A couple of weeks ago I made a video on ways that LE could fail. One thing I didn’t talk about was snapshotting, and honestly, it deserves its own video…so here it is. Would love to get your thoughts as well 
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TLDR Big problem, should get fixed asap.
Yep, extremely important topic that definitely needs to be discussed and i’m glad you brought it up.
I can only speak for myself, the events that i organized for the german community and watching visions tourney/lizard and several others taking advantage of it because you mentioned him in the video.
I haven’t watched the full 20 min but i skipped to all your timestamps and listened to all your points i agreed with 100%.
Personally: I absolutely hate it, and it’s not fun to use. It destroys class fantasy/identity for me. I think there is nothing more i have to add.
For the Vision tourney i watched:
I completely understand the standpoint of Lizard that he used the mechanic because he is a competitive player and wants to win. I’m a competitive player and want to win aswell. It’s not a players fault in this position. Competitive gameplay is currently in a very bad position with things like Snapshotting/Cheating in general that we can see in the ladder.
The problem is that Lizard is one of the most popular streamers for LE and by using snapshotting publicly he definitely gave snapshotting more attention to the devs (which is good) but also brought up a bad light on the game at the same moment. Especially during a time where alot of new players are coming to the game (poe downtime). So they see this mechanic and think: ‘‘Well shit, what an unoptimized game, i can cheat/do whatever i want’’
If you let people begin with shit like that, they will try to continue this in the future.
The sooner you set a good example, the sooner you will reach a lasting good and fair community.
So basically what i wanna say is that i hoped that Lizard could have just contacted the devs directly by saying: Guys, look, do something against that shit, it can destroy my and your reputation, i’m forced to do this if i wanna be rank 1 again, and thats what im known for and thats why people watch my stream.’’ (Maybe he did)
He could have also said to his viewers: ‘‘Guys fuck it, i’m not using this stupid snapshot and will show you that i can beat you without it/let’s play honest and fair and don’t take advantage over things that should not be in the game’’. (I would have prefered this way)
So again, it’s not Lizards fault and i understand his standpoint because as you mentioned in the video McFluffin ‘‘he just wants to be competitive…he has no option here…he has to use them or he has to not be as competitive…there should not be a choice…’’. It was just sad to see that someone like tyty probably also used it because lizard used it while his PoE viewers can watch how he is basically ‘‘cheating’’. And that’s why snapshotting got more attention lately. I hope i didn’t say anything wrong here @LizardIRL about what happened so you can correct me, but thats just how i experienced the whole snapshotting thing lately.
1 week after the Vision Tourney i organized a druid event aswell. I gave the participants a big build freedom to use. But i immediatly got PM’s asking me if they can use this build. And with ‘‘this build’’ they were talking about werebear snapshotting.
I couldn’t tell them to not use it because it’s hard to check what people are exactly playing (btw we were not only doing arena pushes). So basically i told everyone to PLEASE NOT take advantage of current snapshot problems, in particular EQ werebear.
The cool thing was, that we had a huge build variety at the end which was awesome to see within the community. But it felt weird to ban people from something they WANT to play.
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I hate snapshoting.
I say it publicly all the time.
I have used it because its, sadly, part of the game and its my job to play the game in its current state. Its the devs responsability to polish it. If they are scared of the image it gives to the game, fix it, its been here for years.
Now that said, I have never used snapshoted that makes builds work. You can not use it and not much will change.
There is no need to snapshot EQ bear (You just get 15 points free from shaman to get more stuff in druid). There is also no need to snapshot AoD as a lich (It mainly just makes it convinient to not wait for reaper cooldown and therefore less annoying to play/watch).
The builds or the pushes do not need snapshot, but as this point is part of the game, when they remove it, the builds will have the same power IMO.
Hopefully people pointing it out and “exposing” it will “force” devs to adress it asap.
Im sure it will get fixed eventually!
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This.
It also kind of break the immersion. If I’m snapshoting, I’m in a game, I’m not living a Fantasy story.
I understand competitive players who use it while it’s here, but it should be removed from the game as soon as possible!
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I’ve just realized that we have had a pretty big miscommunication with you all and that’s on me. So, I’m sorry.
When I was talking about snapshotting, I was referring directly to minions keeping stats when you change gear. I wasn’t considering things like being able to pull AoD off your bar, keeping EQ spec’d after you pull your passives out and the mana gain in werebear from Kermode’s Cage.
These are different issues, some with systematic changes, others with specific skill fixes. Right now in early access we’re focusing more heavily on completing core features such as multiplayer. However, we understand how important of a topic this is to many players, and as such we are discussing strategies for how to resolve these snapshotting issues and hope to fix as many of them as possible within the next few patches.
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I’m really glad the discussion is uncovering some misunderstanding between the community and the devs, as well as hearing that their are plans to fix some of these issues soon!
And as always Mike, thanks for replying and just generally keeping in contact with the community. It makes a world of difference to the community when our concerns are addressed. 
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Well dev responded. Must have hit a nerve with such a glaring problem.
So basically tiny fixes till MP who knows when, so you can continue enjoying snapshoting for now =)
I am glad about this - not just because of snapshotting itself.
But because to prevent snapshotting is to allow other cool things in the game, such as temporary buffs to minion damage(which cannot happen if minion damage only applies on summon).
I posted about it 1.5 years ago and thought it was a huge issue, nothing was ever done, its weird because some skills ie Dreadshade do not snapshot they are dynamic but many other things are such as casting 20 stacks of Maelstrom then transforming into Bear gives no damage bonus as far as im aware so the skills arent created equally
I discovered the Aura of Decay idol snapshot a long time ago and was horrified it existed then all I could think of was how to abuse it then ultimately stopped playing Lich for a while, then found the Legacy Forest belt snapshot on Spriggan, then I found out minions snapshot. I think I stopped playing for a while
Hmm I and others ie Llama have mentioned about snapshotting numerous times in threads and the devs have never commented once prior ive seen, the feeling I get is the devs never cared at all about it because only a few players understand it, its an embarassment to the game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaBsJT85c4Q - this is when GGG removed snapshotting from PoE - theirs was a hugely complex respec summoning minions with mines/traps etc took 10+ minutes each zone
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This Snapshotting should be removed from the game and should be a priority imho based on videos I’ve seen from McFluffin and examples others have mentioned in this thread and elsewhere. It really doesn’t offer a fair playing field to players, and basically throws a middle finger to the people who have taken the time to develop classes/builds that are supposed to have their intended functionality work within the various means that have been offered to us to make the builds stronger (i.e. blessings, gear, idols, skill tree/passive skill trees). It just seems to me that snapshotting is one of those anomalies that slipped through the cracks, but doesn’t seem to be of enough importance for the dev team to nail down as part of the integral foundation for a solid and ethical game to eventually launch since it has obviously been a problem for some time now. With MP coming on the horizon, this should finally get the attention it deserves to solidify an equal playing field for all who just wish to make good builds and FAIRLY compete on the ladders and such, and if this isn’t fixed by then, well, then that will be something of a failure because by then, the look of this won’t be good for long-term growth, especially if it still is around at launching 1.00, as it will be become one of those all-time favorite aRPG memes in the gaming industry, in which history and the world will know what elephant in the room killed this games’ true potential success and growth when players can simply swap out gears/skills on the skill bar, and even passive points to manipulate the functionality and integrity of their builds to meet their every need/situation in future content. It just has got to go like NOW.
I agree heavily that snapshotting should be removed. Mostly because it gives ”wrong taste” and gives wrong ’image’ how builds work in LE. If you think that even nerfs can make people so upset because their favorite build was ”ruined” how about when multiple builds we’re ” not intended to work like that”.
Mostly because the goal is make your character / Build stronger and it feels good when you can smash mobs better and better. Now you use this snapshot and your build goes another lvl of power.
Even now i play with my own builds and i’ve seen they doesnt compete ’S-tier’ builds which are created by our community, been thinking ” okay cool, i have much to discover and improve” BUT now i have my suspicion how many builds are exploited?
Thanks @McFluffin for the video and detailed explanation about this.
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My two cents: all the forms of snapshotting mentioned on the video shouldn’t exist. I don’t see them as such a big issue, still, and issue to be dealt with.
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In the competitive scene you are pretty much forced to use them as they are part of the game.
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The add absolutely nothing of value, all of them are minor allowed exploits that are part of the game at current state.
There’s two easy solutions that EHG could implement with very light development cost.
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When you change any gear item: all summons are disbanded and all passives and auras in motion get stopped and reset. Not the best overall solution, but easy enough to implement. We are already dealing some of that when you unequip any +Level to skill gear. At current state the optimal way to play with summons is to have backup summoning gear in you inventory.
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When you respec points and any skill you invested levels in would be greyed out due to not meeting the requirements, an alert window should warn you if you proceed the skill would be un-invested and no longer accessible, and proceed to do so if you confirm.
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