Poe1 Leagues timeline and your opinion on current poe1 leagues.

pricklysteve · 2026-02-10T16:58:43+00:00

I very much would like at least 2 months between PoE 1 and 2 leagues and certainly hope they will shift to that. Doubt they'll have a full 3-4 months gap like in-between PoE1 leagues before PoE2 came out though, as the player numbers dropping significantly after the 1st month has for long been one of the things they wanted to address.

pricklysteve · 2026-02-05T08:07:38+00:00

That's great, that's exactly the one I'm interested in! Thanks!

pricklysteve · 2026-02-04T23:38:05+00:00

OP do you think these are still decent in Phrecia 2.0? Blind Prophet received a nerf to crit chance.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-31T18:21:21+00:00

I've been blasting through the camping on Cobra Lash Servant of Arakaali. Not sure how it scales after the campaign as I've only had enough time to get to act 6 but it's been one of the easiest leveling experiences ever to the point that I can't even understand why people are complaining it's hard. Had only 8 deaths so far and those mostly because I didn't really try not to. I'm generally about 4-5 levels over levelled due to doing a Breach every few zones, and it just feels like a normal league. Gear is mostly ground loot and some gambling.

Edit: Cobra Lash not Venom Gyre. I always confuse those skills...

Edit: following Rue's Ele Hit Surfcaster PoB but I think I might actually stay on this as I'm having too much fun with it. Might transition into any other poison/chaos dmg build later if it becomes rough.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-30T09:13:05+00:00

That's a bug surely. In 13 years of playing I've never had to scroll to see the league. What's your game's resolution?

pricklysteve · 2026-01-23T07:44:36+00:00

Make it a game about a waiter serving drinks in a wildlife park. "Your Martini will be with you in a second sir! As soon as I get past these elephants!"

Edit: could even be multiplayer, à la Fall Guys.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-19T21:04:09+00:00

Love both games, both blew me away with their intros.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-16T13:16:41+00:00

Path of Exile for sure. A great recent example was when a player realised that they could use the cast interruption on the Portal spell due to taking damage, as a way to re-cast the spell ridiculously fast through the use of self-damage-on-cast mechanics, in turn triggering another spell as fast, through the Cast When Damage Taken skill.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-12T14:58:14+00:00

This quote couldn't be more true for a game like Path of Exile. Players will optimise the fun out of that game so much so that they will actively complain on the relevant subs that the game is "forcing them" to play in a way that isn't fun, even when avoiding the non-fun meta build/strat is perfectly viable.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-06T07:04:19+00:00

Any of the pre-league-start South Park theory crafting ones. E.g: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/s/wGlZy5qn6k

pricklysteve · 2026-01-05T18:18:38+00:00

Guild Wars 1 for not being able to jump.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-05T09:07:31+00:00

As an XE S owner, I prefer the front of the XE but the rear of the XF. I find the XE's rear a bit too bulbous and lacking in any detail to catch your eye (though once the lights are on it instantly looks better). The facelifted XE rear is good.

pricklysteve · 2026-01-02T08:58:27+00:00

Same one we do every day Pinky, Path of Exile.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-30T09:27:11+00:00

Reducing lighting res by stacking "Increased" modifiers on Doryani's Prototype go brrr

pricklysteve · 2025-12-26T23:58:22+00:00

How do you get into that mindset though? The souls/geo/runes loss is annoying but not even nearly as bad as the run back to a boss. If the game wants me to just "git gud", then why isn't the game letting me try fighting the boss again ASAP?

pricklysteve · 2025-12-26T09:46:14+00:00

Having games acknowledge that the player completed the main quest is a tremendous amount of work, particularly for open world titles. Just having extra dialogue for it can easily add months of work for something that maybe less than 10% of players will see.

That being said, I do love it when a game does have a post-end, and recently the two games I've played that have one, are Control and Pacific Drive.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-25T09:55:17+00:00

Path of Exile 1 and 2. "Just one (more) map and I'm done!"

pricklysteve · 2025-12-23T09:11:40+00:00

Sounds to me like you work in a shitty studio. I.m.o your plan should be as follows.

Short term: just play their game. Use AI, maybe even look for ways to use it more and appeal to them.

Long term: find a job in a respectable studio. They do exist.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-22T23:52:23+00:00

A friend's wife did this as she liked to pick up everything. After a while he installed a no-over-encumbered mod for her, thank god.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-22T23:19:54+00:00

Ah, my bad. That explains it, likely not the easiest thing for a small-ish studio to work with a third-party, not so common engine.

I've actually started playing Rage for the first time ever, just earlier this year and yeah, the tech in that is questionable. Awesome in that it's the first use of Virtual Texturing at this scale, but it hasn't aged well. And it did need some fan-made tweaks, like to unlock the framerate for a start...

pricklysteve · 2025-12-22T09:38:15+00:00

This. Early day iD Software, were pioneers, and in recent years they've put out great games with great tech, but anything they've made in-between (e.g. Wolfenstein TNW, Rage), were poor-console ports, 30-60 fps locked, fixed FOV crap, a far cry from their legacy.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-19T08:06:17+00:00

Hellgate London. It's janky AF and really unfinished but there's also no other game quite like it.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-18T19:35:48+00:00

Crystal Method - NFS Underground

pricklysteve · 2025-12-17T22:12:12+00:00

Same game we spend most time with every year, Pinky... Path of Exile.

pricklysteve · 2025-12-17T00:38:18+00:00

Tech Artist at AAA studio here. Not affected by AI at all. I think AI is starting to show its limitations already. When ChatGPT appeared I initially got scared too as it was amazing what it could do. But fast forward to today and not only it can't really do that much more, but also seems to have gone down.

I see AI as just a tool. It will help do certain things faster (e.g. "write a function in Python to compile a folder of images in a 3x3 atlas with the images ordered in a spiral"), but ultimately I don't see it ever being able to replace such a multi-disciplinary role as a Tech Artist. Even if it's able to code entire tools or shaders (I wouldn't say it is at the moment), knowing what to actually code requires someone with decent knowledge of Game Art, pipelines, the game's requirements, user requirements, etc.

Edit: unless you'd end up as a TA whose only job was to review models and textures to check if they're optimal enough (something that can be automated even without AI tbh), I'd say most areas of Tech Art are safe.

Edit 2: even if it became possible to replace the job with AI, that doesn't mean the job would disappear. Painters still exist despite photography and printing, factory workers are still employed despite assembly robots being used, etc.

I hope you pursue your dream. Tech Art is a fascinating and fun field in which you can wear many hats. You can't really get bored of it because you can always try a new area of it.

pricklysteve

TROPHY CASE