A COMPLAINT FROM AN INDIGNANT PLAYER

To Grinding Gear Games,

I write this letter not on impulse, but out of accumulated frustration—the kind that arises when trust in a carefully constructed system begins to crumble.

I've been playing Path of Exile 2 for quite some time. I've accumulated about two thousand hours over the months, following leagues, structural changes, bugs, and fixes. I have always accepted that new leagues come with risks. I have always understood that economies in ARPGs are living organisms. What is difficult to accept—and impossible to ignore—is when a structural error creates a permanent inequality, and the fix comes too late to be fair.

In Path of Exile 2's League 0.4, the Vaal Temple mechanic was introduced as an interesting proposition: planning, gradual progression, strategic decisions. However, early in the league, players and streamers discovered extremely fast ways to build complete temples, exploiting interactions that were clearly unbalanced for that stage of the economy.

The result is well-known: profits in the millions of Divines, accelerated item and wealth generation, and an economic distortion that impacted the entire league ecosystem.

Of course, you at GGG fixed part of the mechanics—and that's important to acknowledge. The problem is how that fix was applied.

Those who already had their temple ready, kept it ready.

Those who exploited the system early continued to reap its rewards.

Those who didn't have access to the information, time, or opportunity in that short initial period… now take days to build something equivalent.

In practice, a permanent division was created:

One group that plays with the economy solved.

Another that plays trying to achieve something that, realistically, has already become unattainable.

This isn't just an economic problem. It's a problem of a sense of fairness.

For intermediate and casual players—who make up the majority of the active player base—the message is painful: if you weren't there in the early days, you missed the boat. And that's demotivating. It's saddening. It erodes that classic Path of Exile feeling that effort, knowledge, and time invested always pay off.

When a system allows some to become absurdly rich due to an initial flaw, and then requires others to spend dozens of hours to arrive at a weakened version of the same mechanic, the game ceases to be challenging and becomes unfair.

I don't write this out of gratuitous anger. I write it with sadness.

Sadness to see a promising league marred by a decision that favored a few and penalized many.

Sadness to realize that, this time, the cost of correction was paid only by those who didn't make mistakes.

Path of Exile has always stood out for respecting players who think, study, and persevere. That's why this situation hurts so much. It wounds one of the strongest pillars of the game: the trust that everyone is, at some level, playing under the same rules.

I sincerely believe that you at GGG value this same principle. That's precisely why I consider it important that situations like this are not only corrected technically, but also revisited from the perspective of their real impact on the player—especially those who have invested time, dedication, and trust in the game.

I am open to dialogue. Not only to express frustration, but to contribute reflections that help prevent similar problems from recurring. Direct contact, recognition of the impact caused, or any initiative in this regard would be a clear sign that GGG's historical commitment to its community remains intact.

Sincerely,
ID - Pinho#5321