Preach Gaming Interviews Jonathan Rogers

Good fun watching these interviews and
seeing the POE 2 promotion.
Look forward to another.
Can't wait until the streamers comeback
and can share their findings!

I swear, these things are like crack.
The more I hear Jonathan navigate his ideas the more I understand just how special and underappreciated GGG and their design philosophy is.

Soooo... Why Preach Gaming? I'm guessing this is pure PR move.

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Keshr0 wrote:

Soooo... Why Preach Gaming? I'm guessing this is pure PR move.

i was wondering that too. i think preach only played poe 2-3 times and never went above lvl 90.

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

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Keshr0 wrote:

Soooo... Why Preach Gaming? I'm guessing this is pure PR move.

i was wondering that too. i think preach only played poe 2-3 times and never went above lvl 90.

There's already 5 interviews from people who play hardcore. Having the perspective of someone not on the same level as those from previous interviews is also valuable.

Waiting

My own quick summary (these notes were done for me rather than sharing so may be of limited use)

Currently in the whole "not everything is quite there" crunch before POE2 is shown to many this weekend

New class will be shown off - Ranger

Melee with WASD has internally surprised people in GGG, and click to move has been improved by it

First time user experience testing - often click to move to start with then swapping over. They've been targetting D3 and D4 players here

Plans to extend to action game fans as well

Controller support live day 1

Console release date unclear. Probably late & won't hold up PC release if not ready



~10 min in:

POE, POE2 and complexity creep

How much of POE1's complexity is content based, how much is system complexity, how much is keeping up with already solved info?

First user experience tests often miss things that veteran players take for granted early

Rewards tied to bosses often a major source of complexity

Once design is felt to be finalized, the implemnetation is pretty quick. Not all that hard to get things like Delve in.

Trying to get the balance right between craziness of endgame options and being controlled

Can't launch with negligible content but during beta much more will be added

~20 min in

Goal to ensure POE1 still feels like POE1, but at the same time, POE2 changes will be considered for POE1 inclusion as well.

Also risk of making both too similar, Johnathon thinks this is a small risk due to combat changes in POE2

POE2 trade, IF well recieved, may be assessed in POE1.

Ranged REAL attacks per second may be similar in both games, but APS lower in POE2 because you can shoot while moving.

Exilecon - 2H character was the slowest build around, channelled slam with the slowest weapon. Sorc had some stun issues, Huntress was faster and more fluid. GGG consider Huntress to have been right.

New user testing has showed how bad many in-game explanations are bad

~30 min in

Balancing accessibilty vs capacity to attain mastery - goal is to prioritize accessibility.

GGG experimented with brand new users and a REALLY hard test version. Other than one boss that they overtuned, the new players did have complaints - but not about difficulty. Their goal - erase unintended difficulty from player mistakes (like thinking "bleed and crit go together really well) and then leave monsters tough.

GGG's goal: Dying hurts less in campaign (pre-boss checkpoints), but new players might die 1-3 times per boss. The POE2 Lumbermill guy, equivalent of Hillock, goal is that you die twice as a rookie.

Preach's response "Problem is I don't know why I died"

Visual clarity a major goal, including simple things like "when you are poisoned your life bar is green"

Death log may come in future, not on beta day 1.

Testing goal: Have players test bosses and die, then ask the player "What do you think killed you"

Clarity of low life status was amped up in first user testing - character breathing, etc. Johnathon had his wife (who is not a gamer) test and she was good at dodge rolling but walked around on 5% life with unusued flasks

~40 min in

Preach: What are you most proud of?

Johnathon: Boss design. In POE1 the good bosses are endgame only

Respec question. How flexible should respecs be?

In POE1, there's socket colouring, gem levelling, gem quality, and several other forms of friction as well as the obvious regret orbs. POE2 going for rolling all of this into the gold cost. Goal is a "slightly more than trivial" cost at level 60, substantial cost at 90.

Player skill may be more effective at substituting for bad gear as well.

~50 min in

Should campaign be skippable on alts? Johnathon a pretty hard no.

Having gold will be a huge power boost on alts. Vendors will have powerful items. Goal is to make the player enjoy the campaign on alts by making the campaign better.

Contrast between ultra fast gameplay and lore delivery. GGG haven't solved that. Currently POE2 story delivery is not something GGG are happy with.

final question: "POE2 is the game you wanted POE1 to be - what are the biggest points of difference". Answer - Combat & 10000 little changes

Was fun to watch actually. Preach really has a talent how to get to some points.

Looks like PoE 2 may get other endgame activities than the old samey maps. If still maps but different at least i hope.
It's a different game now and the old shared endgame approach is not true anymore so there is room for improvements and innovation now which i hope the devs will accomplish to some extent.

Btw i feel like i already saw the incoming answers/posts here.

Word.

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Keshr0 wrote:

Soooo... Why Preach Gaming? I'm guessing this is pure PR move.

cause it's easy and cheap content to do an meaningless interview with all the randos instead of dropping in some useful teaser, manifestos or whatnot other real game related content.