Stories from Development: The Map System

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Bex_GGG wrote:

... without feeling the same level of repetition that they would if the area was exactly the same each time.

I haven't kept up with Grim Dawn in awhile, but when I was playing it and they only had really the one dungeon to run (Steps of Torment) this was my fundamental issue with it and why I stopped playing it.

That said...

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If it's just one best area that players have to repeat over and over, then the game is relying entirely on the power of random level generation

This is where the Shaped map meta currently is failing. We saw this with the Strand meta, then the Racecourse meta, and ofc now Vault/Channel are essentially the consensus picks to chain right now.

noice

It's always been great to see you guys give little insights and stories of how the game has developed.

Quick feedback though; I feel this passage:

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I doubt anyone in our community would disagree, but some Action RPG developers don't realise this and launch with a static world. Having random level layouts, random monsters and random events that occur within those levels means that players can repeat the same content over and over without feeling the same level of repetition that they would if the area was exactly the same each time.

...would be better without that first sentence. You'd express the same justification of your design, but without throwing other devs under the bus and treating your views as some kind of truth that others don't "realise".

Anyway, thanks, keep it up :)

Now all you need to do is have all of GGG staff play the current endgame content and see how many of you are successful. I bet the majority of you can't do Shaper or Uber Atziri.

I am not happy about this at all, and I'm getting pretty fn frustrated with GGG- Rory and Chris in particular.

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I vividly remember the meeting we had where we first discussed this idea of content difficulty entitlement. The word "entitlement" usually has massively negative connotations, but it is a very accurate description of the situation that was occurring. It was quite frustrating, watching people intentionally sabotage their own progression and then getting angry about it. Eventually we realised the truth: the game design was at fault and needed to change. We needed to find a system that made players feel good about playing at the right level for their progression.

This is the verbiage of a group of people that are divorced from Reality.

Chris can't be trusted not to lie nor not to just make up his own reality ad hoc and then hoist it on the rest of us as if tho we can't see what's actually happening, to wit these releases- the incoherent ramblings of deranged lunatics.

GGG can do as they please, and yes ofc they don't need me to say this, for just as I can do as I please, so too can Rory and Chris. More power to 'em.

But the game (not GGG as a company, here I'm discussing the role-playing game) does have a core philosophy of incrementally becoming more and more difficult, more and more obtuse, more and more unwieldy, and then more and more discriminatory in who sees the end-game.

This is their core game philosophy, and so this then means no tutorials, no logs, no paper doll, no target dummies, no back-tracking, no learning from mistakes, no learning-over-time, no incremental progression, no recourse for events outside the player's possible capability to play around, let alone plan for, and ofc no other way to progress than a) find what you need as a drop (not going to happen, e.g. SSF) or scam it off other players (there's actually also a third way, the most powerful way to progress, but mentioning it would get this post removed, and it's existance is ruining the game for reasons you can see below) no trading in-game, no item valuating in-game, and no item modifier range information in-game, no mob information, no information about summons, no information about modifiers and support gems that trigger or are conditional upon another event's occurrence.

This also means that there _is_ introduced into the game such dumb-ass shit as allowing scamming, preventing scammers from being name-shamed, allowing people to use that 3rd mentioned above method of item-acquisition to manipulate the economy affecting 100k+ people, preventing people using that 3rd method above from being punished, and being deliberately obsequious by adding in non-game enhancing crap such as burning ground (forcibly removed by Microsoft from the xBox 1 version, since it is DESIGNED to kill frames), water droplets on windows (did you even know that's a thing in Poe? It certainly is, and I'm sure you're also excited to know GGG wasted resources on water droplets on window panes...), netcode that was not viable for a single person game in 1995 let alone a multiple-server enterprise in 2018, no sliders on speculars, actually no sliders anywhere for that matter, creating a packed mega-file that has to be unpacked on the fly to be used, then separate folders for map hashes and shader. aoc files that are entirely too large for the info they convey, a 3D positional audio system that has been changed many times over the last 6 years, and is still not implemented so it doesn't cause crashing, refusal to allow DX 9 to unhook from the various crap that Poe runs when the executable terminates (regardless of how it terminates) so it takes minutes upon minutes for the cache to be free of the bloat Poe put there, and then forcing persons to dredge through logging in char select, city zone-in, hideout zone-in, map zone-in, force to walk to your abyssal depths, then finally zone into that upon abnormal termination.

The above paragraph is not, sadly, even a comprehensive list of the deliberately-included impediments to progression and experiencing of the end-game GGG has implemented.

Again, more power to Chris and Rory, the accounting firm they hired to run actuarial figures on whales and MTX purchase is all they care about. And again, it's their game, and they gon' continue to do as they please.

But don't sit here pissing on our parade, and then exclaim out loud how heavily it's raining. It's very infuriating.

Nice story. The bit about putting in a weapon to generate the area reminded me about the first iteration of Darkshrines.

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Serleth wrote:

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Bex_GGG wrote:

... without feeling the same level of repetition that they would if the area was exactly the same each time.

I haven't kept up with Grim Dawn in awhile, but when I was playing it and they only had really the one dungeon to run (Steps of Torment) this was my fundamental issue with it and why I stopped playing it.

Aint shit changed...they've added 2 other similar areas, a new act DLC (same open bland crap from pre-launch), some "hidden path" areas that have worse rewards than PoE's bosses, and Crucible (a survival mode DLC) that's become an alternative place to level (you still have to through the story later anyway if you want to access any other DLC areas).

Always interesting and welcoming to me finding out the "whys" of a kickass game like POE! Love the game...naming my first kid "GGG" for sure!

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Psukl wrote:

.. Love the game...naming my first kid "GGG" for sure!

same here loving the game so much (even if i havent done any t10map).. named my 1st daughter after yeena and google doesnt know her yet. goodluck on your GGG! =)

Although the Map system as the game's end game is good, it is full of flaws.


The drop bonus for completing the maps is ridiculous. Practically no use if you do not complete 100 different maps.

And here, at least for me, the main problem: Why an End Game philosophy barred by the RNG? Many people get stuck on certain maps because the next maps simply do not drop. It's happening to me now, I have to combine 3 of the same map or buy from Zana.

You have to use the trade to advance on a map is bad. It's the end game of the game, it's for him to flow naturally and not to have to make trades and wait for an NPC to sell that map that you need.

This map dropping system is not ideal and I do not understand why they do not improve it. It is trying to bar the player's progress to the game's End Game for pure and simple developer fun. If it is fear that everyone can reach the most acclaimed tier of the Map as the guardians or the Shaper, let the fight against them speak for themselves. It is the struggle that has to be difficult and not the accessibility.

Putting the End Game of the game into the hands of the RNG is the worst possible decision.