PoE: The big picture. Something for everyone (to complain about?)

a) Seasonal nature

Most of us know the founders of GGG were fans of Diablo 2 and wanted to create its spiritual successor. What some players don't know is that Chris and company were also fans of Magic: The Gathering and they also incorporated a lot of design principles from this game. The most noticeable and fundamental idea is the seasonal nature of the game, with major patches and expansions a few times per year which drastically change the meta and this keeps the game fresh and replayable over a long period of time - because it's never the same game as time goes by. So, to everyone who's complaining how things keep changing and you can't have permanence and reliability in this game: yep, that's how it was designed from the ground up and that's never going away.


b) Legacy items

That's another concept from MtG. The frequent content updates naturally lead to many imbalances which get discovered by the community. Wizards of the Coast, MtG's creators, manage this by turning certain cards into legacy: they cannot be used in current MtG tournaments and become collector's items. It's part of the whole 'keeping things fresh' concept and it also creates a separate aspect of the game which some players, the legacy collectors, like. It's the same with legacy uniques in PoE.

c) Timmy, Johnny and Spike

This is another concept borrowed from MtG which GGG further developed in PoE. Who are Timmy, Johnny and Spike? Wizards of the Coast realized their game was attracting different players with vastly different outlooks and goals in the game. They grouped them in three main archetypes: Timmy, Johnny and Spike. Not every player falls neatly in one of these categories, some combine traits of two or even all three, but they are immensely useful when explaining player psychology, designing new content and balancing the game. If you like reading, here's an article describing them in detail.

The brief version: Timmy is the power gamer. He wants to smash the opposition, to win in the most unfair way possible and to use big spells which go BOOM. He might lose a few games but then he gets to crush the opponent in the fourth one and he's happy.

Johnny is the creative type. He wants to discover and play with complex mechanics and synergies. His main goal is originality, complexity and ingenuity. He's more of an artist than a power gamer and has an entirely different motivation than Timmy. His goal isn't to win big, it's to play a beautiful game.

Spike is the competitive player. He plays to win, period. He doesn't care how complex or difficult to execute a strategy is or if it makes a big boom or not - he'll always look for the optimal game strategy and be perfectly happy to follow it.

GGG are perfectly aware of Johnny, Timmy and Spike. What's more, they decided to bring this idea to the next level and this is where PoE enters the realm of game design brilliance.

Path of Exile's greatest strength is its versatility. We all know it is a rich and complex game which has something to offer to everyone but we don't really appreciate how this is is a core game design concept used to design the game from the ground up.

The creators of MtG are well aware of the existence of Timmy, Jonny and Spike and always keep them in mind when they design cards. They try to create a little something for everyone in each new season. GGG, however, are more ambitious: they target much more than three player types. Essentially, PoE is just an umbrella term for many different games:

- grinding
- character building
- long-term racing (ladder)
- short-term racing
- economy simulator
- PvP combat
- platformer-style play with the lab
- social interaction (the forum game + guilds and party play + some aspects of trading)

Some of these overlap. Most of us play a percentage of these game aspects and ignore some others. Some have subsets, like the character building game: this is where the Timmy, Johnny and Spike archetypes come into play as everyone has a different vision of how they want to build their character. The grinding game is also different - some like to grind XP for higher levels, others like to grind endgame bosses, to level up gems or to farm maps. Nevertheless, this is one of PoE's strongest points and one of the areas where it's the most misunderstood: it offers something for everyone.

On the plus side, everyone can find something they like in the game. On the other hand, everyone can find a lot of somethings they dislike and disagree with. This creates the illusion of the forum being full of players who hate PoE and complain incessantly - to the point where one begins to wonder why they are even playing. This leads to an important question:

a) Go easy on them

Right off the bat, a lot of players complain about some core design concepts of PoE which aren't going to change. The game will always be seasonal, stuff will change, the metagame will shift - there's no way around that and you should either embrace it or look for another game.

Many others complain about game balance issues which aren't really issues. They see a skill, an item or a build and think 'WTF is this shit, how can GGG be so blind to design that?'. This is too weak. This is too strong. This is too simple. This is too complex. We all know the drill. The thing is, everyone is completely right from their point of view - but they keep forgetting GGG isn't designing PoE for them, GGG are designing it for a lot of different player types with widely varying and often conflicting views about the game.

Timmy sees an item like The Iron Commander or The Scourge and thinks, 'WTF? These items are weak, who would use them - what were GGG thinking?'. Spike sees them and thinks 'meh, suboptimal - moving on'. Johnny, on the other hand, looks at them and starts thinking about curious and interesting builds he would love to play. He immediately sees the value of these items but is nonplussed by items as Skyforth or Atziri's Disfavour. 'How could they introduce this in the game? Don't they see this is best-in-slot for certain builds? How could they come up with something unimaginative and boring?'.

No, GGG aren't that clueless. They know very well what they're doing - certain items and skills just weren't designed for you. Of course, PoE is a vast and complex game and it's impossible to constantly change things, introduce new content and not make mistakes. Some skills and items turn out to be way too powerful even for their intended role. Others turn out to be not exactly interesting but more like completely useless. However, when giving feedback or complaining about something, we should always remember PoE isn't designed for us specifically but for a large and varied player base. It's also a humongous game ran by a handful of people - we can't possibly expect them to correctly predict all interactions and everything the huge player base will come up with.

And, last but not least, GGG are people. They're pouring their thoughts and efforts in this beautiful game and we're constantly shitting on them. I know it's not easy since we're also passionate about the game - hell, I fail this all the time - but still: guys, try to be gentle.


b) The real mistakes

Simple numerical mistakes are easily fixed and GGG are doing this all the time. What's more, the seasonal nature of the game and the need for a constantly shifting meta means GGG will make balance changes even if they are unnecessary from a balance standpoint. Nature of the beast and all that.

There is another category of mistakes which is much more fundamental and should be talked about. One of PoE's main selling points is that everyone can find something they like to do in the game and anything which encroaches on that is a huge issue. You don't like a certain build or unique item? It's fine, don't use them. You dislike trading? Playing with minimum trading or even solo self-found are both viable options. You don't want to race, to grind or to farm endgame bosses? It's fine, you still have stuff to do.

However, sometimes GGG encroach on our preferred playstyles. They do things which affect them directly and are unavoidable. These are the real problems, the actual mistakes which should be discussed. I don't want to turn this into yet another lab hate thread or to go into details so I'll just list what I view as GGG's actual big mistakes in recent leagues:

- the lab. I get why they came up with the idea. It's a cool concept and introduces yet another playstyle for players who like platformer-type games. It's almost a minigame in its own right. Everything would've been great if GGG hadn't tied the ascendancy points to the lab. Now that's a fucking problem because it essentially turns what should've been a cool and optional minigame into a mandatory ordeal. You despise labyrinths and platformers? Too bad, buddy - suck it up because ascendancy points are an integral part of any build. Are they optional? Theoretically, yes. In practice, the entire game has been balanced around ascendancies and they are, for all intents and purposes, 99% mandatory.

- changes to legacy items. The whole purpose of Standard league is to offer some kind of permanence for players who dislike seasonal play. There are players who want to work for real long-term goals, to slowly build their ingame empire from the ground up. They often invest in legacy uniques - it's almost an entire economic minigame in itself. What GGG did with the Mjolner was inexcusable. They directly said 'fuck you' to the long-term economic players in the permanent leagues and I can't see it as anything else but a mistake. This leads me to the third point:

- the trigger gem 'improvements'. IMO this was a fiasco. Not only did GGG bend legacy Mjolner owners and fuck them over, they also destroyed CoC builds. What's the issue? Apart from many other complaints, this also fucked over some long-time standard players who had invested in CoC mirror weapons and suddenly found them useless. Another decision which left me nonplussed and I can't describe it as anything else but a fuck-up.