Path of Exile News

We're deploying the 3.12.4 update with improvements and bug fixes to the Heist League. Check out the full patch notes below.

Heist Improvements

• Enabled the questline that leads toward the Freidrich Tarollo, Slave Merchant boss encounter.
  
• Increased the range that you can move away from your Rogue Allies before they are interrupted from a Job that they are performing.
  
• Fossils can now be used on Heist Contracts, Blueprints and Ally Equipment.
  
• Reduced the maximum range at which several Heist monsters can use their skills.
  
• Reduced the amount of damage that Heist bosses deal to minions.
  
• Reduced the impact damage of Senior Necroscientists' and Auto-Enforcer's Orb projectile skills.
  
• Corpsewalker unique boots can now drop in Heist leagues.
  
• Unique Contracts can now be placed in the Unique Collection Tab.
  
• The Fulcrum unique staff can now be placed in the Unique Collection Tab.
  
• Adjusted the description of "+X to Level" on Ally Equipment to more clearly describe its effect.
  
• Fixed an issue where Heist members could sometimes ignore orders to perform Jobs if they were in another room or in combat.
  
• Fixed a bug where Maltreatment Axe, Disapprobation Axe and Psychotic Axe were unable to drop.
  
• Fixed a bug where Simplex Amulet was missing its "25% increased Explicit Modifier Magnitudes" implicit modifier description.
  
• Fixed a bug where Talismans dropped from some Heists Chests in level 68+ areas and from item level 68+ Incubators were not correctly Anointed.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lasers on Heists Doors weren't always visibly removed correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where some area-of-effect skills (such as Righteous Fire) were unable to damage Observer Totems.
  
• Fixed an issue where the damage dealt by Laser Beams in The Unbreakable encounter didn't match the visuals as closely as intended.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where a Curio Display in a Grand Heist could contain nothing.
  
• Fixed a bug where non-instance owners couldn't see Heist Chest labels.
  
• Fixed a bug in Quest Contracts where the quest objective didn't drop for party members.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "increased Rogue's Marker value of primary Heist Target" Heist Equipment modifier didn't work.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "+X to Level of all Jobs" Heist Equipment modifier didn't work.
  
• Fixed a bug where counting as being on Low Life from Coward's Legacy unique belt didn't apply when using Replica Last Resort unique claw.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ashblessed Wardens could have a skill effect permanently attached to them if they died while using their Sweeping Beam skill.
  
• Fixed several cases of dialogue being attributed to the wrong character.
  
• Fixed an instance of the spoken dialogue not matching what was written.
  

General Improvements

• The Passive Tree window will now be in the same position when re-opened as when it was last closed. Exceptions to this rule include the first time being opened after logging in to a character, characters below level 8, or if you have any unspent Ascendancy passive points with the Ascendancy passive tree visible.
  
• You can now delete characters that have Harvest Infrastructure in their inventories.
  
• Removed Curse Immunity from additional monsters, including Izaro's Gargoyles, Portals, Fonts, and various Totems.
  
• Triggering Elemental Overload's effect will now display a timer which shows how long its effect will last.
  
• Flame Wall's primary burning effect now has an attack time override of 1 second, and its secondary burning effect now has an attack time override of 0.2 seconds.
  
• Burning Ground created by the unique belt Replica Siegebreaker has an attack time override of 5 seconds.
  
• Herald of Thunder now has an attack time override of 0.25 seconds.
  
• Magma Orb now deals 50% less damage to players (from 30% less).
  
• Swiftbrand Support now causes supported skills to deal 45% less damage to players.
  
• Fixed an issue where Ignited enemies affected by Cinderswallow Urn's increased damage taken effect could appear much brighter than intended if that effect had been proliferated to them.
  
• Fixed a bug where Discharge helmet enchantments which granted additional Radius didn't work.
  
• Fixed a bug where Determination, Purity of Fire, Purity of Ice, Purity of Lightning, Purity of Elements, Anger, Vitality, Clarity, Gluttony of Elements, Impurity of Fire and Impurity of Lightning were not correctly counted as Auras for the sake of Unwavering Faith's ascendancy passive.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.12.0 where Slipstreams no longer affected you or your allies.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.12.0 where the increased Damage for each time you've Warcried Recently from the Escalation Notable passive skill was being applied twice.
  
• Fixed a bug where Regeneration granted by Enduring Cry was not applied if triggered by The Eternal Apple unique shield.
  
• Fixed a bug where having more than 100% slower start of Energy Shield Recharge would cause Energy Shield to always be recharging.
  
• Fixed a bug where Virulence's decay rate could be quicker than intended if you had more than 40 Virulence.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused projectiles fired by a Shrapnel Ballista supported by Fork Support to hit a target more times than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented the use of movement skills after using Shield Charge if it didn't actually move your character.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hexes applied to Hexproof enemies briefly displayed a "locked" Hex icon above the enemy.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Zombies raised from a Phantasmal Raised Zombies skill gem to take Chaos Damage based on a Life total before some Life modifiers were applied, rather than their Life total after they were affected by all maximum Life modifiers.
  
• Fixed a bug where skills could not be supported by both Awakened Added Cold Damage Support and Arrow Nova Support at the same time.
  
• Fixed a bug where Seismic Cry and Ancestral Cry's cooldowns were not correctly reduced to four seconds when using the unique claw Al Dhih.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cremation could be cast on a corpse without having line of sight to it.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lightning Warp could target a random location if you had cast it while targetting yourself.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing totems from being affected by curses applied by an Aura.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing totems generated by map modifiers from being cursed.
  
• Fixed a visual issue where Vaal Temple's Citadel was in the wrong Atlas region.
  
• Fixed another common client crash related to audio events.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Spectral Throw while you were using the Wings of Entropy unique axe with the Demonic Weapon skin applied.
  
• Fixed a client crash.
  
• Fixed an instance crash.
  

Alternate Quality Gem Improvements

• Alternate Quality Gems can now be supported by gems which match the bonuses granted by their Alternate Quality.
  
• Divergent Heavy Strike (whose quality grants reduced Knockback Distance) can no longer cause enemies to be pulled towards you when the gem has greater than 20% quality. At 20% quality, the skill will not provide any Knockback effect.
  
• Divergent Increased Critical Strikes Support's quality effect now grants "Supported Skills have a chance to gain a Power Charge on Killing Blow".
  
• Fixed a bug where Alternate Quality effects on the following gems didn't work as intended: Anomalous Slower Projectiles Support (Projectiles from Supported Skills deal increased Damage with Hits to nearby Enemies), Anomalous Faster Projectiles Support (Projectiles from Supported Skills have a chance to Return to you from final target), Phantasmal Ice Spear (Travel reduced distance before changing forms), Divergent Flicker Strike (increased teleport range), Phantamsal Rallying Cry (Exerted Attacks deal increased Damage), Divergent Seismic Cry (Exerted Attacks have a chance to Knock Enemies Back on Hit), Phantasmal Raise Zombie (Minions gain a portion of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage), Anomalous Summon Skeletons (Minions can't be Damaged for X seconds after being Summoned), Phantasmal Decoy Totem (Totems Explode on Death, dealing x% of their Life as Physical Damage), Phantasmal Blade Vortex (increased Damage while you have 5 or fewer Blades), Anomalous Enlighten Support (reduced Intelligence Requirement), Divergent Clarity (You and nearby Allies have increased Damage while on Full Mana).
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Flameblast's Less Cast Speed effect was not displayed.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Sunder had the wrong quality effect. It now grants increased Physical Damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Arcane Cloak's quality effect (increased Buff Effect) was applying to the amount of Damage from Hits taken from Buff before your Life or Energy Shield.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Fire Penetration, Anomalous Brutality Support and Anomalous Vicious Projectiles Support didn't display their quality effect range when at 0% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anomalous Barrage Support and Anomalous Pierce Support didn't display their quality effect range if the gem had 10 to 19% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Arc's secondary chains dealt damage as if they had chained the maximum number of times.
  

Before you go, we also wanted to briefly talk about the drop rates of Unique Contracts. Currently the only way to gain these is through completing the appropriate questlines and then hoping that they drop from Smuggler's Caches within maps. We have seen feedback that the drop rate is too low and that for players that are predominantly running Heist content, they're not seeing any.

To mitigate this, we're making it so that Unique Contracts can also drop from Reward Room Chests in Heists. This greatly increases their drop rate overall for players who are running both map content and Heist content.

We are also lowering the Drop Level of The Twins Unique Contract from Level 83 to Level 81 to make it slightly more accessible. These changes aren't in patch 3.12.4 but will be deployed as soon as possible.

The team will continue to monitor your reports and feedback and make additional improvements where possible. Thank you for your feedback and support!

For today's news post, one of our narrative designers, Nick, gathered some interesting bits about Heist's lore. If you've been enjoying the Heist storyline and NPCs, check it out!

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Before we get too deep into this, this article is likely to contain spoilers -- both major and minor. Read at your own peril!

• Some of the characters may have familiar last names -- Vic and Vinny Vox are likely related to Cardinal Sanctus Vox, one of the Legion bosses. The timeframes are inexact, but there are at least a few generations separating them.
  
• The Clients for general contract targets include The Midnight Tinkerer, who you may also know as Riker Maloney, and Anton Laffrey, who is possibly related to Aisling Laffrey.
  
• You may have seen some familiar faces around the Rogue's Harbour: Tarkleigh, Hargan and many others can appear at random. In fact, you can also see any member of the Immortal Syndicate except the Mastermind, but only if they aren't currently part of the Immortal Syndicate (ie. you've 'removed' them).
  
• Gianna and Adiyah are both voiced by the same actress -- Elle Wooton. Any time you hear Gianna and Adiyah talk at the end of a heist, she's just talking to herself!
  
• Rogue's Markers took many different forms during writing and development. My personal favourite was 'Prints', coins with a fingerprint pressed into them, making them hard to counterfeit and tying it into the criminal theme (don't leave prints behind!). After that, they were 'Seals', and were the wax seals from completed contracts. Apparently, people would hear 'Seal' and think of the animal, hence they are now Markers.
  
• Storylines underwent a bunch of changes over Heist's development cycle. Ideas that we considered and cut include: Having your first heist be larger, busier, and end in a betrayal that would set up a central rival early on, a story in which Gianna reveals her fate is due to a lecherous and abusive theatre director (I wanted a boss fight that was a pursuit through the backstage area of a theatre), and a sequence in which the Vox twins invade the Rogue Harbour for an early version of their boss fight.
  
• Hana, Kurai's cat, used to be called Beans, because I thought that was an absolutely adorable name. In the first draft of Kurai's quest, Beans the cat was killed in the aforementioned Rogue Harbour raid. After a few people at GGG read the draft, "For Beans" started appearing on whiteboards around the office. Then cans of beans started appearing around the office, including one on my desk. People got really attached to Beans.
  
• Karst used to be filled with even more bluster, and was even more cowardly than he currently is.
  
• We added somewhere in the vicinity of 2800 new dialogue entries. Prior to Heist, all of Path of Exile, including past leagues (even Betrayal!), totalled about 6000 dialogue entries.
  
• We created a conversation system specifically for Heist, but that we can generalise for future content. For Heist, we added 268 conversations, including one that Vinderi has with himself.
  
• There were several weeks between the first dialogue recording and the last, with each character recorded individually. It took a lot of work to piece the lines together and tinker with pauses and overlaps to get them to sound natural-ish.
  
• I had the most fun writing Vinderi. My favourite line out of literally all the dialogue is "Anytibbs, time."
  
• Writing Kurai's heartbreaking scene was particularly emotional as, during Heist's development, my own cat got sick and had to be put down.
  
• The Rogue Harbour was originally going to have dynamically moving NPCs and more conversations between them, but then Lockdown 2 happened. For that version of the Rogue Harbour, I wanted Tibbs to be sitting by the fireplace sewing or whittling toys, and Karst, Tullina, Isla and Vinderi playing poker. Karst would keep losing and get angrier and angrier, Tullina would keep goading him on, Isla would use their distracted fighting to cheat, and Vinderi would undo the cheating when Isla wasn't looking. It was elaborate, and probably good it didn't happen. There are still a few dialogues that can trigger around the Rogue Harbour, however.
  
• Kurai's name is an anagram of Karui, which I only realise once we'd already recorded a lot of her dialogue. It wasn't intentional.
  
• I tried to make one of the characters an ethical cannibal (again), but that was cut. One day...
  
• We might try to use a few of these characters again in the future. There are some I'm keen to explore further.
  

There are probably a lot more little bits and pieces I'm forgetting, since Heist was one of the busiest leagues I've worked on. I've seen a lot of feedback and it really helps knowing people do, in fact, care about lore, stories and dialogue in Path of Exile. And all that feedback is helpful in polishing what we work on next.

Last week we talked about the changes to the Heist league we've been recently working on. The team is finishing preparations for the 3.12.4 update with the mentioned improvements, as well as other fixes. The patch will be deployed in the coming days, we're aiming to release it as soon as possible. In the meantime, check out a preview of its patch notes below.

The 3.12.4 patch on consoles will be released as early as possible after its deployment on PC.

Note that the patch notes below may be changed prior to release of the 3.12.4 update.

[h3]Heist Improvements[/h3]

• Enabled the questline that leads toward the Freidrich Tarollo, Slave Merchant boss encounter.
  
• Increased the range that you can move away from your Rogue Allies before they are interrupted from a Job that they are performing.
  
• Unique Contracts can now be placed in the Unique Collection Tab.
  
• The Passive Tree window will now be in the same position when re-opened as when it was last closed. Exceptions to this rule include the first time being opened after logging in to a character, characters below level 8, or if you have any unspent Ascendancy passive points with the Ascendancy passive tree visible.
  
• You can now delete characters that have Harvest Infrastructure in their inventories.
  
• Fixed an issue where Heist members could sometimes ignore orders to perform Jobs if they were in another room or in combat.
  
• Fixed a bug where Maltreatment Axe, Disapprobation Axe and Psychotic Axe were unable to drop.
  
• Fixed a bug where Talismans dropped from some Heists Chests in level 68+ areas were not correctly Anointed.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where a Curio Display in a Grand Heist could contain nothing.
  
• Fixed a bug in Quest Contracts where the quest objective didn't drop for party members.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "increased Rogue's Marker value of primary Heist Target" Heist Equipment modifier didn't work.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "+X to Level of all Jobs" Heist Equipment modifier didn't work.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused projectiles fired by a Shrapnel Ballista supported by Fork Support to hit a target more times than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented the use of movement skills after using Shield Charge if it didn't actually move your character.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Zombies raised from a Phantasmal Raised Zombies skill gem to take Chaos Damage based on a Life total before some Life modifiers were applied, rather than their Life total after they were affected by all maximum Life modifiers.
  
• Fixed a bug where Seismic Cry and Ancestral Cry's cooldowns were not correctly reduced to four seconds when using the unique claw Al Dhih.
  
• Fixed a client crash.
  

[h3]Alternate Quality Gem Improvements[/h3]

• Alternate Quality Gems can now be supported by gems which match the bonuses granted by their Alternate Quality.
  
• Divergent Heavy Strike (whose quality grants reduced Knockback Distance) can no longer cause enemies to be pulled towards you when the gem has greater than 20% quality. At 20% quality, the skill will not provide any Knockback effect.
  
• Fixed a bug where Alternate Quality effects on the following gems didn't work as intended: Anomalous Slower Projectiles Support (Projectiles from Supported Skills deal increased Damage with Hits to nearby Enemies), Phantasmal Rallying Cry (Exerted Attacks deal increased Damage), Divergent Seismic Cry (Exerted Attacks have a chance to Knock Enemies Back on Hit), Phantasmal Raise Zombie (Minions gain a portion of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage), Phantasmal Blade Vortex (increased Damage while you have 5 or fewer Blades).
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Flameblast's Less Cast Speed effect was not displayed.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Sunder had the wrong quality effect. It now grants increased Physical Damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Fire Penetration, Anomalous Brutality Support and Anomalous Vicious Projectiles Support didn't display their quality effect range when at 0% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anomalous Barrage Support and Anomalous Pierce Support didn't display their quality effect range if the gem had 10 to 19% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Arc's secondary chains dealt damage as if they had chained the maximum number of times.
  
  

At the beginning of next week, we're planning to deploy another patch (with a short server restart) which includes more improvements for Heist. While we prepare this patch for deployment, we wanted to give you some insight into what it contains.

[h3]Alternate Quality Gems[/h3]
We're implementing fixes for various Alternate Quality Gems that weren't working correctly.

• Alternate Quality Gems can now be supported by gems which match the bonuses granted by their Alternate Quality.
  
• Divergent Heavy Strike (x% reduced Knockback Distance) can no longer cause enemies to be pulled towards you when the gem has greater than 20% quality. At 20% quality, the skill will not provide any Knockback effect.
  
• Fixed a bug where Alternate Quality effects on the following gems didn't work as intended: Anomalous Slower Projectiles Support (Projectiles from Supported Skills deal increased Damage with Hits to nearby Enemies), Phantasmal Rallying Cry (Exerted Attacks deal increased Damage), Divergent Seismic Cry (Exerted Attacks have a chance to Knock Enemies Back on Hit), Phantasmal Raise Zombie (Minions gain a portion of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage), Phantasmal Blade Vortex (increased Damage while you have 5 or fewer Blades).
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Flameblast's Less Cast Speed effect was not displayed.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Sunder had the wrong quality effect. It now grants increased Physical Damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Fire Penetration, Anomalous Brutality Support and Anomalous Vicious Projectiles Support didn't display their quality effect range when at 0% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anomalous Barrage Support and Anomalous Pierce Support didn't display their quality effect range if the gem had 10 to 19% quality.
  
• Fixed a bug where Divergent Arc's secondary chains dealt damage as if they had chained the maximum number of times.
  

[h3]Rogue Behaviour Improvements[/h3]
We've improved the overall behaviour of Rogues and fixed problems where they were not prioritising their jobs over combat or other situations.

We've also increased the range in which you can move from your Rogue before it interrupts the task they're performing.

[h3]Remaining Heist Boss[/h3]
We're introducing one more Unique Heist Contract which leads to Freidrich Tarollo the Slave Merchant, another Heist Boss.

[h3]Mac Improvements[/h3]
This patch includes some Mac-specific improvements as we continue to get closer to our official Mac launch.

These are fixes for things like keyboard input failing, gateways not displaying their server latency, improvements to patching, images not displaying and the client crashing after being minimised alongside general client improvements.

[h3]Other Fixes[/h3]
We are also working on various instance and client crashes which will be hotfixed as they're ready. We'll share a preview of next week's patch notes prior to the patch going live. This preview would cover more small changes outside of those detailed in this post.

[h3]PlayStation 4 Crashes[/h3]
We don't have any updates to provide here unfortunately but we are getting a lot closer to narrowing this problem down.

[h3]Stash Tab Folders and Affinities[/h3]
These are still making good progress. In terms of deployment timeline, we're looking at one week as an optimistic estimate and three weeks as a worst-case scenario. The variance in time depends on how much more iteration will need to take place during testing.

Today we've gathered several pieces of concept art for some of the cosmetic effects introduced in our recent Twilight Mystery Box. If you're interested in taking a sneak peek into the development process of the box, check out the artwork below!