Path of Exile Developer Diary

Grinding Gear's official Path of Exile website is hosting another developer diary, and this time we hear from designer Carl de Visser about the newly released v0.9.3 patch and the impact that of some of the sweeping changes will have on the action RPG going forward. Lots of stats and formulas within:
Removing the Level Based Calculations

One of the big elements removed from Path of Exile this patch is the level scaling. Almost all the combat mechanics used to take account of levels. Now they don't. This means your actual character as you have built it is what matters for combat results.

In some ways it makes balancing the game harder work, as the level scaling elements in the calculations did a lot of the work. Balance only mattered like for like, as far as character level vs monster level went.

This does mean this patch won't be fully balanced yet. We need our beta testers to test the game thoughout all levels, with a wide variety of characters, at a wide variety of levels.

It is easier for us to fix stuff now, so we look forward to your feedback.

Character Base Values and Attributes

'¢ Life: 60 + 6 per level gained, + 1 per two Strength
'¢ Mana: 55 + 4 per level gained, +1 per two Intelligence
'¢ Evasion: 50 + 3 per level gained
'¢ Accuracy: 2 per Dexterity
'¢ Strength, as well as providing life, gives +1% physical melee per 10 Strength
'¢ Intelligence, as well as providing Mana, gives +1% Energy Shield per 5 Intelligence
'¢ Dexterity, as well as providing Accuracy, gives +1% Evasion per 5 Dexterity

To Hit

The chance to hit has been changed, in two ways. Firstly, the formula has changed. It is now: [Accuracy/Accuracy + (Evasion/5) * 0.8]

The design goals this achieves are:

'¢ General hit rate for most combat situations between 60 and 90%
'¢ If you choose to specialise in accuracy, you do not need extreme amounts of accuracy to compete against relatively small amounts of Evasion (especially important for PVP)
'¢ Evasion is generally large for armour piece values values. They start with large enough values for Armour Shards to effect, and are roughly comparable to damage reduction armour

Secondly, the chance for edge case streaks of misses and hits has been removed. There is some dependence built into hit chances vs the same target.