Content Update 1.0.3 Video Preview

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Fiveby5 wrote:

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CanHasPants wrote:

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I'm actually very interested in that unique chest's design. Who is the supporter involved? This is an excellent example of what uniques should be, so kudos to that! It changes one of the most inherently defensive mechanics in the game, into an offensive/pseudo-defensive mechanic instead. It has some very unique interactions going on--doesn't appear broken OP on paper but still suitably powerful; encourages outside-the-box build choices while still remaining accessible. A truly fantastic contribution, I think!

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Well, thank you for the kind words! It has been quite a journey to this point. To give you an idea, counting both my emails and their emails we were at 69 emails total since I started designing the item and the first idea I emailed in on July 25th, 2012.

In fact, Chris can correct me if I am wrong here, but Barrage seems very similar to my first item idea - except it was called "Volley" at the time and was going to be made a support gem along side of a pair of steampunk-esque goggles.

From my original email to them:

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The primary effect is as follows

All Projectiles launch volley-style directly in-line with the primary projectile. Creating a 'burst' fire type effect.

This idea went into retirement due to a long window where GGG was very busy working on getting Open Beta out the door and when they came back I was between two other ideas. One was a "Brace of Wands" which I designed in the idea of a brace of matching pistols, 1 weapon using two hands but functioning as if it was dual wield and having matching stacked stats.

I even threw together some concept art for the Brace of Wands idea, as I was so focused on wandslingers when I was thinking about this, using real pictures and then stylizing them to fit Path of Exile and photoshopping them together obviously.

Concept Art based on an old flintlock:

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Concept Art for the follow up belt:

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Before I had a chance to send those, I was contacted by Erik to let me know my chest piece idea caught his eye and they'd like to look into making it, so the brace of wands went on the back burner. I could not resist the chance to design Daresso's armor.

As to the reason for the number of iterations, it was a learning process for Rory and I as we went through some ideas that either did not work or we discovered, after believing they were possible, that they would do delightful things such as destabilize the zone server you were currently in. :D

The very first iteration of the chest generated endurance charges on evades/dodges, which led to the interesting discovery that certain mechanics in the mob AI would basically cause this to generate infinite endurance charges. This silenced the defensive idea, which I was fine with as my intention had always been for the item to be based around the idea of retribution.

One of the concepts I came up with while going through this was to make the item lock down all charge generation except for those generated by the item. While researching the item Rory had mentioned we might be able to cause the charge to generate prior to the actual damage being applied from a hit.

Turns out that was possible but the potential for that many checks against the server and de-sync broke the chance of the item being configured in this way. Below is the mechanic I threw together in PowerPoint, for those interested in it:

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When this did not work out, we switched gears and went toward the Onslaught idea you see now. There were so many test ideas and concepts that I couldn't list them all here where we went back and forth on what the game mechanics would allow for or if specific effects could be coded to behave in a desired way.

I can honestly say that it was an extremely rewarding experience and I am very happy with the final product. It represents a year and a half of brainstorming and I even designed my main character in-game around Daresso and named him Audemus, which is Latin for "We Dare."

As the armor developed my vision for the kind of character who would utilize it became more about it fitting Daresso's mindset and less about making some overpowered item. I hope, once it's out in the wild, that everyone enjoys using it and that it succeeds in encouraging people to spec toward hybrid armor and evasion based builds.

Thank you to Chris, Rory, Erik and the rest of the GGG Team for making this a reality and for putting up with my constant emails for so long. You guys are amazing.

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raics wrote:

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Raghin wrote:

Again, do these changes affect desecrated ground? i haz to know man!

Not 100% sure about this but they probably don't, you don't cast desecrated ground, item does so it probably behaves like reflected damage on spike shields, no way to increase it.

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Yosakoi wrote:

Calling it now. People will RIP to barrage + thorns.