"It's going to be an absolutely revolutionary day of Path of Exile 1 updates."
We sat down with Grinding Gear Games’ Game Director Mark Roberts and Game Designer Christopher "Octavian" Laferriere in the recently concluded media event for Path of Exile’s 3.29 Curse of the Allflame Expansion, to discuss the new league mechanics, endgame changes, their design philosophy on changing foundational systems and how they deal with it, and, of course, whether the highly-requested WASD movement is in the cards for the historic ARPG.
Path of Exile is Getting WASD in the Future
A Lot of Work to Be Done
One of the biggest questions every Path of Exile player has on their mind is whether WASD is ever coming to Path of Exile 1, especially since it was one of the reasons why the sequel got more newcomers to play the game. Roberts made it clear that WASD will eventually be added, but there was a lot of work to do to get it in, specifically because of one specific thing: player rigs.
"In order to add [WASD], we need the player rigs from POE 2, and in order to have the player rigs from POE 2, then we need to have every single item, armor, and microtransaction rigged to it," Roberts emphasized, "If we were to change that right now, you would not have access to many, many, many microtransactions, and that is not something we’d ever be wanting to do."
He clarified that the limitation in adding the feature is mostly a time and resource issue, not much about the design aspect, as they’ve been hiring more animation riggers and even external companies to help with what he describes as a "multi-year megalithic rigging task." However, even with the character rigs finished, there’s still the matter of creating new animations for all of the new character rigs.
"It’s gonna be the best bloody day of all time."
While the end is not in sight just yet, Roberts reiterates that they’ve been doing this for years and that plans are already in place to bring the highly requested feature to the game. One particular example is the existence of shared microtransactions between the two games, as Roberts explained that it was their intention to slowly port over older microtransactions in POE1 to POE 2 for this sole purpose.
"I’m not joking. It’s been multiple years rigging this stuff," Roberts stated, "It is entirely the idea that we have that and then once we have it fully rigged to POE2, then we can look at porting back the rig, which will unlock the universe of new features and skills and everything."
"It's going to be an absolutely revolutionary day of Path of Exile 1 updates."
Path of Exile Might Get More Than Just WASD From POE 2
More Than It Lets On
The work laid in place to include WASD is certainly monumental, but the implications of its addition could indicate massive additions and changes in the future. This seemingly simple yet impactful quality-of-life feature is just the tip of the iceberg for what could be added to both games.
One possibility is that the addition of new item and character rigs could indicate shared additions across games, ranging from skills, classes, and maybe even weapons. For instance, classes like the Scion could possibly make their way to the sequel, or maybe even the addition of Grenade Skills and the Spear could be added to the preceding game.
From a design perspective, the new movement option could lead to many gameplay changes, including changes to combat design, especially since the sequel is intentionally designed to be significantly slower to play. Endgame bosses like Exarch and Maven might be tweaked to be much different, as they were designed for the original click-to-move scheme rather than the new movement option.
While most of these are purely speculative at this point, it will absolutely be a revolutionary day of updates for both games.
Path of Exile 1 Bestiary, Incursion, and Blight Might Get Their Own Pinnacle Boss
More Pinnacles, More Problems
Reworking and updating old leagues has been part of Grinding Gear Games’ usual patch cycle, as the game has already seen multiple reworks to older leagues. These reworks can come in different forms and shapes, but sometimes they come in the form of new Pinnacle bosses, similar to 3.29’s Abyss league.
Roberts introduced a dream scenario in which all leagues would have their own Pinnacle encounters, similar to POE 2’s current endgame. He highlighted that the sequel gave players a defined end goal for each league to engage with, where the team received positive feedback for doing so.
Alongside that, both he and Octavian agreed on certain leagues that need updates and reworks, with Bestiary being the league they both felt needed to be upgraded. Roberts also added that he wanted to personally work on updating Incursion and Blight, noting that the latter needed to be modernized similarly to how they updated Abyss in the upcoming patch.
It’s obvious that each league has progressively become better and more dynamic in what it offers; both Roberts and Octavian have even highlighted how much the team has grown over the years since the game’s inception, making the former’s dream scenario look more and more possible.
"We not only have more resources, but more of our tools are more mature, and you can just do more stuff with them."
Path of Exile New Abyss Pinnacle Boss Might Lead to More Secretive Encounters
More Community Collaborated Myth Busting
3.29 adds a new Pinnacle encounter for Abyss, where Grinding Gear Games has hinted that the encounter will feature a more unique way of entering the encounter. Roberts explained that this new way of accessing the fight was influenced by the positive reaction to the added secrets in POE2’s 0.5 update, and he wanted to replicate the feeling of the community working together to solve the mystery behind it.
"We’ve obviously done a lot of secret stuff and mystery stuff and whatnot in POE 2, and the community responded very, very positively to it."
That said, both Roberts and Octavian agreed that it shouldn’t be a convoluted mystery, just mysterious enough to take about a day or two’s worth of time.
"It’s not intended to be super secret, but it’s just one of the things that we don’t want to give away."
This kind of community-led mystery-solving and collaboration might be a sign of things to come for both Path of Exile 1 and 2, as Roberts stated that the team is learning and adapting the design philosophy to their newer content. Players can expect more of this new approach sooner than later, especially since Grinding Gear Games has revealed that patch 3.30 will be arriving before the year ends.
"We really want that community engagement where players are collaborating with each other to figure out these things," Roberts states, "We’re going to start seeing a little bit more of that in POE1 as well."
Path of Exile 3.29 Atlas Anomalies Add More to the Endgame
Potential For Newer Encounters and Leagues
This also connects to their new addition of Atlas Anomalies, as certain leagues like Cadiro Perandus, The Nameless Seer, and Reflecting Mists have been reworked into independent areas that can be revisited as long as the player has not exhausted all available options in that area.
"This is the thing that can have a bit of cool potential there."
Roberts describes this addition and change as giving these encounters added permanence to the usual endgame loop. Players who have become accustomed to Path of Exile’s endgame loop usually end up either engaging in the most profitable leagues for that patch or repeating the ones that they’re already used to.
Atlas Anomalies are one way to encourage players to try the other leagues. One feature showcased in the trailer was that these Anomalies can give you a random encounter in a random league with a pre-built encounter, which was shown to be Heist and Sacred Grove. This way, players can experience a taste of other leagues, giving them more reasons to try them on their next character or league start.
"It’s an opportunity for them to kind of dip their toes in the water, so to speak," Roberts exclaims, "Hopefully it can expand their options a little bit for what type of content they want to play."
Path of Exile 1 Future Changes Won't Stop At Socket Colors
Adapt or Die
Path of Exile 3.29 introduces a monumental change to its gameplay systems, specifically to the way Socket colors work. For more than a decade now, Socket colors dictated what Skill and Support Gems you could slot in a piece of gear, and that the same colored Gems could only be slotted into the same colored socket. Instead of this, 3.29 does away with that and allows players to slot in Skill Gems to any color, whereas slotting them in the right color results in a flat bonus to their quality.
A gigantic change like this could be seen as something risky, especially when the system in question is a key part not only of the gameplay loop but also of the game’s identity. "We’re confident on this one," Roberts replied, "I think the more people that see it, the more [obvious] it was to change."
Roberts explained that the internal team’s reaction gave them the courage and confidence to pull the trigger, as almost everyone shared the initial shock and eventual agreement that this change had to be made. "Normally, you have things that are a bit more divisive, and you have the occasional person who liked things [as they] were," he remarked, "but I think it’s been completely one-sided for positivity."
Fear of changing fundamental gameplay systems, especially when the game itself has been built around them, is a common concern for game designers and developers of long-standing games. However, Octavian states that this cannot dictate how game development proceeds; otherwise, everything would stagnate and eventually pass.
"If you let that worry prevent you from, you know, making any large significant decision, well then what you do is you don't make large significant decisions," he remarked, "you have a game that gets tiny updates that don’t really meaningfully change anything and it withers and dies, right?"
He reinforced his statement, saying, "if you’re not willing to take on risk and make changes to systems that you know are established, then you’re just not going to do anything interesting, and you have to keep doing interesting things." He further clarifies that systems should never be unquestionable, as they should be changed if a better option is available.
"Things should only be kept if they’re worth keeping on the merit of what they do."
Roberts supported Octavian’s stance, in which the intention behind considering new changes is to ultimately grow their audience for both games, without hanging on to their laurels out of fear or maintaining a stagnant community. "Times change, games change, the players change, everything changes."
"We want our community to grow and evolve and change, and so we don’t want to get caught up on the old ways and just get scared of changing anything," Roberts stated, "if we weren’t willing to also change, then that seems like we’re not doing gamers as a whole, and our audience, the service that they deserve."
But the changes won’t stop there. Roberts also hinted at the possibility that the Skills and Sockets system could be entirely overhauled. "That’s kind of where the line is for me for POE 1," Roberts proclaimed, highlighting the fact that these systems are the "fundamental difference" between the two games.
"Now is that line never going to move? Of course not."
"At this point, nothing is too sacred to change at this point, if we ultimately believe that it’s going to make things better."
The onboarding process is the main reason why Roberts and his team may consider changing these defining aspects. He mentioned that the team knows that both Skill Gems and the Socket System are still "a point of contention" for player progression, but also noted that removing them isn’t the only way forward.
While these systems are indicative of the game’s identity, Roberts emphasizes the need to grow their audience.
"We want to make sure that people want to play our game, continue to play our game, and can play through without having all these points of friction where they quit."
Lastly, Roberts admits that mistakes will be made but also confidently shares that they’ve put themselves in a great position from both a design and a fan-goodwill standpoint. On one hand, they understand the things that make Path of Exile great, as both he and Octavian are as much players as they are designers.
"We keep true to our loyal fan base and the players that have been playing this game for as long as I have and probably as long as Octavian had," Roberts mentioned, "we are those people as well."
On the other hand, he reiterates that their unorthodox approach of setting a timeframe allows for more flexibility rather than the rigidity of a set roadmap, giving them opportunities to listen to player feedback and adjust as needed.
"If anything goes wrong, we’ll come up with option C."
