What Happened with Items

We've play tested hard mode for you now, can we start the league now please.

Thank you Chris. This is more than we could ever ask of you; 'the creator'. Long live GGGG (and Chris)

I have actually been enjoying this league very much, and in general, your communication and honesty with the community is leagues better than most other game development studios. I certainly appreciate that very much.

Regarding the recent changes, the initial item/currency scarcity was intense, and it's good that the drop rate is getting buffed.

There's one aspect of the statement that I find genuinely confusing, though:

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It gives you an opportunity to employ counterplay and for your playskill to actually matter (rather than relying on pure character power).

I genuinely believe that this will never work due to the fact that PoE is an online game. There's lag, packet loss, and other forms of jitter... PoE simply cannot rely on players' mechanical skills and ms-level reaction times to this extent and ignore this reality.

Thank you for the explanations. Owning the issues is a good thing, and I can appreciate your taking that ownership. I agree that the QA team(s) cannot be blamed for any of this as well. There job is to test and verify that everything is working as expected, according to the changes desired. In that, they did and everything was working as designed.

The communication break downs are very frustrating to the community because we have had these issues several times. It seems that the communication lessons learned stay for a league or two and then are repeated. I appreciate that you want to continue to improve in this area, but perhaps it is time to focus your attentions on the Game Director responsibilities and hire a person whose job is specifically to do the communications. I know you enjoy speaking with the community, and I'm not suggesting that you lock yourself away. Just focus on the game when you need to, and speak with the community during times when not so much focus is required on game direction.

One thing that I did not see you mention in your post is the current state of crafting. I, myself, have never done much crafting in the game. That being said, I do buy things other players have crafted to help my builds. The removal of powerful Harvest crafts, and other changes to crafting seem to have had a dramatic impact on the economy in the game, and the equipment that filters down to be available to players like me.

I know that you said you wanted to have the equipment that drops be more consequential and that the "prefect" items that were being crafted made the drops feel worse. The problem with that is that players like me, who never have crafted very much, can't find good equipment. The stuff that drops on the ground is not good, and generally speaking doesn't apply to the skills that I like to play. In some cases it can be directly detrimental to the skills I like to play.

I know the vision is less deterministic crafting in the game, but there has to be some middle ground in this area. The current state seems to not be that middle ground. Do you have any plans to address the community concerns around crafting?

It's amazing the amount of vitriol being spewed at GGG for this, obviously they made a mistake.

There have been plenty of legit critiques and they're clearly reading and reacting as best as they can. The 3 month timeline seems to be getting to them.

The biggest thing you can do as a player is just not play the game, coming to a forum to say "GAMES DEAD U SUCK" does nothing. They are aware of the amount of people quitting their game, some will come back once they keep patching, but they've lost the majority.

Hate is the status quo in this generation, just take a step back and and relax, they will either fix it or they wont, their livelihoods depend on them making a game people want to play.

Last league I played was Ritual and came back this league. I just want to give a extensive feedback about good and bad things I felt after this time spam. I have 2100+ hours of PoE and consider myself a casual (I play a league per year since 2017; so I always rusty with 3~ leagues of content to catchup when I play).

I don't like Archnemesis, everytime I notice those modifiers I always felt like "oh, no, that thing again", but not on an excited way, its always dull and unfun to me. Archnemesis suddenly breaks everything prepared and was expected for a map/run on a negative experience. I think that the challenges is alright but should be somewhat predictable, and not "know that sometime, somewhere, something very porwerful will appear against you", how should I be prepared against that? Thats not fun to me; and hurts me to read "emergent behavior" when all I fell is just inconsequent design. (I just sorry for the HC people). I frustrate-quitted the game today after been chased by a non-damaging-taking-gods-knows-why Roa, who one charged and killed me twice at a 95% exp, while i still trying to avoid it; yesterday was a archer who one shots me before I could act against it; "small" things which map bosses, demoniac dragons from other dimensions are nothing compared to; makes things look silly too.

I think the game is working technically better, i had fewer problems with graphical bugs, FPS drops, etc. It fell smoother than on Ritual league, to me.

I loved the atlas passives and the level of customization it brings, was very exciting to explore it. The atlas itself is clearer and fell better than it was on the Ritual league; at that time it was some stones we put in regions; it was not bad, but its even better now.


I fell kind taunted when I drop 80 whetstone/armorscrap when I already at a thousand+ of them and struggling with some blood aqueduct gear at level 90 because I don't have currency to craft (by the limited way i know) or to buy anything better. I think it would be better to drop nothing, so that the fewer existing ones woulda have some value for trade. Its not at this point, but flood people with the most cheap curreny tends to the point that the currency is not even needed: if everyone has thousands of whetstones just make every weapon 20% (lol). I can't think on a case where someone would have legit use for that amount other than vendor (since it has basically zero trade value) for other currency (which is a valid but dull thing to do).

I like the ideia of PoE trade, but it is frustrating right now; buying lesser craft resources is just way to boring, today I had probably 1 answer on each 15PMs. I'm felling like playing a last week of the league in that regards.

I fell terrible lost on craft right now, (I talking about things like a damage roll plus one good resistance and life on a ring for instance; not end-game gear).
1. there are a lot of new modifiers (usually with low desirability; which just reduces chances of other things, probably); Which it is not bad, but the incoming of currency I have does not seems to match the craft potential I had last time I played using same techniques and investment. (maybe it is straight bad luck);
2. its seems unfeasible to get everything i need, which get me going to trade, which saddens me;
3. I started atlas passives with harvest nodes; yesterday after making use of everything I collected in 40~50 hours i just refund the passives and now i skip every harvest. I might have lost what is its purpose right now due to some change since I was out, and need to catch up.

On harvest mechanics, I would prefer the capability of itemize a craft way more than trading that craft energy. This way the craft could be slight better, since it would not be always available at fixed price.

I like those pillars with two modifiers choices that appears sometimes.

I really liked expedition related stuff.

I loved that now you can store a map for you incursions, one of my favorite mechanic! Great surprise!

The lake tablet is very nice! I just fell a little confused but i thought i would be able to put my own jewellery to be "scrambled" on the mirror thing (maybe you can and I didn't catch something yet). I think i brought just one of those rings out of the lake, but it was expected; the potential is probably there. :)

New end game bosses seems to be interesting, I faced just some of them. (They are an expected challenge)

No prophecies anymore was a surprise; but I totally ok with that.

Currency, fragment and map stashes are way better now, lol, I would have tought it was somethign I would have to pay for.

Kirac missions interface and mechanics are better than Zana, but I like her more :).

Nothing about harvest in here. I'm truly dissapointed and not gonna play anymore, time to move on. Don't get me wrong i had a great time with PoE, but this isn't the game anymore i felt in love with.

Good man Chris, <3 to everyone at GGG

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extinctiionn wrote:

oh god now the drop is more RNG than ever ..... when GGG / tencent will decide to fire this old Chris Wilson... he did such great work many years ago now its totally shit ... hopefully some new real h&S comming soon

Not gonna happen. PoE is literally Chris's baby. Chris needs to stop being a tunnel visionary before he betrays his child. Tunnel vision is their only vision.

I am sorry Chris, but this is not good enough. You guys fucked up everything pretty much, it's still a LONG way for you to fix the mess you have done. Your new idea is super terrible. It will never be better, the only thing that will happen, is you will buff in other ways more and people will just play with what they have, but this, this will never be better than it was.

I personally can adapt, but I hate that game feels emptier. Do this shit in the mid of the league or in PoE2, leave PoE alone. I don't play any 6 man groups, I barely trade and yet I feel game is so less of everything in terms on drops overall after these "fixed" or I should say reverting some fuck-ups from the start? We didn't forget and we won't forget.

Also, people are already using third-party soft. solaris-touched scan, cause this is the only juice left, they run it in limited user and your protection can't scan it. Do you think it was wise to do such mechanics only? Everything else is weak, but that is 1000x better. Do smart mechanics, where cheating is not needed or at least not that useful by players who are willing to do.

I understand you try to improve this game, but if any veteran player if he would play tested for a few days, he would feel it. So question is, who is testing such changes for you?

As a disappointed GGG client, I suggest in this league, try to improve this by a lot, atm it is still less fun. And in 3.20 do a massive skill balance, just numbers if you don't have time, so people at least can hang on, to that. Also to leave solaris-touched broken in a game, which will cause focus on that and exploit, please don't stick to your war, it's like putler went into war and can't fall back.