Developer Q&A Answers

Oh look, another QA session where Chris doesn't touch anything Garena-related with a ten foot pole. I guess I'll take that to mean they have GGG by the balls with some stupid agreement or another.

Shame really. Chris talks so much about avoiding things that tarnish the reputation and image of the game, but when it comes to Asia, they don't give two shits about any of that and just want their fat paycheck from Garena.

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Cr4v3n wrote:

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Having said all of that, the 2.4.0 release will drastically change everything you know about the end-game. It contains the upcoming system that has me the most excited.

WTF?

Maybe they're finally going to expound upon the Map Device (there are 4 slots after all?)

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__Z__ wrote:

Nerf to CoC ? and it'll be still powerfull ? like incinerate ?
I already see your nerf : diminishing by 50% the internal cast speed, halving the dps. Then less chances to proc also... I'm casual and never had "real" means to have great stuff, I've done that recently... for my ininerate build then for my CoCs builds... CoCs are good and fun to play but They are not immortal, they are good but not overwhelming of content. So you just basically said that CoC is dead next big patch ?

Seriously this is bad to completely mess up with people each time you nerf something so vastly used... especially when you say that it will remain a "powerfull option" and you know it : it'll not be.

Why do people like you always cry when something gets nerfed... The game is all about adapting and finding new cool builds. It keeps the game fresh and interesting. You cant expect ggg to only care about the permanent leagues.

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Have you considered running weekend events, or something similar, with the parent leagues? What are GGG's collective thoughts on such an idea? I personally believe it would bring some added purpose and excitement to Hardcore and Standard.

We have problems with the concept of "weekend" events because we don't want to teach people that any one time is better to play than another time. The goal should be that all times are good to play, so you should play all the time :-)

With regards to Standard events in general, we are internally discussing the concept of having week-long rotations of various league mods on Standard and Hardcore as an experiment. For example, this week is Talisman week and next week is Perandus week.

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3) Do you plan future leagues with the idea they will make it to standard game some day, or do you just go on with leagues and think about keeping them to standard only when you see how the playerbase reacts to them?

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Our intention is to turn on and off content in the future to vary the experience. It also lets us fix aspects of the leagues that players didn't enjoy.

Isn't that completely contradictory?

Thank you for not answering my questions... again. And why I am bothering here with you at all? Is this some sort of favoritism of one people over another that some simple questions are intentionally ignored? Really not pleased.

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Q: What purpose do you envision red maps to serve? It appears that they are neither good at producing wealth (because sustaining them is so expensive), nor are they good in terms of XP per hour (or per currency investment) compared to, say, gorge rotations, so what else do you expect players want to achieve in them?

A: Currently, they are the best place to <...> gain experience

ROFL. So all them gorge/plat runners were lying about it being the best XP, right? Right? :P

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Q: Any chance of having some kind of information about "log in status" of friends (friends list) or guild members - something like last active day, etc.? (translated from Brazilian Portuguese)

A: This is a Quality of Life feature that we really want to implement as well. It'd be new data to store, so requires more work than you'd expect. I'm optimistic we'll be able to do this at some stage though.

Well, you already store the same info about forum users. Granted, there are way more people playing game than forum but still... if you think about volume of data that's processed by your own new trade api, this QoL would probably amount to like 0.01% of that.

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Q: I was curious if GGG had any plans to improve the in-game map? Possibly similar to how Diablo 3's uncovers the map as you walk through, I feel like it would help people clear "bad" map layouts if they could see where they had and hadn't been.

A: When you explore the map in Path of Exile, it does uncover as you go. The block sizes are relatively large, but you'll be able to observe it in game! The explored/unexplored areas could certainly be made a lot clearer as we continue to improve the in-game map overlay.

When was the last map overlay improvement, and what it included? I genuinely can't remember anything changed in map overlays from as far as the end of OB.

enjoyed the read, imho most entertaining interview since a long time.

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Chris wrote:

The trade screen is designed to protect people against most scam attempts ...
We cannot investigate each reported case in detail to see if accusations are accurate.

my question related to that is on page 20 (what's your definition of "scamming". which actions can get your account banned?) and so didn't get answered but your statement already shows how torn apart your stance on this issue is.

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Certainly - we'd love to improve older skills but have to be careful about the players who are currently using the skill in a specific way for some esoteric combo or playstyle. While improving the game is always good, if we break too many people's characters while doing it, then it can have a net negative effect. Care must be taken.

I really love these guys. I really really love these guys

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Currency Sink: The league acting as a sink for currency was on your list of desired attributes but wasn't on ours. I believe that only Ambush has acted like this in the past? It's certainly something for us to consider in the future, though players have shown to like leagues that give them new items to play with rather than applying pressure to their existing ones.

To clarify, I was mostly referring to Darkshrines, which was (from anecdotal player engagement perspective) the most hyped temp league ever made. People spent so much currency rolling the right mods on items just to get that 50% or 33% chance to get a really good darkshrine effect. The league was (intentionally) imbalanced as hell, but it really offered the perfect experience: cool random effects for most players, fed by a system that experienced players could master and abuse for their profit. It turned out far too easy to master thanks to community effort, but it was a blast to play anyway.

More in general, "you can trade the thing" doesn't feel like a very interactive way to make the league affect the economy. Personally, if I get league-specific drops and react with "cool, that's 1 chaos," the league has failed me.

You guys play Magic: the Gathering?

...any chance you guys need a DCI-sanctioned judge on the payroll? ;D