Balanced game for all playstyles

Alot of discussion about how the game should play,

Should the game allow players to screen clear?
Should the game allow players to play a slower methodical build?

The answer is simple.

The game should allow both.

However since this is a game based off the trade economy any build that isnt able to screen clear with crazy speed is a debuff to the player.

I know Mark mentioned before that he was looking into changes for the atlas tree. Which would reduce mob pack size and increase rewards.

Which is exactly the steps this game needs to allow for both playstyles
However it could be "abused" by fast screen clearing builds.
So definitely some thinking to do on how to implement options like this but 100% this is exactly what the game needs.

I love both playstyles, I love seeing whats going on, but I also love just screen clearing if said ability fits the build.

Ill be far less likely to play a build that takes 15 minutes to clear a map than one that takes 5 due to the rewards and trade economy.

Once you fix this, I think alot of people will be happy.

Just my opinion, whatever its worth.

Game does allow both

Marks atlas tree idea is a good step into a direction that could actually satisfy both player groups.
However I think there is also more to it: If monsters are slower to kill, they also need to be more interesting. So they would need to give at least the rares more interesting abilities and behaviour - something more interesting than "dodge another projectile".
Player groups likely have different preferences as well: Lets say you like flashy high impact looking graphic effects. That would likely fit more into a more laid back farming groups of mobs playstyle than into a high challenge map were visual clarity and focus targeting the most threatening mobs is important and the graphic effect would just clutter the screen too much.
They would also need to balance the game in a way that is works with both smaller group of high hp enemies and larger groups of low hp enemies.

So in practice: if they want to satisfy both player groups, there is a lot of work for them to do.

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Game does allow both

The game does allow both. But the game does overload the player with alot of mobs especially in juiced maps so every build has to incorporate soalot of aoe. Which shouldnt always be the case, hence why they are already thinking of atlas nodes to help alleviate this. Assuming they want to incorporate more methodical gameplay. Which i hope they do.

But again, the game is based off the trade economy.

As I said I love both playstyles. So Id hate to see either have an advantage or disadvantage, which currently there is. I suspect this is where a decent amount of complaints stems from ontop of the mob density etc.

Its early acess and I have no doubt with ggg that they will make it right, when is the only question lol

I am pretty sure GGG wants us to ramp up in power over time. They said it in one of the interviews.

So we start slow, with methodical, slower combat. But in the end, when we are min-maxing gear we are supposed to feel "godlike" and clear the screen. There should be fights designed for this level of power too imo, so the game doesn't feel trivial.

Issue is - some builds scale higher than the others and that difference in ceiling is what divides meta from off-meta.

Can you clear campaign SSFHC with any ability? Yes.
Can you carry 6 man 70+ rooms Temple with any ability? No.

When answer to both is Yes, we are fine.