Path of Exile - What We're Working On

Posted: 22 Sep 2020 02:02 PM PDT

Last weekend, we launched Path of Exile: Heist. Since its launch, we've received lots of feedback about various aspects of the new content and we wanted to give you some insights about what to expect. We are preparing various server side fixes that we'll deploy as quickly as possible. Since these don't require realm restarts they are fairly easy for us to push through with fast turnarounds.

We are also planning a restart patch for later this week. This patch ideally includes things like some bonus Heist bosses and quests and the ability to use Heist monsters as spectres.

Before we proceed in this post, please understand that we are working on much more than this post covers. In order to document every small fix or improvement that we're working on, we would have needed to slow down the development of these in order to communicate these changes (essentially taking key developers away from their duties to help put information into a post).

However, we do want to communicate at least some of what's happening so you have an idea of what to expect.

Choke Points in Heists

We are reducing the number of rare guards that can gather behind Heist doors. Some monsters will release their skills in a staggered way so that you are not being hit by many skills simultaneously. Fewer monsters in these choke points will have their abilities ready to go as soon as the door opens. This should make these encounters more manageable and less about being blasted in the face with damage.

Slaying Monsters Increasing The Alert Level

We killed this. It's not a thing anymore.

Opening Chests vs. Alert Level

We are planning to rebalance opening chests in Heists and how they affect alert level. Opening chests in reward rooms will raise the alert level by a lot less and the chests on the main path will raise it slightly more. This both normalises the results and achieves a lower average level of alert generated by chests. This is likely to happen alongside a more broad rebalance of these chests, the alert level and their rewards.

I Want To Store More Grand Heist Items

Totally. You're supposed to be able to portal out of them before the alarm goes off but right now there's an issue which means you can portal back to town into the wrong instance and lose your portal and therefore lose access to your Heist. We're fixing this.

The Rogue Harbour Waypoint - I don't like running

We hear you. We'll find a way to make this more efficient but don't know exactly what it looks like yet.

Rogue Behaviour

There are various issues with the way that NPCs behave during Heists. There's one issue in particular where Rogues are not prioritising their specialist skills when ordered to do so and can sometimes be distracted by other issues. We are working to refine how they behave which should resolve a few other Heist issues (like being locked out of Grand Heists).

New Skills Feedback

We've seen various bits and pieces of feedback about the new skills but we would like to get even more. If you have feedback about the new skills, please reply to this post so we can review it. Including specifics is great.

Can We Have a Prompt Before Leaving Heists?

Yes, there will be a prompt if you attempt to portal out of the Heist before you enter the combat zone. This along with fixing the issue where you can portal back to the wrong town instance should help a lot.

Crafting Bench Doesn't Grey Out Unavailable Mods

We have a fix for this.

Quest Items Stuck In Inventory After Failed Heists

We have a fix for this too.

Crashes, Instance Crashes and Performance Issues

As per usual, we are monitoring these closely and fixing issues as quickly as we can.

Explode on Death

Two Heist monsters explode on death. The more problematic one deals too much damage which has, and is again being, reduced, made conditional and will have its visual telegraphing examined.

"The launch day went quite well with just a few small hotfixes to address minor problems"

This is a great meme but we acknowledge that there were issues with the launch. It wasn't perfect by any means. We're sorry about the issues that have prevented people playing the content smoothly and we are working to fix them as quickly as we can.

What's the timeline?

Basically ASAP for everything but we will keep you updated by previewing the patch notes for any of the upcoming patches as quickly as we can. We'll also tweet about the restartless patches so that you are aware of them as they come out.

If you have any reports, please share them on the bug report forum[www.pathofexile.com]. We check every report we receive but aren't able to reply to them. Thanks for all of your support and feedback. We really appreciate it.