The state of Beta Feedback

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Xendran wrote:

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.

well there's also the problem they haven't invited anyone to join alpha since like mid-january.

I commend GGG for their ethics, but, I have to say, the more i watch the drama unfold, the more it seems like GGG simply bit off more than they could chew.

Im not gonna get into specifics, and I really hope they get all this sorted out, but for now, it really feels like a sinking ship around here. Im headin for shore folks.

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Moosifer wrote:

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Xendran wrote:

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.

well there's also the problem they haven't invited anyone to join alpha since like mid-january.

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Hilbert wrote:

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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. ;)

It did not say "MY build", it said "My build". What should he have called the video then? "The Racing build that I use"? "Someone else's racing build that I happen to like". Even though it was clearly the wrong YT video I referred to, he did not claim that he had come up with that build. I do not remember in which YT viedo it was but he did say very clearly that "a friend" told ham blah blah..

I should perhaps add, Hilbert, that I do agree with your other points. I just hate to see unfair flaming of other players.

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Xendran wrote:

I remember when i was really optimistic about GGG, and i wish i could have that feeling back, but so many decisions have been made that either MMOize (which isn't inherently a bad thing, but if i want to play an MMO i'm going to play an MMO, not a game that advertises itself as a hardcore ARPG), excessively casualize (again, not inherently a bad thing, but if i want to play a casual game, i will play one that is marketed as one), or flat out break parts of the game
...
How do you feel about the current state of the Beta Feedback forums?

Hey Xendran, thanks so much for making this thread, it seems a lot of good will come of it - the biggest thing I'm seeing here is that a ton of passionate players have a frustration that goes beyond what GGG has capacity to mediate. For me, the forum is hard/unpleasant to use and Reddit is much more enjoyable to work with. I use GGGtracker to see what devs are saying and read those threads and the front page of r/pathofexile to stay up to date with the game... so anything that doesn't generate a GGG reply or a popular conversation on reddit gets lost. They're managing two communities with different rule sets and social norms.

A friend said he is also losing that "really optimistic about GGG" feeling with the the changing views on loot options (with GGG basically going against one of it's previous visions of the game). We've been playing for just over a year, but GGG's been around much longer. They've done such a good job developing the game, and at their core they seem to genuinely want to make the best game possible---so even if the road is a little rocky, I trust them to keep going.

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Xendran wrote:

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.

Same here, same questions. Not sure how, despite forcing people to reroll/level the progression is as off as it is. So many skills have been released and immediately buffed the next week? Concerning to say the least.

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Moosifer wrote:

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Xendran wrote:

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.

well there's also the problem they haven't invited anyone to join alpha since like mid-january.

I've been waiting since then to get in alpha, i really want to get into the inner workings of the game and to test interesting stuff that might impact the final release, but alas, no alpha for me yet it seems..

Its interesting that this is a feedback thread about feedback not actually getting heard.

I do approve of the idea of a community manager. The negative responses some people have of other community managers is just things such as the actual policy behind what the community manager is for.

A very simple situation like community manager is to keep an eye on good feedback and funnel information to the dev's. Dev's can STILL read forums themselves to check fi there are things that are missed, but the community manager could help them ignore the disguised "lets make fusings instantly 6l" threads.

Then they could also get partial responses, or just the fact that dev's are aware of an issue, or considering making changes which relate to it, or even just that the dev's have talked about this in the past. There are obviously not going to be any specific responses so far as a in depth discussion of what is changing, that would still be for chris to make beta manifesto etc, but it would be good to at least have that feeling of things being watched.




Ironically I am reminded of Dominion in League of Legends. It was a gametype that was significantly different to classic MOBA style and I found it very fun, but it suffered hugely from lack of dev responses, and the worst part was some canned responses once or twice which enraged the community. Very quickly the community died when all the feedback and discussion (the good things, sure forum was filled with lots of bad things too), was completely ignored, such as ALL the top players on the hidden ladder saying "can we at least STILL have sight of our ELO so we know where we are, only thing we play for is the one tournament that exists and to compete against each other with this make believe number, and when you remove that there is no point in even playing". <--- This was lack of feedback, made the game feel like a sidenote and not important to the dev's (Slightly different situation of two gametypes in one game), and that posting intelligently and making in depth analysis of what is a problem and how it could be fixed... is a waste of time

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indczn wrote:

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Xendran wrote:

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.

Same here, same questions. Not sure how, despite forcing people to reroll/level the progression is as off as it is. So many skills have been released and immediately buffed the next week? Concerning to say the least.

Without knowing how ALpha works can't post feedback, but I would say "Run a character form level 30 to level 40 and find out what is hard/works/is a problem. Can create own loot up to level 30, anything above level 30 is ingame found"

And that situation would give great feedback for a level 30->40 grind.

Then do something similar, how does incinerate work at low levels. "Level 10->30" or something similar, on a bunch of different characters.

Alpha is not even remotely close to as useful to GGG as it should be, partially because a lot of people that apply just do it for exclusive content, and partially because the alpha members are not given the tools required to actually test anything properly.