Improving Communication: The Development Manifesto (Please Read First!)

As opposed to most I'm fine with you posting to reddit as I believe it is more convenient for you to detect important questions.

Other than that please give support a different tag, getting a generic message hoping to see a dev response saddens me.
No longer a forum dweller, please use PM for contact purposes.
Hope there'll be an update on pants soon. ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ノ
This+Daily news=dead devs.

Please don't die, devs.

We need you to keep making this game.
https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
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Charan wrote:
This+Daily news=dead devs.

Please don't die, devs.

We need you to keep making this game.
Everyone has a job description. I'm not sure how much of Chris' time should be eaten up by these things, but it's an important job and someone should do it. You know the logic which applies to how GGG puts out new microtransactions and ignorant whiners say "you should be focusing on desync instead of that?" Same logic applies here; someone whose job is community interaction isn't detracting from making the game.

In other news, I'm cheap and willing to sign NDAs.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
There was a great thread on desync in the development manifesto before the 1.0.0 release I believe, but it disappeared for some weird reason. Could we get it back please? It explained a lot about why things are the way they are.


Edit: found it, good stuff.
That which does not kill us, makes a huge mistake.
Last edited by dnmr on Apr 21, 2014, 4:45:16 AM
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dnmr wrote:
There was a great thread on desync in the development manifesto before the 1.0.0 release I believe, but it disappeared for some weird reason. Could we get it back please? It explained a lot about why things are the way they are.


It's been reposted and updated here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/889669
Gameplay & Level Design
Need help? Contact support@grindinggear.com
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Chris wrote:


Explanations in Patch Notes
Starting with update 1.1.2b, our patch notes have included much more detailed explanations of changes than before. A lot of thinking goes into any rebalancing that we do, so we're going to be as detailed about this process as possible. In some cases, a rebalance may be foreshadowed by a post in this development manifesto forum, so that people are aware of it in advance.


Good, no more "we nerfed life leech and you know why" comments
"The exodus of humanity in search of a new home? It is like spreading a virus in the healthy space."
It is really great to see Manifesto back and it is possibly the better example of how the game should communicate with players. With all the good points risen I dont see one of the most important area of the game covered: economics. While the technical/balance issues are really important to resolve to make the instant game experience feel good; the economics in the trade-oriented game really defines the experience of a long-term game progression. Those topics like orbs droprate, bots, RMT, multiboxing, etc. have not been covered yet and have to be. Of course some are considered illegal by default (except for multiboxing) but they exist and thrive no matter how hard one denies them.

The problem as I see it now is that the high-end economy gets more and more RMT. Prices like 50+ exalts are common, while mid-term items get very cheap. It means that new and returned players have barely any way to get to really good items. The crafting system is even worse because crafting a decent items requires orbs worth of 300 exalts on average. Everything else is much cheaper to buy rather than craft. Unless one has those 100 eternals and 200 exalts (not to mention a mountain of fuses and alterations) crafting is risky and demotivating. With current droprate a regular player gets an exalt once in two weeks and an eternal once in two month, so an act of crafting is equivalent to approx. 10 years (!) worth of gaming to make a single (!) item. Of course one can do extensive trading but this amounts of orbs has to physically drop in-game. The only way to lapse the 10-year equivalent of human gaming time is to cretae a massive bot superarmy. Even with extensive multi-boxing and trading, which me and MrPibadi have been performing, amassing 300 exa worth of currency is almost impossible in a single league. Not to mention regular players who play to enjoy the game. Those can forget about crafting and near-top gear.


Especially with vaal orb introduction the YOLO items got even more YOLO. For example I play poison arrow build and wont to get a +1 all skills vaal property in a bow. This means I get +3 bow, 5 or 6-link it and get a SINGLE chance of getting this rare mod (which is few percent probability). If it fails I have to get a new bow and repeat. I owe two and can buy maximum 10 more (according to poe.xyz) in standard league. The sole cost of buying and linking those is in 100 exalted range. Then I apply vaal orbs and the chance i get one (!) +1 vaal bow is around 30% (rough estimate). This means that generally I will get nothing. This is extremely demotivating for a regular PoE player - the content just humiliates him and shows the further miserability of the attempts to craft gear.
Last edited by Lichalfred on Apr 21, 2014, 5:17:15 AM
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Lichalfred wrote:
It is really great to see Manifesto back and it is possibly the better example of how the game should communicate with players. With all the good points risen I dont see one of the most important area of the game covered: economics. While the technical/balance issues are really important to resolve to make the instant game experience feel good; the economics in the trade-oriented game really defines the experience of a long-term game progression. Those topics like orbs droprate, bots, RMT, multiboxing, etc. have not been covered yet and have to be. Of course some are considered illegal by default (except for multiboxing) but they exist and thrive no matter how hard one denies them.

The problem as I see it now is that the high-end economy gets more and more RMT. Prices like 50+ exalts are common, while mid-term items get very cheap. It means that new and returned players have barely any way to get to really good items. The crafting system is even worse because crafting a decent items requires orbs worth of 300 exalts on average. Everything else is much cheaper to buy rather than craft. Unless one has those 100 eternals and 200 exalts (not to mention a mountain of fuses and alterations) crafting is risky and demotivating. With current droprate a regular player gets an exalt once in two weeks and an eternal once in two month, so an act of crafting is equivalent to approx. 10 years (!) worth of gaming to make a single (!) item. Of course one can do extensive trading but this amounts of orbs has to physically drop in-game. The only way to lapse the 10-year equivalent of human gaming time is to cretae a massive bot superarmy. Even with extensive multi-boxing and trading, which me and MrPibadi have been performing, amassing 300 exa worth of currency is almost impossible in a single league. Not to mention regular players who play to enjoy the game. Those can forget about crafting and near-top gear.


Especially with vaal orb introduction the YOLO items got even more YOLO. For example I play poison arrow build and wont to get a +1 all skills vaal property in a bow. This means I get +3 bow, 5 or 6-link it and get a SINGLE chance of getting this rare mod (which is few percent probability). If it fails I have to get a new bow and repeat. I owe two and can buy maximum 10 more (according to poe.xyz) in standard league. The sole cost of buying and linking those is in 100 exalted range. Then I apply vaal orbs and the chance i get one (!) +1 vaal bow is around 30% (rough estimate). This means that generally I will get nothing. This is extremely demotivating for a regular PoE player - the content just humiliates him and shows the further miserability of the attempts to craft gear.


I'm fully agree with this.
Aaron Ciccheli, a guy who made millions running Diablo and PoE RMT sites, owns a significant portion of GGG. How's that for a conflict of interest? 7.5% of your supporter pack money goes to this guy.
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loCurnus wrote:
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kasub wrote:
Build of the week is a great way to attract new players. I used to link other players to show them possibilities in PoE.

I second the suggestion to just call it "Featured build".


+1

why not outsourcing the build of the week to some community members :)??


Yes - I agree. Outsourcing BotW to a community member would be awesome. You could even hold a raffle to decide who gets to play the character just to make life a little more fun.
There are 10 types of people. Those that know binary, and those that dont.

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