Developer Questions and Answers

I feel that content progression is stymied in a way the significantly detracts from the experience. I understand that in the past the game had little content and stretching out access through RNG gates improved player retention and why it works. I think that now this is no longer necessary and if it is the current iteration is far too aggressive. There are 150+ Maps, an infinite dungeon, and a number of tangential end bosses. Having played a great number of other ARPG games and having repeated content in those games without gates of any kind innumerable times I have to ask.

Will you please revisit this design tenet?

Also, bump for that first trade question.

Hi GGG team. It turns out I do have some questions!

- Do all employees work on site, or are some remote?
- Can you give examples of KPI's that employees or teams have?
- Do you have 'meetings that could have been e-mails' a lot?
- Do you have interns working there?
- What % of employees are New Zealandish vs international?
- Do you encourage work life balance?
- Do you have guidelines for people sitting at desks too long and not moving/exercising?
- Do you have plans for educational content - a-la minecraft?
- Or Educational leagues - a-la Prodigy Math game?
- Have you thought about unintegrated mini games - for example showcasing indie developers games within the path of exile world?
- Do you have a nearby lunch place that rocks, so all the staff go there?
- Do you conduct market research of pay for internal analysts or internal consultants?
- Would a developer or GGG as a whole like to share their philosophy on 'screentime' - (good?, bad?, depends on age?, comments on recent research)?
- Do you have an estimate of when each role in GGG will become obsolete due to AI advances?
- Do you have gainsharing or some sort of equity/net profit based reward for employees?
- What % of revenue goes to the marketing team?
- Do you have relationships with N.Z. schools, Universities, Colleges for sourcing talent?
- What sort of NDA are employees asked to sign?
- Does GGG as an entity, or individual developers mentor other people from other organisations?
- Did you consider providing developer information without being asked - for example just posting a meet the developer series?
- Do you have people dating in the office? IS there an HR policy on this?
- What is the rate of developer turnover? How long is the probation period for new developers?
- Is there an office pet?
- Do you work with or donate to charities?
- Can we see an organisation chart?
- How will 5G affect development?
- Do developers have a crazy work schedule, or do you aim for a 3 day weekend which was successful in another New Zealand company recently?

With thanks!

Also, I did read all 23 pages before posting this, and I took the liberty of recording the funniest posts below:

"

If you cut a sandwich in half do you have 2 sandwiches or 2 halves of a sandwich?

"

Do you guys think that termites ever choke on splinters?

"

Is there any chance we can get anime body pillows in the future?

Will there ever be South African servers?

Can we do something that most countries have not achieved and close the gap between the rich and the poor?

Let me restate this : In the past few leagues, and most prominently in Synthesis league, we have been seeing a large gap between normal players, and the gods amongst players that make up the mirror service group. While an average player (using me as an example so don't judge) can probably pull about 10ex a league if they play regularly, which is good, and is enough to fund a decent, uber-elder-killing build, but 10ex is nowhere near enough the amount needed to craft the abysmally high and powerful gear available, be it +5 level bow or 500+ es shields, unless you are extremely lucky. Gone are the days where anyone could find something decent and work off it. Now, you either exhaust yourself farming maps over and over again hoping for some miracle, or you place your bet on an heavy rng mechanic, be it double corruption, chaos spamming, or divination cards. It's really hard to play using Inpulsa when you have to farm 5.5 ex just to get an unlinked version, and linking the thing is another escapade not even worth mentioning. And that's just the chestpiece. What I don't like is that for something to be barred from me unless I waste my days farming to get it. And believe it or not, many of us do not have time for that. So we're kinda stuck playing cheap builds cause there's more or less no other option.

So, GGG, listen to the poor ones. Help us become what we wish, without permanent brain damage.

Will red maps forever be "endgame" or do you have plans to implement more difficult/different ways of "grinding"? I'd like to see a league where you can do league content exclusively without touching maps. Delve could've been perfect for that.

What's the deal with the lore about Hillock?

The original lore said he was a villager on Oriath who went on a drunk rampage and then became a mass murderer, until he was killed by other villagers and thrown into the ocean. His body reached Wraeclast, and then he was raised as our good old friend, met on Twilight Strand.

Now, whoever, we have letters of exile saying he was exiled to Wraeclast for multiple crimes, hinting that he was actually an exile, not someone who reached Wraeclast after death. At the same time, the letters of exile accuse him of some rather nasty stuff; we do know, however, that those letters are often not the most impartial source of information.

Is the "true" lore about Hillock that he was an exile sent (alive) to Wraeclast for multiple crimes? Did he really commit the stuff described on his letter of exile?

Will you end requiring everyone work at the New Zealand Office any time soon?

Can we get some sort of in-game offline messaging system? So we can communicate with our friends when they haven't been online in awhile? Make it require mutual friendship and cost one chaos to avoid abuse.

As more masters enter the game, the likelyhood of coming accross any specific master in a random map dwindles. The popularity and unpopularity of certain masters (niko vs jun for example) can make players feel cornered into participating in certain content, while also feeling locked out of other content. While rng is an important aspect of the game, player agency is also important as well.

Would GGG consider making certain masters into zana mods the way harbingers & nemisis mods can be purchased as map mods? If yes, which masters would be considered?

1) When can we obtain (buy/challenge reward) the harbinger portal?


2) What is the rarest/most expensive/best item in PoE that you have? (chris/bex/any1 on the dev team that wanna share)


3) What is something that no one has asked but you wanted to share with the community?


4) If you can remove a unique from the game permanently, which would you remove?


5) How many times was the "cavas" recipe used this league/ how many players figured it out?