The Ultimatum League ends on PC on Monday July 19th at 2PM PDT, so this is your last week to complete any unfinished challenges. On consoles, the Ultimatum League will end when the 3.15 expansion goes live on July 28th PDT.

When the league ends, private leagues for 3.15 will become available shortly after so that you can prepare ahead of time for its launch. The exclusive Ultimatum Brimmed Hat will also leave the store forever! If you want to show your support for the league, be sure to check it out.


Don't forget to tune into the livestream announcement for our 3.15 expansion on the 15th of July, 1PM PDT on our Twitch channel. During the announcement, we will also reveal a new set of supporter packs to replace the Ritual supporter packs. Be sure to grab your Renegade and Faithsworn packs here before they are gone forever.

In case you missed it, you can check out the teaser for 3.15 below!


We'll see you at the announcement!

Our community has created so many amazing pieces of league-inspired fan art over the years, that we wanted to share some more with you today as we prepare for the announcement of our 3.15 expansion! Check them out below.



















If you were inspired by our 3.15 teaser post and are already creating wonderful art pieces, be sure to share them with us and the community over in the Community Showcase forum.

A couple of weeks ago, we announced that Mystery Bags were available to those who were interested in purchasing the remaining merchandise stock that was sold at ExileCon. We still have a number of these available to purchase as well as a limited number of the exclusive Solaris and Lunaris statues that were created for the event.

We have around 1,000 mystery bags left, if you missed out on attending the event in person, this may be your last chance to purchase merchandise from ExileCon. You can find out more about the bags and how to purchase one of them here.



We still have around 100 of the Solaris and Lunaris statues in stock. These statues were created for ExileCon and depict the eternal fight between Solaris and Lunaris; the goddesses of the sun and moon. If you would like more information on how to purchase one of these limited edition statues, visit our previous post here.

Earlier this week, we previewed patch 3.14.3 which includes internal engine improvements. The patch has just been deployed and you can find the full patch notes here or below.

Engine and Technical Changes:

In addition to the internal engine improvements in this patch, there are some technical changes for you to be aware of.

• We have replaced the old Performance Metrics graphs with new ones that show a lot more information. We now graph several different metrics on the same graph and have bars that show relative load on different systems (CPU, GPU, System Memory, VRAM, Drive, Shader Compilation, Latency and the Instance Server). If one of these bars is maxing out, then that's the current bottleneck that you should consider upgrading. If critical issues such as insufficient VRAM are noticed, then the display will alert you to this.
  
• If you are encountering performance issues and want to make a video of it to show us then please have the Performance Metrics graphs on, as they have lots of information about what is bottlenecking your performance.
  
• If the Shaders bar alerts you about shader loading/saving being critically slow, consider changing what the drive that shader cache is stored on to a faster one. In the [GENERAL] section of the settings file, you can set cache_directory=x:\path\to\preferred\location to a folder on a faster drive.
  
• Like before, you can cycle through the three Performance Metrics states (hidden, FPS/performance, latency-only) by pressing F1. In the settings file's [UI] section you can set performance_metrics_state=fps (or =latency or =hidden) to set the default state.
  
• We have added a Gameplay tab to the Options panel and tidied up the Options.
  
• We have removed the button in the Options panel that allows you to clear your local cache. This can still be done manually by advanced users that have a specific reason to. The button was causing players to clear their cache, which removes the significant performance benefits of having a cache. The cache is automatically cleared once every league launch.
  
• We have removed the 32-bit Path of Exile client. Basically no one is running 32-bit versions of Windows anymore.
  
• Vulkan users with less than 2600mb of VRAM are now unable to select High texture quality, as there isn't enough video memory for the high-quality textures. DirectX users can continue to select it, but like before, performance will suffer on low memory systems as DirectX swaps assets into and out of system memory to try to cope.

General Improvements and Crash Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where tutorial notifications were not showing on macOS.
  
• Fixed a visual bug with Celestial Toxic Rain that caused flickering white boxes.
  
• Fixed an instance crash.

We'll be keeping a close eye on players' reports of their experiences after this patch. As mentioned in the notes, if you are encountering performance issues and want to make a video of it to show us then please enable the new Performance Metrics graphs as the information will be very helpful in identifying the issue.

We look forward to your feedback about the upcoming patch.

From Aspirants to Elders, we've seen some incredible pieces of fan art shared within our community that we wanted to showcase today. Check out their works below!












We love seeing your creativity in action so if you’d like to share any artwork with us and your fellow Exiles, please post your submissions on the Community Showcase forum!

In preparation for the launch of our 3.15 expansion, we've been working on an update that includes some engine improvements and new performance metrics graphs. You can check out a preview of the patch notes in today's news post.

We're planning to deploy this patch before the end of the working week, possibly around two days from now. In the meantime, we've prepared a preview of the patch notes for you, which you can check out below.

Please note that these patch notes may be changed prior to their deployment.

Engine and Technical Changes:

• In addition to the internal engine improvements in this patch, there are some technical changes for you to be aware of.
  
• We have replaced the old Performance Metrics graphs with new ones that show a lot more information. We now graph several different metrics on the same graph and have bars that show relative load on different systems (CPU, GPU, System Memory, VRAM, Drive, Shader Compilation, Latency and the Instance Server). If one of these bars is maxing out, then that's the current bottleneck that you should consider upgrading. If critical issues such as insufficient VRAM are noticed, then the display will alert you to this.
  
• If you are encountering performance issues and want to make a video of it to show us then please have the Performance Metrics graphs on, as they have lots of information about what is bottlenecking your performance.
  
• If the Shaders bar alerts you about shader loading/saving being critically slow, consider changing what the drive that shader cache is stored on to a faster one. In the [GENERAL] section of the settings file, you can set cache_directory=x:\path\to\preferred\location to a folder on a faster drive.
  
• Like before, you can cycle through the three Performance Metrics states (hidden, FPS/performance, latency-only) by pressing F1. In the settings file's [UI] section you can set performance_metrics_state=fps (or =latency or =hidden) to set the default state.
  
• We have added a Gameplay tab to the Options panel and tidied up the Options.
  
• We have removed the button in the Options panel that allows you to clear your local cache. This can still be done manually by advanced users that have a specific reason to. The button was causing players to clear their cache, which removes the significant performance benefits of having a cache. The cache is automatically cleared once every league launch.
  
• We have removed the 32-bit Path of Exile client. Basically no one is running 32-bit versions of Windows anymore.
  
• Vulkan users with less than 2600mb of VRAM are now unable to select High texture quality, as there isn't enough video memory for the high-quality textures. DirectX users can continue to select it, but like before, performance will suffer on low memory systems as DirectX swaps assets into and out of system memory to try to cope.

General Improvements and Crash Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where tutorial notifications were not showing on macOS.
  
• Fixed a visual bug with Celestial Toxic Rain that caused flickering white boxes.
  
• Fixed an instance crash.

Path of Exile Livestream Announcement
Tune in at 1pm on July 15th (PDT) to find out all about our next expansion!

The livestream will consist of new content reveals followed by a live Q&A with ZiggyD and Chris Wilson.

You'll catch everything you need to know at http://twitch.tv/pathofexile - We welcome co-streaming so be sure to encourage your favourite streamer to watch along with us.

Path of Exile's Expansion Launch Date
You'll be able to play the new Path of Exile expansion for free on July 23rd (PDT) on PC and on July 28th (PDT) on console.

We can't wait to see you then!

On July 10th and 11th (PDT), veteran community member, streamer and racer, Havoc616, will once again host the Havoc Blitz Event! Like the last Blitz, players will compete for points in a Private Ultimatum League. The winners will share in a cash prize pool as well as microtransactions provided by us.



Changes

• No qualification process: Simply click on a Private League invite link to join.
  
• New Class Ladder: Microtransaction rewards have been provided in addition to the Overall Rank based Prize Pool.
  
• Level Points in Boss Races: Additional points in Boss Races provides ladder progression for characters that have died, those that could not finish the race objective and those that cannot stream.
  
• More Meme Races!

Schedule
Note: these are displayed in your local time.
Day 1 Start: 10th of July 8AM PDT (Countdown is available here)
Day 2 Start: 11th of July 8AM PDT (Countdown is available here)

Prize Pool:
Total Prize Pool: $2000 (USD)
Final Standings Prize Pool Split:

• 1st: 25% ($500)
  
• 2nd: 23% ($450)
  
• 3rd: 20% ($400)
  
• 4th: 18%
  ($350)
  
• 5th: 15% ($300)

Class Standings Microtransactions Prize Pool:
Class Rank:

• 1st: Stygian Hood & 12 Apollyon Mystery Boxes
  
• 2nd: Stygian Hood & 8 Apollyon Mystery Boxes
  
• 3rd: Stygian Hood & 5 Apollyon Mystery Boxes
  
• 4th: 5 Apollyon Mystery Boxes
  
• 5th: 2 Apollyon Mystery Boxes

Note: Top 5 Microtransaction Prizes are available for each class: Scion, Ranger, Duelist, Marauder, Templar, Witch & Shadow.

If you would like to catch the action live, RaizQT will be casting the event over on his Twitch channel. Highlights will also be posted on Havoc616’s YouTube Channel.

Click here to learn more about the event, how to join, the rules in place, the point system or prizes. You can also join the POE Racing Discord here.

Shout out to community members DionyzRex#7230, Brittleknee, Xayazi, DadBodGamingGod, SK_Gunoo and Faderon for their work behind the scenes to help make this event a reality.

Good luck to everyone who’s participating!

In just two days, we'll reveal a short teaser of our upcoming 3.15 expansion which will also confirm the dates of its announcement livestream and launch. That means the Ultimatum League is near its end and you may be wondering what the future looks like for this content.

The short answer is that we won't be making Ultimatum a core mechanic as part of our upcoming 3.15 expansion. However, we do like its content and may bring it back at a later date. In order to do this, it would first need a few improvements.

We would want to improve the combat of Ultimatum encounters so that the experience is less overwhelming and more tactical. While we do like things to be challenging, we currently feel that there are too many monsters spawning within the tight space of the circle and too many things going on at once.

We would also want to rebalance the rewards. The intent of Ultimatum's reward system was to make the Trialmaster's offers the main reward for the challenge. This currently isn't the case with far too many items spawning at the end of the trial. For Ultimatum to return, we would want to shift the balance back so that the Trialmaster's offers are the main reward for doing the encounter while also compensating for the item fountain being turned off.

So while you may see the Trialmaster again in the future, if you really enjoy being heckled by an undead entity of Chaos, it's best to get your kicks in now while you still can.

As we prepare for our 3.15 expansion announcement, we wanted to look back at some of the amazing fan art you've created that have been inspired by past league content. Check them out below!



















If you have any Path of Exile inspired creations that you would like to share with us and the community, be sure to post them in the Community Showcase forum.