It’s only been four days Path of Exile 2 has been released in Early Access, but developer Grinding Gear Games is already working hard to respond to player feedback. First on the agenda: Making free play more worthwhile.

“One of the biggest issues players face is the feeling that the game isn’t rewarding enough,” the December 9 patch notes say. “In this area we have to be very careful when adjusting because if we increase the losses too much it will be very difficult to reduce them. We have identified some key areas that we believe will significantly improve players’ gaming experience.”

One of the biggest changes is doubling the rarity bonus per modifier on rare monsters, which, combined with the increased chance for rare monsters to have more modifiers in the endgame, will certainly improve item drops. To protect players from unfortunate drops, no more than 50% of a unique monster’s drops will be gold, and certain bosses will always drop at least one rare item.

Path of Exile 2The early success led to instability and long login queues when servers opened on December 6th, forcing developers to restart the realm multiple times. Jonathan Rogers, director of Grinding Gear Games, was open about these potential issues shortly before the game’s release, admitting that the studio was surprised to surpass 1 million users.

“There are many more changes coming, these are just some of the changes we can implement quickly,” Grinding Gear Games wrote in a feedback forum. “We will continue to monitor feedback and adjust things over time.”

Here are the full patch notes: