Game Mechanics Item Tester Team

So in the past there have been issues with item changes and new additions, with recent ones like the Divzer nerf or the addition of Flash Freeze which is a useless major id. These were all things that could have been avoided by listening to knowledged builders who agree these things are bad and can give reason as to why.

So my suggestion for future changes is to gather a group of builders who are a) good at building, b) are not elitist, and c) are willing to be as honest as they can be. These builders would be given new items or changed items before they are released and build with them to see how good they actually are. This way you can get free quality testing for items and make any changes needed. These builders could even recruit more themselves as they would know what to look for for testers (I would be willing to help with recruitment too).

I will also quickly explain what I mean with elitist and honest builders.

Elitist builders are those builders who don't look at the average player for building and, if someone points out that a build or item won't work for the average player will, at best, go "gid gud" or at worst condescend to the average player. I saw this happen with one saying that, "The lesser players complain about the better players being good because of how bad the lesser player is" (not an exact quote). These players would be bad for this team because even if they are good builders they would not know who to properly balance items for.

Then with honest builders they would be ones who are able to say that an item is too op, or an item is shit, and who wouldn't hold back with it.



So, overall, what would be the benefits of this? Firstly, it gives a direct voiceline to the staff for if item changes are good or not. Secondly, the staff can be sure that they will get quality feedback as the people giving it will know what they are doing. And finally, it doesn't require much effort on the part of the staff as the group would be self recruiting and would just need to be given the new/changed items to work with whenever they are somewhat decided on.

 

Good idea :+1:

 

Good idea on balances, also smh dying on 9k hp mage bad (but yeah despite my addiction to glass cannons people who say git good unironically would not be fun for item)

 

I think this is a good idea and definitely agree the community should be consulted before changes like flashfreeze, which, while we asked for more major ids for mage, is absolutely trash. However, I see two main potential holes:
1. The criteria for defining competent, "non-elitist," and honest builders (perhaps unbiased builders as well?) appears vague and could easily get heated and complicated quickly.
2. Builders ≠ skilled players with a build/playstyle/specific major id

Overall, I really like this idea and think it'd help to avoid changes being implemented like Divzer's overnerf and flashfreeze. Seems complicated and idealistic, but change in some way is needed.

 

Glass can diffidently be fun, but it's often not all that good for raids which a lot of people will be doing.

 

This program you suggested could also help deal with the tank meta! That's a pretty good bonus.

 

Being a good builder doesn't equate to being a good player, yes. That honestly can be good thought because if you have a good builder who's an average player they will likely build for the average player.
Also for the vague diffinitions, they would likely have to be better defined. This is more a base idea. Haven't even given a detailed recruitment process.

 

Yeah definitely needs work and I'm glad you're willing to take constructive feedback and see the holes where it hasn't been fleshed out. That makes me way more inclined to like this idea in the long run.

 

It’s a good idea.

 

Could be a little more specific on what elitist builders are but otherwise a wonderful suggestion. The wider community needs a larger voice over their own items, and I think it could improve the quality for the average player by a ton.

 

Yeah, as I said to Toaster, this is more the base idea and less the specifics of it. Those still need to be fully developed.

 

Amazing idea, hope it happens.

However, how do you apply the criteria? Who would run such a team?
I can think of a large amount of people from places like atlas inc and warrior cult that meet the criteria you give, but what puts some people above others in being good testers? How would people be picked without bias? Properly gauging someone's ability to determine item power in the context of the game as a whole is near-impossible to do with a test, after all.

I guess I'm just trying to say that better criteria is a must, and the biggest issue facing this concept.

 

Definitely needed, I feel as if though a lot of the questionable (to say the least) changes that have happened in terms of items is usually because the community is too agreeable, then we end up with situations where for example people are panic selling divzer because it got a massive nerf, one that isn't really balancing so much as it is trying to destroy an item that was OP last update (and probably wouldn't be OP this update even if it didn't have -39 def rn) the other examples I like to bring up are how Sitis used to be mediocre and now it's just "why would you use this over..." how the hive weapons really aren't worth using unless you're not using any hive armor/accessories and you want to use a weapon with a certain element/play style that doesn't have a good choice outside of mythics such as fire spell assassin (only really good with inferno) and then gaia being changed from pure melee to a mix and making it mediocre in both when it used to be really good for melee. idk I think I went a little off topic, but yeah some of the recent (and not so recent) changes really annoy me since most of them were pretty unnecessary or overdone at the very least

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also WHAT WAS THAT LUNAR SPINE CHANGE I just saw the old one pretty recently and my only reaction was just "HUH!?!?!" like why would you change a normal item and turn it into satan's grandchild I mean I wasn't around back then, but just why lmao

 

This isn't an exact thing, but one idea I had would be the people in the team would interview anyone wanting to join giving them one or more items they would never have worked with and having them build with them, then, they would look at the builds and ask any questions needed. If the recruit passed this first test they would be a trial member of the team. They would not be able to interview and vote on new members and would become a full member when the rest of the team agreed they had proved themself.

Obviously this is a basic skeleton and probably has many holes, so if you, or anyone else, has suggestions I'd be happy to take them.

 

What was the old Lunar Spine? I've actually never seen it.

 

Old lunar spine was just a super boring basic water/air wand, kinda like what griffin is now. It definitely improved by gaining a very unique identity and whole theoretical playstyle focused around it, even if people don't necessarily all like said playstyle (If it were never changed there wouldn't be fanatics praising lunar spine *because* it's so unique)

Also for Flashfreeze stuff, there is a buff in the works and it'll probably be pushed quite soon, or at least, relatively soon within the next update. It'll hopefully make it a very solid sidegrade choice over the regular ice snake (it definitely is worth using in certain builds, in my opinion)

Edit: Found a pic of old spine

 

I'm diffidently glad that there's a buff on the way! I hope it makes flash freeze actually good.

 

Say sike right now

 

For elem revamp, they basically just had people nominate each other on the thread to find builders. But tbh, I think the public changelog release already serves this purpose (and would serve this purpose even better if new items were included in the changelogs, so we could avoid another Virtuoso).

 

Isn't this thread basically asking for a community item team to judge the item team, which is also made of class builders?

This seems redundant to me. Instead, I think the item team could do well to listen to community feedback a little more. As you pointed out, everyone knew the divzer nerf was going to be terrible. Heck, the original 1.20 idea was -73 sp! This wasn't even the first time that divzer nerf was attempted; back in 2019 the item team listed a divzer nerf from 0 defense to -71 defense that otherwise looks pretty much identical to today's divzer.

When questioned about how the divzer nerf was justified or viable with a lot of reasoning (this thread), the item team showed they clearly held a different opinion from most of the community.


I think most people would disagree. Divzer used to be worth up to ~12stx for good rolls and ~9 for decent; now it's worth barely anything and we all saw it coming.

I think the item team can get too attached to their ideas sometimes, like when they repeated using the -def specific divzer nerf attempt from 2019 in 1.20 and with items like freedom that are stuck where they are ("agi focused rainbow weapon" but with all the benefits of mana, damage, and tankiness and really just a master of all trades) just to fit within the rainbow mythic themes (collapse = str, singu = dex, fanta = int, nulli = def).

Druser has the right idea about making sure items like virtuoso are in the public changelogs, but a big part of that is also taking strong feedback from the thread more seriously.