



Version 0.10.0

Notes:

As part of the process of entering Open Beta, we have wiped all characters and reverted them to level 1 so that their names are retained. All items have been destroyed apart from the Unique prize item "Demigod's Presence" and Kiwi pets. There will never be another character or item wipe.



Content:

The City of Sarn, Path of Exile's third act, is now available! It includes 21 areas based on 8 new tilesets, 18 completely new monster types and over 90 monster variations.

Added Quicksilver Flasks, a type of utility flask that increases movement speed by 40% for five seconds. A Quicksilver Flask is now available as a reward from the Medicine Chest quest.

Added Amethyst Flasks, a type of utility flask that increases chaos resistance by 35% for 3.5 seconds.

Added a new Keystone Passive - Zealot's Oath: Life regeneration applies to energy shield instead of life.

Converted to Keystone Passive - Ancestral Bond: You can summon up to 1 additional totem. You can't deal damage with your skills yourself.

Added a new ring base type - Prismatic Ring, which grants all elemental resistances.

The Punishment curse has returned after being disabled for a long time.

The Molten Shell used by Goatmen has been given new art.

Further improved the randomness of the Pools and Streams area.

Added two new Unique items, one of which was designed by a Diamond supporter and one which will be given out as a prize for winning races.

We've updated the art of bows in the game, including the item models that are held by characters.

Removed the recently added waypoint from the River Crossings and moved the Vaal Ruins one to a random location in that level.

The Eternal Laboratory is now available in Act Three rather than Act Two. You get access from Lady Dialla.

Names of rare monsters have been improved.

Continued to incrementally improve the art, effects, environments and sound.

We've added a new Map tileset (based on The Docks) and have changed the overall ordering of Maps.

The following Map areas have been updated so that they're substantially different in layout to before: Spider Forest, Jungle Valley, Waste Pool, Dry Woods, Cemetery, Mine, Underground Sea, Bog, Plateau and Dunes.

Merveil now uses new custom (purchasable!) art for her Cold Snap skill.

There have been no changes to PvP in this patch. It is still accessible from Act Two Normal (level 28 cap where you can't have entered Cruel difficulty) and Act Two Merciless (Open PvP). In the near future we'll revamp it to add more level brackets and move it to the arenas in Sarn.

Quest rewards have been changed for all classes. There's an emphasis on rare items as quest rewards in higher difficulties.

Added a new ability to Rock Elementals.



Microtransaction Features:

Added a wide range of entirely cosmetic microtransaction items such as dance animations, more pets, and weapon and skill effects. Check out the shop on pathofexile.com for a complete list!

Typing /dance will use the appropriate purchased microtransaction from your microtransaction stash.

We've added support for Premium stash tabs which can be purchased on the website. Once one is purchased, you can rename it and change its colour as often as you want by right clicking on it.

You can upgrade a standard stash tab to premium, which upgrades the first available standard tab. Our initial pricing allows the upgrade at a discounted price just in case you already own a lot of standard tabs that you intended to upgrade.

Cosmetic item and skill effects can be applied onto your items or skill gems by right clicking the item in your microtransaction stash then left clicking the item you'd like to apply it to.

You can only have one cosmetic effect of a specific class on an item. For example, you may have a particle effect and a skin change applied to one item, but applying a second particle effect will destroy the previous one.

An item with a cosmetic effect on it cannot be traded or dropped. To trade or drop the item, you need to remove the effect from it.

You can reclaim effects for free (putting them back in your microtransaction stash) by clicking the "Reclaim" button in your microtransaction stash.

For now there's a limit of only one microtransaction stash. We'll lift this limit as soon as possible so that you can buy all the things.



Features:

Some areas now have doors which can be opened by clicking them. You can fire projectiles through certain doors.

We've added the ability to render more reflective materials and have updated much of the metal in the game to be appropriately reflective.

There's now an icon on the world map to show when a waypoint is in an area underneath the overland one (for example, in the Sewers in Act Three).

There's now an option on the login screen to save your password between sessions. This can be unticked if you do not want to store a hash of your password on that computer.

Players are now notified via chat when they've taken a screenshot.

Flasks with movement speed mods (and the Quicksilver flask itself) now display an effect on the character to show that you're accelerated.

The roofs of certain buildings and tents in Act Three will fade away when you enter those buildings.

There are now sound effects associated with trading, partying and receiving whispered messages.

Bowstrings now twang visibly when fired.

You can now dismiss the quest-status-change notification with right click.

The Create button on the main menu now takes you to the account creation web page.

Life Regeneration is now shown as a per second stat, rather than per minute.

Monsters now list what elements they are vulnerable to.

The /debug command can't be used to cheat in races any more. Thanks guys.

Chat moderators can now chat in colour.



General Balance:

Chaos resistance is now available on item mods and on the passive tree. It is not included in the "All Elemental Resistances" mod.

The bandit leaders now grant different stat bonuses on each difficulty level. For Kraityn, Alira and Oak respectively, they are - Normal: elemental resistances, maximum mana, maximum life; Cruel: attack speed, cast speed, physical damage; Merciless: maximum frenzy charges, maximum power charges, maximum endurance charges.

The "Chilled" statuses from cold damage and ground ice do not stack any more.

Reduced the life progression of summoned minions (skeletons and zombies). Increased their base life and a small amount of general elemental resistances have been added.

Disabled Diamond flasks until we've rebalanced them properly.



World Balance:

Now that Act Three has been added, we've removed the Ruthless difficulty level and have rebalanced around this new progression.

Merciless content now finishes at level 64. Map content currently progresses to level 75.

The experience penalties on death are now 0% for Normal, 7.5% for Cruel and 15% for Merciless difficulty.

The new player resistance penalties are 0% on Normal, -20% on Cruel and -60% on Merciless difficulty. Chaos resistance is now included and the same penalty applies to it.

Side areas in higher difficulty levels can now be much higher level than the areas they are next to.

We've rebalanced all monster packs throughout the game so that there's a lot more variance in their sizes. This has dramatically improved pacing, as you'll encounter both larger packs of monsters and more suspenseful empty areas before some encounters.

Higher level maps are now a lot more challenging.



Passive Skill Balance:

Chaos Inoculation now grants no additional energy shield bonus. Its complete immunity to chaos damage, synergy with Blood Rage and other skill combos are deemed sufficient upside to counteract the life penalty.

The Elemental Equilibrium keystone passive skill now grants a flat amount (+25%) of resistance to each element you hit with and a resistance penalty (-50%) to each element not present in the hit.

The passive skills that increase elemental resistance while holding a shield have been improved.

Added some chaos resistance nodes to the passive skill tree.

Early projectile damage passives on Ranger area of tree improved to 8%.

Energy Shield nodes have been increased.



General Gem Balance:

The experience curve has been smoothed for gems that start at character level 24 or 31.

High level gems are now balanced to have greater effect than before.

Attack gem damage bonuses no longer taper off towards higher levels but now continue to increase at the same rate.

Reduced the life progression of totems. The bonus for totem life per point of quality has been decreased from 3% to 1.5%.

Skill and support gems now have balance values that go higher than level 20, so that if you get a gem at max level (which is still 20) but have items that increase the gem level, then the skill is more powerful.



Active Skill Balance:

Anger: Base mana cost increased by 10 to 50, increasing by 6 per level instead of 5.

Clarity: Reduced in effectiveness by around 20%.

Cold Snap: Damage significantly increased (40% higher at Level 1, 105% higher at Level 15).

Decoy Totem: Life bonuses per level reduced because it's already very strong.

Discharge: Early levels improved by around 20%.

Discipline: Mana cost increased by 40. Energy Shield granted significantly reduced.

Elemental Hit: Is now player level 19 (was 2) and has had its damage reduced, especially at high levels.

Enduring Cry: The number of charges gained has been reduced at higher levels. It produced the same amount at level 1, and progresses to being 40% less effective by level 20.

Fireball: Damage progression increased - now 14% increased by level 15.

Fire Trap: Now does more damage at earlier levels.

Flame Totem: Added 4% base critical strike chance.

Freeze mine: Improved by 37.5%.

Grace: Mana cost now increases 7 per level, instead of 5.

Haste: Now starts at 6% attack and cast speed and improves to 14% attack and cast speed (and 7% move speed) at higher levels. The mana reservation cost is unchanged.

Ice Shot: Is now level 4 (was level 31). Its mana progression has been changed (it starts at 10 and progresses to 16 mana). The duration of chilled ground that it causes has been reduced by 20%.

Infernal Blow: Now has +25% damage effectiveness rather than +12% attack damage.

Lightning Arrow: Has been moved to level 10 (from 1). Its mana cost and progression have been flattened. The chance to shock has been removed. A damage bonus as it levels up has been added. The number of targets is now always 3.

Molten Shell: Now provides more armour and has had its detonation thresholds changed.

Phase Run: Has been retired to the plane of elemental fire to be reforged anew.

Rain of Arrows: Is now a level 4 Skill (from 10). Its area of effect has been increased by 20%. The delay between firing and arrows hitting the ground has been reduced by 20%. Its Area of Effect gain per level has been reduced and its quality bonus has been changed from Area of Effect to Attack Speed. Its damage effectiveness has been reduced slightly.

Shock Nova: Increased base critical strike chance from 3% to 4%. Mana cost has been reduced.

Shockwave Totem: Added 4% base critical strike chance.

Spark: Once a Spark has bounced, it'll only be able to pierce the same target again if it has been more than one second since the last time.

Split Arrow: Is now player level 1 (was 4).

Whirling Blades: Damage effectiveness increased from 60% to 80%.

Wrath: Base mana cost increased by 10 to 50, increasing by 6 per level instead of 5.



Support Gem Balance:

[/li] Additional Accuracy: Improved at higher levels.

Chain: Damage penalty has been increased from -40% to -50% and the number of chains has been reduced from 3 to 2.

Elemental Penetration supports (various): Now have reduced penetration - they start at -16% instead of -25%.

Fork: Damage penalty changed to -30% from -20%.

Life Gain on Hit: Has been improved, especially at higher levels.

Life Leech: Has been improved.

Spell Totem: Now has a 30% cast speed penalty.

Ranged Attack Totem: Has had its attack speed penalty reduced from 50% to 30%.



Item Balance:

Unique items have been rebalanced (mostly up) in power. We've also changed defensive values on low uniques to generally just be a static bonus, rather than a large percentage that only affects that item.

The level that the currency item drop rate penalty now treats all players above level 68 as 68 (this used to be level 63).

Chaos resistance mods are now available on items.

The attribute requirements for armour pieces and gems have been increased.

Cartographer's Chisels now drop from level 52+ monsters rather than 45+.

Vendors in Act Three have previously unsold currency items available, such as Orbs of Alchemy.

Granite Flasks now grant 4000 armour on use, not 10000.

Block rate mods have been added to the mod pool for shields.

Critical multiplier mods on weapons are now global, not local, so that if you have it on one weapon, it'll affect all skills, not just attacks with that weapon. This means that they are no longer multiplicative with the rest of your critical multiplier values.

The following support gems have been moved from level 15 to level 12: Faster Projectiles, Added Cold Damage, Additional Accuracy, Added Lightning Damage, Increased Critical Damage, Minion Life, Weapon Elemental Damage, Life Gain on Hit, Iron Will, Chance to Flee, Fork and Added Fire Damage.

There are now new item mods that go up to item level 77.

Medium Life and Mana Flasks have had their drop level reduced to 4.

The Adrenaline flask mod has been moved to level 5.

Mods that increase the levels of socketed gems of specific types by two levels have been added.

A mod that increases the level of any gems socketed into the item by one level has been added. This can stack with one of the other gem level mods for a total bonus of +3 levels to a gem.

The mods that affect the level of elemental gems socketed into the item can now spawn on caster weapons other than wands and staves.

The maximum flat energy shield that can be gained on an item has been reduced.

The life regeneration on Coral Amulets has been improved.

Life regeneration item mods have been improved.

Item rarity mods reduced by around 20-25%.

Item rarity can now spawn as both a prefix and a suffix on the same item.

Rarity mods on uniques have generally been increased.

Flat armour mods on individual pieces have been changed to be as good as flat evasion mods.



Monster Balance:

Merveil's second form has been given new abilities. This fight will be improved later.

The accuracy penalty has been removed from ranged monsters because of the change in 0.9.12 where you can avoid their projectiles by running out of the way.

Skeleton casters have had their damage reduced in the early game and increased in the late game.

Hailrake's damage has been reduced slightly.

Monster Viper Strike damage has been lowered.

Blackguards in the Western Forest have had their life increased.

The totem mod for Maps can now spawn totems that use Lightning Warp.

Monsters now gain 15% physical and elemental resistance per Endurance Charge, rather than 20%.

Elemental skills of monsters now do more damage in higher difficulties.



Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug where you could create too many characters on your account.

Fixed a bug where rerolling items would not result in them having mods from families they used to have.

Fixed a client crash related to Lightning Warp.

Fixed a bug where rerolling items wouldn't reduce their level requirement.

Fixed a bug where scouring a flask would remove its level requirement.

Fixed a bug where specters and other minions would lose their implicit mods when they travelled between areas.

Fixed a bug where your speed would not change when using Shield Charge to travel through ground ice or ground tar.

Fixed a problem with energy shield percentage mods on armour being too high.

Fixed a targeting bug with Lightning Arrow.

Fixed a bug with Conduit and unpartied players in the same instance.

Fixed a bug where chilling monsters or cursing them with Temporal Chains could prevent their attacks from succeeding.

Fixed a bug where a monster's minions would vanish if you shattered the parent monster.

Fixed a bug where pathfinding problems could cause certain projectile skills to not fire at all, rather than firing into a blockage.

Fixed a problem with evasion related to Lightning Strike.

Fixed a bug where it was difficult to pick up items or open chests near enemies.

Fixed a bug where rounding errors could cause minions to spawn as dead when you change areas.

Fixed bugs related to items being picked up in the wrong order if "Key Pickup" was enabled.

Fixed a bug where traps and remote mines would not show the arrows flying into the air when using Rain of Arrows.

Burning Arrow is now properly affected by the Point Blank keystone passive and the Chin Sol unique item.

You can now interact with objects in town if you have an item on the cursor. This fixes the problem where if you accidentally closed the stash while you had an item on the cursor, and you couldn't place the item into your inventory or back into the stash.

Fixed a bug where the login window would overlap with error messages beneath it.

Fixed an instance crash related to totems.

Fixed a bug where the minimap would move to the left and right if you used the arrow keys to swap between vendor tabs.

Fixed mouse wheel scrolling for stats in the character panel so that you can scroll while the mouse cursor is over the stats.

Fixed a bug where the Vaal Oversoul could emerge inside walls.

Fixed a bug with the rendering of certain world object names at the edge of the screen.

Stats that increase damage taken now affect all degeneration damage, not just chaos damage. They also apply to damage that hits your energy shield, rather than damage that only hits your life.

Fixed a bug where minimising the game by clicking on the task bar entry wouldn't mute the sound, when "Mute when in background" was set while playing in windowed fullscreen mode.

Fixed a bug where you could add Piety to your friends list.

Fixed a bug where a queued client could be disconnected and wouldn't know about it, forced to wait an eternity alone.

Fixed a bug where you could not target chests with the Leap Slam skill.

Fixed a bug where penalties to projectile speed would make the projectiles move super fast.

Fixed a bug where manually opened panels would be automatically closed by other panels.

Fixed a bug where the social panel could be opened while your character was dead.

Stun duration bonuses specific to weapons no longer apply to spell/secondary damage.

Skills like Ice Nova that don't have a target now don't hide monster health bars while being cast.

Increases to physical damage taken now apply correctly to physical degeneration (such as damage from Puncture).

Fixed a bug with Rain of Arrows where monsters that run into the targeted area from outside while the arrows were in flight would not be hit.

Fixed a bug where Ground Slam displayed a fixed duration despite being based on weapon speed.

Fixed a bug where gem levelling sounds would stack and create a very loud sound if multiple gems became ready to level up at the same time.

Attack skills that can be ranged or melee, such as Frenzy, will now be disabled with melee weapons while supported by ranged attack totem, trap, or remote mine gems.

Fixed a bug where some sounds would play at the wrong height.

Fixed a graphical bug where some entities would not have their outline shown while selected.





I posted some replies on Carl has also posted an explanation of some of the balance changes, which we strongly urge you to read alongside these patch notes.I posted some replies on page 17 YouTube |

Lead Developer. Follow us on: Twitter Facebook | Contact Support if you need help! Last edited by Chris on Jan 23, 2013, 7:14:25 AM

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Chris

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