Path of Exile News

At the end of this work week, we're planning to deploy Patch 3.10.1 which includes improvements to several aspects of Delirium (including the visual updates we discussed last week), bug fixes and more. We've prepared a preview of the patch notes so that you know what to expect.

Delirium Improvements

• Made various visual adjustments to Delirium mist to improve visibility of effects below the mist.
  
• Added a variety of coloured lights to monsters and packs with Delirium on-death modifiers to more clearly represent the type of damage their skills will deal.
  
• The Vengeful Blast modifier now creates a Fire-damage Flameblast (rather than Cold-damage). We have improved the telegraphing of the Flameblast as well.
  
• Updated the effects of the Vengeful Skyfire meteors.
  
• Updated the effects and audio of the Crushing Terror telegraph and impact.
  
• Added a ground target marker for Vengeful Soul's Soul Mortar skill.
  
• Added a red tint to the homing Delirium volatile monsters and the ground objects which create them.
  
• Delirium Volatile monsters now have a charge-up animation before they explode, rather than exploding immediately when contacted.
  
• Monsters with the Vengeful Stalker modifier are no longer targetable when they are exploding.
  
• The Vengeful Stalker modifier now deals Lightning damage.
  
• The Vengeful Skyfire modifier now creates more tightly clustered Firestorm impacts.
  
• Adjusted the reward count pacing in story areas to behave similarly to that of Map areas. This does mean that some areas (such as Harbour Bridge) will no longer be overly rewarding.
  
• Reduced the size of the Hysteriagate Simulacrum area. This results in monster density being similar to that of the other Simulacrum areas.
  
• Fixed a bug where some monsters were dropping Simulacrum Splinters after the Delirium mist had subsided.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where Delirium rewards could drop in inaccessible locations.
  
• Fixed a bug where rewards from the additional reward bars added in 3.10.0e did not give credit for the "Obtain Rewards from Delirium Encounters" challenge.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Devastator, Explosive Force and Unspeakable Gifts Cluster Jewel modifiers were causing monsters that aren't ordinarily able to have their corpses destroyed (such as Piety, the Abomination in the Belly of the Beast Level 2) to explode.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Poisons you inflict on non-Poisoned Enemies deal 300% increased Damage" stat on the Low Tolerance Cluster Jewel notable did not work.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Warcries count as having 10 additional nearby Enemies" stat on the Cry Wolf Cluster Jewel notable didn't work when using Intimidating Cry.
  
• Fixed a bug where corrupting a Unique Cluster Jewel into a Rare Cluster Jewel didn't generate an enchantment on the Rare Cluster Jewel.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where Fury Hound monsters in the Simulacrum could sometimes become immune to damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Delirium Unique Items and Cluster Jewels were not dropping at the correct item level in the Simulacrum.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cluster Jewel notables were not being disabled if you had down-leveled below the level requirement of the socketed jewel.
  

General Improvements

• You are now able to select an Atlas Mission via the Map Device.
  
• Shaper and Elder Influence can now be applied to areas that also have Conqueror Influence.
  
• Divination Cards which award Perandus Manor now always do so at a tier that is equivalent to what would be received if you had 4 Watchstones in the appropriate region of your Atlas. Cadiro Perandus will offer Perandus Manor at a tier based on the watchstone count of the appropriate region of your Atlas.
  
• Doryani's Machinarium now drops at a tier based on the Watchstone count of the appropriate region of your Atlas. This means that if you have 4 Watchstones in the region that contains the Maze Map, Doryani's Machinarium will drop at its maximum tier.
  
• Unique Maps and Vaal Temple Map are no longer highlighted when selecting a Favourite Map.
  
• x% increased Effect of Auras on You modifiers no longer apply to enemy debuff auras.
  
• Arc, when triggered, now targets as close to your target as possible.
  
• Mirage Archers now release their channelled Snipe at maximum stages.
  
• Eye Hatcheries created by Metamorph bosses no longer create damaging ground impacts each time they take damage.
  
• Scale of Esh monsters are now limited to having up to 3 minions at a time.
  
• Adjusted the physics of the Project Wings.
  
• Improved the performance of Bladestorm effects.
  
• Added an EnableDropSound parameter that can be used in Item Filters.
  
• Fixed an issue with the PlayAlertSound parameter in Item Filters not handling the Continue command correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where some unique monsters could fail to pathfind to players correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 which caused the "Contains additional Divination Cards that give Corrupted Items" modifier found on Diviner's Strongboxes to not work.
  
• Fixed a bug where Vaal souls gained when using the Soul Ripper unique flask were given to a single Vaal skill, rather than being distributed amongst all socketed Vaal skills.
  
• Fixed a bug where running far away from an upgraded Stormbind rune and then returning to it caused it to visibly appear as if it was unupgraded.
  
• Fixed a bug where the ground effect from Hunter Influence Basilisk monsters re-appeared if you ran far away from it and then returned.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Ice Trail created by Veritania, The Redeemer lasted forever.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 where the Sawblades thrown by Truth Extractors bounced forever.
  
• Fixed a bug where the effects of the Snipe skill, granted by the Assailum unique helmet, were not correctly removed after using the skill.
  
• Fixed a bug where the visual effects from using Frostblink could get stuck on your character until you changed areas.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 which could cause the Pier Map boss to become untargetable.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the location of Animated Weapons' health bar to sometimes be incorrect.
  
• Fixed a bug where the height of some parts of the Morbid Hideout was incorrect, causing it to interact poorly with a number of hideout decorations.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused triggered Raging Spirits to not attack monsters.
  
• Fixed a bug where Kinetic Bolt was able to drop before level 5.
  
• Fixed a bug where party members could interact with the Metamorphosis Vat. They could only say Goodbye!
  
• Fixed a bug introduced shortly before 3.10.0 where Reverb did not work.
  
• Fixed a bug where Thaumaturgy Wings and the Scientist Cloak flickered when certain effects were applied to your character.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 that caused the joints of the Wild Panther Pet to become quite entangled.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 where the trails from the Orion Weapon Effect became smaller than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where the trails from the Trinity Aura Effect were sometimes slightly ahead of the rotating spikes.
  
• Fixed an instance crash that could occur when using Zombies.
  
• Fixed an instance crash that could occur during the Gruthkul, Mother of Despair encounter.
  
• Fixed an instance crash that could occur during a Kosis, The Revelation encounter.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could sometimes occur when closing the quest reward window.
  

Please note that these are subject to change prior to the patch's deployment. The 3.10.1 update will be deployed on consoles as soon as possible after its release on PC.

Also, regarding the recent Buffer Underflow error that some users were experiencing, we believe have fully resolved this issue. If you still encounter it, please help us by posting your instance IP address in this thread.

Additionally, the Russian game servers are still under DDOS attack, and we are talking to the server host to try to work out a way this can be mitigated. Thank you so much for your help and your patience.

This is a stressful time for many of us in the world and we want to bring a little light to the moment by offering a free Thaumaturgy Mystery Box! To redeem a free Thaumaturgy Mystery Box all you need to do is to open the in-game shop! The Mystery Box will be automatically added to your account. Please note that visiting the shop on the website does not trigger the free box - it must be accessed from inside the game client.

To receive a free Thaumaturgy Mystery Box, your account has to have been created prior to today. It's only possible to get one box per account.

You'll be able to collect one free mystery box any time within the next week.

Stay safe, everyone! We wish you all the best.

As an island nation in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, New Zealand has an opportunity to stop the local spread of the recent coronavirus pandemic before it gets too entrenched. With around 100 cases from travellers returning home and two that may have been due to community transmission, our government announced yesterday that all New Zealanders will self-isolate for at least four weeks to eradicate the virus. This includes our entire development team.

The Path of Exile game service will remain online without disruption. Our server administrators were already solving problems from home when needed, so we do not expect any new issues that would affect the live service as a result of being unable to see each other in person.

We have moved all of our staff to working from home. While it's entirely possible for them to do any work they need to away from the office, it raises several new challenges for us.

Firstly, from a technical standpoint, there's a lot of development data for people to patch over the internet from the office to their homes every day. We only have 2gbit of upload speed from the office, shared between a lot of people, so it's going to be slower for people to share work with each other and to update to the most recent build.

Secondly, and more worryingly, communication is going to be more difficult when we're not all in the same big open-plan room. We're a company that relies on face-to-face discussion about important issues, and adjusting to a world of voice and video chat is going to take some time.

Our developers are still prioritising the same work as before (fixing residual Delirium issues, investigating performance concerns, etc). Please bear with us if it takes longer than it usually would due to these new circumstances. We plan to post another update about these improvements in the next couple of days.

We are also working on the 3.11.0 release, which will contain our next league. We expect to have this ready on our usual schedule (i.e. release in mid-June), but will certainly need to re-confirm that time window after actually doing this work-from-home thing in case it affects the schedule.

There's likely some impact to the Path of Exile 2 development timeline. We are absolutely prioritising the triaging of live game issues, then the development of new leagues, with development of the sequel as a third priority. A period of slower Path of Exile 2 development is a small price to pay in these difficult circumstances. We still have our jobs, and if the lockdown succeeds, our health.

We'd like to thank the development team for being so flexible and enthusiastic about this next month, and our community for their ongoing feedback and patience. We are very fortunate to be in New Zealand. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the rest of the world. Stay safe.

Path of Exile has teamed up with Alienware to bring you the Arcane Helmet and new Arcane Horns for free when you participate in the Alienware Advent Calendar for daily rewards.

The Arcane Horns
The Arcane Horns are a new type of helmet attachment that are making their exclusive debut through Alienware! Currently, the only way to get them is by signing up to their loyalty programme. However, they'll be available to everyone in our store after our June expansion.

If you'd like to grab a pair of horns, just head to Alienware Arena here and create a new account. You will receive a code automatically after your registration is complete and can find it in your Rewards Section. If you are already a member of Alienware Arena, and are level 5 or higher, you can grab a code here.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Arcane Helmet
The Arcane Helmet belongs to the Arcane Armour Set and looks great when paired with the Arcane Horns. Once you're an Alienware Arena member you can participate in reward programmes for even more freebies! The Arcane Helmet promotion will run from March 23rd to March 26th PDT. You'll receive the Path of Exile Badge on the first day and then the Arcane Helmet on the fourth. Special Note: You must login to Alienware Arena each day to receive Day 4’s reward.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Your microtransaction codes can be redeemed here. (Note that these codes are exclusive to PC users). This promotion will end once all the keys have been taken. The first people to grab them will be the ones who get them.

Here's how they look together!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Best of luck!

We want to give you an update on what's been happening behind the scenes since our recent manifesto about upcoming Delirium Improvements.

Paralysing/Wasting/Eroding/Diluting Touch Debuffs
These debuffs have been reduced substantially, down to 3 seconds. This change is already out on the live realm.

Monster Damage

• We've gone through all Delirium monsters and assessed which ones need to be less deadly and have made those tweaks. We've made the following changes in this regard:
  
• Reduced the difficulty of Delirium monsters at each mist depth (while increasing the drop rate of Simulacrum Splinters as part of the same rebalance).
  
• Reduced the chance of Delirium modifiers appearing on monsters by a significant amount.
  
• Reduced the damage that Rage monsters deal by 20%.
  
• Disgust's mortars no longer deal damage on impact.
  
• Reduced the damage of the stationary volatiles created by Disgust's mortar skill by 30%.
  
• Doubled the proximity range at which Delirium objects which spawn monsters are triggered.
  
• The decelerating projectile that explodes, fired by Spite monsters, can no longer fire multiple projectiles.
  
• Reduced the chance of Malice monsters exploding when they die at higher levels.
  

These changes went live in Patch 3.10.0d which was deployed yesterday.

Past Content Within Delirium
At the moment the current plan is that with Breach, Betrayal Raids, Blight, Incursion and Legion encounters, the Delirium mist will pause until the encounter is complete or abandoned. In these cases, all players in your party must be within a certain radius of or within the encounter. Delirium mist will also pause if the entire party leaves the instance (allowing players to stash or trade).

For other past content the plan is to pause the Delirium mist for a set amount of time upon defeating a Harbinger, Metamorph, Bestiary Red Beast, Essence Monster (the main rare one), opening a Perandus Chest or opening a Strongbox.

It's likely that these changes will make it into the next patch, which should be out today hopefully

End Delirium Keybind
This should be in our next patch. Don't forget, it's turned off by default, so you'll need to go to the options to turn it on.

Rewards
We are in progress on making it so that deeper monsters within the Delirium have a greater impact on filling the reward meter. This should be implemented in our next patch.

We've also revised the rewards that you'll receive from Delirium encounters. On reaching the third reward, a second bar will appear. That second bar will start with one reward, meaning, you'll have three rewards (first bar) + one reward (second bar) on reaching the third reward.

That second bar will fill in tandem with the first bar. Meaning, when the first bar reaches four rewards, the second bar will be at two rewards.

On reaching the fifth reward (on the first bar), a third bar will appear. That third bar will also start with one reward and will fill in tandem with bars one and two.

The reward types chosen for bar two and bar three cannot be the same as bar one to ensure an increase in the variety of rewards.

Additionally, we've reduced the likelihood of receiving Generic, Weapon, Armour and Trinket reward types.



The Awakener Fight
We have some improvements coming for this. There was an issue where Sirus could teleport too frequently and block the walls in the fight. During the first three 'throne dismounted' phases, the Apparition would use its skills too frequently. This was also not intended to be applied to the lower Awakening Level versions of the fight. We've improved this and returned his skill cooldowns to how they were previously. Should be live in our next patch.

Visibility
To improve the visibility within the fog we've reduced the Delirium's mist color grading which means it should be much easier to see what the area would look like without the mist. This change has been implemented internally and just requires testing and review. It's likely to go out with other visual improvements next week.

Improving Delirium Monster Visuals
In a similar fashion to how nemesis monsters look orange and bloodlines monsters look purple, we're adding visual effects to four categories of Delirium monsters so that they can be identified quickly - among these are monsters that use on-death skills.

We've created some of these effects and applied them to the appropriate monsters and now we are reviewing this to make sure they look right and have the intended effect of clearly indicating what kind of danger you should prepare for.

We are also adding a charge-up explosion to Delirium Volatiles, similar to existing volatiles. We have changed the Delirium-specific Volatiles to be more Red (less blue). The spawners that create them now have a colour distinction from the other spawners. We've also made them larger, and they have a notable cast before they explode, instead of instantly exploding on contact. They now behave more like the Volatile Flameblood Nemesis Mod variant.

Essentially, almost every mod on Normal and Magic Delirium monsters has visually changed. We are still iterating on these so they are likely to come sometime next week.

Monster On-Death Effects
We've substantially reduced the number of monster on-death effects that can be encountered in Delirium. As discussed, we've made them pack-based (live in 3.10.0d) and we are also improving how they are visually represented so that players have a better chance to counter them. Some of them are also getting an obvious wind-up similar to Volatile Flamebloods that'll make them easier to handle but still potentially challenging.

Performance Issues
Our performance investigation so far has identified two regressions in 3.10.0.

The first is that some shaders were not gathered in our internal process. Many of these were fixed in 3.10.0c and this will improve in upcoming patches. (The Awakener suffers from the same problem and we'll fix it as soon as we can.)

The second is that an issue where the graphics driver was being overloaded by shader uploads was exacerbated by the increase to use more CPU cores in 3.10.0. We expect a fix for this within a few workdays.

Players should make sure they have the Nvidia/AMD Shader Cache turned On in their respective graphics control panel.

Depth Meter
We are really keen to get the other Delirium improvements which have the biggest impact on general gameplay out before we look into this further, therefore we don't currently have an update about this but it remains on our radar.

We'll keep you updated next week as we continue to make progress on the remaining improvements we've outlined above. In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on the patch notes for more information about other small bug fixes and improvements. Thank you so much for your continued feedback and support.