FYI: Chris is not involved in balancing and hasn't played Uber Elder

I guess the mystery of the mexican jumping conclusion shall go unsolved then. What a pity.


Anyhoo, I promised commentary, so here's commentary.

Let's start by addressing the numerous arguments in this thread explaining why Chris' involvement with the game should be low. I'd like to categorically state that I think these are 100% valid, and I agree that Chris should not be personally micromanaging the game's design or balance.


Actually, I better pause there and let that sink in for a while.

It's fine if he's not involved with the balancing at a lower level, but he should have a vision for the game that the team tries to meet as they balance.

Who knows if such a thing exists. The game has been going all over the place the past few years, so I'm inclined to think they really live 3 months to 3 months. Look at the wide swings they make with balancing. It's not like they just tweak skills and builds. They destroy them. That shows a lack of direction.

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It's fine if he's not involved with the balancing at a lower level, but he should have a vision for the game that the team tries to meet as they balance.

And that, ladies and gents, is why those quotes are interesting.

Chris didn't just say his involvement with balance and Uber Elder is low. He said his involvement is ZERO. Let's unpack that a bit.

Yes, Chris is very busy, yadda yadda yadda. But surely, somewhere along the past 2 months he could have set aside 30 minutes to play Uber Elder a couple times if he wanted to. Evidently, he never thought it important enough.

Now, I'm still not saying that this is bad, necessarily. But at the minimum, it's at odds with the idea that PoE follows Chris' vision. Raise your hand if you would ever hire 100+ people to implement your vision, and then never try the end result for yourself.

And I'm not even saying that it's Chris who has to be the one with the vision. But I've been a game dev for nearly 6 years now, and I've seen enough to know that there better be someone with a vision. If it's not Chris, do we know who it is?

Maybe Chris doesn’t really exist...he’s a Chris Headroom!!!! Mystery solved!

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The game has been going all over the place the past few years, so I'm inclined to think they really live 3 months to 3 months. Look at the wide swings they make with balancing. It's not like they just tweak skills and builds. They destroy them. That shows a lack of direction.

That is the direction Chris chose. He does not want players to have many choices; he wants them to make different choices every season (I'm sorry... erm... "league")

Apparently this is what their favorite card game, Magic the Gathering, does. I imagine it takes a lot more effort and finesse with cards that cannot be retroactively changed. I wouldn't know personally, I have not touched that card game in over a decade and a half.

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SudianX wrote:

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The game has been going all over the place the past few years, so I'm inclined to think they really live 3 months to 3 months. Look at the wide swings they make with balancing. It's not like they just tweak skills and builds. They destroy them. That shows a lack of direction.

That is the direction Chris chose. He does not want players to have many choices; he wants them to make different choices every season (I'm sorry... erm... "league")

Apparently this is what their favorite card game, Magic the Gathering, does. I imagine it takes a lot more effort and finesse with cards that cannot be retroactively changed. I wouldn't know personally, I have not touched that card game in over a decade and a half.

My Opinion

This makes me very sad. I wish we had more options, as was implied by the giant skilldrasil thingy.

See, I never bought the idea of this whole "forced meta shift" strategy. There was an interview which I can't dig up for the life of me, where someone from GGG (maybe Rory?) said that their primary balance concern is build diversity. Nerfing things into uselessness certainly doesn't further that goal. It's just that when it comes to nerfing OP stuff, there are 3 possibilities:

1. You hit the exact sweet spot where you nerf the thing just enough for it to remain effective, but not OP
2. You undernerf the thing and fail to resolve the problem
3. You overnerf the thing, resolving the problem but limiting build diversiy

#1 Is extremely hard to do in a complex game like PoE
#2 makes GGG look incompetent and keeps the game stale
#3 also kinda makes GGG look incompetent, but at least it breathes some freshness into the meta

So it's not like GGG intend to eliminate things from the meta. But given that they're unlikely to hit the goldilocks zone, they'd rather risk overnerfing than undernerfing.

What builds do the devs use to test content they should post em so we can see and do said content

If its mirrored perfect up the ass gear nm.... maybe thats why they dont post them ;p

This post reminds of the controversy with CD Projekt Red while creating the witcher. Employees were complaining about the exact opposite. That CEOs and supervisors were trying to get too much involved in their job, coming up with strange ideas and features that were unrelated to what they had been working so far, creating chaos and moving the production backwards.

However The Witcher 3 came out to be one of the greatest games of all time, and for me personally, certainly the greatest Open World story driven RPG of all time, so i do not know what to think of it.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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DreadLordAvatar wrote:

PoE is designed for streamers and the unemployed. Is Chris either?

I just want to highlight how incredibly elegant this response is. I'd call it damn near unforgettable.

Good fucking game, sir.

Indeed, it was an excellent putdown against the argument I never made. :)

Now that I think about it though, that same quote actually kinda reinforces my conclusion. If PoE is designed to be a no-lifer's game, then why would Chris, probably the busiest person at the company, even attempt to define the vision for PoE? Surely, just about anyone else would be closer to the target demographic, and their vision would have a better chance of hitting home.

Also, thanks for the bump! I never knew you cared. <3

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astraph wrote:

This post reminds of the controversy with CD Projekt Red while creating the witcher. Employees were complaining about the exact opposite. That CEOs and supervisors were trying to get too much involved in their job, coming up with strange ideas and features that were unrelated to what they had been working so far, creating chaos and moving the production backwards.

However The Witcher 3 came out to be one of the greatest games of all time, and for me personally, certainly the greatest Open World story driven RPG of all time, so i do not know what to think of it.

A quick browse through Glassdoor would indicate that Witcher 3's success was despite the management style, not because of it. Then again, Glassdoor is probably heavily biased.

Btw I went back and added my commentary to the OP, in case anyone missed it.