We're finishing this week by showcasing artistic talents of the community once again. By the way, this weekend is the last for our ongoing Harvest Fan Art competition, so if you haven't submitted your art yet, you have only a few days left to do so. In the meantime, check out the recent pieces of fan art made by our players over the past month.

The Strange Voice by Natilo


Age of Exile by NatsataAble


Lunaris by calljtoday


Headhunter 3D Model by zensei


Path of Exile Bosses and NPCs by lehmannthiago


Occultist 3D Model by Joweet

At the end of this month Zizaran as well as other community members and streamers you all know are organizing an 8-day Racing Gauntlet Event. Players will compete and earn points in a Private HCSSF Harvest League by levelling their characters and killing bosses. The winners will share a community-crowdfunded prize pool and microtransaction bundles provided by us.

Start Time: August 22nd: 3:00PM (GMT+1) (countdown available here)
End Time: August 30th 3:00PM (GMT+1) (countdown available here)

The event will have ALL Damage Mods enabled via the Private League System. Players will receive points based on levels and specific boss kills. The event has a crowdfunded prize pool by Community Streamers like Zizaran, RaizQT, Steelmage, Nugiyen, Datmodz, Tytykiller and more!

Prize Pool:

• 1st: 30%
  
• 2nd: 20%
  
• 3rd: 10%
  
• 4th: 8%
  
• 5th: 7%
  
• 6th: 6%
  
• 7th: 5%
  
• 8th: 4%
  
• 9th: 3%
  
• 10th: 2%
  
• 11th-15th: Arcane Seraph Wings + Dusk Weapon Effect
  
• 16th-20th: Hydra Wings + Kraken Portal
  
• Development Cost: 5% - To be distributed amongst Community Developers who help the event.

Players will be able to join the event on August 20th (PDT), first come first serve until the Private League is full! Make sure you race to grab your spot as they are limited!

If you’d like to keep an eye on the progress of the event as a whole, be sure to check out ZiggyD’s Youtube channel, where he and Brittleknee will be working together to bring you news-like coverage of the event. You can also view Standings here after the event starts.

Click here to learn how to join the event and find out more information about rules, point system and prizes, or if you'd like to contribute to the event.
You can also join the POE Racing Discord here.

Special thank you to community members Faderon, Pertinax and MrMadakey for their contributions for the event as well as Viyro for organizing.

Good luck to everyone who's participating!

As a follow-up to the Harvest statistics posted last week, today we'll have a look at the most popular crafting options as well as distribution of lifeforce and Avatar of the Grove encounters.

First, let's take a detailed look at which crafting options players are using the most.

Click here to view detailed crafting statistics.

That is a lot of data. We felt that it was interesting and important to expose as many numbers and percentages as possible, so there can be transparent discussion regarding Harvest crafting. Let's highlight a few interesting tidbits from all of the above statistics!

• 41,299 sockets became White sockets
  
• 37,770 items have been 6-socketed
  
• 22,309 items have been 6-linked
  
• 5,115,354 modifiers have been augmented onto items
  
• 697,181 stacks of Divination Cards have been sacrificed in an effort to receive more
  
• 171,806 items have been sacrificed for Perandus Coins
  
• 71,820 Beachhead Maps have been created
  
• 49,001 Bestiary Lures have been created
  
• 2,643 Exalted Orbs have been traded for through the 'Exchange 10 Chaos Orbs' craft
  
• 88,643 Infused Engineer's Orbs have been created
  
• 32,310 Level 20 Support Gems have been sacrificed, resulting in ~1,600 Awakened Gems being created (and more than 30,000 ruthlessly destroyed!)
  
• 251,301 Offerings to the Goddess have been changed into Gifts, Tributes or Dedications to the Goddess
  
• 1,196,592 maps have been created through the 'Sacrifice a Map for multiple Maps one tier lower' craft
  
• 1,446,301 Infused Zana Modifiers have been added to Map Devices
  
• 2,290,014 Atlas Missions have been gained
  
• 9,774 Unique Synthesis Maps have been created
  
• 386,219 Maps have been enchanted
  
• 87,580 items have gained Synthesis implicit modifiers
  
• 71,939 items have been Fractured

Whew. Hopefully that's interesting to pick apart! Next, let's look at how much Lifeforce was condensed and how much was spent on irrigating planted seeds.

Condensed:

• Wild: 16,832,930,560
  
• Vivid: 15,854,662,703
  
• Primal: 15,605,500,428

Irrigated:

• Wild: 14,467,969,923
  
• Vivid: 13,282,599,309
  
• Primal: 12,359,037,995

And that means there's...

• Wild: 2,364,990,637
  
• Vivid: 2,572,063,394
  
• Primal: 3,246,462,433

...Lifeforce still in storage, or lost to the void.

That's a lot of Lifeforce! Finally, let's take a look at how many Avatar of the Grove encounters were started and how many were successfully completed.

Avatar of the Grove encounters started: 94,000
Avatar of the Grove encounters completed: 84,379

As you can see, just shy of 90% of encounters that were started were successfully completed; a fairly high success rate for a new boss. There's no question that this boss was considered to be on the easier side among endgame bosses, and the statistics seem to agree with that sentiment.

That's it for today! We hope you found this round-up interesting. We'll continue to reveal more statistics over the next few weeks.

The Harvest Fan Art Competition concludes next Monday (August 10th at 5pm PDT), so you have less than a week left to submit your Harvest-inspired entry in order to have a chance to win cool prizes. The winners will be announced by the end of the next week. In the meantime, have a look at this week's competition highlights!

Delirious Betrayal by Johnway


Fan Art by Dzeycon


Fan Art by Ilion75


Oshabi by SMOKOwita


The Heart of the Grove by sakrai


Fan Art by Monte69


'Overgrown' by Shiro_Onna


'The Land Demand a Sacrifice' by BellenaS


Oshabi by FrenkHorrigan


'Oshabi's Transformation' Figurine by lordmanitu

Shortly after the launch of Harvest, we indicated what you should expect from our ongoing development this year. We now have dates scheduled for our next expansion announcement/launch and want to keep you in the loop about what to expect and when.

We normally operate on a 13 week schedule, allowing us to release four expansions a year in March, June, September and December. It took 14 weeks to develop Harvest due to the limitations of working from home and as we indicated in the post linked above, this meant we would need one of our expansions to be developed in just 12 weeks to make up for that lost time.

Our intention was to develop our 3.12 expansion on this 12 week timeline but due to the ambitious scope of the league, we feel it is a lot safer to consume a 13th week. So while this isn't technically a deviation from our normal timeline, it's slightly later than we originally indicated.

With this in mind, our current plan is to announce 3.12 on September 1 with its launch happening on September 18 for PC and September 23 for console (PDT). Please note that these dates are still subject to some change and we advise against booking time off until our expansion announcement confirms the launch date. We are aware that many employers require more notice than this but we are very hesitant to encourage booking time off until things are more firmly in place.

This means that Harvest will end on September 14 at 3pm (PDT). We don't have any end-of-league events planned between now and the launch of 3.12 as we want to keep all of our resources focused on 3.12 and Path of Exile 2 but you may see some community-run events pop up.

We plan to start development of 3.13 before 3.12 is finished so that we can comfortably meet our Christmas deadline for that one.

We are particularly excited about our 3.12 expansion. There is a fair amount of internal buzz about the ways in which it differs to existing core content. That's all we can say for now without revealing all of our plans and schemes.

If you're looking for an impressive pet, the new Stygian Steed is your choice! This weekend we're also discounting a huge selection of weapon skins, weapon effects and shields. For the duration of this sale, we're offering one free Angels and Demons Mystery Box when you spend points!

If you're looking for an impressive pet, the new Stygian Steed is your choice! This undead horse with a flaming blue mane will happily join your Exile on their journey or become a great hideout dweller. Match the look of this pet with an outfit composed of the Stygian Armour Set, Wings, Character Effect, Weapon and Weapon Effect. Check out the video of the Stygian Steed below or press M in game to get yours!



This weekend we're running a sale on a huge selection of weapon skins, weapon effects and shields with more than 150 cosmetic effects available at discounted prices, including the Dark Magic Weapon Effect, Infernal Celestial Shield, Dreadspire Weapon and more. Please note that this sale excludes some of the weapon microtransactions introduced since the launch of the Harvest expansion.

The sale will run from the time of this post until Aug 03, 2020 9:00 PM (PDT). Check out the full list of specials by pressing M in game.

In addition, we're offering one free Angels and Demons Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store. To receive the Mystery Box just make any purchase in the store - a discounted cosmetic effect on sale, the Stygian Steed or any other microtransaction. This offer is available on both PC and Consoles.

Please note: it's only possible to get one free Angels and Demons Mystery Box from this promotion. Making additional microtransaction purchases will not grant additional mystery boxes. Purchasing a supporter pack will not grant a free Mystery Box but spending points from a supporter pack can grant a free Mystery Box.

This offer will end at Aug 03, 2020 9:00 PM (PDT).

Thank you for your continued support! Have a great weekend!

This week we took a moment to chat with Jeff, our Console Producer, to discuss his work with us. If you're playing on Xbox One or PS4, you may already know him as he's the person behind all the patches and communication on consoles. Check out his interview in this news post!

Hi Jeff, thank you for participating in the interview! Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello! My name's Jeff, I'm 29 years old, originally from the land of maple syrup (Canada). I've been with Grinding Gear Games since 2016. As an avid gamer all my life, this has been a match made in heaven for me.

What does your current role at GGG involve?
My primary focus is and has been everything to do with the console platforms since shortly after starting with GGG. I organize the console patches; this involves communicating with the development team to address issues as they arise, creating the updates themselves, and working closely with the console Quality Assurance team. I also handle the bulk of the behind the scenes work with both Microsoft and Sony. This involves platform compliance, backend product maintenance, patch submissions and resolving any issues that may come up.

How and when did you find out about Path of Exile?
I was an avid player of the Diablo series, starting in elementary school when I definitely shouldn't have been playing Diablo 1 thanks to one of my parents having a keen interest in computer games; I would hover around the computer at every possible opportunity when they were playing, which led to me jumping on anytime our home PC was free. I heard about Path of Exile through various gaming communities early on in its development, and found myself getting access to the closed beta.

What was the moment that got you hooked on the game?
After getting access to the game and seeing the resemblance of Diablo II, I was hooked. I had spent thousands of hours playing Diablo II in its prime, and Path of Exile offered vastly more complexity and build diversity, needless to say I was quickly drawn to the game.

Console production has many unique challenges. What are the main differences in getting patches onto consoles compared with PC?
Testing content on consoles is slower than PC from step one of the process, updating all of the consoles with each build iteration takes a considerable amount of time, whereas on PC we can update our clients within seconds. While we have access to similar in-game commands that PC has, they're much slower to reproduce; On PC if we're testing a specific issue that has listed reproduction steps, we can copy and paste them into the client, whereas on consoles we either need to manually input them or create a separate scripts which then needs to be put onto the console itself, all of which takes time. What I'm trying to say is that everything to do with the console pipeline takes more time from nearly all angles. When it comes to having the updates deployed to the Microsoft and Sony store, they each have respective processes, again, both of which take time and scheduling (are you seeing the pattern here?), which primarily fall outside of the time zone in New Zealand. This means I frequently have to stay up very late after hours to get an update into the certification process as quickly as possible. In comparison to PC, they're able to patch an update as soon as 'go ahead' has been given by Quality Assurance and the server admin team has everything they need in place on the servers.

What did you do before working with us?
Following my university studies I took a leave of absence from a bank job that I was working into travel and play poker on the side. Strategy games had always appealed to me, and one that I could compete in while supporting myself was very attractive. I spent two years travelling throughout North America visiting different cities and friends I had made online over the years, which made for many memorable experiences before I found myself travelling to New Zealand.

How did you end up working at GGG?
I was able to get a work visa which allowed me to live and work in New Zealand, I packed two suitcases which included nothing but clothing and my PC. When I arrived I landed an interview with GGG for a Quality Assurance position, which went well. I learned the ropes of Quality Assurance for my first few months, then began working on the Xbox platform, which was early into its development at the time. I began working closely with Chris, who was spearheading the project's production. As time went on, I learned what was involved with the different stages of production, and soon found myself taking over the reins of the platform entirely, while still reporting to Chris. Following the launch of Xbox, PlayStation became the next project being discussed. After having just learned the process from start to finish on Xbox, I took charge of the production and behind the scenes work for PlayStation too. Today I oversee most of the production tasks for both Xbox and PlayStation, which occupy the better part of most days for me.

What kind of hobbies do you have outside of work?
My main hobbies are gaming and keeping physically active. A typical day for me involves some form of exercise following work, playing games in the evening, or spending time with friends. I would like to do more travel in the future but this is on hold due to the current global situation.

What's the best part about what you do?
Working in an area that I love; as the saying goes, find a job you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life. On top of this, the freedom and flexibility we're given at GGG in our work days is priceless and promotes a healthy balance in my life.

Your brother also works with us. What's it like working alongside a family member?
It's great! He's somebody I can always count on professionally, and personally; to know that I have that level of support here gives me peace of mind knowing that when in doubt, he's always someone I can go to.

You're originally from Canada. How does it compare living and working in New Zealand?
Living in New Zealand compared to Canada is great. I very much enjoy not dealing with the brutal winters that Canada endures. Waking up in the morning and not needing to put on layers of warm clothing to shovel snow is amazing. I do chuckle to myself at times when hearing kiwis talk about winter as freezing when I think of waking up the morning after a blizzard, while I often only need a sweater here to keep warm.

Do you have any advice for people who might want to get into game production?
Communication skills, both written and oral are very important. Be a team player: in production you'll work with every department within an organization, which is going to require you to problem solve with a range of team members. A high level of organization, as working with deadlines requires a good amount of planning and preparing for obstacles that you may face along the way. Oh, and a passion for video games!

What can we look forward to in terms of what you're working on?
With the next generation of consoles on the horizon, I'll be continuing to focus my efforts on all things console.

This week (potentially later today) we're planning to deploy a 3.11.1d update on PC with several bug fixes. To give you an idea what to expect from this update, we've prepared a preview of patch notes. Check them out below!

Please note that these are still subject to change prior to the patch's deployment.

• Areas in the Labyrinth created by Gifts, Tributes or Dedications to the Goddess for which instances have previously been opened and then timed out will no longer grant items or experience when re-entered. This previously applied to all Labyrinth difficulties.
  
• Harvest Infrastructure can no longer be placed from your stash by using the 'Stash View' functionality.
  
• Cultists in the Lookout Map boss room can no longer have the Fractured nemesis modifier.
  
• Ballista Totems no longer play surge effects.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where multiple uses of a Harvest crafting option could be consumed from a single crafting action.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing autoplanting of Harvest seeds from the Seed Stockpile if the seeds were item level 86 or higher.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Sacred Ashes degeneration could persist after the Avatar of the Grove encounter was completed.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Zana mission variations weren't offered as options. The "Single Portal" variation will remain permanently disabled.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where you could not access some encounters which branched off of Niko's Mineshaft.
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented Redeemer-influenced Boots from being able to roll Attack Dodge and Spell Dodge modifiers together.
  
• Fixed a bug where Burtok, Conjurer of Bones' projectiles originated from his target, rather than himself.
  
• Fixed a bug allowing Mother of the Hive in the Strange Sinkhole vaal side area to spawn far more Sand Spitters than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where the effects of the Solaris Sky Beam skill didn't scale correctly with area of effect modifiers.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ballista Totems that used Power Siphon could cause performance loss after they had expired.
  
• Fixed three instance crashes.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Shield Charge.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur when taking a screenshot.

In addition, the team has been working on improvements and fixes to the bloom technology. We'll give you an update on this as soon as possible, potentially next week. Thanks for your patience!

Today, we'd like to take a look at some Harvest statistics. We'll start with a breakdown of the challenges and seeds, and will continue with crafts, Avatar of the Grove and more statistics next week!

First, let's take a look at the number of seeds dropped by type, broken down by tier of seed.
In total, over 3 billion Tier 1 seeds dropped from Seed Caches. That's a lot of gardening! Let's now take a look at the amount of Tier 2 seeds dropped.
Just over 118 million Tier 2 seeds dropped from defeating Tier 1 Harvest monsters. This is roughly a Tier 2 seed for every 25 Tier 1 Harvest monsters killed. In reality, the chance is actually higher than that, though these numbers are skewed by the lower drop rate at the start of the league, and therefore don't fully reflect the doubling of their drop chance in the 3.11.1 update. Now, let's take a look at Tier 3 seeds.
In total, just over 14 million Tier 3 seeds dropped from killing Tier 2 Harvest monsters. Finally, let's take a look at Tier 4 seeds.
Just over 1 million Tier 4 seeds dropped from killing Tier 3 Harvest monsters. This is actually fewer than expected, though a likely explanation is that Tier 3 Harvest monsters can only drop a Tier 4 seed if they're at least level 68. If players had acquired some Tier 3 seeds from non-Map areas, they wouldn't be eligible to receive Tier 4 seeds from those monsters.

The graph below shows what percentage of players have how many challenges and only includes accounts that have completed at least one challenge.

• 16.3% of players have completed 12 challenges and earned the Harvest Footprints Effect.
  
• 1.68% of players have completed 24 challenges and earned the Harvest Cloak.
  
• 0.38% of players have completed 36 challenges and earned the Harvest Portal Effect.

As per usual, these statistics were taken roughly four weeks into the Harvest league. Let's compare these to those from Delirium league.
The amount of players that have obtained at least 12 challenges is down slightly from Delirium league, coming in at 16.3% of players (compared to 17.85% during Delirium league). 1.68% of players have completed at least 24 challenges, down from 1.95% of players in Delirium league. Interestingly, while the amount of players that completed 12 & 24 challenges is lower than Delirium league, the amount of players completing at least 36 challenges is significantly higher than Delirium league, with 0.38% of players compared to 0.23% from Delirium league. Notably, Harvest offers a portal effect for completing 36 challenges, where Delirium did not. This could be playing a part in the higher completion rates we're seeing here. We're certainly interested in hearing from those of you that did hit 36 challenges this league; did you feel that the challenges were easier this league, was the reward a driving motivator for you, or was it something else? Let us know!

We're continuing to showcase Harvest-themed artwork, submitted by the community to our latest competition. If you're interested in participating - you still have plenty of time to do so as the competition ends on the 10th of August (NZT). In the meantime, check out the highlights we've selected for today.

Artwork by RrocketBest


Oshabi by koris14


Mists of Delirium by Madly500


'Sowing a New Path, Harvest a New Meaning' by CheeseNachowithCheese


Have a look at more entries here!