[April 12] Initial Development Manifesto Feedback

Okay, so, so. I think I've figured this desync shit out. Singlehandedly. Well, probably not, but I'd love to know where I'm wrong.

x1
  O x2
c
!
!
u

u is where we started out, and x1 is the movement command we gave some time ago. On our screen, we just arrived at x1. The server thinks we're still at c. Then we give a second command, to x2, which involves pathing around the rock O. The client goes around the top, the server goes around the bottom. Then a mob freezes us. Desync, since we're above the rock but get rubberbanded to below the rock. This is the problem in a nutshell, yeah?

Okay, how about this. We give up on a persistent server entity, at least persistence as far as location. Bear with me.

At the time we give x2, we simply have the server go "well, given the lag (which is a known - 200ms or whatever), and where I think the client is (c), and the previous client destination (x1), I'm going to accept the client's assertion that we're starting our new movement chunk from x1. I'm going to pathfind from that point."

The server simulation skips forward plausible (given what it can simulate) amounts based on new information from the client. I hope I'm getting this across right - you can't speedhack, because the server only accepts plausible distance assertions (latency * movespeed). The "free distance" (moving across the west face of the rock) is counterbalanced by the server starting the new movement chunk 200ms late. Any vaguely serious ambiguity? Deny the movement order, force a hard sync.

This can be applied to mob pathing, too - have the server figure out where the client probably thinks it is, or will be, and send mobs in that direction.

I get that this is very messy as far as collision, but you could either force syncs when there's entropy or just decide that smooth gameplay is worth the loss. I'm definitely picturing different sync logic for PvP and PvE.

Sorry if this has been recommended before, but I had an idea for an "on-crit" mechanism for melee physical attacks. Not sure how the specifics would work but what if the crit of a physical attack did an "armor transfer" from the mob(s) to the player? Not sure if this would help melee survivability that much thanks to the diminishing returns of armor, but maybe it would help?

So for example you crit mob and it reduces their armor by 10% per stack (or whatever is balanced) and increases yours for that amount (not %, or maybe it should be %??) and this could stack on both ends up to an arbitrary number. Seeing as most monsters will be dead in a crit or two or whatever, it maybe would need to be a large number? Not sure. Anyway, just a thought, thanks for your time.

Apart from considering these our ideas:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/322624

...would you mind considering one small option?:
Allow for turning off the red contour around mobs.
I'm playing in anaglyph 3D and the RED contour disturbs the vision to the amount the game starts to hurt my eyes.
I personally would like to turn it off even without 3D.
So let us choose please.

"

kaniz wrote:

Having physical effects on crit is a good idea - I think it could be interesting if the crit effect depended on the type of weapon you are using.

Maybe claws blind, hammers stun, daggers cause bleed/puncture, etc. I think having one type of effect for all melee crits would be a little boring.

Some crit effects could be focused more on disabling/control - stun, blind, confuse, slow, while others could be more damage focused - bleed/puncture, vulnerable so follow up attacks do more damage, etc

Different phys crit effects for different weapon types is a great idea.

"

LunacyPolish wrote:

First of all I love this manifesto idea.

Second, can the manifesto address health stacking vs armor vs evasion vs energy whiles vs resistances? This is a topic I know many are concerned with. The current system seems to greatly favor health and ES and I know I have suggestions for how to tweak the formulas.

Biggest melee problem to date. Best suggestion I've seen is to reduce monster damage while increasing monster attack speed. This removes the spikey, one-shot deaths, but keeps the monster dps essentially the same by having more hits. Armour and evasion works best with that type of damage, so it suddenly becomes viable for survival. Monster speed could be increased too so that ranged are in more danger. This would free up melee from having to travel across the tree getting hp nodes and would enable more builds.

"

Odoakar wrote:

The only thing I found questionable was claiming the loot drop situation is fine for solo players. It is not. It's actually horrible, with very few currency and uniques dropping, especially compared to party play.

Unique drops are fine and will improve with the quantity of uniques, including low level uniques.

Currency drops are not okay though, especially while progressing. It stinks that any good currency you find at level 15 has to be saved until you're level 60. Would it really be game breaking to have alchs drop more frequently? The stuff needed for more perfect gear should be saved until the end (like chaos), but please let us craft some rares while leveling. And please don't design the currency drops around the trade market! Many people don't use it and don't want to. It's a huge part of why we came here from D3. We love crafting, so let us do it throughout the game!!! I like the currency system, I just wish I weren't always so dirt poor because I don't trade.

"

Chris_GGG wrote:

- Resync everything in an area around a desynced entity. This reduces overall entropy massively but would be pretty jarring.

I'd rather be jarred than die.

Thanks GGG, glad to hear this is being prioritized. Melee especially can be difficult when the servers are being bad (primetime).

Are there any plans for having servers on the east coast (USA)? Having US east and west servers could help at least here in the states...

Lots of big claims in those development manifestos. I believe in you guys at GGG will certainly complete all of those challenges. However, I sincerely wonder if they will all be tackled by release.

Best of luck, can't wait to see what happens in the future.

"

With more difficulty should come more rewards. While we want to keep the rewards for solo play competitive, it is difficult to deal with strangers or to arrange and keep the commitments required to play with a consistent group. If we make party play more challenging, we'll probably also incentivise it slightly more also. Solo players are already at a big advantage from an item drop point of view (they get more items per player and have no loot tension), so small increases to the party rewards are not deemed to be unfair.

Please remember that numerous players, such as my self and my friends, don't compete over loot. Much like table top gaming D&D we pool loot and distribute it to whomever needs it. trading isn't much of a priority because you don't have a viable trading system.

Solo players do not have any advantage over groups.
Solo players have the advantage over random groups.

The solution is to give incentive for random groups.

"

Players are not picking challenging enough map mods. There are several that make the map "harder" in a way that just means they find more maps without any additional difficulty. We will probably change these so that they actually make the level harder. Ideally players will roll maps to find mods that hit the sweet spot in the "how many extra maps/items do I get" vs "how badly am I going to die" tradeoff. We also feel that the item quantity rates on maps are potentially a little too high and affect the problem described previously where too many white items drop. It may be appropriate for there to be a rarity tradeoff there too.

The problem is with your mod selection and random group spawns inside of maps. It's a beautiful system to keep us interested but there's no way in hell I'm doing a "Enemies deal %75 more cold damage" map when I might get mobs that cast freezing pulse. With multiple projectiles. With reduced maximum resistances. That's suicide for a melee character. I'm at %80 resists, 6 endurance charges and over 3k health at 71. Most of my resists aren't even from endurance charges, too.

If you want us to do "Hard Maps" you'll have to consider the fact that it's better, even if you reduce the loot, for most people to play 5 "Easy" maps in the time it takes for us to do 1 hard map excluding the lost exp on default. Some of those affixes are really hard, sometimes harder for others because of build, gear and skills. Temporal chains on an already "competitive" map is a little rough -- Everyone would just tell me to get flasks for immunity but that's not the point.

My friend also refuses to do Elemental Reflect maps -- you can guess why.

"

Offensive passive skills for melee builds (i.e. weapon specific ones) will probably be improved in some way. Note that we can't just add "melee defensive" passives

I never take weapon specific ones because I can't reliably craft/find "the Axe" to keep competitive damage. I'm trying this with a shadow and it's pretty awful relying on finding a dagger.

Support gem: After using this ability your Evasion/Armor (Either both, or it picks the highest) increases by %10. Stacks x times (you guys are better at the maths). Adds %x of Evasion or Armor as damage (to prevent damage loss from a used gem slot) Melee gems only.

"

The physical-elemental disparity will be addressed. There will probably be an on-critical effect introduced for physical damage (which may be as simple as a guaranteed stun, but the options are still being considered).

Stunning would be best as it increases survive-ability.

Thanks for taking the time to write all of this.

I am pleased GGG opened their ears, even as ninja-looters, to the loot stuff. I hope you implement a proper loot distribution system, on choice, allowing parties to skip on the "competition" completely, if they desire to do so.

I also looking forward to see the following topics in next manifesto iterations:

- XP loss at high levels being unfair (in comparison to lower levels, same difficulty) and exaggerated after level 80, not even mentioning 90+
- trading being inefficient and becoming more and more a requirement for a character that wants to gear up properly
- single player being less rewarding and not viable at high levels and in maps, due to shared currency in a party
- high level maps being hugely expensive and prohibitive to solo characters
- maps being offered like some rarity amazing items, yet they are most of the times very unrewarding, not to mention they are just (rehashed) content - not great items worth their rarity status
- progression, difficulty walls and spikes
- cheap tactics like Alt-F4 and boss portaling being common place...

I dont know if GGG sees an issue in this but recently many people espeacially in softcore noticed and complained about the econimity of POE. Are there any ideas to improve trading ? And help lesser orbs to retain value i mean 51 fusing for an exalt is kind of sad ;)