PoE and PoE 2 players are „fighting a civil war,” but devs say both games can thrive together
The director of Path of Exile talked a bit about working on two games simultaneously. He stressed that PoE 1 and PoE 2 are intentionally so different from each other, and that the philosophy of one will never permeate the other.
The first Path of Exile will receive a new league today, almost a year after the start of the previous one. Grinding Gear Games studio has been focusing on Path of Exile 2 all this time, which is why we had to wait so long. PCGamesN recently conducted a conversation with the series director, Mark Roberts, about working on two games simultaneously.
Coexistence of PoE 1 and PoE 2
With the release of Secrets of the Atlas, GGG will introduce a new publishing schedule, planning to release a major update for both games every four months. As a result, franchise fans will receive new content every two months. Roberts admits that he is happy to return to this routine.
Our comfort zone is working in these three-to-four month intervals, because I know exactly what can be made in three months.
He also admitted that the studio underestimated the time needed to create new content for the release of PoE 2. This is because it's a completely different process than updating leagues, which they used to do in PoE 1. Roberts believes that the team is capable of supporting both games at the same time. This is facilitated by the fact that GGG no longer rigidly divides employees between projects but instead flexibly moves them where they are needed.
We're finding it's the change we made that's actually the solution. I know it has its downsides, but it's the thing that is allowing us to have a team that understands both games.
He also emphasized that the philosophies of both games significantly differ from each other. Although they have the same name, they are essentially two different titles. He considered the development of PoE 1 with the players who have supported it for the last decade as "critical," while PoE 2 was designed to attract a new audience.
I 100% want to make sure that the philosophy of one game doesn't bleed into the other. The core pillars are still the same, but the amount of items dropping, the balance, it's all very fundamentally different between PoE 1 and 2, and it's very important that we keep that.
What's interesting, this approach often causes friction between two groups of players - some fans of PoE 1 don't like the changes in PoE 2, and vice versa. GGG of course notices these tensions, but tries to satisfy both groups.
We have two audiences, and honestly those audiences are at civil war with each other here and there - we have to make sure we honor those audiences.
Some new features from Secrets of the Atlas
The day before the start of the Secrets of the Atlas league, the developers presented more new features. The update will bring not only new skill variations available only through mercenaries, but also update many existing skills in the game. That's why GGG has prepared a full schedule of them so that players can plan their builds in advance. You will find it on the game official website.
The patch 3.26 change log has been updated with some new entries, the most important ones being related to the Recombinator mechanics and rewards from Sanctum.
- Recombinator - when using the "Unpredictable Recombination" mode, we will usually get items with fewer good modifiers if the input items have unusual bonuses (e.g., those originating from Essence).
- Sanctum - the chance of receiving a reward in the form of very valuable currency has been reduced, and on the third floor, they don't appear in stacks larger than one. The problem was that finishing Sanctum was too easy considering the rewards it offered.
Secrets of the Atlas will start tomorrow at 01:00 pm PT.
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Author: Martin Bukowski
Graduate of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Gdańsk University of Technology, who decided to dedicate his life to video games. In his childhood, he would get lost in the Gothic's Valley of Mines and "grind for gold" in League of Legends. Twenty years later, games still entertain him just as much. Today, he considers the Persona series and soulslike titles from From Software as his favorite games. He avoids consoles, and a special place in his heart is reserved for PC. In his spare time, he works as a translator, is creating his first game, or spends time watching movies and series (mainly animated ones).
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