An Update from Chris

Lovely Chris!

We appreciate the fact that you do not work your employees to death .. thank you! And, I appreciate your reflecting on how big a bite 3.6 was .. but you have delayed the start of a league before, and it might have been a good option ..

People grumble about a delayed league .. but cheer when you hit it out of the park. I posted this in the forums, but maybe 4 leagues a year is too much .. and quality is more important than quantity for retention.

Thank you for sharing your thought .. in a clear and honest approach.

ok, after this post GGG should definately think about what i suggested a month or 2 ago. slow down....make a league every 4-6 months so you ll have time to address issues, and you ll have enough time to release a fully realised league, and not some hot garbage like synthesis....

Thanks for all your work Chris and all GGG members.
It's ok that Synthesis won't be in 3.7.0 core game , not all things can get in the CORE.
A thing about Reddit members and their posts : sometime who post threads on this platform is new in this game or it's just bored because he always plays the game the same way for more than 1 year (just like some members of my guild) and they need to write something bad about the game.
Just keep in mind that PoE is the best ARPG in the market, so you are doing an AMAZING work ou there.

Thank you for dumping Synthesis.

Too bad you didn't dump betrayal along with it.

Thank you for being both concerned about how the community feels and transparent enough to let us know how we got here and what is being done to improve the situation.

In the off-chance that someone at GGG will actually read all these posts, I would add my 2 cents to the development conundrum you're facing. Over the years I've worked in several IT companies that had solid focus on development. Every single one of them has eventually steered to a setup where they have split their devs into two sub-teams: sustaining development and new features development.

The first one would focus solely on patching and bug-fixing and they would never be pulled to work on new features/versions or expansions. This ensured a constant fixes flow that would prevent having bugs pile up and the "constantly putting out more fires" way of working. With one or two senior developers acting as leads, this was also a great starting point for junior developers and new hires as they could get familiar with the existing code and engine specifics.

The second team would focus solely on developing new features/expansions/versions. This ensured their progress would not be perturbed and interrupted by the constant need to fix bugs and pending issues. Anyone that has worked on multiple projects at once surely understands how damaging it is to constantly switch from one thing to another and how much more work can be done if you are focusing strictly on a single task.

Of course both teams would work together to understand what can/cannot be done, the impact of each change or new feature or bug fix and so on. But actual hands-on work would never be mixed between the two.

Indeed this requires more resources and transitioning to this model will take a while, but GGG is no longer a grassroots company and it's likely that these kinds of changes are mandatory in order to compete with the big boys like Blizz (don't underestimate a sleeping giant...).

This kind of close communication with the top guy in a game developing brand is what makes it outshine others. Taking the time to personally address the community, and particularly to give an explanation is something you certainly do not see regularly from CEOs/Managing Directors and/or Founders.

I for one loved the synthesis mechanics after the big bugs and problems were taken care of, real hit for my enjoyment of the game without it!

This was a very transparent and much needed communication.

Yes Synthesis isn't the best league, but most importantly is you are listening to the community. Lessons should be learned and you should move on.

There is so much going on within GGG is why I'm even more impressed you deciding not to push the staff for hard overtime. That is truly a great leader trait. You have respect for your people and be sure most of us players respect that as well. Things will get done, and if that means at a little slower pace, but without the staff burning out, so be it. We can wait.

I'm glad GGG is keeping up with the ARPG competition but you have to make sure POE stays true to itself and it's own uniqueness. Be very careful not to jump on the short-term popularity bandwagon. That also kills companies.

All in all a great post, and I wish you and your team endure through these busy times.

Hang in there, stay true and don't get pressured in. We're with you!

Few things i want to say about this announcement. First as say´d crunch is huge issue. I work on game development company and sometimes it feels crunch is "needed" but that is not the answer. I think big issue what sometimes happen is companies take a risk or underestimate the workload and then get overworked.

This happens to everyone some point and i dont see it as issue. Every team and company haves moments where they can learn. GGG haves massive amount of projects ongoing what for me looks scary but if managed right can be massive for the company. Running any fan event takes massive amount of time (have background working on bigger lan events (+2k people) and that takes huge amount of time to organize it.

Also there is always leagues what are BEST.. Thing.. Ever.. And then some of them are not. What i feel GGG took a risk and it didn´t pay off. And that´s ok. If you just do what you know and play on the safe side you never develop. Challenging your self to exceed is the key.

For me this "bad league" came on right time due the born of my first child so it was easy to not put in +25 days played each league but cant wait how GGG bounce back from this.

Also for whole community team big <3 and keep up your good attitude and spirit. I know it´s sometimes hard but your work is important for us!