Q&A with the Developers!

I dont really want to ask this question again or in this thread, but on the tiny chance some-one who can actually do something reads it can you please check the attack damage leech void node cluster's life leech rate because its not working properly(by that i mean works like all other leech) and hasn't been since its release I tested it extensively with reave and split arrow.

If you fixed it in an undocumented way in the last 3 days then tell us so we can use it.

Trading related question

Without talking in any ways of an auction house do you plan at least to offer some ingame improvements ( not third party related ) for this part in the futur ?

Game balance related question

Managing so many skills and mechanics is probably an huge problem to deal with patchs after patchs would you explain a bit more how decisions are take on this part / what improvements you made trought years to make this work less heavy to handle for the GGG's Team ?

Story part / Leveling related question

I really enjoy creating characters / testing builds but i really start to dislike the story part / leveling process before mapping. While i could just ask for an alternative way to level i think it's maybe more fair to ask if you have any plans on adding more interesting content to the early game or at least making it less longer / redundant ?

Friendlist

Game is old now can we have a little upgrade to friendlist maxsize ? :D

VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION :D

Chris, If you had the chance to create path of exile from 0 today with all the knowledges you have now what would you add or remove from the game ? Wich part would you work a bit differently etc .. ?

Poison was doing pretty much broken amounts of damage before it was fixed, but now it seems pretty lackluster, do you plan on changing it again?

Followup question, If you don't change it, is it because when Ascendancy hits the new classes will make poison do more damage and it's just a transition we need to wait for?

Alright, hopefully this'll get answered because this is the biggest gripe I have with the game.

Can we please have some sort of in game auction house system or something similar? Trading in this game is nearly impossible through the trade channel alone, and whenever I try to get friends to start playing the game, once I tell them the amount of third party programs and websites you have to rely on in order to get anywhere they lose interest quickly. I firmly believe that PoE is an amazing game, but its reliance on third party programs and lack of in game features is the largest reason why it's not taking off as much as a game as good as this should.

And because I know the common response to the AH question is that there should be some sort of friction in trading, why are third party sites like PoE.trade and programs like Acquisition and procurement acceptable? The features these programs provide are so valuable that they should either be put into the game as a baseline, or removed entirely even as third party programs because they become so useful they become essentially required to compete. (For an example of something in similar nature, look at AVR in the Wrath expansion of WoW. Long story short, someone put out an addon that became so useful that Blizzard put their foot down and said while they aren't breaking any rules, it has become required to raid with this since it became popular otherwise you get left in the dust. They then later put in some of the features the addon had into their game, while not putting everything it had into the game.)

Will there be any thoughts about expending the current acts to make them more in depth, and making each act act as a difficulty in itself,
i.e
act 1 = normal - level 1 - 38
act 2 = cruel - level 38 - 48
act 3 = merciless - level 48 - 58
act 4 = exiled - level 58 - 70
etc

I have two questions:

1) You have said that the existing curse system is holding you back and likely to be revised going forwards. How so? Do you feel as though you have limited your options in terms of making new curses? Do you feel like applying curses is preventing players from using them? etc.

2) What is your process for naming skills? I feel like a lot of names lack flavor but those which are even a little interesting are really unique. For example, almost a third of melee skills are named Adjective Strike. On the other hand, names like Ethereal Knives, Glacial Cascade, and Shrapnel Shot both sound awesome and their names feel very similar to their functionality. Relatedly, do you intend to revisit the names of older skills for the sole purpose of adding flavor/diversity?

Where do you see action RPGs going in the next ~10 years? Assuming GGG continues to work on the genre for subsequent titles, I am interested in finding out what they think the future looks like.

I would personally like to see improved p2p interactions / environments. Quick example would be short-term, instanced areas where players can choose to team up to fight a particular encounter / boss.

Thank you!

When will the next race season be starting and do you plan on using the same 1 month long length?

Are there plans to further "grow" previous league content? For example, we've seen some new rogue exiles with each major update, but we haven't seen new Shrines, Nemesis mods, or Strongbox mods since those came out (with the possible exception of the Strange Barrel). Do you consider those to be completed content, or are there plans to add more to them?

Hi Chris, how was 2015 for GGG's game dev team? What did you guys learn - at GDC, through professional development etc., etc.? What are you still playing around with?

What project mgmt tools do you use? How has this aspect changed in the last 5years? Is it the same workflow tools for art assets and programmers etc.?

What advantages/disadvantages have come from the bigger premises? Is having the art team together as big of a boon as you'd thought? What does GGG miss having them separate?

Cheers, CP.