Path of Exile 2 is deep into its development cycle, but even before its official launch, Grinding Gear Games (GGG) has been rolling out sweeping changes to its systems. The newest wave of updates—previewed by studio co-founder Jonathan Rogers—signals one of the most significant overhauls to the game’s endgame mapping and boss systems since the original Path of Exile.

For long-time exiles who have already sunk thousands of hours into farming, theorycrafting, and navigating the Atlas, these changes mark both a return to form and a bold new direction. Towers are out. Tablets are in. Bosses are everywhere. And the baseline experience of running a map has been redesigned to be both more consistent and more rewarding.

In this article, we’ll break down these changes, contextualize why they matter, and explore what they mean for players heading into the next POE2 Currency season.

From Towers to Tablets: Streamlining Endgame Mechanics

One of the headline changes in the upcoming patch is the removal of the “tower” mechanic as a prerequisite for juicing maps. Previously, players had to hunt down specific towers on the Atlas to activate modifiers or enhance their maps. This system often felt clunky, unpredictable, and overly reliant on overlapping spawns for maximum efficiency.

GGG’s new approach ditches towers entirely as a gating mechanism. Instead, tablets—an evolved form of the league stones and scarabs we’ve seen before—can now be slotted directly into the map device. Each tablet carries its own bonuses and limited charges. Once its charges are depleted, it’s destroyed. Players can slot up to three tablets per map, but the number of active slots depends on how many mods the map has. A six-mod map, for instance, enables all three tablet slots.

This redesign accomplishes several things at once. First, it guarantees that players can bring their chosen content with them into every single map rather than relying on RNG placement across the Atlas. Second, it creates a more intuitive, scarab-like system that’s immediately familiar to veterans of POE1 while still offering the customization depth of newer mechanics. And third, by buffing tablet modifiers (many are now two to three times as powerful), GGG ensures that the removal of tower stacking doesn’t equate to a nerf in potential rewards.

Towers themselves aren’t completely gone—they now serve primarily as a visibility tool for the Atlas and can drop extra tablets as rewards when completed—but their days as a mechanical bottleneck are over.

Bosses in Every Map: Meeting a Longstanding Player Request

Another massive shift is the decision to make every single map in POE2 contain a boss. This addresses one of the most common complaints about the previous iteration of mapping, where only some maps had bosses and others required clearing rare monsters for completion credit. That system, while novel, often devolved into players following mini-map icons to hunt down elusive rares—an experience that felt more like housekeeping than gameplay.

Under the new system, completion is straightforward: kill the map boss, and you’re done. You’re free to clear as much or as little of the rest of the map as you like. This not only streamlines the experience but also creates more opportunities for meaningful boss encounters throughout the endgame.

GGG is also introducing a layer of difficulty and reward scaling for map bosses. Icons on the map that previously just indicated a boss is present now mean the boss will be extra challenging with extra rewards and potential map upgrades. In essence, the studio is transforming bosses from occasional gatekeepers into consistent milestones, with spikes of difficulty and loot baked in.

This change also necessitated tweaks to the Atlas passive tree. Nodes like Crystal Realm Notable—which previously added an extra essence to areas containing a map boss—now only apply to “powerful” bosses, but in practice the number of essences remains the same as before. Other nodes have been adjusted similarly to keep overall rewards roughly equivalent despite the new system.

Random Bonus Content in Every Map

Empty maps have long been a sore point for players. Even with multiple layers of juicing, sometimes a map simply feels barren—like a “travel node” on the passive tree. To counter this, GGG is introducing a guaranteed minimum amount of bonus content in every map.

Each generated map will now automatically add one to three random features such as Breach, Delirium, Ritual, Expedition, Shrines, Strongboxes, Essences, Rogue Exiles, or Summoning Circles. These will appear on top of any content added by tablets or map mods and will be intelligently selected to avoid conflicts (for example, you won’t get multiple Expeditions in a single map).

This means that no matter what, every map will contain something extra to interact with—an enormous quality-of-life upgrade for players tired of “dead runs.”

Reducing Map Sizes and Pack Density

Not every change has been universally welcomed. One of the more controversial adjustments involves reducing monster pack density and map sizes in the early endgame.

GGG found that Tier 1 maps contained over 40% more monsters than the interlude area immediately before them, resulting in a sudden difficulty spike. To smooth this curve, the number of monsters and packs at the start of the endgame is being reduced by about 30%. Density will gradually increase as players progress through map tiers, returning to the old level by Tier 15.

The studio is also reducing the size of several notoriously long or winding maps—Bloomingfield, Penitentiary, Oasis, Rupture, and others—while making open-layout maps slightly less dense to prevent overwhelming players. This mirrors a system already present in POE1 and is designed to make map clearing faster and less punishing for builds that struggle against large packs.

Not all players are thrilled about this. High-density mapping is a cornerstone of many builds and farming strategies, and the reduction feels like a nerf to those who thrive on speed-clearing low- to mid-tier maps. Still, for newer or weaker characters, the change is likely to make the endgame feel more accessible.

Crafting and Currency Changes: Mini Chaos Orbs and Tiered Currency

Beyond mapping, the patch also introduces noteworthy changes to crafting and currency. With the rise of tiered currency, some traditional items have lost value—Alchemy Orbs, for example, were increasingly seen as outdated. GGG is addressing this by allowing Alchemy Orbs to be used on magic items, upgrading them to rares with four random modifiers.

This essentially turns Alchs into a “mini chaos orb” or “regal-chaos hybrid,” making them far more useful during the early game and for quick map rolling. While tiered currency still dominates endgame crafting, this change smooths out the experience for newer players and keeps older currency relevant.

Unique tablets also now have individual uses, and when reforged, the resultant item inherits the sum of the input tablets—further blurring the line between scarabs, league stones, and traditional mapping strategies.

Quality-of-Life Improvements and Bug Fixes

In addition to the marquee changes, GGG is rolling out a host of smaller quality-of-life upgrades:

Citadel spawn rates increased by 66%, addressing a long-standing complaint about low frequency.

Ground effects like shocked, chilled, or ignited ground cover 66% less area, reducing unavoidable damage zones in maps.

Boss phase tuning: Many bosses’ second and third phases previously had dramatically less life than their first phase, often 10x lower. This was an unintentional oversight now corrected, making these encounters more consistent.

These changes might seem minor on their own, but together they dramatically improve the “feel” of mapping and bossing, especially for newer players.

Community Reception: “POE1 Plus” or True Sequel?

For some, these changes signal that POE2 is becoming less of a clean break from POE1 and more of an evolution—a “POE1 Plus.” As one player quipped, “Everything evolves into crabs. It’s inevitable,” referencing the meme of carcinization.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Many veterans still adore POE1’s systems, and the comfort of familiar mechanics combined with modern refinements could be exactly what keeps the franchise thriving. However, it also raises questions about whether POE2 will deliver enough truly new content to feel like a sequel rather than a polished expansion.

GGG seems aware of this tension. Rogers explicitly stated that while the studio is testing mechanical changes now (in version 0.3.1), it’s saving most of the new content for version 0.4.0, when it can be rolled out in a more polished state. This phased approach allows GGG to iterate on systems without overwhelming players and ensures that the eventual “big drop” of content lands on a stable foundation.

What It Means for Players

For players like the one who inspired this article—a long-time exile who spent this season focusing on making currency and experimenting with new builds rather than grinding bosses—the new changes represent a mixed bag. On one hand, mapping will be more consistent, tablets will give more control, and bosses will provide a steady stream of challenges and cheap Path of Exile 2 Currency. On the other hand, reduced pack density in low- to mid-tier maps could feel like a nerf to certain farming styles.

Still, the overall direction seems positive. GGG is tackling long-standing pain points—empty maps, inconsistent bossing, and the clunky tower system—while buffing the tools players use to customize their experience. The result should be a smoother, more rewarding baseline for the endgame, even before the major content patches arrive.