Supporter newsletter 58

Issue
This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #58, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hello Supporters,

We have had Nick with us since midway through February, so I don’t get to call him our new designer anymore. He is now working through the supporter unique items, and has been learning about the process and communicating with many of you.

We have been discussing how we can improve this process, and I’ve asked him to write a few word about it. - Carl

Making Your Unique

One of the things we sell from time to time to our users is the ability to design a unique item with us for addition to Path of Exile. It's a great feature that we love working on, since it lets you guys put a piece of yourselves in the game, and often we find ourselves inspired by your ideas. The end result can be a fantastic item, as so many of our uniques show. But it's also currently a very time consuming process, which can wear both sides down if not handled correctly.

One of the primary reasons it can take so long is that some supporters tend to approach the unique from the perspective of a high-level, highly-experienced players, who—understandably—take this opportunity to build a custom upgrade for their main character to work towards. What that often means is that we're sent a list of stats with values that, often, suit a very particular build. As I’m sure many of you can attest, we often then work backwards, finding the core of the item, isolating it, and then rebuilding it from there.

As designers, we need to put the health of Path of Exile ahead of basically everything, and this sometimes means turning down or changing supporter ideas to benefit the game more broadly. Balancing an item is not simply a case of ensuring it’s not over or under-powered. We want uniques to be exciting for as many people as possible, and help enable players to build their characters in a few ways, while not being the absolute strongest items available for that slot. This often means quite a lot of back-and-forth between supporters and our design team to find a happy middle ground, which can take a while.

We've also got some internal speedbumps that can extend the amount of time it takes to get a unique in the game, which we're currently in the process of smoothing out. The process from item concept to implementation to art is becoming more fluid, and rather than trying to juggle the multitudes of items we have backlogged, we're approaching them in a more direct manner and aiming to put them in the patch after they're ready.

In the meantime, if you've got a custom unique purchase you want to cash in and don't want to wait potentially many months to see it implemented, here's what you can do:


 * Approach the process with a concept in mind, rather than an entire, fleshed-out item: Often, because we have some knowledge of what future content holds (including other uniques), we have to reject certain items because they could become broken or overpowered within a couple patches.


 * Try to unify the concept with the flavour: Another reason we prefer a concept over a list of stats is because a high-crit-multi, high-attack-speed, high-base-damage bow doesn't conjure as strong a visual image or flavour as a shield that regenerates you on low health.


 * Think about how you want to use your item: We love items that put new twists on old skills, or change the way you might play your character. Sunblast is a really awesome example. Try to avoid building your concept around another unique, because it becomes less exciting as a player to get an item that only becomes useful after you get another totally separate, very rare, item.

We know that getting your unique into the game can take a while. We are working hard to speed the process up. Having exciting, flavourful supporter uniques consistently added in patches is something we want. With our internal changes, and your help, I think we can make the unique item creation process faster, smoother and, ultimately, more fruitful.

-Nick

Insider Info

This weeks insider info is some very early concept art of the login screen and character select screen.

What I found interesting about this is the character select screen showed the Shadow, but not the Duelist. The Shadow was added in Closed Beta well after the Duelist was in the game.

http://i.imgur.com/9V82uuv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rjmzfyd.jpg