Dear Rory

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grepman написал:

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RogueMage написал:

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grepman написал:

so, you might want to consider educating yourself on how software development process works, since you already have the eloquent speech part down.

No thanks, retired from a 30-year career in that industry five years ago, hence my affectionate regard for the "technical point of view".

well if you were a dev for 30 years since before 1985, then it really baffles me how you consider changing a few constants a 'major update'.

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grepman написал:

...as far as I understand, the balance team actually does not do much testing themselves, period. that is mostly reserved to QA

...all these changes are 'design' changes and all of them involve purely changing numbers. for the 'testing' part all you need is an aura calculator. this is part of design. there is nothing really to 'test' in the traditional sense.

I don't know what kind of connection you may have with GGG or the game industry, but this kind of incoherent babble makes you sound like a dilettante. I worked as a software engineer on dozens of projects, for publishers ranging from EA to Sega. In every case, the role of the QA department was well defined and consistent, and had nothing to do with speculative game balance evaluation. QA's role was to methodically verify the integrity of each build via regression testing against a networked bug database. It didn't make any difference whether an update was numbered in the major or minor digits, if there were any changes at all, the entire build was subjected to the complete suite of regression tests before it was certified for release. Those crashes that occurred with the last Closed Beta update? That's what QA is responsible for, and in GGG's case, it's been commendably rare for a flaw like that to slip past their QA process.

As for your puerile claim that GGG's balance team were "purely changing numbers", I can't believe you'd think we're naive enough to buy such bullshit. It's inconceivable GGG would completely nullify Reduced Mana's long-standing effect on mana reservation without serious internal discussion and evaluation beforehand, gauging its ramifications for aura stacking and the wide range of builds that would impact. The notion that they'd make a dramatic move like that with a casual stroke of a pen after crunching some numbers on a spreadsheet is ludicrous. It's a blatant heads up warning shot, no doubt foreshadowing the imminent approach of even more extensive balance changes to come.

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RogueMage написал:

It's a blatant heads up warning shot, no doubt foreshadowing the imminent approach of even more extensive balance changes to come.

Something like the leech rework, maybe? Damn, that one will be FUN when it hits, you ain't seen nothing yet, Jon Snow.

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* Life and mana leech supports reborn as 'reduced requirements' and 'light radius on hit'.
* Empower and Enhance reworked to life and mana leech.
* No leeching from unique enemies and bosses, leech at half rate from rares and blues.

nm

Does it really matter if a dev plays the game? I mean really? Because he makes decisions based on the long term success of the game, not on the short term bitching of a few people. Suppose you find out he did play the game and still made the same choice about RM. Are you all going to quit bitching about it? No? Then it doesn't really matter if he plays or not. He still gets the same feedback from people seeing one change out of context (ie without seeing the full set of changes at release). So it really doesn't make any difference whether he plays or not.

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RogueMage написал:

I don't know what kind of connection you may have with GGG or the game industry, but this kind of incoherent babble makes you sound like a dilettante. I worked as a software engineer on dozens of projects, for publishers ranging from EA to Sega. In every case, the role of the QA department was well defined and consistent, and had nothing to do with speculative game balance evaluation. QA's role was to methodically verify the integrity of each build via regression testing against a networked bug database. It didn't make any difference whether an update was numbered in the major or minor digits, if there were any changes at all, the entire build was subjected to the complete suite of regression tests before it was certified for release. Those crashes that occurred with the last Closed Beta update? That's what QA is responsible for, and in GGG's case, it's been commendably rare for a flaw like that to slip past their QA process.

As for your puerile claim that GGG's balance team were "purely changing numbers", I can't believe you'd think we're naive enough to buy such bullshit. It's inconceivable GGG would completely nullify Reduced Mana's long-standing effect on mana reservation without serious internal discussion and evaluation beforehand, gauging its ramifications for aura stacking and the wide range of builds that would impact. The notion that they'd make a dramatic move like that with a casual stroke of a pen after crunching some numbers on a spreadsheet is ludicrous. It's a blatant heads up warning shot, no doubt foreshadowing the imminent approach of even more extensive balance changes to come.

I like how all the GGG fanboys were riding me because I basically flat out said that people who were skeptical of the new expansion have the right to be skeptical because of GGG's past history. This entire beta is just preaching to the choir at this point. It's obvious that GGG doesn't test any of their shit, nor are they even in touch with their own game at this point.

And here we have a software engineer basically saying that GGG is doing the same shit I claimed that they always do nearly every major expansion. Basically never test their shit.

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mark1030 написал:

Does it really matter if a dev plays the game? I mean really? Because he makes decisions based on the long term success of the game, not on the short term bitching of a few people. Suppose you find out he did play the game and still made the same choice about RM. Are you all going to quit bitching about it? No? Then it doesn't really matter if he plays or not. He still gets the same feedback from people seeing one change out of context (ie without seeing the full set of changes at release). So it really doesn't make any difference whether he plays or not.

It kind of does matter. For your QA guy to not play the game at all is a bad sign. QA should know the ins and outs of the game, at least on par with a high level player. The fact that he hardly plays at all (or not at all) actually means he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, he's just making changes based on numbers.

This change for example is a sign of number crunching. The issue isn't that everyone was using RM. The issue is that auras are simply way too fucking good. Removal of RM etc. is just simply a crutch change. Auras just need to be reworked in general (especially since they scale way too strong into endgame scenarios, resulting in the 'stack as many auras' late game meta that everyone has).

I am a little bit upset about what this post has become.

Rory is doing an amazing job for all those years of PoE as i would consider it. Sure not everything he has done was/is perfectly balanced an fun for everyone but he tries really hard in making changes to keep the game fresh.

Just look at the amazing rework of multiple sections in the passive tree he has done in the past (sure this was a team effort, but Rory was mainly responsible for and supervising it). Before Rory took over Carl managed the passive tree an he also did great in my opinion (secretly i wish that Carl comes back working on the tree because some of the changes made by him were simply awesome at the time and very inovativ - shoutout to Carl!)


Regardless of what people are saying and ranting about what is currently going on in beta. I think Rory is on the right way with his major changes which people are trying out in beta currently. The EB change and the Reduced Mana/Aura change were radical but in some kind of form needed to create a new and different player experience and a new meta game.
Also monster balancing was very radical too - many monsters got a lot stronger and have a much larger HP pool. Skills got rebalanced drastically, prolif got nerfed into the ground and several playstyls got directly and indirectly buffed...

So much things are happening at the moment and it is going to be great.


@Rory + the whole Balancing team
If you read this - don't be hasitant with major balancing changes if you think (after beta testing and analysis) they are good for the game over all. Don't be intimidated by players ranting and bitching around about what you have done to there precious game. You all are doing great work and we all support you in everything you are doing to make PoE, which is already a great game, an even better game that it is now.

Keep up the good work! I am looking foreward to the release of The Awakaning Expansion, regardless of all the balancing changes, buffs and nerfs that will come - and i garantee you that i will enjoy it regardless if the upcoming expension will destroy all my builds in permanent leagues ;-)

It is very common for a department head, etc to focus on managing people and/or programs which do the work, instead of directly doing the work.

But this doesn't mean "I haven't played it myself" is anywhere near a good excuse. As a top man he should have been well-informed enough to give the appearance of having played it himself.

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ScrotieMcB написал:

It is very common for a department head, etc to focus on managing people and/or programs which do the work, instead of directly doing the work.

But this doesn't mean "I haven't played it myself" is anywhere near a good excuse. As a top man he should have been well-informed enough to give the appearance of having played it himself.

Head QA balancers of every major video game have extensive playtime. All balance changes in a game like Dota or Riot for example are done by their QA testers who although aren't on the level of professional players, would wipe the floor with 99% of the population.

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allbusiness написал:

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ScrotieMcB написал:

It is very common for a department head, etc to focus on managing people and/or programs which do the work, instead of directly doing the work.

But this doesn't mean "I haven't played it myself" is anywhere near a good excuse. As a top man he should have been well-informed enough to give the appearance of having played it himself.

Head QA balancers of every major video game have extensive playtime. All balance changes in a game like Dota or Riot for example are done by their QA testers who although aren't on the level of professional players, would wipe the floor with 99% of the population.

Chris Wilson probably could outplay at least 70%.

But that isn't the point. What you view as a mandatory model is an optional one. What is important at the end of the day is access to knowledge and experience, regardless of whether it is direct or second-hand. There is such a thing as good, second-hand information.

I mean, I've watched various people stream PoE far more than I've actually played PoE. But I had my eyes open, so I noticed things.

I kind of agree with you that GGG haven't been in touch with their own game. But some beta decisions indicate they've made at least limited progress in getting in touch with people who are in touch with it.

Where is the QA with Rory so we can see these heinous statements he made? All I found was some with Chris, but they were quite long so I didn't watch to see if Rory made an appearance.