In Path of Exile 2, the next major patch is set to arrive soon. The director himself has now introduced the update.
What kind of patch is this? Path of Exile 2 is currently in Early Access on Steam, PS5, and Xbox, receiving ongoing updates with improvements and bug fixes. The next patch is highly anticipated by players as some time has passed since the last update, due to the developers’ holiday break.
They are now back, and the director personally explained in a video and subsequent livestream what the long-awaited patch will bring.
Here you can see the cinematic intro of Path of Exile 2:
A gift to the players
What will the next update bring? In a nearly eight-minute video (via YouTube), the director of Path of Exile 2, Game Director Jonathan Rogers, talked about the new features and improvements of the ARPG. He then spent more than two hours answering community questions, moderated by streamers Darth Microtransaction and GhazzyTV.
The new update will not include nerfs to the game; these and other extensive changes are planned for a new league (similar to the seasons of Path of Exile 2). This includes changes to the economy in PoE2.
For players on PS5 and Xbox, there will probably be the most important change. They will gain access to loot filters, allowing them to hide and show items, significantly easing the process of picking up only the desired items. This featurewas recently highly sought after.
What changes in the endgame? There are several changes in the endgame. First, there will be four new tower maps. Alpenkamm, Sinkende Spitze, Bluff, and Mesa are the names of the four that will complement the existing map, which will be redesigned with the patch.
Additionally, the balance of endgame maps has been tweaked; this includes monster density, harbinger artifacts, chests, as well as magic and rare enemies, plus more essences and faster spawns of strongboxes.
In the endgame, there should be a boss waiting for you on about every four maps. However, as some maps could not spawn a boss, the rate was lower. This has now been changed, and you can look forward to more bosses. Furthermore, a new tablet has been added that allows you to add bosses to maps.
Here you can see the update video on YouTube:
What changes with the bosses? Many bosses and elite enemies with unfair or unfun mechanics have been changed; for example, the Forsaken Miners now throw their grenades slower, making them easier to see and deal less damage.
There are also changes to citadels; they are easier to recognize on the atlas because they stand out above the fog of war. Moreover, when facing the Arbiter of Ash, you will receive up to six respawns. The higher your difficulty level, the fewer attempts you have. This system will later apply to other Pinnacle bosses as well.
What about the items? There have also been many changes to items in Path of Exile 2. Many unique items have been buffed, particularly those from low-level areas.
The weighting of modifications for rare items has been changed, reducing the chance of getting poor values. An important innovation also concerns runes. These can now be exchanged, which was not possible before and often caused frustration within the community.
Players can also expect many more improvements and adjustments, such as a buff to armor as a defensive value, higher drop rates for certain items, a display of biomes when hovering over the map, faster loading times, and other bug fixes.
The director of Path of Exile 2 also categorizes these changes in the patch by announcing that larger changes will only be associated with the start of a new league. The patch is expected to be released later this week, and is likely to bring many unannounced contents into the game, similar to the massive Christmas patch: Path of Exile 2: Massive update is here, strengthening classes and skills more than expected – Official patch notes in German
