GGG: You guys used to be good at communicating. Things seem to have taken a dip as of late

>trap nerfs
>still no fixes to maps, exp loss, 3-build only gameplay, shav/soultaker/kaom
>lol drop system
>every new skill for the past 4 months have been garbage
>only post to ask us for money or to ask us to pay for sponsors


What's funny is, diablo 3 is starting to shape up to be amazing in it's expansion, copying the good concepts of this game and improving them instead of making 1000$ cosmetics.

i got worried a bit about the traps firstly but just like mostamunch i think they are going to add something interesting to the traps mechanics so they thought of fixing them before doing that.The newsletter is just a key to tell everyone "ye ye calm down , we fucked up traps for PVP but we are planning something to make them just as viable as before without screwing pvp again" at least i hope so :D.

Anyway ye i agree with u OP , its a bit hard to believe blindly on them :/
we need some love .

Very thoughtful (as in, given a lot of thought, not necessarily considerate) OP.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that GGG is facing the rapidly-approaching Release date, and wants to make sure everything is right for Release. Post-Release, there will be patches and such, but they are under the gun to make certain that PoE is ready to be presented as a finished product by deadline.

I won't say the Devs haven't got time to spare some information; what I suspect is keeping them from saying all that much is making sure that what they DO say is right. I have seen staffers posting how much they'd LOVE to tell us about what's coming up, but that they can't. It's not just that it's all a big secret; things are also still in flux, and better to be sure than to let something slip that turns out not to be right, especially if it has to be changed due to production requirements.

I wish GGG could've maintained the level of communication we got back in CB, but that obviously didn't work out. Mebbe once the pressure of impending Release is behind them, we can see some of that communicativeness return. =^[.]^=

"

Fluttershypony wrote:

What's funny is, diablo 3 is starting to shape up to be amazing in it's expansion, copying the good concepts of this game and improving them instead of making 1000$ cosmetics.

Lol. But that's actually true, sadly

The farther into production the game the less communicative they will get, this isn't new. Every beta I've ever played in has been like this.

"

Qarak wrote:

"

Fluttershypony wrote:

What's funny is, diablo 3 is starting to shape up to be amazing in it's expansion, copying the good concepts of this game and improving them instead of making 1000$ cosmetics.

Lol. But that's actually true, sadly

as long as my demon hunter is gonna be dropping crossbows with 300 int, no way i'll go back to that looting system...

"

EnderCN wrote:

The farther into production the game the less communicative they will get, this isn't new. Every beta I've ever played in has been like this.

true true. agreed on that. it's just the recent changes.... ah well! c'est la vie :)

Thanks for the great post dlrr. It's always nice to have post that contains constructive criticism and if it's from a diaternal supporter, I consider it as even better.

"

dlrr wrote:

GENERAL COMMUNICATION

Spoiler

- No new development manifesto threads since May. We don't need a wall of text, even the Fusing orbs manifesto, while short, was very interesting.

- Apart from patch notes and Rhys' entertaining post on Goddess Scorned, the daily announcements length have been generally shorter and less interesting to read (no hard evidence to back this up, just a feeling. feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

- There has been a significant amount of "trust us, wait till you see this game at release" posts as of late. That's ok as a response, but it can only hold us off for that long. As much as we trust you guys, unless we know WHAT to expect at release, it's hard to build up a feeling of "Damn, this is gonna be awesome!" or "Yay! This issue will be fixed!".

Similar to what you've said, ephetat's Recent lack of Interesting Design Disclosure thread was a nice read. I can suggest reading it to anyone who is interested in this subject. Oh God, I missed the old dev diaries..

"

dlrr wrote:

REAVE

Spoiler

- Reave, in my opinion, is fine (sans the desync that I seem to get and others seem to be reporting, but that's more coding than the skill itself). AOE with 100% effectiveness? Why, thanks!

- I think SOME Of the complaints you're seeing in the forums could have been avoided if you had just stated from the very very start that the AOE was going to be conal.

- Instead, when you state AOE melee that increases in size with each hit, most people just associate increasing AOE with something like Melee Splash (I know you stated the first hit is in front of the player. But I think it is not unfair to assume in the first instance, given the success of the double strike / melee splash build, that the AOE increase would be circular). With such an expectation, seeing something less than expected is bound to upset some people.

- I think there was no harm in stating upfront its constraints and let people figure out later how to work around it, than to have people accidentally expecting something more from it. This would have saved you, and us, from a lot of post release angst.

I think the real problem here was as tobes111 stated GGG promised that they will frequently add new skills and then a sudden silence started and lasted for quite some time. When it end my guess is that people were expecting something great and a "meh" skill easily turned into disappointment.

"

dlrr wrote:

TRAPS

Spoiler

- This, like the Razer case, come completely out of nowhere. First indication was a diaternal newsletter saying "Hey! 0.11.6 will be interesting if you're into traps". Which of course people think, "Cool, nice, liking it"

- Suddenly, with no indication whatsoever, we see a nerf to separate cooldowns on traps which was the only thing making trap-only builds viable. This isn't like the aura-swap issue which was expected by many beforehand. This really took many people by surprise.

- Now clearly, this nerf is meant to go hand-in-hand with whatever's coming in 0.11.6, but until we know what it is and see the full picture, it just feels, wrong.

- You could have done a better job in telling us exactly what was going to happen with traps and why the cooldown nerf was required in the interim, or to at least delay the cooldown changes till 0.11.6. I don't think this was a change that people were exactly chasing you for, was it?

This is also related to GENERAL COMMUNICATION part, GGG was publicly sharing their design decisions within dev diaries or at least daily announcements. IMO lack of these information is the main problem here. I'm suspecting that they are afraid of shitstorm that happens after sharing news that includes a nerf that affects a percentage of the playerbase. So instead of dealing with all of these before-hand. They make the changes, finalize it and than land them as a surprise. At that point community have not much other than adapt to changes. Conspiracy? Probably..

"

dlrr wrote:

THE IRONY

Spoiler

- If any other company had done any of the above with zero communication, most players would suck it up and continue because, really, no one expects developers to communicate the way I'm asking you to. And that is because you guys have done such a fantastic job in the past that the above seem like such a big deal. I suppose, the higher the bar you guys set for yourselves, the easier it is to miss that target in the future.

I completely agree with this part but I also think that this is the thing that make GGG unique. They set their standards too high that, even so-called AAA game companies look like shit when compared to them. I can only hope that everything will turn normal after the release.

I don't understand why Reave is considered a stupid skill
It did good on a melee ranger until level 51 or 52, then I hit the famous wall
Didn't seem that bad for me

About D3... what have they copied?
New char, new monsters, new looks for the levels, new items, slight reworking of various systems...
Its the same in any expansion for any game.
Oh wait, I forgot, Vivendi.. I mean Bliztard has BILLIONS to spend on marketing so of course, the game MUST be better now because the really tiny trailers look so good. I hold my breath in anticipa... oooh a puppy!