Path of Exile 0.11.0

We're now halfway through Path of Exile's Open Beta and have deployed 9 major patches and 24 minor patches in the 0.10.x series. For a while, we've been planning a major patch to herald the second phase of the Open Beta. This patch is 0.11.0 and it contains new four-month leagues with special rules, exclusive Challenges with prizes, major balance changes relating to monster damage and player life values, the introduction of item allocation options, toggleable mini health-bars, a new currency item and many other changes.

In the Anarchy League, the corruption of Wraeclast has spread to the minds of many exiles, turning them against one another. As you journey through the world, you will occasionally run into these exiles - deadly computer controlled enemies who use the skills and items available to player characters. If you manage to kill one, they drop a lot of items including a magic or above for each equippable slot.

The Onslaught league is a hardcore league designed for players who found our existing hardcore gameplay too easy. We've increased the attack, cast and movement speed of monsters. It's like a lighter version of the Turbo race events that we run, only it lasts for four months. Note that just as the Anarchy league doesn't contain these difficulty increases, the Onslaught league doesn't have the rogue exiles. It's likely we'll try them out in hardcore leagues in the future.

The Anarchy and Onslaught leagues last for four months, before all the characters are moved back to the Standard and Hardcore leagues respectively. Characters that die in the Onslaught league do not move back to the Anarchy league, but to Standard instead. This has a few consequences:

• Players in the Anarchy league do not have to worry about Onslaught players dying and appearing above them in the ladder. They also do not have to worry about an inflow of items from dead Onslaught characters.
• Items such as the new base types and Onslaught uniques can be transported to the Standard league before Anarchy ends by dying in Onslaught. They cannot be transported to the Hardcore league until Onslaught ends. Obviously the Anarchy-specific uniques can never make their way into the Hardcore league.

Challenges

Substantial Rebalance

Several areas of the game have been significantly rebalanced. We've reduced all monster damage and have made corresponding reductions to player Life and Energy Shield passive skills. Physical damage nodes (both general and weapon-specific) have been substantially increased. As a result of these changes, characters rely less on life than they did previously. Defensive options such as armour are substantially stronger now, more than offsetting the lower life totals.

In response to those core changes, we've rebalanced many other areas of the game. Some examples include: Acrobatics now halves Energy Shield and Armour rather than removing them. Rustic Sashes now provide 12-24% Physical Damage instead of 3-5%. The Savant node in the Witch starting area has been changed to Elemental Dominion which gives +20 Intelligence and +20% Spell Elemental Damage. We've also addressed the power of some passive skills that were basically mandatory in previous versions.

Melee characters gain the most from these changes, but many previously underpowered builds have also improved.

New Currency Item: Eternal Orb

We've added a new high-tier currency item! Eternal Orbs are extremely rare but provide a very useful function in the crafting system. When you use an Eternal Orb on an item, it stores the properties of the item in an Imprint which you can later apply to the original item, retrieving the saved properties. The imprint can only be applied to the original item and cannot be traded to other players.

Here are three examples of how to use an Eternal Orb:

Item Allocation Options

A party leader can choose from the following item allocation modes for his party in 0.11.0:

• Free for All: Items are not allocated to players and can be picked up immediately.
• Short Allocation: The exact system we have at the moment. Valuable items allocate to a random nearby player for a short duration. There is a small bonus if you're far away from the item.
• Permanent Allocation: Valuable items allocate to a random nearby player.

Allocated items are still visible to everyone, but greyed out.

Valuable items are the ones that currently get allocated to players - Rare items, Unique items, Currency, Gems and Maps. We've also added items with four, five or six linked sockets to the valuable items list. Base types of the level of your world area or higher are also allocated. This only applies to level 60+ world areas.

The item allocation mode takes effect when an area is spawned. We wanted to avoid abuse cases where the party leader can change the allocation mode while their party is currently in an area. If you accidentally create an area with the wrong allocation settings, just make another.

A frequently requested change is a "Map to Maker" system. Traditionally, players who want to play Maps with strangers run the risk of having the Map drops grabbed by people who didn't pay the cost to create the area. In 0.11.0, white Maps allocate to the creator of the Map for all types of parties. This will mean that it's safer to allow friends or strangers into an area that you have spent a Map or currency on. Magic/Rare/Unique maps follow the normal loot allocation rules so it's still possible to find Maps if you are playing in someone else's area.

In all cases, items de-allocate if the allocated player leaves the area or if five minutes pass.

Deployment Timeline

We'll be deploying 0.11.0 on Wednesday, June 5 (Pacific time). Anarchy and Onslaught leagues will start at 6pm on Friday, June 7 (Pacific time) and will run until October 7. Remember, the changes mentioned in this article are not the full patch notes! There are many other improvements to read about in a few days when we post the final 0.11.0 patch notes.

We're expecting to enable the Australian gateway on the login screen as an option for anyone to use before this patch goes live.

We're extremely excited about this patch. It has taken an immense amount of effort and is really fun to play. If you've been waiting for a fresh league to play some new characters, tell your friends and join us on June 7. See you there!