Developer Q&A - Part I

One thing about the atlas progression that I am missing in these posts over the last leagues is the following:

Each league there are places on the atlas, where you cannot upgrade to certain maps through vendoring lower ones. For example there can be maps A and B of one tier on the atlas and maps C and D of one tier higher, A connected to C, and B connected to C and D. However, both A and B upgrade to C through the vendor recipe. I noticed this each of the past leagues and it is really preventing the atlas progress, B should upgrade to D in this example.
(I haven't played a lot this league so I don't remember anymore which maps were affected this league.)
Please make sure that especially the lower-tier maps can be obtained other than running other low maps or trade.

"

Bax_CD wrote:

I dont even dare doing that kind of content... Brazil server is so bad that I would totally get a 2 second Screen freeze, and than when the game comes back super quick i would be like Insta-Dead... I only play hardcore... I really wish I could farm & try both Betrayal AND Synethesis bosses and endgame on those contents... but Brazil server is horrible feelsbadman

Don't worry, it's the same anywhere else. FPS-drops with betrayal-encounters are still existing for some people, and Synthesis cuts you off without any way to get to the goal sometimes. So we all know how it is one way or the other... or just got lucky.

Quality content and optimization of the engine, thumbs up! (Beware of sarcasm)

"

Kulze wrote:

Don't worry, it's the same anywhere else. FPS-drops with betrayal-encounters are still existing for some people, and Synthesis cuts you off without any way to get to the goal sometimes. So we all know how it is one way or the other... or just got lucky.

Quality content and optimization of the engine, thumbs up! (Beware of sarcasm)

It isn't just FPS drops, they slow movement speed to a crawl and sometimes there are 3 of them, stronger than map bosses that teleport right on top of you wherever you go.

Honestly this QA just makes me more mad, as they basically gave 60 pages of feedback the middle finger. They know best, just like Blizzard.

I really want a map market. This market can only trade maps. The game appears in the middle and late stages. It's really painful. Trading a picture with others seldom responds. Further making it more difficult to open up wasteland in the medium term

"

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.

I don't complain much about the game, I mean never, even when leagues are flawed like Synthesis.
I just go with what GGG provides because I know they try their best. They still provides us the best ARPG we have, I can only give them my eternal gratitude (and a bit of my money) for that.

But I can't stand to read this about maps.

League or past league content dropping maps or not doesn't mean you have to nerf maps drop while mapping, it just make no sense.

When you're mapping your sustain is shit, fine.

Lets do some "league or past league content that drops maps":
- Alva is giving nothing, her Temple drops nothing.
- Beast gives nothing.
- Breach gives nothing.
- Abyss gives nothing.
Should I need to talk about Syndicat? Of course it gives nothing.
And synthesis gives nothing either, I actually genuinely wonder if synthesis monsters can drop maps. I'm pretty sure they can't, when maps drop in memories it comes from normal monsters.

But that's pretty normal in fact, all of these content are encountered while mapping, they are part of the mapping you nerfed, so you nerfed map drops everywhere. You just need more playing to drops maps, it doesn't matter what you do. As long as you put a map in your device and you run it, no matter the content you're doing, it doesn't help you sustain the map. This wouldn't be a topic to begin with otherwise. I hope you can finally see the contradiction you created here.

This "two options" thinking way is flawed, it's a paradox.

You gave us more way to get maps but decreased our chance to get them.

I would actually want to know where maps drops in "league or past league content that drops maps". I can only see maps drop in Chambers in Delve. But I must be the worst player on earth because I can't find Outposts whenever I want. It seems like they are intended to be rare. (Sorry if it sounded sarcastic, because it was.)

I'm not an "hard to please" player. I don't have high demands and I'm not expecting high quality contents every leagues. I like simple things.

I just want to map. Just that. We were given the chance to Elder a map, to chose our favorite map to run but we can't.

Subsidiary questions: Do we have all to play MF, with sextants, chaos spam our maps and Beyond mod to sustain? Is that how you guys intended the game to be?

I was hoping for signs that GGG had learned to take into account more players than just the uber elite, but there are very few indications of that here.

"

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.

What are you doing about botting and RMT? It is rampant and seems to be wholly ignored and untalked about. It is killing the market.

"

Have you considered creating an in-game version of the Path of Exile wiki for convenience?

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.

This is a buff :D

The time you have taken to:

1: Ask for feedback
2: Compile said feedback
3: Structure the compiled list into a post
4: Share it openly and candidly with the community

...is exactly why we hold you in higher regard than any other game developer out there. Thank you to yourself and the entire team; truly.

"

Khavali wrote:

The time you have taken to:

1: Ask for feedback
2: Compile said feedback
3: Structure the compiled list into a post
4: Share it openly and candidly with the community

...is exactly why we hold you in higher regard than any other game developer out there. Thank you to yourself and the entire team; truly.

Really? You're happy with... THAT?
I would be happy with communication seen in 'Factorio' or in 'Starbound' (at the beginning at least).

Your expectations are ridiculously low to say the least.

Comparing GGG to EA, Activision or Bethesda shouldn't be common-sense.