GGG rollercoaster of incompetence in Invasion league

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

However, in order to properly deliver on that experience, GGG needs to deliver on an environment where you can trust the information your screen is giving you, so that you can make the correct commands with your mouse. I don't think it's any surprise that the infamous Boneshaper is jokingly referred to as "/oosecati," and that the primary threat he represents is not in beating you fair and square, but in one-shotting you when you didn't even realize you were within his range.

Now that we've reached V1.1.2, it's clear that GGG's plan is to introduce significant content and gameplay balance changes at the start of each new 4-month league cycle. While this isn't an unrealistic long-term development plan, there is a major gap in GGG's development model: new 4-month leagues are being released without undergoing Beta Test trials. As a consequence, the initial 1.x.0 league releases are effectively Beta Candidates that are haphazardly subjected to live server tests, with player feedback reported to the forums. GGG digests the results and then releases 1.x.1 and 1.x.2 updates as necessary in an ongoing attempt to finalize balanced versions of the new leagues.

In my view, GGG should seriously consider revamping their original Alpha program and recruiting dedicated players to conduct GGG-supervised Alpha bug testing and Beta balance testing on private servers before the start of each league cycle.

Invasion is a great concept that was implemented piss-poorly.

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RogueMage wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

However, in order to properly deliver on that experience, GGG needs to deliver on an environment where you can trust the information your screen is giving you, so that you can make the correct commands with your mouse. I don't think it's any surprise that the infamous Boneshaper is jokingly referred to as "/oosecati," and that the primary threat he represents is not in beating you fair and square, but in one-shotting you when you didn't even realize you were within his range.

Now that we've reached V1.1.2, it's clear that GGG's plan is to introduce significant content and gameplay balance changes at the start of each new 4-month league cycle. While this isn't an unrealistic long-term development plan, there is a major gap in GGG's development model: new 4-month leagues are being released without undergoing Beta Test trials. As a consequence, the initial 1.x.0 league releases are effectively Beta Candidates that are haphazardly subjected to live server tests, with player feedback reported to the forums. GGG digests the results and then releases 1.x.1 and 1.x.2 updates as necessary in an ongoing attempt to finalize balanced versions of the new leagues.

In my view, GGG should seriously consider revamping their original Alpha program and recruiting dedicated players to conduct GGG-supervised Alpha bug testing and Beta balance testing on private servers before the start of each league cycle.

While I agree that something like this is necessary, the other half of the problem is taking on far more than the design team can handle. 60 bosses was clearly too much; the next expansion and league mods should be more modest in scope so that the first month isn't a crapshoot. And from the time I've been able to put into Invasion over the last couple of days, they still have a long way to go.

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Cergic wrote:

Hopefully they then create a superb 4 month HC league next time.

simple way of doing it will be removing invasion bosses, yes

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reboticon wrote:

You could play ambush, and... wait for it... delete your character if you die.

there is like no point because inv bosses will be merged into standard like everything was merged

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RogueMage wrote:

In my view, GGG should seriously consider revamping their original Alpha program and recruiting dedicated players to conduct GGG-supervised Alpha bug testing and Beta balance testing on private servers before the start of each league cycle.[/i]

This

I'm not saying that Alpha players don't do a good job or anything, don't get me wrong.
But it does not look like GGG is testing enough what they put in the game ( plus I've read couple of times that alpha tester were now mostly dedicated to bug tracking .... we need a live server under NDA about balance issues, maybe with different droprate to accelerate the testing time for some, or some instant high level chars, idk, but there is a need for more balance tests before going live in the production servers ).

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RogueMage wrote:

In my view, GGG should seriously consider revamping their original Alpha program and recruiting dedicated players to conduct GGG-supervised Alpha bug testing and Beta balance testing on private servers before the start of each league cycle.

Ditto.

The concept that the game was to undergo changes during CB and even OB was with the understanding that players may just get, well, vaporized during the course of normal gameplay. Pre-nerf Caliga, map devourers, Piety, Dominus (depending on who you talk to), dischargers and now the entire Invasion league, not to mention making balance changes that all but invalidate certain builds and characters. In a beta those are things that you expect. However PoE isn't in beta anymore. This is a full release. And being fully released sets a precedent that content needs to tested carefully before it is put in the game. What is happening is quite the opposite. It seems to me like GGG is just slapping content onto whatever they've already made without even so much as giving it a second thought other than "that might be cool." Then if it needs to be fixed it is done so retroactively only after a flood of posts and QQ threads have been created on the forums. This is evidently how PoE's development cycle operates post-beta.

Believe me, I understand. GGG wants to keep players entertained with shiny new toys for players to play with and give them fun new things to do. That's great and I love the concept. But the dev team is stuck in a pre-release mindset and frankly they need to snap out of it. They need to remind themselves that they are a humble 15 man team. They need to slow down, decide on a grounded-level meta and stick with it. Future changes need to be carefully tested and balanced against that meta. That's not happening and if the forums are any indication people are getting fed up. Personally, I'm packing up and moving on. I would be happy as a clam if GGG took more time to design and test their upcoming leagues to make sure the content is solid before it goes live. Hell, I'd even be content if I could just happily farm away in Vanilla HC but I can't even do that anymore because Rogues use Vaal Skills now and I may just end up getting atomized by something I didn't see coming offscreen. It's happened before.

Make the cycle 6 months. Make it a year if you need to. But at least TRY to make an effort at balancing content before you release it. If this continues it (along with a whole host of other problems that have already been expressed ad nauseum) will to corrode your playerbase until you are left with almost nothing.

That said, it was fun ride while it lasted.

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Brelm wrote:

Usually when you die in Hardcore leagues you learn something, but the only thing I've learned from Invasion is to not fucking play it.

This league is an embarrassing failure, I won't be playing it anymore. This league should've been scrapped 1 week in when everyone realized how stupid strong invaders were.

Same here. Will never touch that league ever again.

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CCR5 wrote:

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reboticon wrote:

You could play ambush, and... wait for it... delete your character if you die.

there is like no point because inv bosses will be merged into standard like everything was merged

Ugh. that's all we need. More shit in SC. Please don't, GGG.

It's not just the stupid lethality of Invasion bosses that's reeking of bad design implementation, but also their stupid durability. If you're grinding for loot, XP, or Quest Progression, it's frankly just not worth your time to stop and fight these things, especially the ones that just summon infinite minions/totems/traps. Has anyone ever really enjoyed fighting the Mother of the Swarm twice? First time it's neat because it's new and novel, but afterwards... just no.