Endless Atlas doubt

I must say I can't wait for the release... im very very hyped, and thirst for more anouncements.

But there is one thing that im bit worried about. Endless Atlas looks kinda similar to LE Monolith systems.

No boss maps - glyphs, and crafting materials rewards.

Boss maps - chance for certain drops.

1 death per map (In POE2 u lose map, in LE it was a reward)

Objectives - kill some wandering rare dudes.

And You can think POE1 mapping and LE Monoliths are also similar - after all You go in, kill mobs and collect loot, but somehow for me those are totaly different things. 1.0 LE endgame was sooooooooo boring, that i couldn't stand it, while mindless mapping is still quite amusing.

I'm not sure if I can describe it properly. My concern is more about "the feel", and is not based over facts :/

What do You think?

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ScornFall#2853 wrote:

What do You think?

I don't like endless content because i prefer to have a goal that can be finished at some point. It's satisfying to see your atlas progress in poe1 or to reach max level (diablo 3 endless paragon) etc, also not a fan of delve but it was fine cause optional side-content.
Btw why did it show 6 portals if we only got 1 try? Just for party-play? weird

What bums me more is the amount of RNG and the effects on target farm, "while mapping you might come across this fortress"(1h8min in endgame reveal video), it looks like target farming stuff like this is basically not possible and you just map random directions to find it.
I hate that, also every map is a T17 map now (minus the mods) with random monsters (47min in endgame reveal video), not a big fan.

Anyway i don't want to complain, just my inital thoughts on it.
Maybe it will be super awesome!

Side note: Hope they remove T17s in poe1

before we critique a system and it's failings and also compare it to another I believe it is important to have hands on experience with both systems.



at this point this thread is arguing that they think the experience driving a rolls royce phantom will be the same as driving their Pinto because they both have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

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thawn4444#3507 wrote:

before we critique a system and it's failings and also compare it to another I believe it is important to have hands on experience with both systems.



at this point this thread is arguing that they think the experience driving a rolls royce phantom will be the same as driving their Pinto because they both have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

While You are right, since 21st this whole forum is about what we don't know. And this is a way how ppl vent fears and emotions. Most of us are just affraid of their "baby game" not being what we want it to be.

And because new atlas reminds me of a dead boring LE monoliths i'm looking for - either ppl who feels the same or the ones that will comfort me with different point of view.

"endless" atlas can be used to make some cool stuff. like hiding stuff in it and you have to look for it. like clues to find pinnacle locations.

and it s not endless, once you found the pinnacles and killed them, game is "done"

I think "the feel" comes down to having objective goals and weather or not you are progressing towards that goal.

Last Epoch always felt very aimless to me. You could kind of target farm unique drops but even that was just the first step in obtaining gear that was 'the best' for a build. I tried the end game grind in LE a few times and always quit the game within a few days because farming specific unique items felt bad when you would play for a session or two and find none. It felt as if you didn't make any progress.

I don't know if PoE2 will have a similar feeling. The core draw to PoE (for me) has always been the economy. Finding your first chaos orbs on launch day is always a great feeling. As the days pass into a new league, that excitement shifts to divines and well rolled/crafted rares that sell for a decent amount. Then comes atlas completion and farming whatever content you enjoy...

PoE2 definitely has scaled back the content that can be initially farmed, as well as the currencies that drop and the methods for crafting items. That worries me more than whatever it was that caused me to stop playing Last Epoch. Not having Betrayal, Incursion, Heist and even the Eternal Lab will leave a PoE-sized hole in my heart. I'll even miss Blight a little bit.

I like it, having a sense of loss is good in games. It provides a ton of information about level/build/gear and now Skill with the shield/roll additions.

The downside might be you cut yourself off from progression by failing to many times...but we won't know how that works until we actually see it.

The intent of cutting off map routes seems to be limiting access to the Pinnacle Boss if you fail frequently, same as if you fail that it relocates to elsewhere on the map and you have to go find it.

Ill withhold any nitpicking until experiencing it, GGG never said there wasn't anyway to unlock failed nodes, so perhaps there are items we can use on waystones that allow us to bypass the "lock out" incase we box ourselves in or something. If not, then that could be a thing we suggest that absolves the issue.

Some item that unlocks a map node but locks a way stone so it can't be rolled on (think Vaal orbs corruption effect).

The aimlessness of LE is what killed it for me too - in a way it reminded me why I dislike SSF. Sure, it has a market, but it's extremely restricted until one farms way more than what it takes to reach the endgame, so I could trade for only a tiny fraction of items I would want... and without that, I had no reason to get stuff + without league challenges, I don't even have a meta goal to pursue.

Also, rares having only four modifiers made the gear hunt a lot shorter.

POE avoids most of these problems, so while i still hate the loss of a map on death, the other stuff will likely make up for it

for me i really love the look of it.


i dont like the way maps have no sense of exploration and finding cool stuff. i dont rly get a sense of completion from the atlas, not dismissing it for those that do, but just speaking for myself i play a lot of maps. its never a thing where i play each map once and feel a sense of achievement its more i play maps get my self set up to chain the maps i want and then play them 100s and 100s of times, and that feels stale. it looks like a system you can explore but in practice i dont feel like im exploring anything.


on the flip delve absolutely feels like im exploring but the actual quality of the encounters at a delve node are very far from being as cool as the content in maps. combining delve and mapping, for me thats such a win.





what i would say is that we get an atlas passive tree, and smaller trees for each of the bits of side content. in the same way you level up your character and eventually 'complete' your build you will also be able to level up your endgame atlas tree until you have what must be the fixed amount of points.

so there is still that thing where you progress it to a fixed goal where you 'complete' the endgame by maxing out your endgame tree. but then the maps go on and on, which is the same thing we have now in a way.






I do agree with the idea that LE fundamentally feels empty and aimless, d3/4 feel that way, grim dawn felt that way, wolcen... LE is actually rly cool game, i cant deal with the controls so i dont play it, but its a great game.

no game can compare with poe tho when it comes to items having a sense of value. i prefer not trading and playing group found with my friends now days but the market being there and being so deep, not some soulless d3 auction house but a real knowledge based market where community, crafting, farming, build meta, all sorts of areas of game knowledge interact with an item system that has extremely rare high end item potential. you have to get into it a bit, theres barriers to entry, every part of it feels earned and that all adds to a sense of value that these other games, even rly good ones like LE just fail to replicate.

so i dont worry about poe2 feeling empty like those games.