Dev Diary: Endurance, Frenzy and Power Charges This week we’ve unveiled Charges – an important combat mechanic in Path of Exile. These can be accumulated in combat, and are represented by glowing orbs that orbit the character until they are consumed or fizzle out. Each attribute has its own type of Charge, which grants a specific property while Charges of that type are active. Various skills and items help you accumulate Charges and gain additional benefits from them. Charges in other Action RPGs Most action RPGs have very few skills that rely on context or state to change their behaviour, but some contain skills that grant temporary Charges and modify their behaviour based on how many Charges you have. Of course, the concept of skills granting Charges is not new, but other implementations are often quite narrow. Skills would grant Charges which would only affect the behaviour of that skill or of another skill that consumes the Charges. It was also rare to see these Charges affected by any other gameplay mechanics such as items or passive skills. Generally, depending on the game, Charges would be restricted to some subset of available character classes. [/frame] [frame width="360px" bMargin="5px"][/frame] Our Charge System We felt that we could improve this system. We wanted Charges to be a viable (but optional) build for any class in the game. To encourage them as an optional choice, we’ve added a lot of Charge-related passive skills that players can choose to specialise in. Because of our strong emphasis on itemisation, it was important for us to design items that could interact with Charges for characters that wanted to specialise. Finally, we wanted to make sure that Charges actually did something passively, so that they weren’t useless if taken out of the context of the skills that grant or consume them. Charges are granted when one of the conditions imposed by an active skill, passive skill or item is met. For example, there are passives that can grant Charges when you score critical strikes. Many active skills grant Charges when you hit or kill monsters with that skill. Each class has a natural limit of the number of Charges of each type that they can have. A primary character class such as the Marauder can have more of their native Charge type than a hybrid class (which is allowed an increased quantity of two types of Charges). These values can be increased via passive skills. If no new Charges of that type are accumulated within a certain time limit, those Charges dissipate and are lost. When a skill that consumes Charges is used, Charges of the appropriate type are removed for an additional effect per Charge. For example, the Immortal Call skill consumes Endurance Charges to grant a period of invulnerability proportional to the number of Endurance Charges consumed. Items and passive skills can also affect Charges. For example, there could be a unique ring that grants one additional maximum Frenzy Charge and a bonus of some additional accuracy per Frenzy Charge. We have dozens of passive skills that alter the conditions that Charges are granted, their effects, or the quantity of them that a player is allowed. Endurance Charges Endurance Charges are aligned with Strength and represent the ability to endure pain during a lengthy battle. Endurance Charges each grant a certain amount of physical damage reduction. Passive skills can extend this protection to elemental resistance also. This encourages the player to wade deeper into combat to take advantage of the ability to endure damage. Players can gain Endurance Charges by using certain active skills. There are several such skills that reward them for being in dangerous combat situations. For example, Enduring Cry grants Endurance Charges proportional to the number of enemies surrounding the player. [/frame] [frame width="360px" bMargin="5px"][/frame] Frenzy Charges Frenzy Charges are aligned with Dexterity and represent the killing frenzy that exiles enter when decimating hordes of enemies. A player with Frenzy Charges is able to attack substantially faster than normal, with a boost granted for each Charge they currently have. This bonus allows them to maintain the bloodshed until they gain another Frenzy Charge. Frenzy Charges are granted by many dexterity skills. One example is Blood Fury, which grants players a buff that makes them constantly lose life but grants them life leech. Whenever they kill an enemy with this buff on, the buff extends and they are granted a Frenzy Charge. [/frame] [frame width="360px" bMargin="5px"][/frame] Power Charges Power Charges are aligned with Intelligence and represent a spellcaster charging with arcane energy as they cast spells. While the player has Power Charges, their spell damage is increased in proportion to the number of Charges. A fully charged up magic user is a formidable force, but must continue to keep earning Power Charges in order to maintain this power. An example of a skill that grants Power Charges is Power Transfer which reduces the damage an enemy can deal and grants you a Charge. Power Charges can be consumed by a skill such as Discharge, which deals a savage damage burst, depleting your Charges. The number of Power Charges dictates the scale of this damage. Your Frenzy and Endurance Charges are also converted to elemental damage with this skill. [/frame] [frame width="360px" bMargin="5px"][/frame] Encouraged Player Behaviour The most obvious player behavior that stems from Charges is that players spend more time in combat. Because they are anxious about their Charges vanishing, they are more likely to engage a second group of foes immediately after the first. We're always trying to find game mechanics that encourage players to play Path of Exile in an action-packed way rather than kiting single enemies around, so this is a win for us. We're always trying to design game mechanics where players constantly have to make important split second decisions based on situational factors such as monster position, health status and now, Charges. A less obvious benefit is that the Charges system encourages players to use multiple skills - some to charge up and some to consume them. It's amazing how many players play action RPGs using only a single skill. Although we are happy for players to specialise, it's good to provide encouragement to those who want to seek inter-skill synergy. The Charges system also opens up a wide design space for passive skills that players can invest in to further synergise with. For example, we could have passive skills that: Grant an Endurance Charge when you block an attack

Grant a Frenzy Charge when you kill three foes within two seconds using a weapon

Grant a Power Charge when you hit ten foes with one spell Having a wide variety of passive skills and items that interact with the Charges gained from these active skills also allows players to specialise in Charges to a very large degree if they choose. Where possible, we try to add obvious build routes such as these so that players have many paths to build around when experimenting with which gameplay style suits them best. Of course, it's worth mentioning that players don't have to use Charges if they aren't interested in them. There are plenty of other skills and combat options for players who prefer different styles of gameplay. Path of Exile is entering beta later this year. If you haven't created an account yet, please sign up!