The vast scope of changes to Path of Exile in The Awakening have prompted us to internally label it as version 2.0.0. This expansion marks a new era of Path of Exile, with improved balance, stability, performance, netcode and masses of quality of life improvements.
Our new Lockstep mode doesn't suffer from desync. Huge improvements to the older Predictive mode mean that regardless of how far away from a server you are, you're having a good experience. Speaking of servers, we've opened new ones around the world.
Successful Path of Exile players find a lot of items. In The Awakening, we've made it much easier to sort through items with the introduction of powerful Item Filters. For more information, check out this article.
In The Awakening, we've gone through tens of thousands of feedback posts and implemented the most frequently-requested improvements. You can now scale the chat window, see an in-game clock, highlight items in the guild stash, track experience-per-hour, see an item's internal level while holding alt, and enjoy many more Quality of Life improvements.
The vast amount of new content in The Awakening combined with the constant desire to create a smooth game experience has led to our designers rebalancing everything in Path of Exile. Quest rewards have been completely revamped, with a much more streamlined set of choices available as you progress through the storyline. Path of Exile has never played better.