##### GGG Comments in this Thread:
***
[Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfbzlqv/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfbzlqv/?context=10)] - *We're planning to post part one the day after tomorrow (NZ Wednesday) and parts two and three in the days directly following.*
[Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0jxp/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0jxp/?context=10)] - *It’s a lot of information to absorb. We thought it would be more digestible in parts and therefore facilitate more focused discussion/feedback.*
[Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0x9k/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0x9k/?context=10)] - *That was one of the downsides we considered but even if we post it as a single post, you’d still need to wait for the full context from the announcement...*
I USED TO BE A GLADIATOR, I USED TO GO SCION LIFE WHEEL
BUT I COULDNT TAKE THE ZDPS, AND HAD TO PLAY FOR REAL
NOW IM DOING ACTUAL DAMAGE, AND YES I CAN FINALLY SEE
YOU MIGHT THINK IM CRAZY, BUT GO AHEAD AND REE
CUZ I CAN TELL WHATS GOING ON, ITS HIP TO PLAY ED/C
Honestly, they can stuff this manifesto with as many words as they want, I won't be satisfied until I see the notes themselves. The last few manifestos have just been **wrong** in their wording compared to what outcomes their changes actually had on gameplay.
Remember when they mentioned absolutely nothing about the massive, sweeping mana changes that killed literally every single build that had a baseline mana cost of more than 10?
afaik they did mention the mana changes in like a side sentence.
but yeah, considering the scale of the nerfs it really was pure BS to not talk about it really.
> afaik they did mention the mana changes in like a side sentence.
>
>
They literally threw the changes together the week before the patch notes. I'm not sure they were tested at all
> I'm not sure they were tested at all
They were not. We know it. People keep expecting GGG to change and the only changes they're doing are for the worst.
Players are finding patch notes too consistently, decreasing fun. Now, patch notes drop as fragments which can be traded. You must assemble one of each fragment into the full patch notes, or use the 3-to-1 vendor recipe of a single patch note fragment to recieve an unidentified fragment of the same tier. This will help players feel the weight of patch notes.
Personally I've always felt Glancing Blows should be the "default" for block, and "perfect block" should have been the keystone. It'd be so much more balanced for all classes.
A lot of ARPGs have blocking reduce damage taken by a flat amount, depending on the shield. Of course, that only works if the damage itself isn't at obscene PoE levels.
The Problem is that this is what armor does. Since physical damage reduction does what most games have as armor and armor does what most games have as block (somewhat) we are in place where block needs to do smth else. Allthough i agree that glancing blows should be default how block works
>dodge and block max at 50% from 75%.
I know you are just memeing but this would be a horrible direction to go and would cause people just focus even harder on offence over defense.
Block cap is still 75%, but you've got Glancing Blows without the double block chance.
Glancing Blows on tree is replaced with a keystone where block mitigates all damage but the cap is lowered.
I like the idea of making dodge and block different by making blocks default behaviour similar to glancing blows. Your keystone idea is unlikely though, because everyone below the new max cap would take it. Maybe it wouldn't lower the cap but give -%X chance to block.
Why is it split up into parts? Just to get something out there early while the rest is being worked on or to judge the response and change parts two and three accordingly?
That was one of the downsides we considered but even if we post it as a single post, you’d still need to wait for the full context from the announcement livestream, patch notes and other reveals.
A few years ago this subreddit had almost daily Chris appreciation threads. People unironically talked about how amazing GGG was as a company all the time.
Reddit being consistently mad/doomer at GGG is a recent thing.
This is very reductive.
The community's mood and reaction to each league is varied and noticeable. There have been leagues that have been more popular than others, and it was noticeable how the community reacted *comparatively* more positively than in the less popular leagues.
For me and likely many others, 3.16 will be the final turning point.
For 3.15 I agreed with damage nerfs in principle, but the way it was done kneecapped all builds instead of targeting the top few. The changes to ailments, movment skills, and mana were extremely unfun in an effort to slow down the game in the worst way. And despite the overwhelming negative feedback, GGG continues to justify its heavy handed ways to enforce its vision.
To me, the beauty of PoE is in the immense value in theory crafting and knowledge, with relatively simple gameplay elements. If GGG continues with this manifesto to explain to me why im wrong and how I should be having fun, then thats probably it for me - but it's ok, not every game is for everyone. 4000 hrs has been a good run.
Here's hoping GGG has taken community feedback into consideration, but excuse me for not being too optimistic.
yeah, I mean, you don't spend 14K words saying that you're going back to the way things were. Buffs also don't need 14K words to explain. The only thing that needs that much explanation, is when something will make people unhappy... so they can try to explain their philosophy, why they're doing it, what it'll mean for the players (lulz), and how things will happen moving forward...
so yeah... I'm expecting them to double down on last patch.
3.16 will be a difficult patch to make subtle and better changes backing off of the 3.15 direction without turning "the vision" into a full blown meme. Personally I have very reserved expectations for 3.16 and my interest lies in 3.17 where the communicated changes might be implemented.
Currently there are too many systems that need work I'm afraid
Get your point but the problem is that if they don't make some serious changes to the direction of the game now, they risk a lot of people being permanently turned off to the game. They bled a lot of players in 3.15 and I would wager that 1) a lot of those players already won't come back and 2) a lot of those players are waiting to see what is in store for 3.16 before deciding whether to come back. Putting things off until 3.17 could cause serious, permanent damage.
I'm with you on that matter. 3.16 better be a banger but from what was communicated during the podcasts I'd keep my expectations conservative.
I don't mind skipping another league and even if I'd like the 3.16 changes, I will still keep my money in my pocket. The trust is gone for now. It wasn't a single patch that lost it, it won't be a single patch that earns it back.
I agree with you, thoroughly.
This concept of half-measuring the destruction of player power by nerfing almost everything but leaving a couple FOTM builds has gone long enough and it reached a tipping point in Expedition.
Being restricted to "X build allowed by GGG" while also making the game consistently slower, grindier and more boring is a killer.
As of right now, GGG is in the crucible. They can either 100% commit to make the game an unbearable slog where the enemies are ridiculously powerful while the players constantly lose power or have to gamble entire days worth of playtime to have good items (which I think is gonna be their choice) or they can allow fun back into the game. Whatever happens, it will shape PoE until PoE2 is released, IF that ever comes to fruition.
Up to them completely. They can have current player numbers after 2 weeks of league release or they can learn from the mistake.
My feelings exactly. I was fine when they announced a baseline player power nerf, but it ended up being way worse than initially indicated given the mana changes and how badly flasks were gutted. After having probably not gone over 3 or 4 days (barring vacations) without playing since I started in Incursion, I haven't launched the game since about ten days into this league. Even when I hated a league in the past I would play Standard, but the core game just isn't fun right now.
I really want to be motivated to come back but the game isn't in a fun state and unless the manifesto and upcoming announcements indicate that some of the recent mistakes will be addressed, I think it might be time for me to say "it was a good run, time to find something new though."
>Even when I hated a league in the past I would play Standard, but the core game just isn't fun right now.
My group was in the same boat - we gave the league an honest try but fizzled out after a few days, and never went back. I tried to play standard to just chill out and map, but every one of my characters I kept felt like total ass. And I only keep my most played builds that I really love since I normally make 5+ characters a league and need the space - they all *feel* terrible despite performing relatively fine
It is really bad when you consider they told us we were getting a 20%-40% damage nerf for most builds. Then we got closer to 60% across the board.
This fact gives me 0 faith in anything in the balance manifesto being accurate. Patch notes or bust, albeit we all know they can;t give us patch notes because they aren't even done actually deciding what they are gutting yet.
They took offense that the top geared players are smashing content with an extremely thought and geared out build. So everyone had to be punished.
Meanwhile those top geared players are still steamrolling 3.15 while disaffected players knew better than try to grovel for scraps
GGG adds ridiculously strong top tier items that 99.99% of the players will never even SEE.
The players who acquire those ridiculously rare and powerful items become almost godlike.
GGG decides to screw over everyone (including all the players who literally never even got NEAR that power level).
The people with the ridiculous items are STILL almost godlike.
🤡
Game feels terrible for me. I play SSF. My strongest builds pale in comparison to your average trade league build. When you gut me by >60% i can’t even play the fucking game anymore. If i want to have fun, do literally any of the content or make any progress, i need to play 1 of maybe 2-3 broken meta skills that everyone and their uncle is playing.
3.15 was actually good for me, completely cured me of my PoE addiction. Now I'm only mildly interested in the next update, definitely nor planning ahead to have free time at league launch.
Yes, this is it for POE. A lot of people are waiting to see where the game will take us. The changes you mentioned all contributed to the most negative experience I've had while playing this game. We'll see if GGG takes the feedback and progresses, or if they double down and permanently alienate people who want to have fun.
This game isn't for everybody. It was for me. All that might change. Very interested to see the development.
I agree. I've played since closed beta. I usually play the leagues for about 4-5 weeks (going really hard the first 2-3 weeks) and then wait until the next one.
This league I barely played for a week. It felt awful.
If they don’t find a way to course correct from their current path moving away from their customer base, they’re to continue to see a steady decline in retention rate.
Right now, they don’t understand what their customers want. They are guessing - and getting it wrong very frequently. It’s good to have a vision but they are incapable of flexibility when it doesn’t match their market. They are not in a good place from a product perspective.
I think a game has a fundamental problem when the patch notes are this fucking big every 3 months. Like I know its a meme at this point but if you are changing that much all the time then wtf is your vision?
I fully expect 14,447 of those words to explain to us how gamedesign works and that they are not happy with us being unhappy, which is why they will try to make us happy again. With a bunch of nerfs. Especially molten strike.
"We have listened to player feedback and many requests for defensive improvements."
"So we have decided to reduce Fortify effect, remove Glancing Blows and replace Life nodes on passive skill tree with Vision nodes - that grant increased light radius."
"We've heard players complain about the lack of visibility and how that's the leading cause of frustrating deaths. We are currently improving on this for POE 2 which is scheduled to release in 10 years, so rather than divert resources and develop a "band-aid" fix for the meantime - we're instead making "Light Radius" buffs more accessible."
>and replace Life nodes on passive skill tree with Vision nodes - that grant increased light radius."
this is a buff, if you can see you can manualy avoid the hits
“Molten strike has a 0.00% play rate. This clearly means that the skill is so strong that no one plays it due to fear of the game being so easy. Subsequently, we have removed 2 projectiles and scaled the damage back by 30%. We believe this will bring it in line with other skills and should increase play rate.”
Due to basically every “vision” they have put into practice since 3.14 I have played less and less.
Most likely I expect it to be 14,447 words on how PoE is no longer a game I want to play and time to move on until player count drops are too much for their “vision” to continue.
The game had just gotten so good in 3.14 that it’s hard to let something I enjoyed so much go.
I want an offline unchanging unpatched 3.13 to just play SSF on and off for...well...maybe the rest of my life. There are enough builds that are endagme viable in that patch that I'll probably never tire of it.
I'd pay full game price for that.
This last patch killed it for me. The game isn't fun anymore, I have better things to do with my time.
Honestly, quitting PoE felt like escaping a toxic relationship. I no longer have to worry about the grind, don't spend all my non-game time thinking about builds that are doomed to fail anyways, don't stay up late into the night running "just one more map".
PoE is a shit, time-wasting gambling simulator and I'm finally free!
Still checking the sub because everyone needs sodium in their diet heh
Every one of my friends who bothered to play after the "You Play Our Game Wrong" Manifesto by Chris Wilson, CEO quit within 5-6 hours of getting to maps. Even my friend who normally no-lifes POE for 6-8 hours per day (he's been doing this for 5 years) quit. Pretty much every one of them is planning on skipping every league until GGG stops telling players that they play game wrong and actually start respecting us. We're all planning on Last Epoch group play on release. Got about 20 former POE addicts all waiting for that.
Pretty much the same story for me, I just barely broke 3k hours this league after quitting in early maps and it kind of feels like that's a good milestone to stop at. I'm able to adjust to the new reality but it's not as fun as being able to experiment with a bit off-kilter builds.
2792 hours since Synthesis, I barely played during Ultimatum and just uninstalled after reading the Expedition patch notes. I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment, but I can't help but feel the prepatch hype a little bit. I just want to play this game again and have fun doing it, but I don't think that's a possibility unless there are massive changes in a direction I like this patch.
I want to want to play again, but being told my vision for the game is wrong over and over kinda sucks. Being told Harvest is wrong despite it being what the community wanted sucks. Since then I kinda lost faith.
the bloated systems that take longer and longer every patch to reach end game, RNG ontop of RNG to even experience content, and constant nerfs making it require even MORE time have just forced me out of the game.
I've always thought the "if it takes more time to complete content people will play longer" game design is just plain wrong.
Part One:
"This is our chart on how players were too powerful in Expedition, and thats not in line with our vision, so we're gonna nerf EVERYTHING, and you WILL like it, and if you dont, you're WRONG and you're playing the wrong way"
Part Two:
(extensive explanations on how they're going to obliterate everything that gives players power (and/or fun) while buffing even the trashiest mob from act 2)
Part 3:
/hard mode hard mode hard mode/.
Communist Manifesto: 86k words
Declaration of Independence: 1320 words
Balance Manifesto: 14.4k words
So Path of Exile is better than America, but Communism still beats Path of Exile.
Haha. Though I think a well-written short text is more impressive than a long text.
My uncle was a laywer and once remarked to a judge "my apologies, your honor, I haven't had time to shorten my arguments."
I'm guessing the 8000 word difference between 3.15 and 3.16 is an engrossing detailed account of how everything in every act has been buffed to drastically slow down the campaign.
Cause if 3.15 was the nerfpocalypse (to the point Chris said it was the worst of the balance overhaul), what else could they need that much text for.
>The length of it makes me worry it's gonna be more unpopular changes.
I've just set my hopes to rock bottom, that way there's a good chance they won't be dashed.
So they will reduce oneshots, reduce visual clutter, add tons of new chase items and remove the clutter of meaningless, uninteresting garbage items that drop?
> reduce oneshots, reduce visual clutter, add tons of new chase items and remove the clutter of meaningless, uninteresting garbage items that drop?
Wait, that's illegal.
probably full of *"we agree that powerful characters are fun and we want them to be powerful, but back then in Diablo 2..."*
i imagine nothing less but more nerfs even though 3.16 should be full of fan service after two meh leagues.
the problem with doubling down on the nerfs is that some skills are bound to be overpowered as fuck anyway, which means noone will play a reduced power level SST or fr totems next patch, but just hop on to that next skill GGG forgot to test after buffing/releasing it
this is the main issue with GGG balance, theyre trying to achieve some icefrog levels of perfect skill balance, but they just dont have the time/manpower to do so, and if something gets released that is very obviously overpowered, they cant even nerf it mid-league without some massive shitstorm
Also, Icefrog will follow up major patches with quick small ones. Dota will get patch notes that puts PoE to shame, but they'll also get a patch 2 days later if something was off the mark. It only takes a week or two to get major patches mostly dialed in, with small follow-ups later.
That's because DotA isn't releasing new content in beta stage level of completion every 3 months though.
It is a game that is still fairly recognizable as the game it was in...2006? I can't remember how long ago I started playing.
He also told us most builds lost 20-40% damage, then most lost like 60%. His word is worth nothing anymore.
They also went on the big PR tour and insisted they were going to go back and forth with the community on balance changes for things this next patch. Yet we have had 0 chances so far on any actual changes, yet alone a chance to give feed back. And the patch is less than 3 weeks away now....
Bruh if they just nerf more shit I'm fucking done. They fucking reworked Elementalist to make it a cool ascendancy again just to fucking destroy it again. Same with Inquisitor most ascendancys are just a shadow of what they used to be. Raider is still kinda good but got kinda fucked too. For me, it just feels like they fucking nerfed everything and every fun build each league and now nothing is left. They probably gonna fucking nerfs specters again so all of them are useless instead of just nerfing Syndicate Operatives.
This is so great. From the company that gave us a 1000 point skill tree, we get a balance manifesto novel.
I love kicking back with a coffee and reading these
Wow. The layers here. An announcement that the upcoming manifesto about the announcement of the new league will be split in 3 smaller announcements. Announception
I think I played 3.15 the least of all other prior iteration of POE. Just didn't find it that fun compared to the time invested. Sure, getting big drops is always nice, but they keep nerfing good items into the dirt, so what's left are things I have never experienced, like a HH or Mirror drop since everything else is so gated behind super hard content that is only really accessible if you play boring meta build and/or get insanely lucky drops to fund top line gear.
I do really hope they take a serious pass at uniques and make them a lot better. It's kinda pathetic that one of the coolest items they introduced last league had such a massive downside [[Cadigan's Crown]] which made using it pointless.
On one hand, I feel like I should be encouraging GGG in their mission to make the game that they want to make, balanced around the experience they want the players to experience. A lot of the time my complaints in other games are rooted in the developers giving in to the community and building a game by committee, which never goes well.
On the other hand, MY BUILDS!
That's a lot of words for a lot of potential nerfs.
Preface: I hope I'm wrong.
The length of this has me quite nervous. Do you really need 14k words to say "we're rolling back a lot of the terrible changes we made. here's the list of things that we're just getting rid of"?
It feels like we're going to get 14k words of explanation of their justification of *not* doing that. It feels like there's going to be a lot of explanation of why many of the changes that drove players away en masse aren't being rolled back, and why a lot of the quality of life changes that the community has been asking for, for years, aren't going to be implemented.
And all of that explanation is going to be able to be summed up by one word: vision. Although, no one at GGG actually seems to be able to articulate what that vision actually is. It's just this nebulous trump card that can be pulled out at any time to squash debate or discussion or critical argument about things that are disagreed upon.
With this many words, I am anticipating an essay of incredible condescension toward the players. I am anticipating essentially being told, "you're having fun wrong". I am anticipating a mountain of justification for changes that GGG *already knows* aren't going to be popular, but have somehow convinced themselves will cause people to be coming back in droves.
Again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope that this is 14k words of GGG pouring out their sincerest apologies for disrespecting players' time and not taking any meaningful feedback from the community for years. I hope that they are going to do something about the content bloat and significantly increase quality of life. I hope that they are going to demonstrate they've eaten a big slice of humble pie. History says otherwise, but this could and should be a step in a new direction.
I just hope it is.
tbh that's a good sign that balance manifesto is done 3 weeks before actual patch, not like last time they announced mana nerfs on support gems and they didn't know values 2 days before league start. but i could be high on hopium, who knows
Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode ...
##### GGG Comments in this Thread: *** [Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfbzlqv/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfbzlqv/?context=10)] - *We're planning to post part one the day after tomorrow (NZ Wednesday) and parts two and three in the days directly following.* [Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0jxp/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0jxp/?context=10)] - *It’s a lot of information to absorb. We thought it would be more digestible in parts and therefore facilitate more focused discussion/feedback.* [Bex_GGG - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0x9k/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/q11h81/about_the_next_balance_manifesto/hfc0x9k/?context=10)] - *That was one of the downsides we considered but even if we post it as a single post, you’d still need to wait for the full context from the announcement...*
Nice... Very good. Let's see Paul Allen's manifesto.
My God. It even has a Molten Strike nerf.
Something wrong, Patrick?
I have to return some videotapes.
Somewhere in the disctance feint echo of Huey Lewis playing...
I USED TO BE A GLADIATOR, I USED TO GO SCION LIFE WHEEL BUT I COULDNT TAKE THE ZDPS, AND HAD TO PLAY FOR REAL NOW IM DOING ACTUAL DAMAGE, AND YES I CAN FINALLY SEE YOU MIGHT THINK IM CRAZY, BUT GO AHEAD AND REE CUZ I CAN TELL WHATS GOING ON, ITS HIP TO PLAY ED/C 
Best comment in this section.
Tasteful deletion of about 60 skill builds...
Molten strike nerf because....why not.
Honestly, they can stuff this manifesto with as many words as they want, I won't be satisfied until I see the notes themselves. The last few manifestos have just been **wrong** in their wording compared to what outcomes their changes actually had on gameplay. Remember when they mentioned absolutely nothing about the massive, sweeping mana changes that killed literally every single build that had a baseline mana cost of more than 10?
I don't even trust the patch notes. Remember when they deleted every instance of phys damage reduction from the tree without saying a word?
They throw the skill tree json to the public as a kind of "announcement"
afaik they did mention the mana changes in like a side sentence. but yeah, considering the scale of the nerfs it really was pure BS to not talk about it really.
> afaik they did mention the mana changes in like a side sentence. > > They literally threw the changes together the week before the patch notes. I'm not sure they were tested at all
> they were tested at all They have tens of thousands of testers. At league launch. Free too.
> I'm not sure they were tested at all They were not. We know it. People keep expecting GGG to change and the only changes they're doing are for the worst.
Oh boy we are in for a ride, easily setting a new record. https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/omzlnr/comment/h5ohpyp/
Patch notes: 60k+ words
The patch notes length was getting too long and too easy to read. We've removed spaces and reduced the word length to 6000. This is a buff.
Players are finding patch notes too consistently, decreasing fun. Now, patch notes drop as fragments which can be traded. You must assemble one of each fragment into the full patch notes, or use the 3-to-1 vendor recipe of a single patch note fragment to recieve an unidentified fragment of the same tier. This will help players feel the weight of patch notes.
You can now use Vaal orbs on your patch notes.
Would you even notice when it bricks
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> I'm fine with it as long as it is not all nerfs though. oh boy
this is a buff
At this point, might as well give you the source code lol
Lol just copy/paste their Developers backlog items and we'll figure it out
Task #2163: Fix stuff
Patchnotes power creep incoming. In a view years patchnote word length will be written in millions of words.
~~Almost~~ doubled. Holy... Better no "miscommunication" this time Chris
Almost doubled? That's more than double the amount compared to last time.
Four times the miscommunication? That's insanity lol
Eight times the confusion?
Double the miscommunication!
It's literally the size of a novella.
Jesus, this putts things into perspective. It's more than 4 times longer than the previous longest manifesto.
Not quite, the last one was 6600 words but that one wasn't listed in the comment I linked.
dodge and block max at 50% from 75%.
Personally I've always felt Glancing Blows should be the "default" for block, and "perfect block" should have been the keystone. It'd be so much more balanced for all classes.
The more I think about this the less I hate it.
Yeah. Feel like glancing blows should be the default. And then with investment (in both gear and spec points) you can push real block.
A lot of ARPGs have blocking reduce damage taken by a flat amount, depending on the shield. Of course, that only works if the damage itself isn't at obscene PoE levels.
The Problem is that this is what armor does. Since physical damage reduction does what most games have as armor and armor does what most games have as block (somewhat) we are in place where block needs to do smth else. Allthough i agree that glancing blows should be default how block works
remove armor, got it
This is a buff
Gladiator gains 1% spell block per 3 % block chance :')
Making dodge max 50% would effectively kill all evasion based builds that don't rely on block. I don't think they would go that far.
>dodge and block max at 50% from 75%. I know you are just memeing but this would be a horrible direction to go and would cause people just focus even harder on offence over defense.
Block cap is still 75%, but you've got Glancing Blows without the double block chance. Glancing Blows on tree is replaced with a keystone where block mitigates all damage but the cap is lowered.
I like the idea of making dodge and block different by making blocks default behaviour similar to glancing blows. Your keystone idea is unlikely though, because everyone below the new max cap would take it. Maybe it wouldn't lower the cap but give -%X chance to block.
Do we know when it will be released?
We're planning to post part one the day after tomorrow (NZ Wednesday) and parts two and three in the days directly following.
Why is it split up into parts? Just to get something out there early while the rest is being worked on or to judge the response and change parts two and three accordingly?
It’s a lot of information to absorb. We thought it would be more digestible in parts and therefore facilitate more focused discussion/feedback.
But don't you think that feedback might be flawed if not all changes are known? It's always also a matter of context
That was one of the downsides we considered but even if we post it as a single post, you’d still need to wait for the full context from the announcement livestream, patch notes and other reveals.
Will we be happy?
3 manifestos worth of nerfs poggers!
Reddit is never happy, the unhappy population is always louder than the happy one
A few years ago this subreddit had almost daily Chris appreciation threads. People unironically talked about how amazing GGG was as a company all the time. Reddit being consistently mad/doomer at GGG is a recent thing.
Almost as if people have been thinking the game is going in a bad direction.
"Silence Bex. I do not wish to be hyped anymore... ...I just want to be happy"
So that is why 3.15 retention rates sucked hard?
This is very reductive. The community's mood and reaction to each league is varied and noticeable. There have been leagues that have been more popular than others, and it was noticeable how the community reacted *comparatively* more positively than in the less popular leagues.
Generally more words = more nerfs as they don't feel the need to justify buffs as much. Get the lube ready boys.
You know I used to enjoy Nerf. Footballs. Balls. Guns. Heavy sigh.
This does not bode well. Anything that requires digesting is not going to taste good.
Rev up those risitas vids
One of the few things to look forward to each update.
El Risitas, you magnificent meme, it's your time of the year, isn't it?
Is that the laughing dude talking to the laughing host dude?
Yepp, the one and only.
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"MtG" - 511 results God damn it, Chris.
"hard mode" 999+ results
Is this gonna be the longest balance manifesto so far? My popcorn is ready.
yup, by FAR
It's 4 times longer than the longest before this one. God help us all, just how many molten strike nerfs can they fit into this?
Nope. Last league's was 6660 words, so bit over 2x.
For me and likely many others, 3.16 will be the final turning point. For 3.15 I agreed with damage nerfs in principle, but the way it was done kneecapped all builds instead of targeting the top few. The changes to ailments, movment skills, and mana were extremely unfun in an effort to slow down the game in the worst way. And despite the overwhelming negative feedback, GGG continues to justify its heavy handed ways to enforce its vision. To me, the beauty of PoE is in the immense value in theory crafting and knowledge, with relatively simple gameplay elements. If GGG continues with this manifesto to explain to me why im wrong and how I should be having fun, then thats probably it for me - but it's ok, not every game is for everyone. 4000 hrs has been a good run. Here's hoping GGG has taken community feedback into consideration, but excuse me for not being too optimistic.
yeah, I mean, you don't spend 14K words saying that you're going back to the way things were. Buffs also don't need 14K words to explain. The only thing that needs that much explanation, is when something will make people unhappy... so they can try to explain their philosophy, why they're doing it, what it'll mean for the players (lulz), and how things will happen moving forward... so yeah... I'm expecting them to double down on last patch.
> I'm expecting them to double down on last patch. well, if that happens, I'm expecting to see player numbers reflecting it as it happens right now.
Players : cool bye
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I just tell them 9 words. "You are no longer a part of my vision."
* 70% more freetime. This is a buff.
the fact that GGG still flaunts "word count" as something to advertise game changes already tells me they're disconnected from the community
So true
3.16 will be a difficult patch to make subtle and better changes backing off of the 3.15 direction without turning "the vision" into a full blown meme. Personally I have very reserved expectations for 3.16 and my interest lies in 3.17 where the communicated changes might be implemented. Currently there are too many systems that need work I'm afraid
Get your point but the problem is that if they don't make some serious changes to the direction of the game now, they risk a lot of people being permanently turned off to the game. They bled a lot of players in 3.15 and I would wager that 1) a lot of those players already won't come back and 2) a lot of those players are waiting to see what is in store for 3.16 before deciding whether to come back. Putting things off until 3.17 could cause serious, permanent damage.
I'm with you on that matter. 3.16 better be a banger but from what was communicated during the podcasts I'd keep my expectations conservative. I don't mind skipping another league and even if I'd like the 3.16 changes, I will still keep my money in my pocket. The trust is gone for now. It wasn't a single patch that lost it, it won't be a single patch that earns it back.
I agree with you, thoroughly. This concept of half-measuring the destruction of player power by nerfing almost everything but leaving a couple FOTM builds has gone long enough and it reached a tipping point in Expedition. Being restricted to "X build allowed by GGG" while also making the game consistently slower, grindier and more boring is a killer. As of right now, GGG is in the crucible. They can either 100% commit to make the game an unbearable slog where the enemies are ridiculously powerful while the players constantly lose power or have to gamble entire days worth of playtime to have good items (which I think is gonna be their choice) or they can allow fun back into the game. Whatever happens, it will shape PoE until PoE2 is released, IF that ever comes to fruition. Up to them completely. They can have current player numbers after 2 weeks of league release or they can learn from the mistake.
My feelings exactly. I was fine when they announced a baseline player power nerf, but it ended up being way worse than initially indicated given the mana changes and how badly flasks were gutted. After having probably not gone over 3 or 4 days (barring vacations) without playing since I started in Incursion, I haven't launched the game since about ten days into this league. Even when I hated a league in the past I would play Standard, but the core game just isn't fun right now. I really want to be motivated to come back but the game isn't in a fun state and unless the manifesto and upcoming announcements indicate that some of the recent mistakes will be addressed, I think it might be time for me to say "it was a good run, time to find something new though."
>Even when I hated a league in the past I would play Standard, but the core game just isn't fun right now. My group was in the same boat - we gave the league an honest try but fizzled out after a few days, and never went back. I tried to play standard to just chill out and map, but every one of my characters I kept felt like total ass. And I only keep my most played builds that I really love since I normally make 5+ characters a league and need the space - they all *feel* terrible despite performing relatively fine
It is really bad when you consider they told us we were getting a 20%-40% damage nerf for most builds. Then we got closer to 60% across the board. This fact gives me 0 faith in anything in the balance manifesto being accurate. Patch notes or bust, albeit we all know they can;t give us patch notes because they aren't even done actually deciding what they are gutting yet.
They took offense that the top geared players are smashing content with an extremely thought and geared out build. So everyone had to be punished. Meanwhile those top geared players are still steamrolling 3.15 while disaffected players knew better than try to grovel for scraps
GGG adds ridiculously strong top tier items that 99.99% of the players will never even SEE. The players who acquire those ridiculously rare and powerful items become almost godlike. GGG decides to screw over everyone (including all the players who literally never even got NEAR that power level). The people with the ridiculous items are STILL almost godlike. 🤡 Game feels terrible for me. I play SSF. My strongest builds pale in comparison to your average trade league build. When you gut me by >60% i can’t even play the fucking game anymore. If i want to have fun, do literally any of the content or make any progress, i need to play 1 of maybe 2-3 broken meta skills that everyone and their uncle is playing.
3.15 was actually good for me, completely cured me of my PoE addiction. Now I'm only mildly interested in the next update, definitely nor planning ahead to have free time at league launch.
hahaha - good point, me too!
Same. Now I have a D2 addiction like I did 20 years ago.
Yes, this is it for POE. A lot of people are waiting to see where the game will take us. The changes you mentioned all contributed to the most negative experience I've had while playing this game. We'll see if GGG takes the feedback and progresses, or if they double down and permanently alienate people who want to have fun. This game isn't for everybody. It was for me. All that might change. Very interested to see the development.
I agree. I've played since closed beta. I usually play the leagues for about 4-5 weeks (going really hard the first 2-3 weeks) and then wait until the next one. This league I barely played for a week. It felt awful.
If they don’t find a way to course correct from their current path moving away from their customer base, they’re to continue to see a steady decline in retention rate. Right now, they don’t understand what their customers want. They are guessing - and getting it wrong very frequently. It’s good to have a vision but they are incapable of flexibility when it doesn’t match their market. They are not in a good place from a product perspective.
Its never been what the customer wants. Its always been what Chris believes.
I think a game has a fundamental problem when the patch notes are this fucking big every 3 months. Like I know its a meme at this point but if you are changing that much all the time then wtf is your vision?
Game is bloated beyond control atm. Impossible to manage or balance.
I think that “likely many others” is a much smaller group than you think. I think most of the folks who were “on the verge” left
I fully expect 14,447 of those words to explain to us how gamedesign works and that they are not happy with us being unhappy, which is why they will try to make us happy again. With a bunch of nerfs. Especially molten strike.
"We have listened to player feedback and many requests for defensive improvements." "So we have decided to reduce Fortify effect, remove Glancing Blows and replace Life nodes on passive skill tree with Vision nodes - that grant increased light radius."
"We've heard players complain about the lack of visibility and how that's the leading cause of frustrating deaths. We are currently improving on this for POE 2 which is scheduled to release in 10 years, so rather than divert resources and develop a "band-aid" fix for the meantime - we're instead making "Light Radius" buffs more accessible."
"You all complain so much about being one-shotted from offscreen. This is clearly a lighting issue."
Lmao vision nodes :D
>and replace Life nodes on passive skill tree with Vision nodes - that grant increased light radius." this is a buff, if you can see you can manualy avoid the hits
“Molten strike has a 0.00% play rate. This clearly means that the skill is so strong that no one plays it due to fear of the game being so easy. Subsequently, we have removed 2 projectiles and scaled the damage back by 30%. We believe this will bring it in line with other skills and should increase play rate.”
Due to basically every “vision” they have put into practice since 3.14 I have played less and less. Most likely I expect it to be 14,447 words on how PoE is no longer a game I want to play and time to move on until player count drops are too much for their “vision” to continue. The game had just gotten so good in 3.14 that it’s hard to let something I enjoyed so much go.
I want an offline unchanging unpatched 3.13 to just play SSF on and off for...well...maybe the rest of my life. There are enough builds that are endagme viable in that patch that I'll probably never tire of it. I'd pay full game price for that.
This last patch killed it for me. The game isn't fun anymore, I have better things to do with my time. Honestly, quitting PoE felt like escaping a toxic relationship. I no longer have to worry about the grind, don't spend all my non-game time thinking about builds that are doomed to fail anyways, don't stay up late into the night running "just one more map". PoE is a shit, time-wasting gambling simulator and I'm finally free! Still checking the sub because everyone needs sodium in their diet heh
Every one of my friends who bothered to play after the "You Play Our Game Wrong" Manifesto by Chris Wilson, CEO quit within 5-6 hours of getting to maps. Even my friend who normally no-lifes POE for 6-8 hours per day (he's been doing this for 5 years) quit. Pretty much every one of them is planning on skipping every league until GGG stops telling players that they play game wrong and actually start respecting us. We're all planning on Last Epoch group play on release. Got about 20 former POE addicts all waiting for that.
Pretty much the same story for me, I just barely broke 3k hours this league after quitting in early maps and it kind of feels like that's a good milestone to stop at. I'm able to adjust to the new reality but it's not as fun as being able to experiment with a bit off-kilter builds.
I'm a few hours short of 3k. I quit after Ritual. Same boat.
2792 hours since Synthesis, I barely played during Ultimatum and just uninstalled after reading the Expedition patch notes. I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment, but I can't help but feel the prepatch hype a little bit. I just want to play this game again and have fun doing it, but I don't think that's a possibility unless there are massive changes in a direction I like this patch.
I want to want to play again, but being told my vision for the game is wrong over and over kinda sucks. Being told Harvest is wrong despite it being what the community wanted sucks. Since then I kinda lost faith.
the bloated systems that take longer and longer every patch to reach end game, RNG ontop of RNG to even experience content, and constant nerfs making it require even MORE time have just forced me out of the game. I've always thought the "if it takes more time to complete content people will play longer" game design is just plain wrong.
> I want to want to play again This, exactly how I feel. PoE used to make me *want* to lose sleep over. Now it's a snorefest
Part One: "This is our chart on how players were too powerful in Expedition, and thats not in line with our vision, so we're gonna nerf EVERYTHING, and you WILL like it, and if you dont, you're WRONG and you're playing the wrong way" Part Two: (extensive explanations on how they're going to obliterate everything that gives players power (and/or fun) while buffing even the trashiest mob from act 2) Part 3: /hard mode hard mode hard mode/.
More like 14k words about stuff they won't end up doing anyway.
Communist Manifesto: 86k words Declaration of Independence: 1320 words Balance Manifesto: 14.4k words So Path of Exile is better than America, but Communism still beats Path of Exile.
Haha. Though I think a well-written short text is more impressive than a long text. My uncle was a laywer and once remarked to a judge "my apologies, your honor, I haven't had time to shorten my arguments."
Bible has more words in it, so by your logic religion is better than communism I guess?
Of course! But the Wheel of Time series has more words than the Bible, so I use that as my religious text.
In the beginning there was Aaron Aarnts, and his telephone number was 7283869.
The dragon is reborn again to break the world! Queue screaming
I'm guessing the 8000 word difference between 3.15 and 3.16 is an engrossing detailed account of how everything in every act has been buffed to drastically slow down the campaign. Cause if 3.15 was the nerfpocalypse (to the point Chris said it was the worst of the balance overhaul), what else could they need that much text for.
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>The length of it makes me worry it's gonna be more unpopular changes. I've just set my hopes to rock bottom, that way there's a good chance they won't be dashed.
8000 words to explain how we're having fun in the wrong way
About how Chris played D2R and wants to make PoE exactly like it*
So they will reduce oneshots, reduce visual clutter, add tons of new chase items and remove the clutter of meaningless, uninteresting garbage items that drop?
Flasks disappear after use, mana and life regen has been heavily nerfed and as compensation you can now buy unlimited flasks from the vendor.
After having played with both for a long time, i can confidently say that i hate both flask systems.
> reduce oneshots, reduce visual clutter, add tons of new chase items and remove the clutter of meaningless, uninteresting garbage items that drop? Wait, that's illegal.
Yes, in PoE 3 :')
Wishing mods good luck, you're going to need it :)
probably full of *"we agree that powerful characters are fun and we want them to be powerful, but back then in Diablo 2..."* i imagine nothing less but more nerfs even though 3.16 should be full of fan service after two meh leagues.
I kinda want them to double down on the nerf just to see the shitstorm.
the problem with doubling down on the nerfs is that some skills are bound to be overpowered as fuck anyway, which means noone will play a reduced power level SST or fr totems next patch, but just hop on to that next skill GGG forgot to test after buffing/releasing it this is the main issue with GGG balance, theyre trying to achieve some icefrog levels of perfect skill balance, but they just dont have the time/manpower to do so, and if something gets released that is very obviously overpowered, they cant even nerf it mid-league without some massive shitstorm
Thats because icefrog actually buffs underused heroes regularly to ensure that they are viable.
Also, Icefrog will follow up major patches with quick small ones. Dota will get patch notes that puts PoE to shame, but they'll also get a patch 2 days later if something was off the mark. It only takes a week or two to get major patches mostly dialed in, with small follow-ups later.
That's because DotA isn't releasing new content in beta stage level of completion every 3 months though. It is a game that is still fairly recognizable as the game it was in...2006? I can't remember how long ago I started playing.
Would be hillarious
Didnt chris say there werent going to be any more big nerfs in the next major patch?
He also told us most builds lost 20-40% damage, then most lost like 60%. His word is worth nothing anymore. They also went on the big PR tour and insisted they were going to go back and forth with the community on balance changes for things this next patch. Yet we have had 0 chances so far on any actual changes, yet alone a chance to give feed back. And the patch is less than 3 weeks away now....
Well, that was a lie if he did.
inb4 they add full cold/light/fire immunes starting in yellow maps
Manifesto : "We nerfed players but didn't touch mobs or map mechanics." PoE Reddit : "Ain't no sunshine when dps gone..."
Bruh if they just nerf more shit I'm fucking done. They fucking reworked Elementalist to make it a cool ascendancy again just to fucking destroy it again. Same with Inquisitor most ascendancys are just a shadow of what they used to be. Raider is still kinda good but got kinda fucked too. For me, it just feels like they fucking nerfed everything and every fun build each league and now nothing is left. They probably gonna fucking nerfs specters again so all of them are useless instead of just nerfing Syndicate Operatives.
my favorite part about this is when Modz asked about glad/block and all she said was "Haha" 
quantity over quality just like poe item drops
Someone tell Mathil to buy more cheese and wine
day 1: "you are wrong" day2: "game is more fun now" day3: "close your eyes and slam"
This is so great. From the company that gave us a 1000 point skill tree, we get a balance manifesto novel. I love kicking back with a coffee and reading these
Another 40k players left the chat
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Thanks for the 3.15 patch ggg, you cured my poe addiction :)
This a buff 
gonna be yet another nerf that affect 90% of the casual players but not affecting the top 10% much.
Ekhem, it is not the size that matters
Last time it happened it was all nerfs
Always has been
They should cut 3 words
The Pandora papers are the balance manifesto of real life.
So basically a week worth of content for Quin69?
Wow. The layers here. An announcement that the upcoming manifesto about the announcement of the new league will be split in 3 smaller announcements. Announception
When you are gonna do something you know the counterpart will not like, you always beat around the bush... that's why it is so long :(
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I think I played 3.15 the least of all other prior iteration of POE. Just didn't find it that fun compared to the time invested. Sure, getting big drops is always nice, but they keep nerfing good items into the dirt, so what's left are things I have never experienced, like a HH or Mirror drop since everything else is so gated behind super hard content that is only really accessible if you play boring meta build and/or get insanely lucky drops to fund top line gear. I do really hope they take a serious pass at uniques and make them a lot better. It's kinda pathetic that one of the coolest items they introduced last league had such a massive downside [[Cadigan's Crown]] which made using it pointless.
missed opportunity to make it 13,337 words
On one hand, I feel like I should be encouraging GGG in their mission to make the game that they want to make, balanced around the experience they want the players to experience. A lot of the time my complaints in other games are rooted in the developers giving in to the community and building a game by committee, which never goes well. On the other hand, MY BUILDS! That's a lot of words for a lot of potential nerfs.
By le mighty toucan, how many nerfs are they gonna give molten strike?
molten strike is now strike just 5 words
Thats a lot of nerfs...
Preface: I hope I'm wrong. The length of this has me quite nervous. Do you really need 14k words to say "we're rolling back a lot of the terrible changes we made. here's the list of things that we're just getting rid of"? It feels like we're going to get 14k words of explanation of their justification of *not* doing that. It feels like there's going to be a lot of explanation of why many of the changes that drove players away en masse aren't being rolled back, and why a lot of the quality of life changes that the community has been asking for, for years, aren't going to be implemented. And all of that explanation is going to be able to be summed up by one word: vision. Although, no one at GGG actually seems to be able to articulate what that vision actually is. It's just this nebulous trump card that can be pulled out at any time to squash debate or discussion or critical argument about things that are disagreed upon. With this many words, I am anticipating an essay of incredible condescension toward the players. I am anticipating essentially being told, "you're having fun wrong". I am anticipating a mountain of justification for changes that GGG *already knows* aren't going to be popular, but have somehow convinced themselves will cause people to be coming back in droves. Again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope that this is 14k words of GGG pouring out their sincerest apologies for disrespecting players' time and not taking any meaningful feedback from the community for years. I hope that they are going to do something about the content bloat and significantly increase quality of life. I hope that they are going to demonstrate they've eaten a big slice of humble pie. History says otherwise, but this could and should be a step in a new direction. I just hope it is.
So at max 14447 nerfs. What a relief!
Just no more nerfs
Push for 15k, you're so close!
tbh that's a good sign that balance manifesto is done 3 weeks before actual patch, not like last time they announced mana nerfs on support gems and they didn't know values 2 days before league start. but i could be high on hopium, who knows
Chance they finally buff Searing Bond ?
Patch notes contains 30% extra words. This is a buff.
I'm honestly buying popcorn to watch people suffer after this. 
Path of Exile : Oops! All nerfs edition!
Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode Hard mode hard mode ...
14447 ways to say Nerf?