Patch 0.1.1 Brings Quality of Life and Some Balance Changes

In the Path of Exile 2 patch 0.1.1 preview livestream GGG talked about upcoming changes to the game then held a community Q&A after. The most notable changes are higher monster density, 4 new types of Towers, buffs to numerous low level Uniques and many more. Game Directors Jonathan and Mark then answered various questions from the community. Check out our key takeaways for the most important changes, then read on to see a full summary of the Q&A below.

Key Takeaways

Here are a few key takeaways from the upcoming Patch 0.1.1 and beyond:

• The ability to override existing Runes causes less decision paralysis of what to socket in your items as the choice is not permanent.
• GGG considers current player power to be far too high. They are however cautious to do any major balance changes until the release of a new league.
• Buffs to base maps; more monsters, essences and strongboxes to bring them closer in line with league mechanics.
• On death effects have been a major problem when it comes to perceived fairness. The changes to make the cues more obvious are very welcome.
• Citadels are now massively easier to find. This is great for SSF players as this allows to generate more Fragments.
• The Arbiter fight having 6 Portals drastically lowers the barrier of entry and the surrounding anxiety of bricking the set.
• Buffs to low level Uniques to encourage their use in the early game.
• Adjustments are coming to unpopular map layouts
• Magic Find is being closely monitored and may be adjusted based on community reception.
• The cause for the recent "hacked" accounts has been resolved. A bad faith actor managed to gain access to a GGG Support Account which allowed them to change the passwords of lucrative accounts. GGG says there is no need to change your passwords at this time.
• Armour is getting buffed by 15% which is not enough for it to compete with meta alternatives such as Energy Shield.
• GGG are trying their hardest to track down common client crashes.

Patch 0.1.1 Teaser

GGG released a short teaser video, showing off the exciting changes coming with patch 0.1.1.

Q&A Writeup

Patch 0.1.1 serves as a way to fix the most important grievances players have with the game at the moment.

Mapping and Atlas

• GGG is monitoring how different layouts feel to play. Some maps should have higher mob density, more Rares or other things to make up for "Worse" feeling layouts.
• They don't think Waystone sustain is an issue at the moment but will continue to monitor it closely. They also acknowledge that there is a big difference in sustain when playing optimally as opposed to not doing so. For example dying hinders your Waystone sustain substantially.
• Waystone progression may actually be too fast. This causes players to fall behind in gearing while the Area Level keeps progressing, causing excessive and frustrating deaths.
• An exploit that allows players to dupe Boss Drops is very high on their priority list.
• Copper Citadels have the exact same chance to spawn as Stone and Iron Citadels. The reason that the Fragments are worth twice as much is because players die to the Boss more often.
  • Tip: Wait a moment before looting the boss as the exploding Zombies kill unassuming looting players a lot.
• A Search Feature for the atlas will be added later on.
• The Waystone Tab is being worked on and is a priority.
• There are currently no plans to have different Atlas Map clear conditions other than killing all the Rares in the map.
• The method to acquire League Mechanic specific Atlas Points is staying the same but they are considering changing how the Core Atlas Points are progressed.
• They are open to the idea of adding Waypoints to Maps to follow Quicktravel. These wouldn't refill flasks.

Itemization

• The goal is for every League Mechanic (Breach, Expedition, Delirium, Ritual) to provide special character power that's unique to that mechanic. They are planning to add something like this to Expedition.
• Jonathan acknowledges that the current way of showing item mod tiers is not ideal. GGG is looking to add an indicator when an items mod is the highest tier for clarity.
• They acknowledge that "Magic Find" in the form Increased Rarity of Items is divisive.
  • The Rarity formula is the same as in Path of Exile 1 when it comes to diminishing returns.
  • Jonathan aims for Rarity to not be perceived as a mandatory stat.
  • They do not have enough information on the impacts of Rarity to make an informed decision yet.
  • It is being closely monitored and may be adjusted based on community reception.
• They are fine with Movement Speed being an affix on boots and don't like the idea of Movement Speed as a Boot implicit.
• There are no plans for an Auction House at the moment.
• The option to disenchant flasks may be added later on.

Balancing

• GGG was surprised about the absurd level of power players were able to reach.
• They have no intentions to make any major balance changes until the release of a new league.
  • Leagues are a separate "mode" where everyone starts fresh. You may continue playing your existing characters in "Standard" should you wish as they are completely separate.
  • The first league will be released as soon as GGG has enough new content to warrant a reset. The main goal is to get people excited to play again.
• Jonathan says players are dealing too much damage to Pinnacle Bosses too quickly. They are aiming for around 1 to 3 minutes of combat for non min-maxed builds.
• The Tornado Bird in Ultimatum is getting nerfed.
• There is internal debate how ailments should scale. Mark likes the idea of big hits applying big ailments but also acknowledges that it might not be the best for balance.

Crafting

• Deterministic Crafing as opposed to luck based crafing is a delicate balancing act. Their thoughts on it were the following:
  • Path of Exile 2 has less crafting systems at the moment so it naturally skews to a more luck based approach. This should change once more systems are added.
  • Too much access to deterministic crafting causes ground loot to devalue.
  • Buffs to Greater Essences, Omens and Expedition could alleviate some of the frustrations of players.

Campaign vs Endgame Comparison

• GGG thinks the transition from the very guided campaign to the more open-ended activity of mapping can be too daunting for new players.
  • They're looking to have more direct objectives when reaching Endgame such as "Clear this Tower" or "Do this map".
• They acknowledge that Endgame can feel a bit lacking at the moment because of missing external systems such as Heist or Delve from PoE 1.
• Act 4 is currently being worked on in the background. They are still debating whether to release the Acts 1 by 1 or all at once.

Level of Punishment

• GGG is testing the waters with The Arbiter having multiple portals in Patch 0.1.1 as the downside of losing the boss keys can be very frustrating.
• There are no plans to change the amount of Portals for regular maps yet.
• Mark acknowledges that losing your Map, on top of the current XP death penalty, might be a bit too punishing at the moment.
• In the ideal case league mechanics wouldn't disappear from your Maps, but this would open up possible Economic abuse.
  • For example running a map with lucrative mechanics over and over.

Data Breach

• A malicious actor got access to a GGG Support Admin Account through social engineering on an inactive Steam Account.
• This allowed the perpetrator to change an accounts password and delete the logfile of it afterwards.
• Jonathan assured that measures have been taken to stop this from happening in the future.
• He says you do not have to reset your password as the problem has been fixed.
• Implementing 2-Factor-Authentication (2FA) quickly is a difficult problem because:
  • It's hard to introduce policy for cases where people lose their second factor.
  • It adds a lot of strain on Customer Support.
  • But they are working towards implementing it.

Melee, Warrior and Maces

• Jonathan acknowledges the problems that Warriors may face in the Endgame
• He attributes the problematic areas as following:
  • Lack of a major multiplicative scaling axis in form of Increased Attack Speed.
  • Armour being too weak vs. white mobs in particular.
• For Patch 0.1.1 GGG is looking to buff Armour by roughly 15% as well as increase the uptime of Scavenged Plating in single target scenarios.

Ascendancy

• The ability to change Ascendancies is still being debated in the office. Mark feels that players shouldn't be allowed to change it while Jonathan thinks that they should. Neither felt very strongly about it however and they seem open to either option.
• They say the 4th Trial of Ascendancy is meant to be very difficult. There was no indication that this would be changed.

Tech, Optimization and Bugs

• Some crashes are extremely difficult to track down. GGG is looking at options for people to opt into more in-depth crash logs to help identify the issue quicker.
• Predictive will be added at a later date.
• Terrain obstructing player view is a case by case basis and GGG is looking to fix any notable offenders.

Minions

• Common problems with Minions include:
  • Minions getting stuck off-screen. They plan on fixing this by making the minion respawn next to the player instantly when that happens.
  • There are currently no plans to add Convocation from Path of Exile 1 which teleports your minions to you when used.
  • When the player is slowed their Minions are also slowed. This is being fixed.
  • Minion accuracy problems.
• Spectres will be ready "fairly soon". Implementing them was more work than anticipated due to various issues such as balancing, spirit costs, loud idle sounds and character voicelines causing to loop. Jonathan also explained that monster abilities, which the Spectres would use, are created with a little less care than player skills and need a lot of adjusting.

Quality of Life

• There are no plans to add extra colourblind modes. They are instead looking to change troublesome effects to be more visible for everyone.
• Mark wants to allow players to change the permanent stats from Quest Rewards
• They do not want custom UI's such as World of Warcrafts WeakAuras.
• Players blocking each other during Co-op is a known issue and GGG is looking into fixes.
• They are working on adding the ability to swap seamlessly between Controller and Keyboard.
• They are not fully happy with the visibility of Rare and Magic monsters but do not want to add an outline to them.
• All Path of Exile 1 Microtransactions should be ported over to Path of Exile 2 before Early Access ends.

Path of Exile Coverage

That's it for the upcoming Patch 0.1.1 and community Q&A Livestream. Overall it brings a lot of necessary changes to Endgame mapping and quality of life. Looking for more news on Path of Exile 2 Patches or Hotfixes? Then head over to our Discord and select the Path of Exile 2 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Stay sane, Exile!

Written by: Cptn Garbage

Reviewed by: Crouching_Tuna, Tenkiei