[Console] Patch Deployment Processes and Communication

Here's my 2 cents:

1. Bug communication has been pretty good from my experiences. New reports are replied to usually within a few hours.

2. New patch communication is usually lacking. Often it's not until someone asks information in the forums. It seems like GGG is addressing this with this post (awesome!).

3. Community waiting for long awaited (and promised) features for a couple years now...looking at you Guild stash. It also looks like these might be hopefully addressed over the coming months with new console developers being hired.

4. I see a lot of people commenting on trading, but as much as I used to hate it when I moved from PC. I've got to say I actually really like it now. Forces us to play a little bit more SSF. I would like the trade API to be available for console, but otherwise think it's fine, albeit a lil clunky.

All-in-all, I think GGG is going the right way with improving both the game and community. A little bit of polish can go a long way.

From one software dev to another software dev company, cheers for all you guys do. I don't think I'd go back to PoE on PC and look forward to seeing all the new improvements coming!

P.S. plz give us guild stash

"

...Communication...

Good job!

And, making an official statement regarding the Cert process was much needed, too. This is the sort of specific information console players need to know about "their" environment.

I also liked seeing GGG's post in the XBox "club." Good job, there! (I assume a similar was issued for PS4.) When someone gives you something for free, take it. :)

Don't be afraid of crossposting general community updates to console specific forums/clubs/etc - These let the console players know that you are aware of their existence. Consoles have browsers that will open web links too. :) (Though, nobody in their right mind would prefer such a thing... Still, it lets console players know you appreciate their patronage.)

Thank you for undertaking this latest push to improve communication efforts with your console community.

Please express my thanks to the team for their work with the consoles. I own a potato for a computer and having POE available on console gives me a chance to play this game which I have grown to greatly enjoy.

There was a question as to suggested communication methods.

What would need to happen to use the current patch message on the title screen as a more current communication source?

For clarity, what I refer to as the current patch message currently says "We will deploy Patch 3.92d at 00:00 UTC..." and so on.

I'm thinking of other games that have had "Message of the day" about... well honestly I don't remember what information was there. But in theory that/those developer(s) had the ability to update a message to the player base daily.

I feel that could be a useful tool for at least letting people know when a patch is "planned" or submitted to microsoft/sony if they aren't already on a fixed schedule.

If that isn't possible, even expanding the message to include plans about the next coming patch... example "Patch 3.9b is live, Patch 3.9c is expected to be submitted the week of January 21st, check here for updates."

I currently find the current notification a bit of a waste because it usually says that "Patch X.Y.z is live" when I can also see the current patch tag on the same screen. It is useful to know that I am indeed on the current patch, but once that is confirmed it's "wasted space".

Using the title space would be great for me because I don't keep my laptop on the same floor, let alone the same room as my Xbox, so I don't really want to sit down to play and then have to go get my computer to read the notes news. And no... I don't consider using Microsoft Edge on the Xbox as a viable option. It is terrible.

Thanks again for the hours of entertainment.

These type of things take a cultural shift, and some good follow through. I do T3 work for a large corporation with a fairly small onshore team managing all the escalations. Both external and internal communication is critical. Getting ahead of issues isn’t a skill or something you have to teach. It’s a commitment to your consumer. Clarity is one of the best thing you can bring to the table. Mystery causes confusion, and confusion causes frustration. It’s good to hear there is more emphasis on what’s going on. From the sidelines it feels like consoles have been mismanaged. These technical issues us Xbox players have faced, have dragged on and on. When you release a product, you hold a ethical responsibility to stand behind it. I feel like you guy’s are in a gray area with your business model. Because at the end of the day you always can say it’s free. It doesn’t do well for the pocket books, but it is an out.

I’ve never been so invested into a game that I can’t even play sometimes lol. Man if shit gets real for you a league, you’re pretty much done. You will have technical issues out the ass and watch those deaths pile up. I’m not a misogynist, and you would have to be to subject yourself to that shit lol. That should never just be ok, or how it is. It’s not like I have potato internet or live in bfe. I could live with that. Out of 200+ games I own, this game is by far the worst performing game I have on my console lol. Let’s be real, the game performs like shit, and it performs like shit for the majority of us. I don’t load up other games and get home screened because some majestic witchcraft shit happened that reflected off swap gas. I’m sure that the only players left at this point are the committed ones, you should do right by us and fix the bullshit.

For me, this league has been pretty smooth sailing, aside from the crashes here and there and some lag. Yes, smooth sailing is crashes here and there with some lag now and then lol.

Other than that, I love your guy’s development philosophy and vision. I really bought into that shit and stuck around because of it. Hopefully this is a new era. Time will tell. Love the game when it’s functioning as one would anticipate.

Too late, much too late!!!
You like to release a game for consoles?
Deliver!!!!

I dont care, if I play on Ps4 that there is in original a PC Version. This is the only game, where you always hear such BS. All other games for different platforms work well (all!!!) no matter what the paying structure is...

GGG needs to take a league off from pushing content on console to focus solely on optimization and QOL.

Just give us a 3 month 1 month league with all the breach and invasion caidero exile dudes in each zone while you guys work on fixin shit.

Hello

glad to see that all this is was an empty promise. Communication hasn't improved at all from where it used to be. Still persistent issues with Sirus fight and screen freezing 2 months into the league.

You guys continue to lose players like crazy because all of the complaints fall upon deaf ears. For some reason GGG utilizes feedback from reddit more than they do their own forums. And any post on reddit regarding console gets downvoted by the "pC iS mAsTeR" race inhabitants of reddit.

But hey! Congrats bex on your 5 year anniversary of community management! At least the PC crowd is pleased with your teams communication to their platform.

topic about communication and there is no response from gg no any comment. thats the state of the game....

your way of work on the game keep getting me happy, then disappointed, happy again...disappointed...
-one patch fixes the stability, the one after seem to be a rollback of everything we don't wanna see in the game...i mean desync, fps drops and much more (even on Xbox 1 X !!!! god why !?!? i even installed the game in the SSD M2 NVME usb, 150 bucks, hoping it could have helped but my $$$ still burns for the try xD)
-after months of your silence (and i'm not exaggerating, writing in the console section is always been like talking to a broken phone, and players kept talking in it till) you wrote this to say you're really doing something to the game but with so much lack of communication with your community, and you said "now the thing will change, we will keep you updated on what we are doing"
at the start i was very happy, finally the talk to us !! then...
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2753029
it worked for 3.9.2c
it worked for 3.9.2d
it worked for 3.9.2e
not even the shadow of communication about 3.9.2f
and after last patch the game goes terribly again
i'm not even able to lvl up because randomly i find some map where i die 3 times at the first monster pack i encounter (the game start slowing down, more and more till it freezes, then it starts going again and monsters kill me at 5000x speed...the thing keep happening in loop at every monster pack till the last of the map, it remains only the boss and the map stops going crazy, but my exp bar is now 0%
i wanna make u know i waited so much for stash tab discount and now i could buy some new tab i'm not even sure i wanna keep playing, it's really unplayable, and AGAIN, no communication, not even a comment under this last sign of some human presence behind GGG logo