Q&A with the Developers!

Mines are very clunky to play with. Can you please give us some QoL upgrades regarding the placement and detonation of Mines? Or at the very least can Mine placement be reverted to ALWAYS attack in place?

There have been several recent changes to the game, including changes to the drop rate of top tier maps, that seem to be intended to slow the progress of the most enthusiastic of players, but also affect players who have less time to invest into the game who would be interested in testing their builds against the most challenging content the game has to offer if access to such content was not so expensive in terms of time and currency. It feels out of reach even to players who regularly play several hours a week. Will you consider relaxing the rarity of such drops so that a larger proportion of your players can experience all that the game has to offer? It is especially of interest to players who design their own builds, such as myself.

Additionally, before the great overhaul in defensive mechanics that occurred with the Awakening, different defensive options actually made builds feel differently to play. The enemies and enemy skills that were considered threats and had to be avoided when playing a build using, for example, arctic armour were different from another build using ondar's guile. This gave a fresh feeling to playing through the game with different builds, and was one of the selling points I used when introducing the game to friends to try back in the day. Nowadays, it feels like every build, no matter what skill gems and gear are being utilized, views the same enemies and same enemy skills as threats (while being able to ignore the same non-threatening enemies and skills) as every other build. Would you consider reintroducing some variety in defensive mechanisms that would make the game feel different for different types of defenses?

The generally accepted exchange rates between exalted orbs and other currency items have continued to widen in both standard and challenge leagues. Have you considered changes to address this inflation such that a large proportion of players still have access to useful crafting options, such as reducing the cost of the multiple crafted mods?

Also, from time to time, it seems from developer quotations that the developers favor a "Wild West" type of environment for the game where there is little protection for players from predatory behavior from other players - such as offering exploitative trade deals or providing inaccurate information. However, for a game which is focused on PvE play, would you consider fostering a more cooperative environment? A certain subset of players have already organized a number of cooperative activities, such as the sharing of masters, and in my opinion, these activities were one of the more enjoyable times to the game - joining a party with players I would normally not play with, seeing their builds, killing monsters and bosses together. I believe the game would be more enjoyable for a large number of players with a more friendly atmosphere in place.

Recently, it seems that even the addition of new vendor recipes are no longer being noted in patch notes. Given that it seems the vendor recipe system was introduced to the game to allow easier access to the outputs of said recipes, would the developers consider being more open and transparent about the existence and perhaps even the components of the various valuable recipes that are not used by the vast majority of the players of the game?

I was playing the Darkshrine events and got lucky. Within a week, I had a 5l Lioneye's Glare and a 6l evasion chest which was / is very decent. I was playing Ice Shot crit ranger. After that, the typical thing happens: The character becomes way too strong for T8-T10 maps and there is no challenge anymore, even with a glass cannon build. By the time I reached lvl 90, I had one (!) T12 map, and one T11 map. I also had played like 5 T10 maps.

So here is my question: As a casual player, it is rather easy to build a character that is capable of high-level content, but it is hard to acquire T12+ maps. Are there any plans to provide challenge to such players? 80% of the maps I play are T8 and T9. They are just, well, boring. Rolling them difficult (to get challenges) is economical suicide. The problem is specifically bad on Standard. Can we maybe get better map drops in Standard where competition doesn't matter anyways? Or will Ascendancy bring challenging high-level (>75) end-game content?

Is this game breaking terrible lag in towns and when someone joins an instance/map going to finally be fixed with Acendancy?

Will you ever remove cruel difficulty? 3 playthroughs per character feels like a chore anymore.

Do you have any plans to ever raise the level cap beyond 100?

Do you have any future plans for a new game, like Path of Exile 2? Running on say a newer engine optimized for higher end PCs. But still stable enough for those Potato PCs too.

Can I have a job? I have no gaming experience besides playing them. But i'm tired of factory work and would love to get into the gaming industry.

Would it be possible to return some incentive to leveling Zana by raising the map level of her missions? It's a chore to do such low level maps just to grind her master level, and the payoff is not worth the effort invested.

Any chance to to get unique sound for divination cards when they drop ?

One simple question. Why do you hate solo players so much? We done something wrong and now you angry? New league, for example - most challenges just impossible for solo players.