Path of Exile News

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!

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.

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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.

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