Developer Questions and Answers

Have you ever given any consideration allowing a player to "loan" a character to another player for a short period of time? Of course there would be some restrictions, but I've often wanted a better player to try out my builds and then give me feed back. Also, I've wanted to try out builds I have never made to see what they are like. As a casual player, it is a huge investment of time to build a character through mapping just to see what it is like to play in that way. Being able to try a fully fleshed out character would be helpful.

Restrictions:
No equipment changes cab be made
No experience points earned
Auto return after x days or hours
No quest or task completion awards
etc.

Will 3.0 include more improvement to melee, such as?

A clear definition of what melee is and which skills are included in it.
Special benefits for the increased risk of being in close proximity to the enemy.
Special skills and passive nodes that enhance the melee experience.

Regarding PVP, do you GGG plan any overhaul of the PvP system or adding some important features ? Like adding a new mode that might be comparable to the PvP in Diablo 2 (fight freely in the world, without arena). Or generally if you got any plan to make it more popular and fun?

As brought up by many, trading is in a difficult position. I understand the bias against instant-buyout kinds of AH as it does create a situation in which every character progression is based on a purchase and not on an ingame grind. The problem I see is: This is already the case. Self acquired loot is so costly, bad and random compared to what you can buy that even complete beginners tend to use poe.trade as soon as possible. The only people who craft endgame-items are the bourgeoisie to begin with.

I thought Divination Cards would solve the problem but they are obviously balanced around trading which is why they are so scarce. One idea I have is making Divination cards untradeable and then greatly increasing their drop-rate. This would truly incentivize hunting them and create a viable self-made-itemization process that does not need any trade whatsoever. Players can then decide whether or not they trade the result of the card, though which will increase the overall accessability of items.

What are your plans on itemization, trade and character progression?

Hello,

- Are French and German text translations still on your radar?

- Do you plan to give players a way to find their ladder rank?

- Do you plan to improve how the map overlay looks? Using meshs sometimes result in misleading information, such as not being able to tell if a hallway can be crossed in spider cavern for example.

Thanks

I've heard some of the people at GGG are big Magic players. Anyone have/run a Cube? If so, can you share a few words about it? Themes, archetypes, etc.

Is it possible to randomly generate all enemies in the same way that magic and rare items are generated? I think that would be cool, especially if the randomly generated enemies grabbed from a pile of randomly generated equipment.

1.)

At first im pretty interested in the future of build these days Physical dmg combined with poison is the king in all spectrums and even on bosses that are poison immune only the skill dmg of physical skills is that high that it easily overcomes defenses.
Will there in future be a limitation on poison damage and scaling.

The second it Elemental out of the physical is more powerfull then just strait flat mods... As example a phys weapon essence crafted rings with 10% of physical as extra fire and a flatphys roll even a bad one are way better then 66% wed from a opal ring.

2.)
Whats the next step will this game stay forever in this zone where 1 guys runs as dps followed by aura and curse bots? If you just simply add AI to the game that follows you and pics up stuff to simplify the game even more.
When i started PoE in the beginning even a roah in the mudflats could oneshot you now enemys in maps are a joke they are only testdummys for oneshot abilitys that cleans the screen and the Headhunter makes it even more retarded. ( The only option in my oppinion HH & you wind the game)

3.)
Will there be some challanges in challenge league that realy challenges the player like "Clear the alluring abyss without elemental resistences) as example

My question...

Could you provide the community with a well thought-out, logical explanation to justify why GGG has been adamant in their decision to prevent any sort of further trade improvements, specifically some form of auction house? Or at least a poe.trade alternative within the client?

Seriously, that's my question. I'm sick of the current, broken state of trading..

• I'm sick of poe.trade, third-party site that has no responsibility to the user, seems to have issues updating at times, and makes up their own policy changes since they're not controlled by GGG.
  
  
• I'm sick of dealing with idiots. For anyone who's traded for a while, we've all dealt with them before. And we, ourselves, have become idiots to others in this process. Idiots PM to trade in Standard on the first couple days of a new league. I don't want to spent the time and energy to temporarily disable all of my pricing in my Standard stashes, because the UI isn't sophisticated enough to temporarily toggle trading on and off in one action, so I become an idiot to others. And if I respond to those people, to tell them "sorry, in league X, not trading in standard right now", then they become an idiot to me with verbal abuse. So I become an idiot to others and stop replying to those PMs for trade quests. And the vicious cycle continues. Other idiot moments include 1.) people who PM for trade, you switch leagues, you invite them, then nothing, they never reply again, 2.) hagglers for ridiculous offers, 3.) scammers who are just trying to game the trade mechanics and catch unaware people off guard, etc., etc.
  
  
• I'm sick of all these potential trades that could take place, but won't, because either I'm not online or someone else isn't online at the moment.
  
  
• I'm sick of the market abuse. Low-ballers spamming poe.trade with under market value items to get sellers to list as such, then buy them up. And high-ballers who try to corner the market, buying up a specific item and reselling it ridiculously high. And with the latest meta build demonstrated by streamers: the keys uniques and other gear for those builds shoot up in value, because the average player doesn't trade enough, if at all, which in turn means price control runs rampant. If we have a majority-driven market instead of a minority-driven market (ie: 1% of traders abusing the market), we'd have a better, more productive trading experience for all. The bulk of players are here to play the game, not the market. And that leaves a minority, fringe group who benefit from playing the market.
  
  
• I'm sick of having to switch between a browser window for poe.trade and the client. Either I constantly alt-tab, or I switch the client's graphics settings to Windowed Fullscreen and VSync mode and try to remember to switch back. I use multiple monitors, but in fullscreen mode, you still need to alt-tab out (or Windows key). At least put the damn trade search functionality in the client. Stop leaning on third party support. On that note, I hope the people (or person) running poe.trade (xyz?) decides they don't want to run it anymore, and just take the web app down once and for all. That would make GGG at least try to scramble for something to replace it.

I'm feeling like giving up on trading and moving permanently to SSF for now and forever if GGG keeps blocking further trade improvements. Is that what you want, GGG? Is that why we have SSF now?

I got 2 questions concerning the guild stash tabs.

In my situation I play with a tight knit group of friends who use the guild stash as a combined inventory as it is.

1. Will the currency, essence and divination card stash tabs be added to the guild stash tab roster?

2. When adding or removing items in normal stash tabs you can use the control key to quickly move items to and from the inventory. This is however deactivated for the guild stash tabs. Could you guys activate/add this lovely feature?

Any chance that GGG can create an alternative way to ascent? Instead of doing the labyrinth?
incl. uber lab
A lot of people do not really like the trap mechanics, including myself.

Like an Ascendant orb? (reward in lab, that can be traded with others?)