[April 12] Initial Development Manifesto Feedback

That was really nice to read. I'm also a developer (not a game dev but slowly getting introduced to network prediction code in toy 2D game projects) and this was actually a mini tutorial in addition to one of the best explanations I've heard yet.

I hope you guys have a good result with more frequent automated syncs. I've seen this implemented in other games and it's a much better playing experience.

Going from 99% good, to 1% completely screwed (and could easily die from it in HC) to 95% good and 5% little rubber bands that are very minor is a massive win for players. Do you have any idea at when we might see these changes? Is 1.0.8ish too soon?

I am disappointed by the lack of "cut-throat" in the player vs. player section. Reading through the forums it seems like cut-throat has been just around the corner for around two years now.

Maybe cut-throat just isn't fit for Path of Exile and you should scrub it from the promised league page completely.

Also perhaps you could explain what "MTG metagame" is for those of us who have no idea.

Have you considered adding cut-throat as a map mod?

I don't think that physical damage is completely undesirable compared to elemental damage. Its only high damage physical damage, really big low attack per second damage.

It's the lower physical damage of say bows, and the low, high attacks per second dual wield physical damage that is undesirable, because of how armor mitigation works.

I feel this could be remedied by implementing a few more support gems. (I saw this suggested in the forums, and is in no way my idea, but I agree it would help a lot)

the two gems that would be need are...

1) added Physical damage - adds +x-x physical damage to the supported skill
2) Armor Penetration - penetrates X% of the targets armor.

each elemental damage has its own "added damage" and "penetration" gem, why not have one for physical to even things out? while this would help out the high burst physical damage builds as well, I feel they would be much more beneficial to the low damage builds.


adding more "skills" for survival might not be optimal, unless something mechanically is changed to make some of the existing skills less mandatory, and allows you to pick which of the methods of damage mitigation you choose. but I agree that whatever you choose, it has to be done in a way to be melee exclusive, because that is the problem right now, anything that a melee character can do to build tank, can be done to a ranged character without sacrificing much, if any DPS, and they are just safer while doing it.
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I liked everything I read in the map, IIQ/IIR and party topic

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The Desync topic was quite interesting to read, "more rubber banding" doesn't sound too appealing, but I suppose if done right might not be that bad, I trust you guys though, so looking forward to a fix so I can participate in races again, I was constantly dying to desync while racing so I stopped, which is odd because I notice very little desync when playing normally.

Geez 27 pages already.. tl;dr

I'm still pissed about how you have to be so close to the party to get the quantity bonus. I loved solo-ing in 6 ppl games. My one character was pretty good for it, then ruined and still have heard nothing about this.

I barely even played since that patch until a few days ago and now I have some stupid ranger running bosses over and over. I guess I am going to start multiboxing, because why not, it isn't fixed by the aforementioned change.

I hope Act3x has some higher item level area that is fun to go loot from like Fellshrine with none of the crazy preparation and randomness of maps. I don't expect it to be as good as maps, but it should still be more rewarding than how solo is now. Solo now the drops are just horrible compared to time spent boss farming.

Thanks for the explanation. And now my point of view. I play games to have fun. To enjoy the time spent on, in this case, decimating all kinds of entities. And from my perspective, it doesn't matter what kinds of problems you face. It may sound a bit ungrateful, but this is how it is, they are not my problems. My problem is having enough fun to stay and play your game. If the law of physics and your lack of desire to alter game mechanics influence my fun negatively, I'm not going to play it. I don't care about cheating, I don't care about healthy economy, I don't care about challenge, and I don't care about many other things which I won't speak about because it's just boring to name them all. If desync stays in ANY kind of way, I'm not playing. Diablo didn't become epic and the most recognizable game in the world thanks to desync problems. All kinds of cheating going in that game didn't influence my fun at all. So to me the choice is simple, get rid of decync completly or I'll get rid of your game. I want to have fun playing and not being responsible for the world peace and your families well being at the same time. Am I making myself clear?

Just wasted some time on this shit again. I'm Dumb i know i die in 67 lvl maps and not in 70 yellow ones ? WTF? ur game desing sucks. GGG is dumb as hell!!! how the fuck is this possible ? The maps are so fucking random that it doesn'r matter how manny chisels or alchs or chaos u put in. u put 1 ALT and u get nice drops, u put 4 chisels and alch u GET NOTINHG and u die. Complete randomnes.

Chris,

Thank u for bridging the widening gap between developer direction and player feed back. This manifesto has made a timely appearence, which hopefully will help to calm the simmering waters of the beta feedback forum.

Re: Desync proposal for more rubberbanding.

Can you impliment roll back instead of rubberbanding? In my experience with both these forms of resync i have found that rubberbanding placed my character in compromising situations much more often than roll back. Especially when it is associsted with the target lock mechanism.

The easiest way to add melee survivability without impact range is by either modifying existing melee skills to grant passive mitigation bonuses (or endurance charges) or creating support gems which grant mitigation charges (like endurance) and only work on melee skills.

Endurance charges are great for mitigation but the problem is they do not mitigate spell damage (to my knowledge) and you can only stack around 7 charges max. The duration on this charges is also extremely short.

Proposal 1:

Create an endurance support gem which only works on true melee skills (ones where you have to be in melee range of monsters). It would add a fairly high chance to generate endurance charges, increases max endurance charges (or increase the endurance charges damage reduction) and increases the endurance charges duration. This will allow melee chars to maintain a high survivability from physical damage so they can smash skulls without being WTFPWNT by being surrounded by mobs. IMO there could also be another charge that works with endurance charges which would add spell damage mitigation and/or increase maximum elemental resistances.

Proposal 2:

Modify true melee skill gems themsleves and add a passive buff (like Adrenaline) with a very short duration which activates on skill use and provides physical / spell damage mitigation. This buff could be small to start with a longer duration and stack or could be very large and have a short duration and not stack. This forces the character to be constantly using the skill to keep the Adrenaline buff active which would make it extremely difficult or impossible for ranged characters to use effectively. You could also restrict the buff so that it will only trigger if your character is not within a certain distance of mobs.

For example:
Heavy Strike:
Melee
Damage Effectiveness 150%
Infuses your character with Adrenaline on use, greatly increasing your toughness for a short time.

Adrenaline(non-stacking):
Lasts 1 second
Reduces physical damage taken by 50%
Reduces spell damage taken by 35%
Increases maximum elemental resistances by 5%

Adrenaline(stacking):
Lasts 0.5 seconds
Reduces physical damage taken by 10%
Reduces spell damage taken by 7%
Increases maximum elemental resistances by 1%
Stacks up to five times

"

BRavich wrote:

I've been saying it since closed beta: maps should be used for treasure hunting. Not having maps shouldnt lock you out of being able to level up.

Glad to see the devs acknowledge this.



In regards to race events, instead of having so many race events that no one can do all of them, why not have sets of 3 race events where you're only allowed to participate in one of them?

I just want to say I never really thought of it that way. But that's my biggest problem with the map system. You could play perfectly for 15 hours and essentially regress by not maintaining higher maps. Not for loot but for XP gains.

If they were to do something with the XP penalty as they do with the currency penalty in maps. It wouldn't be nearly as bad. I mean sure you should get more XP for higher level maps and maybe even specific mods, but it shouldn't be MUCH more and it shouldn't be essential to continue progressing your character.

So basically if they make high end maps about challenge and loot and less about XP. That's a huge win in my book. Since it also removes a hefty portion of currency required to level.

It was mentioned that because of the way that armour works, increased damage could not by used as a difficulty increase in multiplayer.

Maybe there could be an armour mitigation calculation based on the base (single player) damage amount, then an extra factor added in for a multiplayer extra monster damage.