After a rocky start to its Dawn of the Hunt update, Path of Exile 2 developer Grinding Gear Games has been hard at work making improvements. There’s a lot of work to be done, but the ARPG’s early access status is the perfect opportunity to fine tune how PoE 2 plays. With update 0.2.0, players have complained that some areas are too large, so GGG confirmed that it would investigate the problem. Well, the team has done just that, with some big changes coming to major areas to improve their flow.
Path of Exile 2 is in a tough spot right now. Between a barrage of nerfs and a sense that the overall flow of gameplay has slowed down significantly, the experience feels markedly worse than it did before 0.2.0 dropped. Grinding Gear Games does have a slew of community-focused improvements on the way, at least, but these will take time.
One of PoE 2’s main issues is the sheer size of its areas, which prompted a slew of complaints from the RPG‘s players. GGG confirmed that it was investigating, however, stating “Normally when this is the case, the main reason is due to other concerns such as monster life or player damage being incorrect, or just a lack of entertaining content in the area. However, we are checking to see if there are any outliers that players are spending too long in to see if any changes to area size need to happen.”
After checking things out, GGG has confirmed that there are some adjustments in the works. It’s worth nothing these improvements are focused on Act 3 right now, which makes sense considering you go through it twice during early access.
The Drowned City is first on the chopping block. The area currently features a large dead end, which originally led to a location that was temporarily cut from the early access version. “We are removing that part of the level and the part that leads up to it which will reduce the overall size of the area quite a lot, but more importantly prevent the frustrating situation where you go the wrong way and have to backtrack.”
One part of Utzaal had the exact same problem as The Drowned City, so both have been trimmed for ease of getting around. The Apex of Filth’s spiral shape was originally envisioned to have a boss at the center for the sake of continuity, but GGG says it is “breaking that continuity to make the area smaller.”
The Azak Bog, meanwhile, is being changed from a large square with variable boss spawn locations to a rectangle with the boss at the other end. Infested Barrens is also getting a bottleneck to try and reduce the amount of things you need to find before moving on. The Jungle Ruins has also been made slightly smaller, and its exit to the Infested Barrens has been made much clearer. As for the Chimeral Wetlands, the Temple of the Chaos and Machinarium have been moved closer together to avoid a large amount of backtracking.
It’s not just specific changes, either, as Grinding Gear Games outlines how it’s adjusting area resets, too. “We have a more permanent solution in mind for this issue but as a temporary improvement we have increased the timeout time for areas with side-areas off them. This should reduce how often you run into this issue.”
As for when you can expect these Path of Exile 2 area adjustments. GGG says they’ll be implemented “within the next few days.” Let’s hope endgame map changes are next.
As you dive into Dawn of the Hunt make sure you check out all the best Path of Exile 2 builds, alongside a breakdown of each Path of Exile 2 class.
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