“It’s much more user-friendly”: Path of Exile director explains how to add PoE 2’s convenience features to PoE 1

The path of exile It might be intimidating for beginners, but game director Mark Roberts assures us that the new expansion, launching on July 26, does a lot to make the game more accessible.

“The Settlers of Kalguur “It’s pretty intuitive,” Roberts tells Dot Esports. “You can play it at your own pace. You can play it the way you want. It’s much more casual-friendly.” Alongside city-building, the expansion introduces a host of convenience features that should reduce The path of exile barrier to entry — many of which came directly from Path of Exile 2.

To start, The Settlers of Kalguur adds gold as a currency. With it, you can respec your passive points, which Roberts says makes experimenting with builds much more forgiving. “New players make a lot of mistakes. Now they can just farm gold and then respec.”

There’s also a black market where you can buy “better than normal” items for gold. “If I don’t have a good ring or a good weapon, I can target her. It’s a really, really good tool,” Roberts says.(Path of Exile 2) “This led us to re-evaluate all of our fundamentals and, once we did, we determined that gold was the right idea.”

But the “big problem,” Roberts said, is that The Settlers of Kalguur The main reward mechanism isn’t locked behind difficult content: you just need gold. “Gold is very easily obtainable by just playing the game and killing monsters. You don’t need advanced knowledge to be able to actually accomplish things.”

“I want knowledge to be rewarded, but not to the point of becoming intimidating.”

The Settlers of Kalguur also brings several balance changes that Roberts says are “on track to being a lot less complicated.” Melee builds are getting the biggest overhaul, so in PoE 3.25, it will be “much harder to mess up as a melee character.” You won’t have to worry about combining a lot of abilities; you’ll just be able to “take a big weapon, a skill, and destroy things.” Roberts explains, “I want knowledge to be rewarded, but not to the point where it becomes intimidating.”

But the changes in quality of life don’t stop there, because The Settlers of Kalguur adds many other handy features. Waypoints will automatically activate when you pass them, and reservation effects like heralds and auras will persist after death. You will also be able to harvest in a single action. These changes are intended to reduce friction and improve the user experience.

The Settlers of Kalguur even adds an exchange where you can trade gold for The path of exile a myriad of other currencies, so you won’t need to rely on external websites. “The lessons (of PoE 2) are countless,” according to Roberts.