Whether you are celebrating a win or cursing at a loss, we love seeing the emotional moments you capture in Path of Exile. Today, we have gathered up some of the most joyous and heartbreaking clips you’ve shared during the Ritual league. You can check them out here.

Last week we announced the winners and first sixteen runners-up of the 2021 Talent Competition. Today, we’d like to announce and showcase seventeen more of the competition's runners-up!

We’d like to thank everyone from our community again for all the amazing submissions! The competition has further shown that our community is filled with very creative and talented people! Congratulations again to all the winners! You can check out the selection of runners-up by clicking here.

Earlier this week we concluded our 2021 Talent Competition where we invited our community to showcase their many talents by making Path of Exile-inspired creations. Your creativity astounds us and today, we are excited to announce the winners!

Thank you to everyone from our community for your incredible submissions and congratulations to all the winners! We’ll be contacting you soon to arrange your prizes. We’ll also award more Runner Ups in a follow-up post next week. Please check out the winners outside of the top three in our announcement post here.

We're going to be making some further changes to Harvest Crafting with the release of 3.14.0 in April. In short, we're concerned by how deterministic some Harvest Crafts are and how easily players can craft near-perfect items. We don't feel that this is consistent with how Path of Exile's itemisation should work. Before we detail what changes are coming, we want to explain a bit about Harvest's initial implementation and our design philosophy around items and crafting.

Using currency items like Exalted Orbs or Chaos Orbs on your gear is a powerful, risky and exciting way to improve it. But because these items work equally well on both low- and high-level equipment, it's generally considered best to save them until you're crafting your end-game gear. Many players would even argue that it's best to save them to trade for already-crafted items. In either case, using valuable currency items on your levelling gear is generally perceived to be non-optimal.

When we were designing the crafting mechanics that would be the reward system for Harvest League, we wanted to experiment with a system that allowed you to craft items while levelling (using the equivalent of powerful currency like Exalted Orbs), so that players could get the experience of using valuable currency items without feeling bad that they were missing out on future value. Our goal was to make a system that was so attractive that players would try to improve their items by throwing a few crafts at them in almost every area that they play.

Towards the end of Harvest's development, it became clear that this was a very powerful crafting system. We had hit our goals and then some. The question was whether we should preemptively nerf it before players saw it, or try it out for a league at full strength. We decided to try it out. The data we'd get from players interacting with a very powerful crafting mechanic would be very helpful with our ongoing work deciding the appropriate power level of crafting opportunities in Path of Exile 2.

So we launched with the powerful version of the system, including some crafts that modified items in more specific, deterministic ways than we had allowed before.

Upon playing the league, the crafting side of it was an immediate hit. Players easily filled gaps in their builds while levelling, and made many, many mirror-worthy items. As our concern over this grew, discussion started about how to adjust things when we eventually integrate it into the core game.

We decided to integrate Harvest into the core game as map-only content. Harvest Crafting while levelling went fine during the Harvest league, but pretty much every league has some item acquisition mechanic that occurs while levelling so we didn't think it was necessary to have Harvest on top.

In the end-game, Harvest Crafting allowed the creation of some ridiculous items, mostly via a set of deterministic crafts that interacted with specific types of mods. This had to be toned down, and we had to choose between two ways to do it: either by removing the dangerous crafts, or by keeping them in as rare possibilities and then balancing by rarity.

We decided to do the latter. The good crafts would stay in the game as very rare outcomes. We didn't remove any crafting options, other than ones that related to the process of growing a garden as they became redundant with the garden-maintenance mechanic being removed.

So in 3.13.0, we released an integrated version of Harvest where players stumble across groves full of crafts and hope they get the most valuable deterministic ones. We hoped that this would still keep the most valuable crafting options available while limiting the most abusive crafting to just very lucky or successful players.

With Harvest integrated into the core game with 3.13.0, players still made ridiculous items. Even the crafts we made quite rare felt pretty common when the entire community was pooling them together and using them on the right items.

The second issue was that players felt overwhelmed to get so many crafting options. It was possible for up to 100 or so crafts to be given to the player per grove, and this caused people to feel obliged to consume them otherwise they would be wasted.

The result of both of these factors was that players had access to basically unlimited medium-power crafting and had to RNG-hunt the best crafts which they could then store for later.

Players also expressed frustration that the most effective way to get the best items in Path of Exile was to join a discord channel and try to trade for these incredibly crucial crafts.

The first part of this that concerned us was that Harvest was critical in making the best items (and hence made many other game systems obsolete). The second part, where it was inconvenient to trade them, becomes far less of a problem if we can solve the first issue.Our problem with all of this can be summarised with the following thought: "Why would I use a regular Exalted/Divine/Annul Orb when I can get one through Harvest that has a deterministic result?"

The entire rest of Path of Exile's crafting system is somewhat redundant with Harvest Crafting in its current form. While we are glad we tried the experiment of keeping all the crafts and balancing by rarity, it's unfortunately going to have to change.

At its core, Path of Exile is a game about the acquisition of powerful items.

When we were designing Path of Exile, a critical aspect of item acquisition is that it is through random (rather than deterministic) means. When you defeat monsters and bosses, you receive random items. When you approach Cadiro for a valuable item, you are offered a random one rather than one that you can control. When you craft an item, you receive a random modifier. In limited cases where you can choose a specific modifier, it's usually worse than what could have been rolled randomly. Even game systems specifically intended to involve determinism such as Divination Cards and Incubators still have amounts of luck involved.

It's also important that items are hard to perfect. Ideally there's significant diminishing returns in the currency item crafting process, which lets most players get something good enough relatively easily, and the expert players can show off with really good items that took a lot of effort to make. Obtaining perfect items is ideally close to impossible, with very few players able to claim that they have such valuable treasures.

We feel that the current state of Harvest Crafting runs against both of these important philosophies. We know that many players would love us to keep deterministic crafting in the game because it enables them to complete their items far more quickly than they otherwise would. But then there would quickly be nothing left to achieve. It was an interesting experiment, and we understand that some players will likely be attached to this level of incredibly easy crafting, but it's just not the Path of Exile we set out to make.

This sentiment was summed up by a member of our design team who recently said "We don't want to take away the feeling of closing your eyes and Exalting an item, scared to see whether you ruined it or not."

So in 3.14.0, we're making some changes. The first three are direct nerfs to Harvest, and the second two are improvements. It's also worth noting that Harvest Atlas passives have been adjusted to accommodate these changes.

• Previously, every seed in a patch granted an instance of that seed's craft. Now, only some of the seeds do (so you're getting far fewer of the crafts that were overwhelming people with their quantity). Higher-tier seeds are closer to the 1:1 ratio from before.
  
• Some mods that had overly-deterministic behaviour have been removed. These include all annulment mods (other than the ones that remove a mod that isn't of a specific type before adding one of that type), and all type-specific divine mods.
  
• Crafts that add mods of specific types (like Physical Modifiers, for example) to items can now only be applied to non-influenced items, except for the existing mod that applies an influenced mod to an influenced item.
  
• The chance of encountering a portal to the Sacred Grove in a map has been increased by 60%.
  
• The Heart of the Grove encounter is now a map fragment that sometimes drops from Tier 4 Harvest bosses, instead of randomly appearing in place of a normal Harvest grove. This allows you to trade the encounter if you don't feel up to it, and it means that finding The Heart of the Grove when you are in a map with difficult mods doesn't lead to an impossible encounter.

Overall, this is undoubtedly a heavy nerf to high-end Harvest Crafting, but we strongly believe that it is in Path of Exile's best interests going forward, and that there are still a lot of compelling Harvest crafts that make the grove worth running at any point in map progression.

Last week we asked our players to vote for a type of a Watchstone for the upcoming community-designed Divination Card we're working on. The community has decided on 'Any Unique Watchstone'. Now that we know the type of reward for this Divination Card, it's time to determine its theme! If you're interested in participating in the process of community Divination Card design, please vote in this news post! The poll is open for one week.

If you want to explore some of the origin stories from the realm of Wraeclast, then you may be interested in checking out the Path of Exile digital comics! The comics are available in four parts which can be purchased individually or as a bundle with its own exclusive microtransaction that is related to the story. Check them out or get yours below.

Please Note: When you purchase the comic, a download link will appear on your account page with four popular file format options: .pdf, .cbz, .epub and .mobi.

If you want to get a glimpse into how the Frost Viking and their cosy Arctic Fox companion made their way to Wraeclast, then check out today’s news post! We’ve compiled a few pieces of concept art that provide an inside look into the development process of these microtransactions. If you’re interested, check them out below!

On March 13th PST, community streamer Zizaran is organising a 10-day Class Gauntlet Event. Racers will compete and earn points by leveling characters and killing bosses to see how all of the classes fare in some of Path of Exile’s most difficult encounters. The event will take place in a Private HCSSF Ritual League with all damage mods and increased monster life active. The prize pool is funded by the community and Zizaran's sponsor.



Start time: 2021-03-13 07:00 PST. The event will last for 10 days.

Players will be able to join the event from 2021-03-11 07:00 PST (a countdown is available here) on a first come, first serve basis up to the maximum of 10,000 slots. The invite link will be posted in the Racing Discord which can be found here.


The prize pool is crowdfunded by Zizaran's sponsor and community streamers such as Alkaizerx, RaizQT, Nugiyen, Baker, DS_Lily, Octavian0, Zizaran and more! In addition, streamers and their communities will be able to create a bounty with the money they fundraise for the event. Bounties are a custom prize that can be awarded to players for achieving a specified goal in the event. Keep an eye out on their social media for announcements regarding when their fundraisers are taking place and what they will be!

Zizaran's sponsor will be matching all donations to the prize pool (up to $25,000). The total prize pool will be split as follows:

• Operational Costs: 5% - To be distributed amongst Community Developers who’ve helped with the event.
  
• Minus bounties placed by streamers and their communities during the fundraisers.
  
• 1st: 16%
  
• 2nd: 10%
  
• 3rd: 8%
  
• 4th: 6%
  
• 5th: 4%
  
• 6th-10th: Mageguard Armour and Hood
  
• 11th-15th: Gore Raven Wings and Blood Guard Portal
  
• Top Scion: 8%
  
• Top Shadow: 8%
  
• Top Witch: 8%
  
• Top Templar: 8%
  
• Top Marauder: 8%
  
• Top Duelist: 8%
  
• Top Ranger: 8%

Leveling your characters to certain thresholds will also make you eligible for the randomly-drawn prizes made up of both merchandise and microtransactions provided by Zizaran's sponsor and Grinding Gear Games! The general prizes listed below will be randomly drawn from all appropriately leveled characters except for the Level 90+ Armour Pack prizes, which will be drawn per class. You can gain more than 1 ticket per account for the microtransaction/physical prizes, however you cannot win more than one prize per category below:




You can catch exciting moments from the event by checking out Zizaran’s Youtube Channel where Skryah and OMGitsJousis are teaming up to deliver some epic highlights!


Special thanks to community members Faderon, MrMadakey, ManWithHat, Skryah, OMGItsJousis and Viyro for their contributions to this event.

Good luck to all those participating!

Our Talent competition is now in its final week and will end very soon on March 8th (NZT). Entries will need to be submitted by this date. We’ll announce the winners of the competition sometime next week. For more information about the rules and how to enter the competition, read this announcement. For now, take a look at some of the wonderful submissions so far!








































Good luck to all the participants! We’re very excited to see what else you have in store in the last few days!

We're back with our third and final installment in our Ritual Statistics series. Today, we're going to take a look at which Atlas Passives players are picking in each Region.


It's important to note that the following statistics are pulled from a dataset which includes all accounts that have at least 1 Atlas Passive allocated and are presented on an atlas-wide basis. For the sake of sorting and ordering, we're using the Standard Ritual league as the... standard.




We can see that Harvest is the clear favourite in Lex Proxima across all leagues. Some marked differences include Heart of the Grove being noticeably more popular in Standard leagues than Hardcore leagues, while Rich Veins is more popular in Solo Self-Found leagues than in trade-enabled leagues. Players in Hardcore generally veer away from Torment given the potential high danger it can pose.




Legion reigns supreme in Glennach Cairns. We once again see lower representation in Hardcore leagues, as Legion is notoriously dangerous. Resource Reallocation sees notably more use in Standard SSF than Standard, though there is less of a difference between Hardcore and Hardcore SSF. An interesting observation is how frequently Protracted Battle is taken; this passive doesn't offer any additional rewards, but does offer additional time and ease in obtaining all of the rewards from a Legion encounter.




Delirium and Bestiary take up the top spots in Tirn's End, while Abyss and Invasion bring up the rear. That said, Delirium does see less use in Hardcore leagues, particularly Greater Forces, as it presents significant danger. Great Migration and Big Game are more common in SSF leagues than in trade leagues, especially in Standard, likely thanks to players wanting specific beasts but being unable to trade for them.




As with Lex Proxima, Harvest rules the roost in Haewark Hamlet. There are some differences between Standard and Hardcore here; both Beyond notables see significantly less representation in Hardcore. Essence sees higher use in both Hardcore and SSF, as it serves as a useful tool to craft gear with.




Once again, Legion is the leader across the board, though Hardcore leagues continue to make less use of it than Standard leagues. Anarchy and Delve passives generally see the least use here, though the generic Delve Atlas Mission passive, Mad Devotion, is a popular choice across all leagues.




Lira Arthain presents the most balanced distribution across the different league types of all of the regions. The most popular choices include both Blight and Bestiary passives, though Heist sees fairly high representation as well. Secret Stash and Inside Job see higher use in SSF leagues than in trade leagues, as trading for the powerful Heist-specific rewards such as Alternate Quality Gems is not an option.




Unsurprisingly, Harbinger passives are seeing the most use in Valdo's Rest, thanks to the swarm of Harbingers provided by Diplomatic Escort. One very notable difference between Standard and Hardcore is how infrequently Metamorph passives are taken in Hardcore; this isn't overly surprising given the danger of Metamorphs, but interesting nonetheless.




As with Tirn's End, Delirium leads the way in Lex Ejoris and follows the same trend of seeing less use in Hardcore compared to Standard. Perandus sees relatively high use in SSF leagues, being on par or slightly above its use in trade leagues. Once again, we see Metamorph being more popular in Standard leagues than in Hardcore leagues. Finally, Incursion sees very little use here, but that's understandable when it is up against such stiff competition.




Finally, we're looking at the Uncharted Realms stats. Immediately, we can see that many more players in Standard league are allocating points in this atlas passive tree, particularly due to the difficulty of unlocking passives here; This is echoed by the scarcity of SSF players, who have far fewer points allocated in this tree than the trade league players. Popular passive picks include Adept Tracker, Master of the Atlas and Paths Not Taken, being passives that increase conqueror progress as well as offering additional Zana Missions with additional map options. The more niche, not-always-beneficial options, such as Vivid Memories and Synthetic Source see very little use.


It's been enjoyable looking at which passives were most popular and how things differed between Standard and Hardcore, and trade leagues and SSF. In general, we see dangerous content, such as Delirium or Legion, be much less popular in Hardcore leagues, while things that offer exclusive rewards or useful crafting options to help gear up be much more popular in SSF leagues. All in all, we hope you've enjoyed this closer look into player behaviour. Let us know what you have and haven't liked about Atlas Trees, what you'd like to see more of and your general feeling towards Atlas Trees. We'll be reading and looking forward to the continued evolution of this system.