State of PvP

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Skyforth wrote:

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

Also, it's an arpg farming game, what do you expect?

Ah hello tommy, i was expecting you here.

Care to demonstrate your gear in terms of weapon and/or chest and then relate that towards your success in PvP atm?

My gear is secret, regardless. But I can tell you, this character is cheaper than my witch I used 1.2 which was kinda OP

I can beat casters which have invested more exalts than me, so there's not just about dem exalts honestly

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

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Skyforth wrote:

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

Also, it's an arpg farming game, what do you expect?

Ah hello tommy, i was expecting you here.

Care to demonstrate your gear in terms of weapon and/or chest and then relate that towards your success in PvP atm?

My gear is secret, regardless. But I can tell you, this character is cheaper than my witch I used 1.2 which was kinda OP

I can beat casters which have invested more exalts than me, so there's not just about dem exalts honestly

Yea of course, it's not all about it. But it is definitely a fundamental component of it, correct me if im wrong.

How would a 200ex build go up against a 1000ex build? You're the expert here.

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Skyforth wrote:

How would a 200ex build go up against a 1000ex build? You're the expert here.

Well that all depends of each builds, since different trees(read builds) are more gearreliable than others. You can do an insane build which requires 0 skill under 50ex(6l quill+belly/leg kaoms) and go EA that counters melee pretty good

Let PvP die.....

This thread is a great example of players going thru the 4 stages of dealing with death.

It was a waste of developer resources and now that it has proven a failure, we can get back to the real game.

In a game like PoE it was always a certainty that PvP would devolve into a playground for the rich.

GGG needs to get back to serving the VAST majority of players.

Just did the HC swiss.

Round 1 Melee = I win 4-0
Round 2 Puncture trapper = I lose 4-0
Round 3 Puncture trapper = I lose 4-0
Round 4 Noob = I win 4-0
Round 5 Melee = I win 4-0
Round 6 Melee = I win 4-0

4th to 13th all on 12 points.

Skyforth: You have a lot of legitimate concerns about PvP, Your analysis of the current PvP meta and PvP tournaments are pretty spot on id say.... I pretty much agree with you there.

However I strongly disagree with your views on QA testing, How the time between 1.2 and 1.3 was used and exactly what went on in Alpha testing as in how we were allowed to test.

First let me say I was allowed into alpha on Nov 2nd. I read a post on the forums that GGG was looking for testers it asked that if you thought you could contribute to a PvP patch to Pm the devs. I was in the second wave of Alpha testers I believe. I think there were some people who were invited from the LLD scene based on their participation in the scene before 1.3 was ever announced. So the first assumption I would like to clear up is that GGG and or alpha testers were in fact not working on 1.3 the second 1.2 dropped. The largest chunk of testing was done in the last month before 1.3 was released. I believe GGG has said something about this as well...Something along the lines of

"we wernt going to release any patch at all and then later decided we could work on a PvP only patch"

If they had planned on releasing 1.3 all along I think there would have been a lot more time for testing.

Next id like to talk about how we were allowed to test.

Im getting the feeling people assume we had the ability to make items on demand. That we could dream up a build type /givemeloot in chat and we get it in our stash. This couldnt be further from the truth. We were allowed to import our own characters into the alpha servers about once a week. That means that anything you wanted to use for testing had to be bought on the live realms with your own currency and then transferred over in Alpha for testing. I didnt have a LLD character before Alpha I went into alpha because of my experience in HLD so during alpha I pieced together my LLD character to test things. I spent about 30ex of my own currency just to test. I was not about to spend a ton of currency crafting a 180+dps 1h weapon for testing....I have fun playing LLD but im not going to spend hundreds of exalts to be the best at it.

Testing conditions could have been better thats for sure but id like to think that we did the best we could with what we had to work with.

This is purely speculation here but I dont think GGG had the means to give us testers the ability to create items/gems on demand to test an infinite array of builds. I once asked for a 20/20 phys to lightening gem to test since I couldnt get it on the live serves because it didnt exist yet. I was told it wasnt possible to get one... what that meant exactly I dont know but it lead me to believe the ability to just creat items with any stats wasnt something that was easy or wasnt something the Devs wanted us to be able to do during testing.


Balance wasnt all we had to test.

We were asked for a time to level a new character to lvl 28 with the intent of using it as a pvp character. We would PvP with gear that we found while leveling to 28 and report our feedback. Then we weould take that character and farm gear for another PvP character... do some testing and report our feedback. GGG wanted to see what it would be like for new players in leagues to PvP (theres still league PvP coming in jan) The highest level of play wasnt the only thing on GGGs and the alpha testers minds.

We also spent some time working out bugs in CTF and FFA. If you have complaints about it now just imagine what is was like during testing we had whole realm crashes and stuff. I remember the new counter attack gems glitching and booting everyone from the game same with mirror arrow. We didnt only test what was existing sometimes new stuff was introduced and we were ask to test it as well.

The way you see things in the game now are not necessarily how they worked for Alpha testers. Some things that people take issue with now were not in alpha GGG was making changes to the game constantly until the release of 1.3 they didnt always have time to upload the latest changes to alpha every second for us to test so some things were put in untested or only partially tested.

Yes balance was tested during Alpha basically what happened was we used the info that was already compiled from previous PvP tournaments that Greendude so graciously put on for the community before there was ever this much interest in PvP.

We were able to figure out in the current meta what the best builds were and how they could be adjusted to make other builds more viable. We tested these changes.... just look at the patch notes. We essentially created a new meta game with these changes and the new meta is what got released onto the live servers. There is never a perfect time to release a balance patch because balance patches create new metas that need to be tested so that more balance patches can be released so that new metas can be tested and balanced and so on....... We didnt have months to spend more of our own currency testing the new meta we created and even if we did balance is a never ending goal that realistically will never be achieved. All we can hope for are options for different builds to deal with one another which leo and some of the new uniques bring to the table. All this patch was essentially was a step in the right direction. Before there was 0 balance in PvP now there is some and later there will be more.....at least I hope so if this community dosnt implode on itself :P

Its really easy for people to look at alpha testers and go

"The imbalances that exist in PvP are a direct result of the incompetence of the Alpha testers."

A lot of people who are saying things like this never cared about PvP before 1.3. I think more has been written in the PvP feedback thread in the last week than was ever written there before. If more people had taken interest in PvP before 1.3....Before Prizes were announced....Before a ladder existed... then maybe the alpha testers would have had more data to bring with them to alpha testing. A group of 30 isnt going to find as many flaws as a group of 400. So people saying things like "I wasnt allowed to alpha test." are just using it as an excuse. If you really wanted to help PvP you could have helped even without being a part of Alpha. All you had to do was participate in PvP and express your opinions/concerns/feedback on the forums then GGG and Alpha testers could have tested whatever for you or taken your feedback into consideration.

The Alpha testers were not told everything nor did GGG take their advice 100% of the time.

You have to remember this is GGGs game they are going to do what they feel is in the best interest of their game. We as alpha testers were merely advisers to the president in a sense. We bring the data and our opinion of how things should be but ultimately what happens is GGGs decision. This is good as GGG dosnt have any bias as to what build should be the best in PvP or anything of that nature. They are going to look out for their own game where as players... even ones who try to be as impartial as possible are always going to have a little bit of bias or clouded judgement.

That being said I am not aware of anyone who "Hid" their build during alpha testing. Does that mean that it didnt happen? No. Its a shame if it did and I agree that people like that should not have been let into testing I went in and tried to take care of some things I thought were OP in HLD it was actually a build I was playing but I knew it needed a nerf for the betterment of PvP in this game. I would hope that all Alpha testers share/d the same sentiment.

In short I am not trying to remove blame from the alpha testers and put it onto GGG I am instead trying to clear up some misconceptions of what alpha testing was like for this patch and also point out that the lack of interest in PvP before 1.3 is a large contributing factor to how 1.3 turned out. Balance will always be a work in progress and as a result I would request that people stop looking at 1.3 as the make it or break it PvP patch and instead view it as a step in the right direction. With more constructive feedback from the community PvP can succeed and be fun for everyone. Now that there are prizes involved more people will participate and GGG will make changes to the game just as they have been since the games inception.

Okay,

For all the Alphas, i've read your posts and i understand the point you're coming from.

But the current state of PvP is still in a mess, and what's the reason for that? I'm getting a large majority of "Not alpha's fault" so then is the blame to lay on GGG?

I'm just putting forth my perspective of everything, as a NON ALPHA because there is no transparency between regular players for the role of alpha. Looks like you don't even know what you're signing up for.

Also, i hope you all do realise that i specified that i largely blame QA and that there was a possibility for what i have listed with regards to alpha.

But, all feedback is feedback and should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure GGG will eventually respond to the issues.

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Skyforth wrote:

Okay,

For all the Alphas, i've read your posts and i understand the point you're coming from.

But the current state of PvP is still in a mess, and what's the reason for that? I'm getting a large majority of "Not alpha's fault" so then is the blame to lay on GGG?

IMO there is no one to blame. You shouldnt fault someone for trying their best and 1.3 was the best that could be delivered all things considered. Patches will contiune to come out and posts like your OP will help them be better in the future.

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Skyforth wrote:

I'm just putting forth my perspective of everything, as a NON ALPHA because there is no transparency between regular players for the role of alpha. Looks like you don't even know what you're signing up for.

Also, i hope you all do realise that i specified that i largely blame QA and that there was a possibility for what i have listed with regards to alpha.

But, all feedback is feedback and should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure GGG will eventually respond to the issues.

No worries man I just wanted to clear up some stuff about what went on in alpha since no one really knew my post was to the public in general not necessarily directed at you.

Alpha testers didn't get any kind of advantage,except for knowing about the acro nerf(if you count this). I'm pretty sure that all gems we tested and almost all but maybe 1 or 2 unique's were released by GGG at one point or time before 1.3. Why would they invite so many pvpers to help them test what they put together,and then give these people secret knowledge that they can crush their opponents with? That obviously is non-sense. I wouldn't have participated,and been VERY unhappy if it were that way. After reading some replies on alpha testing,I hope lllllDethkloklllll's post will clear it up on the process,as it hasn't been transparent of our job,even to us at times it seemed.

I said the same things you did about gear starting a while ago up until alpha Skyforth, but the large majority of people told me they didnt care about PVP being fair/competitive (or it wasn't a deal-breaker for them). There's a good potential game buried underneath all the nonsense here, but in my experience it's been a waste of time arguing for it. People pretty much said "go play some other game if you want fair" so I did.