'Path of Exile 2' Latest Update Adds Massive Quality of Life Changes, More Rewarding Drops, and Much Less Headache

The long-awaited sequel to Grinding Gear Games’ groundbreaking entry into the ARPG genre has finally arrived. Five years after its announcement, Path of Exile 2 launched into Early Access last Friday, December 7. While bumpy at first, the servers would quickly stabilize to provide a relatively smooth launch for over one million registered players. Now, just days after release, Path of Exile 2‘s latest 0.1.0c update has improved the early- and late-game experience even more.

‘Path of Exile 2’ 0.1.0c update includes increased quality of life and rewards

In an announcement posted on Monday night, Grinding Gear Games details a list of changes presently in the game, with more to come in future updates.

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Dodge Roll Changes

A lot of players have expressed frustration about being trapped in by monsters. While the intention is that monsters are able to trap and kill you, we felt that the frequency of this was a little too high.

We will be deploying the following changes in an upcoming patch:

Player size is now set to Zero units while dodge rolling instead of One unit
Some smaller monsters can now be pushed while dodge rolling. This includes monsters such as the Adorned Beetles in Keth.

This should result in getting trapped less often.

Note that you can still be trapped. A player size of a zero can still not phase through monsters, but it can get through even the smallest gap between them.

We’ve all experienced it (especially if you’re playing Melee). You’re backed into a corner, surrounded by mobs, and unable to escape. That sucks. Being surrounded can quickly lead to death. Especially with the lack of early-game mobility tools in Path of Exile 2. These changes to Dodge Rolling should alleviate that.

Checkpoint Changes

A lot of players have been reporting that it can be tedious to need to retread areas of maps in order to get back to objectives that they already found.

We will be deploying the following change in an upcoming patch:

Clicking on a checkpoint will allow you to teleport to other checkpoints in the area that are explored on your minimap
Checkpoints have been added to all entrances and exits of zones to allow for teleportation
A Checkpoint has been added to the midpoint of the first Dreadnaught area

We will be making further adjustments to checkpoint positions as we continue to gather feedback.

Path of Exile 2 has huge zones, and many of them are a pain to revisit (looking at you, Act 3). Now, you’ll be able to bounce around any checkpoints you’ve found on the maps. They’re even adding additional checkpoints in each zone!

Item Updates

One of the major problems that players have been experiencing is feeling that the game is not rewarding enough. This is an area that we have to be very careful when adjusting because it’s very hard to reduce drops if we increase them by too much.

We have identified a few key areas that we believe will significantly improve the experience that players are having.

Rare Monster Updates

We felt that Rare monsters were not rewarding enough. This didn’t affect the campaign as much because there are more Unique bosses, increasing the overall amount of drops, but it’s especially noticeable when playing in the endgame where Unique monsters are less common.

In particular, the reward that you were getting for the increased difficulty of rares wasn’t lining up.

We have deployed the following changes:

Rarity bonus per rare mod has been doubled
+10% Quantity bonus per rare mod
Increased the chance of rare monsters inherently having more modifiers as you progress through endgame

These changes will cause rare monster rewards to naturally scale up as you get to higher levels because the number of mods a monster can have increases throughout the campaign and into endgame. In addition, many other forms of map juicing will indirectly cause rare monsters to have more mods as well, increasing the rewards of these other mechanics too. Also note the change below to make sure each map has a minimum number of rares which will also increase the average number of rare mods, and thus increasing drops further.

For those enjoying Path of Exile 2‘s endgame, you should start seeing greater rewards after killing rare mobs. These rewards will also scale better as you level up. Hey, what’s the point of farming rares if they drop trash?

Currency Updates

We felt that players were not getting enough of certain currency either in the early game, or to sustain adding mods to maps.

We have deployed the following changes:

Regal orb drop rates increased around 40%
Disenchanting of six mod rares to give two regal shards instead of one.
Lesser Jewellers orbs drop rates increased around 33%
Reduced the drop rate of Chaos Orbs slightly as they are less valued and so that it doesn’t consume so much of the “rare currency” drop pool. This causes currency such as Exalted Orbs to increase somewhat.
Gemcutter’s Prism drop rates increased by 500%
Gemcutter’s Prisms now increase quality on gems by 5% instead of 1%

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably scrounging through every pot and chest in search of Regal Orbs. They’re rare, and damn are they hard to find. Not anymore, as drop rates for Regal Orbs and Exalted Orbs should be much higher than before.

‘Path of Exile 2’ Map Mod Updates

Like with rares, we felt that players were not being rewarded enough for the difficulty that was being added by map mods. We have significantly increased the value of all prefix map mods.

We have changed all map prefix mods, but some example changes we have deployed are:

Rarity mods have been increased by 2.5x
Quantity mods have had extra rarity added to them (This is now in a later patch)
We removed the bottom tier of some mods
You are much more likely to roll modifiers that affect drops or pack size rather than less useful mods

In addition, it has been identified that some areas are not being affected by the “Increased Number of Monster Packs” mod as they should be. We will be fixing these maps to work correctly in a later patch.

“Unlucky” Drop Protection

One of the major issues we have identified are outlier “unlucky” drops. A single Unique boss dropping badly, especially early on can significantly affect your character.

We have deployed the following changes:

No more than 50% of an Unique monsters drops can be gold
Act Bosses and Map Bosses will always drop at least 1 rare

The first of these changes is more significant than it first appears because players can’t see the difference between “normal” and “rare” gold piles. You will get more equipment and currency items which can take more advantage of the rarity increases that unique monsters provide.

Click to Move

There was an issue where the “Move Only” command was namelocking. This would often result in your character confusingly attacking in an unexpected direction while holding down this action.

We have deployed the following change:

Move Only no longer namelocks

‘Path of Exile 2’ Endgame Maps

A concern for players in endgame maps is accidentally missing Rare monsters. In addition, many maps did not have the number of rare monsters that they should have had.

We will be making the following changes in an upcoming patch:

Rare monsters now appear on the minimap when there are 200 monsters remaining, instead of 50
Many maps have had additional rare monsters added to them to make sure that there are a minimum number in every map type.

Over the coming weeks we will be continuing to work on map layouts and monster density issues in maps.

Path of Exile 2 Review Ranger Attack update — Screenshot: Grinding Gear Games

‘path of exile 2’ update 0.1.0c detailed patch notes

For a detailed look at the latest Path of Exile 2 update, check the notes below:

Campaign bosses killed after the first kill will now drop less currency items, replacing them with other items.
Increased the drop rate of Regal Orbs.
Significantly increased the drop rate of Gemcutter’s Prisms.
A single Gemcutter’s Prism also improves the Quality of a Skill Gem by +5% (previously +1%).
Lowered the drop rate of Chaos Orbs and distributed it amongst the other more valued Currency Items (Like Regal Orbs, Exalted Orbs).
Lowered the drop rate of Artificer’s Orbs and distributed it to Lesser Jeweller’s Orbs.
Disenchanting Rare Items with 6 Modifiers now provides 2 Regal Shards (previously 1). The value displayed will still show as 1 until a later patch.
Increased the values of all Prefix Modifiers that can roll on Waystones. We’ve also adjusted the chances of getting the more commonly powerful Modifiers such as increases to Rarity and Pack Size.
Monster Modifiers now grant higher amounts of Item Rarity and Item Quantity. This is most common on Magic and Rare enemies, but also affects Unique Enemies if applied through various Endgame Mechanics like the Deadly Evolution Keystone.

patch notes (cont.)

Increased the chance for Rare Monsters in Maps to have 3 or 4 modifiers.
Rare Monsters in Map areas are now on the minimap when there are 200 Monsters remaining (previously 50).
Fixed a bug where some Persistent Buff Skills, such as Raging Spirits and Mana Remnants, were not working for the Infernalist when in Demon Form.
Fixed a bug where you could sometimes be unable to interact with the Map Device in The Ziggurat Refuge.
Fixed a bug where Monsters Shattered in a Blood Circle Ultimatum Encounter were not contributing blood.
Fixed a bug that could cause the instance to permanently stop time (freeze) when trying to revive a Chronomancer.
Fixed a bug where Rare Monsters could not be found within the Chimeral Wetlands.
Fixed a bug where “Move only” was name-locking.
Fixed three instance crashes.
Fixed a client crash.