First, let's take a quick look at what's new in the game, in addition to the new system, which I'll describe below:

• The settings have been supplemented with a new function, available only to Direct 11; it has a special ability to simulate sunlight. It allows any light sources to look much more impressive and display shadows in real time, depending on their position relative to the light. This update is very noticeable in the cave and if you use, for example, fire spells.
• Along with light, water now uses more advanced technology to simulate real behavior, although I, for one, didn't look at it very often during gameplay.
• Various group functionality has been added, for example, the ability to teleport to the location where a group member is located.
• More settings for dropped items and a new mechanic for special display of the rarest items (in addition to unique ones, a white pillar of light will appear above them by default).
• Several new spells have appeared and some of the old ones have been reworked, for example, now people are making builds that they dubbed “melee summoner”, based on the new Smite ability and the reworked old Dominating Blow.

For a long period of time, the phrase “a new league in PoE” means that the developers from Grinding Gear Games are ready to present players not just with a set of new items, but also with a unique game mode that includes unique mechanics.

The league cannot satisfy the tastes of absolutely every user and sometimes only has a negative effect on the game, but so far the feedback on the current league, judging by the comments, is still positive if you look only at the mechanics as a whole. It’s worth immediately taking into account that there are small bugs in it, which sometimes make you indignant, but I haven’t personally noticed any particularly critical ones yet or they have already been fixed.

The new league has received the short name Delve (Descent) and is something like an endless dungeon. In fact, this is the first gaming activity of this kind in the world of Path of Exile.

Roughly speaking, it does not need to be constantly updated and you simply move deeper and deeper into this very dungeon, so far I have seen a system message about players who have reached a depth of 350+ meters.

According to the lore of the game, which can be partially learned from the promo video, a certain NPC under the name Niko or Niko the Mad will invite players to explore a very ancient mine, where the very valuable resource “Azurite” was once mined (not to be confused with Azerite from WoW).

At one point, the mine exhausted almost all its resources, as a result of which the workers left it and it was filled with pitch darkness, in which, of course, various unknown and already familiar creatures began to breed and multiply.

From a gaming point of view, as I already said, this mine is simply an endless long dungeon that constantly extends in depth, opening up access to more advanced resources. And as the depth increases, various monsters also increase in level, becoming more deadly and vicious.

So far, I personally really liked the idea of ​​such a system, so it’s a bit of a pity that it will go away after the end of the league, although it could become a full-fledged source of farming, like various Atlas cards.

As I said above, there is one very interesting system associated with the Delve league, which, by the way, at the time of writing this article should receive an important update based on user feedback.

As soon as you create a character in the new league, immediately after leaving the first city Niko will meet you and invite you to go on an exciting journey, but for now you can just read what he tells you, since it’s too early to go to the mine.

The game's meaning of darkness is that without a source of special light, it will cause periodic damage to you, almost as quickly as a hot grate, and all opponents become invulnerable.

To avoid this, the NPC has a special trolley, which is a light source and, in addition, automatically lays a special cable to connect many control points along your entire path. Moreover, the cable itself is attached to special beams, which are also equipped with a light source, that is, you can safely run around it.

The trolley is a technological miracle and therefore for its operation you need a special resource Voltaxic Sulphite, which in the following text I will simply call sulfite.

You can collect this very resource simply by finding special objects (nodes) that appear in each location in a random place; they can look like ordinary ore or a chest. When you approach, simply click on it, after which Niko will magically appear, who will quickly collect sulfite by filling a special fuel scale. But if you immediately think about the maximum capacity limit, everything that you collect above it will go into oblivion.

The main supply of this very resource can be viewed by opening a special interface using the V hotkey and there on the right side we look for a vertical scale; as it accumulates, it will be filled with yellow.

So if you have collected a cap of this resource, you can go explore the new system of this league, even if you are of a low level. As I already wrote, the mine contains monsters of various levels, depending on the depth.

In the future, this limit can be safely increased by spending special currency and thereby pumping up your trolley, but we will talk about this separately when we get to this point.

My advice to you: once you have collected the maximum possible amount (or a certain required amount) of sulfite, immediately go explore the mine, if, of course, you are confident that you can kill the mobs at this depth.

You can move to the entrance to the mine from anywhere by clicking on the small candle icon in the lower right corner of the portal interface, in the same place where the teleport points to the maze of your personal vault are located.

As soon as you move to a new location, in front of you you will see Niko, a strange technological device that reminded me of an ancient underwater breathing apparatus.

There is also a portal in the same style and the entrance to the mine. It is worth noting that the first time the player enters the mine is through the entrance and only then through the technological portal.

You open the special interface of the mine and now you will have a choice of where to go to explore the darkness, and keep in mind that the central branch, up to a certain point, is automatically connected by special points to which you can safely teleport.

To the left and right there are various cave corridors, covered in darkness, and already in them there are various points with resources, to which you will have to go with the trolley.

This is exactly what sulfite is for, roughly speaking, the main mechanics of this mine is that after choosing a point, you and the minecart must successfully reach it together in order to turn the resources into a control point (of course, on the way you will be attacked by monsters from darkness).

As soon as the minecart reaches a certain room in which there is a mechanical circle (displayed as a yellow circle on the map), it will turn its control point and give you a reward, although in most cases you will first need to trigger a special event and fight off the mobs.

Near the point itself there are usually always chests containing resources of a certain type, but along the road from point to point in the darkness you can also find various containers, which can only be opened by entering the darkness.

Also, the character always has with him several special flares (English flare - some semblance of a signal flare), which can be thrown, creating a temporary zone of light, and thereby, for example, regenerating his health and shield.

The most problematic points in the dungeon are, perhaps, those in which the passage is walled up, in which case the user needs to destroy a special wall in the darkness with the second available item - dynamite. The problem here is that the point may be on one side, which has a path nearby, and destruction usually requires two explosives, ideally this should be done by first throwing a flyer at your feet.

In conclusion of this point, it is worth noting that in the mine you can get almost any equipment or currency from the game, and unique things can also fall here.

• Azurite is a small icon with a Roman numeral that indicates the place where you can collect that same azurite and it is the main currency for upgrading the trolley, the number means how much you will get by picking up one item.
• Currency.
• Armor.
• Ring.
• Chest - any item from the categories above can drop here, except for azurite.

As you go deeper into the mine, the basic functions of the trolley will gradually decrease and this brings us to the system of improving the functions of this league, here azurite is used as the main resource.

But first, it’s worth talking about the most useful system of the new league, namely, a new type of item - “Resonator”, which is a more ancient and powerful option for enhancing items. They come in several variations and are sold by Niko.

Roughly speaking, a resonator is an ancient way to turn an ordinary white thing into blue gold, but there is one feature that comes from special items that can only be obtained in the dark corners of the mine.

Before use, each resonator must be charged by placing a certain number of the above items there, and these items themselves create a chance to endow the item with special properties after improvement.

For example, make sure that you definitely have a mod to strengthen your minions or increase physical damage, that is, resonators bring the ability to control it to a random enhancement effect.

Upgrading your trolley and dynamite flyers occurs at that very strange device standing to the right of the NPC, at the entrance to the mine. There aren’t really that many improvements, but it’s just this system that the developers want to remake soon. At the time of writing, the improvement process is saved only for the character. And, for example, if you want to try a different build, you will have to start all over again; it is at the request of users that everything will soon be linked to the account.

Improvements are available for the minecart, such as increasing the supply of sulfite, increasing the character's resistance to dark damage, and increasing the radius of light. Moreover, initially I advise you to pump up the last two, as this will allow you to kill more mobs and collect various containers outside the world.

Next, you can upgrade your flyers and dynamite, which have three identical options: how much the character can carry, increased duration (flyer), increased damage (dynamite) and range.

Also, each subsequent improvement of something will require significantly more azurite.

GGG came up with an original move. So that Path of Exile does not end up completely dead after the announcement of the console version, a solo league has been implemented in update 2.6. What it is? This is just a solo playthrough of the game without the ability to buy anything at the auction. If you want to get valuable gear from Uber-Atziri or Shaper, kill him yourself. If you don’t want to, just run around in those lousy clothes that drop on the map.

This is how the developers describe solo league (SL).

Until now, SL was built on word of honor. Players could say that they had reached a certain level without outside help, but there was no way to verify this. In update 2.6.0 it is planned to officially add an option to the game, by selecting which, the SL rules will be automatically applied to players. Their progress will be recorded in the ladder, and if they want to trade or play in a group, they can cancel the SL mode at any time.

Eventually most characters in SL mode will be transferred to normal mode. Some players will be able to last longer than others before deciding to play in a group or trade. For example, you may play until level 20 and then want to buy a rare item that will triple your attack speed, and your friend will get to low level cards and only then start trading. Reaching levels 20 and 70 will be noted in the SL ladder.

Implementation plan and rules:
When creating a character, you can choose the SL version of the league. The option does not appear immediately, but only after achieving a certain goal, for example, freeing the Noblewoman.

In SL mode, trading and playing the game together in a group are not available. Such leagues will have their own caches, progress of masters, Atlas, etc. Different characters in the same SL can exchange items through a cache. This is the progress you have made alone, without the help of other players.

League ladders will record the highest level you have reached before transferring your character to a regular league.

The button on the character selection screen will allow you to transfer him to a regular league. After this, the character will appear on the regular league ladder and will be able to trade and be a member of the group. You can transfer earned items to a regular league through a temporary character.

Another button will transfer all characters and all progress of your account in the league, for example, masters, contents of stash tabs, Atlas, etc. After transferring them, you can create another character for SL at any time.

Challenges are distributed across all four leagues (e.g. Rift, Rift solo, Rift one life, Rift one life solo).

No one will know whether you completed the challenges in SL or a regular league, but it is very important that SL mode does not feel obligatory. If you don't want to play it, play in a regular league! But if you enjoy solo play, this mode will allow you and other players to officially track your solo progress.

Technically, regular characters and SL characters are in different leagues and will not see each other in chat.

Interestingly, the solo league is expected exclusively on the PC version of the game. No one even thinks of complicating Path of Exile in this way. SL is an interesting innovation and when the new league starts in early March, this game mode will definitely need to be tried out...

A new Path of Exile league, Descent, starts on August 31st.

Peculiarities:

The new Descent League will invite players to dive into the eternal depths of the Azurite Mines, where secrets and gifts are hidden.

Azurite Mine Poe

Thanks to inventor Niko, who harnessed the power of Voltax Sulfite to create the Crawler, a weapon that can pass through darkness. Just don't move away from the light, otherwise the darkness will swallow you up.

Don't forget to use torches when you want to deviate from the gun's path, as well as dynamites to destroy walls. Behind them you can find valuable rewards.

Azurite obtained from the mine can be given to Niko. For the new currency you can improve the Crawler, buy dynamite, torches and other useful materials.

In the mine's bins you will find various biomes. As you progress through the mine, you can find lost cities.

Thanks to ancient civilizations, it is possible to create special objects, as well as change their properties using fossils.

The mine is an endless dungeon. The deeper the player descends, the more difficult the monsters encountered along the way.

New skills:

The new league will give players 10 powerful spells. In addition, the developers have reworked two types of character archetypes: the Pathfinder and the Defender.

New items:

The Descent add-on will give you several new unique items. Players can expect 18 items and 7 sets of fortune telling cards.

While traveling through the world of Path Of Exile, players will be able to obtain a rare key to the Old Reliquary. After using the key, you will have the opportunity to receive one of 150 unique relics from past leagues.

Official quote from GGG()

November 20, Thursday(1:00pm) - End of temporary Beyond/Rampage leagues
November 20, Thursday(11:00pm) - End of the 9th racing season
November 24, Monday(3:00pm?) – distribution of prizes for races
November 28, Friday(5:00pm?) - Weekly rampage/beyond race begins
December 5, Friday(5:00pm?) — End of the week-long rampage/beyond race
December 12, Friday(5:00pm?) - release of update 1.3.0 and start of new temporary leagues
December 15, Monday— the beginning of the 1st PvP season and the 10th racing season
December 20-21— 1st tournament weekend*
December 27-28— 2nd tournament weekend
January 3-4— 3rd tournament weekend
January 10-11— 4th tournament weekend. End of the 10th racing season
January 17-18— final tournament of the 1st PvP season (for weekend winners)
~January 19— start of the 2nd PvP season and 11th racing season

(*tournament weekends are held according to the Swiss tournament system)

Chris also explained what will happen to chests, masters and shelters when temporary leagues end:

Official quote from GGG()

Transfer of Masters, Shelters and Characters

On Thursday, November 20th, at 1:00pm Pacific Time, characters from temporary leagues will be transferred to the Standard and Hardcore leagues. This post is intended to tell you in more detail about what will happen and how, and what changes will be transferred from temporary leagues to the main game.

When the temporary leagues end, there will initially be a short period of inactivity - the servers will be stopped while we merge masters and shelters between leagues. The merger will take place separately in pairs of leagues: Beyond/Hardcore and Rampage/Standart, according to the following rules:

• The master with the greatest reputation remains
• For each master, favor points (which are used to purchase decorations) are summed up
• Of the two shelters, the one with more decorations is left. Decorations from the second are returned to the chest
• Items inside crafting devices are stored separately for each character, so they will simply remain in place (and the character will move to another league)

If you are not sure which shelter has more decorations, you can simply erase the unnecessary shelter, creating it again, or remove the decorations manually.

Characters from temporary leagues will be transferred to a “parent” league of a similar type - from Rampage to Standard and from Beyond to Hardcore. Please note that this process will not be immediate - we will need some time after the temporary leagues are completed.

Chest tabs from temporary leagues will also be transferred to permanent leagues - it will be possible to pick up items from them, but it will not be possible to add new ones. These temporary tabs will exist as long as at least one item is there.

Once the migration is complete, we will be adding Silver/Gold Halo visuals to players who have completed 5/8 or 8/8 challenges respectively. The first 50 players to complete 8/8 challenges will receive exclusive jerseys (we will contact the winners separately regarding required sizes).

Transfer of temporary league mechanics

Temporary leagues (like Rampage and Beyond) are a great way to test out new game mechanics. Upon completion, we choose which mechanics will be included in the main game and in what form. This is how wandering exiles from the Anarchy league and altars from Domination appeared in the game.

The changes described below will not be included in the game immediately after the end of temporary leagues - most of them will appear in update 1.3.0

Untainted Paradise

Before the week-long race at the end of November, we will significantly reduce the experience gained on this unique map. Its quantity will remain quite pleasant, but will no longer be decisive for winning the ladder race.

Rampage League

We have decided not to include the Rampage mechanic into the game on a permanent basis. As of 1.3.0, Rampage effects can be obtained by using league-specific unique items.

Rampage will also remain an option for Zana - it will be possible to get onto a map with the rules of this league. Zana prices for opening portals to other leagues will be changed in 1.3.0

League Beyond

Portals and demons from this league will not be included in the game on a permanent basis. Beyond will be added to the list of possible map mods and will also be available through Zana. There will also be other ways to meet Abaxoth and his minions in the future.

Forsaken Masters

Version 1.3.0 does not contain a new global add-on. The current version of the game is still called Forsaken Masters - until the next major addition and the appearance of Act 4 in the game in 2015. Update 1.3.0 is technically part of Forsaken Masters.

The frequency of appearance of masters will not be changed. Missions at high levels of locations will begin to give more reputation points than now. After the release of 1.3.0, it will become easier to upgrade masters to level 8. When Forsaken Masters ceases to be an active addition (with the release of 1.4.0), the masters will remain an integral part of the game.

Unique items

After the end of Rampage/Beyond, unique items specific to these leagues will no longer drop out in normal play. They can still be obtained by entering a map from one of these leagues through Zana portals. We may also use these unique items as race/PvP rewards in the future. As stated above, Rampage uniques will be able to activate a reduced version of the Rampage effect.

Tonight there was a long-awaited announcement of a new league for PoE, in this short news post I will tell you what it brings with it (a lot of things, extremely interesting).

First! Infinitely scaling content in PoE

For the laziest who didn’t even manage to watch the video trailer:

The essence of the new league is that you will be able to go into an endless mine, which will become heavier with each new step, the monsters will be stronger, and so on. Similar modes are already present in other ARPGs, but GGG, of course, did a great job and added a huge number of unique features for their brainchild.

Conditions in the mine itself:

1. There is darkness in it that will quickly kill you . Collect special fuel on the surface of regular locations for trolley that will save you from this darkness . Move far from the trolley - darkness quickly begins to eat you up, a few seconds and you are dead. The fuel runs out and when it runs out you stop the current run in order to then return with new fuel and continue the hike from the last checkpoint.
2. Also there will be torches , in order to receive short-term lighting to some places with loot, but Torches will have to be taken care of separately. Their quantity and duration can also (and should) be increased by another type of resource that will be collected in the mine.
3. The mine is made in the form of an endless web of different “rooms” , mini locations, with transitions between them.

Myself Endless Content:

• Monsters are getting stronger. Their levels and characteristics increase.
• The rooms differ in content , different types of enemies, loot and so on.
• Eat places blocked by walls that need to be broken through with Dynamite (which is also enhanced thanks to the resource of their mine).
• Content progressing , with time will surpass the complexity of top tier cards .
• Content progress will be recorded in special ladder, so this is a new race for the strongest and most powerful!

Important!

The content is endless both sideways and downwards. The difficulty only increases as you go down . Therefore, if you find a comfortable level of enemies for yourself, you can endlessly fight with different types of enemies of a given difficulty level!

New league skills (and reworks of old ones)

In Game 10 skills will be added/changed , some of which are confirmed to be aimed at the possibility of creating a melee-holy-warrior character who commands minions and a toxic-archer character with damage over time.

League changes will affect Ascension classes Pathfinder(Huntress) And Defender(Priest) .

The redesigned Reliquary will be returned

The new Reliquary will have 151 items from old Leagues ,including Headhunter and so on. Drop Chanceeach item in the Reliquary EQUAL . However, in order to balance this and prevent 100500 thousand players with Headhunters, with The game creators have reduced the frequency of keys appearing , regarding Legacy Reliquary.

According to one of the foreign streamers, ZiggyD Gaming, which is in close contact with GGG and had the opportunity to ask the creators of the game directly what the chance would be, the answer was given " After about 500-1000 hours of play, 1 key will drop «.

Unique league items Bestiary

Will be added opportunity to receive unique Aspect items from the Bestiary league through Fortune telling cards (maybe in some other way, but so far only fortune tellers have been shown).

New unique items and fortune telling cards

New unique items will be added, some of which can only be obtained from the mine.

There will also be simply new uniques, of which there will be 18 in total, as well as 7 new fortune telling cards.

More about league mechanics

After you meet and use a certain number of minecart fuel veins in regular locations, you will be able to go to the Descent.

Gameplay is: the trolley is moving, it is shining . Approximately screen radius next to her, you are not hit by the darkness debuff mines. If you you walk behind the trolley, it slows down , If ahead - accelerating , If completely behind - stops . So it’s possible to control her speed so that she doesn’t go to God knows where.

Around many monsters appear, you kill them, objects fall from them , and here attention!!! THE TROLLEY AUTOMATICALLY LOOT THEM, SO YOU MAY NOT BE DISTRACTED BY SELECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPACE IN YOUR INVENTORY. She does this within a certain radius, so if you run far from her, using torches behind some tasty passage in the wall where there are chests, the loot will not be collected automatically.

At the end of the move between rooms, atV going to the "room"« , That is check point , You meet the bulk of opponents and, most likely, loot. Here the trolley stops and awaits your further decisions on sending it forward .

If you died or teleported to safety! - This descent is over, next time you will start from the previous checkpoint or room you stopped at. It will be necessary to collect new fuel and so on.

By collecting more special resources in the mines, you can improve your Crawler (trolley), strengthen dynamite and pump up torches.

Super Powerful Targeted Craft

In this league combinable currency will be added .

“WHAT IS THIS?!” :

Everything is the same as with objects. There is a currency with sockets inside, and there is a currency that is inserted into these sockets. The first does not have its own properties, but can accommodate from one to three sockets (from what we were shown), and also either improves an ordinary item into a rare item or remakes a ready-made rare item. Most likely, there are more types of such currencies, but this is all that was shown. The second type, the one that is inserted, guarantees certain properties on the object. It can also exclude modifiers you don’t like.

As a result, we get an incredibly powerful tool for crafting rare equipment, which can make your build very strong because the accuracy of the selected parameters is amazing, it’s like a couple of times strengthened Essences.