Community Q&A with Chris

Will you be adding a feature for character selection in the near future? Having to relog into the game to switch characters is a PITA.

Please forgive me if this has been mentioned before.

1. Are hybrid weapons (daggers/staves/scepters/wands) supposed to be basically useless in short races for classes trying to focus on dealing weapon damage (not spell damage) with them? Are they only supposed to be okay/good for long-term leagues?

2. Are armor/evasion not supposed to be as effecient as +life? Because +life "mitigates" death better against physical damage/attacks than armor/evasion, isn't there imbalance? Shouldn't Vaal Pact + Okay Life Pool + Focus on evasion/armor be a viable build?

3. Why do Shadows/Rangers have such restrictive access to mana? Why are passive aura skills (like clarity) so important for making working builds?

4. Why don't map mods intreact to produce higher quality? Do you think some players should be expected to clear maps with -MaxRes & +EleDmg mods on a single map? The rewards for completing maps with synergistic mods are not competitive.

5. How are profits going? Do you guys think you will be shifting financial strategies significantly in the future? How is the game's outlook? Obviously, you can ask us to support you more, but outside of that, what could players do to help?

Will there be any summons other then zombies and skeleton?

1) Any news on the payment with Paysafe? itching to buy some new microtransactions, I was only able to buy the bronze pack through brother's paypal, he went back to university. Can't really purchase anything right now.

2) When will we be able to turn down the effects for skills? some skills give me terrible FPS most noticeably Poison Arrow, sometimes Ice Shot drops my FPS to 2-3 when it first hits me.

3) What level will the areas in Act 3X end at?

4) If you guys ever made the Custom Forum Avatar available at the shop, will the price be as crazy as the Unique items?

5) Will all of the upcoming Acts' setting stay in Wraeclast? Will we be able to play in Oriath someday?

6) The lore is really interesting, I'm mostly interested about the Wraeclast "legends" such as Kaom, Daresso, Deodre, Maligaro etc. Will we be able to meet them in-game someday?

What is the best breakfast/luncheon meat? Bacon or bacon?

I can't believe i forgot to ask this one.

Can a brother get a darkened or blood colored screen when low on health? Or at least some notification that I am taking damage and need to not stand in the fire when looking at my inventory?

Some questions aimed less at the future of PoE and more at how you determine what said future should be:

When working on pre-alpha versions of PoE, how did you stay in sync with your intended audience? Did you use personas to help prioritize (what about Spike et al?)? How many people outside the company (friends, family, etc.) were involved in prototyping/UX testing in the early stages?

How did your process change when you opened the game to a larger audience? I'm particularly interested in the first time you let someone you weren't already acquainted with try the game, and the recent step to open beta.


Thanks for taking the time to do this!

What has been the single most surprising thing about the game/players you have noticed since open beta?

"

Chris wrote:

I'll probably let the thread accumulate questions for a couple of days

My question is, why in the hell would you do this. Maybe once a day, sit down and read through answer a few, etc. But seriously. Its been one day, 14 pages. Few more days, there be so many things you will NEVER get to answering 1/4 of them.

Albeit, some of these entries are full bore stupid.

Q: Do you have any plans or would you consider finetuning Vaal's "smash" attack so that a melee with a decent amount of life (eg. 3K or 3.5K) can at least survive the blow with capped resists?


Comment:

This attack is very unforgiving currently for Hardcore players. I'm wearing contact lenses and my eyes physically hurt during this fight because I had to keep staring so hard at the screen for long minutes. :(

I ended up dying anyway. A brief moment of distraction (notification on a nearby device) instead of getting me in a very dangerous low life situation from which I could have a chance to bounce up, cost me 2+ days of play time on a character that was doing well with everything else up to that point (Merciless Act II)...