Shaping The Future – The Evolution of Endgame in Path of Exile

Shaping The Future – The Evolution of Endgame in Path of Exile

Picture this.. you're in your hideout, just about to start the 39th Shaped Strand of the night.
You make sure you have all your leaguestones set.
You make sure you have all your sextants rolled.
You make sure you apply an appropriate Zana mod.
You make sure you have some good potential prophecy procs.

The sound of the portals open, and it jogs your memory.
It brings you back to a simpler time.
A time before Zana.
A time before shaping.
A time before leaguestones, sextants, or prophecies.
A time before... maps...

From Humble Beginnings

Path of Exile began development over ten years ago. When alpha testing began in June of 2010, before they had even announced the game, there was no endgame. This was completely understandable. The game was in it's very early stages, and the developers were more focused with the content in the actual play-through of the game, along with the main mechanics of skills, monsters, and of course quests. You don't build a roof on a house without walls.

In July 2011, things started ramping up. With closed beta only a month away, it was time to add some sort of endgame. Maybe... a cow level? No, not a cow level. GGG created a series of areas separate from the main play-through, with increasing levels of difficulty... and no cows.

The Maelstrom of Chaos

While we are all used to maps these days, a few of you may remember that there was an endgame system prior to maps. It was the Maelstrom of Chaos, not to be confused with the current user designed unique map (which of course was influenced by this). The Maelstrom of chaos was the original endgame.. the OeG if you will. Now that I've gone all 'street' on you, let me explain what it was for those who weren't around 5-6 years ago.

The Maelstrom of Chaos was a series of eight different completely random areas, each increasing in difficulty from the previous area. You could access it after finishing Act 2 in the fourth difficulty, merciless. Yes, at this time there were four difficulties – Normal, Cruel, Ruthless, Merciless.

Closed beta hit in August 2011, which meant there would be a lot of testing going on from random players, and it also meant that more updates were needed. When 0.9.3 hit in November 2011, players were met with a rather large update which included many things we take for granted today such as bandits, fuses, divine orbs, chromatic orbs, and even unique items! Wow!

On the other hand, it didn't come with any changes to the Maelstrom. It was a pretty good system already, and it worked well for the closed beta. However, some players found it a bit too difficult. Remember, this was a time when killing a rare mob was actually quite difficult. GGG listened to these opinions, and a couple months later, they made a couple changes. First, the Maelstrom of Chaos would no longer increase in monster level. Every area would be level 58. This of course made it easier, but didn't give players a sense of progression, which is hugely important in any action RPG. So, they followed up this change by increasing the density of rare and magic monsters. This made each successive area much harder than the previous, as rare and magic monsters were no joke.

It's time for more

There were minor other changes throughout the coming months, such as a new ninth tileset being added, the ancient pyramid, along with increasing the area levels to 60. Along with these were balance changes to monsters and skills, which either directly or indirectly affected the endgame. Players enjoyed the endgame system, but not quite enough.. they wanted something more. With open beta quickly approaching, less than 6 months away, GGG had to find a way to improve the endgame system in Path of Exile.

Rumour swirled of a secret cow level being added, and while they were mostly jokes, people came up with ideas of how one could actually be implemented. There was also suggestions of switching the cows to kittens and kiwis. The lovely folks at Grinding Gear Games did what they always do. They exceeded expectations. They didn't give us a cow level, they gave us 45 of them...

Introducing.. Maps

On July 22, 2012, Path of Exile seen the most important update to the endgame that ever happened. It introduced maps, an endgame system that we still have 5 years later. The initial introduction of maps started off with 45 different maps, each with their own Unique boss. These maps ranged from levels 60-69, and could be modified to become magic, rare, or even unique. Along with the introduction of maps, we got chisels which could be used to add quantity to maps. The art on the maps were KaruiStone, as seen here.

At the time of release, only one unique map was available – Vaults of Atziri. While it's very much the same map we know today, there was no Vaal Vessel giving Vaal gems and Sacrifice Fragments, as they didn't exist until almost two years later. There were hints given out by GGG as to there being many more unique maps in the future, even the mention of a “Temple of Kuduku”. One must wonder if we will ever enter the temple of our one true god.

To access a map, you would go to the Eternal Laboratory in Act 2, once completing the second act of Merciless. This was still closed beta, so there were only two acts, and four difficulties. However, this was about to change..

Open Beta

January 23, 2013 marked the release of open beta. Path of Exile had reached an all time high in popularity, and throughout the closed beta had gained $2.2million in crowd source funding. This meant that the release of open beta would come with a rather large update. In fact, they added a whole other act! Yes, the release of act 3. Adding this meant that the core game had become 50% longer to play through, so they also removed Ruthless difficulty, bringing it down to 3 acts and 3 difficulties.

After adding a third act, the eternal laboratory was moved from the end of the second act to the third. Maps themselves were switched around a bit, with some of the ordering changed around, as well as the highest maps having area levels of 75, a whopping 6 levels higher than before. These high level maps could be very difficult. This meant a bigger challenge for top tier players, as well as a larger range of challenge for all players.

Shortly after the initial release of open beta, GGG continued to improve the variety of maps for players to choose from by adding 11 new maps and increasing the highest level maps even further, to 77. Within 3 months of open beta, they had also added three additional unique maps, all of which were created by users from the community. These maps were Coward's Trial, Acton's Nightmare, and Maelstrom of Chaos. This Maelstrom of Chaos was not to be confused with the original endgame system, but was influenced heavily by it, and was a great call back to the roots of the game.

League of Exiles

In June 2013, Path of Exile added a new feature, which had an impact on the whole game, but particularly the endgame – leagues. Leagues were similar to regular ladder seasons, however each had their own unique traits and challenges along with them. The first of these were Anarchy and Onslaught, for softcore and hardcore respectively. Along with this was a minor change to maps – the allocation. Prior to this, allocation of maps that dropped would go to a random player in the party. Now, white maps would allocate to the person that opened the maps. About a month later, this was revised so that all non-unique maps would allocate to the person that opened the map. It is still that way today.

September brought another unique map that was created by a supporter – Poojoy's Asylum. There was not much else to happen to the endgame around this time, but a special date was approaching...

Path of Exile Officially Launches

October 23, 2013 brought patch 1.0.0, and with it the official release of Path of Exile. Throughout two years of beta, many successes and mistakes, GGG had realized that the map system was an excellent endgame system, and would shape the future of the game. With the official release, they added 8 new maps, including a new tier of level 78 maps. Over the next few months they tinkered with aspect of maps, such as increasing the iiq and iir of bosses, and making maps bigger. They also got rid of the map size mod. A fifth unique map was added – Olmec's Sanctum.

These changes were very welcome, and the official release went over quite well. The Domination and Nemesis leagues that ran throughout this time brought some powerful and exciting new uniques to the game. But with great power comes great responsibility, and responsibility leads to... sacrifice.

Sacrifice of the Vaal

Six months after releasing the game officially, in March 2014, GGG released their first expansion, Sacrifice of the Vaal. This expansion brought many new features to the game such as Vaal Orbs. It also marked the release of Ambush and Invasion leagues. Ambush was particularly interesting from an endgame perspective as it added a new way to get maps, the Cartographer's Strongbox. In addition to these new league and items, the unique map Vaults of Atziri now dropped sacrifice fragments and vaal skill gems. This significantly increased the demand, and price of the maps. While Vaults of Atziri got a buff, two more supporter created unique maps came out within the next couple months – Mao Kun, and Death & Taxes.

We also got something more in this expansion, something that would change the endgame forever. Prior to this expansion, Piety was our big bad lady. She was the queen of Wraeclast. Now, she may not have been the hardest boss in the game, as that title belonged to some of the top tier map bosses. But they were all about to be dethroned...

A New Queen Reigns

Enter... Atziri, Queen of the Vaal. This was the first true endgame boss in path of exile, and Uber Atziri is still considered one of the hardest bosses in the game to this day. This was a challenging fight, even for the most powerful exiles, and many fell to her various forms. She was also unique in the sense that she had a set of exclusive unique drops that would only have a chance to drop from her. This made Atziri farming a fun and profitable venture, as it led to getting items that you would not be able to get elsewhere.

Queen Atziri was the first true endgame boss, and would reign as one of, if not the hardest content in the game for years. Still today, she has a huge impact of the game.

Forsaken Masters

Seven men and women, masters in their fields, stood against Dominus' tyranny. Some with words, others with steel. Seven masters forsaken, sent to die in a corrupted land. Seven masters who lived, learned, and now thrive in Wraeclast. Seven Forsaken Masters who can train you... if you choose to help them.

With the success of their first expansion, GGG didn't wait long to release the second one. In August of 2014, they released the Forsaken Masters expansion. This expansion had many lasting effects on the entire game, including the release of 7 masters, each with their own missions and crafting abilities. It was also the release of Rampage and Beyond. Beyond is regarded as one of the favourite of all past leagues. This is still evident today, as a common method to increasing map loot/xp is to “double beyond” your maps. However, this would not be possible if not for the seventh master...zana.

Zana, Master Cartographer

Zana was a huge addition to maps. She is after all, the master of maps. Prior to Zana, we had to go to the Eternal Laboratory in Act 3 every time we wanted to open a map. Zana's map device now made it possible to access maps via the hideout, a huge quality of life bonus. It also made mapping much more efficient. She also sold a variety of maps, which directly made getting low-mid maps easier. You could also add a special league mod from past leagues to your map. This meant more loot, more experience, and more variety in your mapping.

In addition to these bonuses, her daily mission required you to enter a map to complete a task. This meant you were entering a higher level area which could drop maps of a decent level. This daily task was basically a free map, and included some unique maps as well. One in particular as quite interesting – Untainted Paradise. This was a new unique map that could not drop, and was only accessible as a daily mission from Zana. It was also the first unique map aside from Vaults of Atziri that was not supporter created. It's still a great map to get today, giving you 300-400% increased xp. When it was first released, this number was even higher, a whopping 1000-1200%!

While Untainted Paradise was the only unique map to release with the Forsaken Master expansion, two more were added roughly a month later. These were Oba's Cursed Trove and Whakawairua Tuahu. That's a strange name. And of course, when there's something stange in the neighborhood...

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Ghostbusting!

That's not a typo. December 2014 marked the release of the next two leagues – Torment and Bloodlines. The Torment league had a pretty big impact on mapping and the economy. As I'm sure you know, players often like to find ways to efficiently use the game mechanics to further better themselves, whether it be making their character super powerful, or in this case, rich. Torment brought along spirits which could touch monsters and possess rare monsters, causing massive amounts of loot to drop. You may be thinking “Hey, I would say that the amount of loot dropped from touched monsters is in no way massive!” and you would be right, now. In August 2015, touched mobs loot was nerfed, but prior to this, they did indeed drop massive amounts of loot. Players would round up all the mobs in a map and drag them to ghosts that would touch them. This would cause insane amounts of loot, filling up many screens. This was also a time before loot filters, so imagine that! This was the 2014/2015 version of double beyond of the call nemesis farming, with one extra benefit – it was free to do.

The next six months were quiet on the endgame update front, with the only significant addition being the Hall of Grandmasters, which upon release had 150 Grandmasters in 3 halls. But the lack of additional content wasn't a bad thing, since the good folks at GGG were busy preparing for their next expansion, the biggest one to date...

The Awakening

On July 10, 2015 Path of Exile seen the release of the third expansion, The Awakening. To this day, it is still the biggest expansion that they have released. It marked some significant changes to the game, most importantly the release of Act 4, which is set in and around the mining town of Highgate. Other big features included the introduction of jewels, divination cards, item filters, 20 new skill/support gems, and over 100 new unique items. It also contained the Warbands and Tempest leagues, which urged the communities to work together to try to engage all the content.

We're focused on the endgame here though, and it wasn't forgotten in this expansion. Maps had a new looks! Instead of the original KauriStone tablets, maps were now square! Woot! We were given 12 new maps, and several maps were moved around in tiers. The map levels now ranged from 68-82, four levels higher than the previous max of 78. Another feature that was added to maps were increased item rarity and pack size. Previously maps only had increased item quantity. They also did a whole lot of balancing, which included but was not limited to, increasing the difficulty and drops of map bosses. Hall of Grandmasters was also reduced to one hall at this time due to the balance changes having a big affect on existing Grandmasters.

Three weeks after the initial launch of The Awakening GGG introduced three more new maps – Malformation, Phantasmagoria, and Core. The core map is particularly interesting as GGG put out an official warning with this map, which stated that the boss of this map was the hardest content that they have ever created, and hardcore characters that attempt it should expect to lose their characters.

August brought the end of ghostbusting, with a decrease to iiq and iir provided by touched mobs, but increasing the iiq and iir to possessed mobs. Players found it, and still do find it, extremely lackluster. In August they also fixed the problems with Hall of Grandmasters, bringing it up to five halls. In October they would increase this to six halls, while adding another feature to maps.

They changed the colour of the runes on the map so that they were not all the same colour. Now, the low tier would be white, mid tier would be yellow, and high tier would be red. This was accompanied by a change in how we refer to the level of maps. Prior to this, we would say “a lvl 70 map”. They now referenced them by tiers, with a lvl 68 map being tier 1, lvl 69 being tier 2, etc. This actually caused a lot of confusion due to a higher tier being better contrasting with crafting mods, where a lower tier is better. A lot of people got quite angry, but over time it passed, as it always will.

December 2015 brought a new league – Talisman. This league would cover both softcore and hardcore, but still contained different unique items exclusive to each. It also brought two new unique maps – The Vinktar Square and Caer Blaidd, Wolfpack's Den. It also brought a new endgame boss, Rigwald, that would be exclusive to this league (although accessible again in Legacy, as well as having map boss variations later). Rigwald was the first real endgame boss since Atziri, but never really had the long standing impact on the game that Atziri did. However the next expansion had an endgame boss with a little more... might.

The Emperor's New Groove

The 2.2.0 patch brought the Ascendancy expansion in March of 2016. Along with it came the Perandus challenge leagues, and a new unique map – The Perandus Manor. This is the most elusive and expensive unique map in the game, even today, as it can only be obtained from Cardio. It also brought with it the Lord's Labyrinth, which could be completed in each of the three difficulties to fight a new boss – Emperor Izaro. Defeating him would grant you enchantments on gear as well as ascendancy points which would give you powerful bonuses to the class of your choosing. A lot of people loved this, while others claimed it was “power creep overkill”. It's important to note that the endgame labyrinth was not implemented at this time. They also added the Chateau map, and enabled the ability to roll the twinned mod on Core maps. Get rekt.

2.3 came out in June, bringing along the prophecy league, and added another map, Plaza. Some of the prophecies available were only able to be used in endgame maps, while some were “prophecy chains.” These were important, because completing a prophecy chain would grant you with a prophecy fragment. Collecting the four different fragments granted you access to the Pale Court, where you could fight the Pale Council for a chance to drop exclusive items. The Pale Council was an interesting take on endgame bosses, but not the most important of this patch.

This patch also released the fourth iteration of the Lord's Labyrinth, and the endgame version of Emperor Izaro. Now, while the majority of players refer to him as “Uber Izaro”, just as they refer to the second iteration of Atziri as “Uber Atziri”, it's interesting to note that GGG never refers to either of these bosses as such, never using the term 'uber'. They will always refer to such as “Endgame Labyrinth” instead of “Uber Labyrinth”, etc. The term 'uber' was player created, in reference and respect to Uber Diablo from Diablo 2, one of the games that heavily influenced Path of Exile.

Throughout the history of Path of Exile, GGG has consistently revealed new and exciting material, and while there have been huge expansions to the core game, there had yet to be an expansion that focuses mostly on the endgame. This would change in September 2016, when they released...

The Atlas Of Worlds

The Atlas of Worlds Expansion was the biggest endgame expansion ever. First, it introduced the Essence League. This not only affected the end game, but also the core game. The crafting options that were opened up through this mechanic was very well received, and essence quickly found a place in the after after the league had concluded.

An endgame expansion of this magnitude must contain a few more maps of course, and GGG delivered. We were met with 30 brand new maps, two of which were unique – Hallowed Ground and Putrid Cloister. It also gave a new tier of maps, tier 16. These maps had very challenging bosses called guardians, and provided fragments once killed. Defeating the four guardians and using the fragments would open a new realm.

In this realm, one would find the newest end game boss – The Shaper. The Shaper is Zana's father, and GGG did very well to implement his fight and progression to his fight into the lore. For this reason, he didn't feel like “just a boss”, but really felt like the last boss of the game. Similar to other endgame bosses, defeating him granted exclusive uniques.

There was another major feature, in which the expansion was named after, and that is the Atlas of Worlds. This new endgame systems provided players with a type of progression through maps, as well as a way to track which maps they have completed. There was even a way to complete 126/125 of the maps, as Perandus Manor was not on the atlas. Completing maps unlocked them and created a way for them to drop, since it was no longer completely random for which maps dropped. This led to people being able to complete only certain maps to increase the drop rate of desirable maps, most often Shaped Strands.

This leads me to another point, shaping maps. Using a shaper's orb, a player could upgrade a map of their choosing, increasing the tier by 5. This was one of the main ways in which the atlas allowed players to further customize maps. The other major way, was through a new currency called sextants. With shaping maps and sextants seeming so commonplace, it's weird to imagine that only 10 months ago, they didn't even exist.

The final change during this expansion that I would like to mention, is the change in map art. Maps were no longer squares, they were now circles! Yay!

In September 2016, Hall of Grandmasters was reduced to four halls, where it still stands today.

Welcome to my Domain, Exile

In December 2016 Breach league was released. This was widely regarded as one of the best leagues in the history of Path of Exile, and I'm sure we're all glad it's being implemented into the core game. Breaches are a great source of loot, experience, and high monster density. Now, as I stated earlier, players like looking to 'exploit' certain mechanics. I do not mean that in a negative way. When Breach first came out, players realized when using the beyond mod that the massive amounts of monsters spawning from breaches would in turn spawn beyond portals. This led to some crazy beyond maps for a while, but was changed about a week later so that only magic and rare monsters could spawn portals.

Killing monsters that spawn from these breaches would sometimes drop splinters. After collecting 100 of a certain type of splinter, you could open a new endgame area – Breach Domains. Each domain had a specific boss, each which could drop it's own exclusive uniques and blessings, which could be used to upgrade certain unique items.

Leaving a Legacy

The most recent and current league was released in March 2017. That of course is the Legacy League. Taking many of the past leagues, and combining them into one, crazy, exciting league with the use of Leaguestones, Legacy League was able to bring back fond memories for many players, and introduce some new players to older mechanics that they may have never had the chance to experience. Due to the vast amount of mechanics and items available, players were able to accomplish things they may not have been able to in the past. For example, there are more level 100 characters in this league than any other – over 1000 of them.

People also found ways to exploit the mechanics, in both positive and negative ways. For instance, players found it fun and profitable to use the sextant that causes nemesis monsters to drop currency, and combine that double beyond maps. This was massive amounts of loot and currency, as ghostbusting was in the past. The difference was that this was rather expensive, and ghostbusting was not.

Not all exploits are positive though. At the beginning of the league, some players found that removing leaguestones prior to the map opening would cause the leaguestone effects to be added to the map without using a charge. Some of these players exploited this as much as they could since it took a rather long time for GGG to fix this. Once it was fixed, these players were banned.

A Shaped Future

I'm sure we're all excited to see what the future of Path of Exile will look like, and how the endgame will further evolve in the coming years. Legacy League really gave players a good idea of some of the history of Path of Exile. However, it would have been great to see them bring back an old friend – The Original EndGame – The Maelstrom of Chaos.

About the original maelstrom, every time i play races, the only ones i really get into and bother setting an alarm to join are the descent ones, and I really wish they would put some kinda of map mechanic like that into the main game POE, maybe even if say you put 4 normal maps into the machine, and upon boss kill opened a portal to the next map...

Thanks for the great read 😎

nice retrospective, but you forgot to mention the beyond league


after all BEYOND MOD its the best mod ever




EDIT: I SAW IT NOW (ur beyond mention) sorry for that pal :)

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awright wrote:

About the original maelstrom, every time i play races, the only ones i really get into and bother setting an alarm to join are the descent ones, and I really wish they would put some kinda of map mechanic like that into the main game POE, maybe even if say you put 4 normal maps into the machine, and upon boss kill opened a portal to the next map...

Some throwback during Legacy league have been pretty cool.

"

fsaebo wrote:

Thanks for the great read 😎

:)

"

sakuskid wrote:

nice retrospective, but you forgot to mention the beyond league


after all BEYOND MOD its the best mod ever




EDIT: I SAW IT NOW (ur beyond mention) sorry for that pal :)

No worries! It's a long read so things can get missed :(

Thank you for the great read, it was very interesting. I joined the game in 2013, but only reached cruel and left the game for a long time, so I didn't know about the majority of these things.

Honestly, I would love to see maelstorm of chaos back. Maybe something on top of Shaper? So when you complete his map, you unlock the maelstorm and ability to further challenge your build?

But we will see. This game went through a lot of changes, so we may possibly get another endgame expansion later down the road.

Thanks for an entertaining read. I enlisted 10 of march this year, so I'm new to all this.

Well written. Thanks, man.

Much nostalgia, thanks!

I remember that in closed beta unique items were so rare compared to today. Finding one was very rewarding. First one I got was a Voll's armor which I managed to 6 link later. I quite fondly remember my ice spear witch tearing through the monsters like a breeze.

Oh god, so much text... But it was all worth it, very nicely written!