Current Development Priorities

Great work guys.

I also wanted to retract a previous comment with this givven chance. A complaint on you launching the last 1.2gb patch some hours before the Expansion went life.... Well work or whatever else, had me miss that post you had written detailing about a downloadable torrent for those that wanted it earlier for whatever reason. Had I seen that, well my previous comment before this one would not have been.

On that note, you guys are indeed proving that my initial observation is true, that you are going out of your way to make the experience of your game as fun as possible. And that is truly rare. Kudos and gg guys.

Hope these issues are fixed and tbh they were kind of the least annoying part of the experience. Every expansion major patch on all games will come across problems that had not been accounted for.

The Labyrinth btw is awesome! Yeah sure if you die you do it again and yada yada. People complaining over this is beyond me. That is the point to the trial and adds a refreshing quest line in it all that is simply awesome. Loving it! Izaro (is that his name?) seems a little hard for a lvl 35 or what boss. But whatever, we can grind some extra levels to make killing him an easy task.

Good news on the extra points as well for old players. Curious as to how this works and want to see if I got any.

Currently running mercilless on my lvl 74 character (haven't completed merciless) and started doing Ascendancy from the base up (normal difficulty and work up from there). I have only done normal. Do I still get those extra points? Or only if I had done Cruel or something? Curious to see.

Keep up the great work. You have my vote.

On another Labyrinth topic, Izaro and progression.

The difficulty of Izaro needs to be revisited, especially in Normal difficulty. You positioned this content in Act 3, prior to Dominous. You also touted a new Ascendancy system and commented on how you had to rebalance Act 4 due to the new power of the Ascendancy classes. Thus, the progression should be Izaro, Dominous, Act 4, and then on to Cruel Difficulty.

However, the progression doesn’t work out this way. You play through the game. You complete the trials. You are on the precipice of challenging Izaro for your Ascendancy and moving on Dominous and Act 4, and what do you find? You have to skip Izaro. Izaro is way too hard, moves way too fast, and does way too much damage to survive fighting him 3 times in a row in a ridiculously long and tedious maze that you cannot leave without having to start over.

So again, you have to skip Izaro, kill Dominuos, clear Act 4, and move on into Cruel before you can come back and kill Izaro. Really? Why is Dominous, all of Act 4, and the intro to Cruel difficulty so much easier than Izaro. That’s messed up. Izaro is positioned in Act 3 prior to Dominous. You should be ascending before you get to Dominous, not have to blow by Dominous, the entire next Act, and enter the next difficulty before coming back to ascend.

Will this play out the same for Cruel, I don’t know. I’m Act 4 Cruel, ready for Malachai. Didn’t even attempt the Labyrinth in Cruel. Haven’t done it normal yet!

What's up with the Russian translation of the game?

Glad to see some insight onto the current direction. The DIRECTION of development is a lot more important than probably 90% of the playerbase realizes. I'd definitely enjoy seeing more of this.

"

Chris wrote:

Instance server stability is in a good place right now. After the fixes on the weekend, we don't know of any current instance crashes that need fixing.

Not sure on the timing, but last night (EST; around 12-ish hours ago) I did experience a few disconnects of the "must be logged in to do this" sort. Thankfuly, it was in town each time; likely a town-instance issue, which is vastly less frustrating than a disconnect in an actual combat instance.

"

Chris wrote:

We are currently working hard on improving the performance of the Perandus encounters. There are some significant improvements coming, some of which may be deployed tonight or in the morning.

We also need to work on the preloading/RAM usage situation. We are both using too much RAM (approaching the 4gb virtual memory limit on 64 bit windows)

I hate to have to bring it up like this... But from what I've been able to analyze, both issues are caused far deeper within the main engines of the game, and we'll see no huge, lasting improvements (that'd carry over into the NEXT expansion) without an overhaul.

On the framerate issue, a lot of it is that the graphics engine craps itself out whenever it's tasked with a noticeable amount of overdraw. (players: Overdraw is where a graphics engine has to layer multiple objects/effects/particles/textures on the same pixel. Poorly-run overdraw requires the graphics engine to basically run a complete new "frame" process for the same frame, rapidly eating into your FPS) This was noticeable before with the results of overlapped Discharge spells, but with further improvements and buffs to the power of a lot of skills, they become big overdraw hogs, too; I have a lot of fun with Lightning Strike, but when I'm attacking 10 times/sec for 9+ overlapping complex projectiles each time...

As far as the RAM issue... I would point out that the audio portion of the game seems to eat up at least 1GB. And that beside, it also just doesn't plain handle many stacked sounds at once; I invariably see a hiccup whenever I offscreen a pack of mobs, be it by intention or not.

Of course, neither of these things are fixes that could be rolled out anywhere remotely soon; the former would require re-working part of the graphics engine, and the latter might as well be a complete replacement of the audio engine. Still, I would hope that this would be a long-term priority to keep throwing work into for a long-term payoff. (such as next major patch or expansion, months away) Don't forget how much people appreciate engine improvements... A lot of us are still thankful for the end to Desync! (and for newer players... They're more likely to have weaker PCs on a F2P game than players of a $60-upfront game, so do keep that in mind!)

"

Chris wrote:

The goal of Labyrinth's design was to make a section of a game that players have to complete in one run.

Don't sell yourself short on this one: the Labyrinth provided a LOT more good than just that.

While I'll admit that so far, control-wise it can feel a little clunky, (Basically, Lightning Warp, Blink Arrow and/or Leap Slam are more or less MANDATORY to play it) I absolutely LOVE the idea of the whole thing... And the experience has borne that idea out so far!

Also, the one-time "acceleration" of ascendancy points is a brilliant idea. Probably as close to a "perfect fix for everyone" that could be done; impressive in a world where you can't give the perfect response to please everyone.

Though I do think there could be a couple of improvements:

• For one, I LOVE the base indoor tileset (and the outdoor one to a lesser extent) I'd love to have a Hideout of that.
  
  
• More seriously, I can understand the issue with some people with a LEGITIMATE reason to need to get up. Granted, the Izaro zones are enemy-free outside of his combat room, but what about the potential to intentionally log-out and be able to re-log back into those rooms? Granted, it might be too much of a technical hurdle; as far as I know, labyrinths are stored ENTIRELY by the instance manager, and the character data format doesn't include any means of "saving" this. Perhaps a work-around could be allowing (only if not in combat in an Izaro room) allowing a logout to save the player's "town" as that zone, and telling the instance manager to set the expiration time to the rollover for a new labyrinth? Granted, still highly complex...
  
  
• Beyond that, I will echo the issue with the balancing on Izaro. So far I've only run him on my level-92 Duelist, (now Slayer) and... On Cruel so far, he isn't the complete walkover that that build (which is overpowered as all get-out) should expect... And while some of it was performance-related (was under 1 FPS for a lot of the fight) he posed more a threat than most map bosses... For a CRUEL encounter. Hopefully his balance can be fixed.

"

evinta wrote:

"

It also give Standard players a taste of the adrenaline experienced by Hardcore players.

I don't get this. There's a reason I don't play Hardcore. I'm positive that's true for a generous amount of non-Hardcore players, too. I can do it. I've done it, it was fun while I did. But I no longer seek that, why is it being forced on me?

It's not that I want some easy breezy borefest, but in a game that already has legendarily dodgy responsiveness and latency, having an all-or-nothing playstyle forced on me leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

There's a lot of stuff I can whine about. That line just rubs me really wrong.

First) What are you talking about? Why is it forced on you? Nothing is forced on you mate. Don't like the game simply quit!

Second) Hardcore has a permanent death, Labyrinths do not. The adrenalin refers to a specific experience in a new quest type that actually has the purpose of spicing up the monotony of standard league (and achieves it). There is no all or nothing to this as you mentioned. The reason being that if you die, you can try again. And seriously, the labs are piss ass easy. The boss encounters (depending on your level and difficulty) are the only hard part. Hence, you do want a breezy borefest.

Third) You probably have a lot of stuff you can whine about because that is what whiners do really. This was a great and much awaited expansion. Aside from server stability and bugs (surprise surprise games with 10 times the budget still experience the same thing) it was a great addition. That line rubbing you wrong is you simply wanting to get rubbed wrong with whatever line you probably read.

Lastly) That whole "all or nothing" (which is not true) is already present in the entirety of the game. Did you miss the memo with Cruel and Merciless difficulties? Where your experience is lost when you die? Come across a boss unprepared and perhaps lose half a level if not all of it. These elements are part of the game to make it more fun and add to that adrenalin. Same thing goes with Labs.

Again, nothing is forced on you. Don't like Merciless? Simply don't play it. You don't need to be level 90 to enjoy the game, you can stop at 60 if that suits you and have fun collecting loot and doing runs from Cruel downwards.

Don't like it dude, leave. Your complaint is forwarded to a primary characteristic part of the core experience to the entire game regardless of league. If the best you can do when said characteristic is amplified is whine, then this game is not for you. The only one at that point forcing anything, is your own self to stay and keep playing (if it is indeed as you say and you have a LOT of stuff to whine about).

Good day to you.

"

HazaRdReborN wrote:

First) What are you talking about? Why is it forced on you? Nothing is forced on you mate. Don't like the game simply quit!

Given that they stated they rebalanced higher encounters to assume the player has ascended? Yes, it's forced on the player, and mandatory. To say otherwise is like saying "You're not FORCED to use gear at all!"

Also, "Don't like? Quit!" is one of the stupidest lines of logic there is. You're basically saying "Don't offer suggestions on how to improve it, improvement isn't a justifiable course of action for ANYTHING EVER."

"

HazaRdReborN wrote:

Again, nothing is forced on you. Don't like Merciless?

I might be more inclined to take this line seriously had you even beaten Merciless a single time.

"

We will be running a process tomorrow that will grant some Ascendancy points to existing Standard/Hardcore characters.

Very glad for that, because I hate Labyrinth so much I was seriously considering quitting the game. Not that ascension or lab is mandatory. Mostly just from disappointment after being excited for new content that turned out to be in a style I find super boring. If this is the direction the game is headed in the future then I probably won't be spending any more money on it.

"

Sheriff_K wrote:

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Rock on!

PS. Why is Charan's text blue all of a sudden.. o_0

SSS: Special Snowflake Syndrome.


@Chris, this is really great news. The decision towards granting the ascendancy points to existing chars in cruel/merciless is a very welcome change. Keep up the good work guys!

after having to deal with bugs and crashes.

I LOVE THIS EXPANSION. not sure what happened or any knowledge to talisman. i liked it and it was fun while playing the game and having something to do in maps other then mapping and looting gear, but this with having to do 2 different things ur able to get coins from very challenging chests and being rewarded with turning them in for an item. while also having the labyrinth. doing the trials while u go. i never been big on doing challenges and that list is a bit over whelming more then a new player looking at the passive tree for the first time. but most are easy just tedious and some are just a waste of time like clearing areas. i know u just needed things to throw in a list and to keep us playing and some it will work, because the portal effect, but i guess its why its called challenges, but with all that has come out it def adds to it and probably will keep players playing longer then back in the day unless they get frustrated like last league and me just getting bored trying to fish for certain monsters and never seeing some of them. yes doing all of them is for top players its dedication at max.

but overall i love this expansion and cant wait for the memory to get fixed. i was wondering why my crappy comp kept hitting 100% cpu when before it was around 70% and my fps did drop down by 20% but could just be my video card going. but when it gets fixed ill find out more.

probably wont even get read by anyone from GGG but gotta express my happiness :).

"

Regarding trading from the Labyrinth, we want to note that our planned trade improvements include the ability to trade across instances. This means you'll be able to trade items from your Labyrinth stash whenever you access it.

An auction house could fix this. Also you could make it not pay to win like you did with the premium stash tabs.