Path of Exile News

From zany antics to hardcore racing, community streamer ds_lily's stream has it all to keep you entertained! We sat down with Lily to find out what their life is like outside of gaming, check it out!

[h3]Hi ds_lily, thank you for taking part in the interview! Please introduce yourself.[/h3]
Hi I'm Lily. You can find me streaming at https://twitch.tv/ds_lily. I usually participate in races in HCSSF, typically placing in the top 10.

[h3]When did you first get into Path of Exile?[/h3]
I first got into Path of Exile a little bit after its release in late 2013. Youtube recommended a video from Kripparrian, and I thought that it looked like a more modern version of games I played growing up that I enjoyed.

[h3]What one thing caught your attention in the beginning and what one thing kept you coming back?[/h3]
Having a fresh start and new builds to play every few months is definitely what kept me coming back. I basically only play games that have a huge replayability value and the league systems / balance changes make the replayability value practically infinite.

[h3]Are there any highlights from your time playing Path of Exile that stand out in your memory?[/h3]
The main highlight is probably my “brain lag” incident which was during the Awakener kill event during Metamorph league. I was probably about 4-5 hours away from getting to the fight and this was also before anyone had got there as well, so I was pretty close to being one of the first there (I was also rank 1 in XP at the time). However, I was awake for about 30 hours at this point and for some reason I decided it was time to do normal Elder. Well in my sleep-deprived brain I forgot to run to Zana bubble at the end and died.

[h3]Do you have a favourite build?[/h3]
Not really, but I tend to like builds that stack a high number of projectiles (buff molten strike).

[h3]Which expansion has been your favourite so far?[/h3]
Sentinel league was my favorite league that has come out so far. Primarily for the fact that it enabled a lot of builds without it just being a glorified item editor like harvest and it gave value back to a lot of special mods you could find on gear that are otherwise pretty much worthless.

[h3]What's one thing every Path of Exile player should hear?[/h3]
Stop doing things you don’t want to do even if it isn’t maximum efficiency.

[h3]When did you first start streaming? How did you get into it?[/h3]
I first started streaming in April 2019 when I noticed that PoE has really, really good growth opportunities for streamers compared to basically any other game. Basically be good at the game and you will have viewers. A great feature for streamer growth is also the in-game announcements, so I decided to start blasting on the XP ladder at league starts which will broadcast your name to everyone. Adding all those things together and I also noticed that there were no girl gamers doing this, so I decided it was time to git gud and there was a wide open market niche to become a popular streamer.

[h3]What can people expect from your stream and schedule?[/h3]
I don’t really know how to describe my stream other than weird antics and lots of beef. My schedule is typically starting stream everyday around 9 AM PST, though I am trying to start a bit earlier.

[h3]What were you doing before you started streaming?[/h3]
Sitting in my room playing video games, not much has changed.

[h3]What hobbies or interests do you have outside of streaming?[/h3]
I don’t think most streamers do anything but stream. Cars are pretty cool though.

[h3]How has your life changed from before you were streaming until now? What role has streaming played in that transition?[/h3]
Not much has really changed overall, except now I see video games as a job and I don’t enjoy them that much when not streaming. If I’m playing a game off stream I pretty much just feel like I should be streaming it.

[h3]Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the streaming community?[/h3]
I think the PoE streamers are probably the best community on Twitch, so I feel like other gaming stream communities should take some notes from us. No real drama, everyone in the category is pretty well connected to each other, pretty much everyone is included, etc.

[h3]Do you have any advice for people who are looking to make their own career out of streaming?[/h3]
You need to bring something different to the table than all the other creators if you really want to succeed, the opportunities for this are pretty slim though.



Thank you so much for participating in the interview! If you'd like to follow ds_lily, you can do so on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch. Also, don't forget that you can support both ds_lily and the development of Path of Exile by buying microtransactions from her Nexus page!

Yesterday, we shared a balance manifesto that outlined the upcoming changes to Eldritch Altars. Today, we're sharing a short and sweet FAQ to provide more information.

[h3]Can we get the Altar mods on the Map Mod UI?[/h3]
Yes, we've added this in 3.20.

[h3]Can you make Altars more readable in the heat of combat?[/h3]
We've discussed community feedback around this, specifically to consider options around instance-pausing, colour indicators or reward symbols. Each of these options has their own drawbacks so we won't be making any changes on this front for now. The best thing to do is to finish killing the surrounding monsters before reading the Altar.

[h3]How common are Awakened Gems from the Maven?[/h3]
When you kill the Maven herself, the chance of getting an Awakened Gem is quite common. The drop chance from Maven-witnessed map bosses is a lot lower than this because these fights occur more often. The goal is that they're common enough that it feels worthwhile running Maven-witnessed maps while not having Awakened Gems feel too common and significantly lowering their value.

[h3]How common are Rusted Scarabs in the core drop pool?[/h3]
The exact weighting hasn't been finalised yet but currently, we're looking at them being slightly less common than Rogue's Markers. Note that that is on top of other sources of Scarabs like Altars, Delirium, Betrayal, etc. (As we mentioned, these drop less frequently from Altars in 3.20, but other sources haven't changed).

[h3]Why does currency drop in stacks of one now?[/h3]
This change only applies to rewards from Influenced Monsters. Altar rewards that say things like "Map Boss Drops Three Vaal Orbs" will still drop in stacks of three requiring one click for pickup.

One of the goals of the Altar changes from the outset was to retain the feel of Altars such that the gameplay feels familiar, as we're generally happy with how that feels to play. Part of retaining this means we want to keep the frequency of encountering Eldritch Altars relatively common. If we want to give you Altars relatively often, it means we're giving out rewards relatively often so one of the ways of balancing this is to make the stack sizes of those rewards lower.

Most Currency rewards from Influenced Monsters already dropped in stacks of one, but there were a few outliers (most notably Map Currency rewards). The outliers are generally the only thing that is changing here in terms of stack size.

[h3]Are you nerfing Heist and Expedition rewards?[/h3]
We have no plans regarding this.

In the Forbidden Sanctum expansion, we're making a number of changes to Eldritch Altars, specifically to their rewards, the monster packs they spawn and the incentives for rushing to map bosses before completing the rest of the map. In addition, we are adding a chance for Maven-witnessed Map Bosses to drop an Awakened Gem (inclusive of the Awakened Gems that are typically exclusive to Maven herself). The overarching aim of these changes is to try to reach a point where the choice between running Maven-witnessed Maps or Eldritch Influence Maps is closer in value while still retaining the gameplay feeling you've come to expect from Eldritch Altars.

[h3]TLDR:[/h3]

• Altars no longer offer some reward types like gems, influenced items, unique items or maps.
  
• The "Basic Currency" reward has been split up into specific currency rewards. For example, they now have "Map Boss Drops Three Vaal Orbs" instead of "Map Boss Drops Three Basic Currency Items".
  
• Altars no longer offer some basic rewards like Orbs of Augmentation, Orbs of Transmutation, Blacksmith's Whetstones, Armourer Scraps etc.
  
• Currency drop weights are still adhered to for these rewards so with the removal of basic rewards, you'll see good currency a lot more often.
  
• Scarabs and Divination Cards have also been split into specific rewards. For example, rather than simply "Divination Cards", you'll now see things like "Divination Cards which reward Unique Jewellery".
  
• These specific rewards will be split so that they're exclusive to one Altar type, to allow target farming of these rewards.
  
• Scarabs are offered a lot less from Altars, but we don't want them to be too scarce as a whole. To help balance this out, we're adding Rusted Scarabs to the core drop pool.
  
• We're also adding a vendor recipe that can be used to upgrade Scarabs between tiers using the usual 3:1 ratio (up to Gilded Scarabs). We are also adding an 'Upgrade' button in the Fragment Stash Tab that can upgrade your Scarabs, like the one in the Essence tab.
  
• The amount of Influence Packs spawned by Altars has been reduced by 33% but the chance of Influence Altars spawning has been increased by 50% to offset this.
  
• We are making changes so that Altar choices that affect Boss Drops or Influenced Monster Drops are comparably valuable.
  
• We've redesigned the Wrath of the Cosmos keystone.
  
• We've changed the Wrath of the Cosmos and Eldritch Gaze keystones to only apply in maps affected by their respective influence.
  
• Not directly related to Altars, but related to the choice of what type of influence you run on your maps, we are adding a chance for Maven-witnessed Map Bosses to drop an Awakened Gem, inclusive of the Awakened Gems that are typically exclusive to Maven herself.
  

[h3]Altar Rewards[/h3]
Eldritch Altars are currently too rewarding, so much so that they create a disincentive for any out-of-map gameplay unless it is comparably rewarding. We've lightly nerfed their total rewards and updated them in various other ways that we'll outline below. While it is fair to say that you can no longer min-max into rewards in such an extreme way, they will still be quite rewarding.

We have removed some reward types from the choices available at Altars, such as duplicate gems, influenced items, unique items, gems and maps. This means that other reward types will take their place and naturally be more common.

Altars no longer offer a choice for "Basic Currency" but instead offer choices for specific currency. For example, instead of seeing Altars that say "Map Boss Drops Three Basic Currency Items", you'll now see Altars that say things like "Map Boss Drops Three Vaal Orbs". Currency Rewards from Influenced Minions no longer drop in stacks larger than 1.

Some of the more common but very low value rewards such as Orbs of Augmentation, Orbs of Transmutation, Blacksmith's Whetstones, Armourer Scraps, etc can no longer be offered as part of the Basic Currency reward.

Similarly, instead of offering choices for Scarabs or Divination Cards as a category, they're now more specific. For example, rather than simply "Divination Cards", you'll now see things like "Divination Cards which reward Unique Jewellery".

These specific Currency, Scarab and Divination Card rewards will be split so that they're exclusive to one Altar type. This means that if you're targeting a specific reward type, you'll be able to figure out which influence type to invest into in order to farm that reward.

The rewards that still remain are Currency, Scarabs, Divination Cards, Duplicate (Currency, Uniques, Scarabs, Maps, Divination Cards) and Quantity / Rarity.

To give you a specific example, if you run maps influenced by the Eater of Worlds, you'll see Divine Orbs from the 'Basic Currency Reward' more than twice as often as before.

On the whole, Scarabs will be offered a lot less than before from Altars. However, we don't want them to be too scarce in general. As such, we're adding Rusted Scarabs to the core drop pool. We are also adding a vendor recipe that can be used to upgrade Scarabs between tiers using the usual 3:1 ratio (up to Gilded Scarabs). We are adding an 'Upgrade' button in the Fragment Stash Tab that can upgrade your Scarabs in this way, similar to the upgrade function in the Essence Stash Tab.

[h3]Boss Rushing[/h3]
Players currently have an incentive to skip past all regular map monsters and kill the map boss first. The motivation for doing so is that Altars which offer rewards affecting the map boss are less desirable. By killing the boss first, you eliminate these options from your map altars, which makes them more rewarding.

This is one of those cases where the most efficient and rewarding gameplay strategy undermines the expected gameplay loop and encourages players to do things that aren't really fun.

We are making a few numerical changes to Altar rewards so that choices that affect Boss Drops or Influenced Monster Drops are more comparably valuable, though Boss Drop rewards will be slightly better on average than Eldritch Minion rewards.

[h3]Altar Monster Packs[/h3]
The amount of Influence Packs spawned by Eldritch-Influenced Maps has been reduced by around a third but the chance of Influence Altars spawning has been increased by about half to somewhat offset this. We're making this change to add some variance to Altar gameplay. Previously, Eldritch-Influenced Maps would always spawn exactly 60 packs within a map. They will now spawn somewhere between 20 and 60 packs per map. It's a large enough variance that the difference should be notable. It should also encourage more decision making around Altars. For example, if you intuit that it may be a 20 pack map, you might be more inclined to pick more Map Boss modifiers as there won't be as many Influence Monsters in the map to get other rewards from.

While we were working on this, we took the opportunity to change the pack spawning behaviour from Influence so that a given area will only have three different types of monster packs. Previously, there were eight pack types that could be spawned per influence type and it randomly chose which pack type to spawn. This is a relatively small change that won't have a significant effect during gameplay. The goal was simply to give some identity to an area and give you a slightly better idea of what to expect during gameplay.

[h3]Wrath of the Cosmos[/h3]
The Wrath of the Cosmos Keystone encouraged players to risk a level of danger that was outside their capability because of how valuable its rewards were. In some cases, it made more sense to die a few times per map than forgo the level of rewards this keystone offered. This is not ideal, to say the least.

We have redesigned this keystone. It now only affects Altars in maps influenced by the Searing Exarch. Each Altar now has a 50% chance for an additional upside. Altars with an additional upside will have their downside effect increased by 100%. The overall risk vs. reward nature of this keystone is still in place, it's just a lot less intense now.

The Eldritch Gaze keystone now only affects Altars in maps influenced by the Eater of Worlds. The main reason for this is that we want you to invest Atlas Passives into the influence type that you're currently farming. It feels wrong to have to get the passives from the opposite influence cluster in order to maximise the rewards you get from the influence type that you're currently farming. The small passives near these keystones are already specific to influence types and it's nice and tidy to keep things consistent in this way.

Just to explicitly call a spade a spade, this is a nerf to how much you can scale your rewards from these keystones, if you were one of the subset of players who were taking both keystones in the past.

[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
Altar rewards are a bit more sensible now, through clearer reward types and by toning down the extreme levels of giftyness. We've worked towards making it so that players don't feel compelled to rush straight to map bosses in order to maximise their rewards. We've also updated the Wrath of the Cosmos keystone to be a bit less brutal and a bit less rewarding. The intent wasn't to gut these systems, just slightly reduce their overall potency. They should still be valuable sources of rewards.

In case you missed them, we recently posted several manifestos covering Jewels and Ailment Mitigation, and Archnemesis. Be sure to check them out.

We'll post the Curse manifesto next, which we expect to be out at the end of this week at the earliest. We also indicated that we would post a fifth manifesto that covered some miscellaneous balance changes. After writing the first four manifestos and reviewing what else remains to be covered, we feel that there isn't very much to put in this manifesto because most of the remaining changes are better suited to the patch notes. Therefore, we've made the decision to drop that manifesto.

Can you hear it, Exile? Madness approaches in the Delirium Everywhere event, where a dense fog has taken over almost every zone!

The fog ranges randomly from 10% to 100% Delirium with the minimum and maximum level of Delirium scaling with the level of the zone. This way, some lower level encounters won't be impossibly difficult and higher level encounters won't be incredibly easy. This has all the usual effects — monsters getting buffed, new monsters spawning, reward bars filling with kills, and Simulacrum splinters dropping. To avoid spam-refreshing areas being the best strategy, each area always has the same Delirium percentage, and Delirium reward types are randomised each time they drop.

Delirium Everywhere starts on all platforms at 12pm November 21st (PST). It will end at 12pm November 28th (PST).

In comparison to the last time we ran a Delirium Everywhere event, we've reduced the amount of Delirium that can be applied to zones earlier in the campaign and have adjusted the maximum Delirium each act can have so that progressing past certain encounters isn't near-impossible.

Mirrors of Delirium cannot spawn in this event. If you get your hands on a Delirious map, it functions as normal, overriding the special rules of this event.

Tons of prizes are up for grabs, including a guaranteed Kalandra Mystery Box for reaching level 50 if this is your first or second event!
Please note: You are limited to two guaranteed Kalandra Mystery Boxes across all events, i.e. if you've already gotten your Mystery Box in Mayhem and Endless Delve, you will not receive a third Kalandra Mystery Box. If this is your second Kalandra Mystery Box, it will be added to your account after the end of the event. If this is your first Kalandra Mystery Box it will be added to your account automatically.

For more information about Delirium Everywhere, check out this thread. To join the event, log into the game and in the bottom right of the character select screen, click "Join" next to the version of the event you want to participate in.

Want to keep track of who's on top? The ladders for each version of the Delirium Everywhere event can be found below:

• Delirium Everywhere
• Delirium Everywhere Hardcore
• Delirium Everywhere Solo Self-Found
• Delirium Everywhere Hardcore Solo Self-Found

Best of luck to everyone participating in the event!