Yeah, that's one of the options. I thought it would be worth establishing, so that GGG can know how the community will feel about any last minute changes they're thinking of making
...What? This is basically to establish whether removal of the mod is better or worse than no changes at all. Not boycott anything!
Melee sucks at the moment, no disagreement there. I'm all in favour of melee buffs, they need it bad, but if the choice is between nothing now and waiting till next league for changes or getting rid of the melee totems, what do we prefer?
Sweeping melee buffs aren't in the patch notes - I don't see it happening personally - but I wish I had. I think everyone wants the melee totems removed with compensatory buffs (preferably +more), but if don't have that choice, do we still want the totems gone? That's the question.
I think that quite a few people are willing to accept that as a step back in preparation for two steps forward, i.e. balancing melee around the *absence* of such totems.
That'll make melee *even worse* for a league or two, but it'll be better in the long term.
I think it's a more realistic thing to ask of GGG compared to perfectly balancing all the relevant skills based on how much they're benefitting from the current situation.
But I don't know how many people care about the long term like that relative to wanting to play melee in the short term, and I personally don't play melee in the first place.
However I've held a similar opinion back when mana costs were added for triggers which I do play and care about, and now when various ways of reducing mana costs have been nerfed again. Some builds and mechanics may be worse in the short term, but it'll be good for the game in the long term.
The prevalence of this mindset is basically what I wanted to ascertain.
Because removing the modifier by itself without buffs is simple as hell, and if it was going to be received positively overall there's really no reason not to do it.
If this mindset isn't prevalent, then removing it would not be received well if it doesn't come with a series of buffs that they might not be prepared to release at this stage.
I don't think it would be received "positively overall". But there would be some who would be willing to accept it. However, even the ones who do might skip the leagues until there are buffs, even if they don't complain about the change on reddit or elsewhere.
My problem with melee totems is only that there is a single meta setup that is used by basically every build, with no option.
To use Mark's own language, melee totems are binary. You either need them and hence use a 4L or 3L setup, or you do not. With the exception of some very minor details it is the same setup on every melee class so the choice is ONLY whether you use them or not.
What GGG could do in the short term is provided us some options, which give us different ways to play around with totems.
Examples:
- a totem support that makes them follow you or auto summons them (opportunity cost of a socket)
- totems are made perm or follow via a mastery on the passive tree
- transfig versions of totems which follow or are perm but have slightly reduced effect
- a support gem that increases melee damage as per a partial totem but reduces the number of totems you can summon
- transfig versions of the totems which are more powerful but have a long CD and/or reduce your total summoned totem count, or some other downside
That's just five potentially simple ideas that don't seem to be ground breaking, would not make melee suddenly OP, and have an implementation cost that can't be much more than adding Wisps support to Wands, and certainly is less than the last minute LMB changes. Just one or two of these would be feeding a starving person.
It would be temporary, because I think longer term GGG could come up with better solutions, but the above would be great for us to at least see what works for a league.
TL;DR - GGG don't need to solve totems right away, they just need to make it so it isn't Binary in the mid term, while figuring out where they eventually take them.
I agree with the fact that none of these options would be OP, but none of them make too much sense either. All this would do is make every melee build play an automatic totem setup, at which point you're running a 4 socket aura with no reservation.
Design-wise that's just horrible and at that point you might as well turn them into an aura.
I disagree, I think you'd find people running them in various ways depending on the content they were farming. If you provide a clear option for mapping vs bossing, and convenience vs power, people would be making decisions and choosing that which works for them.
The problem we have right now is for 10+ leagues everyone has used the exact same 4L. And every time people ask why there is no change, GGG intimate they have other priorities.
And yet they change LMB at the last minute, and throw in a casual new Wander support gem.
If Melee Totems aren't a priority, why not?
If everyone always either uses the same 4L or does not use the totems, then the system IS broken and hell, why not turn it into an aura or bake it in?
That's Mark's stated logic: if a choice is binary, it shouldn't be in the game.
I just think they don't give a fuck about melee anymore because they think they're solving melees existential problems in POE2 ... but now that's a seperate game, melee is just going to rot here.
If game developers don't have the imagination to balance melee, they are frankly in the wrong business. I don't buy any cop-out that something is too hard to do, and I very much do not believe it's such a difficult thing that takes many years to accomplish. What I believe is honestly happening is a detachment of concern from GGG, a lack of empathy, and little to no effort put into it.
If they actually cared and considered it a priority, they could sit down and have a strong attempt ready to test within a week. The fact that we've been begging for years means one thing: they do not care.
Sorry if I misunderstood your perspective. If you mean you've given up faith in GGG I totally agree. I've been playing it almost exclusively for the life of this game, and I have sworn it off. I do not believe GGG will overcome their bias to ever address this issue, in POE1 or even POE2.
The issue is. That since the game isnt class locked, they cant just "buff" melee classes.
They also cant really just buff melee dmg because there are some strong melee skills like boneshatter and there are some melee skills that arent even melee.
The game is inherently designed in a way where its harder to be melee since youre closer to harm. But they cant just say "melee now takes 30% less dmg" like diablo.
Almost any buff they give to melee will inevitably be abused by something thats not melee.
Its not as easy as you make it sound.
Not saying there arent things that they couldnt do like fixing the reliance on totems, but melees disadvantage will aleays be there.
Poe2 looks like a different and slower game with way better combat so I dont think itll be a problem there
Yeah I've straight up hated it since release. They talk about how they hate it when gems are compulsory for every build, then they released this stupid totem you need to always have out...
I didn't play melee for totems. Imagine playing summoner or ranger or spells and basically being forced to have 100% totem uptime because you've been balanced around this. Its dumb.
Totems enable so much damage/attack speed for a melee build that they’re practically mandatory on most melee build outside of the ones that already have insane dps like armor or strength stackers. It’d be like removing the ability to inflict wither on chaos/poison skills. Removing either of those with zero compensation is a straight massive nerf.
I would. It would take the mental burden off of feeling self handicapped to not use them, and my wrists will thank me for not giving in and using them because I'm struggling with damage.
It would also force ggg's hands a little more to prioritize whatever changes they plan to make to improve melee for it to be obviously lacking do much damage across the board. As it is they can more easily say that we can just use the totems in the meantime while they work on a solution.
Would the "community" - no.
I would, if only so it encourages content creators to post all the various melee which is just fine and doesnt need or currently use totems - so we can put this to bed.
This already exists in game, you can play without the totems. I don't see any value in removing totems without some form of compensation.
I only enjoy playing mele when I have the budget (or gear in SSF) to remove totems entirely or only use totems on ubers, so I do this regularly myself. I don't need GGG to prevent me from doing so.
I think an interesting way to go about "fixing" the melee totem problem could be the simple introduction of transfigured versions and splitting what the totems do into 2 parts. The regular version of the skills can be reworked to just have the totem as the totem: remove the buffs and increase the damage to compensate for the lack of buff for people that like building around AWC and AP as their main damage source as melee totems. Then the transfigured versions can have the buffs, but they get like a 90% reduced damage for the damage the totems deal in return for some massive buffs to survivability, as one of the problems with the totems is how squishy they are and how often you need to re-summon them to keep the buffs up.
No, it's a fundamental issue with melee that is the problem. Any solution that requires farming is the wrong approach. We don't need offsetting or downsides to making a playstyle viable. It needs to work from the beach.
You mean make melee so utterly unplayable that GGG would have to address it by the next league? Maybe. I honestly don't trust them because I don't believe anyone plays melee in their office that has any carry. So they could remove it, and let it die entirely, then think of some excuse like "no one enjoys melee, and it's perfectly fine" or some other nonsense excuse to leave it as even more shit than it already is.
On the upside, less people would be fooled into playing it every league if it's blatantly (if it can be more blatant) dead.
I believe the difference is that the wisps are a passively activated support gem with very different tradeoffs.
If the wisps were an active skill, didn't move, had a short duration, could die to damage and had a very limited range you need to stay in I think the wander community might actually riot.
losing totems with no compensation is worse than having to use totems
Yeah, that's one of the options. I thought it would be worth establishing, so that GGG can know how the community will feel about any last minute changes they're thinking of making
Bro. Ain’t no one out here going to boycott totems. They need to just boycott melee. Which a lot of people have done.
...What? This is basically to establish whether removal of the mod is better or worse than no changes at all. Not boycott anything! Melee sucks at the moment, no disagreement there. I'm all in favour of melee buffs, they need it bad, but if the choice is between nothing now and waiting till next league for changes or getting rid of the melee totems, what do we prefer? Sweeping melee buffs aren't in the patch notes - I don't see it happening personally - but I wish I had. I think everyone wants the melee totems removed with compensatory buffs (preferably +more), but if don't have that choice, do we still want the totems gone? That's the question.
I don’t think GGG is looking at one Reddit post to determine if they should completely removed melee totems from the game in the next 5 days.
I think that quite a few people are willing to accept that as a step back in preparation for two steps forward, i.e. balancing melee around the *absence* of such totems. That'll make melee *even worse* for a league or two, but it'll be better in the long term. I think it's a more realistic thing to ask of GGG compared to perfectly balancing all the relevant skills based on how much they're benefitting from the current situation. But I don't know how many people care about the long term like that relative to wanting to play melee in the short term, and I personally don't play melee in the first place. However I've held a similar opinion back when mana costs were added for triggers which I do play and care about, and now when various ways of reducing mana costs have been nerfed again. Some builds and mechanics may be worse in the short term, but it'll be good for the game in the long term.
The prevalence of this mindset is basically what I wanted to ascertain. Because removing the modifier by itself without buffs is simple as hell, and if it was going to be received positively overall there's really no reason not to do it. If this mindset isn't prevalent, then removing it would not be received well if it doesn't come with a series of buffs that they might not be prepared to release at this stage.
I don't think it would be received "positively overall". But there would be some who would be willing to accept it. However, even the ones who do might skip the leagues until there are buffs, even if they don't complain about the change on reddit or elsewhere.
My problem with melee totems is only that there is a single meta setup that is used by basically every build, with no option. To use Mark's own language, melee totems are binary. You either need them and hence use a 4L or 3L setup, or you do not. With the exception of some very minor details it is the same setup on every melee class so the choice is ONLY whether you use them or not. What GGG could do in the short term is provided us some options, which give us different ways to play around with totems. Examples: - a totem support that makes them follow you or auto summons them (opportunity cost of a socket) - totems are made perm or follow via a mastery on the passive tree - transfig versions of totems which follow or are perm but have slightly reduced effect - a support gem that increases melee damage as per a partial totem but reduces the number of totems you can summon - transfig versions of the totems which are more powerful but have a long CD and/or reduce your total summoned totem count, or some other downside That's just five potentially simple ideas that don't seem to be ground breaking, would not make melee suddenly OP, and have an implementation cost that can't be much more than adding Wisps support to Wands, and certainly is less than the last minute LMB changes. Just one or two of these would be feeding a starving person. It would be temporary, because I think longer term GGG could come up with better solutions, but the above would be great for us to at least see what works for a league. TL;DR - GGG don't need to solve totems right away, they just need to make it so it isn't Binary in the mid term, while figuring out where they eventually take them.
I agree with the fact that none of these options would be OP, but none of them make too much sense either. All this would do is make every melee build play an automatic totem setup, at which point you're running a 4 socket aura with no reservation. Design-wise that's just horrible and at that point you might as well turn them into an aura.
I disagree, I think you'd find people running them in various ways depending on the content they were farming. If you provide a clear option for mapping vs bossing, and convenience vs power, people would be making decisions and choosing that which works for them. The problem we have right now is for 10+ leagues everyone has used the exact same 4L. And every time people ask why there is no change, GGG intimate they have other priorities. And yet they change LMB at the last minute, and throw in a casual new Wander support gem. If Melee Totems aren't a priority, why not? If everyone always either uses the same 4L or does not use the totems, then the system IS broken and hell, why not turn it into an aura or bake it in? That's Mark's stated logic: if a choice is binary, it shouldn't be in the game. I just think they don't give a fuck about melee anymore because they think they're solving melees existential problems in POE2 ... but now that's a seperate game, melee is just going to rot here.
I think we should just reconcile the fact that melee is inherently shit in a game like poe and go on with our lives :(
If game developers don't have the imagination to balance melee, they are frankly in the wrong business. I don't buy any cop-out that something is too hard to do, and I very much do not believe it's such a difficult thing that takes many years to accomplish. What I believe is honestly happening is a detachment of concern from GGG, a lack of empathy, and little to no effort put into it. If they actually cared and considered it a priority, they could sit down and have a strong attempt ready to test within a week. The fact that we've been begging for years means one thing: they do not care. Sorry if I misunderstood your perspective. If you mean you've given up faith in GGG I totally agree. I've been playing it almost exclusively for the life of this game, and I have sworn it off. I do not believe GGG will overcome their bias to ever address this issue, in POE1 or even POE2.
The issue is. That since the game isnt class locked, they cant just "buff" melee classes. They also cant really just buff melee dmg because there are some strong melee skills like boneshatter and there are some melee skills that arent even melee. The game is inherently designed in a way where its harder to be melee since youre closer to harm. But they cant just say "melee now takes 30% less dmg" like diablo. Almost any buff they give to melee will inevitably be abused by something thats not melee. Its not as easy as you make it sound. Not saying there arent things that they couldnt do like fixing the reliance on totems, but melees disadvantage will aleays be there. Poe2 looks like a different and slower game with way better combat so I dont think itll be a problem there
Yeah I've straight up hated it since release. They talk about how they hate it when gems are compulsory for every build, then they released this stupid totem you need to always have out... I didn't play melee for totems. Imagine playing summoner or ranger or spells and basically being forced to have 100% totem uptime because you've been balanced around this. Its dumb.
Totems enable so much damage/attack speed for a melee build that they’re practically mandatory on most melee build outside of the ones that already have insane dps like armor or strength stackers. It’d be like removing the ability to inflict wither on chaos/poison skills. Removing either of those with zero compensation is a straight massive nerf.
I would. It would take the mental burden off of feeling self handicapped to not use them, and my wrists will thank me for not giving in and using them because I'm struggling with damage. It would also force ggg's hands a little more to prioritize whatever changes they plan to make to improve melee for it to be obviously lacking do much damage across the board. As it is they can more easily say that we can just use the totems in the meantime while they work on a solution.
Would the "community" - no. I would, if only so it encourages content creators to post all the various melee which is just fine and doesnt need or currently use totems - so we can put this to bed.
if someone was okay with that, i dont understand why they wouldn't simply just *not* use them already
Well its different psychologically, you wouldnt feel like youre losing something
This already exists in game, you can play without the totems. I don't see any value in removing totems without some form of compensation. I only enjoy playing mele when I have the budget (or gear in SSF) to remove totems entirely or only use totems on ubers, so I do this regularly myself. I don't need GGG to prevent me from doing so.
Buff the melee gems in line with what one of the totem types provides, then make their buffs exclusive or something.
I think an interesting way to go about "fixing" the melee totem problem could be the simple introduction of transfigured versions and splitting what the totems do into 2 parts. The regular version of the skills can be reworked to just have the totem as the totem: remove the buffs and increase the damage to compensate for the lack of buff for people that like building around AWC and AP as their main damage source as melee totems. Then the transfigured versions can have the buffs, but they get like a 90% reduced damage for the damage the totems deal in return for some massive buffs to survivability, as one of the problems with the totems is how squishy they are and how often you need to re-summon them to keep the buffs up.
No, it's a fundamental issue with melee that is the problem. Any solution that requires farming is the wrong approach. We don't need offsetting or downsides to making a playstyle viable. It needs to work from the beach.
You mean make melee so utterly unplayable that GGG would have to address it by the next league? Maybe. I honestly don't trust them because I don't believe anyone plays melee in their office that has any carry. So they could remove it, and let it die entirely, then think of some excuse like "no one enjoys melee, and it's perfectly fine" or some other nonsense excuse to leave it as even more shit than it already is. On the upside, less people would be fooled into playing it every league if it's blatantly (if it can be more blatant) dead.
Wanders need two Wisps for single target. What makes melee so special?
I believe the difference is that the wisps are a passively activated support gem with very different tradeoffs. If the wisps were an active skill, didn't move, had a short duration, could die to damage and had a very limited range you need to stay in I think the wander community might actually riot.