No Alpha tests happened before 2010, it wasn’t announced before to even exist. All of that stuff was purely internal between the few people who designed it back then. And GGG also didn’t do a kickstarter providing them with 255k, they got funded solely during the open-alpha when people played the game and saw the design was well done already.
You mean specifically David Brevik? He was a consultant for the chinese market launch.
He was not a dev for PoE. That’s a wide misconception.
And yes, GGG launched with a starved market, which was specifically the reason they made their game. They saw ‘nobody is making a game in the ARPG genre and it’s utterly stagnating’ and went into it.
They had nothing to go off from with the majority of their designs. The end-game system? New concept entirely at that time, which meant they got it fairly wrong at the start before releasing the Atlas in 2016. Before that the game had the so called ‘Maelstrom of Chaos’ which is similarly bad designed then EHG’s end-game mechanic currently is. The exact same scaling issues with overextension from zero meaningful consequences of death. Which was the reasoning why the ‘map items’ were introduced after all and are upholding until today.
They are trailblazers for the modern end-game mechanics of ARPGs.
They also had the rival when D3 released, though it went into the still upholding meme of ‘Diablo bad, PoE good’ nowadays. Luckily for them.
Now let’s compare it to EHG, shall we?
Garage developers basically, much like initially the owners of GGG were, though with worse connections definitely, gonna give em that part as leeway.
In an environment which has a distinct ongoing satiation of the genre, hence only a possibility for a partial success possible. PoE was and still is going strong, unlike the void of no releases since 10 years since conception they have to contend with competitors, knowing full well what the market situation was when they started.
They ignored to do proper research into the game mechanics they released, specifically in terms of end-game mechanics, which is why it’s in such a weak state. EHG basically copied the early shortcomings of PoE’s end-game while also not using the online available developer content to learn from the experience of developers in the genre properly.
Specifically solely on on ZiggyD’s Youtube channel there’s a total of currently 65 ‘State of Exile’ videos released which is a Podcast about the game-design of PoE solely. A large portion of those direct interviews with the GGG developers about their design choices and reasonings.
There’s also a large amount of devtalks available from their ExileCon, specifically about procedural world generation, storytelling, the renderer, world-building, and some more.
Then there’s also dev-talks available about design choices with D3 creators comparatively, showcasing the good and the bad.
And despite that trailblazing done by other companies showcasing a myriad of the downfalls and issues the genre goes through they haven’t done their due research.
It’s over 250 hours purely about dev-talks for design available online for the ARPG genre, where each single one of the large core issues EHG currently struggles with are pointed out specifically even.
Others did they work already, they only had to note down every single piece of that information and then cross-reference if it’s one of the topics before their choice of design. It’s simply inexcusable.
If you’re in any professional environment then you get to know your stuff first and then act on it. You learn first and then you make a product.
If you’ve never learned carpentry and don’t look at carpentry methodology and proper design of furniture for example… and you make products which start to twits and warp over a year of ownership or even fall apart entirely because of it then it’s your own fault for struggling to stay on the market. Ignored the pre-existing knowledge built up from the ones before you.
While GGG’s acquisition from Tencent - a by then already known ‘hands off company’ which doesn’t interfere in extremely major ways - was still causing uproar back then it was also a fully understandable decision.
It’s also understandable from the spandpoint of EHG, 100%! Just that their choice has been one of the most controversial and hated publishers on the market in a timeframe which unlike GGG’s acquisition has showcased a general hate towards publishing in general.
It’s a bit of a different situation entirely there.
Oh, absolutely, nothing wrong with enjoying it!
Just annoying that its potential is not even remotely fulfilled, despite severely needing that to at least be at a certain degree.
And I’m not speaking out against them trying to fix their game, quite the contrary… but don’t you think hiring people during a time the company struggles, is overbloated and their content pipeline is not optimized at all is the right move?
‘Shove more cooks at the station!’ leads to solely a ruined meal as everyone gets in the way of the other… unless you got a smooth system set up which makes them exactly not do that.
As usually ‘right thing at the wrong time’ situation.
And that is fine! I’m here because of that. Another take on time-travel stories, albeit sadly middling executed. Some interesting mechanics otherwise not seen, decent graphics and the core combat mechanics are after all solid.
It’s all the stuff building up on those things which are… not so great though. The itemization with the Affix disaprity leads to - as we can see - outrageous power creep. The stronger the difference between the upper tiers of Affixes the more creep happens unless acquisition becomes so rare that it feels like nothing progresses until it suddenly ‘hits as a jackpot’. So EHG is in trouble there already.
That makes implementations and balancing a nightmare.
Their economic knowledge also is zero, base rules of economics meant.
They prematurely released and now struggle to even get the game into a worthy 1.0 state… but now need to work on cycle mechanics on top of fixing that since it’s the market expectation and it comes tumbling down otherwise.
EHG simply got too greedy instead of following the ‘slow and steady’ approach which was disgruntling some… sure… but is a known success method.
Never buy into promises as a customer. Only buy into results. The only thing I’m mentioning there. Too many low quality products have gotten too much money and hence that cycle gets repeated because of that.
Provide a showcase, let people give you money according to that showcase… go from there. Slower by far but eh… better 1 great product that can be played for years without growing utterly tired of it… simply because it’s just good… rather then 10 products where you’re unhappy with all of em.
Oh… sure, because of the acquisition that’s a given, 1.4 is their literal last chance. They had 1.2 already for a ‘make or break’ scenario… and they pulled half-way decently through. It wasn’t great… but it wasn’t awful either. In 1.4 though? That’s a major turning point of ‘Has the Krafton acquisition caused quick enough changes or is it just all the same?’. Because if it goes on like it has they’re goners.
Which could actually severely impact the game in a positive way. The seemingly ‘free’ but in reality quite railroaded progression is one of the major downsides of the game currently. More variety would change the perception of the situation substantially I think.
So I hope this becomes reality.
Not really? I bought into this game knowing exactly well what it is for. A more casual ARPG then PoE, one where I can progress with less hurdles and in a smoother way… but a lower end-line. It’s more ‘casual’ after all, that was the target audience. Also a game which has a trading mechanic that functions, as acquisition of items is a major aspect.
Both are provided in a sub-par way, the core itemization has gone wonky compared to when I bought into the game and what was showcased… and the market… let’s not start again with that 
