The state of Beta Feedback

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Chris, how about this: make it so no one is able to talk until they reach the town from twlight strand? New people will start playing the game so they wont even bother chatting until they get to town anyway and you can also pop an explenation if they try to do it: "You can not chat until you reach the town, sorry, but this to restrict spamming" And if it gets somwhow passed by the bots, up it up to you "cant chat until level 3"

The Problem is some bots are leveled by levelservices from d2jsp. While it's good since it also bans the leveler for JSP it will only move the problem

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Whatever your intensions with your post, you do sound like you just dislike Kripparrian. I am certain he did not claim the WED build as "his".

I saw a YT Video where he said "MY build".
Credits where they belong to, that's at last how I learned it. ;)

After Bologna sadly I feel the Bachelor/Master system raises a generation of copy/pasters with short term memory knowlege.

I don't care about him and his videos don't interest me because his playstyle isn't new to me. Got my point? If there is a dev response to a problem there I won't read or see it but I use the posting tracker, even Bex postsings rather remind me more of a moderator :p

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I've been driven insane by what kripp has had access to. That, what month, he was streaming act 3 all of us alpha members had no idea how to act. We didn't know what we could or couldn't discuss meanwhile Kripp is letting any info he wasn't explicitly told not to stream fly.

I think the devs should have played only act3 with local copies to give out the information they want to.( Who cares if they die 1000 times?)

I don't know how many alphas leaked but different patch notes were copy pasted many times on mumble servers and the lunaris and solaris temple weren't new to me because I saw a videos of Tentaclebeasts and Bronzestatues end of November. But I don't know excactly when alpha streamed either it was shortly before or after he started streaming.
But certainly because of him stuff leaked that shouldn't be leaked. But that's not relevant to the thread.

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Also as someone who had wild ideas often that never happen I couldn't imagine what they would go through brainstorming a neat idea that never gets added. "WHY ISN'T X HERE YET!!!" meanwhile they gave up on making it work months ago.

Like D2s clan feature with a shared stash? ;D

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Please dont spend to much resources on nuturing whiners...

I know its needed to not let your forums get to sour, because whiners are so very vocal, however keep in mind they are just a small portions of your players.

To the whiners i can say just one thing:
"Oh Ye of Little Faith!"

This isn't whining. This is feedback.
If you work on natural scrience for example an AFM(Atomic Force Mircoscope) and you know the thing that doesn't work you say: The tipper is broken and not:"Laser works, Lense work, Photodiode works etc."

Feedback has the negative touch because it adresses problems.
Sometimes it might read agressive but it hasn't any hostile motives.
It's just frustation because something doesn't work.
If you are younger, got siblings and are technically skilled remove a capacitor from your brothers/sitsts monitor so it turns off randomly and you will see they get fruststrated too.

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Overall what I am trying to say is, to GGG, I think you guys could do with a professional 'Community Manager', someone who knows the industry & knows how to deal with people. They do exist & they are invaluable to a company like yours. Consider it a good investment to hire someone to look after the forums & work as a relations manager between the community & the devs. Our current mods do not cut the mustard.
To the players, legitimate complaints are legitimate complaints so keep letting GGG know what you think but while you are it also try to consider the reality of making a game & all that it entails. GGG are learning just like anyone else & while sometimes it may seem misguided or just flat out ignored I honestly feel they are doing the best they know & will continue to try to do better. Their game depends on it.

Remember what happened to the Community Manager after Blizzards Idea of Real ID? Was MichaW iirc.
A community manager is a bad idea because over time he will be forced to act in certain ways.

Take Mafia 2 for example. The 2K publishers ordered the devs to make it a DLC ripoff. Of course it ended in a massive shitstorm and the community managers had to defend the game no matter what even devs and the story writer signed a petition that 2kgames should release Mafia2 like it should be linked to their official blogs.
1 community manager suddenly got fired because he used his personal opinion in a post.

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GGG may not need to hire a PR guy, maybe they can assign someone already in the company the duty of Community Manager but the point is that apparently many people feel that they need more of a communication with the devs.

I agree with that. Somebody having time because he hasn't anything to do in the process like sound effects and music for example because nothing requiring new sounds will be introduced could do it.

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Hilbert wrote:

I agree with that. Somebody having time because he hasn't anything to do in the process like sound effects and music for example because nothing requiring new sounds will be introduced could do it.

What happens if that person is horrible at speaking?

Seems odd that people would be happy with a sound guy making posts in his down time over someone who is actually employed to communicate between the devs and the community because they are good at it.

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lethal_papercut wrote:

Overall what I am trying to say is, to GGG, I think you guys could do with a professional 'Community Manager', someone who knows the industry & knows how to deal with people. They do exist & they are invaluable to a company like yours. Consider it a good investment to hire someone to look after the forums & work as a relations manager between the community & the devs. Our current mods do not cut the mustard.
To the players, legitimate complaints are legitimate complaints so keep letting GGG know what you think but while you are it also try to consider the reality of making a game & all that it entails. GGG are learning just like anyone else & while sometimes it may seem misguided or just flat out ignored I honestly feel they are doing the best they know & will continue to try to do better. Their game depends on it.

+1 and maybe an advertising consultant.

I must say I'm glad i've read true all the 8 pages. It sums up everything I've felt latley with the bad communication, except with Mark wich why was already stated and Russell. But Russell kinda falls in the "Mark" category (Sorry for the poor choice of phrase.) But It's not about game breaking issues, more of a disco ball issue.

Glowy cosmetics and all that. Wich i like to give feedback on beacuse i acctualy got an answer and alot of people agreeing with me and some didnt, but posted why with good feedback why they like it that way. Hmm... Sounds like CB but with cosmetic issues instead. Dont get me wrong, i love games for how it looks aswell, but game mechanics feels more important than just glowy stuff. And acctualy geting a respons out of something that has a big impact on the game is more important and like many have stated here, It feels like shouting out in the dark.

I'm glad for GGG sake that you've noted this communication problem, but with more players, more problems and work occurs. And that should be obvious, if you're not under the age of "work" so to speak.

But thats why i think its so important aswell. Not for myself but for you, GGG to speak up more about the feedback. Keep in mind that you have some low aged players that dosnt really know how the world works.

But everything i wrote here is just kinda... a recap of everything every one else wrote. Feels meaningless if you look at it that way, but nice to get it out of the chest.

Thanks yet again Chris & C/O, i got some hope back.

I know I don't post alot (most would be redundant anyway thanks to hilbert/moose/xen), but its nice to see some dev responses on the official forums. I dont read reddit/dont have twitter/dont watch streams and don't care to. I do know the game is going in the right direction, its just things seem to be moving glacially right now, which is a bit of an issue now being in OB. There were phases in CB where not much happened too, but its hard to just say have some patience, knowing GGG is working very hard on things, but nothing tangible has been shown lately.

The forums are very disorganized (structurally) now, with alot of bleeding between general/beta general/other locations. Theres been so little dev communication lately, it feels like we back to the "elemental is OP" phase, where I swear everyone knew about elemental being so strong compared to physical and then Chris eventually (much later) posted the equivalent to "we had no idea" with regards to the issue. There have been several posts with real issues (e.g. moose's mana management, and whole feedback thread) that have no indication whether the devs are even aware that the balance issue exists. Also, its sad that it really did seem like the best way to get exploits fixed are to tell a high profile streamer, compared to when we used to be able to PM devs in game and get things fixed immediately.

The new manifesto helped with this, but the feedback on it is such a clusterfuck. Everything crammed together. It somewhat shows what you guys are thinking of, but only on select issues. However, There are still some things (paid leagues, basic clan functions among others), that will probably require (alot?) shop points that I'm sitting on, that have seemingly fallen by the wayside to more important core functions.

All this griping aside, I do strongly support GGG, you guys almost always make decisions to improve the game, passive tree aside, and I still wouldn't be playing after almost 2 years now if the game wasn't amazing with lots to explore, nor have a friend list full of people who are always playing too. Its just been a frustrating transition to OB.
Thanks GGG.

There is some awesome stuff and ideas few of them even worth pursuing with long term plans. I imagine these will bring this game another level higher. These ideas gather little response apart from a dedicated few that understand its/ their value.

Too much generic posts and ideas and a repeated flood of complaints drown the jewels. I think the flood could be prevented if it receives some response, whether or not the flood is justified or not (lightning thorns i.e.).

One such gem:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/315259/page/5

OB opened the flood gates and less die hard players get in, not the same type that create and reply in a way that they wish to further the game. CB mindset is closer to co-developing the game. OB-mindset emphasis is on gaming comfort. I and other CB players if not about every single one has followed this trend btw.

Not entirely to blame on the player base as OB development has mostly been about adding variables to the equation, but we no longer change, alter or improve the equation. Not entirely weird since it is in Open Beta and no longer in Alpha or CB?

All these minor issues that GGG are spending time fixing are meaningless if the drop rate and crafting system isn't reworked.

Ask yourself can you really see yourself playing this game with its slower than an ice age character progression for years(as we did with D2).It can not work like this personally i cant play for months on end and get nothing to show for it(item wise).

Either up the drop rate and have seasonal ladders or make the leveling up time much longer but give a much greater power boost(passives and skills).

Hopefully this thread has been the start of a positive turnaround.

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Uvne wrote:

What's particularly frustrating for me is that one of the major points of the Moosifer post was the serious all-or-nothing mana balance issues the game has, and nothing in the manifesto so much as hints at this being a problem. I don't agree with all of his solutions, but the problems he outlined are absolutely real.

I've been screaming about mana since before I got alpha in like November, it's only gotten worse. I'm not tied to any of my solutions, I'm better on finding imbalances than I am at correcting them. I just like making the effort to give a solution.

I've been tempted to apply for alpha lately, but it seems like more and more of a waste of time due to a lack of a character and item editor.

How are the alphas supposed to test new high level uniques if they can't access them?
What functional purpose does forcing people to level up on alpha serve? For people testing progression, sure they can level up, but for testing thing like endgame builds that involve new keystones and skills, why shouldn't access to high level versions of the gems, and high level characters with access to full builds using the keystones be given?

It's like telling somebody "You have a week to test this car before we release it to the public, but you have to assemble the car and the tools needed to make the car from scratch"

By the time you actually manage to get the car up and running to be tested, it's already released.