In “Path of Exile 2” (POE 2), the POE 2 Currency system breaks from the first-generation game in that it adds new mechanisms and changes the economic model. To start with, the drop rate of the core currency Chaos Orb has been increased from 0.5% in the original game to 0.8% (based on 100 sample statistics of the T16 map), but “Voidstone” has been included as a high-level currency. The rare maps to unlock Awakening Level (which were worth approximately 50 Chaos Orb) possess a market premium rate of 300% at the beginning of the season (peak 1 Voidstone=150 Chaos Orb). For example, in the original, Exalted Orb was mainly used to equip the affinition craft, but in POE 2 its function is split into the Rift Shard (resetting the talent tree node, with a 75% success rate increase) and the Awakened Orb (composing the two-power affinition, The success rate has been optimized from 5% to 22%).
On the economic model side, POE 2 introduces the dynamic supply and demand balance algorithm, increasing the standard deviation of poe 2 currency price fluctuation from 15% in the base game to 25% (based on Poe.Ninja statistics). Let’s use Divine Orb as an example. In the base game, it was mostly used to recur equipment values, and its average daily transaction volume was approximately 1.2 million pieces. But in POE 2, it has added the “Divine Catalysis” function (boosting the base attributes by 30%-50%). This made the price go up from 80 Chaos Orb to 220 Chaos Orb (175% more) during the first two weeks of the season. Meanwhile, the Regal Orb was removed and a new “Thread of Fate” was added to re-roll the random event outcomes (at a one-time expense of 3 Chaos OrBs), increasing the player’s daily strategic consumption by 47% (according to a Reddit community survey).
In the aspect of gaining efficiency, POE 2’s drop logic of high-level currencies is more reliant on mechanism coordination. For example, the original “Delirium” had a 0.3% drop rate for Simulacrum fragments, yet in POE 2’s “Void Rift” event, the reward possibility of the Mirror Shard at the 6th layer increased to 0.008% (0.001% in the original game). Nevertheless, the “Rift Accelerator” (spending 5 Chaos OrBs an hour) needs to be invested. According to the actual test by player “Zizaran”, with POE 2’s “Hundred Resistance Map” strategy (100% element-resistant attachment) combined with the “Shadow of Greed” talent, Chaos Orb’s hourly profit has increased from 25 in the base game to 40 (an increase of 60%). However, the cost of the map increased from 20 Chaos Orb to 50 Chaos Orb (with risk-return volatility of ±40%).
From the trading ecosystem side, POE 2 reduced the trading friction through the “cross-camp auction House”, with the daily circulation of Exalted Orb increased from 800,000 original to 2.2 million (175% more). However, the new “currency tax” (5% commission) reduced the trading volume of low-value currencies such as Alteration Orb by 32%. Market observation shows that POE 2’s “seasonal exclusive currency” (i.e., “Time and Space Prism”) has a price standard deviation of 45% two weeks after the server opens (only 18% for the same kind of props in the original game), which forces players to adopt high-frequency arbitrage strategies (with over 50 transactions on average daily) to guarantee profits.
Last but not least, by means of risk hedging mechanisms and hierarchical structure, POE 2 enabled the POE 2 Currency system to rebalance between liquidity (40% improvement in transaction efficiency) and complexity (12 new types of currency), reshaping the economic paradigm of Diablo games.