POE already has a huge following, and I've been playing since the early betas, so I'm a loyal player. Now that POE 2 is about to launch, with a beta release planned for next summer, we'll be able to get a glimpse of what's new. We also spoke with the GGG development team, who were very focused on quality content for POE 1 and making POE 2 the best possible by improving a lot of the sequel's gameplay features, especially the feel of combat.

We are super agitated to get Affliction and POE 2! Full details and PR are below:

Grinding Gear Games has revealed new details for POE 2 and showed off Path of Exile: Affliction. The new POE season was revealed during a developer livestream, along with POE's new Mercenary class.

At a live event in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 30, 2023, Grinding Gear Games revealed a trailer and content details for its latest POE expansion: POE 3.23.The expansion will launch on PC and Mac on December 8th, and on PlayStation and Xbox on December 13th. Additionally, the team also revealed a new Mercenary class in the upcoming POE 2.

Mercenary is a crossbow-wielding character class in Path of Exile 2, similar to shooting game playstyle, with the ability to switch crossbow and ammo types on the fly to unleash deadly combos on enemies.

If you have enough POE Currency, you can purchase weapons and equipment for better character building.

Path of Exile 2 supports WASD movement using the keyboard, you can aim and attack in a direction different from the direction of movement, and you can switch between tap movement and WASD at any time.

The Affliction Challenge League

In the Affliction League, you'll encounter sacred Wisps who will guide you into the overgrown passageways that lead to Viridian Wildwood. The forest is shrouded in ominous darkness brought by the evil Affliction. You need to explore the secrets of the forest in order to prevent Affliction from the root.

The Viridian Wildwood

When you get close to the darkness, your Wisps will burn the affliction that shrouds the forest. Just remember to proceed with caution, as your Wisps power is limited and will run out quickly, otherwise, you'll be back to Wraeclast.

Take Advantage Of Your Challenges And Rewards

When you return from the Wildwood, the elves you rescued from the Wildwood will scatter into the environment and attach themselves to randomly selected monsters, increasing their power and rewards. Different types of elves have different effects. Sometimes there will be many elves attached to the same monster, making the battle more difficult, but you can also get more rewards.

Wildwood Ascendancy Classes

As you explore Wildwood, select the Azmeri Wanderers you will complete quests with to unlock one of three new Ascendancy Classes that you can have in addition to the regular Ascendancy Classes.

The Affliction Challenge League has several different types of rewards. The monsters you fight in Wraeclast may be affected by the Wisps you bring back from the Viridian Wildwood, greatly increasing the quality and quantity of the items they drop. Path of Exile: Affliction also includes over 15 new unique POE Items.

The Ultimatum Returns

Ultimatum is finally at its core. The Trialmaster has returned, and you can choose to undergo the deadly judgment of Vaal in exchange for generous rewards. If you fail the trial, he will offer to double or finish with you. Are you willing to take risks and want more rewards? Or want to lock in your winnings? We've given Ultimatum a more comprehensive balance and added many new modifiers, Atlas passive skills, Keystones, and bonuses, including new and redesigned Uniques.

On the last day of ExileCon 2023, we found out that there have been a lot of changes to the currency in Path Of Exile 2. Unfortunately, this isn’t limited to just their cosmetic changes, some currencies are disappearing entirely.

Changing The Way Crafting Works

Alterations that disappear just like this Orb of Scouring. This means you can’t force a decent magic base on an item and then build it with other POE 2 Currency. This also means that if you throw away an excellent base and mod, that base is now useless. Because you can’t get it down to zero and start building it up again. This will be a tremendous change in the way crafting works.

But it also means that the gear you drop will be more valuable than it was before they noticed it. They don’t want to change the way transactions are done, which will mean more blue items being traded. But I’m not expecting changes other than Chaos Orb, as they will work completely differently.

When we hit an item with a Chaos Orb, it re-rolls all mods. So all the mods fall off, and then a random set of mods gets turned back on in Path Of Exile 2. It will take one mod and delete it, then replace it with a new one. So, Chaos Orb is now a kind of Orb of Annulment.

Affects Item Drops

Now I fully understand why these changes were made. Because it made the item drops more impactful. But there are a few enormous problems.

First, through the first Item Filters, they look at the item base, but they don’t see the roll down item. This means that using Item Filters can actually get you into trouble.

Another problem I’ve seen has nothing to do with the item. When we drop the map, it has map sustain, and it physically reflects it. Also, we couldn’t run our character properly.

So all we have to do is block the item, which is no longer an option. We’ll probably hit it with a Chaos Orb to refresh everything that isn’t viable. Although we may have gotten lucky and removed Damage reflection. But there may be other mods here that we want to get rid of, like Cannot Leech. This is going to be extremely expensive.

Influencing The Crafting Of Cartographer’s Chisel

We now also need to consider the effect on Cartographer’s Chisel when we drop a Magic map. Normally, when we drop these currency items, we can restore them to a valid, perfect state. But if my Magic map is not enough, I will stop using the map. Because I have no control over how the map falls. This isn’t directly tied to currency changes, but can heavily affect crafting.

Other Changes

Currently, they are removing Crafting Bench from POE 2. Therefore, it will become more difficult for us to make perfect Endgame items. Because without Crafting Bench, we would start endless exploration.

Now, they intend to make town vendors play a bigger role in fixing buildings and small things. But I’ve had a lot of unpleasant experiences getting decent items from Vendor early in the game, and your Vendor won’t fix the map either.

These changes may affect SSF players more than any other change. Because they have to craft all POE 2 Items. Even though you play trade league, it affects SSF players more than others.

Anyway, that’s my guess as to how the currency changes in POE 2 might affect the game itself. I’m afraid that this will affect my gaming experience with POE 2. What do you think about this change? Let us wait quietly.