I think it is time, to finally consider stability

I agree with the OP. I have a machine that can run maxed out Skyrim and better games at 100 FPS. The argument that people should "upgrade their potato" is the lamest thing I've ever heard, and you should feel like a total idiot for even suggesting it.

I almost feel like some of you have literally not played another game, ever. Because Path not only has incredibly outdated graphics, it also has the most ridiculous performance issues. How such a crummy looking game can perform so poorly and still not get the attention it needs is beyond me.

Just the other night, I decided to open an Exile strongbox and I locked up for a whole 2 seconds, almost dying on Hardcore. I can run Star Citizen, I can run Skyrim... and this piece of crap game needs 2 seconds to load an effect? Are you kidding me? (The culprit is the huge load of advertising plastered on the exiles, the microtransactions. Thanks for sacrificing game performance for advertising.)

I can't believe they haven't dealt with the strongbox issues yet, and I can't believe how long it takes to load into the game still. The weather effects can be sucky, but I don't have the rain issues most people have.

Honestly, the flip flop metagame is already happening too often. Take a break from obliterating defensive mechanics and other things every 3 months and work on the cruddy engine, please.

(And for the people saying "They can't find the help" they can still do other things. Can't fix strongboxes? Then make them unable to spawn exiles. Or take off the ridiculous microtransactions. Or do SOMETHING other than NOTHING.)

Off Topic @ Both JohnKeys and Chromafunk:

I'm all for allowing options for stuff, but please don't suggest ruining my game to fix your problem. (Speaking about exiles in strong boxes)

not the MTX advertisements on the Rogue Exiles, but rather the particle effects used to display them, as Chromafunk noted.

a rework must therefore come from the core, instead of putting band-aids on top of specific issues with specific skills used by specific monsters/players in specific areas, like GGG seem to be currently doing. unsuccessfully.

this is why I'm glad you understood my request, for them to dedicate an entire major patch to reworking the core. it is a lot of work. a ton of work. but it will make the game a lot better in the long run.

@Nero and @Polaris, the whole "they don't have a graphics engine guy" attitude is wrong IMHO. it is wrong in the "a" part.
the guy who left - Gregorias a.k.a Greg - did an amazing job because he was a genius.
but he was just one guy. one guy fixing mistakes made by an entire team.

GGG made this game as a team. they created or integrated an engine as a team. obviously one of them knows the engine better than others - but it is then his responsibility to transfer knowledge to them, so they can help him in case he'll sit down and dive into the code to re-work it. so he won't be alone.
that's how teams work.
and GGG should stabilize the game core as a team, instead of waiting for some Messiah like Greg, to come fix their own code for them.

On Topic:

I wont go into my detailed PC specs, but my rig is a monster (summary: 4.9Ghz, 16gig, OC'd Titan) and while I do not have any where near the number issues that I see posted above... I still have issues that aren't simply network problems.

Of course, I sometimes have those too, but with 70-75 down & 40 up and with this not happening nearly as much in other online games... it also a PoE-specific issue.

I cannot pretend to not want Act 4 REAL bad, along with a way better trading system, but if Act 4 was delayed in order to get a lot of these issues taken care of, I wouldn't mind. Or, they could push ACt 4 out and then make the performance a priority.

As long as things improve before the end of 2015, really. Of course, there are other ARPG's coming in 2015. They may not have me leaving PoE for good, but if I am spending increasingly less time with the game, then I am also spending increasing less money on mtx.

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johnKeys wrote:

@Nero and @Polaris, the whole "they don't have a graphics engine guy" attitude is wrong IMHO. it is wrong in the "a" part.
the guy who left - Gregorias a.k.a Greg - did an amazing job because he was a genius.
but he was just one guy. one guy fixing mistakes made by an entire team.

GGG made this game as a team. they created or integrated an engine as a team. obviously one of them knows the engine better than others - but it is then his responsibility to transfer knowledge to them, so they can help him in case he'll sit down and dive into the code to re-work it. so he won't be alone.
that's how teams work.
and GGG should stabilize the game core as a team, instead of waiting for some Messiah like Greg, to come fix their own code for them.

You can believe what you want, but having the right person for the job matters a lot more than you may want to believe. Here is an anecdote- when Doom was ported to the iPhone id contracted a team to make the port who estimated it would take several months to do. They then had further delays which frustrated Carmac so he decided to do the port himself. He completed it in just 4 days, the same thing a team of developers had expected to take months to do. Think about that difference in man-hours, it's probably more than 100x difference! That's how much of a difference having the right person makes in software development. Unfortunately the firsthand blog Carmac wrote has been taken down but I was able to find this article which summarizes the story: http://www.dailytech.com/John+Carmack+Personally+Ports+Wolfenstein+3D+to+iPhone/article14672.htm

Now maybe Gregorias is only 1/10th as brilliant as Carmac (probably an underestimate, but just to give some worst-case scenario analysis) then to repeat comparable gains as what Greg did in 3 months GGG (ie. another 40%) would perhaps have to spend on the order of 30 months. That's how much it matters to have experts that know what they're doing. A team of people that lack the proper skills will take orders of magnitude more time than getting someone that knows what they're doing.

I know what kind of difference having the right man makes, Polaris.
I'm a coder myself, leading a team of coders in a company that we started.
brilliant guys, each in his own field.

but if you just sit on your hands waiting for Greg or John the legend Carmack to come knocking on your door - you won't get anything done.
therefore, if I had to choose between waiting for The Master Of All Graphic Engines to magically appear and fix GGG's code in 24 man hours, or everyone from GGG who can code, taking this as a priority and sitting together for a couple months - you know my choice.
and if they actually manage to hire a Guru during this time, and finish ahead of schedule - the better. but it isn't something I would count on, and I'm sure it's not what Chris and Jonathan are counting on.

TL;DR: Rome wasn't built in a day, and it wasn't built by Superman. if you are just waiting for Superman to come build your city, chances are you're screwed because he's busy stopping Lex Luthor. so you better get up and start building.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

You can believe what you want, but having the right person for the job matters a lot more than you may want to believe. Here is an anecdote- when Doom was ported to the iPhone id contracted a team to make the port who estimated it would take several months to do. They then had further delays which frustrated Carmac so he decided to do the port himself. He completed it in just 4 days, the same thing a team of developers had expected to take months to do.

Yes, because he knew the code in & out, cause he created it (the other team had to first learn the code).

But at GGG the opposite seem to be going on :) - the core team who created the engine doesnt know how (or doesnt bother) to fix it, but some external guy did the magic in just a few months. Rather than waiting for the next genius to come by, they should think how to port PoE on some quality 3D egine that are nowadays available & accessible even for small indie teams.

Anyway, Act 4 is top priority, I belive. And even after that is out, nothing major will be fixed on the technical side, again IMO, because I've been here long enough tho see the continuty - MTX & content takes precendence before everything else.

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morbo wrote:

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

You can believe what you want, but having the right person for the job matters a lot more than you may want to believe. Here is an anecdote- when Doom was ported to the iPhone id contracted a team to make the port who estimated it would take several months to do. They then had further delays which frustrated Carmac so he decided to do the port himself. He completed it in just 4 days, the same thing a team of developers had expected to take months to do.

Yes, because he knew the code in & out, cause he created it (the other team had to first learn the code).

But at GGG the opposite seem to be going on :) - the core team who created the engine doesnt know how (or doesnt bother) to fix it, but some external guy did the magic in just a few months. Rather than waiting for the next genius to come by, they should think how to port PoE on some quality 3D egine that are nowadays available & accessible even for small indie teams.

Anyway, Act 4 is top priority, I belive. And even after that is out, nothing major will be fixed on the technical side, again IMO, because I've been here long enough tho see the continuty - MTX & content takes precendence before everything else.

If this were the case, we wouldn't have bug fix patches. Which they do a damp good job on.

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ggnorekthx wrote:

I agree with the OP. I have a machine that can run maxed out Skyrim and better games at 100 FPS. The argument that people should "upgrade their potato" is the lamest thing I've ever heard, and you should feel like a total idiot for even suggesting it.

OP's potato can't even run minesweeper at 100 fps, that's how bad it is. Suggesting to upgrade it is more than valid :)