Early access launch of The path of exile 2 late last year has been very successful. Not only did it arrive with a great ending for fans of the original PoE to sink their teeth into once they're done with the campaign (whatever it is), it was also a beginning A primer for new players and anyone who has been. curious about Path of Exile but haven't been able to get into it all these years.
I really enjoyed what I played of itbut you could tell that the sequel is designed to offer a completely different experience from its predecessor, something that many of the older fans were not happy with.
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Developer Grinding Gear Games has been very attentive to feedback from all segments of Path of Exile 2 players since the day early access went live. Even before we said goodbye to 2024, the team managed to release a couple of big patches. Now, it's time for the first of these in the new year.
Again, Grinding Gear isn't looking to make the game appealing to everyone, but it's clear that the developer has spent the last few weeks tweaking what's around early to address some of the more common complaints. Patch 0.1.1, which arrives sometime this week, is another step towards that goal.
GG addresses the endgame mapping experience in several ways. Mapping is what long time PoE players call the act of running multiple dungeons/zones back to back to farm items and grow the character. First, endgame maps have had monster density, the number of magical monsters, certificates, artifacts, available chests and more rebalancing. The developer expects maps to be more rewarding, especially since each one is designed to offer unique rewards.
More maps now have bosses, too, at a rate of about one boss for every four maps. Of course, players who really want to challenge bosses will be happy to know that there is a new type of Tablet that allows you to add bosses to your maps with their own modifiers. As for Towers, the new patch adds four new Tower maps, as well as revamping the Lost Tower map.
Now onto the stuff I'm excited as someone who is still going through the campaign. The patch makes several fixes to hitting across the board, and this should hopefully make your character engage less often. This is part of an effort to reduce environmental waste, which in turn helps to increase visibility.
He also, finally, does something about visual effects. Skill effects, while amazing to look at, often hide enemy attacks, and, considering how challenging the game is, you can/will get killed because you couldn't see an attack. you had to avoid it. This also goes for elemental blasts, which now have a longer fuse time, too. The big one, though, is that they won't explode if a rare monster dies, which instantly makes fighting the tank bugs less of a pain.
Elsewhere in the field, you can expect faster load times when you pick up an Atlas map. The zoom level of the map has also been increased. The biomes for each will be listed if you hover over them, which should make it easier to quickly see what you're about to jump into.
It is important to remember that all of these changes can be made within the existing League, and without changing the in-game economy too much. For some, they won't be enough, but it's clear that Grinding Gear is working on bigger changes that could lead to a new League. For now, there's plenty here to get excited about.
The full changelog hasn't been released yet, but you can watch the video embedded in this story for an overview of everything else coming with 0.1.1.
