The developers of the well-known hardcore MMO Path of Exile have provided new information about the upcoming major update, Expedition, in a livestream. The game aims to return to its roots and become much harder again.
Why is the game becoming harder? Path of Exile is known for many things, such as the seemingly endless possibilities of its skill tree, but certainly not for being easy. Nevertheless, the developers announced a variety of changes to make the game harder, and there are good reasons for that.
Since the beta of Path of Exile, there have been 30 major updates, each aimed at making your character even stronger. Although the new content of the updates and leagues has always been adjusted to the current strength of the characters, the difficulty of the core content has not changed.
The story has thus become easier and easier to complete. The developers estimate that characters are currently about ten times stronger than characters were at the start of the game. This is not what was originally planned.
The developers are aware that this could easily be solved by tweaking some numbers, but that wouldn’t work in the long run, and it’s simply “lame.” Instead, the developers want to implement deeper changes to resolve the issue.
What exactly is going to be harder? The changes encompass many systems and details; we would like to give you a rough overview:
- Monsters now run faster. Until now, there was no monster in PoE that could run faster than you. That is about to change.
- The potion system, or “flask” system, will be fundamentally overhauled as it was far too powerful.
- Support gems that increase damage will be significantly weakened.
- The monsters from the first chapter of the story of PoE will be stronger.
- Numerous skills will be adjusted and changed.
What do the changes look like exactly?
Which monsters will run faster? Clear answer: All. The running speed of all enemy types is set to increase, but not every monster will fundamentally be faster than you. However, there will be some that are. It is important to mention that not all monsters can be directly adjusted with Expedition, but that is the big goal in the upcoming updates.
How does the flask system work? The developers note that it was a legitimate way to play to simply press the keys 1 to 5 on which the flasks are located. This provided short-term bonuses. Flasks refill by killing monsters – this created a perfect loop where players could maintain the buff that was originally intended to be temporary continuously.
This is fundamentally not a problem for the team behind PoE, because they want to support crazy builds. The only issue is that it is not fun. The developer says, “Players will always take the most efficient way to handle something, and it’s catastrophic when that’s not fun.”
As a conclusion, players will have to kill more monsters in the future to refill the flasks, moreover many flasks have been adjusted. Especially those that provide direct bonuses will be significantly weakened.
Additionally, the update brings new gems for the flasks into the game, which among other things will cause the flasks to automatically be consumed when a certain situation occurs. The basic idea of the build remains, it will just be slightly weakened, and no longer consist solely of spamming the keys 1 to 5.
The biggest change has been made to the flasks for elemental resistance. They previously removed an elemental status and then granted temporary immunity. However, they could already be activated before the start of the fight and used the temporary immunity to give opponents no chance.
This immunity will now only be granted when a status is actually removed. The pre-activation of these flasks is completely eliminated.
What changes are there with the support gems? According to the developers, the support gems that increase the damage of other skills were significantly advantageous compared to others. Real support gems were hardly ever used.
As a result, the support gems that only increase the damage of other spells will be significantly weakened. If you use a 6-link set that is only equipped with Damage-Support gems, you will lose about 40% damage. In other configurations, the drop is significantly less noticeable.
You can see all changes in the livestream recording of the developers:
This is how the community reacts
What are players saying? Opinions on the changes vary widely. Many praise the developers for delving deeper into the issue rather than just tweaking some numbers. Others believe that it is the wrong way to make players weaker after they have only gotten stronger over the past 30 patches.
This is what the positive voices say:
- The user The Epic Mango writes (via YouTube): “There has been a lot of negativity regarding the current state of the game and the PoE community. I am very satisfied with all the information we have been given and look forward to seeing how everything gets implemented into the game.”
- Thijs Schrijnemakers writes (via YouTube): “I love the changes to the flask system. The new skills also look really good.”
- User Filip agrees (via YouTube): “Well done, Grinding Gear Games. I’m really looking forward to the update!”
This is what the negative voices say:
- The user -_ANTI-_ writes (via YouTube): “Regarding the balance changes, I am skeptical. For the average player who plays only occasionally and who has a family, the game is hard enough. I fear the changes could turn the game into a sort of Dark Souls experience for a large number of players, especially if multiple things are weakened at once.”
- The user drdfrgplls humorously expresses his frustration and says (via YouTube): “Great, GGG, you are really geniuses. You’re finally fixing the server problems that have existed forever by elegantly minimizing the number of active players.”
- One of the users referred to in the first comment also speaks up and writes: “Reducing character damage?.. Good luck to me and the other casual players who like to test and experiment with builds. In the long run, this may be cool, but right now it feels very demotivating.”
Are you playing Path of Exile yourself? What do you think of the changes? Or do you feel like starting with Path of Exile now? Feel free to leave us a comment!
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