So, I've done a lot of reading and very little talking as I play through this patch, I've leveled 3 or 4 characters, my main is currently a level 78 fury druid and I think I'm about done. It's been a mostly enjoyable learning experience, though not exactly satisfying gameplay (the only other HU patch I played was I think 1.5?). I have some thoughts from a (relatively) outsider perspective.
1.) Detractors seriously need to chill out with the rage. I don't think anyone is seriously claiming 1.7 is perfect, or even passable. It has its issues, some of them super glaring (mana costs, itemization, strange skill choices etc). But it seems like some of you guys have, given the level of anger and rudeness in some of your posts, switched from trying to provide constructive criticism to just wanting to be angry about it and make sure the people who made 1.7 are aware of how angry you are, and that you think they're stupid. While that is certainly a defensible position, if somewhat rude, it doesn't really help anything to spew bile and vitriol into the forums about how bad you think the mod is.
2.) This is a bit of a question and then a criticism I guess, but why do so many of the regular forum posters approach the game from a competitive standpoint? And why is it a general design philosophy for HU to approach it as if players are competing against each other? Unless you make every skill a pallet swap on the same numbers, for any individual class, there will always be a "best" build. And among those best builds for each character, there will always one character whose best build is the best of the best. Mathematically this is an unavoidable consequence.
Now, the way I look at it is there are two paths from this, you can either try and fight that, and close the gaps as best you can and try to make character power as homogeneous as possible across 7 characters and dozens of builds and item set ups etc etc. Or, you can let things flow naturally, be ok with there being a king of the hill, and mere peasants below and adjust the hill. Make it not quite so tall, and balance the game around the middle of the pack. You should be able to play the game as any reasonable archetype of a character, and if someone really wants to play the super awesome <insert best build here> and have no challenge in the game, or to farm items on autopilot, or because being the best most awesome demon killer in a game that is approaching the age of consent in America is really that important to their ego... let them. What skin off your back is it? Sure, it might make the game boring to have them in your group, if they aren't your friend, just don't play with them. Or if they are your friend, tell them to fuck off with the teleporting immortal hammerdin with 3.5 million effective HP that 2 shots everything from classic and play something interesting.
The game shouldn't be balanced around the top build for characters, because that means that either A.) you have a super bland soup where everything is mostly the same and there is 0 replay value, or reason to play a character beyond build completion, or B.) you have a bunch of builds that simply do not work because they aren't as good as the best, and they eventually hit a wall.
3.) To this patch specifically, I understand from a design perspective trying to mix it up, but the execution on that plan makes very little sense to me. In an attempt to foster build diversity and complex choices, it seems like you've just removed any cohesion in character archetype. As I am sitting here on my Druid, I'll take some examples of what I mean from there. A Fire based caster Druid has Firestorm, Fissure, Molten Boulder, Volcano and Armageddon as things that would fit within that archetype as valid offensive spells. Firestorm benefits from Twister and Hurricane, Fissure from Tornado and Hurricane, Molten Boulder from Arctic Blast and Armageddon, Volcano from Summon Spirit Wolf and Armageddon, and Armageddon from Frost Bite. The only synergies from within the archetype to reward a character willing to focus on fire damage exclusively (and suffer when they encounter something strong against fire) is a MB/Volc/Arma build, rewarding a 60 point investment with ~40% damage boost on 2/3rds of your kit, both of which have cast delays. Now look at Arctic Blast, take those 20 points out of Volc and put them into Arctic Blast, which has an 80% boost from those two Fire archetype spells, keep Arma up, MB now has an ~80% boost instead of ~40%, you only have one cast delay spell that is much stronger than the pure Fire track, a persistant aoe around you that receives 0 benefits from any caster choices, and a spammable AOE spell of differing element to weave between your spicy meatballs. And its the same thing on the other side with Hurricane/Fissure/Tornado. Why? Shouldn't you pay for diversity with a less powerful kit?
I guess to short circuit a in-depth and disappointed trip through the rest of my Druid skill tree, the overarching question I can just ask is: Why are there no rewards for a pure archetype? It seems like every class is an eclectic mixture of skill choices that don't have any cohesion and you are punished for not diversifying, a pure Fire caster Druid gives more benefit to Wind skills than his own kit. A summon Druid has literally 1 synergy within the 80 point investment on Raven/Spirit Wolf/Dire Wolf/Grizzly which is 20 life on Dire Wolves and 40% lightning damage on Ravens, which you can ignore Dire Wolf/Grizzly for and still get.
And 4.) A more light hearted question, can anyone explain why Madawc is killing me in less than a second after I facefuck Talic and Korlic, but only if I actually get into melee range with him?
|