behind pass

[verbal dust]

Cumbersome r2

Iirc atleast

[spark iron]

no need bis

[plush wedge]

Are you wondering why something got nerfed despite you never hearing about about people using it (because it is ostensibly good)?

[spark iron]

just straight up. technique chestplate

[fleet berry]

Though if there was an alternative a bis walkspeed item as an epic would be funny as farts

[lament sparrow]

Right but speed set is a very isolated type of build

[fleet berry]

A QoL item...

[lament sparrow]

Inferno can be substituted for other forms of damage

[spark iron]

hrimnir's is arguably in a similar spot

there exists no replacement for it and it's commonly used

[void wadi]

no, because armor scout is just genuinely bad

[plush wedge]

Us oldies know why things get nerfed. It's the calculator of myth. Hasn't been spoken about for generations. Praise the calculator

[void wadi]

especially when you have to be orbpilled to use the boots

[plush wedge]

That is decidedly not true imo

[fleet berry]

Dead god in calculator escapes
Bunch of nerfs in the past months
Whats did TM mean by this?

[plush wedge]

Monarch awakens and so does the calculator

[void wadi]

IT WAS HIM

HIS RETURN WAS FORETOLD

[trim flame]

players wanna blame the devs for nerfing solely by use rate among players, then proceed to be (rightfully) baffled that solleret gets nerfed

[void wadi]

fucking secret solleret society somewhere

[trim flame]

looking at it for more than a little bit, any reasonable person realizes that use rate is clearly not exclusive reasoning

[foggy cliff]

dude the Lunacrest Solleret nerf is the biggest brain-buster of this update

literally why

[void wadi]

that is actually gonna bug me until i find out why lmao

[foggy cliff]

Lunacrest Solleret from what I understand was already mid/niche at best

[raw bobcat]

Have ppl been actually doing this

[verbal dust]

.

[foggy cliff]

what justified that nerf

I genuinely want to know

[fleet berry]

Secret society exposed?

[verbal dust]

Secret society reason is

I made set with memory of the star which wants adapt

Adapt is on orb and if you use orb might aswell go for solleret

And all my guildmates who play steel used what i told to use

[plush wedge]

Its even better than that

[verbal dust]

Item is mid and last step is a better option

[plush wedge]

Some people think they were personally targeted

[void wadi]

that's a little schizo

[foggy cliff]

I was gonna say
at that rate why not just use Pelias' Last Step

[verbal dust]

Are you unable to read

I said it pushed Playtime up

All items nerfed this patch have high playtime

[amber geode]

solloret is used in zr shop hexfall rental i think

[spark iron]

there is a build in #1165742923510468618

[amber geode]

not sure if it still uses it

[verbal dust]

Hexfall aswell

It uses bis and solleret is bis

[spark iron]

#1357610698666016861 message

[void wadi]

welcome back hexfall based balancing

[verbal dust]

I never said devs targeted me personally you are making stuff up

[amber geode]

worst take ever

[spark iron]

iirc this is the sole up-to-date r3 scout build in there

[void wadi]

sorry, agility scout is better in every way

my apolocheese

unless you are throwrate pilled i think

[verbal dust]

Armor scout is fine

And throwrate is exclusive

[void wadi]

agi scout having its entire identity being held up by the absolute titan named Starbound Talon

[plush wedge]

Well at least it isn't delusional I guess, so you just think 2 of your buddies played enough to make a dent. Sure whatever maybe you play 40 hours a week

[verbal dust]

You are ignoring hexfall and the fact that not that much people even play this game

So even select group using a certain item does indeed make a dent

Considering there are like ONE alternative

[foggy cliff]

I am probably responsible for a sizable portion of Wrench's all-time playtime and that is hilarious to me

[verbal dust]

And yes they did a metric fuckton of cz last month

[void wadi]

wrench is not a bad weapon

its just giant boring stick of stats

[plush wedge]

Ignoring? No

I just waved it off because I dont care since you seemed adamant that you played enough

[verbal dust]

I simply listed an added factor for solleret playtime

[foggy cliff]

it's a very simple weapon but I love it it's so silly
(I also just love Brown's aesthetic overall)

[plush wedge]

Didn't realize at first you truly thought your squad added enough hours to make it work

It feels like a stretch but I'm not you

[verbal dust]

Perhaps it is a stretch

Point is solleret has playtime

Not who personally made up that playtime

And it got nerfed

[trim flame]

yeah

at least a bit

[spark iron]

well. it is known that devs have usage rate statistics

[trim flame]

of course

[spark iron]

(fun facts Blasphemous Cataphract had so little use that it rounded to zero hours over the past few months)

[verbal dust]

Wow look how much that problem got fixed

[plush wedge]

Yeah sure, it's baby's first mmo statistic analysis

Just because the analysis exists means nothing

Actually now I'm gonna pose the delusional take

They do success rate analysis based off of items

Fennec and co. are too good and nerfed it

[trim flame]

idk how to really describe it but i get the vibe that people take this usage rate fact and run with it

and construct their arguments and frame things around that

which of course looks bad on the developer's part

idk i like to give the benefit of the doubt

[verbal dust]

Yes good job that is exactly what i said

Now name one item that had not high playtime nerfed this patch

[trim flame]

i don't think the people on balance are so binary with their choices to the point where blaming them for making changes based on just use rate is a valid point

[verbal dust]

I don't believe it is completely based on usage rate but some of it seems like that

[trim flame]

yea

it could be a large reason perhaps

i mean at the end of the day who knows?

i guess not knowing is truly the crux of the issue

as it has been stated many times here before

i don't think anyone can be too sure

[plush wedge]

Nah you just said you used it

I said you had a high success rate while using it

My delusional take is not the same as your aspirational take

[trim flame]

i don't get it

[plush wedge]

I insinuated it got nerfed because the only people who used it are good enough to make it have higher win rates compared to alternative pieces that normies used

I dont believe it but at least it sounds cool

[verbal dust]

Argument was "if they nerfed based on playtime, why solleret got nerfed"

[trim flame]

yea didn't that basically say that?

[verbal dust]

Answer is solleret had decently high playtime due to hexfall and simply being bis and i added my personal reason to use it despite it not being good

There is no take here

[plush wedge]

There's a lot of negative space ignored here I think. There's like a million items that weren't touched at all despite them obviously being highly used

[verbal dust]

Id imagine backlash would be gigantic if they literally nerfed every used item

[plush wedge]

The backlash was already gigantic

[ivory creek]

I think there are merits to both sides.

On one hand, there's the opinion that there was little care in making sure the nerfs we did actually impacted the way we wanted it to.

On the other hand, there's also the opinion that it's simply a matter of communication and we just failed to communicate what we actually wanted to do.

Regardless we could have done better, and I think a good first step is taking into account the more unused items instead of a tunnel vision on the overused ones, which me and a few others have looked into already post this patch.

[trim flame]

i don't think these opinions are mutually exclusive

[glossy wraith]

I hope there is more consideration when an overused item is nerfed as to what the alternatives should be.
Simply 0.5 armor buffs and nerfs to underperforming and overperforming items will not be good either.

[trim flame]

curse of -2% damage reduction

death by a thousand cuts surely will make me stop using remnants

[glossy wraith]

I think a big thing is seemingly random small adjustments seem aimless.

What is the overall goal of these changes, and how are so few and such small changes going to really get us there?

[ivory creek]

And for the love of god.
If you want real change the solution is not to make a dev lose motivation whenever they want to parse through the feedback for real solutions. I'm not trying to be reductive, but when I spend time reading through this feedback, gameplay discussions, and also DMs I get regarding all these changes, it's just downright exhausting.

Sorry I just had to get that off my chest, some devs wouldn't speak up about it, but it's reached a boiling point where all I saw was negativity for a while.

[glossy wraith]

DMs is crazy

[trim flame]

good on you for bringing it up, because i think there are times players get carried away with the negativity over actual criticism

[glossy wraith]

I try my best to focus on criticism over negativity, sorry if my messages contributed to your loss of motivation.

[ivory creek]

Exactly, there's a difference between wanting to find a solution and just being bandwagoning on being angry for no benefit of, anyone really.

[trim flame]

ya

[verbal dust]

I try to not just shit with no purpose and certainly going into dms is psycho level stuff

It is just disappointing when 3 patches in a row you are getting hit with nerfs predominantly

There are good changes

People tend to not focus on those usually

[ivory creek]

I think the crux of it is that not every balance developer has the same metric of what makes an item useful or used.
If I wanna be safe, some of us think that the items are strong because they have damage while having EHP, which is actually what led to these nerfs (And you can reference this as the reasoning if you would like).
While some of us think that they are strong for other reasons like providing a good mix of utility stats beyond just having a good mono-statline of Defense/Damage.

It's a mixed bag and all of us have our opinion. Of course it takes time to debate over what actually is and isn't the case, and many players have even more diverse thoughts over what actually makes items good.

And in this case the vision just did not carry over at all between us and you guys

[glossy wraith]

I think as the player you look at the strength of an item from a completely different lens.

I think of an item not individually but as what space in my build it could fill

[plush wedge]

You couldn't pay me to become a balance dev

[glossy wraith]

I need EHP, i need damage, i'd like to have sustain personally.

If a piece has damage and gives minor EHP, i dont really care too much about the EHP, i'm focused on filling the damage slot for my build.
The problem comes when that damage slot being filled has so little options I dont really get a choice.

[void wadi]

im a big utility guy i think as r3 progresses more items need flavor like KBR without it slobbing all the item budget

[trim flame]

this is a practical, but messy and potentially difficult way of looking at item design in a region that is still receiving content, and players are experimenting with new ideas

i think it is worth consideration to an extent

[glossy wraith]

I mean, maybe, but having alternatives in a slot can allow you to begin to adjust them better.
Some slots dont have functional alternatives.

(agility magic damage boots, as an example)

oopsies hit enter too early

[plush wedge]

Perhaps those should be considered the "playstyle nerfs" that they seem to be meant to be

Thiefs getting nerfed? Makes sense, proj frag is fake to everyone who uses it so maybe it isn't enough of a downside

[trim flame]

its tough because imo you cant feasibly pick and choose situations where good synergy exists such as that and still have a truly "balanced" product

[ivory creek]

I think as more of an item designer than anything I look at it from a perspective of what an item is capable of in every possible way.
For example:

• What other items can it enable?
• What playstyles can it function in, and what archetype of players use this?
• What actual practical use does this have in content?

I think there are many reasons for items' success and a lot of it you kind of have to figure out for yourself, for this reason I actively try to run builds that other players consider unpopular or weird. Sometimes I find difficulty in seeing if it's the items working in the way that I think or if it's my prior knowledge of the items usage and class usage kicking in, but I try my best and it usually ends up in an alright spot.

[glossy wraith]

I also ask as a general consideration for how the balance team thinks:
How often do you adjust the budget of an enchant or curse in its entirety when it seems to be under or over performing?
I cant recall this happening recently besides attackspeed and it feels as though its an option needed but rarely used.

[ivory creek]

That being said I think some items need to be more "balanced" than others, and some item niches do not function without others.

[ivory creek]

It's quite rare since it usually has side effects we can't predict and it's quite the task usually given we need to reevaluate every item with it. But it's not as out of the question as it was back then.

[glossy wraith]

Some entire enchants and situtationals feel lackluster due to the items they are on being not very good.
I think this stems from those enchants being too budget eaty and not from the items themselves.

Personally, adaptability and several situational damage enchants are on that list.

[ivory creek]

Adaptability is actually not. As heavy as you think

It's a fault of the item largely, that trait is not expensive at all.

[trim flame]

its really tough to quantify adapt

and it entirely depends on surrounding options

which if you ask me?

[glossy wraith]

I personally think the way adapt is used is wrong because of how dependant it is on other items

[trim flame]

i would prefer item design not lean toward it

[glossy wraith]

And thus it feels lackluster because it eats item options, i guess.

[verbal dust]

Adapt may fix itself with more items in future

[trim flame]

i'd never have added adapt in my game

[verbal dust]

Situationals however

[fleet berry]

Im personally okay with the existence of adaptability (my favorite combo being the adapt agil boots and fgcrushers)

[verbal dust]

Idk the only one in a good place currently seems to be stamina and imo it rewards you for playing badly

[fleet berry]

But when it comes to item that has adaptabiltiy alongside an opposite situational, it seems pretty poot

[trim flame]

i'm not, it serves to remove the already dubious identity that armor and agility have

[plush wedge]

I think I'd prefer a world where adapt was common actually, if we are trying to make r3 some sort of builcraft haven. Atm it's too straightforward and I literally can sort by stat

I probably in practice prefer something like r1 where it's no nonsense get the item that gets what you need and go play

So I like how easy it is in r3 but I don't like how it's not actually hard to buildcraft when that seems to be one of the goals of all the new stats (checks notes) from this half-decade

[regal raven]

are you okay bro

[fleet berry]

No i sent them audio of the black swan

[fresh fiber]

stressed out from balance changes gg

[vital linden]

You'd have no idea how stressful it is being in balance, expecially on an higher position, you will get constant hate by a good chunk of the community no matter what you do, you will face many struggles inside the team aswell, you don't even get paid and rarely you see your work "pay off" like other areas in development due to the different nature of it.
Anyone who really takes upon themselves to do a lot to work with the balance of this game deserves respect

And no balance dev has all freedom to do all changes that they'd want, often it's more about balancing the team enviroment than the actual quality of the changes, since Monumenta isn't an actual job, everyone on the team more or less does what they want to do, so if you don't compromise sometimes game quality for developer wants and health there will be no game being developed anymore

One example of struggles was back in the day, shorly after r2 launched, Me, Rubiks and Stickers had the idea to do epics for the upcoming "delves" mechanic that would come out, and i don't even remember why anymore but a good portion of the lead team was against doing item/balance stuff at that point, so we worked on them in secret hiding them in a floating island off in the development server 🤣

[raw bobcat]

I feel like there arent enough levers to pull on for balancing

[tardy steeple]

especially in r3, feels as though there's way too many levers to play with

[raw bobcat]

A lot of balance changes often have to be done with very broadly affecting stats with large collateral effects

[raw bobcat]

Shouldnt it be the opposite

You pull a lever on class balance and you’ve accidentally collateral’d both r1 and r2 by mistake

[tardy steeple]

take chain lightning for example, there's base skill, level 2, enhancement, every charm involved, gear impacts on the damage (plus extra gear impacts if there's stuff like fire n all)

[raw bobcat]

unless its specifically charms or enhancements

[tardy steeple]

Yea, there's a ton of levers, but no lever hitting an single thing really

it's like the spotlight puzzle

each lever impacts more than one light, and you have to find a way to use the levers to make all lights meet the goal value

except it's not 4 lights

[raw bobcat]

Idk that still feels like “not enough levers” for me

R3 is a lot more complicated at base than the previous 2 regions

So the amount of levers needed to get a fine level of control is gonna explode proportionately

[tardy steeple]

think a better way to phrase it would be not enough precise levers

[raw bobcat]

ok that’s fair enough

[tardy steeple]

there's a lot of high side effect levers

not much to just tweak this little thing in this specific place

[raw bobcat]

I feel like monumenta could do with a “danger level” state as a semi related note

it already sort of has something similar with safezones, adventure zones, survival zones, and instances i guess

[tardy steeple]

what do you mean by that?

[raw bobcat]

So like as an example, judgement of the outer world’s proximity check for enemies and bosses

The original item sounds cool, but constantly having no food and having to keep eating every minute just from existing sucked

So the solution was to cludge together a “combat state” check approximation by checking for nearby enemies

I feel like a more “official” implementation of that with better gradient would be a useful lever to have

For example one of the reasons for the pickaxe nerf given this patch is that they were being too effective with their in-combat effects

but like you’ve also accidentally nerfed r3 spawner mining speeds universally while nerfing combat spawner mining?

If I’ve torched all the spawners nearby resulting in x10 spawner cd i feel like i maybe shouldnt be punished for pickaxes being too powerful in combat

Haste nuke a year ago resulted in a similar issue trying to curb cz speedclears

[tardy steeple]

Yea, having some form of "know if someone is in combat" system has been an idea seeked for a while, it's generally been more a challenge of identifying what that means

[raw bobcat]

While a comprehensive solution is probably a bit too difficult to easily solve

Something like time since dmg taken or dealt, and proximity to an enemy seem like good stats to be be tracking and have universally available for use maybe

[tardy steeple]

yea, just a question of finding what is a set of states we would want to track as well as what each state "means" for different tooling

and it becomes a point of high contention when used in enchants/skills/tech in general once made

since it becomes a form of "arbitrarily" defining the state a player is in/nerfing things the player can do in that state, i know there's certainly been questions around some of the existing town/adventure mode limitations on a regular basis, although usually less ferverous a topic since most aren't balance impacting disabled things

[raw bobcat]

I dont think u need to necessarily define the values immediately

Just having the options properly codified would probably help

As a relatively recent example that came up

[tardy steeple]

codifying how it works without setting up the tooling just ends up in a bunch of technical attempts/separated solutions imo, with something like this development into a util call to do the check for them is probably a "first step" to it's use anywhere

[raw bobcat]

Twisteds recently had a check added to control twisted spawning behavior depending on players and twisteds present

[tardy steeple]

oh, that kind of thing's existed forever

after enough deaths they go back and hide in a spawner until the next event goes off

[raw bobcat]

Lemme finish

The original plan was to have the modifier run a check on how many players were within a 50 block range of a spawner whenever a spawner tripped

[plush wedge]

I was thinking about this, think there's 2 different "states" of danger here, like "in combat" and "suffering from incoming damage". Judgement works better for the first while something speculative like "healing when not taking damage (instead of having to eat and using saturation)" works better for the second

[raw bobcat]

Except uh that code for checking players in range already exists in the lootbox handling but the devs involved werent aware until i brought it up

So they were about to prepare to rewrite a similar thing a 2nd time if it hadnt been brought up

[tardy steeple]

The lootbox tech there is also somewhat limited in that it's mostly around ensuring activity around it, as well as consuming it's own checks in the process, so it can't really be used for a second system since it's storing/consuming credits for chest opens, and an outside system wouldn't be able to accurately use it if someone isn't interacting with the chests/consuming credits

[raw bobcat]

I might’ve used the wrong term here maybe

I meant as in having some generic functions to call for useful values that frequently pop up so devs arent writing the same functions multiple times

In this situation, i believe they reused the lootscaling players check to determinate how many players there are for the twisted boss cap

[tardy steeple]

Fair, the common tooling for lootboxes is in chest utils, which is probably not the most logical place for it if you look at that tooling as anything more than a lootbox tool

[lament sparrow]

The method is playersInLootScalingRange I believe it is called

[tardy steeple]

Yea

It's good tooling, wouldn't fit this "combat state" usage tech but it's the right idea

building that tooling around providing the state from just calling like PlayerUtils.getCombatState(player)

[lament sparrow]

In this case it's not really "is the player in combat" but more so "does the player have more twisteds to deal with already"

[raw bobcat]

It was less of a “combat state” specific thing and more of “this sounds like something pretty useful that from my external perspective seems to be tucked away”

[tardy steeple]

Lets everyone use the same checks, the only problem being building the likely memory/decaying system that would be needed for a combat state, and the balance impacts/feedback around such a system

Yea, it was a bit dug in to be used in a wider context, but as with a lot of tech it tends to start existing for a single purpose, since that's what it's used for initially

trick would be to be move those around/re-reference those to the new places if we want to reuse them for more than the initial purpose

beyond major reworks you rarely see people just build utility tech without an initial purpose in mind

[atomic crane]

To be honest, I personally like the weapon and offensive toolkit nerfs due to personal preference. I would much rather most normal mobs be in the 3-4 shot range for things. I can’t give my opinion on what the alch bag changes did, I haven’t tested it. Mage W of course. I do agree that pureshard adze needed to be rebalanced, although I would like to have seen a more interesting allocation than removed some mining speed. I personally hate that we got so many defensive skill nerfs though. The way mobs hit in r3
Is especially punishing, even for the tankier classes. I don’t want to go face tank minibosses, but I do think that extra half a point of defense, added up is most likely going to mean I can take one less hit before dying. After reading the rest of this thread, I understand why these changes could have been made. I disagree that any one class has been nuked, aside from mscout (which I have said I do not like. Why does the singular projectile class have melee abilities? It makes no sense)

I feel like most of the offensive nerfs were done to make the overall maximum damage you can do not as drastic as we saw with hexfall (you can kill hyceana [a savage tier boss] without even seeing The hard enrage, for gods sake)

[mellow onyx]

3-4 shot normal mobs

[atomic crane]

Defensive, however, I fully disagree. Every single “balanced” build I have run, regardless of class, has still been fairly glassy. And by fairly glassy I mean max defensive buff warrior is 4-5shot

[atomic crane]

I mean with normal attacks, not abilities. Obviously there are exceptions like warrior crits and rogue, things like that.

[mellow onyx]

this is still rather vague

[river sorrel]

Do you think a scout should have to shoot every mob 3-4 times to kill it

[atomic crane]

Scout is good with 2-3

[quiet orbit]

Can't wait to crit a mob 3-4 times on assassin and then... the other 1000 mobs

[atomic crane]

Point is, nothing should be MELTING quite like they were (and possibly still are) to normal attacks

[atomic crane]

Assassin is quite literally designed around beeg damage, it’s fine

So it is quite a bit more nuanced than I managed to get across

[viscid geyser]

I dont hate the mere idea of giving mobs more health but it would require nothing less then a complete server rework to be pulled off without breaking the game

[atomic crane]

I didn’t say give mobs more hp

[viscid geyser]

mobs more hp and attacks weaker are more or less the same thing balance wise

[atomic crane]

I said I can see why the nerfs to offense gear were put in place

[mellow onyx]

due to the nature of r3's fast paced combat I disagree

[atomic crane]

That’s true, I have my own qualms about r3 stuff though, and I’m not getting into that here

[atomic crane]

Also why I disagree with the defensive nerfs. It’s already way too easy to get nuked by basic attacks in a balanced or tanky build, and 0.5 might not sound like a lot, but in other games that add up FAST, and can be the difference between 5 hits and 6 hits you can take

[mellow onyx]

r3 builds are relatively tanky compared to r2

[atomic crane]

By balanced I mean 3-4 (mostly 3) damage pieces, and tanky is 4-5 tank pieces

Actually I think 4 might be more glassy than tanky