After you watch this you'll really wish GGG could have afforded a commercial game engine .

"

Phrazz wrote:

"

Arrowneous wrote:

...

Still waiting, Arrowneous.

You wouldn't expect him to answer to reason, would you?

This thread might end, but another just like this one will appear in given time, and the cycle will continue and continue..

I expect Arrowneous to answer to reason. I don't expect it of too many here, but him? Yeah, I expect it.

That said, some of Phrazz's queries were not reasonable at all. They presume knowledge of the game that I doubt even some GGG employees have. Did Arrowneous bring said queries down onto himself? Yeah, naturally -- his claim that a new engine would improve the game must be followed up with queries of what's deficient about the game that might be tied to the engine. So he should still respond, even if only to admit that the claim he made is really just an opinion.

This isn't a black and white issue, and I believe two veterans like Arrowneous and Phrazz realise that. Neither is fully right, and neither is fully wrong. Some of the game's major shortcomings ARE due to the engine's limitations and the fact that it is home-grown -- that's Arrowneous' main point I believe. But then there's the counterpoint that the PoE's handmade engine is the best possible option and that neither Cryengine nor Unreal would handle PoE's issues any better, and I agree with that too.

Both of them agree there's a lot wrong with the game. And I don't blame Arrowneous for reaching for a simplified answer, and I don't blame Phrazz for pointing out that it's simplified and problematic.

My god, it's almost like a mature debate.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I expect Arrowneous to answer to reason. I don't expect it of too many here, but him? Yeah, I expect it.

Then my name is clearly not "reason", because I keep disagreeing with OP. More times and I can count, and I usually respond in a factual, though critical manner. He often doesn't reply. At all. I guess the second half part of my answer/questions to him was a little bit too sarcastic and rude.

I guess it's me, and I've come to terms with that.

See above edit. ;)

You were sharp but 100% constructive and relevant. Were I Arrowneous, which I am not, I would cede the point. With qualifications, of course.

I dunno, maybe I'm just a filthy optimist sometimes (he says, after basically claiming PoE 1 is unfixable).

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I dunno, maybe I'm just a filthy optimist sometimes (he says, after basically claiming PoE 1 is unfixable).

I believe PoE 2 is a far better solution to the problem(s), than a new engine is. It can be a clean slate for them, if they so choose. I'm excited to see if they choose to.

"

Phrazz wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I dunno, maybe I'm just a filthy optimist sometimes (he says, after basically claiming PoE 1 is unfixable).

I believe PoE 2 is a far better solution to the problem(s), than a new engine is. It can be a clean slate for them, if they so choose. I'm excited to see if they choose to.

How can it be a clean slate if it's primarily a new campaign towards the same endgame as PoE 1's? A clean slate is exactly that: a blank page. A do-over. From scratch.

A clean slate does not come with the baggage PoE '2' will come with. We're talking all the same items carried over. The same campaign as PoE 1, if people want to play it still. Very likely the same Skilldrasil, just with, yknow, 19 more ascendancies from the alternate campaign that you can take into the endgame, because GGG have shown so far just what a great idea 'more' is without adequately making room for it. And then there's the wholesale conversion of skill and links to this new system where potentially every skill is 6L.

With what we know so far, I cannot conceive of PoE 2 being anything but a balance nightmare of a magnitude that will make anything to date look timid. The only reason it seemed feasible at Exilecon is because it was a separate, isolated demo of the start of the alternate campaign. It probably felt like playing an entirely new game. But it won't be. After those 7 acts, you merge with PoE 1 and then shit gets really, really messy.

But i reckon they had to call it '2' because they knew by then they were competing with a very real Diablo 4. Path of Exile 4.0 just looks like an expansion, an update. To compete with D4? You gotta look bigger and badder than just an update.

So to pull this back on-course, a true PoE 2 could still use PoE 1's engine. It doesn't demand a new one. The engine is not inherently the baggage here. It's a great engine and it can do so much. It just can't do what PoE 1 wants it to do. A new game made by GGG that is tailored around what the PoE 1 engine CAN do? I believe that'd be something truly magnificent.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

...

I said that because I've seen him dodge reasonable remarks before and I am starting to see a pattern here. Either that or he calls himself a pleb, lol.

Either way, I like the dude, too. Only wished he'd responded to a well-writen post by Phrazz.

I agree with him that there's a lot wrong with PoE right now. I'm actually building a new PC, because my old one just doesn't do it well for PoE's toptier endgame (talking 2x beyond, delirium orbs etc.) and that's frustrating.

But it has been said by GGG themselves many times in the past in regards to a new engine: they can't just portate the entire game to a new engine and everything would work better. They'd have to build the game from scratch. Even simple things like a Zombie is highly complex.

Given all that, I wished GGG would invest more time into optimizing their engine, but that's probably for after PoE2 comes out...

GGG are perfectly capable of running tests on server load, CPU load, and error rates during realistic-user experiences with "PoE on the ground".

Unlike a bone or muscle remodeling itself under new weightbearing stresses during cross-training, however, a game engine ... doesn't.

Because they have their own homebrew, they must have some dozens of coders who are casually familiar with its innards, and maybe a few who actively make adjustments and internal audits of the engine itself.

Or you would hope so.

You would hope that instead of having 35 people with 14525 different certifications to do various things unrelated to the game engine, suddenly have to take nanny duty in fits and starts....

that they have a crack team of optimizers for the bones, sinews, and autonomic nervous system of this rapidly growing dopey teenager game. They should be living breathing eating sleeping game engineers. With, of course, a casual familiarity with the add-ons and extensions each new league's code drops into the stew.

Commercial game engines are often much more, and much less, than you asked for.

Much more in that they are built with a related cluster of functionalities well-provided for and this bloats the game profile needlessly if your game doesn't exploit a lot of this design space. E.g. PoE has a lot of missiles and projectiles, but very few of them are surface-to-air, and none are submarine or subsurface and none obey water physics. Bosses don't have directional armour the same way your T-34 or your "Death Barn" or Maus does.

If PoE used the same engine as Tanks, would we download even more gigs of gppk most of which would be unused infrastructure for SAMs and HEAT rounds?

Or would we get the Journey to Tsoatha league where now we use radar and sonar to detect enemies instead of light radius, fire torpedoes at targets above and below us, spend real money to add HF/DF to our radio towers, and get a minesweeper golem?

Granted I think it would be hilarious fun to have PoE + underwater physics + surface-to-air combat, but it would still lag and too many entities and now they're directly above us and we can't swivel our camera to target the Fokker on our six or render the sub on our minimap that's been hounding us since Oriath Docks. And how the hell would desecrate work from 24k feet? Would the corpses spawn on the ground under cloud cover, on the seafloor, in 3-D clouds in midair, ???

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

How can it be a clean slate if it's primarily a new campaign towards the same endgame as PoE 1's? A clean slate is exactly that: a blank page. A do-over. From scratch.

A clean slate does not come with the baggage PoE '2' will come with

It's a clean slate because they have a second chance implementing everything into the overly-crowded 'soup'. But I get your point, and you're probably right. But I expect them (read; demand them) to make changes to a lot of crap, before adding it into the soup again, and even to exclude some 'ingredients'.

While it may not be a clean slate, it IS the perfect chance to trim the bushes, so to speak. Ok, enough with the metaphors. I'm done. Back to the engine stoff.

Still waiting.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

How can it be a clean slate if it's primarily a new campaign towards the same endgame as PoE 1's?

...

With what we know so far, I cannot conceive of PoE 2 being anything but a balance nightmare of a magnitude that will make anything to date look timid.

I have a hard time conceiving PoE 2 as anything BUT a clean slate. I'm hoping they take a lot of this accrued stuff and rather than make it a 10% chance to spawn in your maps, make it like a .5% chance, but buff the rewards correspondingly.

If they don't do it in PoE 2, when will it ever happen? The game is getting uncomfortable cluttered, or close to it.