Atlas map is awful

The more you explore the atlas the more it gets clear, something that was obvious the first time you set your foot in the atlas, that it's an absolute nightmare to naviagate. It feels like using a map on a phone designed for pc, and it doesn't help that the game can't handle it, and sometimese refuses to load more than the first few screens of what you already explored..

The whole design needs serious rework. Even if it would let you zoom out more, it would still be an absolute mess..i don't have to go in to too much detail, whoever played a lot of the endgame should see the issues. It's an interesting concept at first, but pretty quickly you have found every "hidden" thing there is, which isn't many at this point, and it becomes nothing but tedious to scroll around the map looking for stuf..

Another thing i found is the pathing. I found that Vaal pyramid ceitadel thingy, but there was no direkt path to the area, so i went around in 1 direction, for days (playtime), but there kept showing up stuf like lakes and mountains with no crossing in sight, so i went back to where i saw the temple and started pathing around the mountains to the other side, and again endless mountains and lakes, litteraly 10 full screens into it..so yeah, some serious work needed regarding this entire system is needed.

yeah been saying that for like 2 weeks now. If you could set favorite locations you can jump to on demand it would remedy a lot of it, because faster scrolling/better zoom etc is only a bandaid - will feel just as bad if you mapped twice as much.

We need a way to remove cleared nodes and shrink down the atlas, and set "camera locations" on the atlas to jump to on demand

IMO it was a temporary run at the endgame, which they admit was somewhat rushed to hit the EA deadline. It will be changed and improved, you can count on it. It's a first sketch, not the finished painting (so to speak).

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t0lkien#7048 wrote:

IMO it was a temporary run at the endgame, which they admit was somewhat rushed to hit the EA deadline. It will be changed and improved, you can count on it. It's a first sketch, not the finished painting (so to speak).

I get that, and all i'm doing is giving feedback, that if they have any ambition to keep this system anywhere close to what it is, they should drop those ambitions and make something else.

i mean, i doubt they craft this entire map just as a placeholder, even if it's not finished, and i don't see it working even with changes and additions, unless they are extreme.

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t0lkien#7048 wrote:

IMO it was a temporary run at the endgame, which they admit was somewhat rushed to hit the EA deadline. It will be changed and improved, you can count on it. It's a first sketch, not the finished painting (so to speak).

That is why I am giving feedback, even adding possible solutions I could see remedying the issue.

In terms of art/visuals I hope they keep the 3D Atlas. It looks really cool and adds to the immersion. However I agree it does need some work. Better performance is needed, quality of life features, and maybe not make it infinite and you can reset it? It's a decent base, just needs a little tlc.

The current atlas would make me run Cells only in PoE1 rather than having to deal with the PoE2 atlas navigation.

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Zanitok#5950 wrote:

In terms of art/visuals I hope they keep the 3D Atlas. It looks really cool and adds to the immersion. However I agree it does need some work. Better performance is needed, quality of life features, and maybe not make it infinite and you can reset it? It's a decent base, just needs a little tlc.

The art is fine, and if there is a way to revamp the entire thing while keeping that then fine, but all i have to say is, if you grind this game daily for a month on every league launch, which is what most players do, the art will get old quickly, but the tedious impact to gameplay will hit you over the head constantly.

A good example is the levers in the Augur level. It's a cool feeling and looks visually good to pull that heavy lever for 10 seconds 1 time during the campaign, but running the map 2-3 times in a row, which happens, makes it feel insanely boring, especially when you can't cancel the animation.

Visuals are important, but should always take a backseat to gameplay, atleast in games of this nature.