An Update from Chris

you should have realized that it was CRAP while working on it... "not enough time holidays blah blah" - weak excuse.

You should have known better

You and your team are by far the best I've ever seen and may well be the best I'll ever see in many areas. Thank you for making this great game and continuing to pour your love for it every day.

I personally loved synthesis. It was a bit frustrating at first and took up a lot of time planning and setting up, but I got a lot of rewarding things out of it, it made sustaining T16 maps a breeze as I had over 100 T16 maps while strictly doing them and memories whenever I had the memory paths. It's unfortunate that people gave this league a tough time since I think most of the angry players gave up too early trying to understand the league and how to get the most out of it.

Hopefully it will make it into the game very soon, perhaps just not every area since it gives too much of a reward that way. Every map you do gives you a memory which is equivalent to 2-3 maps at least, from my experience.

Keep up the great work GGG!

why do I feel like an asshole after reading this

You are a master juggler, keep up the good work.

To be honest, for a game that you can play for free, is not pay to win, is a legendary ARPG, thats complex yet easy to understand, has a rich story line, is fun, can be played over and over creating so many different builds, all I can say is Thank You! You don't owe us anything but you still give us all the time! One love!

Synthesis sucks, here was my first impressions on a fresh character after the league started
"okay here's the league mechanic, gonna give it a shot and I'm instantly dead"
try it again next zone
"well I'd better be careful this time being low level and such, and I'm standing in blue shit it teleported me out fuck this"
I didn't even make it past level 30 this league and I tried on 3 different characters, it just sucked. leveling as a whole is shit, there has to be an alternative I've literally done this shit like a hundred times the first act is just a fucking miserable experience every god damn time. I have no sockets again, no passives again, no skills again, have to do trials and labs again, so that I can farm trash uniques and no currency until I'm in maps again.

I hate how overly complicated shit is now. I feel like Brooks after he got out of Shawshank. there's so much garbage i'm obligated to do the only way I can wash my hands of it is to not even play.

synthesis crafting and even shaper/elder mod crafting sucks, seeing these disgusting broken fucking items is so discouraging when all I really want is for cyclone to be good and armour to matter and make it so I don't get killed before I can react. spoiler I always still get one-shot. I don't wanna play broken skills anymore, I'm sick of god mode, I just want basic ass poe back. endless ledge league anyone?

this right here is the shit I quit playing Ark over, yes I can do things better, there are techniques that I can employ to tech faster with less resources and ensure my investment is safer, but I end up spending more time out of the game and in the fucking laboratory researching all that bullshit rather than JUST PLAYING MORE. I used to get everything I wanted by just doing more maps. I would get drops and identify stuff and sometimes it was even upgrades for me. it's impossible to identify an upgrade with crafting as it is right now. if it's not unique and busted or doesn't have a shaper/elder/fossil/essence/synth/enchanted/corrupted mod it's actually a midtier item at best and you need to upgrade it.

the game pulls me in different directions, this is the shit that I mean, the existence of mods like this insists that I utilize them. the existence of busted ass items, broken op spells, over tuned defensive mechanisms, this shit pulls people by the nose in their directions even if I don't want to I see the power in it and it lures me in cause you're gonna nerf it so i'd better get my time in while it's usable.

this game used to actually just be basic as fuck, fireball, cleave, cyclone, real vanilla shit. supports added the effects that made your abilities shine. winter orb just shines without any links, without any support from the tree and without any ascendancies. it's a ridiculously good skill from a mechanical pov. how the fuck is fireball supposed to compete with winter orb? entire game is based around supports turning skills into build-defining abilities but winter orb is a build in a single slot, fill it with damage supports and build around abusing the uptime so you can zoomzoom around maps to collect nothing even faster.

you have turned this from just play more and you'll get the best stuff eventually to something else entirely. the powerlevel on the new shit is out of bounds broken. it's not play more now, it's play with these skills and these supports because their damage is disproportionately high and their effects are so good you don't even need supports, but while you're at it use this ascendancy too with these pantheons, equipped with these flasks and these uniques because they break this mechanic, and then you play according to this strict regimen and fulfill this goal and do these maps without these mods, and set up these woops, and shape your atlas this way, and delve this far, and capture these beasts, and max out these temples, corrupt these items, rep up these betrayal guys and put those betrayal guys as the leaders of this sect so that you can run those hideouts for that loot, and piece together these fragments to path to that island and then even after abiding by all of the rules you still only have a 1% chance at getting anything worthwhile.

THE GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FUCKING GAME, THE GAME IS FUN AT ITS CORE, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? The research players do is a result of love, the result of being inspired to want to know more; you've turned it into the introductory step. ZiggyD had to put out a 20 minute video explaining the fundamentals of the Synthesis nexus, I had already quit the fucking league by then.

I just don't even like this game anymore, I'm not looking forward to anything, it's miserable and I'm gonna spend my time elsewhere. I saw something from Chris in my RSS feeds that I thought might have been good news but is really just excuses and breadcrumbs hyping the next league.

I can't tell you specific mechanics you have to change, you're the pros and you make the game, but I can tell you this game in its current state feels like a job that I want to quit.

a new league comes calling and I see PoE on the ID, I don't answer.

Thanks for the update, Chris. I wish you would have said at least a little about any trade improvements in the works, but I can wait for the Q&A. I honestly feel that trade is the "make or break" element that will decide this game's future beyond any other content you could possibly be working on, so I hope it's good. That said, Synthesis was a wild swing and a miss, but you guys have produced great content over the years. Don't let this setback deter or derail you from the great work you guys otherwise do. $#*7 happens, yeah?

@Chris

Thanks for this post.

MANY other game companies could learn lessons from your post; its honesty while addressing current issues directly with relevant information as well as addressing developer work hours/overload is really nice to hear!

Thanks!

Thank you for this very candid update. I was very concerned and wondered if synthesis represented a natural decline for this game.

Sounds like everyone is very busy. Thank you for your hard work on a game I enjoy so much.