Developer Q&A - Part I

I want to get few things out.
As someone who is playing since closed beta, I am very much content with many of long standing debatable design choices (trading, interaction, balancing ways).
What bother me greatly, over span of last little over a year, is how short-term decisions are made, especially concerning the fabled "retention".

Last year I finally got to the point where I can support the game to any extent I want and the Crucible supported pack was something "yeah, this is what I will do".
Thing is, since that moment (pretty much ever since the Betrayal launch), well into Synthesis and until this moment still, I am looking for a reason to do so.
I think GGG did I great job of making me play more and longer in Synthesis, but they took away any reason, any point in getting involved.
Every single week, there is something that yells at me, yeah, THIS, is why I am not spending a single cent more on this game.

At this point, gameplay feels like it is designed to interrupt whatever you find wanting to be doing for the moment. I am starting to think, that old master system was better. Because you could be done with it by the time it mattered.

Please, stop ruining fun. I'd rather throw in a supported pack every league and be done playing in two weeks, instead of having to scrape by for months trying to pay for a build I wanted to try back in 3.4.

Synthesis is the very essence of ruined game-play - nothing, and literally not even close, has ever came so far in devaluing so many aspects of the game by so much.

Please, fix Incursion. Please, let us do what we want to do in the game. Please stop changing your decisions unannounced.

Please, consider looking around you when you commit to your "archetype" directions.
When off-meta items become more expensive than meta ones because people don't even allow them past filters, something is wrong with your decisions.

I cannot agree with the below and definitely suspect that you got an incomplete view of what is happening out there

"

Clear speed seems to becoming more and more of a necessity with each league mechanic you add. Are you happy with this trend and do you feel like this is affecting build diversity?

People certainly aren't playing Path of Exile at the speed that I initially imagined when we started development back in 2006, but I know that if we made a big effort to slow down top-end play, it'd probably ruin the enjoyment that many of our most-engaged users have. We have seen other games make that mistake and don't want to repeat it.

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. Of course, it is true that the faster you can complete an area and get its rewards, the faster you will progress, so there's an implicit incentive to making good (i.e. fast) characters.

The opposite of: a big effort to slow down top-end play, can be a non-effort at letting the game be the kind of arcade shooter that it is now.

Be assured of the fact that this does make a looot of users have their fun ruined so their potential engagement disintegrates.

See some of ggg's precious streamers that turned away and are now advocating slower pace in other games.

With some skills you are a walking machine with multiple 500k autotargeting overlapping aoe shots.

Others you shoot somewhere and they have a volume of fire that it will hit and somehow the hit is way stronger than another normal manual target skill.

Another skill you just put it on whatever crap you can make and you can kill anything and heal with 50 meatballs.
If you make a semi clever build then it melts endgame bosses in the first day of the league.

The list is so long over the past leagues, it is happening over and over that it is the main design basically.

Not everyone is masochistic like me and they simply go look for their fun elsewhere, as simple as that.
Some that try the fast and the not fast game are left with the simple conclusion that not fast is a different overnerfed crap game

"

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

We have two options. We can either make it so that you don't get maps during past league content (and buff the non-map rewards), or have some reliance on those systems for providing map drops.

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

Tbh i dont get the logic here.
One player can do one thing at a time, correct? He can either spend 30min in delve or 30min mapping, he cannot be doing both delving and a map at the same time.
Why are you nerfing map sustain because delve exists, i mean, can't both have the same rates, because you are either delving or are mapping?
Why mapping should have lower sustain because delve/other exists?
I am honestly confused by the logic here

- Is there any plans to make trading playable on PC or it's strictly trash?

- The current plan is to be both trash and terrible. We don't have any plans at the moment to change it.

<crowd booing>

- Do you guys not have enough time to trade?

So much "trade crisis", they should just put whole game SSF, problem Solved XD.

I hate to need a big amount of time to get a map i need.

BUT do the guys that are crying about an auction house or map selling house or something like this REALLY thing it will be better.

YES you get then a map faster. BUT you must pay foufold or more currency for it.

If you dont believe it. Set a cyclpean belt with 15 all attributes for 2 c in your selling stash.

Then you better log out if you want to play again. Your pc will go down with the wsp.

And if you can sell it over a action house, there will be people pricefixing erverything like the Mathil items.

There is no way as the system is working to make it not botable.

so i dont like the entire system, but its the best i can imagine.

"

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.

Could you please ask the team about improvements to league mechanics when it comes to party play? Something like Delve and Synthesis is okay, where all party members get stuff and then run it solo (still boring to run solo in this case though), but something like Syndicate and Incursion really discourages party play and is annoying for all except the host of the party/map.
I'd like to see for future leagues that every party member can be involved in at the same time, like Breach or Abyss.

My friend and I were playing together for many leagues, but recently we've come to the realisation that we should play solo, so that way both of us can get involved in the league mechanics. I'd like to party up with him again for future leagues without one of us missing out on content, or more importantly having to WAIT while the other is involved in the content (e.g. making syndicate decisions).

"

...for Betrayal Crafting, it is potentially possible for us to build it into the trade screen with a decent-sized revamp.

This sounds amazing.

"

...we are considering adding an occasional chance for map bosses to drop a map from an adjacent location. If we go ahead with this in 3.7.0, you'll see it in the Patch Notes.

This also sounds amazing.

"

We're probably going to embed a web browser in the client that will be able to load the wiki, trade sites and other community web resources.

Again, amazing.

"

We are going to add extra monsters (that yield item and experience) to the substantial boss fights (during their mitigation phases) to make them worth the time of fighting them more.

This sounds fun.

"

In 3.7.0, let's just say there are certainly some uniques being rebalanced, as you'll find out soon.

Hyped.

"

We plan to make fossils stack game-wide and then evaluate whether a tab is still needed.

Amazing.

"

We also wanted to provide an opportunity for players to complete their Synthesis challenges, which wouldn't have been possible from Mayhem or Turmoil.

Challenges sold me here.

"

...we have to be careful when announcing events to make sure there's something for everyone. Maybe if we bring back some type of groups of events like race seasons, we can run some like this with more of an emphasis on the economy for players who are driven by that.

Don't know if I specifically prefer the emphasis on economy, but groups of events with varying focus sounds fun.

"

Dobster wrote:

One thing I've noticed about PoE after playing some other ARPG's is that the loot drops are awful and you very rarely, if ever, use them for your character.

In PoE if you get a good loot drop it's either currency or a rare unique that you will trade for currency so you can buy what you need for your character. Again this forces players into having to use the awful trade system.

PoE is a crafting/trading game and not a looting game.

The excitement of having loot drop and getting an upgrade you can use is just not there in PoE. I really hope this could be addressed in the future.

and what do you think the things you buy come from ? :-) I had not so good drops for my char but really good drops to sell. And other people the same. So its really funny to interact. If you dont like play ssf

"

dachoppa wrote:

my impression is that most people are just asking for an AH for maps and currency and not for a complete one. imo that would be an acceptable middle ground so that good items don't get devalued too much, but people can progress without wasting time not playing.

even though the current trading system doesn't bother me that much, i do wonder why console and china can have one, but one for the international pc version is unthinkable. why do chris and these very senior devs approve of an AH for one platform, but not for another? i'm sure tencent in china and the console platform owners just demanded one.

Exactly, trading items and not consumable items isn't the issue, those trades are few and with a large time in-between usually (unless Synthesis content, which poses a big issue)
So, these need a fix, period.

very unsatisfactory, this was like reading a politician trying to worm their way out of honestly answering questions.