Developer Questions and Answers

Several questions:

1.) Will the trading-system be adjusted? It's a general 'awful' experience and the Trade Manifesto is outdated or even debunked in some cases. Can we expect something to happen in a timely manner there?

2.) Are the balance-changes for 3.7 based in a major way on gem-behavior or are they focused on reworking the actual core-mechanics of the game which are in a bad shape? To name a few: Accuracy handling, damage conversions as examples.

3.) Will you implement more mechanics which force players to buy stash-tabs to have any relevant chance to even engage in them? Namely Fossil-crafting and Synthesis to name the most rampant ones. It goes contrary to the F2P model you're offering after all and pushes interested players away.

4.) Are the ludicrous amount of QoL upgrades suggested in the forum even taken into consideration? Especially the ones which are easy to implement like strg+click for auto-leveling gems, or switching the place of some buttons to not invite players by mistake into guilds or duel them?

5.) What will be done about the awful feeling of RNG-gating content which would obviously fit better as a freely accessible side-mechanic instead? Delve, Nexus and Betrayal are the most rampant examples there, with the last impeding the core-experience heavily.

6.) Can we expect any changes to the very lackluster guild-system?

7.) Can we expect any changes to lab in its current state, and if so, in which direction?

Is there any possibility of making it so that Niko,Alva and Jun can be encountered through Zana mods? This way you can choose which path of progress you want to pursue, making it more like lab running for example.

Incursion, Delve and Betrayal have been some of my favorite leagues but this league they have felt more like appetizers instead of core game content. This combined with some nerfs that previous leagues have sustained (Breach mob density, Incursion temple tier 3 rooms, delve fossils and unavailability of syndicate safehouses/scarabs) have made it so these incredibly fun game mechanics can feel very dull at times.

Have you considered to reduce the number of leagues/year, thus giving yourselves more time to test, and release an overall more polished content?

From what Chris said it is clear, that you have very serious time management issues, which comes from the very tight schedule. You are constantly working on "next league",4.0, bugfixes, PS4/Xbox stuff. You are driving yourselves into a corner.

I understand that the new leagues bring more pepole in, and they mostly spend their money when they do come back, but you need to consider your overall image customers have of you. And they will judge you based on the product you present. If you constantly release sketchy, poor balanced content it will leave a sour taste in their mouth, and they will think twice about supporting you. Quality over quantity.

Would it be possible for you guys to defrag the steam content file? Since the release in 2013 there is already a difference of around 6GB to the standalone client.

The disk space here is not the main concern, but to help a bit to reduce the steam update time, which would be some seconds on an SSD or quite a lot of seconds for people with HDDs.

Are the developers aware that the nexus-bricking bug can be triggered with far more than "4 nodes facing each other"? Because the 2 attempted bug fixes for "4 nodes facing each other" has given me very little faith in whether they've really been paying attention to it.

I don’t expect this to be answered, but at the same time it would be nice if it was.
As we have have seen a steady decline in polished content in recent leagues as they have gotten bigger do you think it is time to start giving serious consideration to leagues being every 4 months and also using players to help test the said leagues?
As Chris has stated with all the plates you are spinning at the moment with different ventures and platforms rather than letting a side shrink or take a hit why not scale back slightly, players want quality not just quantity which I feel in recent times GGG have been trying to run much faster than normal.
Synthesis was ambitious at best, but at the time of the year with holidays approaching even more so, having the players test certain content and give genuine feedback that helps in the final month of a league (where it’s most quiet) you kill 2 birds with one stone, also if content is released and not welcomed or buggy as hell, you don’t have to shoulder all the blame.
Also I will always stand by what I say, devs aren’t players while at work, no matter how much time they play a game, they are still very subjective in their views, players don’t hold back and say it as they see it, which i feel is needed sometimes on some of the mechanics and changes implemented in the game.
Also not just picking tip end streamers to test, random people, as to many now feel the game is catering to the 0.1% and not the rest of the player base.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.

About your current staff situation:

Would you consider hiring a UI/UX developer? The game UI, the website even some boss fights could really make use of someone who is well-versed in the realm of user experience.

I don't want to be forced to do the non-map content. Syndicate is forced onto me when I don't really want to always run into them and do that content. Like Incursion or even synthesis it should show up every now and then but I can just skip the content easily if I don't want to do it. However, even currently I feel forced to do all content because of a fear of missing out which leads me to my questions:

Why is map progression tied to non-map related content? I think a big issue is that the best way to sustain maps is to do non-map related content.

Why is Uber Elder easier to spawn and sustain than normal Elder? Early mapping for elder influence just feels like another chore to do. I don't really enjoy the map quest line at all as it only limits player freedom.

The most recent "Update From Chris" to me doesn't inspire confidence. It seems like GGG is spreading too thin and is using that as an excuse to not fix the game. In my opinion the core game is struggling right now. I can accept a bad league everyone now and then as long as the core game still remained good but it has only gotten worse with continued power creep and the slow removal of player freedom.

Shaper and Elder items and now the other added item types and whatever other rare item modifiers that will be added to the game are ruining the game. Rares were already almost worthless from unique power creep but at the very least some slots could still have powerful rares but now rares are entirely worthless as shaper and elder items have brought way too much of a power creep.

The game is too easy. Item progression feels worse than ever. Character progression is boring as the passive tree is never changed anymore. The core game is no longer focused on doing mapping content to progress maps but instead to progress in non-map content to then also progress in map content.

Do you guys use coding challenges in engineer interviews?

If yes, can we get some examples?

Also what generic coding skill would be highly valued, either in generic coding, game making or for GGG in your opinion?

What (if any) is the code of conduct for developers who like to play the game substantially?

For example, do developers generally have access to knowledge of new mechanics/recipes? It isn't like they could forget that sort of knowledge when they go play the game themselves.

Another example is that theoretically within GGG, somebody would have the information or ability to gather information about how new mechanics are being used and theoretically you could find out top players' build or crafting strategies.

I imagine that this doesn't happen, I guess I was mostly curious if there is an official code of conduct in relation to this topic.