An Update from Chris

a load of hogwash. left mapstash tab issue unaddressed for a full cycle because then synthethis would have been even worse???

then perhaps YOU, YOURSELVES, should not have gone ahead and "broken" the damn atlas.

only reason it needed a fix in the first place is cause you did not anticipate how much chaos your screw up would cause in the league.

it should have been fixed immediately. period.

Let me start off by saying: Thank you. I appreciate that you took a moment to write this. If, by some miracle, you actually read what I'm going to type, please don't take it as me being super cranky, or angry. I'm frustrated, and I think you now have a better grasp as to why. .

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Chris wrote:

Synthesis was more work than we expected. It was developed over the Christmas holiday, and its gameplay prototype came in very late. We didn't have a lot of time to iterate on it before release or to make drastic changes that it potentially needed.

Ok. Being honest? You have to have a back up plan. If you are going to set these razor thin deadlines, and schedules, you cannot continue to ship haphazard content that has not been vetted properly. If you find yourself in a position where you aren't sure that you are going to 100% confident in the content that you are releasing, then FOR THE LOVE OF KITAVA, DO NOT RELEASE GARBAGE.

Releasing a "Hype" league, that ends up being what Synthesis is, is going to have a significant, negative, lasting, effect on the health of the player base.

Meanwhile, a "meh" legacy type / flashback / limited series / less "hype" league, that is solid content, that isn't going to alienate players, may have a less positive effect in the short term, will not have the lasting negative effect that Synthesis is going to have on the community.

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Chris wrote:

While our improvements after its launch have helped a lot and many players are enjoying it, we fully acknowledge that it is not our best league and is not up to the quality standards that Path of Exile players should expect from us. It will not be merged into the core game in 3.7.0. Maybe we can do something with it in the future, but we have no current plans.

GOOD. Don't ever bring Synthesis back. PLEASE. This league was just not nearly the "exciting" thing that it could have been. Not ever. Don't bring Cavas back as a Master, Don't get tempted to add this to the game in the future.

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Chris wrote:

When we reveal 3.7.0 in three weeks, you'll see that its league has a focus on repeatable fun, and the combat revamp has a lot of focus on improving the fundamentals of Path of Exile's gameplay. In order to do this, we have had our heads down, focusing on getting 3.7.0 to be ready as early as we can within its development cycle.

Please, do not forget that there are a number of us that play standard, and after the experiences that I had at the beginning of Delve, and then for the month+ I played Synthesis, I'm not playing another league any time soon.

I'm far more interested in seeing what is in the game improved, as opposed to seeing more new content.

Make Alva's rep grind less vauge, and counter intuitive to the idea of doing master quests.
Make sure that the Standard Atlas + Map Stash is REALLY fixed.

Fix Trade.

Give us a Fossil / Resonator tab.

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Chris wrote:

But that's not all we need to work on. There are a large number of critical projects going on at the same time. For a start, our 4.0.0 mega-expansion is taking a huge amount of the company's time. We see this upgrade as critical because the next generation of Action RPGs is coming and we have to be ready. Not proactively keeping up with competitors is how companies die. We don't see the huge time investment in 4.0.0 as optional at all.

Keep in mind, that company's can also die, because they put out content that was absolutely terrible, bugged, or otherwise unplayable. I get it, it's a balancing act.

The biggest thing that you need to solve (for me), is what is going to keep me playing? What are you going to do to improve Standard?

Why did you decided to remove Crafting Recipes that I had already unlocked?
Why did you remove hideout decorations that I had already unlocked?
What are you going to do, in the future, to ensure that you don't make those same mistakes again?

"

Chris wrote:

When given this feedback, we have two options:
Assemble the team of seven key people who are needed to solve the issue, discuss it for half a day, and then lock in the solution, so that we can at least tell the community what our plan is, even if it's a little while before we get to it. An example of this is the when we made large functional and balance changes to Delve based on community feedback. The drawback with doing this is that it derails up to seven important projects that we're working on in order to solve the problem. We have to be selective about which problems we apply this approach to.
The second option is to read and consider the feedback, and specifically decide to deal with it later. This doesn't mean it isn't going to be done, it just means we are prioritising the existing release we're currently working on. An example is the Map Stash Tabs in Standard situation where we waited a whole league before we solved it. If we had put the time into this solution a league earlier, Synthesis would have been even worse.

While I get what you are saying, you also need to remember that words matter. You are well within your right to say what you please, it's your company.

But in specifically speaking about the debacle of Maps / Atlas and Standard: Your words were disingenuous (you said it would be hard), and Bex's words came off as placating (Inconvenience)

Also? And this is a lesson that I'm hoping that you guys have learned the hard way:

If you have something that you want to do, but if you do it now, it's going to screw over a portion of your community for more than a league's worth of time, while you "get around to fixing it"?

DO NOT DO THAT. THAT'S A TERRIBLE BUSINESS MODEL. STOP TREATING PEOPLE WHO PLAY STANDARD LIKE WE ARE JUST SOME SORT OF BOTTOM FEEDING FODDER THAT CAN BE IGNORED, AND WILL JUST LIVE WITH WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU GIVE US

Seriously. I feel ridiculous even having to point that out. That's not good business practice. That's how you lose long standing customers. that's how you lose people who (for the most part) have been playing this game a long time, and have paid money to you to support this game. Standard is not generally populated by new players. You generally get to suck them up into the vacuum of the league's rat race. Treating standard as if it is an afterthought is an insult to a portion of your community.

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Chris wrote:

Simply put, we can't fix every problem every league. There are going to problems that we don't address quickly. We'll get to them as soon as we can.

You can tell people that you recognize that it's a problem, and use language to explain and temper expectations.

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Chris wrote:

A big topic in the gaming industry recently is development crunch. Some studios make their teams work 14 hour days to pack every patch full of the most fixes and improvements possible. Sometimes when we read our own Patch Notes threads and community feedback, we feel that we are being asked to do the same. I will not run this company that way. While there's inevitably a bit of optional paid overtime near league releases, the vast majority of a Path of Exile development cycle has great work/life balance. This is necessary to keep our developers happy and healthy for the long-term, but it does mean that some game improvements will take a while to be made.

I'm glad this is your stance. But, please understand, that part of this, is your own self inflicted problem. You have put yourselves on this brutal, unforgiving schedule. There are business models, and release schedules that would allow you to continue the league ideas, but also slow down that massive crunch of NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NEW NEW NEW That you have put yourself in.

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Chris wrote:

We try as hard as we can to communicate with our community about our development priorities. We post daily news and aim for some kind of substantial development update every week. Bex and her team are all over the community posts, passing information back to the developers and seeking answers to questions. However, as I explained earlier, in order to be able to share our firm plans about topics, we have to assemble the right developers, derail their current work and make some time-consuming decisions.

Eh.... You do those things, but I wouldn't say that it feels like it's "trying really hard" to address concerns.

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Chris wrote:

Due to the sheer amount of stuff we've been working on, certain topics have not been addressed to the satisfaction of the community.

Then maybe you need to add another person to help disseminate information to the community. The lack of communication starts, and ends, at your door. You can fix this. As I said in another thread recently. (Paraphrasing)

You can fix this.
You just have to want to do it.

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Chris wrote:

I am very sorry about this. One of our key values is our relationship with our community. We feel that our internal emphasis on longer term improvements to Path of Exile has caused some damage to that relationship in the short term. We will make sure that we find a good balance between addressing immediate concerns and making the long-term improvements the game needs.

I came back to the game about a year or so ago. I have to say, Synthesis has been the single worst "relationship" experience that I have had with this compan.

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Chris wrote:

Later this week, we'll post our first set of answers to the questions from the Q&A. I will make sure that it includes all the hot topics such as Synthesis, trade, console improvements, ExileCon races, etc.

We can't wait to announce 3.7.0 in three weeks. Its name is on the list.

I wont lie, I wanted to participate in the Q&A, but the way that you phrased the question submission "guidelines" for the Q&A made it feel like frustrated people who want answers about how and when you are going to fix what you broke, need not apply.

Just tell me that in 3.7, I'm not going to have to restart my atlas 2 ish tiers less than what I have it at right now, and that you aren't going to gut my favorite spec, and that you are actually going to make other types of melee more interesting / fun / viable to play, and I'm good. I don't care about the league. I care about you fixing what you have already created.

Great post! Maybe there are lessons learned from this going forward. Everything will not be a smash hit. Beastiary and Synth have been meh for me but all others, have been so awesome.

Thanks for the well-written and thought out announcement! Much love and good luck! I'll be back.

"

Releasing a "Hype" league, that ends up being what Synthesis is, is going to have a significant, negative, lasting, effect on the health of the player base.

Really? I still get hyped every league and hated most Gen 3 except Delve and Abysss

Game ebbs and flows between good and bad leagues (anyone remember talisman it was like original synthesis 5tabs of useless ammy to make more useless ammys). Core is still solid tho . Except all the bloat from bad leagues lol.

Who knows they may drop another Breach next. I'm Hyped.

The shitposters have a bad habit of forgetting that the entire point of Leagues is to toss out some zany idea and see how well it works. Some of them do, some of them don't, and the GGG team grows more skilled either way.

It's also pretty obvious that the people who dislike being the League beta testers are newer players who don't understand their role when they decide to start a new League. Ignore them, I say.

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shoju wrote:

DO NOT DO THAT. THAT'S A TERRIBLE BUSINESS MODEL. STOP TREATING PEOPLE WHO PLAY STANDARD LIKE WE ARE JUST SOME SORT OF BOTTOM FEEDING FODDER THAT CAN BE IGNORED, AND WILL JUST LIVE WITH WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU GIVE US

That's because you are. PoE has always been centered around its Leagues, and likewise those who still play Standard consistantly are a fairly minor portion of the player base.

As has been mentioned by several people on this thread my biggest concern with POE in its current form is the levelling path.

There are alot of players who enjoy playing multiple builds/tree's and setups. Whilst you guys at GGG are pretty great at giving us such a huge range of skills to play with (almost too many!) Every time we want to play one we have to play exactly the same content as we have done 1000 times in order to get it to endgame.

Whilst I have understood over the years why you have kept the levelling via act formula I feel that this has now become stale and having alternative options on how to level are now due.

I am and always have been a huge supporter of how you engage your community and the transparancy Chris shows in how he communicates with us but for alot of players within my group if friends the game has become stale because you have to repeat so much content that is forcibly gated every time you want to try something new.

Takes a great man and a good team to realize your own limitations....

Stop releasing leagues every 3 months... every 4 months is better.

Reuse old content. Still waiting for Delve-2

Dont wanna overwork your developers? See above.

But please, you need to understand CRAP and not release it just because you "have to" start a new league.

Synthesis was the worst, but it did show how pathetic and inept the development approach has become.

Overall, sad.

Watching the fall of many great game houses: Blizzard, Bethesda, Bioware to name a few that still sting currently, I appreciate this communication and your transparency tremendously.

I love PoE & GGG and it makes me very happy to hear you value the work/life balance of your employees while trying to hit your communities goals for fun in PoE.

This note reaffirms why you are my favorite developer today and will have my support far into the future.

Cannot wait for 3.7 and especially 4.0. Until then, I'm enjoying practicing racing and getting my butt handed to me in the private 'no lube' league. Synthesis isn't terrible but I'll be glad to see what's next. LOL

Keep up the phenomenal work GGG! <3

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The second option is to read and consider the feedback, and specifically decide to deal with it later. This doesn't mean it isn't going to be done, it just means we are prioritising the existing release we're currently working on. An example is the Map Stash Tabs in Standard situation where we waited a whole league before we solved it. If we had put the time into this solution a league earlier, Synthesis would have been even worse.

If you don't have the time for MST in Standard, as you admit youself, why on Earth did you re-shuffle the Atlas again and changed map orders and map stash in the first place? The last time was at least somewhat warranted by creation of the red map "inner ring", but this time looks like just "because you can".
Also, how do you expect trust from players after Delve "stacking currency" that takes up to 4 slots (and required in great quantities) that your programmers "didn't have time to implement" almost a years ago?