Why is it so hard to simply rebalance sets left behind with scaling?

General Discussion
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I’m mean are they supposed to be antiques in grampa d3’s closet to tell old war stories about when grampa used to play uliana’s 7 sided strike and how he had to walk in 6 feet of snow up hill both ways in Rainment generator set?

Like WTF it’s just a simple <Click number 6 in the 6000% bonus, Press delete, Press 10, and viola> Done. Now Rainment and Uliana and inna’s and 15 other useless trash sets can be used again.

C’mon get it done. People get so bored of the same ol’ shift and having no options. It’s just pure laziness to not update these it makes no sense unless you DO NOT want us playing them, then why are they in the game???

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For relics! Back in my days of playing monk, I used to punch those filthy monsters to death…now all the young whippersnappers use arrows, swords, and voodoo. Bah!

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I would like to see the WD Zombie Bears build get some love. Was so much fun back in the day.

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Blizzard’s idea of “balance” seems to be 1 powerful set per character class and every other set/build 5-15 GRs behind it…given the history of this game, I feel that Blizzard has no intention of properly balancing this game. The fanboys protect Blizzard and argue that it’s too difficult to balance, blah blah blah and I keep calling BS. It’s just math behind the scenes of the program code, it can be done, and can be done easily.

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From what I gather, each season from the next season onwards, starting at season 22, is a balancing season where they bring each set and items into ‘balance’. This is supposed to occur until there is ‘balance’ however you wish to read that.
As for what will be done next, how or when to anticipate which character classes or items, you’ll have to wait until the PTR notes go up and ask questions of the ‘when’ for the other sets that are not covered in the coming season.

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Game designing is not exactly amping up numbers. There are elements to consider on practice for balance. Such as build or item requiring high upkeep and effort, as in, how often the build reflex check for cooldown cycles. Also the question of, would this cause a massive lag spike for group play if you were to entice players to use it more always exist.

Buff the numbers of some easy, laid back, no effort, no micro-manage build and everyone will hammer on that build by copying it to the nail, which kills diversity for upgrading gems and saturates the upper leaderboards by being the best way to play the game for highest benefit over time. Amp up some massive damage over time spell or area damage with hundreds of multiplier damage bonus and you’ll just break anyone’s connection who are playing with those builds in groups.
For developers to buff a build, those mainly have to fit through a few criterias but I think these two are note worthy to consider.

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what, and an OP build like god isn’t doing that already? It’s at least 10 GRs higher than any other DH build…so, either I play god build, or I can’t rank on the LBs (at least based on skill). There’s probably 20 people ahead of me on the LBs atm cos they’re running god and it’s 10 GR stronger than impale s6. It certainly isn’t fair and it most certainly isn’t balanced.

Balance the builds and let players choose what they want to play. Don’t do what Blizzard currently does which is make one build per character class OP to the point where it’s brainless to play anything else. THAT is what is KILLING diversity. A point in example - 99% of DHs in s21 are playing god build…where is that diversity? mmm? Oh wait, it doesn’t exist! Why? Cos god build (this is just an example, this happens with every other character class!) is just more powerful than anything else.

wizard? bazooka build…

monk? WoL…

barb? ww rend…

cru? HF…

wd? munudunugu…

Do you see a pattern here? Check each of these character classes and you will see people overwhelmingly playing each of these builds for each of these character classes. >= 95% I’d say. The other builds are forgotten and pretty much unplayed. How is that promoting diversity?

As I said, balance all the builds, and let players choose. That’s true diversity. I can then choose a build that I prefer to play and not be penalised for doing so by it being far weaker than the “top” build.

As an aside to prove my point, experienced DHs were saying that the HPS buff wasn’t enough pre s21 and it needed to be greater, at least 200%, if not 300% (I was batting for a median 250%). If Blizzard had actually listened to us, and implemented what would have been a VERY EASY change, s6 impale would be on par with the god build. And we’d have 2 builds that are pretty much equal and players can choose what they prefer. And guess what - diversity!!!

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The real reason is because if they balanced all the sets as well as they could, there’d be no more balance patch notes or revolving door of what people play every season. People still play for many reasons, yes, but a big one is every season, some sets get buffed, become overpowered in comparison, and there’s our “new” content for 3-4 months. It’s supremely lazy, and certainly not the best way to go about things as far as player fun is concerned, or build diversity. But it IS the best way to keep the carrot dangled in front of us with minimum effort. Like, y’all are right, diversity and balance SHOULD be better, and it could be. But then they’d have very little else to offer us, at least at the level of effort they’re willing to do. Sad but what can we do.

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You have no idea which build requires “effort” from the player itself as in reflex checks; seizing the opportunity frames in a timely manner, maintenance for refreshing buffs for enduring the damage and keeping crowd control for scorching the area with large blast radius attacks.

Characteristic build power, is an ultimately different territory which you complain about. If you think you can do better with those builds you listed and beat their records with way lower paragon level in solo leaderboards, please be my guest.
If you think you can play better than top LoD bazooka wizards at the top of leaderboards with lower plvl in a 4-man group, please be my guest again.

If you imagine hard enough, you can reduce their effort and reading information for eye-hand coordination, down to clicks and clacks from keyboard but I hope you know better.

As I insisted;

And as they announced the footing is 5k plvl with GR138 capable solo. Some niché builds still didn’t see the daylight because they either very low upkeep and have no reflex checks or pretty troublesome to make them fit due their nature of causing mass calculations. There can be a few forgotten builds that deserve higher spots because their reflex checks are more intense but they will go for it in time.

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Yeah…some builds can be quite close to the “best build” for each class on many seasons. One issue is how easy the build is to play. The more difficult to play, the less people are going to be playing it, the less it will show up on the LB.

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It should be relatively easy… plug all of the builds into d3Planner, look at their damage outputs, decide where you want all of the classes to be and start changing the number to get there. Once you have an idea of where you want all of the builds to be then you start adjusting for things like area damage, density scaling, movement, etc. eg. If a build does a lot of easy area damage, then it’s base dps should be lower than a build that does not do as much area damage. eg. A build that requires you to stop to channel should do more base damage to compensate for the fact that it has to keep repositioning and everytime it does it’s dps goes down (hydra wizard vs wwrend). Once the base dps is all relatively similar throw it up on ptr for a few weeks and start tweaking the numbers.

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now that no new sets are coming out they should align the sets that got left behind with the power creep to A and S tier

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It’s a lot more work than most of you think.

I talk about a bit in this post, but here is the most pertinent info:

I can say with total confidence is that the iterative process that goes into coding new items and buffing old ones is similar, maybe identical.

What I mean is that wheth the dev team either is simply buffing an old, established multiplier, or creating a whole new item or affix, the design and testing process is the same. There are a lot of boxes to check, lots of red tape to navigate, etc. In other words, outside of the creation of art assets and in-game models, buffing old items or creating new ones takes a similar investment in time and effort on the part of the devs. Obviously making new stuff takes longer due to art and in-game models, but you get what I mean.

If what I understand is correct, when the devs decide to buff numbers on pre-existing items, those items must also go through the same iterative workflow as new items. This means different teams of people have to engage in the workflow processes, and that means that several–potentially many–different schedules and work loads must be taken into consideration, something that may be especially time consuming in the midst of a pandemic.

Patience, y’all. That’s the best strategy.

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Patience is indeed a virtue.

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Pretending there is more than one dev working more than part time on Diablo 3 right now or for the foreseeable future is a hoot. :joy:

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True

I doubt it…

At least when it comes to a simple Number change like the OP mentioned from 6000 to 10000.

If you know the code and just need to change some even single digit numbers I highly doubt it takes weeks or months to do so…

I understand that when there’s completely NEW items added to the with new art and legendary powers or new set items, new monsters, followers actually useful for more than just cc slaves (not gonna happen, cause too much work…) redesigned skills or even a new NPC it make actually some time to be implemented in game, BUT changing numbers in already existing items or amount of experience gained from completing a Rift or GR (EXP awards) I don’t think so…

I’ve seen private servers from MMO games ran by a single person and he had no problem to add new content, change some numbers every month or 2 and he didn’t have a billions of dollars worth game developing company…

Seriously even if it takes so much time, than why can’t they actually focus on ALL classes to make them balanced arround max 5 GRs and for Christ sake allow SOLO players to clear 150 GR with any paragon (at least 3000 and whatever caldesans they have) and balance them arround 150 GR, so the weakest class could SOLO at least a 145-146 GR MAX, while the strongest could clear 150 GR even in less than 10 minutes with more than 5000 paragon and 13-14m30sec with 3000+…

Yeah I know easier said than done, but if they actually took some time to TEST each change they made before giving us a PTR to do it for them, maybe balancing all classes wouldn’t be such a big problem.

I was amazed when they buffed the 2 pieces Wizard set and made Archon OP, yet didn’t care to do the same with the DH Danetta’s 2 pieces set or the steed charge set for Crusader or other 2 piece class sets as well…

Same with the current DHs GoD set… Why was Hungerring Arrow buffed by 600% max (The Ninth Cirri Satchel quiver), but Bolas only by 325% total (both bow and quiver).
If you buff one item by 450-600% than do the same with the other ones as well and don’t give them 150-175% max buffs (Bolas Quiver - Emimei’s Duffel) and 100-150% (Bolas Bow - Leonine Bow of Hashir). In this case Bolas deal with both Bow and quiver max 325% more damage, while Hungerring Arrow deals max 600% more damage…
A logic way to make Bolas on pair would be to make Leonine Bow of Hashir increase the damage of Bolas by 225-300% and the Emimei’s Duffel quiver by 200-300%. Why wasn’t it done is just beyond me…

Same with Odyssey’s End legendary power:

Enemies snared by your Entangling Shot take 100-150% increased damage from all sources.

Why couldn’t it be made like this:

Enemies snared by your Entangling Shot take 100-150% increased damage from all sources. Entangling Shot also deals 100-200% increased damage.

Might also change the increased damage bonus to 200-300% or keep it at 100-200% if that was “too high”.
At least this way it would make Entangling Shot an option for T16 or even GR100 clears same with the above changes made to bolas Bow and Quiver…

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I would say it is easy for the sets that just need a change in the numbers. But for others they might need a change in their bonuses. Some are not used because they are clunky to use. Some players don’t like using sets like Firebirds of Wizards due to what they have to do in order to obtain the bonuses.

Then you also have to deal with the support legendaries that support builds that other sets support as well. Buffing a build that two sets support might make one set stronger than the other so that build will only be used by that one set.

There are no doubt other challenges to making all sets where they have at least one build that is viable for pushing.

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Well, you shouldn’t. What I explained in my previous post, and the linked post before that, was related to me directly from Blizzard.

Here’s another way to put it: Every change, whether a simple number increase, a nerf to an item, or the introduction of a completely new class set is a process, not a one-and-done change to code. It’s possible that process has changed since it was explained to me, but if anything, I suspect it’s only become a lengthier process.

See, when I asked Nev why Barbs couldn’t get more items when Mortick’s was reintroduced, she related the above information, and said that even tweaking numbers on pre-existing items wasn’t as simple as most people think.

Mind you, I’m not arguing that this is good or bad, or that things are definitely still this way, or that the dev team hasn’t dropped the ball, etc, etc. All I’m saying is that there is no change made to this game, however small, that doesn’t have to get looked at by multiple sets of eyes and get multiple approvals before it makes it into so much as a PTR.

This is a big possibility. Some classes have sets in need of an overhaul, or, at the very least, significant changes to one or more bonuses. For Barbs, it’s Raekor, and for Wizards, it’s Firebird, and it’s likely that if–and again, this is a big if–they are going to change set bonuses, they’ll do this first because it will be more time consuming and require more internal testing prior to PTR.

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Sadly, the reason doesn’t seem to be that it is hard to do (not that I want to imply it is easy!).
Blizzard these days seem to be bad at balancing… on purpose.

They introduce a new, or buff an existing, element in their games, to be the next OP thing. Then next patch/season, something else take the top spot of being OP.
They might even, in their delusion describe this as… content.

It happened in Heroes of the Storm, it happens here. It happened whenever new classes was added in WoW. I never played enough Overwatch or Hearthstone to know if it happens there.
In Diablo 4, Blizzard mentioned they wanted to spice seasons up, by changing how items worked. Guess what that means…

I can only presume some focus groups have convinced them that things being periodically OP brings in excited players. Otherwise it is hard to understand why anyone would do such a thing.

Sadly, the kind of players who might have convinced Blizzard of this weird idea, exists on this forum as well.
Every single patch you see people whine that “please, make this build OP for the next season”, “dont nerf this ridiculously OP build on PTR, it is class X turn to shine” etc. So not sure if Blizzard or the players are to blame here. Probably both?

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Think some of it has to do with a mistake that became more of a problem as time went on. I bet you there would be tons of people complaining if they nerfed every class down to only being capable of 120 max.

So by increasing the GR capabilities of classes from the get go, they probably figured easy fix like some claim, bump a few numbers up…

Then they realized by doing this and not for seeing some other mechanic that would make it even more powerful, it created a class that was “OP”. After this they tried to fix it by changing other classes which, created more power creep and more oversight.

Now when they nerf something, it’s after a bunch of people take advantage of the “OP” build and once it’s nerfed, you get the same thing that happened with chantodos, people still saying it wasn’t needed and to revert it.

So let’s think about what will happen if they change the new DH build. It will cause an outrage and many many posts on this forum with distasteful comments about it because look how many people are used to using it and being able to do 130 GR when they couldn’t before and brought DH back to being used more.

So, going through and changing a number doesn’t work without thoroughly looking through all items that can boost the skills and testing the mechanics of it to make sure it doesn’t become “OP”. Doing this and missing just one item or one mob type that can boost the skills, can change the whole outcome.