Incandescent Heart Only Works with CI... Why Life?

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Valley wrote:

So in case anyone is wondering I'm the supporter responsible for creating the Incandescent Heart.
(I really should get the unique artwork for my forum avatar - love the design)

Seeing this thread I figured it best to add some input as feedback good or negative is always helpful for GGG to make this game the best damn game out there.

I love playing this game, very casually these days but still keeping a lookout for updates and patches. Supporting GGG was just one of those opportunities I couldn't pass on and creating a unique for Path of Exile was a very tempting challenge for both myself and GGG.

One of my first original aims when creating a unique was to try creating an endgame unique for melee classes that wasn't just another super overpowered item like Bringer of Rain, Koam’s or Shavronne’s, but trust me the idea was certainly played around with in discussions and emails.

Kaom’s - Full Life builds
Bringer of Rain - Life, Block easy 7link
Shavronne’s - Low Life builds

Seeing uniques like this was one of the reasons why I became more interested in creating a unique around the elemental damage conversion into Chaos Damage. Which works very well with CI builds but isn't completely exclusive allowing for some interesting build designs.

One of the other key reasons I became interested in this mechanic was also because I knew this was possible to implement having already seen similar mechanics on unique items like Lightning Coil - this is important to remember for later.

The design process was quite interesting - let’s put it this way whatever your first idea is for a unique design you might as well scrap it - all those crazy, amazing player suggested uniques will probably never make it into the game. At least not in their first draft without some serious dev balancing.

I wish I could remember the exact post Charan made where he discussed the unique process but he was 100% spot on with the reality of the process being very back and forth with developers with ideas which can never be, for one reason or another. This was over something like 9 or so months with emails - now I live in the UK so for me the best time to try catching a response the same day was writing an email around about 9pm (which was probably early morning for the devs in NZ) and sometimes the response could be within an hour, sometimes at 4am and sometimes quite a time later and after several repeated emails waiting.

Now some of the above may sound negative just reading it from a forum post but understand that I really loved and enjoyed the entire process working with GGG - yes of course I wish I could have had the perfect godly unique but hey its GGG game and balance comes and goes - maybe one day the unique will go over more balancing that’s one of the great things about game design - nothing is ever really set in stone.

One also has to see the funny side of things having your unique item released the same time as Mjolner - that itself makes for an interesting discussion on balance especially when you look into the feedback of the playerbase at large which had many posts / builds highlighting perhaps too much power. Yet for Incandescent Heart its entry to the world of PoE was relatively peaceful - it has its niche, some power yet not extremely overpowered and the number of posts and player feedback largely reflects this.

Most design questions can always be answered with 'Dev Balance' ^^

Why the unique name 'Incandescent Heart'? Dev - Ingame lore, same with the flavor text.
For quite sometime I had my own unique name and ideas for the flavor text but decided ultimately it was just better to leave this for GGG so the unique works and fits into the developers 'Vision' of the world of Wraeclast.

So why the low energy shield?

Dev Balance - Originally one of the suggestions was using a higher ES base for example Vaal Regalia unfortunately too high an ES value was considered too overpowered, it was even suggested by the devs that it would end up having a LESS / Reduced Energy shield penalty and therefore more desirable to have a unique base which naturally has lower ES - so ultimately the direction of the base became AR/ES.

Why +Life?

Well this was largely part of keeping the unique open to build flexibility - yeah it would be so much easier to just have +ES but there we go ^^

Why 25% Elemental damage to Chaos?

Again dev balance - this was one of those safe values. The mechanic is very powerful and the devs don't want players to become completely unkillable... One of my earlier suggestions was playing around with far higher conversion ratios like 75%+ elemental to chaos with restrictions like being unable to use it with CI – which was never going to happen because that’s just one of those ideas on the list which can never be. Restrictions are something GGG generally want to avoid creating on unique items as it can severely limit the item and its flexibility to work into various builds both new and old.

Why only 5% physical leech?

Dev Balance yet again... I would have loved so much to have seen this as the following
'Supported by lv15-20 Life Leech' but sadly minutes before midnight and the deadline for the release of the unique I got the email back saying it was just too overpowered after testing - it would have allowed for elemental leech as a 7th link effectively which I thought would have been pretty damn awesome for a lv70 unique but it was just too overpowered and therefore changed to only 5% physical - great for melee as a free life leech but sadly nothing for any builds on elemental/casters...

The artwork? 100% GGG artist whose Signature I can't easily make out, but damn I love the artwork and as others have mentioned yeah he could easily be a Dark Souls fan and I look forward to seeing the 3D model ingame when it’s complete ^^

I will take full responsibility for the Arcane vision / Light mechanic though I just personally loved that passive - It creates a very unique flavor to the overall design of the item which impacts more on the players experience - One of my most memorable moments playing PoE was releasing the shadow and playing in that darker environment battling my way through the temple. I'm still hoping one of these days to see my unique recreate that shadow experience... ^^

Well anyway that’s my feedback and input for the unique - now back to playing games :D
(btw I'm not going to do any Q&As on builds etc I enjoy leaving that for the players)