Path of Exile: Expedition - What's Next?
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With the Expedition expansion for Path of Exile now live, Grinding Gear Games brings us this announcement that highlights the recent hotfixes, outlines some planned improvements, and addresses certain player concerns regarding the new content. Check it out:
Over the weekend, we launched Path of Exile: Expedition! We've been really enjoying watching the community play through the new content and conquer the challenges that lie within. We have deployed many hotfixes and a restartless 3.15.0b patch so far, and have more coming! This post provides more details.
A lot of players have tried to derive our player concurrency numbers based on the data shown for Steam users, and have expressed concern that fewer people played this expansion than the previous two. To be transparent, the number is that 23% fewer players joined us at launch compared to our all-time record, and this is something we were prepared for. In addition to the normal variance between releases, we completely understand that Path of Exile had a lot of changes in 3.15 and this is definitely unnerving to some players. Thank you to everyone who has tried it out so far. We're really enjoying reading about your experiences playing with the recent changes.
Since release, we have released the following patches:
3.15.0 Hotfix 13.15.0 Hotfix 2
- Applied a tentative fix to a new graphical T-posing issue.
- Fixed various instance crashes.
3.15.0 Hotfix 3
- The Reaper created by the new Summon Reaper skill gem now has better survivability at all levels.
- Fixed a bug where the bleeding damage modifier on Summon Reaper wasn't applying.
- Fixed a bug where The Reaper would sometimes try to consume non-minions.
- Fixed a bug where Boneshatter's self hit didn't trigger when-hit events.
- Fixed a bug where Unearthed Zombies could be revived by Necromancers into a broken state.
3.15.0 Hotfix 4:
- Allowed Expedition Vendor Reroll currency items to drop from Excavated Chests as well as Runic Monsters.
- Fixed an exploit where PvP-only characters could try to buy items from the Expedition vendors.
- Fixed an instance crash related to Instilling Orbs.
3.15.0 Hotfix 5:
- Fixed a bug where some instilled flask mods could remove grace period when entering new areas.
- Fixed an instance crash.
3.15.0b (from earlier today):
- Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Forbidden Rite.
- Fixed an instance crash related to Lion's Roar.
Soon:
- Applied another tentative fix for the graphical T-posing issue.
- Fixed a bug where Divergent Eye of Winter did not have a description for its alternate quality effect.
- Fixed a bug where non-unique Iron Flasks were not dropping.
- Fixed a bug where you could not sell items to Tane in Tane’s Laboratory.
- Fixed a bug where mini life bars were not shown for allies on full health.
- Fixed a bug where the audio for player footsteps was too loud.
So far today we have been discussing a variety of community feedback and have either explanations or changes planned for a number of topics, which are listed below. Please note that this is not a complete list yet - we're still discussing many other topics but this is the set we are ready to talk about. We'd much rather get this first post out now rather than wait for it to be an exhaustive list.
- Added the missing affix name for the "Chance to avoid being Stunned during Flask Effect" mod.
- Added display for quantities of Expedition Currency in vendor windows.
- Fixed a bug where the art for Alternate-art Flasks was not displaying.
- Fixed a bug where the labels for Delve Chests and Azurite were not displaying.
- Fixed a bug where Skin of the Loyal was unable to roll blue sockets.
- Fixed a bug where gaining or losing modifiers that change the effect of Freeze on you, such as from an Aquamarine Flask, would not immediately update the effect that pre-existing freezes were having on you.
Can the Merchant Vendor Windows show you how many Runed Artifacts you have?
Yes, we are working on making it so that the vendor window displays how many artifacts of the relevant type you have available for trading with the Expedition merchants. We'll release this feature as soon as it's ready (but it may be a few days).
Expedition Vendor Refresh Currency is too Rare!
The team are discussing increasing the rate that you find vendor reroll currency items for Rog, Tujen and Dannig. Gwennen's was already 4x as high as the others and is in a good place. We'll probably have a value for this decided by tomorrow.
Also, we are discussing increasing the stack sizes of vendor reroll currency items and all Expedition currency in higher maps. This should make playing in hard maps more rewarding than trying to farm specific campaign areas.
Were the Mana Cost Multiplier changes on Support Gems too Extreme?
Yes, they were too extreme. Based on feedback and data, we are reviewing the mana cost multipliers again and will be reducing many (but not all) of them. While this will ease the impact on your mana by a moderate amount, the goal is still that mana matters a lot more than it did before.
Are there any Changes coming to Ailment or Curse Immunity?
Ailment Immunity granted by flasks is being increased from 1 second to 4 seconds. Staunching Flasks will make you immune to Corrupted Blood, if they remove Corrupted Blood from you. Arctic Armour will grant Freeze Immunity. Aquamarine Flask is being buffed from 40% to 60% freeze reduction. The map mods that curse the player no longer apply the curses with increased effect.
I hate Goatmen. Tell me some good news.
We're nerfing Goatman Leap Slams and Molten Shells in the late game.
Why does Expedition have Twenty types of Currency?
We thought it would be helpful to explain how we ended up with so many currency items in Expedition:This results in twenty currency items for use at the vendors, which does feel like a lot. However, because you can immediately stash them into the Expedition Locker after an encounter, the variety of currency types doesn't really cause additional inconvenience. Regardless of whether we had one type, four types or twenty types, you'd still have to pick up a few items and stash them.
- Each of the four vendors needs their own type of currency. If we had one unified currency that works across all vendors, then the correct behaviour would be to determine which of the vendors technically has the best expected value, and to spend all of your currency with them. As it stands, there's incentive to use each of the different novel trade methods and not ignore any.
- Each of the vendors needs several tiers of currency. We experimented with just one tier internally, but this basically became a gold system. By having multiple tiers that do different things and have uncertain exchange rates between them, we get all the advantages of Path of Exile's currency system and avoid the dangers that having gold would cause. Here's a very old news post from over 10 years ago that describes our philosophy here!
- Each of the vendors has a separate currency for rerolling their inventory that differs from the ones that you spend buying things from them. This is intentionally different so that you have competing scarcity - sometimes rerolls bottleneck you and sometimes purchasing items does. Again, trying to prevent the bad consequences of having something similar to gold.
- Dannig exchanges his artifacts for ones from other vendors, giving you a limited ability to smooth out temporary shortages in currency availability. Also, all the vendors will wait for you if you have to go and come back with currency later.
We feel that the gameplay benefits described above (plus the ability to immediately stash them in the field) justify the number of currency items that the league uses. Having said that, we hear you. There are too many types of splinters in Path of Exile. We will be mindful of this for the design of future releases.
Where is the Mystery Box?
We expect to release it tomorrow morning! It's slightly late this cycle because one of our team members had a family emergency, but that's all resolved and everyone is fine.
Quick PSA about how Remnants Work
We quickly wanted to clarify this because some players misunderstood it. Sorry for not being more clear!
Remnants are detonated in a sequence (as your chain of explosives reaches them). When one is detonated, its effects apply to the monsters unearthed by that blast and all subsequent blasts. This is one of the things you need to consider strategically while planning where to place the explosives. You do not need to wait until all explosives have gone off before you start fighting the monsters.
There are many more topics that we are going through that our discussions haven't reached yet. In the interests of communication, this post represents where we're up to so far. We felt it was better to post this now rather than wait a few days until everything has been discussed. We'll let you know as we decide more stuff on other topics. Thanks for the ongoing feedback!
