Developer Questions and Answers

Do you have any intent to make it so the Divination Cards aren't affected by level penalty to drop rate in Merciless? The stated idea iirc was that it would be something where the players choose the areas they feel would best suit their needs farming for a specific item, but in practice cards below Act 4 aren't worth it because of the penalty.

Could this be a thing?

Numerous uniques in Path of Exile have recently been raised to the rarest tier even when they are only used either for leveling or in a minuscule number of builds, was there a strong motivation behind this choice?

Any summoner related changes in the future?
Can we expect the Raise Spectre skill gem to work differently, for example will we be able to bound a specific monster type or set to the gem, so we don't have to resummon them every time we disconnect or will the skill gem set the level of the minions, so it can scale up with the higher tier map levels?

1. Anything done about Act 4 monsters? They are still overtunned, and not so fun to play with.
2. CI - any changes to that? CI seems little use due to little benefits in being CI.
3. Trade rework. Will we see integrated trade any time soon?
4. As a player who tested Summon Skeletons build with Army of Bones, are there some more changes planned for skeletons? They are really bad compared to any other summon build (yes, I'm looking at your SRS). TBH, Army of Bones changed little to nothing in that regard. Even changing it to +3 Skelies wouldn't do much, because of the lacking utility (namely, movement speed, and really few, to no ways to improve their movement speed). TBH, even without the "Added damage" nerf (change?) they received, they wouldn't be as good as SRS.

Love the game and Hope some underused but fun options are given just a Little bit of love to increase the build versatility.

Any plans to show dual ranged attack totems any love? There are very few builds that use dual ranged attack totem builds. (perhaps a node allowing dual ranged attack totems in or Close to the ranger tree, or perhaps a unique quiver with ancestral bond?)

Any plans to allow minions to use CoC, CoMK, Cwdt, CwS or any trigger gems in general?

Any plans to give more incentive to use CoMK? It can be used to get higher clear speed and looks awesome if you build for it.
However it has somewhat limited uses in party play without culling and that means that a dedicated iir/iiq culler does not get as many culls if you use it.
Perhaps a buff similar to infernal blow where if killed shortly after you attack it you still cast even if you are not the one who had the killing blow would be good, this would also enhance solo play since if you attack an enemy you still get the cast if the spell does the killing so you don't have to worry about having your spells sniping your melee kills.

Love the game and the MASSIVE amounts of customisability, good job on act 4. I may not agree on every decision you have ever made but I can appreciate that you have a different perspective with all the numbers that you have and players don't access to so I will that the great Chris Rngesus Wilson and his apostles of balancing, art, programming and community bridging.

Ty for all the answers beforehand even if mine are not answered.
TY for this awesome game and you are all allowed to get the warm and fuzzies from the messages of players showing their love, love has a tendency to get buried in mountains of salt unfortunately but that is simply because of the amount of passion that players have for this game and that they want the very best for it(!).

I am curious how was it starting up GGG.

-Were you aware of ALL the risks?

-How did you plan around them?

-Did you come straight out of college/university and have everything planned out? Or did you decide you wanted to have your own company and let things play out from there?

Any tips or inspirational advice on how a young aspiring Game Developer can do what you have done (maybe on a smaller scale)?


And while I'm asking,
-Can we get a forecast on snow/ice areas? Will I we see a Winter Wonderland in Wraeclast? I was so hoping for some when you announce the recent beta. :(

-Is there any plans for random events or seasonal ones? Something like a gimmicky quest for folks to do on holidays (New Years, St. Patty, Halloween, Xmas) instead of just another microtransaction?

-Will the permanent leagues ever get a refresh? I can't enjoy them at all anymore knowing how bloated the economy is after so much time. And now, seeing that written, doesn't make any sense why.

-How many feathers does it take to plume a tricorne?
-How many tricorne's for a first time fishing rod drop? (Why so rare :3?)

-Any hope in the ability to sort the microtransaction's in ones stash? And can we ever rid ourselves of unnecessary and unwanted doubles from those "surprise" boxes?

-And for the love of RNGesus, why did it take you so long to finally take some much deserved time off?

New player, loving the game. I think my main questions are

1) Do you guys have plans for more extensive PVP modes + balancing?

2) Will there be more expansions coming out next year? I hope we can also increase our level cap.

3) I still get stutters in FPS sometimes with perfect latency + brand new laptop (GTX 970m, 16gb ram, ssd, i7) but after disabling sound "-nosound", performance improved a lot. Maybe something you guys will look at? I am able to play ULTRA on most modern games including Battlefield 4 with solid 60fps.

Thanks

Hey o/

I was wondering how was the begining of the developement : did you had a job and you were creating the game on your free-time, or was it full-time developement ? In the case it was full time, how did you find the money to live during these years ?
Second, I'd like to know if there is a special topic in which you are posting job advertisements. Even if I don't live in New Zeland, that could be awesome to work for GGG, even if I have to move across the world (let me dream ! D:)

Hey GGG !

I'm really in love with PoE since the beginning, still, something bothers me with the game. I don't mind grinding for a reason, but I hate having to GRIND to be allowed to grind for levels or gear (like having to grind maps to access interesting zones).
This is, in my opinion, too much, and this is the reason why PoE isn't the only Hack'n Slash game I'm playing (Marvel Heroes and Diablo 3 as well).

Do you intend on fixing this ? Maybe by adding high level zones, or maybe a new difficulty level ? Or at least increase the drop of maps ?
One solution I though would be to have unlimited access to random maps of specified levels, so you can keep grinding for stuff, XP and maps even when you're out of maps.

Thanks !

1) Tell us a funny/weird story from the office, or how you reacted when weird things happened (kiwi hat, item corruption) or how you reacted when people finally found something that was in-game for a long time.

2) The year is 2025 and the servers are about to close, the realm shutdown timer is in place. Would you reveal the hidden secrets or myths of PoE (fishing!?)