Path Of Exile's Chris Wilson Talks About Balance, Flasks, And More
Topics include harder endgame and possible "hard mode"
Grinding Gear Games made a lot of changes to core gameplay elements of Path of Exile with the launch of the Expedition expansion/league, and all the massive, sweeping changes worked perfectly!
No, wait, that never happens. Instead, it's been a bit of a mixed bag -- or perhaps mixed flask. That led GGG's Chris Wilson to have some discussions on fan podcasts last week, and the major talking points have been helpfully transcribed on the PoE forums.
The dev team doesn't have plans for sweeping nerfs like the ones that were implemented with Expedition. The next update, 3.16, will tone down Fortify a bit, and the team will strive to announced future balance changes sooner so it can receive feedback from players before those changes are locked in.
The way flasks work were changed significantly in the last update, and there's work to be done to make them fall more in line with the developers' vision. There are plans to revisit all mods on flasks and possibly new crafting mods or unique items that affect flasks, with the goal of providing a separation between reactive (such as healing) or proactive (such as mitigation) flasks.
There are several topics under the "Items" section of the blog post, as you might expect. These include decluttering labels for items on the ground, crafting improvements, a review of "chase" items that drop from specific bosses, improvements to the trade site, and a tease of a possible "Hard Mode" with greater item scarcity. There are a lot of "aspirational" content ideas, like a harder endgame, as well as changes to the Atlas of Worlds coming over the next two updates.
And if you're looking forward to Path of Exile 2 coming this year ... or next year ... well, you might have a bit of a wait. Wilson was asked if Grinding Gear expects the game to come out before 2024, and he responded in the affirmative. We'll revisit this post on December 31, 2023 to see if he's kept his word.
Related Articles
About the Author

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.
Read Next
Indie MMO TitanReach's "Funds Have Dried Up"
Follows unsuccessful fundraising efforts
By Jason Winter - 2 years agoYou May Enjoy
Sony CEO And Head Of PlayStation Jim Ryan Announces Retirement
After nearly 3 decades, he’s passing the torch.
By QuintLyn Bowers - 6 days agoGuild Wars 2 September Update Nerfs Some Of Y'all For Being Too PvE OP
Of course, there are fixes and quality of life changes as well.
By QuintLyn Bowers - 1 week agoCreative Assembly Announces Potential Layoffs Following Cancellation Of Hyenas
The changes are part of “structural reforms” at Sega.
By QuintLyn Bowers - 6 days ago💣 Feature | 8 MMORPGs You Can Play On Steam Deck
Take these MMORPG Games on the go.
By Troy Blackburn - 4 days agoAfter Days Of Teases, Counter-Strike 2 Finally Launches, And We're Sure The Servers Will Be Fine...
It certainly is the "Dawn of A New Day".
By Michael Byrne - 1 week agoPath of Exile 2 Developers Discuss Item Design And Mechanics In Presentation From ExileCon
You'd be surprised how much attention items in the game get.
By Matthew D'Onofrio - 6 days ago
Discussion (0)