Developer Q&A - Part I

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Will there ever be South African servers?

We can add servers to a new region once we know we have access to a reliable server host at cost-effective pricing, enough local players to justify the region, and tests of the servers meet our reliability standards. I don't know which of these issues has prevented South Africa in particular, but will bring it up with the server team to make sure it's considered.

Thanks for taking this into consideration.


Cheers from Reunion Island !

"

Will there ever be South African servers?

We can add servers to a new region once we know we have access to a reliable server host at cost-effective pricing, enough local players to justify the region, and tests of the servers meet our reliability standards. I don't know which of these issues has prevented South Africa in particular, but will bring it up with the server team to make sure it's considered.

I am very keen to know the answer to this. And in fairness, it's not just SA, it's an entire damned continent.

*edit*

Thank you for answering this question, GGG - This may sound a bit silly, but I'm offering my services as a free South African consultant to find you what you need to host here. Our IT infrastructure is probably much better than many people might assume.

Map drop should be removed from past league content. The rewards provided through league content and the progression mechanics involved are enticing enough for players to do them (other than Synthesis, of course).

A higher base chance for map drops from maps to compensate would be perfect. Regardless, running maps to sustain maps is the intuitive option. The process should not be reliant on the completion of non-map content.

Much as I think that completing all available past league content makes it a more wholesome Path of Exile experience, those players who elect to avoid certain past league content should not be double penalised (to miss out on map drops and the league content-specific items).

Trading MUST change GGG,

Cross-instance trades MUST happen.

I can't understand why we need to drop group / leave map / leave Lab run / leave etc, just to do a trade.

No AH, I get it. play interaction etc, no probs.

But please allow players to trade as smoothly and as fast as possible so we can get back playing the game we love.

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Bex_GGG wrote:

Hey everyone, we've done our best to gather all the most pressing questions into the first part of this Q&A. Let me know if there are any missing and I'll make sure we get them into part two's answers next week.

Hey Bex, I wanted to point out that the questions about bulk trading really only addressed the map problem, not the fragments nor the currency trading problem. I am really unsure if you guys have every actually tried to purchase even 300 chaos off someone it takes upwards of 20 whispers before you can an invite at times, this is a horrible system that is currently in use. Solving the map problem is just a single aspect and not really a solution to the other mention problems.

A system for bulk currency, fragments, maps should be implemented.
Will defiantly add this dodging aspects of a question is really frustrating to read when this is in fact a very sore spot.


Have played for a long time, don't plan to quit due to poor map/currency/fragment system however this is really frustrating as a long time player. We would like a solution more then just adding bosses dropping maps.

I'd love to get a pm from a dev asking thoughts on how some solutions could be presented because lets be real, there are ways to solve the leaving party/map/content while still maintaining some level of player interaction. Just the same there is a system that could be implemented that would solve the bulk trading. This could be as simple as making a trade system that had a npc trader in your hideout, player whispers, gets a hideout only invite, goes to hideout and interacts with the npc for said item. players still have to interact with each other, they still need to agree on prices however it allows you to ideally consistently get invites for trades for bulk items without the need to stop what you are doing to trade.

just food for thought I suppose.

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v3nomu wrote:

Another day with damage control. Lots of answers with little to no real information.

Betrayal as a core mecanic + this league killed the game for me and my friends. Yes, the old masters were borind, but that system worked fine, i knew what i have to farm and how much to get my crafts. Now you have to grind and prey to the rng gods you will get what you need. You also have to do the mine, temple (more rng layers) etc. Those are things that reset with every league. Good luck finding many players that enjoy this. More and more mindless grind with each league where you can't say how far you are from what you seek/want.
Just a small exemple that made my friends stop playing this game and i will follow them i guess. Making your players grind more without any sense of progress will kill the game in the end, unless you like the new system GGG uses "gaming as a job", which will do fine in the asian market.

That about summs it up; inaccessible to people that don't play it as a job, no reliable progress due to heavy rng and unrewarding forced content and resets. And not to forget; legacy league gave agency not bound by trade; thats gone now too and trade is still exclusive to the rich kids that play this game as a job. And GGG is not going to change trade as per this Q&A. Fun. Quantity over quality for obvious reasons? Idk; also not answered.

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"We are fully aware of clear-speed concerns when designing new league content. We generally try to create content that doesn't require insane clear-speed."

No, you are not. You add more and more timed encounters into the core game and you usually get it wrong (you had to nerf abyss rares, change how netting beasts works, reduce spawn rates at fortifications, etc..) and nowadays a build has to be able to complete:
- breaches
- abysses
- incursions
- betrayal encounters
- nexus decay
..and of course the phased boss encounters, that get a lot easier the faster you can kill the phases.

a slow zombie build can be a lot of fun, but not in incursions (even srs struggles with that nowadays). classic 'freezing' builds don't work, because its not enough to immobilize monsters, but you also have to kill them really fast.

your introduction of 'build archetypes' countered the problem a bit, as you offer generally good paths to builds that can clear all content, but some fun stuff, like a spell-based poison build, really gets left behind and simply isn't viable.

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"Yes, we do stand by everything we wrote in the [trade] manifesto."

Thx for adding SSF leagues to the game. Being able to play the game and not having to play the economy, makes the game much more fun for me <3 (no sarcasm)
trading is, after all the years since beta, still the worst aspect of this game. SSF allows me to avoid it (at the cost, that the game isn't balanced around SSF)

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"Synthesis was per-character and spawned boss and reward memories rather rapidly, so that you weren't losing a lot of reward state if you started a new character."

loosing long built and memory modified nexus routes is a lot of reward state to loose. also it doesn't allow you to switch to a "boss killer" for some of the crazy bosses you put in there.

thank you for taking the time to answer all those questions! <3

Do you have any plans to make sustaining maps less tied-up with past league content like Betrayal, Delve and Incursion?

"Because people tend not to play content that doesn't have map drops, we picked the option where league content drops maps. "

Translation:

Because people tend not to play content they dislike we decided to force them to play it if they want to sustain maps...

I have a question...

Would you consider re-enabling Eternal Orbs to drop. As a player who was not around when they did drop, I feel like I missed out on an amazing crafting tool. Would it be too out of line to suggest you at least allow them to drop in Standard if you would not allow them to drop during leagues?

I for one have a couple items between Standard and now a Bow in Synthesis that I would love to try and clean up using Eternal Orb and trying to Annul off that odd affix. But it would be far too expensive :(

pffs crappy trading system, everything is time limited, no chance to play slow builds ,adding graphic improvement every league so game becomes more laggy, im done with this game.