Usually they have multiple leagues cooking up in the oven at any given time, so that if the league they want to release isn't ready in time, another, simpler idea will likely be within reach of completion.
The timeline is as such because their business model requires engagement spikes every three months. Remember that Path of Exile is free-to-play.
I also want to add that PoE has grown into one of, if not THE most complex games ever made; there are so many overlapping systems and mechanics that there were memes about what would happen if they added any more special destination buttons to the worldmap. And I'm not even talking about the initial release; it was a complicated game then, but now it has the mechanics of at least a dozen leagues baked into the core game play; many of those leagues are an entire game unto themselves (like Delve)
I love it for this, but it makes me sad that most gamers don't try and reason about this complex thing, and instead follow build guides and copy streamers, instead of experiment. Also, because of the nature of the game's deisgn, you need to play for a stupendous amount of hours to reach the end- endgame, and for most folks you also need to trade items with people IRL as the designers intentionally do not add a decent trade system. There are a lot of other quirks that reflect the designers' intent to not make life easy, either, and players both love and hate that.
Usually they have multiple leagues cooking up in the oven at any given time, so that if the league they want to release isn't ready in time, another, simpler idea will likely be within reach of completion.
The timeline is as such because their business model requires engagement spikes every three months. Remember that Path of Exile is free-to-play.
I also want to add that PoE has grown into one of, if not THE most complex games ever made; there are so many overlapping systems and mechanics that there were memes about what would happen if they added any more special destination buttons to the worldmap. And I'm not even talking about the initial release; it was a complicated game then, but now it has the mechanics of at least a dozen leagues baked into the core game play; many of those leagues are an entire game unto themselves (like Delve)
I love it for this, but it makes me sad that most gamers don't try and reason about this complex thing, and instead follow build guides and copy streamers, instead of experiment. Also, because of the nature of the game's deisgn, you need to play for a stupendous amount of hours to reach the end- endgame, and for most folks you also need to trade items with people IRL as the designers intentionally do not add a decent trade system. There are a lot of other quirks that reflect the designers' intent to not make life easy, either, and players both love and hate that.