Chris addressing Reddit, elaborating on manifesto.

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xMustard wrote:

i had to log in just to +1 all of this. i don't think i could agree more with your breakdown

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davidnn5 wrote:

To all the players who say 'no wonder GGG won't say anything because players are so negative'... just stop. You know they need to respond, and they need to respond because the players are looking at and calling out nerfs of a scale that even the 'let's try and do self-surgery on this big red pumping thing' team in GGG has not done before.

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innervation wrote:

....

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impulze3 wrote:

Can chris personally explain why all RF builds needed to be nerfed in damage by ~50% ?

RF is a weak skill, barely played and now its probably dead.

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innervation wrote:

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xMustard wrote:

i had to log in just to +1 all of this. i don't think i could agree more with your breakdown

I disagree with most of it.

'players needed to be nerfed, but not offense, defense, utility, or movement speed. mmmm...huh? And of course 'nothing' has been done to mitigate monsters. The point of nerfing the players is nerfing them relative to the monsters...so those two paragraphs were bizarre.

Trading has been covered a million times including a lengthy GGG manifesto. Despite the friction that exists we still see players shortcut their progression via trade, then complain their characters are too strong and there isn't enough content to do in the end game that challenges them (read anyone complaining last patch about end game reward nerfs or fractured fossil -> deli map nerfs).

'nerfing defenses' 'ripping out chase uniques' as usual such criticisms ignore that everything they're nerfing they also introduced as raw power creep once upon a time. Introducing Cinderswallow and letting it be what it was was a 300% buff over a blue flask worth of power creep. Probably more. Now they're nerfing it by whatever the math works out to. Where were you when it was introduced? Maybe someone should have spoke up then (like I did on numerous occasions) saying not just power creep but also reward creep was getting way out of hand. And monster density creep as well.

The game couldn't go on like this. It's either rip some band aids off over a series of 2-3 patches or watch the game crash into a brick wall of a 'stat squish' - an undertaking that works for WoW but might not have even been possible in this game without wholesale deleting of items and other content.

It's 100% GGGs fault that they upped the pace of those creeps into full fledged sprints. They didn't have to introduce Heist as an exalt printing press. They didn't have to do Harvest league the way they did, nor re-introduce it the way they did.

I think it's totally fair to ask "hey GGG, if you have this grand, restrained, hardcore vision for the game, could you explain every league since Legion please?"

Anyway I expect that tomorrow those who try it will find the state of the game is fine and fun if a bit more difficult. Real build creators will have fun finding the new OP and the 'sky is falling' crowd are just days away from having new meta builds spoon fed to them by said creators. And the cycle renews.

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LiMA6 wrote:

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innervation wrote:

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xMustard wrote:

i had to log in just to +1 all of this. i don't think i could agree more with your breakdown

I disagree with most of it.

'players needed to be nerfed, but not offense, defense, utility, or movement speed. mmmm...huh? And of course 'nothing' has been done to mitigate monsters. The point of nerfing the players is nerfing them relative to the monsters...so those two paragraphs were bizarre.

Trading has been covered a million times including a lengthy GGG manifesto. Despite the friction that exists we still see players shortcut their progression via trade, then complain their characters are too strong and there isn't enough content to do in the end game that challenges them (read anyone complaining last patch about end game reward nerfs or fractured fossil -> deli map nerfs).

'nerfing defenses' 'ripping out chase uniques' as usual such criticisms ignore that everything they're nerfing they also introduced as raw power creep once upon a time. Introducing Cinderswallow and letting it be what it was was a 300% buff over a blue flask worth of power creep. Probably more. Now they're nerfing it by whatever the math works out to. Where were you when it was introduced? Maybe someone should have spoke up then (like I did on numerous occasions) saying not just power creep but also reward creep was getting way out of hand. And monster density creep as well.

The game couldn't go on like this. It's either rip some band aids off over a series of 2-3 patches or watch the game crash into a brick wall of a 'stat squish' - an undertaking that works for WoW but might not have even been possible in this game without wholesale deleting of items and other content.

It's 100% GGGs fault that they upped the pace of those creeps into full fledged sprints. They didn't have to introduce Heist as an exalt printing press. They didn't have to do Harvest league the way they did, nor re-introduce it the way they did.

I think it's totally fair to ask "hey GGG, if you have this grand, restrained, hardcore vision for the game, could you explain every league since Legion please?"

Anyway I expect that tomorrow those who try it will find the state of the game is fine and fun if a bit more difficult. Real build creators will have fun finding the new OP and the 'sky is falling' crowd are just days away from having new meta builds spoon fed to them by said creators. And the cycle renews.

Yet people had more fun than ever before.

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tUrNiTuP83 wrote:

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impulze3 wrote:

Can chris personally explain why all RF builds needed to be nerfed in damage by ~50% ?

RF is a weak skill, barely played and now its probably dead.

Yep RF is really weak. Tried it on a Delve boss a few days ago and it took about 20 mins to do one phase. So they nerf it even more LUL.

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Kulthanel wrote:

People fall for this damage control thing, still? come on..

He says:

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Chris wrote:

We care more about making a good game than we do about vanity metrics like player concurrency records.

Which already is not right considering what the ultimatum fiasco and how they LITERALLY pay streamers to play the league and on top of that to have queue priority and who knows what else has been going down under the table for years..

Then

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Chris wrote:

The direction Path of Exile was going in over the last year was breaking player records but wasn't really leaving us happy with our own game.

He says that THEY werent happy with the game, not the majority of the players. THEY the dev's themselves.

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Chris wrote:

We try to be very cautious and to care about your experience with Path of Exile.

Clearly this wasnt really well thought if they are making changes making the way for 4.0 too many harsh nerfs in a single patch when you're going to make further nerfs and have the same cycle every league..

And here's where things for me start to get sketchy..

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Chris wrote:

When I'm writing to the community, I usually try to avoid saying what is fun and what isn't (as it's quite subjective), but we are very confident that the new Path of Exile is going to be more fun.

He says fun is subjective which is true but then he insists that THIS DIRECTION THIS VISION will make the game fun.. fun for who? for people that want turn based arpgs? How is PoWeR CrEeP a bad thing when the entire game is casino/wall street simulator? there's no grow in power unless you get currency, lucky drops or know what are you doing with the crafting system.

And finally

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Chris wrote:

So, you're unhappy and we're unhappy and that means it's really time that we start to correct things.

So you're unhappy with the game and the rest has to pay for it. Some will enjoy this changes and it's amazing I hope you enjoy the league but the rest? are they being throw into the same direction that "we're confident that this will be fun" fun is subjective.
You're taking "this time" that the community is unhappy to piss them off more? why?

The rest is just leddit things I honestly don't care too much.

But man there's just no sweet words to deal with this.. you want to do the right things? buy or create a time machine because I'm sure some players arent going to tolerate how dev's want to put the game back in beta state.

TL;DR: Dev's fun > players fun. And keep paying.