Oct 28, 2020

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

We were previously targeting a launch date of December 11 for our 3.13 end-game expansion. As we discussed last week, our new development methodology gives us confidence that we'd be able to hit this date with a high quality expansion. Yesterday, CD Projekt Red announced that Cyberpunk 2077 will now be released on December 10. We do not want to put our players in a position of having to choose between these two games, so we have decided to step out of the way and delay the release of Path of Exile 3.13 until January.

We still expect to finish 3.13 by early/mid-December. The scope of this expansion will remain unchanged. During the month of delay before release, we will start work on the 3.14 expansion.

So that you still have some interesting Path of Exile stuff to play over the Christmas/New Year break, we're planning to run at least one multi-week event (for example, Flashback). We'll confirm details of these event(s) once we have put together a plan.

While this delay will hopefully not affect our development schedule, it will probably cause our release schedule to change a little bit during 2021. We'll post details about this as soon as we have more information about these dates and when we'll be announcing 3.13.

In the meantime, let's all get out our Albino Rhoa Feathers and pray to Kuduku that they don't delay again.

Oct 25, 2020

Divination Card Stories - The Bitter Blossom

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

Over the years, many supporters have purchased the ability to design a Divination Card to make their mark on Path of Exile forever. We've heard a lot of stories behind the scenes about the meanings behind their designs and we wanted to share these with you. In the first of this series, we talked with ReignFreeze who designed The Bitter Blossom Divination Card to learn the story behind the design.

I joined the Path of Exile family in Closed Beta. I got my beta invite two days before my birthday in 2012 and I was pretty excited. I have always loved RPGs - I grew up with Diablo 1 and 2, HeXeN, Baldur's Gate, and many others. They had occupied my mind in a positive way that I'd never experienced with any other hobby before. Jumping into Path of Exile felt like coming home. There is a special place in my heart for the first time I defeated Merveil and entered the freshly created Act 2 for the first time, and who can forget the Piety-runs, trying to get the best bases we could back then. While the early days of the game may not hold a candle to where we are now, it's important to remember where we all came from and that initial love for the game.

Even 8 years ago, I knew I wanted to be part of the game. I didn't have the money to support the game with any of the packs so I tried to give it all the publicity I could. I would convince all my friends and colleagues to download it and play. I would talk about it on streams and podcasts, any time or place I got the chance. I played before I started college, all through my courses, and out the other side. I've worked hard to make a career that could allow me to afford luxuries that were only dreams of a kid with his eyes glued to the computer screen. I bought a few supporter packs here and there, with fun-money, and over the years it built up to a substantial collection. Ultimately, GGG reached out and offered me the opportunity to purchase a div card. I was ecstatic. I didn't even realize that this was still an option. I had always assumed that this ability, similar to the uniques, was tied to supporter packs that were no longer available. Unfortunately, I could not afford it at the time it was offered, as I ran into some minor health complications.

Every year, I would reach back out to GGG and see if I could still purchase the Divination Card and every year they would tell me yes. But things never quite lined up nicely. After a series of unfortunate events and setbacks, the stars finally aligned. We had had a vacation cancelled due to covid and my significant other told me that I should use the cash infusion to finally purchase the Divination Card for myself. It was a pretty welcome consolation prize. As I worked on what I would choose, I became more and more excited.

I love Magic: the Gathering, I love Death Guard (WH40k), and I love Path of Exile. This card would incorporate the theming of all three of my favourite things. The name, 'The Bitter Blossom' is obviously a reference to the classic Magic Card. The flavor of the gem choice and accompanying text is in reference to the Death Guard and specifically their "Feel no Pain" rule. And lastly, I get to be part of my favourite game forever with the creation of this card. I like the aspect of all three games that are grim and dark in nature. I wanted the art on the card to include some sort of flora growing out of a pustular demon and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

As for the reward itself, I was hoping to make a card that gives any random corrupted chaos gem at gem level 22, with no gem quality. I felt this would give chaos players, especially those with Essence Drain or Toxic Rain builds something to chase for to really push their damage to the limit. After discussing with GGG, we came to the conclusion that the card would instead give a level 21 gem with 23% quality as Divination Cards can't grant items that don't exist.

And lastly, in keeping with the theme, I wanted the number of cards to be a set or multiple of three. In MtG the three colour wedges are generally the most powerful while having the cost of spreading your deck much thinner across your land base. Additionally, in Death Guard, the main symbol is three decaying skulls and references to three appear numerous times throughout their lore. And lastly, it reminds of the launch of PoE's full release - three acts, three difficulties and late, three Ascendancies per class.

Now that my Divination Card is completed and released, I get to be part of my favourite game forever, and that's something pretty special. Good luck, have fun, don't die, exiles!

Oct 22, 2020

Hideout Competition

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

If you enjoy creating hideouts or have an interesting concept you'd like to recreate in Path of Exile, be sure to participate in our new hideout competition! The winners will be rewarded with awesome prizes, including physical items and lots of hideout decorations for further creations!

Prize Pool

Top Three Winners

Custom avatar of a portion of the hideout
Hideout Competition Winner Forum Badge
Your choice of two Path of Exile T-shirts - (Chaos Orb, Shaper, Untainted Paradise or Solaris/Lunaris)
Signed Brutus Art Print
Foam Exalted Orb
Your choice of a Hideout from the list below
Your choice of an Armour Set from the list below
Hideout Decorations: Celestial Tree Decoration, Arcane Throne, Huntsman Building Supplies x2, Mystic Building Supplies Decoration x2, Black Statue x2, White Statue x2, Water Elemental Hideout Decoration x3, Fire Ball Pet, Ice Ball Pet, White Crystal Decoration x2, Harlequin Apparition Environment Decoration, Ringmaster Fireworks Environment Decoration x2, Lightning Swarm Pet x2, Falling Leaves Decoration x5, Wide Light Beam Decoration x5
Hideout Bundle: Black Building Supplies x2, White Building Supplies x2, Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration x2, Wild Wind Effect x2, Oriath Citizen Decoration, Light Swarm Pet x2

4th - 5th Place

Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper, Untainted Paradise or Solaris/Lunaris)
Signed Brutus Art Print
Foam Exalted Orb
Your choice of an Armour Set from the list below
Hideout Decorations: Celestial Tree Decoration, Arcane Throne, Huntsman Building Supplies x2, Mystic Building Supplies Decoration x2, Black Statue x2, White Statue x2, Water Elemental Hideout Decoration x3, Fire Ball Pet, Ice Ball Pet, White Crystal Decoration x2, Harlequin Apparition Environment Decoration, Ringmaster Fireworks Environment Decoration x2, Lightning Swarm Pet x2, Falling Leaves Decoration x5, Wide Light Beam Decoration x5
Hideout Bundle: Black Building Supplies x2, White Building Supplies x2, Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration x2, Wild Wind Effect x2, Oriath Citizen Decoration, Light Swarm Pet x2

6th - 10th Place

Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper, Untainted Paradise or Solaris/Lunaris)
Your choice of an Armour Set from the list below
Hideout Decorations: Mystic Building Supplies Decoration x2, White Statue x2, Ice Ball Pet, White Crystal Decoration x2, Wide Light Beam Decoration x5
Hideout Bundle: Black Building Supplies x2, White Building Supplies x2, Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration x2, Wild Wind Effect x2, Oriath Citizen Decoration, Light Swarm Pet x2

11th - 30th Place

Hideout Bundle: Black Building Supplies x2, White Building Supplies x2, Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration x2, Wild Wind Effect x2, Oriath Citizen Decoration, Light Swarm Pet x2

Players who win a Hideout will be able to choose from the following list:

Players who win an Armour Set will be able to choose from the following list:

How to Enter

Pick a clear theme and create a hideout that clearly represents it. Post screenshots or a video in reply to this thread to enter. To submit a screenshot, just upload it to an image hosting site like imgur.com, copy the address of the uploaded image and post it in this thread using IMG tags.

Guidelines

Your hideout must be created after the release of the Heist expansion.
Hideouts that have previously been featured in the Hideout Showcase news series or submitted to the Hideout Showcase forum are not eligible for entry.
Your hideout must be your own work.
Your hideout must be safe to showcase (nothing lewd or offensive).
Submit your hideout from the account that the hideout is on. Please leave the hideout intact until the judging is complete, so that we can check it.
Multiple submissions are welcome and encouraged!

Competition Times

The competition starts at the time of this post and will end on Monday the 16th of November at 9am (NZT). We'll announce the winners sometime in the days following this date. Winners will be chosen based on creativity and how well they've represented their chosen theme. To keep it fair, we will be selecting a mixture of hideouts with hideout decoration microtransactions and those without.

Best of luck to everyone! We can't wait to see what you create.

Oct 21, 2020

Community Racing Event This Weekend

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

Community Race Organizers Brittleknee and Rex are teaming up to host an Alternate Start Duos event this weekend. It takes place over two days, where Day One is centred around strategy and preparation, and Day Two is the Alternate Start race itself. Racers will compete from A10 Kitava until they defeat Awakener at Awakening Level 5.

Day One: October 23rd: 9:00PM (PDT) (countdown available here)
Day Two: October 24th: 9:00PM (PDT) (countdown available here)

This race is open to all Qualified Racers in the PoECR Discord. To join the discord and learn more about the Qualification process, click here.

Rules and Information

Day One will begin with character creation.
Day One will end after five hours have elapsed.
Day One will be capped progression-wise before A10 Kitava.
Day One will be capped at 437 million experience. This is level 72, with approximately 10% completion towards level 73. If you go beyond this, you must regress back. Materials for Regressing will not be provided.
Day Two will begin with A10 Kitava at level ~ 72.
Day Two will end when five duos have defeated Awakener at Awakening Level 5.
You do not have to be in the boss Arena together unless you want to be.
Cull is permitted, but Ascendancies cannot be changed from initial Ascension.
If racers want to engage in normal Heist League content during race downtime, they will need to join the race under a racing account.
Profiles must be public for the account that racers are using in the event.
If an account is found to be online during downtime, if gear changes, or if XP changes, the duo will be disqualified.

Prize Pool

A $1000 cash prize pool is provided by Rex.

1st: 40%
2nd: 25%
3rd: 20%
4th: 10%
5th: 5%

Click here to find out more information about the rules or if you'd like to contribute to the event.

While this is not an officially supported event, we're pleased to encourage the community to run events and engage in the competitive side of Path of Exile! Good luck to everyone participating!

Oct 20, 2020

How We're Developing Our Next Expansion Differently

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

This year has been tough for our team and has thrown a lot of unexpected challenges at us. This has caused us to adjust how we're developing Path of Exile, which will affect what's happening with our December expansion. We want to let you know what to expect and this post covers that in more detail.

From Path of Exile's release in 2013 until late 2015, we struggled to grow the community and were getting worried as the game's popularity started to slowly decline. We tried releases of many different sizes and cadences, before eventually settling into a 13-week cycle with the launch of Talisman in December 2015. Since then, we have developed 19 leagues with this cadence and had a lot of success with it. Path of Exile grew exponentially and allowed us to put even more content into each expansion to meet the expectations of our growing community. Chris even presented a GDC Talk on this process, which was very well-received within the gamedev industry. He still receives mail every week from developers at other studios who feel that the talk was of great value for their teams. Things were going well and we thought we knew exactly what we were doing.

Then 2020 hit and exposed just how vulnerable our development process was to unexpected events. To some extent, we were lucky that a black swan event (such as a key team member leaving) hadn't caused similar disruption to our schedule before this. We want to preface this by saying that the government-mandated lockdowns were not the root cause of the issues, but they had a significant impact and added to an already high-pressure situation. Due to the way we've been developing expansions, we had almost no wiggle room to manage the additional overheads of lockdown. Even under normal circumstances, some expansions were coming in quite close to the wire. There is a reasonable chance that we may experience another lockdown, or some other unforeseen event that adds extra pressure and we need to create a development plan that has enough breathing room to allow that to happen. After two lockdowns, we delayed Heist's release by a week and it was still not enough to mitigate the combination of constrained resources and ambitious development scope, as Heist was by far the highest-content league in PoE's history. (Adding to this pressure, our country's borders are closed which means our international hiring is frozen for the foreseeable future).

Which leads to the next issue - regardless of how difficult pandemic pressures make development, it's genuinely hard to scope out how long a Path of Exile expansion will take to develop. Some systems that appear easy to create end up taking several iterations to get right. Conversely, some things that felt like they'd be really hard just come together quickly and work the first time. Usually these over- and under-estimates average out during the development of an expansion, but sometimes you get ones that are developed a lot faster (Legion) or slower (Delve) than usual. If you categorise Path of Exile releases into the "good" and "bad" ones, you see a clear pattern of times when development took less (or more) time than expected. This shows that correct scoping and risk mitigation is critical to ensuring a good Path of Exile launch.

Another important topic to discuss is that of Feature Creep. This is when the featureset of a piece of software gradually increases over time as developers think of more cool stuff to add, eventually causing production problems. This is a somewhat common problem in software development (for example, there's a boss in Diablo II called Creeping Feature as a nod to this, over 20 years ago). While Feature Creep sounds like a terrible thing, it can often be great for making a game feel special. A lot of the stuff that makes Path of Exile special was added because a developer thought of something cool and worked hard to squeeze it in a specific release. While Feature Creep can wreak havoc on a schedule (and hence the overall quality of an expansion at launch), it's also important to make sure that developers have a way to still add those special touches that make the game feel like it has endless stuff to discover. We feel that this is best done in the planning phase rather than late in development when such changes can affect the quality of release.

Late in Heist's development cycle, we had a serious internal discussion about how we could restructure our development process so that subsequent expansions are less risky. This discussion resulted in an experiment that we decided to carry out for the next three month cycle.

We have defined a very specific scope for December's 3.13 expansion. It contains everything that a large Path of Exile expansion needs, but no more. Chris is personally handling the production of this expansion to make sure that no work creeps in that isn't in the planned scope. The schedule that we will hopefully achieve with this approach will likely have everything quite playable and ready for gameplay iteration before our marketing deadline, and in a very stable and polished state by the time it is released.

The positive consequences of this experiment are clear: if it succeeds, we'll be able to deliver 3.13 on-time, with a strong stable launch, plenty of gameplay iteration and solid testing of features. If this experiment works as we expect it to, we'll be able to continue using it for future expansions which will allow us to continue with our 13-week expansion cycle, which we strongly feel is best for the continued growth and long-term health of Path of Exile in the period before Path of Exile 2 is released.

This experiment comes with some side effects, however. You'll definitely notice that the patch notes are much, much shorter than they usually are. That's because we're focusing on getting the most important changes done, and doing them well. We're aiming to try to fit the patch notes on just a few pages, if we can manage it. This does mean that we have had to be careful to pick our battles though - the balance changes we are doing have been carefully chosen to have the largest impact and fix real problems. It's also likely that we'll front-load the announcement to have more of the expansion's contents revealed at once, reducing the number of small teasers we post in the weeks following announcement.

Our goal is that 3.13 takes 50% of the overall development hours of Heist (which means going from a situation with overtime to a situation with testing time), and yet feels like a large December expansion. If you're interested, it's an Atlas expansion (like War or Conquerors) with an in-area combat league and a few other bits and pieces. We'll also be announcing it in a slightly different way than we usually do. Stay tuned!