Apr 13, 2020

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

Later this week (possibly as early as tomorrow) we're planning to deploy Patch 3.10.1d! It's not large in scope but it contains some bug fixes and small performance improvements. In the meantime, we've prepared its patch notes for you to preview. Please note these are subject to change prior to the deployment of the patch.

Delirium Improvements

Pure Guile and Pure Aptitude can now be rolled on Aura Cluster Jewels.
Fixed a bug preventing the Bloodscent Cluster Jewel passive from working if you were using it in combination with Rage Support.
Fixed a bug where Immortal Call didn't count as a Non-Vaal Guard Skill for the sake of the Veteran's Awareness Cluster Jewel keystone passive.
Fixed a bug where The Mayor, The Endless Darkness, The Price of Loyalty and The Chosen divination cards did not correctly give credit towards the "Turn in Divination Cards" challenge when turned in.
Fixed a bug where Omniphobia, Fear Manifest could sometimes get stuck in terrain after using its Leap Slam skill.
Fixed a bug where Kosis, The Revelation's beam skill could stop rendering temporarily if you ran too far away from it while it was using the skill.
Fixed a bug where Betrayal Intervention targets could sometimes become untargetable if encountered during a Delirium encounter.
Fixed a bug where Legion monsters with the Vengeful Stalker modifier could not be killed.
Fixed a bug where Fury Hounds in Delirium encounters could sometimes become untargetable.
Fixed a bug where the monsters that appear on top of Delirium monsters when they split were inheriting attack and cast speed bonuses from Delirium mist.
Fixed a bug where various effects from Delirium monsters could sometimes linger indefinitely.

Performance Improvements

Added more preloading for various commonly-encountered assets.
Improved performance of several ground effects.
Improved performance in cases where players or monsters had stat values change.
Improved performance by removing reflected damage calculations from monsters that would not reflect damage.

Skill Improvements

Updated the gem descriptions of Animate Weapon and Animate Guardian to clarify that they cannot be used by Traps or Mines.
Fixed a bug where Shock Nova and Blade Blast's skill effects were not the correct visual size when cast with 9 or more stacks of Intensity.
Fixed a bug where Mirage Archer could visually persist after its duration had expired.
Fixed a bug where the damage penalty applied by Unleash Support to skills that reoccur could sometimes be applied to the initial cast of some skills.
Fixed a bug where Zealotry didn't provide the Life Regeneration it should have if a Guardian with the Unwavering Faith passive had cast it.
Fixed a bug where Spectres' skill cooldowns were reset when weapon swapping if it would cause your Spectres to change levels.
Fixed a bug where the Withering Step visuals could persist after the skill had expired.
Fixed a bug where the Dash skill effects were sometimes not visible when using the Predictive networking mode.
Fixed a bug where you would namelock onto a monster if, while holding down Move, you had used a movement skill which then resulted in you hovering over a monster.

Sirus Improvements

Sirus, Awakener of Worlds will now be more aware of where Deatomisation Storms are and will no longer cast his Meteor or Corridor skills if he is near one.
Sirus, Awakener of Worlds will now only teleport players into the Meteor Maze if there is at least one player in range of him.

Metamorph Improvements

Reduced the damage of the Bolt, Monkey Toss, Rock Toss, Ghostly Barrage, Leaper Barrage, Maw Barrage, Necrotic Barrage, Spider Barrage, Snake Spikes, Squid Ink and Primal Throw skills used by Metamorphs.
Fixed a bug where the Bolt Metamorph skill used by The High Templar was repeated many times, rather than being cast a single time.
Fixed a bug where the Bolt Metamorph skill used by The High Templar was dealing attack damage, rather than spell damage.

Item Filters

Added an EnableDropSound parameter that can be used in Item Filters.
Added a chat output upon logging into a character which contains information about the currently loaded item filter if that filter is one that you are subscribed to through your account page.

Microtransaction Improvements

Fixed a bug where the flame patches created by Scientist Flame Dash Effect were smaller than intended.

General Improvements

Using an Orb of Horizons on a Shaper Guardian Map will now always result in it turning into a different Shaper Guardian Map.
Fixed a bug with the Favourite Maps system where the third unlock slot assumed that it required all Awakening Objectives to be completed, but could have actually required all Bonus Objectives (as it is possible to have all Awakening Objectives completed but not all Bonus Objectives). This was a visual issue only.
Fixed a bug where some vendor recipes could be completed with corrupted Rare items if the art matched the Unique item required by the recipe.
Fixed a bug where items could sometimes drop in inaccessible locations in the Domain of Timeless Conflict.
Fixed a bug where the "25% chance to Impale Enemies on Hit with Attacks while using Pride" Watcher's Eye modifier didn't apply to off-hand attacks.
Fixed a bug where the Call of the Brotherhood unique ring didn't have a level requirement if it had a corrupted implicit modifier.
Fixed a bug where the "10% increased Effect of Auras on your Minions" modifier applied by the Matua Tupuna unique shield persisted on Minions after the shield was unequipped.
Fixed a bug where Brand Attachment Range modifiers from the crafting bench appeared to be craftable on Rings. This has now been updated to correctly reflect that these modifiers can only be crafted on Gloves and Amulets.

Crash Fixes

Fixed a client crash that could occur when entering areas with an Animated Guardian.
Fixed a client crash that could occur when monsters used an Expanding Nova skill.
Fixed an instance crash that could occur when the Delirium Icicle Wreath skill was used by monsters.
Fixed an instance crash that could occur when using Blade Vortex.

Apr 9, 2020

Delirium Statistics

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

It's been almost four weeks since Path of Exile: Delirium launched and so we wanted to take a look at some Delirium statistics. Today, we'll be giving you an inside look at just how players are faring with both Delirium Orbs and the Simulacrum!

First, let's take a look at how players are using their Delirium Orbs.

To date, there have been just under 6 million Delirium Orbs used on Maps! Fine Delirium Orbs are the most used Orb, which makes sense; currency is always useful and this is one of the most commonly-dropped Delirium Orbs. Skittering Delirium Orbs are the least frequently used, though this is absolutely related to their relative rarity.

Next, let's take a look at a breakdown of how many Delirium Orbs are being used on Maps.

As you can see, the most common case is that players use a single Delirium Orb on a map, with about 70% of all Delirium-Orbed maps having just 1 Orb applied. This makes sense as many players will cautiously dabble in Delirium Orbed maps to feel out their difficulty. My guess is that successful players are quick to ramp up the amount of orbs used on a single map. This is clear as the number of 5-orb maps run is higher than that of 3-orb or 4-orb maps. One of the possible explanations for 5-orb maps being as popular as they are is that once players are able to successfully complete 5-orb maps, they're unlikely to do anything other than 5-orb maps from then on.

With all of those maps being opened, just how many deaths are occurring in each? Let's take a look, shall we?

That's a lot of death! Leading the charge with most deaths is 1-orb maps, with just under 2.8 million deaths! Following that, we see that 5-orb maps have the next most deaths; just shy of a million.

Let's quickly take a look at the number of deaths relative to the number of maps opened.

This does a good job of showing a relatively linear increase in the number of deaths as the number of orbs applied to a map goes up. 5-orb maps are no joke!

Now that we have taken a good look at Delirium Orbs, let's switch it up and take a look at how players are faring in the Simulacrum. We're going to look at a breakdown of waves started by wave number, and will also look at completion rates for a given wave (as well as how many players are able to complete all 20 waves of the Simulacrum).

Right off the bat, we can see that 813,604 Simulacrum areas have been opened to date. We can see that there is a very high rate of completion for many of the early waves.

Completion rate does take a noticeable dip at wave 10 thanks to the fact that Omniphobia, Fear Manifest can start spawning, though the completion rate remains extremely high.

At wave 15, we see a big dip (relative to previous completion rates). This is likely related to the fact that wave 15 guarantees Omniphobia, Fear Manifest will spawn if they haven't already spawned and also introduces a chance for Kosis, The Revelation to spawn; Delirium bosses are quite difficult and present the first major challenge of the Simulacrum. That said, the majority of players are able to venture onwards after wave 15.

Things become much harder as players get to wave 18, where an increased chance for bosses to spawn, alongside increasing Deliriousness, becomes a major factor.

Wave 20 guarantees that Kosis, The Revelation will spawn if it hasn't already. As we can clearly see, this boss, combined with maximum Deliriousness, presents a significant challenge, where only 76% of players that attempt wave 20 successfully complete it.

If we compare the total number of successful wave 20 completions (463,491) to the number of Simulacrums started (813,604), we can see that 57% of Simulacrums that are started are successfully completed. While this seems like a low number, it's important to note that being unable to complete wave 20 just means that you miss out on rewards from that wave, rather than the entire area.

Finally, let's take a look at challenge completion rates in the Delirium league. The graph below shows what percentage of players have how many challenges and only includes accounts that have completed at least one challenge.

17.85% of players have completed 12 challenges and earned the Delirium Horns.
1.95% of players have completed 24 challenges and earned the Delirium Cloak.
0.32% of players have completed 36 challenges and earned the Delirium Wings.

It's important to note that these statistics were taken roughly four weeks into the Delirium league. Let's compare them to Metamorph challenge statistics, which were taken closer to five weeks into the Metamorph league.

We can see that challenge completion is lower at all significant points when compared to Metamorph league. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that these statistics are from slightly earlier in the league, but truthfully, we believe this set of challenges is more difficult than Metamorph's. After a similar amount of time during the Metamorph league, 24.14% of players had completed 12 challenges, 5.82% of players had completed 24 challenges and 1.32% of players had completed 36 challenges. Perhaps some of the lower completion rates are related to the rewards -- Metamorph offered a Portal Effect for those that completed 36 challenges. We're interested in hearing your thoughts about this! Do you find Delirium's set of challenges more difficult than Metamorph's? Are you less interested in these rewards? If so, is it affecting your motivation to complete challenges?

We hope that you've enjoyed this inside look at our Delirium statistics. As always, we know all your secrets. Nothing is hidden from our view. I mean, stay tuned for more Delirium news posts later this league!

Apr 7, 2020

Designing Delirium's Unique Items

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

As with all league releases, in Path of Exile: Delirium we introduced a number of unique items. For this news post we asked our design team to share their thoughts and processes behind creating these unique items.

Our core goal for modern unique design is to create an item that you'd want to pick up and use, either by creating a new way of playing or enhancing a certain playstyle. For League uniques, many items are intended to be widely usable at a lower level of progression, while being greatly desirable for very specific builds late in progression. There are always exceptions to the rule though!

Keystone Jewels

The Keystone jewels were created from a long list of over 30 suggestions by designers, many of which weren't possible. More build-specific than normal keystones, these ones aimed to create or enhance niche interactions that could potentially promote new builds.

One with Nothing and its keystone Hollow Palm Technique were the special case; originally suggested by an effects artist, it underwent a variety of design iterations. We had to make sure we could allow it to co-exist with Facebreaker, so the original design disabled item slots and had specific restrictions on each of its stats. This was far too wordy, so to clean up the description and prevent potential problems with restricting item slots, the "Unencumbered" state was created. Unencumbered means that you currently have no weapon, gloves, quiver or shield equipped, a condition we could use again in future.

The goal was to create a monk or frenzied melee theme, and the Unencumbered state facilitated us doing this in a way that created an interesting restriction which let us give the Keystone a huge amount of power. Testing showed that it was very powerful for leveling, and we worked to lessen this somewhat during its development by lowering the attack speed multiplier and increasing the added damage to compensate, but we couldn't reduce it further without compromising the design.

Voices

Voices was one of the first Cluster Jewel designs we created, before even a single notable was formulated.

It was originally revealed with one blank passive and three jewel sockets. During the iteration of cluster jewels it became clear that it was a very powerful unique, especially with only one small passive. Because of this, we created versions of the unique that had more blank passives to have some versions of the item require more investment than others.

We avoid balancing entirely through rarity, but the nature of this jewel was so interesting that we didn't want to minimise what it could achieve. It became the rarest unique available from the Simulacrum rather than having its power changed. This was a special case for a unique that was only really acceptable because it could only reach its true power when using many other Cluster Jewels.

Split Personality

Originally designed as a Small Cluster Jewel, we quickly decided that the jewel was more interesting if it could go anywhere in the tree and would be best not to have the limitation of being socketed on the outermost part of the tree like Cluster Jewels. We started by adding every common flat benefit (attributes, defences, life, mana and accuracy) to the jewels to see if there was enough variety, and that was able to produce a number of interesting items for builds that focussed on stacking those bonuses while leaving space for similar unique designs in the future.

Megalomaniac

For a long time, this Medium Cluster Jewel was designed as a jewel that gave no direct bonuses, but buffed the strength of Small and Large Cluster Jewels attached to it. This turned into a nightmare to both describe and make work, so we brainstormed and immediately came up with the current design of having three random notables. At first, it had four random notables, but that was far too powerful for the point investment.

Algor Mortis

These gloves were designed with the goal of creating a new playstyle involving weaving a cold area skill between your lightning damage skills, with a powerful damage increase as a bonus reward. They're also special in that they're the first item to let you inflict the Sap Ailment without preventing Shock (A lightning based ailment that lowers enemy damage). The alternate ailments are special mechanics we usually only grant at the cost of a core elemental ailment, but the unique playstyle this item promotes made Algor Mortis a good place to grant Sap as a special reward for building around the item.

Assailum

The "Snipe" skill from the Assailum unique was designed in a way that could potentially allow it to become its own support gem, if it was popular enough. It was originally designed as a Support that turned any bow skill into a Channelled skill, but was changed to work as a Channelled Skill that could trigger Supported bow skills to prevent having to rebuild many bow skills to be able to be directly channelled.

During development the helmet had a damage multiplier to skills triggered by Snipe in addition to granting the Vicious Projectiles Support, but as the skill multiplier on Snipe would never be directly visible (since there was no gem!), we combined the two multipliers into one, giving the helmet the damage of a 6 link item in a more concise way.

Perfidy

This item was created to fill the role of a melee-focussed item, as it was designed after Algor Mortis (designed for a spellcaster build) and Assailum (designed for a ranged build). Perfidy was designed with the Champion in mind thanks to their affinity with Banners and their passive that removes their reservation cost. The Master of Command Cluster Jewel notable was designed to lower the cost of using two Banners with other ascendancies, giving it the potential to be more accessible to more builds.

Beacon of Madness

This item was designed early during Delirium's development, but was built around a mechanic that was later removed from the league as it added unnecessary complexity. It was then redesigned later in development to be three uniques based on the debuffs applied by Delirium monsters, providing potent bonuses that we usually wouldn't give away on a single item. However, these bonuses came at the cost of having to skillfully manage debuff uptime.

The three variations of Beacon of Madness received a supplemental effect after being revealed, as further discussion made it clear that the item should be a little more well-rounded. We gave each variation an extra stat that worked when Glorious Madness wasn't active.

Uniques will always be a core part of what makes Path of Exile so interesting. They give you something to strive for, something to inspire new builds, and something to add a little bit of flair and flavour to the game. As the game grows, new designs become possible and new ideas are formed. We hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into our development process, and perhaps this has given you a spark of an idea for what build you're going to try out next.

Mar 31, 2020

3.10.1c Patch Notes Preview

Path of Exile - Natalia_GGG

Later this week (Thursday or Friday NZ) we'll be releasing our next patch which contains further improvements to Delirium and some bug fixes. We've prepared a preview of what this patch contains by putting together the patch notes early.

Delirium Improvements

Active Legion encounters now cause Delirium mist to pause its movement during both the Frozen phase and the Combat phase (previously it was just the Frozen phase).
Active Blight encounters now cause Delirium mist to pause its movement while you are within a large radius of Blight Portals, rather than the Ichor Pump. This is because Blight Portals can sometimes spawn very far away!
Reduced the height of Delirium reward bars so that the top of the images is actually where you receive rewards.
Reduced the volume of Vengeful Skyfire's meteor impact sound effects.
The Purposeful Harbinger notable now grants "10% increased Effect of Aura Buffs from Skills on You for each Herald affecting you".
Reduced the value of "Auras from your Skills grant 0.2% of Life Regenerated per second to you and Allies" found on the Replenishing Presence notable to 0.1%.
All sources of "x% increased Effect of Auras on you" now instead grant "x% increased Effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills on you".
The Large Cluster Jewel which grants 12% increased Damage with Bows now also grants 12% increased Damage Over Time with Bow Skills.
The split-versions of Sporeplume can no longer be affected by Delirium modifiers.
Arrows can no longer stick in walls in Simulacrum areas.
Fixed a bug where Simulacrum Splinters dropped immediately following an Incursion encounter, rather than being accumulated and then dropped in stacks at the conclusion of a Delirium encounter.
Fixed a bug where monsters that were killed while submerged (below the ground) couldn't drop Simulacrum Splinters.
Fixed a bug where placing a Map and a Simulacrum into a Map Device and then activating the Map Device would consume both items, rather than display an error.
Fixed a bug where off-hand attacks were sometimes not being made when using the Hollow Palm Technique keystone.
Fixed a bug where temporary monsters created by Delirium modifiers (such as Crushing Leap) could themselves gain Delirium modifiers.
Fixed a bug where monsters with the Crushing Leap Delirium modifier could track your location even after you ran until it was off-screen, allowing it to Leap Slam towards you unexpectedly.
Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.1 where monsters with the Vengeful Stalker Delirium modifier could sometimes become untargetable.
Fixed a bug where running far away from Kosis, The Revelation while he was casting his Beam skill and then returning would cause him to visually stop taking actions.
Fixed a bug where Delirium Volatiles remained visible, though inactive, if they were killed by the Delirium mist receding.
Fixed a bug where the effects of the Snipe skill, granted by the Assailum unique helmet, were not correctly removed after using the skill.

General Improvements

Sirus, Awakener of Worlds will now only use his Meteor and Corridor skills when his Apparition is not using a skill.
Conquerors can no longer spawn in a region if you already have their Watchstone from that Region. This only applies until you can access Sirus, Awakener of Worlds.
Conquerors can no longer spawn in the corner regions of the Atlas if you had already encountered them until you encounter a different Conqueror in a corner region.
Updated the Atlas Inventory hovers to make it clearer when a Conqueror cannot spawn in a given region.
Added a warning to the map device which displays when you insert a map of a tier that isn't high enough to spawn a Conqueror.
Regions now must have a Citadel to be able to spawn Influence on the Atlas.
The progress towards a Watchstone can now be seen when hovering over Citadels.
Influence indicators in the Map Stash Tab now only display on Maps that have a Map Tier that is equal to or greater than what is required for the current tier Conqueror encounter of that region.
Added a notification that displays when unlocking Favourite Map slots.
Casting an instant skill that is bound to the left mouse button now also causes your character to move to where your cursor was. Previously, a single click would not cause your character to move.
Improved performance in the Library tilesets.
Re-enabled Hector Titucius, Eternal Servant's Charge skill.
Optimised the performance of Challenger Trophies.
Added audio to Divine Scorching Ray (which is also used by the Balefire unique Opal Sceptre).
Updated audio of the Golden Bladefall Effect and Demonic Bladefall Effect microtransactions.
Fixed a bug where your character became invisible when teleported by Sirus, Awakener of Worlds into his maze while you were using Celestial Leap Slam.
Fixed a bug which granted access to the Sirus, Awakener of Worlds encounter after obtaining 16 Watchstones, rather than the intended 20 Watchstones.
Fixed a bug where the displayed amount of Life that you had could become out of sync with the actual amount of Life that you had, causing it to appear as though you were not at full life. This could commonly occur when using Blood Rage.
Fixed a bug where skills supported by both Arrow Nova Support and High-Impact/Blastchain Mine Supports didn't create projectiles when the payload arrow impacted the ground.
Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 where increases and reductions to Damage with Claws wasn't being applied when Unarmed while using the Rigwald's Curse unique amulet.
Fixed a bug where the Snow Cloak buff granted by They of Tul didn't have a description.
Fixed a bug introduced in 3.10.0 where Molten Shell's reflected damage was not scaled down correctly in PvP combat.
Fixed several instance crashes.
Fixed a client crash that could occur if you were viewing Zana's Maps for a mission when a Map was selected and then opened by Zana.
Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Arcane Cloak.
Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Brand Recall on Storm Brands.
Fixed a client crash that could occur during Betrayal Research encounters.

Our Trade API is currently under very high load, and a lot of this load appears to be due to third-party programs that are not respecting reasonable rate-limits. In addition to our ongoing work on Trade API performance, we are also temporarily rate-limiting or blocking programs that are spamming our API with too many requests too quickly. This should provide better performance for users making a reasonable number of requests.

Our rate-limit rules should be considered flexible and will be tweaked to maintain service reliability. If your tool is not working, make sure you're running the latest version and if you're a tool developer, implement backoffs when you receive an unsuccessful response.