Path of Exile 0.11.0

We're now halfway through Path of Exile's Open Beta and have deployed 9 major patches and 24 minor patches in the 0.10.x series. For a while, we've been planning a major patch to herald the second phase of the Open Beta. This patch is 0.11.0 and it contains new four-month leagues with special rules, exclusive Challenges with prizes, major balance changes relating to monster damage and player life values, the introduction of item allocation options, toggleable mini health-bars, a new currency item and many other changes.


Please note that this page is not the 0.11.0 patch notes! It's a list of various features we're including (which may change slightly by the time the patch is deployed). Full patch notes are here.

The following topics are discussed in this article:

  • Four-month Onslaught and Anarchy Leagues
  • New Base Items and Uniques
  • Challenges
  • Substantial Rebalance
  • One-off Full Passive Reset
  • New Currency Item: Eternal Orb
  • Item Allocation Options
  • Optional Mini Life Bars
  • Deployment Timeline



Four-month Onslaught and Anarchy Leagues

The most prominent new feature in the 0.11.0 patch is a pair of four-month leagues that are due to start on June 7, Pacific time. The Anarchy and Onslaught leagues each have their own properties that make them distinct from the Standard and Hardcore leagues you've been playing in so far. They also contain slightly different items! Some base types only drop in Anarchy or Onslaught and some base types can't drop there. Certain Unique items are not available in Anarchy/Onslaught leagues and if you're lucky, you can find Anarchy-specific and Onslaught-specific Uniques. We're also introducing a system of difficult goals specific to these new leagues called Challenges. They're designed to take a lot of effort, but we're sure many people will complete them all before we release Act 3X in October!

In the Anarchy League, the corruption of Wraeclast has spread to the minds of many exiles, turning them against one another. As you journey through the world, you will occasionally run into these exiles - deadly computer controlled enemies who use the skills and items available to player characters. If you manage to kill one, they drop a lot of items including a magic or above for each equippable slot.

The Onslaught league is a hardcore league designed for players who found our existing hardcore gameplay too easy. We've increased the attack, cast and movement speed of monsters. It's like a lighter version of the Turbo race events that we run, only it lasts for four months. Note that just as the Anarchy league doesn't contain these difficulty increases, the Onslaught league doesn't have the rogue exiles. It's likely we'll try them out in hardcore leagues in the future.

The Anarchy and Onslaught leagues last for four months, before all the characters are moved back to the Standard and Hardcore leagues respectively. Characters that die in the Onslaught league do not move back to the Anarchy league, but to Standard instead. This has a few consequences:

  • Players in the Anarchy league do not have to worry about Onslaught players dying and appearing above them in the ladder. They also do not have to worry about an inflow of items from dead Onslaught characters.
  • Items such as the new base types and Onslaught uniques can be transported to the Standard league before Anarchy ends by dying in Onslaught. They cannot be transported to the Hardcore league until Onslaught ends. Obviously the Anarchy-specific uniques can never make their way into the Hardcore league.


New Base Items and Uniques

Anarchy and Onslaught leagues have six new base types of items to find - three rings and three amulets. It's not possible to obtain Onyx Amulets or Prismatic Rings in Anarchy or Onslaught leagues.

The new leagues contain some new Unique items that can only drop in Anarchy or Onslaught leagues. Two can drop in either league, two can only drop in Anarchy and two can only drop in Onslaught. They also have a few old Uniques disabled - those on Onyx Amulets, Prismatic Rings as well as the unique Glorious Plate (Kaom's Heart).

The addition and removal of certain items and Uniques on a per-league basis not only makes them slightly different from a gameplay perspective but gives us valuable feedback on how the game will function with a different set of items available. Many people have commented that they'd love to see a metagame without Kaom's Heart. Now's your chance to experience that.


Challenges

Players have been asking us for an achievements system for years. We're not quite ready to add a full one, but we are going to run an experiment during these two new leagues. We've put together a set of very difficult goals and called them Challenges. While most of the Challenges can be done in either new league, a few are specific to Anarchy or Onslaught. To truly master these Challenges, a player needs to achieve great things in both leagues during the same four-month period. We've added a Challenges screen which will help you track what goals you have left to complete.

The eight Challenges are:

  • Slay the 13 rogue exiles (Anarchy only).
  • Reach level 60 on each character class (Onslaught only).
  • Use a Map of every type in the Map Device.
  • Allocate all of the notable and keystone passives.
  • Receive 34 specific items from vendor recipes.
  • Full-clear each non-Map area in any difficulty.
  • Use all currency items (excluding Mirror of Kalandra).
  • Own a specific set of 90 Unique items at the same time. If you trade any away before the end of the league, you'll need to get them again for the challenge to count.

The number of Challenges you've completed is tracked. We're planning to display it on your forum posts and next to your name when chatting in these leagues. If you complete all eight Challenges and hold them until the leagues end on October 8, we'll ship you an exclusive t-shirt!

Other than the Challenges and small item changes mentioned in this leagues section, every other part of the 0.11.0 patch is available to players in the existing Standard/Hardcore leagues. We will add an overall achievement system in the future that affects all leagues.



Substantial Rebalance

Several areas of the game have been significantly rebalanced. We've reduced all monster damage and have made corresponding reductions to player Life and Energy Shield passive skills. Physical damage nodes (both general and weapon-specific) have been substantially increased. As a result of these changes, characters rely less on life than they did previously. Defensive options such as armour are substantially stronger now, more than offsetting the lower life totals.

In response to those core changes, we've rebalanced many other areas of the game. Some examples include: Acrobatics now halves Energy Shield and Armour rather than removing them. Rustic Sashes now provide 12-24% Physical Damage instead of 3-5%. The Savant node in the Witch starting area has been changed to Elemental Dominion which gives +20 Intelligence and +20% Spell Elemental Damage. We've also addressed the power of some passive skills that were basically mandatory in previous versions.

Melee characters gain the most from these changes, but many previously underpowered builds have also improved.



One-off Full Passive Reset

Due to substantial balance changes in this patch, we decided to give people a full reset of their passive skills. In the past, players used to log in after balance patches and find their characters respecced with no indication of what skills they used to have. To address this problem, we've added a single-use button that can refund all your passives. You should carefully examine your current build before deciding to respec. This button will go away if you allocate or refund a skill before using it. We don't intend for players to save it forever. At this stage we don't have a mechanism for undoing bandit quest choices, but are working on it for a future patch.



New Currency Item: Eternal Orb

We've added a new high-tier currency item! Eternal Orbs are extremely rare but provide a very useful function in the crafting system. When you use an Eternal Orb on an item, it stores the properties of the item in an Imprint which you can later apply to the original item, retrieving the saved properties. The imprint can only be applied to the original item and cannot be traded to other players.

Here are three examples of how to use an Eternal Orb:

  • You've saved up the 1500 or so Orbs of Fusing to potentially six-link an item that you currently use, but are worried that if you use all the orbs you might end up with less links than you started with, rendering your character unusable. If you use an Eternal Orb on it, you're able to lock in your current sockets and restore them if the fusing operation is unsuccessful.
  • You're trying to craft an item using the Transmutation/Regal/Exalted method but are worried that, after significant currency investment, your last Exalted Orb will add a mod you don't want. The Eternal Orb would allow you to (at a cost) back up your progress for restoration after an undesired result.
  • You have an excellent item that someone wants you to Mirror for them, but with a different socket colour configuration. You can now back up your existing sockets, roll the ones they want, Mirror it for them, then restore your socket colours.


Item Allocation Options

A party leader can choose from the following item allocation modes for his party in 0.11.0:

  • Free for All: Items are not allocated to players and can be picked up immediately.
  • Short Allocation: The exact system we have at the moment. Valuable items allocate to a random nearby player for a short duration. There is a small bonus if you're far away from the item.
  • Permanent Allocation: Valuable items allocate to a random nearby player.


Allocated items are still visible to everyone, but greyed out.

Valuable items are the ones that currently get allocated to players - Rare items, Unique items, Currency, Gems and Maps. We've also added items with four, five or six linked sockets to the valuable items list. Base types of the level of your world area or higher are also allocated. This only applies to level 60+ world areas.

The item allocation mode takes effect when an area is spawned. We wanted to avoid abuse cases where the party leader can change the allocation mode while their party is currently in an area. If you accidentally create an area with the wrong allocation settings, just make another.

A frequently requested change is a "Map to Maker" system. Traditionally, players who want to play Maps with strangers run the risk of having the Map drops grabbed by people who didn't pay the cost to create the area. In 0.11.0, white Maps allocate to the creator of the Map for all types of parties. This will mean that it's safer to allow friends or strangers into an area that you have spent a Map or currency on. Magic/Rare/Unique maps follow the normal loot allocation rules so it's still possible to find Maps if you are playing in someone else's area.

In all cases, items de-allocate if the allocated player leaves the area or if five minutes pass.



Optional Mini Life Bars

In 0.11.0, you can optionally toggle the display of mini life bars on allies, enemies, or both. We've been experimenting with this change for a while based on player feedback and feel we've got it to a state where it doesn't unnecessarily clutter the playfield. The life bars of enemies are only shown when they've taken damage, so you can use it to see which ones are near to death and focus fire on those. It's also very useful for summoners who want to keep track of the health of their minions easily.



Deployment Timeline

We'll be deploying 0.11.0 on Wednesday, June 5 (Pacific time). Anarchy and Onslaught leagues will start at 6pm on Friday, June 7 (Pacific time) and will run until October 7. Remember, the changes mentioned in this article are not the full patch notes! There are many other improvements to read about in a few days when we post the final 0.11.0 patch notes.

We're expecting to enable the Australian gateway on the login screen as an option for anyone to use before this patch goes live.

We're extremely excited about this patch. It has taken an immense amount of effort and is really fun to play. If you've been waiting for a fresh league to play some new characters, tell your friends and join us on June 7. See you there!

Posted by 
on
Grinding Gear Games
And now its out in the open,
Let the Challenges Begin!
Beta Member Since 0.9.0 | Current Character : ExExCorpse
Creator of Prismatic Rings AND Unique Thief's Torment Prismatic Ring
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Guide to Loot Filters - Here
Hahaha, you did special formatting and everything. Nice!

e: sweet, passive reset! I can finally rework some of the egregious errors on my main!
IRON MAN
Last edited by Dreggon on May 31, 2013, 8:07:22 AM
Damn this it's looking awesome! nice job GGG
"Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

OMG this is just amazing, great job ggg, best developer EVAR
holy freaking moly
Woohoo!

Thank you guys! That is true awesomeness right there!
Thank you!
i do not know Chris even if increased defenses and reduce physical damage monsters
we still need lots of life to ward off elemental damage

life should not be decline
※ AUCTION ※ : /thread 322400

【 SHOP 】: /thread 396452

ign:banpick
Last edited by Hg4white on May 31, 2013, 10:19:06 AM
Love the new format. Now to read it! :-)
Ascension tied to Lab is the worst thing GGG has done...apart from GGG's philosophy on Trading. Oh and Gambling Loot boxes. And selling out to tencent.

I used to love GGG. I supported to ensure GGG remained independent, now I just wish I could get my money back. -_-

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