Predictions for ExileCon/PoE2

The art of marketing: under promise and over deliver!


Bex: "Did I say we are a long way from POE2? Well, 5 months is a very long time when you are waiting for something big!"

Heh. Suppose we'll find out.

What all odds do you folks think we've got of Grinding Gear pulling a Bethesda with PoE Mobile and announcing that it's ready to go and downloadable "right now!" at the show, a'la Fallout Shelter?

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1453R wrote:

Heh. Suppose we'll find out.

What all odds do you folks think we've got of Grinding Gear pulling a Bethesda with PoE Mobile and announcing that it's ready to go and downloadable "right now!" at the show, a'la Fallout Shelter?

Meh, I can't find myself to care. I've never played a game on my phone (except Snake back in the Nokia days). But hey, it may be ready. Good for them.

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1453R wrote:

Heh. Suppose we'll find out.

What all odds do you folks think we've got of Grinding Gear pulling a Bethesda with PoE Mobile and announcing that it's ready to go and downloadable "right now!" at the show, a'la Fallout Shelter?

Entirely possible since I doubt people would feel they’re missing out with it.

Can't wait for POE2 anything!

I'm thinking 3.22 may be when they introduce the new skill gem socketing system. They have to give it to us eventually, and I suspect they will want a couple of leagues of people using/testing it for them, rather than introducing it alongside PoE2's campaign.

I also think PoE mobile will be launched at the end of ExileCon. The reason I say at the end is because if they release it at the beginning everyone will rush off to play it, and the rest of the con suffers a lack of audience :-)

Releasing it on the last day lets people have it to play on the journey home (assuming their plane has wi-fi enabled).

I would also not be surprised if they copied the travel nodes from the atlas skill tree into the character tree. This could be huge for opening up new builds if you could travel across the tree for only a handful of points.

Also, a Linux client.

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Magn3th3ad wrote:

I'm thinking 3.22 may be when they introduce the new skill gem socketing system. They have to give it to us eventually, and I suspect they will want a couple of leagues of people using/testing it for them, rather than introducing it alongside PoE2's campaign.

I also think PoE mobile will be launched at the end of ExileCon. The reason I say at the end is because if they release it at the beginning everyone will rush off to play it, and the rest of the con suffers a lack of audience :-)

Releasing it on the last day lets people have it to play on the journey home (assuming their plane has wi-fi enabled).

I would also not be surprised if they copied the travel nodes from the atlas skill tree into the character tree. This could be huge for opening up new builds if you could travel across the tree for only a handful of points.

Also, a Linux client.

Great points. The idea travel nodes in the passive tree would be pretty interesting!

I'm going to make my guesses based on the title of Chris W's GDC talk 'designing Path of Exile to be played forever'. PoE2 is a great chance to both fix things that have been unfixable in a live service game but also set the stage for the next 10 years of sustainable growth.

(1) End Game

I think they will announce an answer for 'game is too bloated' criticisms by announcing a method of rotating past league content in and out without having to do a bunch of things they probably don't want to do like endlessly expand the atlas skill tree or constantly pruning old leagues that both they and players like. Basically like Kirac/Zana mods but for our game, not just the map device. This will be hype because they will announce that Torment and Rogue Exiles are being permanently cut out like Prophecy was, but no leagues will be permanently out again (just temporarily rotated out of 'modern') + Synthesis and Ultimatum are coming back to take their place in 3.22 - with support on the Atlas Passive Tree.

I also think they will shake up the map system meaningfully - not in 3.22 but they will announce it as a goal probably in their first end game update post PoE2. In the old days Chris liked the idea that you had to pay a fee to enter end game content - that it wouldn't be infinitely sustainable. I'm not saying they will make T1 maps unsustainable by any stretch but I think they will carve out more of the end game to work like this. Beyond that I think we will leave the Atlas behind in favor of a new system that will make people's jaws drop :)

(2) Narrative and Lore

I think they will announce a greater commitment to having more narrative and lore in their leagues in the upcoming years. We have had some very thin leagues as well as some disappointing ones in this department (LoK :c ) and that doesn't mean they will deliver on it but I think they will say it.

They will also do more things outside the game in this regard - books, comics, animated series probably not within their scope yet but I think we will start to see cut scenes featured in new league content - starting 'small' with when we meet the league-specific NPC(s) and 1 more when we beat the league big-bad-guy.

(3) 3.23

I think they will announce 3.23 as the last league before PoE2 (but both 3.22 and 3.23 will be extremely flexible in how long they run to accommodate how much work is still left to do, probably 9 months between the two of them).

3.23 will be Legacy league 2.0 (not mechanically but in spirit) and everyone will love it. There will be boats.

(4) Items & crafting

I expect them to announce some item culling in terms of quantity of things dropping globally which will be part of PoE2, not 3.22.

I expect 3.22 to be a crafting league that operates more like our current crafting/Harvest benches and for it to incorporate all the crafting learning they've learned since Harvest. No, we're not getting free access to add/remove prefix/suffix or recombinators, but they will add and shake up crafting in the next league with the intent for it to go core (and this system will be designed with PoE2 in mind).

(5) Campaign(s)

Not only will they tell us a lot about new PoE2 campaign but they will 'solve' the 'I don't want to play campaign for the hundredth time' complaints in their own stubborn way - probably by making it feel more like mapping and incorporating your choice of 1 of the past league NPCs to appear in every zone such that you can find the league content you like a lot more starting from Act 2 and use that to jump start your end game strategy (everything you find like sulphite during the campaign you will be able to defer and it will sit in a box that scales with your level) - so for example if you choose to level with Alva and do her in every campaign zone, when you're done you'll have 5 iLvl 83 temples waiting for you if you wait to open the box till your char is lvl 83.

(6) Party Play

They won't give up on Link Skills but instead double down and add more party specific skills to try to encourage 2-4 person play groups.

(7) Fishing

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innervation wrote:

(7) Fishing

-_-

I still think we might see the new skill gem system implemented in 3.22. It would make sense to get players used to the changes and all the bugs ironed out before adding in all the campaign elements of PoE II. Plus, it would explain Chris Wilson's advice to make time after Exilecon to play something particularly compelling. =^[.]^=