Although Path of Exile 2 remains among the most-played games on Steam, it’s had a bit of a bumpy patch following the 0.2.0 update. This Dawn of the Hunt update in Early Access added a lot of new content, and not all of it was well-received. Since then, developer Grinding Gear Games has been hard at work taking player feedback and translating it into exciting new updates for Path of Exile 2. Now, GGG is looking ahead to what’s coming in Path of Exile 2 with update 0.2.0h. The next update is set to release sometime the week of May 12th, and we now have early Path of Exile 2 patch notes outlining what’s to come.
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The 0.2.0g update for Path of Exile 2 had to be rolled back due to unforeseen issues, but was later redeployed with a fix in place. With that, and another quick hotfix, out of the way, Grinding Gear Games is ready to share what’s coming in the next Early Access update for the game. In a news post cross-shared to @pathofexile on X, GGG shares a sort of early patch notes breakdown for the next update.
While 0.2.0h is a more minor update compared to something big like an 0.2.0, it’s still bringing a few big improvements. There are also some new features with this one, chief among them being the new Private Leagues. Private Leagues will be enabled once the 0.2.0h patch goes live later this week, using the same website as the original Path of Exile for the time being. More info is coming down the line, but GGG shared they wanted to get this feature up ASAP for those interested in starting a fresh economy in Path of Exile 2.
Adding Private Leagues is the big new feature for the update, along with Quick-Use buttons for Strongboxes and Essences. Along with those new features, this next update will largely focus on improvements for Azmerian Wisps, Rogue Exile Visibility, and more.
Path of Exile 2 Early Patch Notes for 0.2.0h
For a full look at the preview patch notes for the next Path of Exile 2 update, you can check out the summary provided below as shared by Grinding Gear Games:
Private Leagues
- We plan to enable Private Leagues when 0.2.0h releases using the Path of Exile 1 website for now. There will be no extra mods available for these Private Leagues but we’ll be expanding the functionality of them soon. We wanted to get the ability to create Private Leagues released sooner rather than later for those that want to start over in a fresh economy by themselves or with their friends.
Quick-Use Currency Buttons on Strongboxes and Essences
- We’ve added Quick-Use buttons that appear below the labels of Strongboxes and Essences. For Strongboxes, the currency displayed is dynamic based on the state of the Strongbox and is only displayed if that currency is in your inventory. As an example, if the Strongbox is unidentified it will only display a Wisdom Scroll.
- If it is Normal Rarity, it will display an Orb of Transmutation, if it has one magic modifier, it will display an Orb of Augmentation. It will also be able to have buttons for Orbs of Alchemy, Exalted Orbs, and Regal Orbs. We have intentionally not included currency like Divine Orbs as that would be a mistake to use.
- Essences have also received the same change but with Vaal Orbs for corrupting them into the Corrupted Essences.
Breach Improvements
- Breach had significant issues with spawning monsters in very narrow or tight areas. It was expected to be worse in those areas because you can only fit so many monsters in a given space. This made Breach encounters worse than we wanted and resulted in a very boring experience where you felt like you failed even though there was little you could do about it.
- We’ve made a change to how monsters spawn in Breaches to be more reliable. This drastically raises the minimum experience of a Breach encounter.
- Additionally, we have changed the minimum time of a Breach, assuming no monsters are killed, to 20 seconds from 12 seconds. We have also made the time extension granted by killing monsters account for Monster Power. This means if you kill Magic or Rare enemies during the Breach it will extend the time more than killing Normal monsters.
- Previously, we spoke about dropping fewer stacks of Splinters in larger quantities, but instead of that we’re making a more drastic improvement. We will now vacuum up all the Breach Splinters dropped during a Breach encounter and drop them at your location when the Breach concludes. If you are in a party it will drop multiple stacks that are randomly allocated.
Azmerian Wisp Improvements
- Azmerian Wisps have received two changes. The first is that when you activate a second Wisp, while pursuing one already, that Wisp will now always target the same Rare monster as the one you were already chasing. This was uncommon during the Campaign and mostly presented itself in Endgame especially with Atlas Tree investment but when it did happen, you would lose one of those Wisps commonly which felt purely negative.
- The other change is that the Spirit of the Spring Hare and Spirit of the Fox were far too rare, we’ve made these three times more common. They can create some pretty hectic and rewarding outcomes and we wanted to give more opportunities to encounter these and their rewards.
Rogue Exile Visibility Improvements
- Rogue Exiles had one main issue. Often you would be clearing through a Map and all of a sudden have a large life bar on the top of your screen with no connection to a boss or monster. This was because the Rogue Exiles had a very large aggro range. We’ve reduced this aggro range so they are far more commonly on-screen before it appears, that way you see them before the life bar presents itself. If you were to hit them off-screen using projectiles or other skills, they’ll still aggro immediately though.
- The second issue is that even when you did find one and they were on-screen, you could barely see them especially in darker maps. In order to alleviate this we have both added Minimap Icons to them once they’ve engaged combat, and we’ve made the light on them far brighter to help them stand out and be more obvious when surrounded by other enemies.
Further Item Drop Improvements
- We did a major patch to update overall loot drops but there are still some outliers we’re working on improving. In 0.2.0h we’re going to be making Perfect Jeweller’s Orbs and Level 20 Uncut Skill and Spirit Gems significantly more common. These will still be relatively rare but it was often the case people would get very far into their Endgame and character progression before even finding one.
Item Labels Additions to Important Items
- For those not using custom Item Filters and were in Endgame you might have observed some more important items not being obvious enough. We have added outlines to the labels for Precursor Tablets, Expedition Logbooks and Expedition Chests to help them stand out when you have many other items on the ground around them.
Shrine Improvements
We’ve made a few changes to Shrines.
- Firstly, we’ve disabled the Greed Shrine and the Corrupting Shrine. These were just bad and often you right-clicked off the buff because converting good items into Gold, or Corrupting equipment is rarely beneficial.
- On top of that we’ve made some of the rarer Shrines such as the Diamond Shrine and Divine Shrine appear far more often, and we’ve extended the duration of almost all Shrines. Some of the Shrines will now last 90 seconds (from 45 seconds) and some 60 seconds (from 45 seconds).
New Stash Tabs
- We’re adding the Ritual Stash Tab which will be able to store your Omens and Audience with the King Fragments.
- We’re also adding the Socketable Stash Tab which will hold all your Runes, Talismans and Soul Cores. This tab comes with a button that allows you to upgrade your Runes from one tier to the next, instead of having to use the Reforging Bench.
- These will be for sale in the Microtransaction store shortly after the patch is deployed.
Misc Other Improvements
Here’s a quick-fire list of other changes we’re also making for this patch.
- We’ve updated the visibility of the ‘Corridor’ skill for the Arbiter of Ash to be far more clear very quickly.
- We’ve added bindable actions for being able to quickly allocate Strength, Dexterity or Intelligence on your passive tree. You can bind these to keys and then hold those keys down when selecting attribute nodes to quickly allocate them to your desired attribute.
- We’ve added a new batch of submissions to the Twilight Reliquary Key. Thank you for your Support.
- We’ll be allowing Charms to go into the Flask Stash, or any stash with the Flask Affinity set.
- We’re adding a quick-travel button for Town on the right hand side of the Waypoint screen.
- We’re adding the shortcut for Ctrl+Right-Click to bulk move currency items of the same type between inventories. This is common mostly when doing larger trades of currency using the Currency Exchange.
- We’re adding a Filter property to be able to Filter Unidentified Items by their Item Tier.
- We have fixed fifteen separate Client or Instance crashes.
There is no exact release date for the next patch just yet, or a specific downtime planned. For now, Grinding Gear Games is planning to deploy the next Path of Exile 2 patch later this week, with a clearer timeline likely to come soon.
