



" INEXFadeXFHONOR 1. (something about uniques, development speed, and hiring more staff? I think?)

We have a lot do, and limited manpower. We're processing as many custom uniques as we can, as quickly as we can, but no, we can't just hire a bunch more staff to help.



" INEXFadeXFHONOR 2. Are GGG devs very careful about adding (notes) and about not making their "hardcore" player base angry?

In general, yes, though in the specific case of friend notes, I think it was simply a case of the information not reaching the right people. It was a change that, while not particularly difficult or time-consuming to implement, had to be done by a certain dev, one who was very busy with much more important features. It was probably already on his to-do list somewhere, but got bumped up in priority when Chris realized the extent that people wanted it.



I'm sure I wasn't the only one here who saw several of those threads and assumed the relevant person had, too, and thus never chased the issue down. It kinda just slipped through the cracks... sorry about that.



" INEXFadeXFHONOR

This orb of awesomness will 6L any body armour or 2H sword and 4L anything else. It will roll max tier rolls randomly on an item. 3. An orb who can be acquired after beating level 100 in a temporary league + accomplishing all challenges Or any relevant hard work.This orb of awesomness will 6L any body armour or 2H sword and 4L anything else. It will roll max tier rolls randomly on an item.

I doubt it... sounds pretty broken...



" Pyrokar Do you guys even lift?

ofc bro



" Pyrokar Who is the true master troll: Chris, Rhys or Athene?

...lol. You don't have any idea, do you? You're this close and you can't even see it, haha.



" htblind (ermagerd crazy chaos damage question)

After consultation with guru Mark:



For Viper Strike, a skill, all your +increased damage of various types will stack additively, which is all of the mentioned effects other than Vulnerability. The curse will be multiplicative to those but will stack with other "increased damage taken" debuffs such as Shocked. Ergo:



(289.5) * (1 + 2 * 0.2 + 0.3 + 0.59 + 0.67 + 0.1) * (1 + 0.4) = 1240.218



For Death's Oath, which is not a skill but an item aura, your damage stats are not applied, so only Vulnerability will boost the damage in this example (again, Shocked could stack with it).



(450) * (1 + 0.4) = 630



Mark asks you to remember that your own damage bonuses, where applicable, apply before the enemy damage mitigation, which is in turn before "increased damage taken" debuffs. For some types of damage (elemental, chaos) they multiply nicely, but for others (physical) the enemy's defenses (armour) plays an important part and are crucial to determining the final damage numbers.



" RaGoNXIII ask for a more rewarding system at endgame, specially in terms of good uniques because currently we are overloaded by a lot of low level ones, and late game crafting orbs drop.

Lower level uniques can drop from higher level zones, just like non-unique item base types. This is intentional. Sometimes you want a low-level unique with (say) 6 sockets, which requires a certain itemlevel much higher than that of the base type. The Searing Touch, for example, is a popular one.



Also, some uniques are much more common than others. Again, this is by design, and very much in the philosophical vein of most CCGs. Generally, the more common uniques are readily available for trade, or not too difficult to farm for yourself, if that's your thing. The rarer uniques are often sought after, and tend to be highly valued. This is an important part of the trade economy. Even for those not interested in trading, they can be long-term goals, or special treasures that you can hope for, and maybe one day find.



" danonon Could you increase the width of doorways, ledges and everything that's narrow?

We'd actually like to, and in some cases we have done, but there are several cases where this would require a lot of work changing how the level is built. We know it's a problem, and we're trying to avoid this in future where we can.



" Isbox1 1) Do you guys ever intend to have another permanent league with more relaxed drop and craft rates to those that are currently in the game?

No, we have a philosophy that new leagues should only be more difficult (or the same), not less. But we do adjust drop/crafting rates from time to time.



" Isbox1 2) Do you guys ever intend to somehow standardize the craft/loot experience? (AKA: 1 guy spends 1 years worth of currency - 5k fuses - and doesn't see a 6L then buddy next to you 6Ls in 50 fuses.) Do you even see this as an issue on your radar?

6-linking an item is something with very high variance, due to the binary outcome with such a low chance. Generally, the person attempting it should know this; they are rolling the dice and hoping for luck to be on their side. 6-links are supposed to be a luxury item, something to aspire to in the long term, not something that everyone has.



However, it does suck to fail when you feel you "should have" succeeded. There may be ways to alleviate this (note that guaranteeing a 6-link after X fuses is not the solution, because the value of X would have to be crazy high).



" mazul 1. Currently many people, specially in hardcore leagues, are often skipping endgame bosses in lv76-78 maps (with the exception of Shipyard and Precinct ones) due to the fact that the bosses are simply not rewarding enough to justify the risk.

We intentionally have map bosses with a mixture of difficulties, and we do want people to sometimes opt to skip some bosses. However, it is quite possible that some are not rewarding enough for their current power level. Of course, some people enjoy them for the sheer challenge...



I could easily see buffs to certain map boss drop numbers at some point, though I don't think we'd do something as drastic as skewing it as much as you suggested.



" mazul 2. Currently in act 3 merciless, especially in standard league, the party boards are mostly full of so called "trade parties".

Yeah, personally I hate those. I understand that it's nostalgic for some, but really, they need to die in a fire. Hopefully, the upcoming improvements to trade will alleviate this... but I doubt it'll stop it happening completely. T_T



" mazul 3. Currently making your windowed instance of Path of Exile be as a thin "rectangle" as possible, allows you to see far more of the map compared to having a window in the shape of a square.

To an extent, yes. Do this too much and you'll start seeing monsters pop in as you get close to them. I would also like to see this fixed. Perhaps by enforcing a fixed aspect ratio of the viewable area (still allowing arbitrary window resizing, but putting black borders at the edges)...?



" I_NO 1) Do you guys plan on adjusting unique levels? Example a unique leather cap dropping off a level 77 zone / map

Not that I'm aware of.



" I_NO 2) Are you guys overly cautious of consequences to the playerbase in terms of ''nerfs''?

Sometimes. But it's often better to make noticeable changes, rather than subtle ones, so you can feel the change (buff or nerf). Also, we tend to delay larger balance changes until the end of the current 4-month leagues, when tons of things are changed/added anyway.



" I_NO 5) Are you guys happy with trigger gems? CoC? CodT CoS Curse on Hit cast on melee kill?

When we introduced the trigger gems, we knew they'd be scary and require further balancing down the road, because someone would find a way to break them. We're still on that road...



" I_NO 6) Do you guys plan on adjusting aura's to have better quality effects rather then a larger radius?

Well, we want there to be some way to control the radius, and changing it based on gem level didn't seem right. Auras are supposed to promote party play, after all, where the radius matters.



" I_NO 7) Are you guys happy with Legacy items; Do you regret it?

Mixed feelings, I guess. It would've been nice and clean to simply change all the existing items over at the time, but there were technical limitations stopping us (a long downtime of unknown length). It's not so bad having these "out-of-print" collector's items out there, though. If you compare them to a CCG like Magic: the Gathering, they're kinda like broken old cards from the past that are never reprinted, like Black Lotus or the Moxen. They, too, are quite valuable but cannot be used except in very specific formats of gameplay (Vintage tourneys/Standard league).



" Antnee We had a big debate in guild chat the other day about what custom leagues might look like. I'd like to know what sort of rulesets might be implemented, and what would not be allowed.

Generally, things that make the game harder, not easier. The mods we apply to race leagues would be prime candidates, of course. But we'll probably have some more fancy/crazy things going on, too. We'll consider the requests people make in the Suggestions forum.



" rainsong Do you have plans to make any new permanent leagues or to make any changes to the current ones?

Didn't Chris mention permanent Cutthroat for some point in the future? Also, custom leagues may well count. Kinda longer-term things, though. Not sure on the details.



" iamstryker Are you guys happy with Large chests and Wealth mobs in their current form?

Mmm, not really, imho.



" Shagsbeard Are you ever going to release information that is currently hidden from the players, like the probability of getting 6L on a white 0% or the vendor recipes that couldn't possibly be guessed?

Nope.jpg



" TreeOfDead Any plans to make bigger Ladders (15000 rly low)?

Y'know, now that I look at it... the bottom of the ladder is still like level 81. That actually bothers me...



" MonstaMunch Why is fishing so hard, and are there any plans to make it easier so that more people get to experience it?

We've considered making the game "pay-to-fish", where you buy extra lures and bait etc. to improve your catch.



" TreeOfDead EXP and EXP penalty on death: Why not make a little easier?

Well, there needs to be some kind of penalty to make people not want to die. We've already reduced the %EXP loss multiple times. If you have ideas for a better system, post them in the Suggestions forum.



" TreeOfDead FREEDOM OF CHOICE. There always were and always will be builds that are ten-hundreds times more effective than others, but the point of PoE was to have fun with what you want.

Well, you don't have to be able to steamroll endgame content in order to have fun with a build. You can have plenty of fun while you actually play through the game.



" Hyskoa 1: Can you define what hardcore means to GGG and how it pertains to POE?

That is... a really, really good question. Hmmm, I need to think about this.



OK. Here are my thoughts on the matter:



A game that is "hardcore" is one that "rewards investment"; this is a level of depth, and one that has multiple facets. Right now, I can think of four main aspects to it: time, knowledge, skill, and emotion.



~Investment of Time~



This is shallowest form of depth. Of hardcoreness, if that's a word? Players become invested by the sheer amount of time they have spent. They are rewarded for spending lots and lots of time playing the game. Often, their progress (whatever it is) is directly or indirectly a measure of hours played. Kill X goblins. Collect Y rocks. Accumulate Z experience points. If these tasks require "mindless grinding", then you are investing time when you complete them.



Many MMOs exploit this, of course, requiring huge amounts of time investment in order to reach (and explore) the endgame. Some people love this; some people don't. Some people are proud of their progress, and boast to friends or fellow forum-goers of their time well-spent attaining virtual glory. They're flagrantly hardcore. Others view their progress as a thinly-veiled representation of all the time they've wasted on that stupid game. And some people do both.



Path of Exile rewards time investment, as you've probably noticed. Of course it does. In fact, there are multiple ways in which it does. The most basic being is the XP/level grind. Just by looking at a character's level/XP, a savvy player can estimate the amount of time spent on it. But... even that most basic grind isn't so simple. When someone at the top of the ladder in Hardcore dies, they have to start again from scratch. Yet, the very same person who died at level 90 can come racing back to the top of the ladder (or near the top) again on a new character quite quickly. Clearly, they didn't spend the same amount of time grinding as before. There must be something more to it.



Note that RNG-based systems fall into this category, because players must invest enough time to ride out streaks of bad luck in order find good luck. The randomness simply obscures the correlation to time spent and makes it more fun.



~Investment of Knowledge~



Another way to achieve depth and make a game hardcore is reward knowledge. This where players can progress, or progress much faster than normal, by acquiring knowledge about the game and its systems. Discovering shortcuts, synergies, combos, secret levels, etc. Whereas investment of time most often yields more progress and content, investment of knowledge often results in increased speed of progress.



Another form of this is complexity. By offering up complex systems, players can invest knowledge and learn the optimal paths, the most efficient combinations of moves, etc. that may not be obvious at first glance, even if all the information is there.



In Path of Exile, we have several such systems. The most immediate is the passive skill tree, which is notoriously overwhelming at first glance. It often takes people several characters before they learn how to build effectively for endgame. But we have other, more subtle systems in place, as well. The vendor recipes are a prime example. You can generate a great deal of currency by simply knowing about the GBR 3-link recipe that yields a Chromatic Orb, and regularly checking the shops for cheap equipment. Even subtler, is knowing the best places to grind EXP during a ladder rush. By investing in knowledge, by learning about the game, you can make more efficient progress and gain wealth.



As another example, in a fighting game, you can look at the combo list, but you'll need to learn those combos off by heart if you want to become good at it. Or if you can't (or don't know to) look at the combo list, you'll be at a severe disadvantage compared someone who does know all the moves.



Of course, simply knowing what the moves are isn't nearly enough. You need to be able to actually pull them off. You need skill.



~Investment of Skill~



Some games allow - or require! - an investment of skill. Fighting games, for example, require players to learn and master a variety of moves for every character, if they want to beat the game, or beat other players. This is closely tied to investment of knowledge, but is quite distinct because it is about learning not what to do, but how to do it. This often involves acquiring the muscle-memory to perform a quick sequence of actions, but it can also involve puzzle-solving techniques.



Some puzzles are solved through knowledge, but some are solved through skill. Any puzzle that involves a random initial state will necessitate learning not the solution, but the method by which the solution is obtained. You may know how to solve Sudoku puzzles in general, but you may still struggle with a particularly difficult one. This is something of a grey area, I will admit, between knowledge and skill.



Path of Exile rewards investment of skill. Some bosses require quick reflexes, or careful usage of projectiles or curses. Any monster with energy shield requires some skill, to not let it regenerate. Monsters with reflect auras often require a far more careful playstyle, and reward players (by not killing them) who carefully manage their damage output and healing. Using granite and ruby flasks at the right times is another example.



And, of course, there are races. When players are competing with each other, skill is absolutely vital. Knowledge is, too, but skill is very important. Yes, there is randomness of drops, which are also vital, but that just means skill and knowledge are be-all and end-all. It gives those aren't the best of the best a fighting chance.



~Investment of Emotion~



So the last point I want to cover is regarding the investment of emotion. This one isn't exclusive to games; TV, movies, books, theatre, even music, they also take advantage of this. By having compelling characters and plotlines, interesting stories and worlds can draw in the audience - or the player, in the case of a game - and get them emotionally invested. This isn't necessarily hardcore, in and of itself, but it can be. Ohhhhh, it can be.



Consider Trekkies, Bronies, Whovians, all the die-hard fans of Naruto, Spiderman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, the Beatles, Justin Bieber, Halo, Call of Duty, Diablo, etc. etc. Are they not hardcore? They're totally into their respective fandoms/cultures/cults, some beyond reason, even. They are all emotionally invested, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with them over the internet.



Much more so than the others, emotional investment is its own reward. Some people like to mindless grind, to kill time. Some people love to learn about new things or master new skills. But everyone loves a good story. It's a great money-earner, too. By getting people emotionally invested in the story, it makes them want to finish the movie/book/game, and it makes them want to buy/play the (inevitable?) sequel.



So with all that in mind, how could a game be hardcore because of emotional investment? Is it even possible to NOT reward emotional investment? You might cite Mass Effect 3, but even so, most people thought that game was great up until the ending. But therein lies the answer.



Games that require emotional investment to the story are hardcore. What kind of game is that? Well, the immediate genre that springs to mind are Visual Novels. They're all about the story, the characters, the plot... literally! If you hate the story, you're not going to finish one of these games. Unless you're masochistically trying to prove something, I guess. The same goes for "movie games" such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. It isn't the tangible gameplay that makes you want to progress, is the story. If you love the story, you'll love the game and finish it. If not... you probably won't do either.



Path of Exile is not terrible hardcore about the story. It is very easy to skip virtually all the NPC dialogue, and there are no cutscenes. There is actually quite a lot of backstory and so on scattered around, if you choose to look for it. Environmental lore, optional NPC dialogue, unique and quest item flavourtext. But this is something we are not "hardcore" about.



So, that's four ways I can think of through which games can be hardcore. There may even be others. I think most hardcore games use a mixture of them, though. I know we do.



" Hyskoa 2: How long do you think you can keep financing the current iteration of your game that only caters to "hardcore" players.

Financial forecast is good. We're in this for the long haul, baby.



" Hyskoa 2b: After seeing the hardcore players sell all their gear and move on to new games, never to return; how will you convince the casual players to come check out your game again if they've had a horrible experience that drove them away the first time?

Uh... I think I see where this line of questioning is going...



It's natural for some people to grow tired of a game after a certain amount of time. Similarly, some will come back after a while to see how things have changed. And we'll be here for them.



" Hyskoa 3: Will you ever allow for the modding community to make their own versions of POE? So that we can fix some of the mistakes ourselves and make the game more fluent.

Yeah, nah, bro.



" Hyskoa 4: How exactly do you see this tight-fisted forumcontrol work out for you in the long run?

Hah. Better than how the wild, wild west (read: cesspool of trolls) it used to be was going.



" Hyskoa 5: Why does your game and every other Diablo 2 clone have such a huge, huge focus on itemwalls and itemrequirements for progression, whereas Diablo 2 had a focus on skills-progression where items were used as a focus of perfecting a character.

Well, you can beat the game with crap gear and good skills. NotRegret proved that by doing it only magic items.



Yeah, we do focus on loot, I'll admit. It's just one of choices we made when we sat down to design the game. We aren't trying to copy Diablo 2 exactly, though. We took the bits we liked, from D2 and others, and combined everything into the most awesomest meatshake we could come up with. And of course it wasn't perfect; the first draft never is. So we tweak the recipe and we tweak it and we'll keep on tweaking it.



" Hyskoa 6: When are you getting rid of RNG as a system of progression? It simply doesn't work.

Yeah... Figured this'd pop out at the end.



PoE may not be the prettiest, most considerate baby on the planet, but it's our baby, and we will foster it the best we can and raise to be the best, meatiest meatshake it can be.



" Lachdanan Will we meet more of Doedre´s lore in Highgate?

Yes.



" FrowningPrawn Would you consider employing high-level players?

Already do!



" SDCA Wasn't there a GGG member who went by the name Max, I remember him playing a lot in closed beta and he was very good at "perking" everyone online up and creating a fun atmosphere, if I don't have his name wrong what happened to him?

Max left us to go back to Germany. He was only here on a working holiday.



" Moonlight33 Will you fix "DOMINUS" or will it be a massive fps massacre forever thus making game unplayable for many people?

Er, yes. Hopefully.



" INEXFadeXFHONOR Reddit users get daily new GGG comments while forum users do not.

What. WHAT. You must be trolling. There are like 20+ GGG posts here every day, and I'm not counting Support. Reddit gets, what, three? If that?



Also, please don't schedule the thread lock for during the middle the night, NZ time.



~



Mmmkay, I didn't answer every question but fuck I've been at this for 7 hours now and it's past 3am so yeah bedtime for me. Hopefully I didn't just write anything completely stupid.



P.S. please don't quote this entire frickin' post. It will be edited out. Apparently, blatant lies will get you everywhere. I'll answer some of these, with a preference for questions I actually know the answer to, questions I didn't answer last time, and questions that are properly phrased, formatted, and intelligent.We have a lot do, and limited manpower. We're processing as many custom uniques as we can, as quickly as we can, but no, we can't just hire a bunch more staff to help.In general, yes, though in the specific case of friend notes, I think it was simply a case of the information not reaching the right people. It was a change that, while not particularly difficult or time-consuming to implement, had to be done by a certain dev, one who was very busy with much more important features. It was probably already on his to-do list somewhere, but got bumped up in priority when Chris realized the extent that people wanted it.I'm sure I wasn't the only one here who saw several of those threads and assumed the relevant person had, too, and thus never chased the issue down. It kinda just slipped through the cracks... sorry about that.I doubt it... sounds pretty broken...ofc bro...lol. You don't have any idea, do you? You're this close and you can't even see it, haha.After consultation with guru Mark:For Viper Strike, a skill, all your +increased damage of various types will stack additively, which is all of the mentioned effects other than Vulnerability. The curse will be multiplicative to those but will stack with other "increased damage taken" debuffs such as Shocked. Ergo:(289.5) * (1 + 2 * 0.2 + 0.3 + 0.59 + 0.67 + 0.1) * (1 + 0.4) = 1240.218For Death's Oath, which is not a skill but an item aura, your damage stats are not applied, so only Vulnerability will boost the damage in this example (again, Shocked could stack with it).(450) * (1 + 0.4) = 630Mark asks you to remember that your own damage bonuses, where applicable, apply before the enemy damage mitigation, which is in turn before "increased damage taken" debuffs. For some types of damage (elemental, chaos) they multiply nicely, but for others (physical) the enemy's defenses (armour) plays an important part and are crucial to determining the final damage numbers.Lower level uniques can drop from higher level zones, just like non-unique item base types. This is intentional. Sometimes you want a low-level unique with (say) 6 sockets, which requires a certain itemlevel much higher than that of the base type. The Searing Touch, for example, is a popular one.Also, some uniques are much more common than others. Again, this is by design, and very much in the philosophical vein of most CCGs. Generally, the more common uniques are readily available for trade, or not too difficult to farm for yourself, if that's your thing. The rarer uniques are often sought after, and tend to be highly valued. This is an important part of the trade economy. Even for those not interested in trading, they can be long-term goals, or special treasures that you can hope for, and maybe one day find.We'd actually like to, and in some cases we have done, but there are several cases where this would require a lot of work changing how the level is built. We know it's a problem, and we're trying to avoid this in future where we can.No, we have a philosophy that new leagues should only be more difficult (or the same), not less. But we do adjust drop/crafting rates from time to time.6-linking an item is something with very high variance, due to the binary outcome with such a low chance. Generally, the person attempting it should know this; they are rolling the dice and hoping for luck to be on their side. 6-links are supposed to be a luxury item, something to aspire to in the long term, not something that everyone has.However, it does suck to fail when you feel you "should have" succeeded. There may be ways to alleviate this (note that guaranteeing a 6-link after X fuses is not the solution, because the value of X would have to be crazy high).We intentionally have map bosses with a mixture of difficulties, and we do want people to sometimes opt to skip some bosses. However, it is quite possible that some are not rewarding enough for their current power level. Of course, some people enjoy them for the sheer challenge...I could easily see buffs to certain map boss drop numbers at some point, though I don't think we'd do something as drastic as skewing it as much as you suggested.Yeah, personally I hate those. I understand that it's nostalgic for some, but really, they need to die in a fire. Hopefully, the upcoming improvements to trade will alleviate this... but I doubt it'll stop it happening completely. T_TTo an extent, yes. Do this too much and you'll start seeing monsters pop in as you get close to them. I would also like to see this fixed. Perhaps by enforcing a fixed aspect ratio of the viewable area (still allowing arbitrary window resizing, but putting black borders at the edges)...?Not that I'm aware of.Sometimes. But it's often better to make noticeable changes, rather than subtle ones, so you can feel the change (buff or nerf). Also, we tend to delay larger balance changes until the end of the current 4-month leagues, when tons of things are changed/added anyway.When we introduced the trigger gems, we knew they'd be scary and require further balancing down the road, because someone would find a way to break them. We're still on that road...Well, we want there to be some way to control the radius, and changing it based on gem level didn't seem right. Auras are supposed to promote party play, after all, where the radius matters.Mixed feelings, I guess. It would've been nice and clean to simply change all the existing items over at the time, but there were technical limitations stopping us (a long downtime of unknown length). It's not so bad having these "out-of-print" collector's items out there, though. If you compare them to a CCG like Magic: the Gathering, they're kinda like broken old cards from the past that are never reprinted, like Black Lotus or the Moxen. They, too, are quite valuable but cannot be used except in very specific formats of gameplay (Vintage tourneys/Standard league).Generally, things that make the game harder, not easier. The mods we apply to race leagues would be prime candidates, of course. But we'll probably have some more fancy/crazy things going on, too. We'll consider the requests people make in the Suggestions forum.Didn't Chris mention permanent Cutthroat for some point in the future? Also, custom leagues may well count. Kinda longer-term things, though. Not sure on the details.Mmm, not really, imho.Nope.jpgY'know, now that I look at it... the bottom of the ladder is still like level 81. That actually bothers me...We've considered making the game "pay-to-fish", where you buy extra lures and bait etc. to improve your catch.Well, there needs to be some kind of penalty to make people not want to die. We've already reduced the %EXP loss multiple times. If you have ideas for a better system, post them in the Suggestions forum.Well, you don't have to be able to steamroll endgame content in order to have fun with a build. You can have plenty of fun while you actually play through the game.That is... a really, really good question. Hmmm, I need to think about this.OK. Here are my thoughts on the matter:A game that is "hardcore" is one that "rewards investment"; this is a level of depth, and one that has multiple facets. Right now, I can think of four main aspects to it: time, knowledge, skill, and emotion.~Investment of Time~This is shallowest form of depth. Of hardcoreness, if that's a word? Players become invested by the sheer amount of time they have spent. They are rewarded for spending lots and lots of time playing the game. Often, their progress (whatever it is) is directly or indirectly a measure of hours played. Kill X goblins. Collect Y rocks. Accumulate Z experience points. If these tasks require "mindless grinding", then you are investing time when you complete them.Many MMOs exploit this, of course, requiring huge amounts of time investment in order to reach (and explore) the endgame. Some people love this; some people don't. Some people are proud of their progress, and boast to friends or fellow forum-goers of their time well-spent attaining virtual glory. They're flagrantly hardcore. Others view their progress as a thinly-veiled representation of all the time they've wasted on that stupid game. And some people do both.Path of Exile rewards time investment, as you've probably noticed. Of course it does. In fact, there are multiple ways in which it does. The most basic being is the XP/level grind. Just by looking at a character's level/XP, a savvy player can estimate the amount of time spent on it. But... even that most basic grind isn't so simple. When someone at the top of the ladder in Hardcore dies, they have to start again from scratch. Yet, the very same person who died at level 90 can come racing back to the top of the ladder (or near the top) again on a new character quite quickly. Clearly, they didn't spend the same amount of time grinding as before. There must be something more to it.Note that RNG-based systems fall into this category, because players must invest enough time to ride out streaks of bad luck in order find good luck. The randomness simply obscures the correlation to time spent and makes it more fun.~Investment of Knowledge~Another way to achieve depth and make a game hardcore is reward knowledge. This where players can progress, or progress much faster than normal, by acquiring knowledge about the game and its systems. Discovering shortcuts, synergies, combos, secret levels, etc. Whereas investment of time most often yields more progress and content, investment of knowledge often results in increased speed of progress.Another form of this is complexity. By offering up complex systems, players can invest knowledge and learn the optimal paths, the most efficient combinations of moves, etc. that may not be obvious at first glance, even if all the information is there.In Path of Exile, we have several such systems. The most immediate is the passive skill tree, which is notoriously overwhelming at first glance. It often takes people several characters before they learn how to build effectively for endgame. But we have other, more subtle systems in place, as well. The vendor recipes are a prime example. You can generate a great deal of currency by simply knowing about the GBR 3-link recipe that yields a Chromatic Orb, and regularly checking the shops for cheap equipment. Even subtler, is knowing the best places to grind EXP during a ladder rush. By investing in knowledge, by learning about the game, you can make more efficient progress and gain wealth.As another example, in a fighting game, you can look at the combo list, but you'll need to learn those combos off by heart if you want to become good at it. Or if you can't (or don't know to) look at the combo list, you'll be at a severe disadvantage compared someone who does know all the moves.Of course, simply knowing what the moves are isn't nearly enough. You need to be able to actually pull them off. You need skill.~Investment of Skill~Some games allow - or require! - an investment of skill. Fighting games, for example, require players to learn and master a variety of moves for every character, if they want to beat the game, or beat other players. This is closely tied to investment of knowledge, but is quite distinct because it is about learning not what to do, but how to do it. This often involves acquiring the muscle-memory to perform a quick sequence of actions, but it can also involve puzzle-solving techniques.Some puzzles are solved through knowledge, but some are solved through skill. Any puzzle that involves a random initial state will necessitate learning not the solution, but the method by which the solution is obtained. You may know how to solve Sudoku puzzles in general, but you may still struggle with a particularly difficult one. This is something of a grey area, I will admit, between knowledge and skill.Path of Exile rewards investment of skill. Some bosses require quick reflexes, or careful usage of projectiles or curses. Any monster with energy shield requires some skill, to not let it regenerate. Monsters with reflect auras often require a far more careful playstyle, and reward players (by not killing them) who carefully manage their damage output and healing. Using granite and ruby flasks at the right times is another example.And, of course, there are races. When players are competing with each other, skill is absolutely vital. Knowledge is, too, but skill is very important. Yes, there is randomness of drops, which are also vital, but that just means skill and knowledge are be-all and end-all. It gives those aren't the best of the best a fighting chance.~Investment of Emotion~So the last point I want to cover is regarding the investment of emotion. This one isn't exclusive to games; TV, movies, books, theatre, even music, they also take advantage of this. By having compelling characters and plotlines, interesting stories and worlds can draw in the audience - or the player, in the case of a game - and get them emotionally invested. This isn't necessarily hardcore, in and of itself, but it can be. Ohhhhh, it can be.Consider Trekkies, Bronies, Whovians, all the die-hard fans of Naruto, Spiderman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, the Beatles, Justin Bieber, Halo, Call of Duty, Diablo, etc. etc. Are they not hardcore? They're totally into their respective fandoms/cultures/cults, some beyond reason, even. They are all emotionally invested, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with them over the internet.Much more so than the others, emotional investment is its own reward. Some people like to mindless grind, to kill time. Some people love to learn about new things or master new skills. But everyone loves a good story. It's a great money-earner, too. By getting people emotionally invested in the story, it makes them want to finish the movie/book/game, and it makes them want to buy/play the (inevitable?) sequel.So with all that in mind, how could a game be hardcore because of emotional investment? Is it even possible to NOT reward emotional investment? You might cite Mass Effect 3, but even so, most people thought that game was great up until the ending. But therein lies the answer.Games that require emotional investment to the story are hardcore. What kind of game is that? Well, the immediate genre that springs to mind are Visual Novels. They're all about the story, the characters, the plot... literally! If you hate the story, you're not going to finish one of these games. Unless you're masochistically trying to prove something, I guess. The same goes for "movie games" such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. It isn't the tangible gameplay that makes you want to progress, is the story. If you love the story, you'll love the game and finish it. If not... you probably won't do either.Path of Exile is not terrible hardcore about the story. It is very easy to skip virtually all the NPC dialogue, and there are no cutscenes. There is actually quite a lot of backstory and so on scattered around, if you choose to look for it. Environmental lore, optional NPC dialogue, unique and quest item flavourtext. But this is something we are not "hardcore" about.So, that's four ways I can think of through which games can be hardcore. There may even be others. I think most hardcore games use a mixture of them, though. I know we do.Financial forecast is good. We're in this for the long haul, baby.Uh... I think I see where this line of questioning is going...It's natural for some people to grow tired of a game after a certain amount of time. Similarly, some will come back after a while to see how things have changed. And we'll be here for them.Hah. Better than how the wild, wild west (read: cesspool of trolls) it used to be was going.Well, you can beat the game with crap gear and good skills. NotRegret proved that by doing it only magic items.Yeah, we do focus on loot, I'll admit. It's just one of choices we made when we sat down to design the game. We aren't trying to copy Diablo 2 exactly, though. We took the bits we liked, from D2 and others, and combined everything into the most awesomest meatshake we could come up with. And of course it wasn't perfect; the first draft never is. So we tweak the recipe and we tweak it and we'll keep on tweaking it.Yeah... Figured this'd pop out at the end.PoE may not be the prettiest, most considerate baby on the planet, but it's our baby, and we will foster it the best we can and raise to be the best, meatiest meatshake it can be.Yes.Already do!Max left us to go back to Germany. He was only here on a working holiday.Er, yes. Hopefully.What. WHAT. You must be trolling. There are like 20+ GGG posts here every day, and I'm not counting Support. Reddit gets, what, three? If that?Also, please don't schedule the thread lock for during the middle the night, NZ time.Mmmkay, I didn't answer every question but fuck I've been at this for 7 hours now and it's past 3am so yeah bedtime for me. Hopefully I didn't just write anything completely stupid.P.S. please don't quote this entire frickin' post. It will be edited out. Code warrior