Development Manifesto: Warbands and Tempest Content

I just want to say how much I am going to miss the time-based farming incentive. I didn't partake in it too much because of changing my characters very often and trying to spend a lot of time farming currency for those new characters, but of what I did do, it was really enjoyable. Hunting warbands was fun, albeit not rewarding in the slightest, but it shook up how I played the game. I really hope you guys look at other alternatives for time-based and community-based farming incentives. I think warbands was close to what can work well, it's just that they were too common and didn't reward much at all. I'd much rather have only buffed 4 stars warbands existing with higher droprates, but for them to be really uncommon, such that it would be an event when it comes up. Maybe never list when the warbands events happen so the community can have a chance to spread the info or keep it to itself. I think that'd be a cool twist

Just my 2 cents, the idea was great, but implementation could be better.

Tempest for maps was excellent! It gave the map system a little more variety. Not adding tempest to the core game would be a huge waste and a step backward.

I'm a bit disappointed that Tempest wont make it to the core game other than an Zana mod.

I didn't play at all in Tempest during the temp leagues because i thought it would be incorporated in the core game (in a different way than rotating areas and less frequent of course) and that i would have time to enjoy it later.
Wow, huge mistake from me. I will have to play the flashback league to have fun with it and then farewell Tempest.
Too bad, it seemed great from what i saw when doing Inferno races during Emberwake season.

I actually read all the comments people made so far, not really sure why but....
I only played Warbands regularly, but experienced a tiny bit of tempest on Emberwake race season.

Warbands were the needed incentive to dust off those low level maps and enjoy the endgame mapping system. Of course, only after I discovered the /global 710 community and the website.
All and all the big deal with warbands, as many described, was the several layers of RNG behind them.

Finding a warband leader was challenging hard and to actually drop a warband item, man that was an insanely rare event. Chaos warbands? Way too rare to mentioned. Even the freaking magic items from warbands were extremely rare. The loot wasn't bad, lots of rare at every encounter with the warbands, but the real deal, the important things we seek when fighting warbands were just way too rare.

And now what? They will appear in freaking UNIQUE strongboxes? Are you kidding? I wonder if anyone have seem one ever. So RNG rulled/rules warbands, layers and layers of RNG.
A Zana map mod isn't the answear either, everybody figured that much.

I am looking forward for the next 3/4 month league and I hope GGG will keep the time-based end game mapping element, which was so much fun.

Looking forward to the next 1 month league too, and I hope the challenges aren't currency-based as they were in warbands/tempest. Probably not, last time I was able to get all the mtx pieces and I was thrilled about it.

I posted a reply earlier in the thread regarding apparent intentions for future use of the warbands dynamic. It remains my view that posted default intentions under-utilize the main function they introduced. I do not understand the game-play argument for using them in that way, though no gameplay argument was presented. I assume there is one, but whatever the argument is I do not understand it.

The map drop system in warbands has also been a major point of contention throughout the league. Rightfully so in my view. One of the key features to the game is attempting to construct a build with associated gear outfit that can play as wide an array of mods and handle as wide an array of bosses as feasible in the 76-78 mapzone level. That is the primary point of build design for many players, myself included. when the build has advanced to a high enough level, it is time to run various maps in that area and see how things have turned out. To get there and find that you cannot do this because RNG numbers have been set too low to permit it without excess farming of 72-74/75 is in no ones interest. It generates annoyance, frustration, and nothing more.

The present system then compounded the problem. Running higher level maps to see what the toon design is capable of requires piles of currency to be spent chiseling, alc'ing, rolling chaos, and then purchasing zana mods. All of this is to improve the *chances* of being able to continue seeing what the toon can do. The map will in no way return that much in currency the overwhelming amount of the time. The cost of rolling the maps in this way is far greater than the benefit, but you are forced to do so if you want to see what the toon is capable of. That is to say that you are forced into a terrible position: either make choices that fail any reasonable cost-benefit analysis for a chance to continue, farm maps well below the toon's level of ability (i.e. a 90+ level toon farming 72-74/75 ad nauseum), reroll another toon and start over, or simply stop playing and do something else. Forcing players to make bad cost-benefit choices serves no ones interest.

In my view both of these features of the map drop system in warbands were simply blunders. The apparent intent was to increase difficulty but neither of these features genuinely has anything to do with that. They are both artificial obstacles with the functional effect of generating frustration and annoyance. Design blunder is the only way I can characterize such a thing.

Before exploring further map mods or other ways to increase difficulty though, it is worthwhile thinking about whether we are getting the most mileage out of dynamcis already present in the game. It seems clear to me that we are not. Unidentified maps is the dynamic being under-utilized.

Running an unidentified map is inherently interesting and inherently more difficult than otherwise. The map could easily have extra difficulty that you do not know about walking in: perhaps it rolled vulnerability with extra damage, perhaps it has +X% added elemental damage you do not know about, or perhaps there are multiple bosses or rogue exiles awaiting that are unknown ahead of time. It introduces genuine interest and difficulty via mods being unknown. That is a completely different thing than artificial obstacle via RNG restriction or forced decisions where costs are greater than benefits. Better use can be made of it.

At present unidentified maps give a quantity bonus that entices many players to run them. I might add a modest or otherwise reasonably balanced bonus to experience gain. This takes care of the incentive point to running them.

The other issue at present however is supply. Unidentified blues and yellows come by every so often, but not much. Relatively few chances to run unidentified maps leaves the dynamic underutilized in my view. Interest, difficulty, variation can all be served by increasing opportunities to run maps unidentified. Now we are getting the most out of an interesting feature and dynamic already present in the game.

For myself I would be inclined to add a new unidentified map option: unidentified corrupted maps. The number and range of mod combinations that can appear on an unidentified corrupted map makes the idea of trying to handle one quite interesting indeed.

For the moment I discard the question of how map drop rates should be set. That is a different discussion I leave to another time. The goal I have in mind to get the most out of the dynamic of unidentified maps is to increase the percentage of drops that are unidentified blues, rares, or corrupted.

My suggestion would be something like this:

Around 30% of map drops of level 70 - 74 are unidentified blues.
Around 25% of map drops of level 75 - 77 are unidentified rares.
Around 15-20% of map drops level 78+ are unidentified corrupted.

I have not thought through what the exact percentage of unidentified might be to get the most out of the dynamic, but the suggestion above gives the general idea. More options will be out there to run unidentified maps because a higher percentage of maps drop in an unidentified state. Higher levels of difficulty are paired with higher numbers of unknown mods present.

Map rarity is a significantly different thing than gear rarity because of the ability to run them unidentified. Changing the rate at which rare gear items drop potentially affects the economic system in the game because higher numbers of quality gear pieces are the result. I am not suggesting that. Rarity rates for dropped maps are relevant not because of the map currency value but because of the option to run unidentified maps, thereby making matters more difficult insofar as mods are unknown, in exchange for a quantity bonus and some reasonable exp bonus. Now we have increased both interest and difficulty of a genuine kind.

I do not see that these changes would overwhelm present system in any way. Many maps in the 70-74 zones are transmuted, alted, and run blue anyhow. Many maps in the 75-77+ zone are alc'd and run anyhow. Many higher level maps are also alc'd and then corrupted too. If there is a concern that increasing unidentified maps may result in oversupply of transmutes, alc orbs, or vaal orbs in circulation because they are not being deployed on maps, modest changes in the rates of those currency dropping would presumably counteract it. I do not see that it would be inherently destabilizing in any other way.

As far as the player experience is concerned, running map drops unidentified is a choice. You can always identify the map with a wisdom scroll and then choose to change it via alterations, chaos rolls, or added Zana mods if you want. The only significant difference between a normal map and a rare map in this respect is the decision to use an orb of alchemy on it. Receiving it with an orb of alchemy already applied (in the case of 75-77) is not that big of a difference. In gameplay terms however it is: receiving the map with an orb of alchemy essentially already applied brings with it the opportunity to run the map unidentified. The outcome boosts variation and difficulty by using a dynamic that already exists in the game, a dynamic that in my view is presently under-utilized due to drop limits.

If the objective is to force difficulty and variation into the game using this dynamic, there is an option to do that. We introduce a new "blank" designation into the game so that maps fall in the following types: normal, magic, rare, unique, and blank. A blank map might appear as an unidentified yellow 75 orchard. The blank designation however (or whatever other term one wants to use) means that the map cannot be identified using a wisdom scroll. That essentially forces that particular map to be run unidentified if it is going to be run at all.

Suppose over the long term we wanted a spread looking something like this: on average every 10 runs on a 77 map yield 3-4 chances on a 78 map and 1 chance on a 79 map (or whatever system wide averages are chosen). Difficulty and variation might then be introduced by generating 30% of 77 maps as blank maps, or maps that cannot be identified with wisdom scrolls and must essentially be run unidentified. Now 3 of the posited 10 level 77 maps would on average be rather more difficult and unusual than otherwise.

I do not know if pushing unidentified map mods into the system by a tactic such as a blank designation is desireable or not, but it helps to make a more general point. If the idea is to introduce more difficulty and variation into end game mapping it is worthwhile to review dynamics already present in the game and check if maximum use is being made of them. It is not necessary in any way that I can see to try and produce extra difficulty in the endgame by artificially limiting RNG access or forcing adverse cost-benefit choices.

Tempest was pretty awful. I am really sorry to say it and it looks as though a lot of people agree. I think this league was the most lvl 100s we have seen since beta HC and its not because there are more people.

You said it was going to be interesting, but it ended up just being annoying. Having to use yet again 3rd party software to figure out tempest spawns, else asking around for eons to see who would divulge what information.

Onslaught was the best league, because it was actually hard. Not once has a tempest killed me or even come close to killing me in this league, but still just your run of the mill phys crit explosion out of nowhere as per the usual.

Though, its okay because you're appeasing the masses and thats what counts in the end.


Out with the old, in with the new.

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OldmanBlackdragon wrote:

I think warbands is being under rated here, it was a fun league. I think it was just to hard to figure out and GGG should have spread the word rather then relying on players who are largely selfish and greedy. I know I never shared my secret for finding rings even after I stopped using it and I bet 50% of the people that played warbands never figured it out.

For all of you saying something along the lines of I never got to see the chaos warbands, or I hardly got any Warband uniques. I will say it's quite possible you were doing it wrong or just got unlucky.

That being said I think it was totally ridiculous that GGG would expect the community to communicate which maps were what for both leagues. I'm sure many people never knew about the third party websites or about 710 and that would have killed the entire league for them. Not to mention the third party sites relied on truthful consistent reporting of maps which just didn't happen.

I joined tempest late and the tempest watch site often had incorrect information and during non-peak hours hardly had any entries. Warbands was much better for me but I started with that so I imagine as time went on the reports died off and the people that think false reporting is fun weren't called out.

If your going to continue with this type of thinking where maps change every so often then there needs to be an in-game map of maps that display what it is going on. That way if you play off hours or only have one of a map you aren't wasting it. And no wasting a map only to find out that someone falsely reported was not fun.

As for the uniques, I got several of the rings which I quickly sold to challenge seekers for quite a bit, pretty much funded my whole league. Got multiple of each shield and a few of the boots. The only ones I think that were hard to find was the Chaos uniques because you had to find the bosses in maps and then most likely you were in a big party to share the kill.

Interesting... do you not think that these 710 pyton scripts are a kind of cheating t all??? and you missed one thing that are also fundamental... the exalt recipe.... you missed this in your list i guess... :)

i think every player who can use google with the words poe and 710 can find that reddit posts...

at all i hope there will be act 4 in the main game, and the new maps still also there... and for the cracks that try to cheat with injects/exploit scripts. cant you play the game without such cheating stuff....

GGG you should stop that scripting stuff...

I didn't play warbands, so no comment there suffice to say that the frequency of warbands and their associated blue items/uniques seem to be what people had issue with more than anything else.

As for tempest, I really enjoyed it quite thoroughly, even though it had its flaws. I'll explain some pros and cons.

Some pros: It was a dynamic league, with different challenges and opportunities area-to-area and hour-to-hour. Some of the tempests (20 exiles/10 spirits) made the areas substantially harder but gave a lot of reward for the increased risk, which was great. Invasion is an example of a league where there was big risk associated with fighting the invaders, but very little reward to actually incentivise doing so. Running lower level maps with higher level characters was no longer pointless if there were desirable tempests in those areas. Also good. Running the better tempests was just exciting, it was something to look forward to.

Some cons/limitations: The league's enjoyment factor depended on poe.tempest to such a large extent. This functionality should be in-game. Now that the player base has dropped, tempest is a game for the blind. Having a tempest Zana mod is going to be dreadful for this reason. Some tempests were just annoying, such as the one which created SRSs and vaal skeles. When you have things like corrupted tempest to balance this out, it's not really a big issue though. Ground effects from tempests cause a lot of lag. This is more of an issue with ground effects than tempest itself, but tempest made them unavoidable at times.

Solution: incorporate tempest into the core game, but make an in-game function for the reporting of tempests. One could make it such that you click a "report tempest" button, and it automatically inputs the tempest mods from the area you're in. This not only makes it quick to do, but prevents troll reports. Fix ground effects causing lag. Perhaps make the tempests less common, yet last twice as long? This is debatable.

As a hardcore player, I focused mainly on Tempest, but I still played many hours of Warbands to farm those obnoxiously elusive uniques and special magic items. From my experience, I have to say I fully agree with and support GGG's decisions on the extent to which the content of these leagues will be added to the core game.

Warbands really was a decent idea (essentially just rogue exiles on steroids), but those beefy and occasionally scary packs were truly a nuisance while leveling, and if you expected to get nice items from them once you started farming them 24/7 in maps, odds were you'd be disappointed. I know some people had great fun and even great luck when farming them, but I think I was in the majority (or at least on the side of an extraordinarily vocal minority) in that my endless efforts were not rewarded sufficiently, so even seeing the oddly rare Warband leaders quickly lost its exciting factor for me. With Warbands being an uncommon map mod, you could raise the chances that they drop special magic items significantly, making each encounter seem like an opportunity if you can best their might (rather than simply being a potential blockade in a map).

And as for Tempest... well after playing too much time there to be able to brag about it at parties, I can say that most of my Tempest experience was worse than it would have been in the regular Hardcore league. Sure, some of the tempests were fun for their lootsplosions and refreshing differences in an otherwise monotonous map system (corrupting, of fate, of fortune, and of turmoil were the ones I would usually go out of my way to find and farm), but the vast majority either made little difference, or, far worse, made me wary of trying higher level maps with unknown tempests. Obviously which tempests could pose a real threat was build dependent, but I found that the elemental spell tempests (especially the infernal types) were starting to actually become somewhat dangerous in mid-level maps, and the few I found in the small number of high level maps I did were not worth their quantity bonuses. And, of course, there was always the fear that I'd open my beautiful unidentified Abyss map as a non-CI character and see the dreaded purple circles of an abyssal tempest, which, for careful hardcore players like me, would mandate abandoning the map. In short, not knowing what tempests might be active, if any, ultimately made me not want to try end-game content, which is not at all what you should be going for in an already limited map system. I've honestly been waiting for Tempest to end since about a month in and have spent much of my efforts on investing/playing the market differences between Tempest and Hardcore, and I'm one of the types that would prefer mostly self-found play... it will be nice to be able to enjoy playing Path of Exile again and not Path of Trade Chat. So for all those lamenting not getting a chance to play Tempest, don't worry, you didn't miss much. I think having tempests as potential map mods with explicitly stated tempests in the mod (so you know what it is before going in) will be a good way for players to get the intended "risk/reward" evaluation experience with far less of the misery...

A final thought on Zana mods for both leagues:

Zana's lore is all about how she's tracking magical disturbances in different maps/worlds, so if she's so knowledgeable about all this thaumaturgy, why shouldn't she be able to detect the anomalies that are Tempests or detect specific signatures of different Warbands in a map? She already locates unique items and disturbances caused by the presence of corrupted monsters, so you wouldn't even be stretching her abilities already defined by the existing lore. If you keep the system of random map statuses with Tempest and Warbands Zana mods, I would suggest having an option of checking the status of an individual map throuh Zana's map device before you open it and pay 5 billion exalts for the mod. This would allow proper risk/reward evaluation without opening the floodgates for the otherwise guaranteed river of tears from angry gamers storming the forums to complain about how Zana somehow made these leagues even worse. If you are concerned about community cooperation to determine all map statuses every cycle, you could add a small fee (like 5 alterations, for example) that would be negligible to a player just making sure their map isn't lost to an abyssal tempest while also making it prohibitively expensive to map out and only do the "good" Tempests and Warbands.

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Interesting... do you not think that these 710 pyton scripts are a kind of cheating t all??? and you missed one thing that are also fundamental... the exalt recipe.... you missed this in your list i guess... :)

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, but no I don't think the scripts that searched for people reporting what maps where what was cheating. I think it was a way to make up for what GGG implemented very poorly. That is to assume that people would be chatting about where the good maps were. GGG should have just shown what maps were 4dot just like they did for the normal act area's had they done that then no one would have needed the script.

As to the exalt recipe if you are referring to the +3staves and bows crafting that had nothing to do with warbands or tempest it just happened that someone figured it out and made it well known during those leagues, if you are referring to something else then please make that more clear.

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i think every player who can use google with the words poe and 710 can find that reddit posts...

How would people even know to google 710? Not only that, these are the official forums why should people be looking elsewhere? I can tell you with 100% certainty that most players didn't know what 710 was or the map website from the beginning of the leagues. How do I know that? Because just about every day that I sat in 710 some one would show up and ask if that was the right channel and then ask why people were reporting then ask for the website that showed it.

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at all i hope there will be act 4 in the main game, and the new maps still also there... and for the cracks that try to cheat with injects/exploit scripts. cant you play the game without such cheating stuff....

GGG you should stop that scripting stuff...

I don't think it's cheating or they would have banned people for it, but I do agree that GGG should stop it by not making it necessary for us to rely on third party stuff, stuff they could have included fairly easily. That's what I was trying to explain in my original post.