He had a few unpleasant moments because of a certain temple, but he has moved past that mood now.

The player-to-player trading system in Path of Exile 2 collapsed last season once word spread about a clever exploit that allowed players to obtain so much loot that they could become in-game millionaires in a matter of days. The situation became so catastrophic that developer Grinding Gear Games was forced to cut short its Christmas break in order to fix the bug. This was the season in which the Temple was introduced to the game, allowing players to create their own dungeons by connecting different rooms across a large grid. The system was originally intended primarily to let players fight a new boss and obtain loot available exclusively in the Temple, but players quickly figured out how to turn it into the game’s most profitable system for acquiring every type of loot.

As part of the strategy, they locked a character into the campaign and repeatedly reset the level in order to gradually turn the Temple into a money-printing machine. By connecting certain complementary rooms into an endless snake-like chain, they could avoid having them deleted after completing the dungeon, and thus obtain huge amounts of valuable loot, far more than could be intentionally earned in any other part of the game. Mark Roberts, co-director of Path of Exile 2, said in a recent interview that releasing the emergency patches needed to fix the issue ruined Christmas for him.

Roberts explained that, thanks to the Temple, they now have far more active statistics to track how many items drop in certain instances. He said this just before another developer showed him what players were doing with the Temple that day. He looked away from the screen and said it read in capital letters: “TEMPLE SHENANIGANS T1 ISSUE AFTER INTERVIEW.” A few hours after the interview, a patch was released to address a Temple strategy which, while nowhere near as egregious as the first one, still threatened the game’s economy. He does not care whether it is a nerf introduced in the middle of a league, as he has lost all sympathy for the dreadful Temple and everyone exploiting it. He is reacting extremely, and does not just want to make the situation worse, because this whole thing has left some trauma behind.

Developers generally try not to touch anything significant a few weeks after the start of a league, but the Temple-related exploits were too severe to ignore. Path of Exile 2 is technically an early-access game, but most people treat it as though it were the first Path of Exile, expecting GGG to handle the balancing so nothing ruins their experience. Acquiring as much in-game wealth as possible eventually becomes the primary goal for Path of Exile 2 players, who want to improve their character with the strongest items. Players can always decide not to participate in the economy game by choosing the solo, self-found mode, where multiplayer is not enabled, but then some of the rarest items cannot be obtained within a single league.

We are curious whether this fiasco will persuade GGG not to launch a new league directly before the holidays in the future. Players are always looking for ways to exploit bugs in a game. It appears someone needs to be on standby to prevent the absurdly powerful exploits they are sure to discover.

Source: PC Gamer