After playing some hours and getting to endgame, I have some concerns for design and the direction and just wanting clarification.
If the design philosophy is to be zoomy like other ARPGs, then nothing needs changed or fixed imo. If, however, you’re wanting to lean into the methodical combat approach that you experience from early to midgame and honestly further if you don’t abuse some unintended interactions.
The following things need to be removed or severely tuned down because they totally trivialize combat:
- ANY/ALL % gems 40-100% increased enchantment effect because of x modifier
- durable/durability/% of durability scaling
For testing, I created an armor piece utilizing some of the above interactions. Unequipping this chest piece I go from 91% resist (physical being 91 and all others being higher) down to 19% physical resist (the elemental resists are 30-40 each). This is a big issue. You can likewise do this on weapons for insane damage boosts as well. On top of those fixes/tweaks…rune damage for some weapons is potentially still too high compared to other options but it’s hard to tell with damage scaling based on the above existing and throwing things to over 9,000. It’s also hard to have any standard metric for defenses of players, monster scaling, etc because of these existing.
I also made a gear setup NOT utilizing any of the above interactions, full plate and each roll having +6% physical resist and I was only able to get up to 63/62/62/55/55 resists – physical being 63%. This was with a 300 weight loadout – 13 points into weight, 43 points into health, 26 into a damage stat, and 5 into stamina. This level of tankiness is most likely fine for solo but the second you attempt multiplayer with 2,3, or 4 players – the increased damage scaling is so high that even full blown tank like this cannot withstand hits. This issue further leads into pure glass cannon damage stacking. Not sure if intended and would love to hear dev thoughts on this feedback.
Also, I’ve ran some tests using the builder and it seems like the above full armor combined with 800 shield with 15% damage resistance, exalting all of those physical resistance rolls, the damage resistance on the shield, etc only results in 82% physical reduction versus equipping that 1 chest piece and getting 93%.
Again, the reason this is an issue is because 82% for full tank in solo may be fine but because of damage scaling in multiplayer you the damage turns this into not enough reduction.
TL:DR There are a few interactions going on that trivialize the game and are leading to balance issues for multiplayer and the game in general. They seem antithetical to what the devs are trying to create.