- 11,016
- 57,948
Path of Exile
- Thread starter Jim Russel
- Start date
-
Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
dizzie
Triggered Happy
- 2,509
- 3,939
While there's a bunch of stuff that Chris talked about that was good, they seem to be only thinking about this after 60% of their player base just quit. Some stuff Chris sticks to his guns with is very frustrating, the act revamp for example is ludicrous, where the fuck he gets the idea that the story is fun, engaging and exciting etc from is anyone's guess. At least we know now that they will never let players use an alternative path. His views on the general game loot drops are also fucking jarring as he still seems to think that people are equipping items they identify, if they want players to do that then they need to make bases, suffixes and affixes have a higher chance of dropping in a cohesive way instead of a random rng shitfest. If you want the best items in the game to be dropped, then make a system that allows them to actually drop sometimes.
Here's the list of talking points.
It really depends on how difficult it is.
I don't think many of the streamers will be playing this masochistic mode of the game if it's insanely hard, it will be unenjoyable for people to watch. Who the hell wants to watch someone spend 6, 7 or 8 hours in the first act, getting zero drops of note and probably dying all the time. That's great for about the first 24 hours due to the lols, however once that initial fun's over with, it'll be boring as shit to watch no matter how engaging your personality is. If people make it to endgame, that's another story as that might be entertaining.
That's if it really is as hard as Wilson says it is.
Here's the list of talking points.
MAJOR CONTEXT DISCLAIMER: Many of these notes are based on content under development and may change/not be implemented as stated.
- Willing to record gameplay content
- Possible reverting of some 3.15 changes - team is unhappy with many changes currently
- Willing to come on more podcasts to talk more instead of avoiding the fire
Defences
- Some changes to fortify in 3.16 to make it more catered for Melee characters
- More "low investment" defences as well as higher investment defences (EN: e.g. Arcane Cloak?)
Flasks
- Flask changes - 3.16 - proactive vs reactive mod pools, more bench crafts for flasks
- Four tiers of flask mods, up to 3x as powerful at T1
- Buffs for reactive mods (e.g. "Adrenaline on Life Flask grants Onslaught")
- Jewel mods changes (tiers?)
- Flask focused uniques e.g. "your flasks are always in effect"
- Weren't tested enough
Ailments
- Notable clusters to mitigate bleed and poison
- Bleed removal from Steelskin (consequential change to Bone Armour)
- Molten Shell ignite damage reduction
- Purities may get ailment avoidance as a baseline stat (currently Alt Quality)
- Jewel corruption for mitigating ailments
- Consecrated Ground reduces effect of Curses by 50%
- Increased mitigations from Pantheon powers
"Masochist"/Hard Mode (alternate mode akin to Hardcore/SSF)
- Very brutal
- Significantly reduced item and currency drop rates
- No master crafting/veiled items
- Low development cost (just disabling several functions)
Aspirational Content
- Fractured Deli Maps were not an intended endgame
- More delirium orbs drops
- 5-10 additional Simulacrum waves
- 5 Orb Maps more rewarding
- Deep Delving change - more rewarding past Depth 1500 but also more challenging
- Niko Catchup continues up to t16s
- Uber Timeless Domain
- Uber Blighted Maps
- 3.17 New Endgame
Leagues
- Balance of "Chase" Uniques vs Currency
- New uniques are.. supposed to be exciting? I guess
- Adding more shit to core drop pool idk
- Future leagues likely will not have loot theme icons from Legion/Blight/Expedition
- Meant to be experimental - content like Harvest was technically not meant to be core
Atlas
- 4 regions, 100 maps
- Merge redundant Maven passives
Tencent
- "Tencent does not have any desire to exert control on the game"
- Tencent is just like any other shareholder
- I don't really understand financial talk sorry I'm a nurse not an accountant
Fragments
- Prefer tradable fragments to ensure it is part of the economy (e.g. Itemized Temple of Atzoatl)
- Result of several unfortunate issues - drop nothing vs needing to click something
- Future leagues will not rely on splinters; may review previous leagues (EN: e.g. Breach, Legion?)
- Loot spirals (e.g. Incursion, Ultimatum, Ritual) - automatically will merge splinters. Will need to review how it splits in party play
- Decluttering: Wisdom scrolls drop frequently and are a waste of time to pick them up - average size of currency stacks will increase after certain "bands" (EN: tier?), but less frequency.
- Currently satisfied with item pickup range
- Experimenting with not rendering filtered items
Mobility
- Is fine
3.15?
- Mid-league nerfs and buffs will be sparing but will be done if severely bad
- Absolution issue was not during testing phase
- Not a Q&A team issue supposedly
- Alpha users PLEASE stop leaking or testing will be delayed
- Issue with testing due to last-minute patch changes for expansions
- Likes Remnants giving big rewards to incentivize hard challenges
- STORM RAIN FIX IN NEXT PATCH
Royale
- 100 player playtest is done with staff
- Combined servers due to player drop off
- Looking into live queuing but may be difficult due to it being a different character
- Possible alert for games starting soon
Crafting
- Bench crafting options may be moved out of Delve/Prophecy/Incursion
- Harvest crafts that upgrade to rare will be combined with reforges
- Changes to Veiled Mods - most will be fully unlocked (all tiers) in one unveil
POE 2
- Act 1 90% done, Act 2 70%, other acts started
- COVID limiting new talent in person, now looking for new artists overseas to submit applications at [email protected]
- No plan to have "skip to maps" option but will have unique experiences to improve replayability
Party Play
- Goodbye current aurabots? More interactive supports/team synergies
Monsters
- Likes different difficult stats overlapping being dangerous is exciting, but might change it so rare auras do not overlap (as much?)
- Ultimatum may have been core if it didn't spawn millions of rares
- Cutting back on-death effects but would like to introduce them in the future if able to "do it well"
- Monster crits may be adjusted to make it less spiky
Chris' Roles
- Ensures all tasks are done
- May directly work on smaller game tasks e.g. Prophecy weights
- Supervising + working with live operations
- Approving patch notes
- "Big picture oversight"
- Facilitating cohesion between teams
- Tax paperwork
Reddit
- Passionate players wanting to make game better
- But also lots of personal attacks
Lootboxes & MTX
- Optional content
- Support able to disable lootboxes
- Monetization still an important factor to POE development
- Decision may also depend on shareholders
- Changes guided by legislation
- 90$ tier was popular for players who bought both 60 packs and wanted to purchase more. Claims composition of the pack was precedented by a previous pack and technically did not devalue - 30$ packs are meant to be 25$ of points + 1 extra mtx
- Misrepresentative MTX - Aesir + Exsanguinate: error in picking a location with specific lighting. Exsanguinate MTX was significantly worsened with Dynamic Culling in-game due to performance issues.
- Not prioritizing dressing room previews due to using resources for gameplay instead
It really depends on how difficult it is.
I don't think many of the streamers will be playing this masochistic mode of the game if it's insanely hard, it will be unenjoyable for people to watch. Who the hell wants to watch someone spend 6, 7 or 8 hours in the first act, getting zero drops of note and probably dying all the time. That's great for about the first 24 hours due to the lols, however once that initial fun's over with, it'll be boring as shit to watch no matter how engaging your personality is. If people make it to endgame, that's another story as that might be entertaining.
That's if it really is as hard as Wilson says it is.
Bubbles
2022 Asshat Award Winner
- 45,681
- -56,952
so, after we filter out all the usual nonsense
changes to Fortify to make it more melee friendly. Didn't they already do that a number of leagues ago? (I wanna say Legion)
flask changes were not tested (at all), so they're gonna change them (again) and hopefully this time it works, they're probably not gonna test them tho
they're gonna make a hard SC mode, which no one will play because it's hardcore mode that gives you even less meaningful loot and lets you die whilst the mobs hit you even harder
they finally realize that atlas is fucked and doesn't work as a core feature in the current state as it used to be endgame content but now has been reduced to mandatory gateway to content that will eventually take you to endgame. So they're just gonna make it shorter whilst retaining all the things that make it retarded.
Tencent one is actually an interesting one, if the reddit post is worded correctly. The word "desire" is the key here. It implies that Tencent has actual control over the game development, if they wanted. There is a high chance that Tencent has come down on them after the disaster that is 3.15 because they are starting to lose money
We're gonna stack splinters, praise saint Chris. But probably more splinter based currency in the future, because that's all they know what to do.
Mobility is fine.
Poe2 is still years away. And you know what's gonna happen, they gonna push the release forward because the current game will be in such a bad state they they need a pick-me-up. And they're gonna spend a good number of leagues trying to fix the core issues that emerged from the early release.
dizzie
Triggered Happy
- 2,509
- 3,939
Tencent is the majority shareholder who own 86.67% of GGG, so yes, they have overall control of the studio, the development and have the final say (legally). They just don't appear to have any desire to get involved in the western version, it's simply an investment for them. Chris is really just employed by GGG (Tencent) at this moment in time, although he retains a small share. If Tencent feel their investment is at risk, they'll have no problem getting rid of Chris.
I doubt Tencent would step in after one or two shit leagues, but if profits go south, investors will want to know the cause and the Chinese are ruthless mofos.
- 11,221
- 2,367
There's also the fact that we don't really know how this league was received in China, if they even got the same league and the same balance changes at all. I mean could probably figure it out with google translate but for all we know this isn't a "shit league" in China currently and so Tencent doesn't give a fuck. And Tencent has a ton of investment in a tons of studios and honestly don't seem to do much about it, seems more like they're investing money to take in the profits and the good ideas, rather than try to run the whole show. Like for all the chinese overlords talk, I haven't seen Tencent do much in the west, and it's not like they have EA and Activision beat with scummy practices and shitty game practices either. The only thing is you won't see political stuff that openly criticizes anything chinese obviously, but this isn't really the type of game it'd affect anyway.
- 2
dizzie
Triggered Happy
- 2,509
- 3,939
Agreed, they probably bought it to control the IP and develop the Asia side of things (gambling etc) whist utilizing the NZ studio and as long as that's profitable, no fucks given. But if profits dip significantly, most companies will want an explanation why.
Being honest, I don't see why he doesn't just leave and start something new and make the D2 clone he so wants to develop. He could probably avoid investing significant capital himself by crowdfunding, I'd imagine it would be fairly popular. He's just onto a winner right now as he's had his payday, he's probably getting a decent wage + bens and small profit share on top of the windfall he's already received. I don't think PoE just can ever be the game he envisions. It's too late to change what the game fundamentally is, in its heart PoE is a zoom-zoom, blow shit up and have tons of epic fun ARPG, not a clone of D2 and 99% of us love it that way.
- 1
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 7,581
- 12,535
Why don’t they just make a legit second game? I’m shocked they haven’t considered making something else at this point.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,385
- 277
What is retarded that we're suddenly acting like using sources from outside the actual game is a new and deplorable thing. I've used outside sources for effiency or advantages for as long as I've used a pc to play games. All the way back to fucking printed lists of affixes for Diablo 1. But now it's bad and needs to be fought over? Fuckin' kids these days I tell ya.
- 1
- 16,743
- 7,767
When the game relies on third-party tools for core gameplay experience, that makes it harder for GGG to justify the current state of systems that depend directly on said tools.
- 2
dizzie
Triggered Happy
- 2,509
- 3,939
Chris is going on Zizaran's stream next week with Mathil. The numbers have hurt them no matter what he's saying, you don't do that shit unless you need to. 3.16 will probably be good - they've really got no other option than to make a stellar league this time around. Hope I'm right.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,385
- 277
What's that, though? PoB, and loot filters from various creators? Seems to work. Anything past that isn't relevant for the common player - keep in mind that you are pretty far from the common PoE player.
Or you look at the bigger picture and get into a design debate about how trade currently works and how it should be according to you, or me, or reddit. But on a topic like that, their stance is known, even if we don't like it.
- 16,743
- 7,767
The stance is known, reinforced in yesterday's podcast. Since when has that stopped a bunch of nerds on the internet from talking about it? I continue playing in spite of trade and crafting. I think that's bad for the game if it ever gets some real competition because I doubt that competition will execute equally as well in the areas I do like.
- 1
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 7,581
- 12,535
First party or third party issues you guys are talking are so far down my list of complaints. Fuck I used to rave about how bad trading is, but somehow I don’t fucking mind it now. Sure. Aping LE’s loot filter maker would be amazing.
God, I was fucking using the FF14 wiki last night.
God, I was fucking using the FF14 wiki last night.
- 1
- 1
- 1
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,385
- 277
Pretty much this.
For me the issue is that I see little room for POE to improve here without switching to a focus on SSF or other non-trading gameplay, like introducing bound items. And I just don't see POE ever going there.
I've tried the competition, POE still works better for me than those, despite some flaws.
Last edited:
- 2
OU Ariakas
Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
- 7,293
- 20,411
I guess this is where I threw up my hands. I stopped playing the game because of trade and crafting. Grinding currency to go buy the next upgrade on the trade site is sort of fun and using the crafting bench to tweak items was good, but it means that my goal is always to look at a system outside the game for upgrades. Then Harvest comes along and I have a chance to find rare items on the ground and then plan on what I need to make them my upgrades. In the two Harvest leagues I had three or four stash tabs full of potential upgrades that I would use in the various Harvest benches to see which one became the best one. Even my items that were clearly the best in that slot had potential to be made better and gave me a reason to keep pushing for that ultra rare craft that my complete (or completely break) even my best items. Once that was given and taken away the idea of going back to grinding currency and then looking at the trade site became distasteful because of what I knew they could do in the game. When they came out multiple times and said that Harvest was an experiment and also a mistake I knew that the thing that kept me engaged in the game was almost assuredly not coming back. I like this game and hope that they bring in systems that can get me back into loving it; but I can understand the people that like it another way. I just wish there was another option. I am certain that if Last Epoch figures out how to monetize their game for the longhaul and is around in 5 years that they will have enough content and game systems to make it feel complete; but are they going to make it that far?
I really like this critique of Chris' statements about Harvest and some of the comments do a good job of building on it.
- 3
- 1
AladainAF
Best Rabbit
- 12,918
- 31,038
I should actually ask my wife to scour chinese sites and find out the thoughts behind it. I'm kinda curious.