At the in-house ExileCon, fans were finally able to take a look at Path of Exile 2. This was announced in 2019, but it was quiet for a long time. Here we explain how the successor to the biggest Diablo competitor wants to be easier for beginners and at the same time more difficult.
What exactly is Path of Exile 2? First things first, because Path of Exile 2 is no longer exactly what was promised at ExileCon 2019. There it was still said that the two games would share the endgame and you can play them in the same client.
This statement has now been refuted and at the same time explains why PoE 2 did not appear in 2021, as originally announced. The developers reveal that the game just kept getting bigger and bigger and at some point it was so different from its predecessor that it had to be separated into its own game.
You can see the brand new trailer from ExileCon here:
Path of Exile 2 finally shows some badass action in the detailed ExileCon trailer
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But don’t panic, all microtransactions that you have ever made or will make can be used in both games. You take additional storage locations, skins and Co. with you from the first part in Path of Exile 2 so that you don’t feel completely lost.
What was shown? We saw a section from the 3rd of a total of 6 chapters of the completely new campaign. In about 45 minutes of gameplay, we were able to get deep insights into the new monk class. He is one of a total of 6 new classes in Path of Exile 2.
Of the remaining 5 we know the Druid and the Huntress. Their main attributes are already known, but more specific skills are not yet. Instead, in addition to the monk, you could also see the gameplay of the new sorceress. Unlike the witch, she focuses on elemental abilities and sheer destruction.
In combat everything is different now and you can finally dodge
What’s new? Some things are new in Path of Exile 2, but one of the most notable changes is arguably the dodge roll. Every class gets it and can use it without any cooldowns. This also applies to almost all active skills in the game. The developers generally want to avoid cooldowns.
While these dodge rolls won’t make you invulnerable, anything previously fired at you will miss. In fact, you can use it to dodge pretty much anything but AoE damage.
This should make fighting much more dynamic and challenging, but also ensure that people can show their skills in combat.
In addition, many skills have been given Movement. In the monk class shown, almost every attack moves you, even if only slightly, which generally makes fighting much more action-packed and quicker.
But your enemies have not remained the same either. You can also expect them to react faster and, if necessary, to be able to dodge. The fights themselves should be much more difficult than before, as Jonathan Rogers, Game Director of Path of Exile 2, tells us in the conversation afterwards.
Old features get strong updates: But not everything is new in the combat system, existing features are changing drastically. For example, changing weapons, which will be discussed in more detail later. The way crowd control effects, i.e. freezing and stuns, work is also changing.
While in Path of Exile 1 you had a small chance of freezing the enemy every time you hit Frost, now they always freeze. But let’s go into detail. Every enemy, even bosses recently, have some kind of internal frost bar that you have to fill until the enemy finally freezes.
Of course, this is greater for bosses than for normal opponents, but it ensures that the particularly strong opponents are no longer completely immune to control effects, which enables new builds.
Speaking of bosses, by the way, there should be over 100 different ones at the start, according to Jonathan Rogers.
Death is punished more severely: These bosses in particular should also be made more difficult by another mechanism. But even normal fights could soon turn out to be nastier. Because in Path of Exile 2 your death will annoy you much more than in its predecessor.
Because while you lost a bit of experience due to pixel death in the first part, you could just get up and keep going. That’s no longer possible. If you die, you’ll get up at a checkpoint a little further away and the monsters and bosses you fought will be fully healed again.
You will of course continue to lose experience. In a nutshell, this means that your death in the game becomes more annoying and also occurs much more frequently than in Path of Exile 1. Something that doesn’t sound beginner-friendly at first.
All skills can now be equally strong – Path of Exile 2 wants to be easier for beginners
What is changing in the skill system? The combat system should also be loosened up by the new skill system. In the past, you only had the option of equipping a so-called 6-link still on your top and a two-handed weapon. So a skill enhanced by 5 support gems.
But the skill stones move from the equipment to a separate menu. This not only makes it easier to understand, but also loosens up the meta. Because in this menu you can assign the same number of support gems to each skill. This should potentially make every attack skill in Path of Exile 2 equally strong.
In return, however, the active abilities are now more tied to specific equipment. While you could still perform an ability in PoE 1 with a sword, ax and dagger, in the successor you can only perform it specifically with the sword.
On the one hand, this again limits build variety, but on the other hand it makes it easier to understand for new players.
What is changing in the builds? The new, unpolished stones also take a big step towards beginner-friendliness. These are gems that you can upgrade to any skill you have unlocked so far.
This allows you to reduce your reliance on random drops and get to the builds you want faster. But that’s not the only change in the build options in Path of Exile 2.
Because while you had to focus on one element in the predecessor, for example with an elemental build, that is now a thing of the past. You can earn flexible points for your passive skills, which you can then change skillfully and at any time.
If you divide these points between a tree with lightning damage and a tree with ice damage, you can easily pack skills from both elements. The completely revised weapon change in Path of Exile 2 plays an important role in this.
Automation when switching weapons: The weapon swap already existed in Path of Exile 1, but it was cumbersome and rarely used. It has therefore been fundamentally revised and simplified and offers enormous possibilities for automation.
Continuing the example from above, imagine we have a staff with lightning and a staff with ice damage. Now you can assign a weapon to each skill individually in the skill menu. You can then assign each of your two flexible passive trees to one of the staffs.
In practice, it looks like this: You press your ice skill. Your weapon will automatically switch to the ice damage staff, which will also switch your passive skill tree to the ice damage tree. So you get the maximum damage out. Next time you press a Blitz skill, the exact same thing happens, all automatically.
However, you have a minimal delay in your skills due to the weapon change, it takes about half a second. Despite this, but very small penalty, this is an incredibly good opportunity for newcomers to get into the system more easily. At the same time, it gives pros more tools to perfect their builds.
In this way and through other changes, such as gold as a currency, Path of Exile 2 is indeed more difficult in combat, but generally easier and, above all, friendlier to beginners and newcomers.
Both games should remain relevant in the future
How will leagues work in the future? When Path of Exile 2 comes, the first part should remain active. Also in PoE 2, developer Grinding Gear Games relies on the already known leagues. These should take place about every 3 months.
However, with a slight overlap between part 1 and part 2, because in the long term the developers want both Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 to remain relevant and be played. So the support for PoE 1 will not be discontinued, on the contrary.
You keep everything, maybe just not in the beta: In order for this to work, you not only share all previous microtransactions, but also all those that are yet to come. Even if the games are no longer in the same client as originally planned, switching between the titles should work quickly, according to Chris Wilson.
They are working on the fact that you can use all previous skins in the Path of Exile 2 beta. Incidentally, this will not start until June 2024. However, Grinding Gear Games does not yet know whether this will work. There is a small consolation, however.
Since 2019, the developers have been building all the skins for Path of Exile 1 and 2. This means that the players have access to all the skins they have purchased since the announcement of PoE 2, at least immediately and in beta.
How about you now? Are you an active player of Path of Exile? And if so, what do you think of what you saw? And if you haven’t played yet, are you interested in Path of Exile 2? Are you worried that it’s too difficult or do you like the changes? Write it to us in the comments here at MeinMMO.
It also remains exciting to see whether anything will change before the release. Because Grinding Gear Games is in constant contact with the fans. And sometimes you have to admit mistakes. Path of Exile Was Really Too Hard – Developer Admits “We Failed Completely”