I'm Unhappy I Put As Much Money As I Did In This Game

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There's a lot in the works that will improve specific issues that are raised in this thread. I'll try to be more transparent about this in the future. Would a return of the development manifesto help?

Look you used the 1 week Restest in CB to test resists.
The initial resist test was -25 -50 -75 Resists.
Several cb players suggested to use those longer races for testing again.

But all we get are 4month leagues and those changes are decided with no or small changes.
I already know that aside some clones(like Fire Fury, 1 to 1 Dominus Clone etc) the invasion bosses will spawn in regular leagues in 4 months.


So why don't you use 1-2 week wipe races to test settings?
How about for example enable the powerful receipes again but give crafted currency itemlevels?

Test better droprates or test damage settings in a mode like Endless Vaal ledge.
Different skilltrees.
One Shot mechanics don't make a game hard. They add a frustration factor in it.
And if you see streamers using cheats to instantly logoff(not talking about AHK) and other people start constantly botting then the droprates are too bad.
Remember that CB had not RMT problems? And after all MMOesque changes with OB RMT was omnipresent.

For example I consider the Eternal Orb as a horrible addition.
It's not used for crafting. It's used to sell mirrored items.

Several changes are last minute ideas, which turned to be out not to be liked.
Chaos Resists for CI, Vaal Pact change for the Vaal Unique.


Several players suggested a change to the mapmodel such as make map drops based on map quantity at certain levels and make combinations like -max resists elemental weakness and ele damage count far more than more life more speed half regen rate inhabited by x.

But instead we got maps where the mapbosses does abnormal damage that will one shot most characters and making evasion even less viable.

I would rather player something where the map boss does 1000 damage and the mapmods makes it do 4000 damage than having a boss that has a base damage of 3000 and a damage mod pushes to 4000 damage.
Of course this includes mitigation but if I recalculate damage on some mobs the recalculated damage says that the base damage is 12000.

Tell me which character can reach 12000 Life without Kaoms and the lifenode nerfs?
And I am not talking about CI. Since 120 life got removed with Oak quests and several items can't spawn 80-99 life anymore while others spawn a bit more you moved the SAME content to a higher level.

And then the game becomes more and more geardependant. Looking at the res nerfs.
Res nodes are one way to counter lack of luck. Yet the nodes get less powerful over time because you believed too many players took these ignoring the fact that the players took these because they once had or still own bad equipment.

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Enemies like Atziri (and potentially other undocumented harder versions of her) require a whole lot of effort that will probably be out of for a portion of our playerbase.

You made a big mistake here. If you add something like "Added a new superboss to the game" fine.
But if you add something "SotV, new league, more lore" as it is common content you make the playerbase think it is regular content and here is your explanation why there is an instant drop in the playerbase.

Players handled Corrupted invasion bosses like regular bosses and got butchered and left.
I am still at my second character(The first one died at level 3 to a 200 damage Frostwall in Mudflats which got nerfed the next patch).
But I know players who are at their 5ths or 6ths character or quit already.

Especially annoying is that tagging isn't fixed yet. Setting enemies HP once you are in range.

So how do you intend to fix this situation for example:
6 players public map. Mud Geyser. Guest Boss is the Blind Alley totem Pyre.
5 Players "OMG Flame Blast Totem leave"
So I am stuck there with a 6 player HP totem, dropping for 1 player fighting 30 minutes.
Same examples with the the "x the lucky", the shadow of vengeance etc.
HP should always be adjusted on the current situations in an additive/subtractive way(not multiplicative like in D2)

Same things happen with Kamaq paranoia. Once a big Devourer spawns even without checking if its an additional life one 5 players leave.

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Those players can still find the content both enjoyable to watch on Twitch/YouTube and aspirational (inspiring them to build better and better characters to hopefully take it on themselves).

Yes players will surely suddenly become no lifers what kind of timeinvestment imagination GGG is that?
Do you even see that even the biggest no lifers and MMORPG players aren't interested in reaching level 100?

And didn't you see that several 1k+ streamers left already?
You got some streamers but some deserve the same tag as Panko for the same reason.

And improve gameplay? I am a better player than most of those endgame streamers. They got more playtime, better eq(we know how some got their eq) the only things learnt there is which bosses you skip early on because they got dumb one shot mechanics.


Another one uses obvious cheats on stream and still isn't banned?
Others use illegal AHK scripts and nothing happens?
"Hey if we ban them there would be no high end streamer left"

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We tried to make sure that there was lots of content in SotV that was available to all players, and based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback on the patch, I personally feel we succeeded.

I can't speak for ambush but Invasion was an utter failure.
Steamcharts and forumposts and even reddit on invasion says otherwise.

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Thanks for your feedback in this thread. You guys know you can mail me at chris@grindinggear.com with your feedback at any time, right?

Which result in making concessions or show that internal communication doesn't work/there are lies.

While I agree with many of Hilbert's points, it's worth noting GGG are people and people succumb to human emotion. Coming off so antagonistic in all of your otherwise high quality feedback will cause others to dismiss you, without taking time to understand or contemplate your message.

I've never understood why there isn't a real alpha server with enough testing in it, at the very least enough ( at least 1~2 weeks before releases ) and can be used for balance purpose.

The role of alpha player was initially bug tracking, right ? Many balance mistakes could have been avoided if there were people testing about balance, and listened by GGG.
Or maybe add some volunteers with a NDA if more people are needed, idk ... but something feels wrong.

Of course there might have been some of that that we are not aware of, but some patch notes do really not feel like it ...
I mean, if there had been many people testing invasion during one whole week pre-release, at least one of them would have noticed some of the bosses being over-powered as an example.

To be honest, PoE is by really far the game with the most hotfix ( because with the most mistakes that could be avoided ) I have ever seen.
I've always been a little confused about this in Path of Exile, that just seem unprofessional to me, but one more time, there are for sure many element that I don't have to accurately judge, so I'm confused.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

As for the dev manifesto, I'll take that over daily news any day, if a choice must be made.

I'd prefer a dev manifesto over the "small patch" advance notice (mentioned in news post today). The only problem with dev manifesto is its a target for non-constructive complainers. But Chris seems to have thicker skin than that!

To add to Hilbert's post, I would also like game fundamentals reevaluated and tested externally. Just because beta is over doesn't mean this stuff is 'perfect' or that inexpensive changes wouldn't benefit the play experience. Granted this is often a question of prioritization and in that regard I'll defer to Chris & co. beyond letting them know there's interest. As Hilbert suggests 1-2 week (void) races would be ideal for such experimentation, additionally it's worth noting such an approach would create an impression of greater involvement with the community (even if that isn't true beyond data collection).

While we're on the topic, I'd like to mention aspects of the game that may be worth reevaluation:
Resistances
-The current system is additive and creates appreciating returns. This can cause unintentional and abrupt spikes in difficulty. I think a system with depreciating returns would be better but I may be wrong. Maybe GGG has already tested depreciating returns and didn't find it suitable to the gameplay they were trying to encourage, maybe that gameplay has changed and this is worth further review.
Mana Sustainability
-Right now the mana meta is shallow, stack increased mana, flat mana, mana regeneration, increase mana regeration... they all synergize. I'd like if players had to make a meaningful choice between mana pool and mana regeneration rate. This could be accomplished by divorcing pool size and regeneration rate from one another. Then players should be given some opportunity cost to investing in high flat regeneration rate and a large mana pool + some means of supplementary generation e.g. mana leech, mana gain on hit/kill/crit, and flasks. Specific to mana generating support gems, they'd present a more meaningful choice if they provided a great deal of mana but significantly reduced damage output - making them best used on secondary mana generating skills. That also means mana reduction would no longer be redundant with the existing mana leech support. It's also important to mention auras were balanced around the existing mana meta and would subsequently need retuning but that doesn't strike me as a bad thing.
Sockets and Links
-By now we've seen a great deal of frustration and praise regarding the socket and link systems. Ideally we could keep what was praised and reevaluate what was criticized. My own peeve would be to facilitate creative socket/link use earlier in the game, perhaps by introducing high socket/link items and gems sooner. The improvements to mana sustainability described above would give us to tools to balance such changes. Additionally I wouldn't mind the maximum number of sockets on items to increase, (8) for chests and 2-handed pieces and (4) for 1-handed pieces.

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Veta321 wrote:

To add to Hilbert's post, I would also like game fundamentals reevaluated and tested externally. Just because beta is over doesn't mean this stuff is 'perfect' or that inexpensive changes wouldn't benefit the play experience. Granted this is often a question of prioritization and in that regard I'll defer to Chris & co. beyond letting them know there's interest. As Hilbert suggests 1-2 week (void) races would be ideal for such experimentation, additionally it's worth noting such an approach would create an impression of greater involvement with the community (even if that isn't true beyond data collection).

Thirded. I'm actually somewhat surprised the idea hasn't been brought up before, seems obvious in retrospect.

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shoju wrote:

The very fact that these gloves can exist is a failing of a system IMO. These gloves are ilvl60+ Wool Gloves. I'm fairly confident that they were 66+, from a boss in a map, but I don't remember. I've held onto them for so long, staring at them, hating them. Why, I lost out on a possible upgrade to my character, so that the very base model of ES gloves could drop from my boss, is just beyond me. If we are going to see caps on things like Monster must be level X to see a Koam's, Shav's, Voltaxic, etc... There should be a cap on things like this. level 60+ monsters should not be dropping crap that you pick up in the very first zone of the game. Especially not as a rare.

I've heard it before "But what about the uniques!?!?!?!?!?!?" FIne. Let them drop them as uniques. I don't care. But, there is no joy, no fullfillment, from looting a level 1 pair of rare ES gloves from a Merciless Boss. That's crap.

But, the RNG doesn't just stop at loot drops. It's in the "crafting" system. Which, is not a crafting system. Vendor Recipes, is as close to crafting as this gets. Everything else, is a giant slot machine, that you put various values of currency into, spin the handle, and hope that you don't screw up.

Agreed 100%, I've been saying EXACT same thing for a while now.

The idea to use 1 weekers for testing purposes again isn't even mine. It got mentioned several times I think once Quarl even gave an answer but I think it will be forgotten after 1 season and we will see regular or league tied 1 weekers.

So what if there would be a 1 week test with a test tree without Iron Reflexes for example, capping resists, evasion and reduce on a lower and toning damage down by 60-80%.
There are keystones which make you feel bad from a logical point of view.
The 75% limit got introduced in Diablo because you can easily calculate with it.

Diablo 2 used a 75% physical reduction limit and the result was that even 500 HP characters in Hell with maxblock were like immortal.


Same thing could be done with item mods.
What if you got large scaling mods like 1-300ed?
This could easily be tested on future uniques.
For example the original Slink Boots had a mod 25% chance to escape Fatal Damage.
This would work like the PnP ability escape death. If an attack would kill you, you do a rescue roll and you won't be hit.
But this states the question what is fatal damage in PoE.
In PnP games it's defined as hit Roll on attacks so it doesn't work on spells because spells always hit.

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I've never understood why there isn't a real alpha server with enough testing in it, at the very least enough ( at least 1~2 weeks before releases ) and can be used for balance purpose.

Because most players only apply to alpha to see new content earlier and get advantages.

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The role of alpha player was initially bug tracking, right ? Many balance mistakes could have been avoided if there were people testing about balance, and listened by GGG.

No I give you a good example.

The original Fork had a lower penalty, Chain chained 3 times and Penetration gems went up to like ~55% penetration.

Everybody wondered how those games could have made it past alpha in that form.

A really popular combination was Dualtotem Spark Fork Penetration+(Faster Casting+Added lightning damage) back in CB.
You didn't need faster casting gems because some sparks triple shocked everything after some time.

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Or maybe add some volunteers with a NDA if more people are needed, idk ... but something feels wrong.

The NDA never worked.
Stuff leaks on mumble, patch notes leak etc.

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I mean, if there had been many people testing invasion during one whole week pre-release, at least one of them would have noticed some of the bosses being over-powered as an example.

Releasing Damage tables would do the same.
If an entire Spikestorm does 100k+ damage you know that something is wrong.

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To be honest, PoE is by really far the game with the most hotfix ( because with the most mistakes that could be avoided ) I have ever seen.

Setting a date is always bad.
Look at many other games released in an unfinished state and if there is a publisher there might be a DLC Ripoff.

Look at the Mafia 2 Devs. The publisher replaced side missions with a DLC, with a totally unrelated character, which is the main character with another hat.
In the gamefiles you see that several missions were removed.
The map in the game shows a hideout which isn't there, there are weapons in the gamecode you can't use.
The enviroment got reduced to nothing over time. The intro would suggest an epic game.
But over time it becomes less and less.
For example in gameplaytrailers there is a monorail in the game.
In the "finished" game there isn't one.

And now the Studio is closed because Mafia 2 turned out to be a failure.
It could have been a really good game but because the publisher wanted to earn more money and there was a release date everything got ruined.
Even successful gamestudios dedice to create less complicated games with deep stories.
Imo the best gaming era was 1998-2003. Games didn't evolve much after that and at some point ripoffs started to come up.
Sure MOBAs are popular now but the origins of Mobas are even older. Even in the 90's I created maps for AoE or CnC where you had only 1 exit fokring into many path and many resources.
Those maps were really popular in the RTS communinty because the ranked games always had several paths to you base and for example in CnC3 where were maps where somebody with a bad staring point would be fast Engineerrushed with an amphebian BMT and those hoverring tanks.



GGG overestimated their progress several times.
Open Beta got delayed many times and once it got a release date several stuff isn't up even till now.
For example Catacombs should have got a quest which still isn't there.
Prototypes of skills were mentioned 2 years ago and made it now into Vaalgems.
I think Vaalgems are a good idea but aside from spells there are barely any viable gems and either the required charged or the soulsystem needs to be reworked.

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Hilbert wrote:

I think Vaalgems are a good idea but aside from spells there are barely any viable gems and either the required charged or the soulsystem needs to be reworked.

Some are really a joke, like ground slam, and spectral throw is there just to give a little taste of hammerdin. Not sure souls are the right way to do it, makes vaal gems useless in boss fights and less populated areas. Maybe a 120s cooldown would work better but I got no idea how to incorporate that into 'vaal sacrifice' theme, unfortunately.

Anyway, I'd really like to see those testing leagues, and I don't really see much harm in patch notes leaking, people talk more about it if they have something substantial to discuss, and you can see initial reactions to the idea before you release something. GGG often overdoes it on secrecy.

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Chris wrote:

With regards to the "most time to play" comment - Charan and I have talked about this personally and I wanted to mention it in this thread. We want to make sure there are content and items for people who play far more than the average player. Enemies like Atziri (and potentially other undocumented harder versions of her) require a whole lot of effort that will probably be out of for a portion of our playerbase. Those players can still find the content both enjoyable to watch on Twitch/YouTube and aspirational (inspiring them to build better and better characters to hopefully take it on themselves). We tried to make sure that there was lots of content in SotV that was available to all players, and based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback on the patch, I personally feel we succeeded.

Look, I can understand this. Hell, I'd probably do the same. I mean, as far giving your players some ultimate goal that's really hard to achieve. What I would try to avoid is making the entrance gated by random probability that's also subvertible via trading. Even the boss herself is potentially avoidable by just buying her drops directly.

Anything that keeps players moving around the game world, and not stuck farming one area over and over again I can agree with, but I don't think any situation should exist where a player considers the most effective way to progress to be on a website somewhere instead of wading into a swath of monsters. Of course, I'm biased against trading.