Path of Exile has a new update that focuses on improving systems and a series of fixes. Update 3.18.1c continues efforts by the Grinding Gear Games team to support improvements of the texture system the team has been releasing, as well as some other improvements. There is also a special devblog from one of the sound designers sharing how the team designed audio for the Sentinel League.
When it comes to Path of Exile, the team has been working on improvements throughout, including working on controller support, making some things clearer, and expanding options. The texture system's memory usage and performance has been improved in this update.
There are audio improvements in the update, including new audio for Ground effects Burning, Chilled, and Shocked, and an improvement to the Shocked Ground Trail by certain monsters. Heist contracts and Blueprints now have some more clarity by newly displaying which job level requirements are unmet in red.
Other changes include description updates on map modifiers and the Supreme Ego Keystone passive skill to clarify both of those things. There's also a new keybind option that you can change for opening the Atlas skill tree in the options menu.There are also some bug fixes and improvements to controller support, including fixing a controller-input specific crash.
If you like going behind the scenes with development, sound designer Dominic has a new devblog takes us through the design process on the Sentinel League. He describes the challenge of going from the “dark and gritty” sound palette they’ve chosen for Wraeclast in general and how to make the robotic Sentinel fit in there.
“With the words metallic, ancient and enigmatic in mind, I went straight to using creepy, rusty and warped metal audio recordings. Added effects like distortion, and interesting reverb techniques.”
He goes on to describe the various challenges for making the Sentinel fit, lasers, and juggling the balance of making sure it wasn’t too loud or too low.
You can read the devblog on sound design, along with video clips, over at Path of Exile
