Path of Exile is about to undergo some massive changes. Update 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur is introducing the new town of Kingsmarch with its city-building tendencies, loads of quality-of-life upgrades, and after ten years without it, we're finally getting gold. Between Diablo 4, Last Epoch, and PoE the ARPG space has something for everyone, with Settlers of Kalguur's new Currency Exchange Market finally making trade that much easier.
The RPG – gold. Grinding Gear Games has avoided the fantasy genre's most famous legal tender since launch in 2013, but now gold will drop with everything else, and it's a key part of the new player-to-player trading system.
PoE game director Mark Roberts explains that the new market's player trading will only be available in Settlers of Kalguur leagues, and can be used via the NPC Faustus in Kingsmarch, a new city coming in 3.25. "It's worth inviting Faustus to your hideout, so you can use this feature between in-game maps at your leisure, without having to visit Kingsmarch every time," Roberts says.
Using the new UI, you pick what currency you want to trade for and what you want to offer in exchange. After you have outlined and begun your trade, in-game pop ups will tell you which items are being most commonly used for similar exchanges, so you can keep track of the general trends in the economy. If you're satisfied with your selections, you will then have to pick a ratio. The ratio determines the volume of what you're trading, and will have a relevant gold cost you need to pay as well.
"This [gold] value has been balanced around the mid-game campaign," Roberts adds. "So in early game, it can be quite difficult, if not entirely unreasonable to use this system. By endgame, it should be trivial, and just serve as a nominal cost."
Path of Exile's new gold currency can't be traded with other players, so Grinding Gear Games is ensuring that you're actually playing the game to engage with the system. This might seem arbitrary at first, but it's to ensure that bots don't load up the free Steam game and abuse the new system.
Okay, now that you're ready to trade with other players, you can either wait for an exchange to be completed in full, or pull out midway through and just take what's already been in the transaction.
With the sequel Path of Exile 2 borrowing rival ARPG Last Epoch's instant buyout system, I'm not surprised to hear Roberts and GGG talk about a proper player trading system in the first PoE. Between Diablo 4, Last Epoch, Path of Exile, and PoE 2, the ARPG genre is booming right now, and competition only ever leads to improvements across the board.
Do keep in mind that GGG is prepared to pull gold and player-to-player trading if they break the game's economy, but in our lot more coming in Path of Exile 3.25 like an increased pick-up radius and a full-blown city-building mechanic with Kingsmarch.
Path of Exile 3.25 and the Settlers of Kalguur league come to the ARPG on Friday July 26, with gold and the currency exchange market core features of this update. You can read the 3.25 patch notes here ahead of launch, which GGG says it will be updating throughout the week.
There are plenty more games like Diablo if you're looking for another ARPG fix.
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