In addition to the Vaal Fragments change discussed on Monday, the small 1.2.4d update contains two new microtransactions. The first is a reskin for the popular Ice Spear skill: Swordfish Ice Spear. The second new microtransaction needs no introduction. Ever since players first saw chickens in the Forest Encampment, we've received a constant barrage of requests for them to be purchasable as pets and for hideouts.

Gamespot have posted our eleventh episode of this season of Build of the Week which uses a high crit-rate Ice Spear to generate Power Charges that are used for a devastating Lightning Tendrils attack. Herald of Thunder is used to cull and blind nearby enemies. Check out his build guide here.

If you'd like to submit a build for next week's episode, just post it in the class forums.

We'll be releasing 1.2.4d later this week, which is a small update containing a change to how Vaal Fragments are obtained. Today's news post explains the reasoning behind the change.

Four different Vaal Fragments are needed to gain access to the Apex of Sacrifice, where Atziri can be found. These Fragments are tiered in rarity - some are more likely to drop than others. Initially they were only available from Corrupted Side Areas, which were relatively common in the Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion.

As Atziri's power grew throughout the SotV expansion, we frequently increased how often Side Areas were spawned, made Fragments drop more often and biased Fragment drops towards the rarer ones. These changes gradually made the Atziri content accessible to more players.

It was intentional that Vaal Fragments didn't drop in the existing end-game (or from bosses people already run like Piety or Dominus), because we designed the content to be an alternative end-game activity. If we had them drop while players were running regular maps then they'd merely stockpile them and occasionally get some free Atziri runs out of their existing play. We want players to have several options of how to spend their time.

When Forsaken Masters was released and SotV was no longer the main expansion, we toned down the spawn rate of Corrupted Areas and increased the chance that they dropped Fragments. This made Vaal Skills a bit rarer, which was pleasing to us. Many players continued to greatly enjoy the challenge that the Atziri content offered, and continued to farm Fragments.

The problem is that as this process is bottlenecked by finding a lot of corrupted areas, the most effective ways to maximise Fragments per hour involve activities that are at best boring and at worst exploitative. We needed to find a more fun way to complete Fragment sets.

While spare Fragments did already provide a bonus to the item quantity of Maps, that wasn't of interest to our dedicated Atziri-runners. We added the ability to turn unwanted Fragments into new high-level corrupted areas, so that they could be rerolled until they turned into either a better fragment or a Vaal Skill Gem. This helped a bit, but players still wanted a way to get fresh Fragments that didn't involve running into corrupted areas naturally.

We didn't want to increase the spawn rate of Corrupted Areas (as we have to manage the amount of complex distractions that players run into while playing), and we didn't want to make Fragments drop from existing end-game activities that players already performed. We also wanted to tie the new way of getting Vaal Fragments into something Vaal-themed.

In update 1.2.4d, bosses of corrupted Maps have a high chance to drop a Vaal Fragment or Vaal Skill Gem. This change works extremely well in testing. It encourages people to play corrupted Maps which are a lot more random and fun due to their crazy eight mods or through being unidentified. It also makes the dual-boss Map mod a lot more exciting.

Hideout of the Week is a video series that showcases awesome Hideouts created by Path of Exile community members. This week's hideout is called Sinking Out Loud and tells a story with about a ship and its eventual destiny. You can find out more information from the author's thread here.

Gamespot have posted our tenth episode of this season of Build of the Week which showcases a build which may be holding a bow, but certainly isn't firing any arrows. It uses the Voltaxic Rift unique bow to convert the lightning damage of its Arc skill to chaos damage. Clever tricks are used to dual-curse enemies automatically and to trigger Frost Walls in front of enemies. Check out his build guide here.

Hideout of the Week is a video series that showcases awesome Hideouts created by Path of Exile community members. This week's hideout is called the Battle-Scarred Oasis and uses some neat tricks to change the appearance of various objects. You can find out more information from the author's thread here.

To submit a Hideout for next week's episode, please post about it in the Hideouts forum.

For previous news articles about the Hall of Grandmasters, check out development updates One, Two and Three. Since the last update, we have succeeded in importing a handful of different Grandmasters and have been working on their AI. As we add more Grandmasters, the process gets faster because there are more building blocks to work with when setting them up. We've tried some experimental fights against a full wave of five Grandmasters. The results of one of those fights can be seen in this video.

We'll continue to import Grandmasters and to tweak the encounter. Once we have a full hall of 50 ready, we'll release the Map while continuing to add more halls as Grandmasters are submitted. If you'd like to purchase a Grandmasters pack to immortalise your own character, you can do so by pressing M in-game and clicking "Buy Points". It's the grandmaster pack on that page.

Today's news post is an assortment of miscellaneous updates about various topics. We deployed the 1.2.4b patch yesterday, which fixed several small problems. The testing of PvP changes on our Alpha server is going well - we expect to start tournament testing in the coming weeks.

Several members of our team are heading to Melbourne tomorrow for PAX Australia this weekend. We're not running a booth there, but are holding a fan meetup on Saturday evening somewhere in the CBD. Email me at chris@grindinggear.com if you'd like to receive information about the meetup once it's decided.

The second issue of the comic is expected to go on sale a week from today.

Gamespot have posted our ninth episode of this season of Build of the Week which showcases a build that makes the ultimate sacrifice and forgoes all defenses to trigger a devastatingly powerful Discharge and set of Firestorms. While too fragile for hardcore mode, this character can kill the game's hardest bosses almost instantly. Check out his build guide here.

It's that time of year again! For the next week only (ending November 2, US time), we're selling a range of exclusive Halloween microtransactions. Like last year's ones, these are only available from this promotion and won't be sold in the future. This year's offerings include the Jack-o'-Lantern Helmet Skin, Rolling Head Pet and Pumpkin Hideout Decorations. There's also a bundle containing one helmet, one pet and four decorations at a discounted price. Check them out by pressing "M" in-game!