Path of Exile Dev Discuss Settlers of Kalguur’s City Management System

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Path of Exile Dev Discuss Settlers of Kalguur's City Management System

Highlights

  • The Settlers of Kalguur expansion in Path of Exile brings balance changes, a melee combat rework, a Gladiator overhual and the new Warden class.
  • The game’s developers focused on making sure city management was not a chore in the fast-paced game, allowing players to queue tasks and visit Kingsmarch less frequently.
  • Managing Kingsmarch requires player engagement and gold, but strives to avoid becoming a full-blown idle game. Path of Exile’s new expansion launches on July 26.

As a long-time fan and dedicated player of Path of Exile, I’m beyond excited about the upcoming Settlers of Kalguur expansion. Having spent countless hours exploring Wraeclast, mastering various character builds, and engaging in intense PvP battles, I can’t wait to delve into this new aspect of the game.

In simple terms, Path of Exile has unveiled plans for its next expansion called Settlers of Kalguur, along with a linked challenge league. Here, players will assume responsibility for building up the seaport city of Kingsmarch. This expansion brings a huge array of balance adjustments, an extensive revamp to melee combat, a major makeover for the Gladiator class, and an entirely new Warden class.

As an avid fan, I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek at the upcoming expansion of “Path of Exile,” titled Settlers of Kalguur, before its official announcement. During this exclusive preview, I had the privilege of interviewing game directors Mark Roberts and Jonathan Rogers about some exciting new features. Among these, they shared their aspirations for enhancing the city management system, and discussed the unique hurdles they face in implementing an unconventional league mechanic like this in a high-speed game such as “Path of Exile.”

GGG Doesn’t Want Path of Exile Players To Be Annoyed

Roberts emphasized the importance of making the city management system in Kingsmarch unobtrusive during its creation. Players have voiced their frustration over similar mechanics in other games once they become more of a burden than an enjoyable distraction. To address this, GGG implemented a feature that allows players to line up multiple tasks at once upon entering Kingsmarch, alleviating the need for frequent returns.

In Path of Exile (PoE), a game known for its quick tempo, it’s crucial to avoid overwhelming players with constant interruptions. During the league, it’s essential that they don’t need to return every few minutes to manage tasks. Instead, we ensure that multiple actions can be set up in advance, allowing them to focus on the gameplay without frequent interruptions. The primary goal is to keep PoE engaging and unannoying by minimizing the need for continuous management.

In Kingsmarch, my experience as a player has been that managing the kingdom goes smoothly. Unlike in games such as Stardew Valley where I have to pick every crop individually, in Kingsmarch, I make some choices, set tasks to be completed, and then come back after a few hours to reap the benefits.

Path of Exile’s Settlers of Kalguur Expansion Shouldn’t Be An Idle Game

Path of Exile Dev Discuss Settlers of Kalguur's City Management System

An essential aspect the GGG team kept in mind was avoiding transforming Kingsmarch into a completely idle game. They aimed to prevent players from setting up an entire system only to disengage once they automated it. Roberts acknowledged the challenge of striking a balance between player involvement and Kingsmarch’s productivity. To address this, they introduced the need for gold for most features in Kingsmarch, ensuring that this finite resource is earned through gameplay.

We don’t introduce shortcuts with parallel systems that allow you to bypass playing the game. Gold serves as a necessity for all aspects of your town. You can’t keep it thriving indefinitely without engaging in gameplay. Figuring out how much time you need to invest in playing to acquire enough gold for an appropriate duration has been a complex task. Balancing these assumptions and achieving a satisfying experience has proved to be quite a challenge for us. Despite our current progress, I believe this was among the more difficult aspects as we hadn’t dealt with real-time mechanics before.

Path of Exile fans can look forward to discovering if GGG achieved their goal with the expansion’s release on July 26. Prior to that, GGG has unveiled that enrollments are open for the initial closed beta testing phase of Path of Exile 2.

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2024-07-20 15:23