Path of Exile News

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!

Bright as dawn and mysterious like the starry night, the Twilight Mystery Box has easily become one of the most popular Mystery Boxes of all time. As an appreciation for your continued support, we're making the soundtrack of this Mystery Box available as a free download.

To download the Twilight Mystery Box soundtrack, click (or Right-click, “Save link as”) on the file type you prefer: .flac or .mp3. Enjoy!

If you enjoy music created by our composer Kamil, check out his Soundcloud here or YouTube channel.

For the Heist expansion our art team created not only new NPC models, but a lot of new assets and materials, as well as updated some existing ones. Stan, one of our environment material artists, has written an article about creating materials for the Heist expansion.

----------------------------------------------------------

Hi! I'm Stan Brown, an Environment Material Artist at Grinding Gear Games. I joined the team in May 2020 to work on the exciting Path of Exile 2 project, I also had the privilege to create materials for Heist League.



Creating materials for a game already rich with history and lore is a lot of fun and gives an opportunity to add details from already existing parts of the game. An example of this is the Mansion area in Heist. The marble floor mosaics are based on the stained glass windows in the Chamber of Innocence, and the tiles around it are an unbroken recreation of the floor in the Sceptre of God area.



I use mostly Adobe Allegorithmic's Substance Designer to create my materials. This is a node based system for creating PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials. This means that materials created correctly will react more realistically with light sources than previous methods. It's also cool to be able to add scratches and other details that show up as a light is moved across the surface.





A part I love about material creation and especially for ground materials is to delve into the stories behind them. This means asking questions such as: Did they have the technology to create the floor type I envision? Who lives there? What kind of foot traffic does this area have? What kind of dirt or oil stains could potentially be in this area and why? Is it well kept or abandoned?



The answers to these questions then help make a believable material that fits the surrounding models, for example like the floor in the Tunnels using the same stones under the dirt as the side walkways.



A big thanks goes out to all my colleagues for being such awesome people to work with! Stay safe everyone.

----------------------------------------------------------

If you'd like to check out more works of Stan, have a look at his ArtStation profile here.

Earlier this week we discussed our plans about improvements to the Heist league for the immediate future. The team has been working on a new patch which contains some of the things mentioned in that news post, as well as other fixes. We're planning to deploy the 3.12.3 update as early as possible next week (Monday or Tuesday NZT). Today we've prepared a preview of its patch notes to give you an idea of what to expect.

Please note that the patch notes below may be changed prior to release of the 3.12.3 update.

[h3]Heist Improvements[/h3]

• Enabled questlines that lead towards The Twins and the Nashta, The Usurper Heist boss encounters.
  
• Significantly increased the likelihood of obtaining Unique Contracts from Smuggler's Caches.
  
• Reduced the maximum length of a Heist in higher level areas. The number of Reward Rooms remains unchanged.
  
• Reduced the number of Heist Job Doors along the path to the primary objective in Heists.
  
• Moved some of the more valuable main-path chest rewards to Reward Room Chests.
  
• Improved the rewards of Generic, Talisman, Metamorph and Harbinger Reward Room Chests.
  
• Dropped Talismans in level 68+ areas now drop with higher-tier modifiers on average and with a random Anointed Notable.
  
• Many Reward Room Chests can now drop their respective Scarabs.
  
• Updated the minimap icon used for Generic Rewards to more closely reflect the random assortment of possible rewards.
  
• Significantly increased the amount of experience that Heist monsters grant when killed.
  
• Increased the Rogue Marker value of Heist objectives by up to 40% (based on the Tier of the Contract).
  
• Reduced the revealing cost for high-tier Blueprints by up to 15%.
  
• Blueprints now display all Reward Chests that Wings contain, rather than just the Reward Chests which can be revealed.
  
• Rooms on Blueprints that you must spend Rogue Markers to reveal will no longer include Armour, Weapons or Jewellery rewards.
  
• The "additional seconds to Lockdown Timer" modifier on Ally Equipment now gives a maximum of 5 seconds (from 10 seconds). Existing items are affected by this change.
  
• The "increased time before Lockdown" modifier on Ally Equipment now gives a maximum of 10% increased time before Lockdown (from 20%). Existing items are affected by this change.
  
• Isla, the Engineer's Heist Perk now gives 30% increased time before Lockdown at Level 1, up to 50% increased time before Lockdown at Level 5 (from 80% at Level 5).
  
• Opening a Heist chest during the Imminent Lockdown timer will now reduce the remaining time by 3 seconds (from 1 second).
  
• Improved the visibility of Observer Totems and their skill effects.
  
• Observer Totems in Contracts requiring the Perception Job now only increase your Alert Level if their area of effect pulse hits you.
  
• Prophecies can no longer trigger when entering a Heist area.
  
• A description of the Rogue Marker value of a Heist Target can now be seen on a Contract.
  
• Blueprints will now display the area level on their item tooltip.
  
• Corpses of many Heist monsters can now be created with Desecrate.
  
• Lockpicking Doors now open slightly faster.
  
• Karst, the Lockpick and Tullina, the Catburglar now complete their Agility Jobs faster.
  
• Gianna, the Master of Disguise's Disguise skill no longer has a cooldown. This fixes a case where she was unable to disguise herself in quick succession.
  
• Rogues now have a short cooldown after using a voice line before they can use it again.
  
• Reinforcements now spawn slightly quicker in Laboratory and Prohibited Library.
  
• Fixed a bug which could sometimes result in fewer monsters spawning than intended as reinforcements during Lockdown.
  
• Fixed a bug where Tullina could fail to open a Heist door in the Underbelly.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rogues would sometimes dance in place after placing a bomb near a Demolition job if you were standing too close to the door.
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented the "League Interface" hotkey from working on Heist Chests during Lockdown if you had Tibbs or Niles with you.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Heist chest could spawn in unwalkable terrain in Smuggler's Den.
  
• Fixed a visual issue where it appeared as if Alert Level was not increasing when opening Heist chests.
  
• Fixed a bug which allowed players to apply Veiled Modifiers and Incubators to Ally Equipment, Contracts and Blueprints.
  
• Fixed a bug where Trinket modifiers which caused Heist Chests to drop additional rewards weren't being applied if the chest was opened by an accompanying Rogue.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Ally Equipment could list Adiyah, the Wayfinder and Kurai, the Administrator as Rogues that it could be equipped by.
  
• Fixed a bug where Heist Rogues would retain their Quest Item dialogue option after you had already taken the Quest Item.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ashblessed Warden's Beam skill hit a larger area than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where Contracts and Blueprints displayed level requirements.
  

[h3]General Improvements[/h3]

• Hexblast now prioritises Cursed enemies.
  
• Steel Shards are now maintained between areas.
  
• Tane Octavius can now be Ctrl + Clicked to bring up the Vendor window.
  
• The Captain Fairgraves encounter in The Ship Graveyard now begins slightly sooner.
  
• Added The Hidden Blade, Crest of Desire and The Ghastly Theatre to the Unique Collection Tab.
  
• Adjusted the look of Exalted Weapon Effect to closer match its original visuals.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause Cremation to sometimes deal no damage.
  
• Fixed a bug which could prevent the use of Berserk after weapon-swapping.
  
• Fixed a bug where Phantasmal Cyclone's "x% Chance to Avoid Interruption from Stuns While Using this Skill" quality modifier rolled when you began channelling and used the outcome of that roll until you stopped channelling, rather than rolling each time something attempted to stun you.
  
• Fixed a bug where Void Sphere, Sigil of Power, Flame Wall and Frost Shield supported by Trap Support could visually disappear after you threw a different trap.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the moving of the camera when Lightning Warping to be out of sync with the skill effects.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Unnatural Instinct unique Viridian Jewel would not grant implicit modifier stats if they matched a stat granted by being socketed into your passive skill tree.
  
• Fixed a bug where Replica Rumi's Concoction unique flask didn't display its buff name while active.
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Crackling Lance has x% increased branching angle" Eternal Labyrinth helmet enchantment had a lower value than intended. It now grants 36% increased branching angle.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.12.0 where the Cortex encounter no longer spawned minions.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.12.0 where Void Pits in Synthesis Guardian encounters weren't removed.
  
• Fixed a bug where opening a Map with an Alva Atlas Mission while you had no Incursions remaining for your Temple of Atzoatl would consume the mission.
  
• Fixed a bug where Vaal Temple Map displayed an incorrect Atlas Region and was required to unlock a Favourite Map slot in Valdo's Rest.
  
• Fixed a bug where the size of Dragon Portal Effect was smaller than intended when created outside of your Hideout.
  

[h3]Crash Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an instance crash.