Path of Exile News

We're now in the second week of the Heist league and the team is continuing to monitor your feedback and reported issues. In this news post we'd like to give you an update about some recently reported issues and to provide a general indication of what we're working on. Please note that a lot of the plans here are early and may change as they undergo development and internal testing.

[h3]Experience from Monsters in Heists[/h3]While there's currently no experience penalty on Heist monsters, we agree that in actual gameplay, they don't grant enough experience. We plan to significantly increase the experience that Heist monsters grant, with a focus on monsters encountered during Lockdown.

[h3]Heist Areas (in maps) are too long[/h3]We're going to standardise the size of Heists so that once you hit maps, they don't get any larger than the current Tier 1 size. You'll find a greater density of reward rooms in the higher-tier ones, of course.

[h3]Opening Job Doors in Heists[/h3]We have reduced the number of Heist Job doors along the direct path to the primary objective which need to be opened prior to Lockdown. We have also increased the speed at which Karst and Tullina complete the Agility Job.

There are some Heist Jobs that currently can't be sped up, but we're investigating the possibility of allowing this. In addition, some of the Heist doors have timing values that we'd like to make faster.

[h3]Observer Totems[/h3]Observer Totems, which can be found in Heists that require the Perception Job, increase Alert Level when you are close to them. One of the core issues is that it isn't necessarily obvious when you are approaching these totems or when you are in range of their Alert Level aura. We will be improving their visibility in a future update (both where they are and indicating when your Rogue specialising in Perception has made them vulnerable to damage).

Currently when a totem uses its Alert Level generation skill on you, your Alert Level goes up unless you kill it before it finishes using the skill. We will be changing it so that the skill essentially travels out in a wave that you can run away from or avoid. It will only increase the Alert Level if you are hit by it.

[h3]New Heist Bosses/Quests[/h3]We plan to enable two new boss encounters (and their accompanying questline) in an upcoming patch this week. Following that, we are aiming to enable another boss encounter (and questline) next week!

[h3]Heist Rewards[/h3]We have completed a large pass on Heist rewards. Our current plan is to increase the value of various reward types, such as Generic, Talismans, Metamorph and Harbinger. We want to provide further incentive to prioritising Reward Room Chests, therefore we will be moving some of the special rewards from Main Path Chests into Reward Room Chests.

Various Reward Room Chests will have a chance to drop Scarabs which match their respective rewards. We will be reducing the frequency at which Generic Reward Room Chests appear in Heists as well.

We have increased the Rogue Marker value of Heist objectives by up to 40% (based on the Tier of the Contract).

We have reduced the revealing cost for high-tier Blueprints by up to 15%. Alongside the increased Rogue Markers generated by running Heist Contracts, we expect that you should feel less strained by Blueprint revealing costs.

Additionally, we plan to change Blueprints to display all of the Reward Rooms that the Wings contain, rather than just the Reward Rooms that can be revealed. This way, you'll be able to see all of the potential rewards in a given Wing, giving you more information to decide whether you'd like to reveal a given Wing.

We are also considering some changes to how much you can extend the lockdown timer, such that it's still an effective strategy, but not one that trivialises opening all reward chests.

[h3]Portals back to The Rogue Harbour[/h3]There's a problem where returning to the Rogue Harbour can put you into the wrong Harbour, preventing you from returning to your Heist. We attempted to fix it last week but ran into some big problems and had to revert the fix. We have another plan for fixing it which we hope to deploy later this week.

[h3]Client and Instance Crashes[/h3]We aim to fix crashes as soon as possible, prioritising crashes based on how frequently they're occurring and how many players they're affecting. On Saturday, we fixed the most common client crash. We will continue to fix crashes as quickly as possible in our upcoming patches.

[h3]PlayStation 4 Crashes[/h3]The common client crash on this platform has the full attention of our engine development team at the moment.

[h3]Stash Tab Folders and Stash Tab Affinities[/h3]Stash Tab Folders are nearing completion. We will then be doing extensive internal testing. As soon as they're ready to go, we will be patching them in.

Stash Tab Affinities will take a little bit more time to complete, but we don't want to delay Stash Tab Folders. We're aiming to have Stash Tab Affinities released within the next few weeks.

It's critical that both of these features are implemented very safely and tested thoroughly, due to their nature.

[h3]Official macOS release[/h3]Since our unofficial release of an experimental macOS client immediately before the Heist release, we have been working on fixing commonly-reported issues. There are still a few important issues remaining, so we don't have a release date locked down yet. We'd like it to ideally be next week though.

[h3]The following commonly-reported issues are fixed and are awaiting testing/deployment:[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where Tullina could fail to open a Heist door in the Underbelly.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Prophecies would trigger and be consumed in Heists.
  
• Fixed a bug where Elemental Overload would not show its buff timer.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Grand Heists to sometimes fail to spawn an entrance to a Wing.
  
• And many more - we'll post a preview of patch notes once we have them tested and assembled into a patch.
  

Thanks for making it through this long post! We'll continue to monitor feedback as these changes are deployed. We're likely to make additional improvements, and we'll keep you updated about those too.

In Path of Exile: Heist we introduced 13 new Rogues which assist you in Heists. We are very happy to see that a lot of players are enjoying the personalities of these NPCs and their interactions with each other. We'll talk about the process behind creating their lore and dialogue in the coming weeks. In the meantime check out the pieces of concept art of the Rogues created by our art team.

















We'd also like to take a moment to mention that we're going through all the Heist feedback now and are keen to address the issues in a news post later this week (potentially tomorrow). In the meantime the devs are continuing working on improvements and fixes to the Heist and will be releasing them as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Prior to Heist's launch, we revealed the Cursed Words divination card which redeems for the Maw of Mischief Unique Item. I was generously given the opportunity to design this card by one of our players and was also able to design a unique item that the card redeems for. In case you missed it, check out the Cursed Words card below!



We have so far kept the Maw of Mischief item secret but it's coming out soon so it's time to finally reveal it!



Death Wish is a channelled skill with thirteen stages that selects one of your minions per channeling stage. While channelling, the selected minions have immense Attack, Cast and Movement Speed and have the ability to pass through enemies. When the channelling is released, these minions will explode.

Each explosion deals a flat amount of fire spell damage in an area. It also deals 13% of the minion's maximum life as fire damage in the same area. The life-scaling portion of the damage does not scale with spell damage. Each explosion will deal more damage the more stages you built up.

In addition to the benefits of the skill, wearing the helmet makes your minions aggressive which means they'll target enemies from further away and find their way to enemies for maximum pay-off when the explosion occurs.

Here's a video of the Maw of Mischief in action!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

When I started to think about what I wanted to design for a Divination Card, it felt very appropriate for it to have some sort of representation for what my role within the Path of Exile community has been for the last 7 years. I wanted something that spoke about the relationship I have with the community and tied to various elements related to that.

Initially, as many of you speculated, I wanted to create an item that was mostly a joke that did mysterious things that would cause players to scratch their heads. We discussed various things like creating an 'Orb of Confusion' as a throwback to one of our past Halloween Boards. We talked about the possibility of adding it into the map device alongside maps and it spitting out patch notes that were both real and fake.

Ultimately, we worried about unfairness to other Divination Card creators who wouldn't have the same opportunity to create such things as well as the novelty wearing off after a while. Also, most players play the game without interacting with the forums or other community areas and would likely not be 'in' on the joke and simply find it strange.

I returned to the drawing board of creating something more serious. After thinking about it for some time, I realised I wanted to theme both the card and unique item around the feeling of anticipation. As a community manager, a lot of what you're working with boils down to managing people waiting - either with excitement or sometimes with a sense of dread (in the case of fixes or nerfs). This manifests both as teasing new content and communicating fixes and potential balance changes. Two sides of the same mindstate - anticipation.

We nailed down the basic function of the unique item first. I wanted to create something that works with allies, essentially groups of people as a representation of the community. I also wanted something that included a sense of anticipation which resulted in the channelling function creating a delay and then a payoff. I also wanted something that generated explosions because explosions are neat.

In terms of name and flavour, we were working from the idea of words having the ability to bring both joy and despair. I feel that the flavour summarises this perfectly.

The line that divides hope and fear,
Life and death, crowd and mob
Is as thin as a whisper.

It refers to both the power of words and the place that community managers occupy in the scheme of things. 'The line that divides' talks about the space between these two worlds of the community and the development team. 'As thin as a whisper' brings it back to being about communication. We followed a similar train of thought in naming the skill, 'Death Wish' as a sort of play on words about whispers that cause people to frenzy in anticipation, in this case culminating in deadly explosions.

The 'Maw of Mischief' name sort of came about quite naturally in talking about my role as a speaker. It's a bit obvious really - words come from the mouth and they're sort of cheeky sometimes. I also liked that the idea of a 'maw' sort of inherently called for creepy art for the helmet's look which was something I was hoping for.

After nailing down much of the unique item, the Divination Card came about sort of easily. While I wanted the unique item to stand alone as a contribution separate to my identity, I felt I could have a little fun with the Divination Card. We stuck with the theme of anticipation and words. The anticipation coming from the card being the only way to gain the unique item and the pursuit of its hidden meanings.

I chose the number 13 for the channelled stages and divination card stack size because it is a sp00ky number and because I joined GGG in 2013.

'Cursed Words' is sort of a cheeky play on 'curse-words' as well as referring to the words you might speak to cause someone to pursue their hidden meaning, perhaps for fun or perhaps to their detriment. I chose the art because it was a wonderful opportunity to put my own personal stamp on Path of Exile, it happened to work well with the themes of the card and item and being in line with the style Divination Card art is usually done in. Plus for many of you, it is instantly recognisable.

I feel incredibly humbled to have been given this opportunity to contribute to Path of Exile in this way. Working with the Grinding Gear Games team and alongside the Path of Exile community for so many years has brought so much joy to my life and created amazing memories that I'll hold onto forever. Being able to create the Maw of Mischief puts this time into the legacy of Path of Exile and I'm beyond grateful for that. As my role in the company continues to mature over time, I am sure I'll always look back on this period with fond memories.

I wanted to say a special thank you to James and Nick for helping me work my ideas into these formats as well as to Aneruok for gifting me the Divination Card design. I also want to thank you, the community, for joining me in so many wonderful moments and for supporting Path of Exile so that we can continue to create these moments. I hope you enjoy the unique!

Thank you.

The team is currently finishing testing the 3.12.2 update with a fair amount of improvements to the Heist league. We're planning to deploy this patch by the end of this working week (or early next week).

Please note that the patch notes listed below may be changed prior to the release of the 3.12.2 update.

[h3]Heist Improvements[/h3]

• Rebalanced the amount of Alert Level that Reward Room and Main Path Chests generate when opened.
  
• Many existing Contract and Blueprint modifiers which didn't already do so now grant Alert Level Reduction, Time Before Lockdown and Maximum Alive Reinforcements bonuses.
  
• Added additional Reward Types to various Heist Jobs.
  
• Breach, Harbinger, Delirium and Legion rewards now require level 68 or higher before they can be found as Chest Rewards.
  
• After completing The Rogue Harbour quest, you will be placed at the top of the stairs when arriving in The Rogue Harbour.
  
• Many Heist monsters can now be Spectred!
  
• Alert Level reduction modifiers from different sources are now multiplicative with one another.
  
• You will now be placed slightly further away from the portal when entering a Heist.
  
• Attempting to leave a Heist area before entering a Heist Wing will now request confirmation.
  
• Grand Heist rewards which contain Enchanted Body Armours or Weapons are now more likely to contain higher-tier Base Types.
  
• Monsters in formations during Heists now stagger the timing of their attacks, such that they're not all using their attacks at the same time.
  
• Reduced the damage that Thaumaturgy Officers and Security Conjurors deal.
  
• Reduced the damage that Labra-tomaton, Labora-dor and Clockwork Sentries deal with their on-death explosions.
  
• Clockwork Sentries now have a 20% chance to explode on death (down from 100%).
  
• Improved the telegraphing effects and audio of Clockwork Sentries.
  
• It is now more clear when a Rogue has reached the maximum level for a given Heist Job.
  
• Improved various Heist quest text notifications.
  
• Heist Quest Items will now be removed from your inventory if you fail the Quest Contract. You will be able to get a new item when you re-obtain the appropriate Quest Contract.
  
• You can now search by Job name in your Heist Locker.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Grand Heists could not be completed.
  
• Fixed a rare bug that could prevent completion of a Heist in Smuggler's Den.
  
• Fixed a bug where Gianna, Master of Disguise could sometimes fail to complete a Job.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing Quantity and Rarity implicit modifiers on Heist Brooches from displaying.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause Resonators to drop with linked sockets.
  
• Fixed a bug which could sometimes cause players to get stuck in a Vault door.
  
• Fixed a bug where, when returning to The Rogue Harbour from a Heist area, you could be placed in a Rogue Harbour instance that did not contain the portal to your Heist area.
  
• 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 where the Primary Objective chest in Contracts could not be opened in party play if the player who created the Heist was not present.
  

[h3]General Improvements[/h3]

• Marked for Death, Mark the Prey and Malicious Intent can now be anointed.
  
• Updated the description of the "Inflicts a random Hex on you when your Totems die, with 80% increased Effect" modifier on the Soul Mantle unique body armour to be 80% more Effect. This does not impact the already-hotfixed functionality of Soul Mantle.
  
• Fixed a bug where shield modifiers were still applying to you while you had the Necromatic Aegis keystone passive allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where modifiers that you could not apply to a given item were not visibly disabled in the Crafting Bench UI.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Beastcrafting to ignore metamods.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could have more than 100 Poisons on you when using The Golden Rule unique jewel in combination with the Maw of Conquest unique helmet.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused monster versions of Cremation to fire projectiles more frequently than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where Consecrated Ground from the Sanctuary ascendancy passive could be placed at the destination location after using Frostblink while holding down Move.
  
• Fixed a visual issue where Discharge effects were rendered on top of your character, rather than at your target location, when using the Astral Projector unique ring.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the mana cost of Discharge to be significantly lower than the listed value on the skill gem.
  
• Fixed a bug where some new Flame Wall and Frost Shield enchantments were missing descriptions.
  
• Fixed a bug where Flame Wall didn't display the amount of damage that it added to projectiles in its tooltip.
  
• Fixed a bug where Explosive Arrow fuses were not always visually removed after exploding.
  

[h3]Crash Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an instance crash that could occur during Metamorph encounters.
  
• Fixed 3 instance crashes.
  
• Fixed a client crash.
  

Last weekend, we launched Path of Exile: Heist. Since its launch, we've received lots of feedback about various aspects of the new content and we wanted to give you some insights about what to expect. We are preparing various server side fixes that we'll deploy as quickly as possible. Since these don't require realm restarts they are fairly easy for us to push through with fast turnarounds.

We are also planning a restart patch for later this week. This patch ideally includes things like some bonus Heist bosses and quests and the ability to use Heist monsters as spectres.

Before we proceed in this post, please understand that we are working on much more than this post covers. In order to document every small fix or improvement that we're working on, we would have needed to slow down the development of these in order to communicate these changes (essentially taking key developers away from their duties to help put information into a post).

However, we do want to communicate at least some of what's happening so you have an idea of what to expect.

[h3]Choke Points in Heists[/h3]We are reducing the number of rare guards that can gather behind Heist doors. Some monsters will release their skills in a staggered way so that you are not being hit by many skills simultaneously. Fewer monsters in these choke points will have their abilities ready to go as soon as the door opens. This should make these encounters more manageable and less about being blasted in the face with damage.

[h3]Slaying Monsters Increasing The Alert Level[/h3]We killed this. It's not a thing anymore.

[h3]Opening Chests vs. Alert Level[/h3]We are planning to rebalance opening chests in Heists and how they affect alert level. Opening chests in reward rooms will raise the alert level by a lot less and the chests on the main path will raise it slightly more. This both normalises the results and achieves a lower average level of alert generated by chests. This is likely to happen alongside a more broad rebalance of these chests, the alert level and their rewards.

[h3]I Want To Store More Grand Heist Items[/h3]Totally. You're supposed to be able to portal out of them before the alarm goes off but right now there's an issue which means you can portal back to town into the wrong instance and lose your portal and therefore lose access to your Heist. We're fixing this.

[h3]The Rogue Harbour Waypoint - I don't like running [/h3]We hear you. We'll find a way to make this more efficient but don't know exactly what it looks like yet.

[h3]Rogue Behaviour [/h3]There are various issues with the way that NPCs behave during Heists. There's one issue in particular where Rogues are not prioritising their specialist skills when ordered to do so and can sometimes be distracted by other issues. We are working to refine how they behave which should resolve a few other Heist issues (like being locked out of Grand Heists).

[h3]New Skills Feedback[/h3]We've seen various bits and pieces of feedback about the new skills but we would like to get even more. If you have feedback about the new skills, please reply to this post so we can review it. Including specifics is great.

[h3]Can We Have a Prompt Before Leaving Heists? [/h3]Yes, there will be a prompt if you attempt to portal out of the Heist before you enter the combat zone. This along with fixing the issue where you can portal back to the wrong town instance should help a lot.

[h3]Crafting Bench Doesn't Grey Out Unavailable Mods[/h3]We have a fix for this.

[h3]Quest Items Stuck In Inventory After Failed Heists[/h3]We have a fix for this too.

[h3]Crashes, Instance Crashes and Performance Issues[/h3]As per usual, we are monitoring these closely and fixing issues as quickly as we can.

[h3]Explode on Death[/h3]Two Heist monsters explode on death. The more problematic one deals too much damage which has, and is again being, reduced, made conditional and will have its visual telegraphing examined.

[h3]"The launch day went quite well with just a few small hotfixes to address minor problems"[/h3]This is a great meme but we acknowledge that there were issues with the launch. It wasn't perfect by any means. We're sorry about the issues that have prevented people playing the content smoothly and we are working to fix them as quickly as we can.

[h3]What's the timeline?[/h3]Basically ASAP for everything but we will keep you updated by previewing the patch notes for any of the upcoming patches as quickly as we can. We'll also tweet about the restartless patches so that you are aware of them as they come out.

If you have any reports, please share them on the bug report forum. We check every report we receive but aren't able to reply to them. Thanks for all of your support and feedback. We really appreciate it.