With Path of Exile 2 0.1.1, Grinding Gear Games is going to address some of the ARPG community’s biggest requests. Not only is the early-access endgame getting some much-needed overhauls, but there’s plenty more to improve your experience. Runes are being reworked. Underwhelming uniques are being buffed. Pinnacle bosses will be made much more manageable. PoE 2 is about to get much better, but don’t expect any huge meta-shifting changes just yet.
Before we dive into all Grinding Gear Games has planned for Path of Exile 2 0.1.1, here’s what game director Jonathan Rogers has to say about the RPG’s patch: “It’s worth stressing that just because a specific issue isn’t on this list doesn’t mean that we’re not aware of it or that it isn’t going to get addressed. It just means that we either can’t fix the problem quickly, or we can’t do so without the need for a new economy.”
To start, Rogers details many changes coming to the Path of Exile 2 endgame. You should find endgame maps more rewarding than before, with a balance pass to everything like enemies, chests, essences, and a whole lot more. There are also four more endgame tower maps, with the existing Lost Towers map redone to “make playing there less boring,” according to Rogers.
GGG is also going to spawn more endgame maps with bosses, in an effort to meet the promised ‘one boss per four maps’ dynamic it had intended, as the boss spawn rate was accidentally much lower during PoE 2’s launch. There’s even a new type of tablet that helps you add bosses to nearby maps – so you should start seeing a lot more of them.
Pinnacle content is also getting much-needed overhauls. Rogers says the team knows that getting to pinnacle content “just takes too long,” and that you only get one attempt when you get there, not giving you a chance to learn the boss. To address this issue, the Citadel will spawn closer to the center of the Atlas, and you can see them at a short range in the fog of war so you know where to go to find them.
As for only having one attempt at the boss, you will now get up to six respawn attempts on the Arbiter of Ash pinnacle boss, with fewer respawns given on the higher difficulties. Rogers adds that respawn attempts will be coming to other pinnacle content over time, so you’ve just got to wait a little bit.
As for Path of Exile 2’s unique items, many of them are getting buffed. “A lot of people have reported that many of our unique items are feeling underwhelming,” Rogers says. “We realize that we do need to make sure that more uniques feel powerful when you first get them at low levels, too.” That’s why GGG is buffing many lower-level uniques, which should make finding them a lot more fun.
One of the biggest changes in the Path of Exile 2 patch 0.1.1 undoubtedly comes with runes. As of the update, you’ll be able to replace runes in gear sockets with a new one. Previously, runes were permanent once you slotted them into an item, but this change should make changing up your builds much easier.
Rogers also acknowledges that “many maps have too much clutter, preventing effects on the ground from rendering, causing you to be unable to see and dodge them.” That’s why GGG is changing the level of clutter on some maps and editing specific effects, to make sure they’re always visible during play.
A large number of bosses and monsters are also being changed, as Rogers says Grinding Gear Games knows many “felt too hard in certain circumstances.” The full list of enemy changes will come in the official patch notes, but it’s still good to know they should be easier.
To close out the patch 0.1.1 video, Rogers also rattles off some other changes coming to Path of Exile 2 this week. Armor is being buffed and charms will show the charges they have left, both of which should help your defensive capabilities.
“We have a huge amount of much more meta-shifting changes that we know we want to make, and one of the best things about having the game in early access with the endgame is that we now have a much better idea of where we want character power to be and what the balance of bosses and monsters should be relative to that,” Rogers says in closing. “But, those types of changes are going to have to wait until we are ready to make a new league with a new economy for people to play in.”
Grinding Gear Games is planning to release Path of Exile 2 0.1.1 later this week, so we can expect it before Sunday January 19.
We’ve also got all the best Path of Exile 2 classes and best Path of Exile 2 builds for you to check out, which will help you make the most of your loot-finding.
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