In an era when most developers try to avoid offending players, “Path of Exile 2/Path of Exile 2” game director Jonathan Rogers is clearly not one to take this path. Recently, when he talked about the “Temple Farming” gameplay that once caused huge controversy in the game, he directly made a statement that made players laugh: “It ruined my Christmas and ruined my whole person!”
A gameplay that drove the entire development team crazy
The so-called Temple Farming is a gameplay in which players use game mechanics to repeatedly obtain high-value rewards in specific content. The problem is that this set of gameplay is so ridiculously efficient that it causes a large number of players to give up other content, and the entire game economy and character development rhythm are affected. The various systems originally designed for players to explore almost all turned into foils in the end. Jonathan Rogers admitted that the team continued to receive related questions and data reports during the Christmas holiday, and he even spent the entire holiday thinking about how to deal with this problem.
He doesn’t care about the “midterm machete” that players fear most
What’s more interesting is that many online game developers are very taboo about significantly weakening the gameplay in the middle of the season. Because players have often invested a lot of time and resources, once they are suddenly cut off, it can easily trigger community riots. But Jonathan Rogers obviously doesn’t accept this. He directly stated that if a certain gameplay has destroyed the health of the game, then it should be dealt with immediately even in the middle of the season. He even bluntly stated that he didn’t care if players would be angry about the mid-term nerf, because leaving it alone would only make the situation worse.
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Interestingly, after this statement was exposed, many old players of “Path of Exile” felt that it was very consistent with the style of Grinding Gear Games. After all, this studio has been known for years for killing supermodels when they discover their tricks. Although every balance update will cause players to wail, it also allows the game to maintain a relatively healthy economic and genre environment for a long time. Some players even joked: “Other people’s developers are afraid that players will be angry, but GGG’s developers seem to be more afraid that the game will not be canceled.”
Developers’ trauma isn’t over yet
It’s easy to see from Jonathan Rogers’ remarks that Temple Farming is clearly not just a balance issue, but some kind of occupational trauma. After all, when a game director is interviewed six months later, he still remembers which gameplay ruined his Christmas, which means that the experience was probably quite profound. For the players of “Path of Exile 2”, the biggest gain this time may not be the balance adjustment itself, but that they finally know that some gameplay methods can not only be used by players, but also developers can be affected and leave psychological shadow.