Action RPG players will exploit anything in the name of efficiency, which is why Path of Exile 2 players are locking themselves in the campaign for profit

In a lot of ways, action RPGs like Diablo are an open invitation by the developers for players to find all the things they didn't expect you could do. Ideally, that is limited to powerful skill interactions and builds, but it's often the case that it includes somewhat game-breaking exploits that go against the spirit of the game.

I'm not sure I'd call what Path of Exile 2 streamer Fubgun is doing with the new seasonal mode "game-breaking", but it's clearly not supposed to work like that.

Path of Exile 2 recently received its 0.4 update and with it came a new build-your-own dungeon system called Vaal Temples. I'll spare you the lore, but just know that it's basically a side activity you encounter while running maps in the endgame to farm up valuable loot. It's also extremely complex and thus has been extremely divisive among players who want to simply kill monsters and pick up shiny items.

Developer Grinding Gear Games stepped in a week or so ago to buff the rewards from the mode and make it generally less punishing. It still has enough arcane rules to it that players have been sharing infographics on how to place each unique type of room for the most rewards. But now it's been long enough for people to figure out strategies for making bank with it—we're talking piles of loot that you really can't find elsewhere.

The limiting factor to all of it is that the temple is only valuable once you've built it up over time. It can take a few hours of running maps to get the right rooms to show up. So, as is natural for action RPG players, people started looking for ways to speed this up. And a method was just found that I'm pretty sure GGG wouldn't approve of.

Fubgun is one of a few people who have discovered that you can intentionally keep a character low level during the campaign to build temples within minutes. Instead of having to clear maps out and look for the entrance, there's a specific campaign map that spawns it in one particular spot. You can then reset the map over and over as you build the temple up and make profit, saving you loads of time.

Made a cheatsheet for the new Vaal Temple room upgrades while figuring it out from r/pathofexile2builds

Now, the catch is that you have to have a low-level character to do it in the first place. High-level characters won't be able to get any of the rewards. Because of this, I doubt a lot of people will go through the hassle of starting fresh just for this strategy, but it's clearly the most optimal way to do it in a game that incentivises you to chase optimization. After all, the loot drops could be upgrades or crafting items to improve your existing gear.

The only reason I think this method has stuck around without getting hotfixed is because GGG is currently on holiday break. It's not game-breaking enough to be hotfixed by some poor sap who still has to monitor the servers, but it's also an exploit that I'm pretty sure would be removed ASAP if most of the team was around to fix it.

It obviously didn't intend for people to spam the Vaal Temples and to die on purpose to keep their character under-leveled. It's funny that it works at all, and I think it's emblematic of how wonky the mode is in the first place. If people are so dismayed by the randomness that they resort to weird workarounds to repeat it until they hit a jackpot, the system might have some deeper problems to iron out before it gets added to the game permanently.