Hey GGG, I'm a game designer and I think the design of the chaos temple is amateurish

So first off I'm salty because I was playing in the temple to grind 25 div a pop for the fates. I was maybe 6 trials in, and then I changed some UI settings, and then my game bricked. I joined the game again and my run was lost and my ultimatum was eaten. The temple is already so bad, but you're going to kill my run when the game breaks when I change a UI element setting?

This was just the final kick while I was down, I was already fed up. I just dislike the options and structure of the Trials and Chaos modes. The options are limited and not compelling. I don't like that all my progress is wiped if I lose once.

There are sections that have poor layouts that go against natural flow. One map has a path the just leads right to a dead end that is the natural path to follow. Some of the "clear all monster" trials have a awkward side path. The trial master freezes player movement on the start of some trials, and the transitional walls that come down are so delayed that you just have to wait for a few seconds. I understand these are seemingly small gripes, but I've been a level designer for 10 years, and this level layout is just sloppy and breaks the flow in a game that is all about getting in the zone and killing monsters for hours and hours. I bet given one hour their level designers could clean up the edges.

Also there is a visual bug when you try to place a soul core; if you get far enough in the animation the visual on your back disappears. All of a sudden I was wondering why my health was ticking down so fast until I noticed I had an invisible curse on my back. Also the volatile mod during the trial constantly interrupts you when you put the soul core down, real good design.

Also the trial is so slow, why am I constantly waiting for enemies to respawn? The blood pool trial and the other blood pillar trial take so fing long, just throw the enemies at me. I don't ever get killed by anything other than the final boss when there is so much clutter on the screen. Throw some enemies at me that are scary, don't just one shot me with some bs in the 10th trial. Most of the time I can't even tell what the hell killed me.

GGG so much of your game has great flow, why is it so bad for chaos and sekemas? I avoided ascending for my last half of my ascension points until level 86 because it's a slog, it's not fun, and it's frustrating to lose 20 minutes of progress. At least if I get one tapped in a juiced map I just lose the map and not 20 minutes.

Edit:
I'm not sure why it's so hard to believe a game designer plays PoE? Maybe the idea of being employed is strange to y'all.

"

Norconanator#1504 wrote:

So first off I'm salty because I was playing in the temple to grind 25 div a pop for the fates. I was maybe 6 trials in, and then I changed some UI settings, and then my game bricked. I joined the game again and my run was lost and my ultimatum was eaten. The temple is already so bad, but you're going to kill my run when the game breaks when I change a UI element setting?

This was just the final kick while I was down, I was already fed up. I just dislike the options and structure of the Trials and Chaos modes. The options are limited and not compelling. I don't like that all my progress is wiped if I lose once.

There are sections that have poor layouts that go against natural flow. One map has a path the just leads right to a dead end that is the natural path to follow. Some of the "clear all monster" trials have a awkward side path. The trial master freezes player movement on the start of some trials, and the transitional walls that come down are so delayed that you just have to wait for a few seconds. I understand these are seemingly small gripes, but I've been a level designer for 10 years, and this level layout is just sloppy and breaks the flow in a game that is all about getting in the zone and killing monsters for hours and hours. I bet given one hour their level designers could clean up the edges.

Also there is a visual bug when you try to place a soul core; if you get far enough in the animation the visual on your back disappears. All of a sudden I was wondering why my health was ticking down so fast until I noticed I had an invisible curse on my back. Also the volatile mod during the trial constantly interrupts you when you put the soul core down, real good design.

Also the trial is so slow, why am I constantly waiting for enemies to respawn? The blood pool trial and the other blood pillar trial take so fing long, just throw the enemies at me. I don't ever get killed by anything other than the final boss when there is so much clutter on the screen. Throw some enemies at me that are scary, don't just one shot me with some bs in the 10th trial. Most of the time I can't even tell what the hell killed me.

GGG so much of your game has great flow, why is it so bad for chaos and sekemas? I avoided ascending for my last half of my ascension points until level 86 because it's a slog, it's not fun, and it's frustrating to lose 20 minutes of progress. At least if I get one tapped in a juiced map I just lose the map and not 20 minutes.

All these are valid points. The trials of chaos are a big waste of time cause trialmaster wont stop talking, you have long corridors, and other things you pointed out. I've been seeing this feedback since launch of game.

At this point and based on all the decisions I see GGG make, I think the goal is to keep the player in the game as long as possible. Thats why you see these things, its padded playing time.

a game designer that doesn't design games but critiques existing games


how strange

edit: but ya temple is doggo

I'm Johnathan's biggest fan and I say 'My Game has no pathetic design Kaiba!'

LinkedIn link or it didn't happen!

It's funny how over a year later, the Trial of Chaos is still miserable. I have a ritual, where every month I'll think, "Trial of Chaos can't be that bad. Let me do a low level one to see what cool Soulcores I can farm." Then I do one and think, "Oh yeah, this is why I hide Trial of Chaos invitations in my loot filter."

- takes way too much time
- terrible loot (chaos item rewards worth less than regal scraps, etc)
- huge difficulty spikes

Big no thanks.

temple at launch felt like it was jammed out in a weekend.

now, it's ok (because it's op). but it really needs a lot more dev time to polish it out. we'll see what they do w/ it next league when it goes core.

i just delete all baryas and ultimatums, gonna get my last few of ascendancy points (if ggg shifts focus from trading to gameplay) and forget that trials exist , they are too punishing and you get no reward to compensate for that, like you are just forced in to getting afflictions and after you need to literally beg on knees to get off which can result in even worse punishment....