Baeclast 75 Notes

"Marketing be damned at this stage." monkaW

Q: Is the intention going forwards to keep nerfing the game as suggested by the 3.15 marketing?
A: Miscommunication occurred which breaks down into two points: 1.) Wanting Acts to be more challenging 2.) Tried to group up nerfs in one pass. They've made the changes they wanted to and have no immediate plans for large scale nerfs again. The miscommunication occurred because they did not quickly correct it due to fear of the community.

Q: Was the point misunderstood, or was the marketing unclear?
A: Upon review, they don't disagree with what was said during marketing. Could have been communicated better.

Q: What was the reasoning for grouping changes in one patch versus spreading them out for a more gradual step-down?
A: Given the reaction, glad it was localized to a single cycle. Felt it was better to rebalance once. Did not want players to have to relearn changes to major systems a few times a year. Admits that some of the nerfs were just wrong. Internally, they do not like the results of the Mana & Flask changes.

Q: In regards to mana, some builds were made inoperable. Will this be considered in 3.16?
A: Mana multipliers that made it into the live game were not tested enough. The current iteration is okay, but not complete. Further tests needed on more types of builds to lock in final values.

Q: Do you want Path of Exile to be a slower game?
A: They still expect Path of Exile to be a fast game, but they want to eliminate instances where entire packs of monsters are already dead before the player is on the same screen to fight them. No further reductions in speed explicitly planned.

Q: Why do certain game mechanics such as timers remain prevalent in Path of Exile's design if the goal is to slow the game down?
A: The premise of creating character pressure is to introduce a scale of improvement. As a character acquires upgrades and power, things become easier and as a consequence timed mechanics are part of that. Does not mean timers need to be everywhere.

Q: Disconnect in investment between toughness and damage. It's currently difficult to make a character that is tough that also satisfies required DPS minimums for game content.
A: Defenses are being discussed internally. They are trying to make defense options more accessible to builds. Maybe defenses coming back to the passive tree, or ???.

Q: How does the team consider flasks a failure?
A: Intention was reduction of flask power (offense and defense) and player RSI issues. Enkindling buffed to highest potential values. Complete revisit of all mods on flasks. Separate it into two different mod pools. Utility = Proactive, Life & Mana & Hybrid - Reactive.

Q: Solving RSI issues still a priority re: flask system despite re-reworks?
A: Aware of the fact that generating flask charges still encourages speed clearing meta. Team, is investigating finding a balance between keypresses, uptime, and relative power. Playing with different potential mods such as "flasks always on."

Q: Balancing flask uptimes for slower builds?
A: Main worry is increase to flask effect. Charge generation is tied into how powerful flasks can be due to their relative power. Acknowledge that changes in 3.15 were a failure to address the flask problem.

Q: How does flask tiering work? Is it related to the mods or the enchants?
A: Similar to ilvl mods on amulet T12 (5 Life) to T1 (80 Life). Certain tiers to be possibly included in master crafting. Acknowledged that the current system for enkindling & instilling orbs is too difficult to reach desired outcomes.

Q: Let's talk about Ailments
A: Bring back and add certain instances of ailment mitigation to skills such as purities. Augmenting pantheon immunities. Possibly adding one of each ailment immunity to pantheon. Opportunities for certain immunities such as poison and bleed on clusters. Corresponding immunities to guard skills. New jewel implicits. Curse reduction passives moved to be more accessible. Ailment stats would be like another form of resists.

Q: Any desire to revisit existing flask prefixes, as some (flagellant) are outdated?
A: They will be discussing possible solutions.

Q: Any plans on providing sweeping game changes with a side or perspective? Players lacked critical information when understanding the time tables for the relative nerfs and changes.
A: A lot of the changes for 3.15 were created knowing there was another system being developed in the background that would be implemented at a later time. A lot of the changes implemented in 3.15 sprung from a conversation about Hard Mode, where those testing Hard Mode felt that the base game would also use some of these fundamental changes to monster behavior, power, and speed. Hard mode is slated for release with 3.16.

Q: Hard mode sounds cool but some of those design ideas intended for Hard mode made it into the core game in 3.15. Will more of these features be introduced to the base game further slowing characters, progression and power?
A: Still concerned about player clear speed and clear AoE but discussing internally, will evaluate builds and try to make the "main game" something that people are happy with. Walking back some 3.15 changes. Relieves the "main game" from having to cater to all.

Q: Will Hard more be available for all league types?
A: Yes.

Q: Will enabling hard mode create a dialogue for other alternate game modes?
A: No.

Q: What is the future for gear progression in the core game now that there has been nerfs to player power and changes to certain crafting systems.
A: Still want to work on the main pathways for itemization in the game. Hoping to solve part of it by decluttering/loot 2.0/other potential solutions. Right now no one looks at the loot that's on the ground. Maybe the premise is that better items may drop that need less fixing, and current crafts are relatively more powerful to "finish" items versus other crafting systems.

Q: Big toning down of SC Aspirational Content vs. Building very powerful characters to farm certain niche (and very difficult) content.
A: Despite certain interactions with Delirious Map fracturing not being intended/is being seen as economic abuse, they recognize there is a hunger for that type of content. Type of stuff proposed (NOT A PROMISE): More deli orbs, more waves of simulacrum, 100% delirious maps more rewarding, delve threshold 1500, Delve shaft now extends to T16 ilvl depth (~173), uber domain, uber blighted maps, ultimatum may be back with more ramping. (3.17 is end game change).

Q: How are you planning to balance build diversity versus these modes that rather restrict what can play?
A: Polarizing differences between the ideals of having larger build diversity and providing additional aspirational content. As a designer C. Wilson prefers quantity of difficult content versus quantity of builds.

Q: There's a recent history of overpromise and underdeliver, will there be strides in keeping expectations in check for the future?
A: Internally they are very excited about implementing aspirational content and don't feel like it would be an overpromise.

Q: Are there thoughts on what sort of rewards should be implemented with the aspirational content? Is there concern over continued inundation of multiple league type rewards (which flood the economy) within one type of content? Should new uniques be implemented or other rewards instead so the casual player base can still generate currency by selling to high-end farmers?
A: Unique/compelling rewards for this specific content takes more design time (also probably involves multiple teams versus one or two) and in the past implementing rewards from other leagues has been the go-to. The intention is that these would have new rewards but there's not a solid idea on what that would be.

Q: How do you respond to allegations that there are no good chase unique items in the game?
A: Perhaps a difference in opinion, some of the player base wishes for more impactful boss drops. Devs are saying that the core items added to the base game create a feeling that anyone could drop a HH/Mirror and is still a chase item. They do want more chase items.

Q: Wouldn't it be nicer if bosses just dropped good stuff? Part of having something to chase is knowing where it is going to come from.
A: The idea is to be taking a step back and reinforcing the base drop pool, moving away from reward chests and reward monster types. The icons came as a response to a design need that clearly indicated what sort of reward was associated with that risk. The idea is to return the excitement to the average monster versus having all other monsters but reward monsters be completely ignorable.

Q: In the past there's been nerfs to specific boss uniques so that they are not the obvious answer to all builds of a certain type or perform well above other alternatives, but now uniques often fail to meet minimum viability standards. Is there a plan to re-address their relative power?
A: Maybe they need a buff pass.

Q: Players are feeling despondent over the unnecessary grind of the current end game (watchstones/sirus) in addition to the Maven content (altas passives). Are there any plans to address this?
A: The team agrees. 3.17 is the next end game expansion. But people are angry now. Atlas region reduced to 4 regions from 8. Far fewer Watchstones. 100 Maps versus 160. Maps will be cycled. Awakened level granted by every 2 watchstones. Reduces the grind but doesn't destroy the journey.

Q: What does this mean for altas passives?
A: We are aware of how it will impact passives and our goal is not to nerf atlas passives/interactions. Certain atlas passives are redundant and will likely be consolidated.

Q: When it comes to player retention players feel that these systems are designed to purposefully occupy player time prior to being able to farm specific content. Accusations amount to these systems were designed purposefully to keep people playing rather than provide compelling gameplay.
A: Trying to make things more fun and in the design process there can be mistakes where content becomes boring or tedious and that's viewed internally as a mistake, hence some of the changes we should see in 3.16.

Q: In terms of game design for 3.15, with the satisfaction and rewards being generated by the NPC vendors, why are their corresponding currencies still interactable?
A: We don't like where we ended up on this league, but item vacuuming/auto pickup is a game design choice that must be carefully weighed. That being said there will be more thought given in the future to specifically avoid splinter systems and come up with new solutions.
There are plans to merge certain drops where they can be merged to reduce clicking. In regards to loot spirals, it sits waiting to be distributed, and that will now include a process to merge what it can into stacks. Not sure how to balance for party play at this time.
Bands = Algorithmic range system where basic currency overlap each other on like range of potential to drop for each instance of dropping (credit:Sagetopian)
A feature being investigated is not rendering items that have been filtered by a loot filter to improve performance.
Pickup radius also could be potentially evaluated, but only after other feature implementations have been completed, and only then very carefully.

Q: When interacting with certain league content, there is a considerable time sink to interact with it compared to normal mapping (Perandus, Blight, etc), shouldn't the time invested be enough of a payment to get the reward? Why should there be additional things to do after spending the time on that mechanic?
A: Vacuuming items in the game beyond systems like azurite will likely not be seen in the game. Reducing the clicking of the rewards is considered satisfactory at this time.

A: So why now? Why are we finally getting improvements to item management/item pickup after the league and leagues of the insistence that item weight was important to the player experience and the delivery of league rewards?
A: The items are still carrying "weight" and will continue to be meaningful in this new system with larger stack size. We can agree that there's too many clicks while also trying to perpetuate the idea of item weight.
There will be a discussion to see if further QoL could be implemented for Expedition.

Q: The current PoE UI leaves a lot to be desired with the customization of where certain buffs, debuffs, and other uptime tracking can show up. The current UI makes these important game mechanics difficult to track and interact with and understand in a meaningful way with the game having the pacing it currently does.
A: They admit that the current UI is outdated, and there's current cases where the information needing to be displayed is not done so in an acceptable at-a-glance matter leading to character death or otherwise. They want to implement these design changes on their terms. It's an ongoing topic internally, and changes are possible.
Console UI is currently being ported for controller use on PC. Maybe not too far away.

Q: If fortify is just for melee, where does that leave casters?
A: Fortify is proportional to how melee-ish you are. If it's going to create a defensive gap for casters then hopefully the team will have something in return. As of now, no promises.

Q: Is there any plans or at least a response for why there can't be a better trade system for consumable items necessary for end-game investment/juicing.
A: A compromise they would be willing to make would be smarter implementation/use of the existing trade site/API to ease the frustration of trying to acquire these items. The intention was never to get to a point where so many whispers are being sent. Bot stuff will be discussed as well.

Q: Are they happy with the state of movement skills as it pertains to 3.15, this is seemingly universally disliked by the playerbase.
A: It hasn't come up as a major discussion point yet, but there's a list of things to get through.

Q: Many skill gems shipped without the consideration necessary to make sure they fit within the power curve of other similar and existing skills. Will there be further consideration/testing in the future? A revisal of testing methods?
A: There will be internal dialogues regarding things like Absolution to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. This is not a QA failing issue. It's a failing on the company to make sure that things are flagged and are kept from being released.

Hecc Leaky Alpha Testers

Q: If there's not proper time to work with QA/Alpha, is a reduction in scope or extension of development time the obvious answer?
A: 3.15 was "kitchen sinked" and 3.16 should provide a more controlled design/implementation. That being said, there's a need for balance due to feeling like being too rigid or falling online strict corporate-driven lines may stifle creativity.

Q: Universal crafting is generally liked, where players enjoy power/ownership over the items they create. Why is it introduced to then be pulled away.
A: They like having the crafting, but not if it's just making being used to create the best items in the game. Crafting being gated behind certain specific content (Delve, Betrayal, Maps, Bestiary, Prophecies, Incursion). Team is discussing pushing league-specific crafting into the core game.

Q: What is a league?
A: They're meant to be experiments. Some are good, some are bad/considered failures.

Q: Is harvest considered okay?
A: For the most part harvest is thought to be in a good place. One change is that the rolls are being condensed.

For most Veiled mods they will only require one unveil.  Some may still need a few.

Q: If leagues are indeed considered to be experimental does that then perpetuate FOMO/Abuse Early Abuse Often? Will there be more clear guidelines as to what is an intended feature, what is an exploit, what is a bannable offense, what is a clever use of game mechanics?
A: This is something that requires more communication. They have an idea of what the appropriate reward is for engaging with certain content and if it's above that, then it will be changed. Some features were implemented to act as a killswitch in case an exploit was found to rapidly disable it without need of a patch.

Q: There's currently no way in-game (aside from tooltip which can be misleading or inaccurate) to determine if an item is an upgrade. Are there any plans to help signal players when new upgrades are obtained?
A: Perhaps an extended extended advanced mod description is theoretically possible but for now it's intentionally obtuse.

Q: What is the current status of PoE 2's development?
A: They've started on most of the acts. Act 1 90%, Act 2 75%. Doesn't sound like much but a great deal of time was spent on developing systems to then accommodate full production mode. The roadmap for PoE 2 still includes a lot of improvements that will be brought into PoE 1 to keep it up to date with certain changes such as engine/performance is concerned. Feedback is wanted in order to make sure PoE 2 launch isn't overshadowed.

Q: Considering a lot of the future patches will include changes to PoE 1's campaign to make it more challenging, what is to be said to many who are tired of leveling through the acts over and over again?
A: There will never be the ability to skip to the end game. The idea is to improve the leveling experience and create the sense of newness and adventure with each new reset or league. The goal is for the campaign to be enjoyable, rather than a chore. PoE 2 will likely be a bit faster between the two.

Q: Since a lot of features are being put off in order to be included in PoE 2, or the removal of certain troublesome/unpopular systems from the PoE 2 campaign, can PoE 1 expect any changes?
A: Right now they view the problem with the PoE 1 campaign as a snoozefest and the problem with it is that it is boring until you get to maps where things get a bit more "punchy."

Q: What would you say to people who feel like, in the face of 3.15, that the "best" PoE is something that does not exist anymore and only exists in the past?
A: The idea is to learn what made those particular systems or content exciting and engaging and while decisions have been made (such as Harvest changes) that doesn't mean future systems can't include things similar in a different way.

Q: Why do wisdom scrolls exist?
A: Ideally, with changes to loot, the game could return to a place where there's excitement in identifying rares to see what they are. Acknowledges that with the current system, there's too many items and too many of them are not potentially good.

Q: Aurabots?
A: Aurabots. 3.16 will see power balances to party play with possible alternatives beyond existing group comps.

Q: Rare monster modifiers and the close proximity of rare monsters overlapping those effects in current Path of Exile content causes incredible spikes of monster damage, and where there is now going to be an emphasis on engaging monster combat, it's almost certainly a death wish for every character, even the toughest.
A: The team is not satisfied with the state of rare mob mods. It's currently too much of a mess to understand rare monsters. Not slated for 3.16 but will be addressed. They realized that stacking rare monsters does in fact create difficulty but does not have the desired outcome of creating engaging content.

I do deal fire damage, and I want to be angry today.

Q: Have on death effects met their end? Decidedly less in the last few leagues.
A: They will still exist. Will be used sparingly and be well signaled. Want to use them more and in intelligent ways. That's for the Combat Design team to figure out.

Q: Are there moments where the team receives feedback where internally the feeling is that the feedback is incorrect or wrong?
A: They recognize that usually there's a seed of truth to most of it. They certainly don't release content thinking it is wrong. Most of the time it's a misunderstanding or things are being misstated. Part of improving this process in the future is better attempts at transparency.
Reddit continues to be a place that the employees are afraid to go to, with even Chris admitting he does not enjoy visiting the subreddit in the last few months. Part of the idea behind appearing on podcasts is that it should be a friendlier way to distribute information to "passionate" fans.

Q: Certain build types come to rely on certain setups, skill gems, or otherwise to solve problems with mobility and other necessary gameplay elements. Some of the changes, such as to smoke mine and adrenaline flask that helped make mobility comfortable for some builds now have none of those tools as a consequence of those who abused movement speed and mobility in excess.
A: The intention was to tone things down, and it's sent to QA to evaluate. The intention is to dial things back from say 150% to 110%. Completely nuking a certain setup or build is never the intention though at times solutions are incorrect and need to be re-evaluated after feedback. They are happy with how movement skills are currently.

Q: Any plans to save the wiki?
A: There's plans amongst those who are wanting to "save" the wiki to talk to Chris on how to proceed.

Q: This round of communication with GGG staff is refreshing and can this be something that happens more regularly to uphold the transparency promised?
A: They are definitely amenable to going on more shows as needed.

Q: Why can monsters crit? Crits currently have no visual indicator (such as sub-phys aura)?
A: The team will go over the data, there could be potential improvements to make.

Q: Why are cluster jewels still tied to Delirium?
A: This will be up to the team handling their implementation to decide where they should go if moved, but for now, no changes to clusters are slated.

Q: Why does GGG use loot boxes as a form of monetization considering their predatory nature?
A: So there's some things done for this. A.) Everything in the boxes is released at a later time. B.) The CS team works with big spenders that they believe are engaging in bad behavior to discuss with them that their purchases are a poor choice. Sometimes the ability to purchase them is removed or can be disabled by request.

Q: Were the league supporter packs made intentionally worse to fit the new tiering system? 30/60/90?
A: Packs were not made intentionally worse, more stuff was added because it was requested by marketing research of people who were purchasing both $60 Supporter Packs. There may be some changes to what MTX occurs at what thresholds or what point amounts are given alongside the MTX.

Q: Are there any plans to curb the more recent trend of misrepresented MTX?
A: The idea was not to be maliciously misrepresentative but to instead try to find an area where the product looked the best, like in other commercial products that employ lighting and other effects when taking photos. We've learned that we should show MTX in a variety of ways. It was a mistake.
Regarding the Exsang, some of the effect reduction was due to dynamic culling being turned on or off. If culling is off, it appears in the video. With it on, it looks substantially worse.

Q: Why is stormrain so impressive to look at?
A: This will be addressed and made less impressive soon.

Q: Circling back to loot boxes: Why can't there be any sort of protection against duplicates in loot boxes?
A: After mishandling the initial solution to duplicates, community trust with handling duplicates will always be low. Solutions could be found and talked about.

Q: Will there be MTX preview options?
A: Possibly tacked on to current PoE 2 development but no actual plan in place. Could be included. Admits that it would be good for marketing.

Q: Circling back to loot boxes again again: Since you're allowing legislation to determine the legality of your loot boxes, is the company prepared (should legislation move quicker than anticipated) to lose that income from them?
A: Boxes are approximately a third of income and it would be detrimental to lose it, but it would not sink the company. They would then have to figure out other monetization options that they are open to (either releasing the contents at full price or other types of MTX).

Q: Will there be a PoE Merch Store?
A: At some point when it can be set up with a vendor. No desire to handle it internally.

Q: What does GGG think about build diversity? With this latest patch there was supposed to be more build diversity due to "no one will know what's the best anymore," but now there's something around 60% of the playerbase playing the same skill.
A: Right now they are satisfied with the amount of build diversity they see and think that this league is more diverse in terms of the meta and believe sites such as poe.ninja are misrepresentative.