Path of Exile 2
- Thread starter Tombstone
- Start date
Watch the live stream at the moment. Some of the new mechanics look amazing, and the engine has had a very nice spit-polish with new physics and ray tracing.
Apparently the whole game will walk hand-in-hand with Path of Exile 1 and all of content and leagues so far and all content going forward is available to both games, it's just that Path of Exile 2 has a new branching story arc set after the events of Path of Exile 1.
Apparently the whole game will walk hand-in-hand with Path of Exile 1 and all of content and leagues so far and all content going forward is available to both games, it's just that Path of Exile 2 has a new branching story arc set after the events of Path of Exile 1.
Could be quite the threat to Diablo 4, especially as knowing Blizzard, Diablo 4 will probably be 59.99 and PoE2 will be zip.
Associate
They really knocked it out of the park, I'm very excited to see how this turns out. It's awesome that we're going to get some of these improvements with the new league in December, it really shows the commitment they have to delivering new content, improving the existing game and really mixing things up.
D4 will be up against it, it will have to be pretty special at this rate. It looks like we could have POE2 by the end of next year at the earliest, potentially much sooner than D4.
D4 will be up against it, it will have to be pretty special at this rate. It looks like we could have POE2 by the end of next year at the earliest, potentially much sooner than D4.
It'll definitely put pressure on Diablo for sure, although from what Chris was saying Path of Exile 2 will drop in around 1 year, and Diablo 4 likely won't be out for another 2.5 years or so. It'll definitely have Blizzard chasing PoE though from the content they've showed so far compared to what Diablo 4 showed (even if it is much earlier in development).
I love that they've removed socketed links from items and they have made it into a separate skill tab and associated them directly to the gem itself. Even better, we're getting a bunch of this new content before Path of Exile 2 also as they are slowly introducing it into the leagues as they do from what Chris said. Here's a snapshot I got of the new skill gem window:
I love that they've removed socketed links from items and they have made it into a separate skill tab and associated them directly to the gem itself. Even better, we're getting a bunch of this new content before Path of Exile 2 also as they are slowly introducing it into the leagues as they do from what Chris said. Here's a snapshot I got of the new skill gem window:
Soldato
D4 is going to have to be insane to pull me away from PoE, I love the story of Diablo but the gameplay is going to have to be something special.
Associate
Nothing yet, but there are will be 38 Ascendancies
Haha, yeah! I love how Chris just casually mentioned "oh... yeah, 19 new Ascendancies too" like it was just a foot-note
Chris mentioned that it looks identical at the movement, but there'll be some radical changes closer to launch, but unfortunately nothing they can announce or show at the moment
Can't wait to see it though!
Soldato
I expect the tree will get a giant pruning as it stands today its a huge barrier for new players.
Completely hit it out of the park! It's like they read out my wishlist for the game. Also glad they decided to double-down on depth/complexity rather than try to cater to the cry babies who are afraid of even opening the skill tree and wouldn't have played this for long anyway. Blizzard can keep those players tyvm.
Soldato
Did any1 else think the POE Mobile bit was just a joke aimed at Diablo Immortal?
Love what ive seen so far, for me we get the best of both worlds, POE2 next year and Diablo4 in a few years.
Is Metamorphisis the new league coming? If so looks like xmas gaming is sorted
Love what ive seen so far, for me we get the best of both worlds, POE2 next year and Diablo4 in a few years.
Is Metamorphisis the new league coming? If so looks like xmas gaming is sorted
Soldato
Yep pretty much everyone thought they were just taking the biscuit, but after watching ZiggyD play it while talking to the lead developer, it actually looked pretty good and something that is easy to pick up and play for a few minutes at a time.
New league mechanic is Metamorphasis and the new atlas map updates are all coming next month.
New league mechanic is Metamorphasis and the new atlas map updates are all coming next month.
Here's some of the notes I took for the 3.9 Conqueror's of the Atlas expansion (which includes the Metamorph league).
The expansion will be releasing on December 11th with the new league.
The expansion will be releasing on December 11th with the new league.
Atlas
It has been redesigned due to the premise of this league. You no longer start at the corners and work you way in, and instead you start at the middle where the Shaper was and work your way outwards. There are 90 maps at the start, and more maps are unlocked as you play by levelling up the Atlas when you find and kill Conquerors. Conquerors drop "watchstones" which can be socketed directly into the Atlas, similarly to how you socket gems in the skill tree, to raise the level of a "region" of the Atlas, which opens up new maps and raises the level of those maps in it all the way up to Tier 16. Due to this, you can now level any map up to Tier 16.
Here's three screenshots showing off the watchstones (this applies to the region that has the little red/green/blue/yellow circle in it). The gold lines are region borders, so it looks like there are 8 in total. The first screenshot is what it looks like with 1 watchstone in the region; the second one shows what it looks like after the stone was added - you'll notice that the region has more map density; the third is with three watchstones and you'll now see the maps are higher level as they've gone from yellow to red maps, and further increased in density.
I noticed that Hall of the Grandmasters only appeared on 3 watchstones - so it's likely that some higher end unique maps, like Perandus Manor, Hall of the Grandmasters, Vinktar's Square (etc) will need multiple watchstones to unlock them.
There's a fourth slot for watchstones also to boost it further.
Sextants are directly applied to a watchstone, not the maps (since maps can appear and disappear depending on the watchstones in a region). This also causes sextants to affect an entire region, not just a radius around a particular map that it was applied too.
Support Gem-Plus
These are new high-end support gems that a will effectively replace the non "plus" version of the gem. There are around 32 of these currently, and they start around level 72 for a level 1 gem. They have enhanced features, such as the "Fork Plus Support" shown below will fork an additional time compared to the non-plus version, and the "Ancestral Call Plus Support" which makes an additional ancestor. They will have other features also, such as much lower mana multiplier than the original version (potentially reaching a point where it doesn't add a mana multiplier at all to the base skill).
Shaper and Elder
They'll both still be accessible to play against in the new league (even though they are done) through Zana who will provide map fragments to open portals. This means you'll be able to get Shaper and Elder uniques and rares. They have overhauled the Shaper and Elder affixes though for balancing reasons, and have created new currency around it. The Shaper and Elder mods have been added to a new affix pool which are:
3.9: The Ranged League (Metamorph)
As they've done with overhauling mechanics and skills with casters and melee in previous patches and leagues, it's now time for ranged and attack totems to get their turn; this league will be very heavy on bow users so expect those Windrippers to cost a fortune this time around. "Ranged Attack" is also being renamed to "Ballista", and they've added new support gems and passives in the skill tree to support the playstyle (such as increasing ballista damage and the amount of them you can have active at one time).
Artillery Ballista: A new gem that launches a bunch of artillery arrows at targets. Very similar to how Rain of Arrows works.
Splinter Ballista: Almost identical to Splinter Shot, in that it creates splinters from where it fires and can shotgun monsters.
There are also new bow skills:
Barrage Support: Turns any primary skill into a barrage style gem.
Arrow Nova Support: Makes the primary skill fire at a targetted area, then it splits off into a nova affect once it lands.
Bow skills that have secondary effects such as Burning/Explosive Arrow are being reworked to leave extra affects on the target or have stacks. Some other skills are being reworked as Shrapnel Shot which can all of its projectiles hit a single target. Tornado Shot has been nerfed. RIP.
Old area improvments
They are improving the visual quality of old areas, one notably is the Act 1 town:
Q&A
The community sent a bunch of live questions in for the team. Here's the questions and answers they did on the stage.
It has been redesigned due to the premise of this league. You no longer start at the corners and work you way in, and instead you start at the middle where the Shaper was and work your way outwards. There are 90 maps at the start, and more maps are unlocked as you play by levelling up the Atlas when you find and kill Conquerors. Conquerors drop "watchstones" which can be socketed directly into the Atlas, similarly to how you socket gems in the skill tree, to raise the level of a "region" of the Atlas, which opens up new maps and raises the level of those maps in it all the way up to Tier 16. Due to this, you can now level any map up to Tier 16.
Here's three screenshots showing off the watchstones (this applies to the region that has the little red/green/blue/yellow circle in it). The gold lines are region borders, so it looks like there are 8 in total. The first screenshot is what it looks like with 1 watchstone in the region; the second one shows what it looks like after the stone was added - you'll notice that the region has more map density; the third is with three watchstones and you'll now see the maps are higher level as they've gone from yellow to red maps, and further increased in density.
I noticed that Hall of the Grandmasters only appeared on 3 watchstones - so it's likely that some higher end unique maps, like Perandus Manor, Hall of the Grandmasters, Vinktar's Square (etc) will need multiple watchstones to unlock them.
There's a fourth slot for watchstones also to boost it further.
Sextants are directly applied to a watchstone, not the maps (since maps can appear and disappear depending on the watchstones in a region). This also causes sextants to affect an entire region, not just a radius around a particular map that it was applied too.
Support Gem-Plus
These are new high-end support gems that a will effectively replace the non "plus" version of the gem. There are around 32 of these currently, and they start around level 72 for a level 1 gem. They have enhanced features, such as the "Fork Plus Support" shown below will fork an additional time compared to the non-plus version, and the "Ancestral Call Plus Support" which makes an additional ancestor. They will have other features also, such as much lower mana multiplier than the original version (potentially reaching a point where it doesn't add a mana multiplier at all to the base skill).
Shaper and Elder
They'll both still be accessible to play against in the new league (even though they are done) through Zana who will provide map fragments to open portals. This means you'll be able to get Shaper and Elder uniques and rares. They have overhauled the Shaper and Elder affixes though for balancing reasons, and have created new currency around it. The Shaper and Elder mods have been added to a new affix pool which are:
- Warlord's
- Adjusicator's
- Crusader's
- Hunter's
3.9: The Ranged League (Metamorph)
As they've done with overhauling mechanics and skills with casters and melee in previous patches and leagues, it's now time for ranged and attack totems to get their turn; this league will be very heavy on bow users so expect those Windrippers to cost a fortune this time around. "Ranged Attack" is also being renamed to "Ballista", and they've added new support gems and passives in the skill tree to support the playstyle (such as increasing ballista damage and the amount of them you can have active at one time).
Artillery Ballista: A new gem that launches a bunch of artillery arrows at targets. Very similar to how Rain of Arrows works.
Splinter Ballista: Almost identical to Splinter Shot, in that it creates splinters from where it fires and can shotgun monsters.
There are also new bow skills:
Barrage Support: Turns any primary skill into a barrage style gem.
Arrow Nova Support: Makes the primary skill fire at a targetted area, then it splits off into a nova affect once it lands.
Bow skills that have secondary effects such as Burning/Explosive Arrow are being reworked to leave extra affects on the target or have stacks. Some other skills are being reworked as Shrapnel Shot which can all of its projectiles hit a single target. Tornado Shot has been nerfed. RIP.
Old area improvments
They are improving the visual quality of old areas, one notably is the Act 1 town:
Q&A
The community sent a bunch of live questions in for the team. Here's the questions and answers they did on the stage.
Q: How do watchstones affect unique maps?
A: Unique maps can be revealed (unless already shown by default) when you socket a watchstone. Unique maps will also tier up the same as normal maps, which can lead to some unique combinations and some very challenging maps such as a Tier 16 Coward's Trial or Tier 16 Poorjoy's Asylum. Some drop rates have been adjusted due to the change.
Q: Will there be slots for the new currency items in the stash?
A: Yes, but maybe not at launch as they don't know whether to adding a new tab or putting new slots in current tabs. It depends on how many they need to add, or what the community want them to add.
Q: Do the new Ballista count as totems?
A: Yes, including unique items that affect them such as Iron Commander. They might revise some items though.
Q: Any changes to Headhunter?
A: No current plans, but it is a constant debate. It is a chase unique, and a very unique and well-known iconic item. Some developers are happy with it, but others aren't.
Q: How good or bad are the drop rates for the new support plus gems?
A: They drop from Conquerors right now but not at 100% drop rate, and they can't be farmed, but most aren't mega-rare (although some are) but they expect that given the current drop rates on these gems and where they source from, they expect they'll be in the multiple-exalted-orb price range on the market. They are end-game items and they want them to be hard to get.
Q: Are there new unique items and mechanics for the new Conqueror bosses?
A: Yes to both. There are around 12 unique items so far. There are also unique watchstones.
Q: Players can kill that quickly and at such a speed these days that they can maintain flask effects at 100% up-time; are there any plans to address this? Since flasks are meant to be temporary effects.
A: There's no immediate plans right now, but they are aware of it and do want to look at flasks and rework them at some point.
Q: Are there going to be any race seasons?
A: Race seasons are popular, and they have good engagement, and they want to re-do them in a proper way. They are so involved from both players and watchers that they want to increase production value of the races in a way that makes far more entertaining and engaging than they are now. So, while no immediate plans for race seasons again, they are on the horizon.
Q: With Shaper and Elder gone, can we still use the Guardian fragments we've already got to open portals to them?
A: Yes, they'll still work.
Q: How are you balancing difficulty vs. reward with the increased difficulty in 3.9 and the new league?
A: They want to increase the reward for harder content, but it's a very delicate problem as they can't just ramp up difficulty and rewards as it'll become tailored to only the elite players. They are increasing the effective life of monsters in various ways as they feel the general player-base is killing monsters too fast. They are aware of how just adding flat-life could make it that a build right now that does Tier 16 might just get wrecked and suddenly can only do Tier 12, and they don't want that, but are well-aware of the power creep.
Cluttering becomes a problem also if they just add to more drops. It becomes an issue where the player is overwhelmed with items and has to rely on more and more advanced filters to start to weed out drops they aren't interested in. Also, it has a massive affect on the client and the performance of the game where each item that drops has to be rendered by the client and acknowledged by the server. This causes major drops in performance on both ends, and it's something they want to avoid. They are working on de-cluttering processes but this won't be ready for 3.9 and is something we may likely see in 4.0.
Q: Is there any plans to change the amount of skill affects that can fire and that you can see on screen?
A: There's nothing planned right now, but they completely agree that with some builds there is far too many effects on the screen at one time and it causes slowdowns for the client and can very easily cause player deaths.
Q: Will the new support-plus gems have the same Vaal Orb corruptions as the current non-plus variants?
A: Currently, yes, but it's not something they've looked at yet. They will be looking at them soon to make sure the risk vs. reward is appropriate for these gems for how rare they are, and also that they cannot be flipped from a max level gem and 1 GCP to a 20% quality version at a vendor.
Q: Is the Blight league mechanics being kept in 3.9?
A: They were planning on keeping it, and still plan too, but that decision was made much earlier in the league and it'll be down to player feedback. They might make adjustments to it as it became too trivial at end-game.
Q: Are there any changes to Watcher's Eye jewels? Since they will be much harder to get
A: Developer official comment: "Yes, they'll be much more expensive"
Q: Are there any changes coming to the Labyrinth enchantment system?
A: No current plans, but it's a constant debate and they have discussed potential changes, such as having multi-options at the end rather than just getting a random one. They also acknowledge that since they are adding more skills, this equates to more enchants, and the pool is getting larger and particular enchants will be harder to get which will increase the values and so forth. Nothing is official right now and discussions are on-going but they are looking into and will certainly be something about it at some point.
Q: So what about Royal? (an April Fools Battle Royal joke from last year)
A: They had loads of fun making it, and wouldn't mind actually doing it again and might even add it as a permanent feature.
Q: What's the end-game of Metamorph?
A: 5-stage multi-tiered map boss that has metamorph's of nothing but map bosses, will a maximum power bar in the metamorph panel. This will allow you to make a custom "uber" boss map with considerable drops to match the difficulty. This is very modular for the players also as you can tailor the boss to what you want, since there are so many bosses in the game.
A: Unique maps can be revealed (unless already shown by default) when you socket a watchstone. Unique maps will also tier up the same as normal maps, which can lead to some unique combinations and some very challenging maps such as a Tier 16 Coward's Trial or Tier 16 Poorjoy's Asylum. Some drop rates have been adjusted due to the change.
Q: Will there be slots for the new currency items in the stash?
A: Yes, but maybe not at launch as they don't know whether to adding a new tab or putting new slots in current tabs. It depends on how many they need to add, or what the community want them to add.
Q: Do the new Ballista count as totems?
A: Yes, including unique items that affect them such as Iron Commander. They might revise some items though.
Q: Any changes to Headhunter?
A: No current plans, but it is a constant debate. It is a chase unique, and a very unique and well-known iconic item. Some developers are happy with it, but others aren't.
Q: How good or bad are the drop rates for the new support plus gems?
A: They drop from Conquerors right now but not at 100% drop rate, and they can't be farmed, but most aren't mega-rare (although some are) but they expect that given the current drop rates on these gems and where they source from, they expect they'll be in the multiple-exalted-orb price range on the market. They are end-game items and they want them to be hard to get.
Q: Are there new unique items and mechanics for the new Conqueror bosses?
A: Yes to both. There are around 12 unique items so far. There are also unique watchstones.
Q: Players can kill that quickly and at such a speed these days that they can maintain flask effects at 100% up-time; are there any plans to address this? Since flasks are meant to be temporary effects.
A: There's no immediate plans right now, but they are aware of it and do want to look at flasks and rework them at some point.
Q: Are there going to be any race seasons?
A: Race seasons are popular, and they have good engagement, and they want to re-do them in a proper way. They are so involved from both players and watchers that they want to increase production value of the races in a way that makes far more entertaining and engaging than they are now. So, while no immediate plans for race seasons again, they are on the horizon.
Q: With Shaper and Elder gone, can we still use the Guardian fragments we've already got to open portals to them?
A: Yes, they'll still work.
Q: How are you balancing difficulty vs. reward with the increased difficulty in 3.9 and the new league?
A: They want to increase the reward for harder content, but it's a very delicate problem as they can't just ramp up difficulty and rewards as it'll become tailored to only the elite players. They are increasing the effective life of monsters in various ways as they feel the general player-base is killing monsters too fast. They are aware of how just adding flat-life could make it that a build right now that does Tier 16 might just get wrecked and suddenly can only do Tier 12, and they don't want that, but are well-aware of the power creep.
Cluttering becomes a problem also if they just add to more drops. It becomes an issue where the player is overwhelmed with items and has to rely on more and more advanced filters to start to weed out drops they aren't interested in. Also, it has a massive affect on the client and the performance of the game where each item that drops has to be rendered by the client and acknowledged by the server. This causes major drops in performance on both ends, and it's something they want to avoid. They are working on de-cluttering processes but this won't be ready for 3.9 and is something we may likely see in 4.0.
Q: Is there any plans to change the amount of skill affects that can fire and that you can see on screen?
A: There's nothing planned right now, but they completely agree that with some builds there is far too many effects on the screen at one time and it causes slowdowns for the client and can very easily cause player deaths.
Q: Will the new support-plus gems have the same Vaal Orb corruptions as the current non-plus variants?
A: Currently, yes, but it's not something they've looked at yet. They will be looking at them soon to make sure the risk vs. reward is appropriate for these gems for how rare they are, and also that they cannot be flipped from a max level gem and 1 GCP to a 20% quality version at a vendor.
Q: Is the Blight league mechanics being kept in 3.9?
A: They were planning on keeping it, and still plan too, but that decision was made much earlier in the league and it'll be down to player feedback. They might make adjustments to it as it became too trivial at end-game.
Q: Are there any changes to Watcher's Eye jewels? Since they will be much harder to get
A: Developer official comment: "Yes, they'll be much more expensive"
Q: Are there any changes coming to the Labyrinth enchantment system?
A: No current plans, but it's a constant debate and they have discussed potential changes, such as having multi-options at the end rather than just getting a random one. They also acknowledge that since they are adding more skills, this equates to more enchants, and the pool is getting larger and particular enchants will be harder to get which will increase the values and so forth. Nothing is official right now and discussions are on-going but they are looking into and will certainly be something about it at some point.
Q: So what about Royal? (an April Fools Battle Royal joke from last year)
A: They had loads of fun making it, and wouldn't mind actually doing it again and might even add it as a permanent feature.
Q: What's the end-game of Metamorph?
A: 5-stage multi-tiered map boss that has metamorph's of nothing but map bosses, will a maximum power bar in the metamorph panel. This will allow you to make a custom "uber" boss map with considerable drops to match the difficulty. This is very modular for the players also as you can tailor the boss to what you want, since there are so many bosses in the game.
I last properly played PoE about 5 years ago and so much has changed. Even for a returning player there is so much to learn and it's steep. I will play PoE2 on release I think and get to grips with the new game rather than try and learn the current one all over again.
Soldato
I know the feeling smeaney, I stopped playing shortly after they released Act 3, came back at the start of Patch 3.0 when they added 6 more acts, was completely over whelmed with all the new stuff, it took me months to figure it all out. PoE 2.0 is what the game needs easy to get into but difficult to master.
The new skill system, item system are not only user friendly in 2.0, but still retain the depth of the current system. I do expect they will make significant changes to the passive tree as that is another huge barrier to new users.
The new skill system, item system are not only user friendly in 2.0, but still retain the depth of the current system. I do expect they will make significant changes to the passive tree as that is another huge barrier to new users.
Associate
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2015
- Posts
- 1,064
Very interested to see how the new socketing mechanics playout - specially on on how this works out with currency and trading.
As for 3.9, can't wait even though I'm still active in blight. Looking forward to the bow re-work, even if it does mean more more expensive bow builds this league
As for 3.9, can't wait even though I'm still active in blight. Looking forward to the bow re-work, even if it does mean more more expensive bow builds this league
As for 3.9, can't wait even though I'm still active in blight. Looking forward to the bow re-work, even if it does mean more more expensive bow builds this league
Heh aye, wanted to try a new bow build with the changes in 3.9, but I can guarantee Iron Commander's and Windripper's are going to be silly prices. Probably even find Lioneye's and Quill Rain's carry a premium depending what builds come out as viable.