Path of Exile's next expansion brings quality-of-life upgrades that PoE 2 desperately needs too

Grinding Gear Games created Path of Exile 2 partly to modernize the original game's systems for newer players and then port some of those improvements – like character animations – back to the first game. Both titles share the same engine and have been swapping features back and forth: asynchronous trading from PoE 2 already made it into the original in the last expansion.

With the upcoming Mirage expansion, Path of Exile gets first dibs on a set of quality-of-life changes that will almost certainly find their way into the sequel eventually. One of them sounds minor on paper but is crucial for anyone who spends serious time crafting or trading with other players – the ability to favorite currency exchanges.

The currency exchange is an essential tool for instantly swapping crafting materials (which also double as currency) with other players, no meetup required. It's so convenient that players end up using it constantly, whether churning through crafting resources or converting small-denomination currency into larger stacks.

Speed matters when you're deep in a complicated crafting session and have no patience for navigating menus. Mirage will finally let players favorite specific exchanges so they don't have to type them in manually every single time.

On top of that, it'll be possible to open the inventory and the currency exchange window at the same time – a feature whose absence has been baffling. Path of Exile 2 desperately needs both of these, and hopefully GGG ports them over in the next update.

Mirage will also add over 20 new "landmark rooms" to the campaign, each with unique enemy encounters and rewards. There are smaller tweaks too – faster divination card turn-ins and a smoother way to pick transfigured skill gems when trading in regular ones.

These are the kinds of things veterans have been asking for a long time, but they don't apply to PoE 2 – at least not until those specific systems eventually make the jump.

One more change coming in Mirage could save a lot of hardcore players from an embarrassing fate. Like Diablo, PoE has shrines that grant powerful buffs – movement speed, invincibility, and the like.

The catch is that GGG lets surrounding monsters benefit from the shrine's buff until a player actually grabs it, so it's very common to get swarmed and die trying to click the thing buried under a pile of enemies. That era might finally be ending: shrines will now take click priority over monsters when hovered, making them actually clickable in a crowd.

PoE 2 has the exact same problem, and how many times players have died – or nearly died – at a shrine is best left uncounted. As one YouTube commenter put it: "I am convinced every single player has died trying to click a divine shrine (invincibility) in a horde of monsters. Most just don't want to admit it lol. So thanks, very much appreciated!"

More details on the upcoming expansion are expected tomorrow, February 26.