Q&A with the Developers!

Hi,

with the graphical progression the game has made over the last years, will we see some updates to the character models some time in the near future? Most if not all of them look a little clunky with sharp corners in their models and the textures look as if it wasn't skin but leather on their bodies.
Then there's also the Scion. Her model looks kinda fine from character selection but when you are playing you see her from bird perspective and her face just looks ugly, yet she is supposed to be some unparalleled beauty. Was her character model rushed? To me it looks unfinished.

Lasty, will we get a 'pseudo-weapon' for facebreaker kinda like Bringer of Rain got to keep the chest? I mean I supported you guys with tons of money, but I can't use all these shiny weapon effects on my Facebreaker :(

Hi GGG;

first of all thx for this great game and keep up the good work on it.

here are my questions (you will notice that's the things that bother me since a very long time)

1/ Is there a plan and if yes when will the cruel difficulty be remove from the game. Alternative merge in the game ?
I would prefer a lower progression in normal and merciless than making the game in cruel again. Today that's the biggest reason why I do not want to reroll a character.

Bonus: the quest reward feels unrewarding, by removing/merging cruel in the game, you are able to dispatch all the reward from cruel in the game making maybe for better reward for the rest of the game

Bonus2: I cannot still understand why there is no quest reward (of any kind) after killing an act boss

2/ Improvement to map system did not go as intended (well I hope). People are bored to run low content to progress. Any new improvement coming here ?

3 points here. I almost do not use my currency to craft anymore. The RNG on item is too high compare to buying something useful. I find this sad as I really like the orb system.
Unfortunately, trading is still a problem. Third party site or program are mandatory if you want to progress end game, and if you even find some nice item in a shop the one who sell it is not connected or afk.
3 questions then :

3/ When will we have an improvement of the trade ?

4/ As already someone mentioned it, will there any improvement in the rng of item, past lvl 60 it is better not to identify item and make chaos recipe instead

5/ Are you satisfied how we are using the orb now ?(I mean as money instead as crafting)

Hope you will answer some of those questions and wish you (in advance) an happy new year to all the team

cheers

- Any plan to bring spear into the game?
- When a new league start,is it possible to stop those message saying xxx enter Act 2 in the first 10mins? and if that need to be on please include those who got killed before reaching Lioneye's Watch.

You guys are always really forthcoming and transparent whenever anything goes wrong, but have there been any near-misses with anything? Like almost deleting the databases or a "Glad that didn't go to Live" moment?


The mechanic of spawning additional minions in a boss fight is used all the time in different games, but does the design aspect differ for POE since the adds are a source of healing/mana/utility potions?

- Are you going in the future to improve the trading platform?
Now there is a site where you can put items for sell, but it takes too much time. Are you planning to make this operation easier and faster?

Got one question i've been wanting to ask for a while now. I have no idea what the size of the playerbase is here, but can we expect a server or a gateway in South Africa sometime in the near future? While desync is not such a huge problem anymore, it still happens way too often when you're playing with +200 ping. Plus, surviving in hardcore leagues require at least some level of skill, but with latency this high it doesn't matter how experienced or good you are. You just die.

P.S. Love PoE and you guys for creating it. Keep it up <3

1. What do you think about the deflation for currencies and uniques after the 4 times unique drop rate increasement? I know it was a good update for temporal leagues, but do you think the update was fair for permanent leagues?


2. Is there any plan for serious item and currency sinks for permanent leagues since GGG still treats these as dumpsters?


3. Is there any plan to balance game and economy for temporal and permanent leagues separately?

There seems to be a majority of underwhelming skill gems and (unique) items, which have potential to be awesome. Is it still a focus on making these little used items good again and be able to compete / be in line with other classes? Some threshhold jewels seem good for this, as a good example but there still seem to be cases where no-one cares for (yet?).

Do you have defencive skill gems planed in the near future?

Any news on the API you talked about in State of Exile?

Any plans on making Unholy Might effect spells or is it meant to be useless for every spectre except Undying Evangelist?