Zizaran’s Developer Q&A Writeup

Zizaran's developer Q&A with Game Directors Jonathan and Mark just concluded. In the interview they talk about the launch of 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt and potential problems that came along with it. With the topics widely ranging from game pacing, player power and gearing, finding the correct game design balance and many others, GGG has given great insights. Check out the full 2 hour Interview here or read the write-up below.

Q&A Summary

• Jonathan is of the belief that monsters being slower than the player is bad for the game
  • Target of fine tuning for monster speed, health etc. is smaller as combat should be engaging
  • Good players should still face challenges
  • Monsters that are too fast during the campaign is being looked at
  • The game should still pose a challenge
• Nerfing peoples builds in the middle of a league is a bad idea, but buffs are possible
  • many buffs are planned, with the first ones coming in 2 days
• Jonathan is not necessarily against speeding up the player as long as it does not compromise combat
  • Mark adds that player movement speed may be fixed with upcoming uniques for twink characters
  • They do not want movement abilities to be the main way to increase player speed
• Buff/UI rework is being worked on as top 5 UI priority
  • Potential console UI change too
• Artificer Orbs
  • Zizaran says they are too uncommon in his opinion, Jonathan doesn't share the sentiment
  • Artificer Orbs may potentially be added as Quest Rewards/guaranteed drops however
  • Rune power might also get looked at again, especially resistance runes
  • Attribute Runes could fix immediate attribute problems but would then make it harder to replace that item later on
• Jonathan is concerned that adding too much power to certain systems widens the gap between a beginner and an experienced player
  • There should be a reward for player knowledge, but finding a balance is important
• Passive Skill Tree is supposed to enhance the items you're wearing, not substitute other problems
  • Might be re-evaluated however
• Resistances were originally designed to be balanced around having 0% in the campaign
  • The ratio to player power to monster power is the important part, meaning nerfing monsters might be a better solution than buffing
  • This aims to level out the experience between a beginner and veteran player as beginners are less likely to gear properly
  • Monster damage might be looked at in order to achieve this
• Slots of charm slots are probably going to be increased
  • Mark acknowledges that Charms should mitigate the hit that activates it as it is pretty useless otherwise
  • Up to 6 Charms might be possible
• Ailments should be relevant enough to be worth mitigating
• In Zizaran's Developer Q&A Jonathan says he doesn't like the idea of masteries as he thinks they "blandify/devalue" notables
• It's a difficult problem to allow for tanky characters without also enabling immortal builds
  • Largely caused due to the high life recovery available to players, making attrition based combat not feasible at the moment
  • Changing it to be more attrition based would require a massive balance overhaul
  • Investing into defenses should be more rewarding however
  • Monster Armour Break is being looked at to not be overly oppressive for Armour builds
• The Viper Napuatzi fight is potentially too difficult and might be adjusted
• Certain monsters pushing players around to be reviewed
• Gold costs for respeccing is already cheap in their eyes
  • Costs being perceived as too high by players might be caused by excessive spending of Gold in other places such as gambling for items
• The ability to respec Ascendancies is still being debated by Mark
• Bleed is getting changed to apply when damaging Energy Shield
• Effects of Ignite Proliferation requiring monsters to stay in the radius for too long is being looked at
• Minions respawning all at once instead of one at a time is actually better for the player
• GGG is looking at the Endgame Map clear objective of killing all Rares.
  • One potential fix: always showing all Rares on the Minimap
• UI changes to make levelling up gems easier are being considered
• Buff to the Smith of Kitava's Manifest Weapon is coming soon
• Potential for a support gem that blocks a skill from consuming charges
• Attaching weapon types to base classes is friendlier for beginners
• Dropping corrupted Uniques is getting looked at as it's currently not satisfying enough due to lack of sockets and quality
• Affinities for Tablets, Logbooks, Breach items etc are being added (around 7)
  • Allows players to have these affinities for their regular tabs
• They want more data on Recombinators before looking at potential changes
• Waystone sustain and progression in Endgame is being monitored

Path of Exile 1

• 3.26 still planned for release at the end of May, but could potentially be up to 2 weeks later
  • News should begin towards end of May
• WASD implementation requires the character rigging of PoE2 in order to look good
  • PoE2 Character rigging can be backported to PoE1 once every PoE1 MTX works in PoE2
  • WASD can be implemented then
• Pause feature is getting added at some point
• Vaal Orbs changing the magnitude of Unique mod rolls would take a lot of work due to sheer amount of Uniques in PoE1

Path of Exile Coverage

Zizaran's developer Q&A with Jonathan and Mark has given very good insights into the decisions that go into making Path of Exile 2. With many community concerns being addressed over the next days we are excited for future patches. Looking for more news on Path of Exile 2 Patches or Hotfixes? Then head over to our Discord and select the Path of Exile 2 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Stay sane, Exile!

Written by: Cptn Garbage

Reviewed by: Tenkiei