In the last few weeks, Chris Wilson has appeared on two community interviews to discuss Path of Exile and while we recommend watching them in full for context, we wanted to create written reference for a few of the key points that came up.

If you haven't checked them out already, you can find the Baeclast interview featuring TarkeCat, RaizQT, Octavian0, ZiggyDLive and Nugiyen here and the Zizaran and Mathil interview here. Chris will also appear on another podcast later this week hosted on Ghazzy's channel here alongside community streamers Grimro and Crouching_Tuna. Tune in on Sep 01, 2021 4:00 PM (EDT) (this is displayed in your local time). We've made a countdown for you here.

Game Balance

One of the most pressing topics that was discussed during Baeclast is what players should expect in terms of nerfs going forward and whether we would see a continuation of sweeping nerfs as we saw in 3.15. While we do intend to continue to make the campaign (Acts Two through Ten) more challenging, we do not have any other sweeping nerfs planned in terms of game systems and player power, although you should still expect the usual assortment of buffs and nerfs to specific skills.

In 3.16, we plan to further nerf Fortify to bring it in line with its intended use as a defensive tool for melee characters. However, we noted in the discussion that many players were concerned about what defensive options would be available to self-cast characters. We don't have anything to announce on this front yet but have noted the feedback and will work on a plan ahead of Fortify's upcoming nerf. Note that we will likely also address Aurabots in some way. We're aware that this has been a hot topic in the community.

We are also investigating whether we can announce future balance changes sooner than usual, ideally ahead of the main expansion announcement livestream, so that players can provide feedback early with enough time for us to potentially act on it.

We were unhappy with how some of the nerfs that took place during 3.15 ended up. While we have already reduced some of the mana nerfs early in Expedition, we will continue to keep an eye on this.

With our rework to flasks, we agree with player sentiment that it feels there are too few defensive options available and too few sources of ailment mitigation to help overcome Path of Exile's obstacles. We don't have plans to announce yet but will be reviewing the defensive options that are available to players and how to make them more accessible.

Ailments

We discussed some of the potential improvements we can make to players' sources of Ailment mitigation. Please note that these have not been locked in as firm plans just yet but are ideas that we're considering to give you an idea of our current thoughts.

• Adding more Ailment mitigation or avoidance to skills. For example, adding appropriate mitigation to Purity of Fire, Purity of Ice and Purity of Lightning Auras with a more notable source on Purity of Elements.
• Adding more powerful mitigation for various debuffs and effects to the Pantheon, ideally one for each ailment or immunity. For things like ignite and poison it would be more likely to provide a high reduced effect rather than immunity.
• Adding new clusters to the passive skill tree to mitigate poison and bleed.
• Adding bleed mitigation to Steelskin and potentially changing Bone Armour from the Necromancer Ascendancy.
• Adding ignite mitigation to Molten Shell.
• Adding additional corrupted implicits on various items with a focus on Jewels that provide ailment mitigation.
• Changing Consecrated Ground to provide 50% reduced effect of Curses on those with the buff while moving the Curse Effect mitigation cluster to be more central and accessible.
• Adding additional Jewel mods to the regular jewel mod pool that allow for mitigating ailments.
• Reviewing existing avoidance and mitigation mods to make sure they're in line with the current game. For example, buffing Abyss Jewel ailment avoidance mods from 20% up to around 35%.
• Reviewing the crafting options available for mitigating ailments and ensuring there are enough options, particularly at lower levels.
• Changing the Shield Ailment Avoidance mod to be available on all shields.
• Adding crafting options for: Cannot be Shocked, Cannot be Chilled, Cannot be Ignited, Cannot be Poisoned, Take no extra damage from Bleed while Moving, Cannot be Frozen.

Flasks

While we are happy with how Instilling Orbs have helped players not have to precisely time the usage of certain flasks, we are generally unhappy with the results of other changes in our 3.15 flask rework. This is partially due to the disruption of accessible player defences and ailment mitigation as described above. We also have other things we'd like to improve about the flask system.

We understand that there is a difference between needing flasks for proactive use and reactive use. As such, we're planning to revisit all mods on flasks and create two mod pools that focus on separating their usage as either proactive or reactive. Life and Mana flasks will get mods from the reactive mod pool and utility flasks will get mods from the proactive mod pool. Some mods, where appropriate, will be available in both pools.

We are also planning to create tiers for flask mods so that they can be scaled to appropriate levels in the endgame like other item mods. This should restore some of the power that was previously available through flasks while avoiding making them overpowered in the early/mid game.

We are also considering adding crafting mods for flask suffixes through Helena's master crafting. We will also review belt mods for opportunities to improve flasks in addition to buffing or otherwise changing the Unique Jewels obtained through quests. We'll also review flask focused unique items to see if there's any possible solutions that can be made accessible to players this way. For example, we could potentially create a unique item with the modifier, "Your Flasks are always in Effect".

Additionally, we're also planning to buff the effects of Enkindling Orbs as high as we reasonably can and will also review Unique flasks further. We will also consider and discuss potential flask charge generation improvements that don't push the clear speed meta based on feedback that was raised during the podcast.

We will also share a post in the coming weeks that announces our solidified plans for flask improvements so that we can gather feedback from the community ahead of 3.16's launch.

Items

One of the issues we're currently facing in Path of Exile is that for the most part, players no longer find their item upgrades by checking the items that drop on the ground. This is something we'd very much like to solve and will be mindful to not do this in a way that effectively results in a sweeping nerf. We would like to declutter the items that drop by a lot so that things like pick-up range matter less as there would be fewer item labels on the ground competing for attention.

There were a few crafting improvements announced. For example, taking obscure mastercrafting recipes out of places like Delve and the Pale Council and making them attainable in Path of Exile's core content. We're also planning to improve Veiled Modifiers so that they unlock all tiers immediately upon discovery, rather than needing to level them. However, note that the more advanced Veiled Modifiers may still require multiple unveils.

Regarding "chase" items that drop from specific bosses, the point was raised that items like Atziri's Disfavour are not powerful enough to be a good reward from the specific boss they drop from. We have discussed reviewing these and potentially rebalancing item drop locations. We also promised to have a look at the results of 3.14's change where various league-specific items were moved into the core drop pool, to make sure that we consider if any should be restored to be boss-specific. We heard the feedback that players want the ability to deterministically grind for specific items to a larger degree than they currently can.

Players also expressed that they'd appreciate improvements to the trade site (or a separate auction system) to make it easier to trade large quantities of certain items like currency items or maps. We also discussed making sure that we communicate when a Divination Card's drop location is changed so that players are not wasting their time farming areas that previously could but can no longer yield the item they're looking for.

Chris also talked about an internal gameplay mode that he and the other founders were toying with, focussed around extreme item scarcity. It's worth noting that the discussion of this "Hard Mode" was to provide context for how we're investigating potential changes to the item system in a relatively clean sandbox. We'll post more about "Hard Mode'' in its own post in the coming weeks if we decide it's something we want to release publicly.

Aspirational Content

In the lead up to the first Baeclast podcast, many community members rallied around to brainstorm which topics would be most pressing to address with Chris. One of the big topics was that some players have a strong desire for more challenging content in the endgame.

We do have some ideas for Aspirational Content we have been working on (essentially "Uber" versions of existing end-game encounters). Here are some of the ones we have been considering for 3.16 as examples:

• Increasing the drop rate of Delirium Orbs and making 5x Delirium Orb encounters more rewarding. Additionally, we would likely make the 4x, 3x, 2x, and 1x Orb encounters more rewarding but to a lesser extent than the 5x Delirium Orb encounter.
• Considering adding an additional 5-10 waves to the end of the Simulacrum.
• Making Delve a lot more rewarding at a much shallower depth so that around depth 1,000-1,500 it becomes much more rewarding but also much more difficult than it currently is, in a more meaningful way. The downside to this is that it changes the parameters for what players should expect in terms of ladder achievement compared to the past. Most likely, players wouldn't reach the depths they were once able to. The upside is that it should become more interesting to a larger group of players and generally more rewarding for players who engage with it. We would also improve Delve's catch-up mechanic so that if you make it to Tier 16 maps without Delving, you'll be able to start at a deeper depth than you would have before.
• Considering the Uber Domain of Timeless Conflict.
• Considering what Uber Blighted Maps could be.
• When it eventually returns to the core game, allowing for more than ten waves in an Ultimatum so that people can push further if they can but against insane difficulty. This would come alongside an entire Ultimatum monster rebalance alongside redoing all of its modifiers.
• Adding a new tier of Breachstones.

We will aim to do a few of these alongside 3.16 but some of these ideas may be implemented later or redesigned before they make it into the game.

Endgame Content

Our 3.17 expansion in January includes a full rework of the Atlas of Worlds and Path of Exile's end-game mechanics. We're taking player feedback into account while designing our new Atlas systems and end-game pinnacle boss encounters.

In the meantime, we're aware that players feel that it takes too long to unlock the current Atlas and we have had a discussion around what quick changes we could make to improve the experience in 3.16.

In 3.16 we're planning to reduce the Atlas to four regions rather than eight. This means players need to defeat 16 Conquerors rather than 32. There would be 100-ish maps to complete rather than 160. In the future, we'll shuffle map layouts in and out of the Atlas between expansions in the same way that we rotate Zana mods. We will be mindful that each expansion should include a variety of different map layouts (including ones that are most popular with players). Various adjustments will be made to Atlas bonuses so that you still receive the correct total number of awakening levels and overall Atlas completion bonus, despite having played less content to reach that point.

We will need to adjust how Atlas Passives work in order to achieve this. We don't have a plan to announce in this regard just yet but will let you know once we do.

Splinters

There was much discussion of splinters, most notably around the extra clicking that they introduce. Chris confirmed that we have heard this feedback and don't plan to drop trivial splinters in future leagues. They would have to be valuable and represent an exciting drop that is worth the click.

In the meantime, we have some splinter improvements planned. Where possible, we'll merge splinter drops like Legion splinters and Breach splinters. When there is an instance of delayed loot drops like in Ultimatum or Incursion, we'll merge all stackable items and split stacks between party members.

Additionally, we'll review less valuable single-square items like Wisdom Scrolls or Orbs of Transmutation and make it so that they drop less frequently but in higher stacks. For example, in maps you might see Wisdom Scrolls five times less often but they'll drop in average stack sizes of five or so. It could also mean for example, that in a Breach, that instead of several splinters you're getting a larger stack of them every few Breaches. Ultimately, you'd be getting the same amount of these overall, but will have fewer clicks overall to pick them up.

Additionally, when Expedition eventually becomes part of the core game, we will be very careful with how its Artifacts are handled, being mindful of the clicks involved.

UI and Controls

It was noted that Path of Exile has a different UI on console platforms (as they are played with a game controller rather than mouse/keyboard) and the question was asked about whether it could also be made available to PC users. We're working towards adding controller support to PC as well as eventually mouse support for consoles. We'll update you as these are ready.

We have also noticed that there's been a lot of requests for better colourblind support. Since the podcast, we have worked out a plan for making sockets visually differentiable and will be revealing it soon. We have also engaged with many colourblind users and accessibility experts who have written in, and have appreciated their feedback.

Path of Exile 2

During the podcast, it was asked if we would expect to see Path of Exile 2 released before 2024. Our answer was yes. We're also hiring world-class environment artists for Path of Exile 2. Please email us at hr@grindinggear.com if you're interested in working with us!

Path of Exile: Royale

One of the pieces of feedback raised during the podcast is that players would like to be able to queue for a Royale session while playing the main game. This would be very cool but it requires a major server architecture change in order to work because you'd be queuing on a character that's different to the one you're playing on. We have some ideas of how we can achieve this and will keep you updated if we progress them.

South African Servers

Many players are asking for a gateway in South Africa. After it was mentioned on the podcast, we have been doing some tests to check out viable candidate data centers. We'll post more information once we have worked out a plan.

In Closing:

We'll be discussing the above details in future announcements as they become solid plans. We have a lot more to reveal in 3.16 that we've been working on. We've been really enjoying doing these community podcasts and hope to continue doing these in the future. They have really helped with communicating and discussing complex topics.