Detailed Atlas Mechanics

on one hand, doing maps to completion, like a normal player would, continually adds maps to your possible map drop poll until you have the same situation as now where random maps drop from wherever and nothing has changed.

on the other, you can simply buy (or trade from an alt account/bitch boy) the "good" maps and only complete those to ensure you only get those dropping in the future (e: or least mostly, since lower level connected maps drop as well but you can 3 to 1 them for the good one).

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morbo wrote:

There is no much room for interpretation:

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Chris wrote:

You can trade for maps and play them regardless of which ones you've previously completed. If you trade for a map and complete it then it unlocks on your Atlas, even if it's not connected to any other ones.

You buy the maps you like, complete them and those maps will only drop themselves, maps that are connected to them and T1 maps.

If you spread your map selection across all tiers, you can exclude a huge portion of the Atlas from dropping and dont miss out any tier drops. The only drawback is that you dont level up your completion map drop bonus.

Yeah, that's why I said that I understand that your interpretation follows from Chris' post :)

However his comment about playing legacy maps suggests that they at least thought about this as well.

Either way, it's bad. Either it works as you say, in which case it's super abusable. Or, it works as legacy maps do, in which case it locks you out of a bunch of content. In both cases screwing up bricks your account.

Regarding the droprate bonus, all this is really only relevant for T12+ or so, meaning you can get the ~70% or so bonus from lower maps regardless, plus whatever maps you want on the highest tiers.

Looks really nice! :) I really love the idea of using the Sextants.

Feels sad tho, having 1 atlas for all the characters. If I'm an archer, I'll prefer maps that are good for me and therefore unlock those. Now, if I switch to close combat, I'm still getting "archer-map" drops. (My game and map experience just became worse because I'm getting maps I won't enjoy with this character.)

So...

1.) Are we going to get 4 new slots in our currency tab for the 3 versions of Cartographer's Sextants and 1 version of Shaper's Orbs? On that note will we be getting another slot for Prophecy coins since they'll be added to standard/hardcore? We don't really need the extra slot for Prophecy, even though it's nice, but we ABSOLUTELY need it for 4 new currency items in Atlas.

2.) Shaped maps: we can permanently change the level of specific map drops. But this is by account per league, and limited to 15 available. Non-tradeable, but the resulting maps are tradable. Is the 15 limit is per account? This mechanic is really confusing, and thus it has the potential to frustrate a ton of players. Anything with an expensive undo AND account wide (per league) is going to be a cumbersome PITA. Here's what players will do: save all of their Shaper Orbs, never use them except for tier 10 and slightly lower maps. So in essence you have this big mechanic, but no one will use until absolute endgame. Tell me again why this is valuable for progression? Oh, it's not.

3.) Does the Atlas contain all of the existing maps by name, but with new layouts?

4.) When we alter map drops because we ran a specific map, does this affect the chances for all characters within that one league? And if so, that means we're locked into bricking our account in a specific league (ie: standard) by ruining the chance for maps we want if we explore too much of the Atlas. Therefore people who explore just a small area of the atlas which favors faster progression have an advantage over those who explore the whole atlas. Is there any way to manager or reverse these changes? Can we "unlearn" map explorations? I don't see any indication of that, so why did you do this to players? For those like me who enjoy the game and will play all of the content it will hurt us for map drops, making our progression much, much slower. For those who favor progression above all else, you've just handcuffed them into exploring just that portion of the map which correlates to the fastest clear maps. *sigh* This would all be fixed if we had the ability to mange our "unlocked" drop rates (ie: opt to toggle them off).

5.) ZiggyD didn't go into details about the isolated maps, saying they're related to Zana. So do we not need to unlock those with other map progression in the Atlas? Do they add to drop chance if we run those once? Could someone just do all of the isolated maps, get higher drop chance for those, and never do the rest of the Atlas?

6.) Any hints as to what we can get from the final Shaper battle? There has to be a carrot at the end of that stick. Something worthwhile for screwing up our map drop chances to unlock it all.

7.) Can the final four fragments to open the final map for the Shaper battle be traded?

8.) What would stop the 1% from running the new league, gathering all of the unlocks they want, then taking the resulting items back into standard or hardcore at the end of that league, and then never exploring the whole Atlas since they don't need to, therefore customizing their map drops to their desires in the permanent leagues? The rich becoming richer, everyone else becoming more watered-down with map drop chances.

Or am I just misunderstanding the whole Atlas expansion?

What about multiplayer btw ? I tend to avoid this like plague but i sometimes duo or trio with friends.

If i have a "clean" account with let's say only gorge unlocked and i join a friend doing a Torture chamber map (cause maybe he likes it, or most likely he likes suffering/being miserable ^^). If he kill the boss while i'm still inside the map, will it complete the map for me to and thus, brick my clean Atlas ?

Inb4 cherry picking maps will end up giving you a shit load of t1s and not much more xD

Besides, you guys play however you want, but doing 4 out of a 100 maps over and over because it is more efficient is boring as fuck. 'Dried Lake to 100'.2 Imma "brick" my atlas on purpose.

Could we get either a Cartographer's Sextants that provide a map mod "This map cannot drop anymore in other maps" or another currency like Shaper's orb that instead of upgrading the Tier of a map on the atlas apply the mod "this map cannot drop anymore from other maps".

Or change the way completing a traded map interacts with the atlas. If you have not previously unlocked the traded map on the atlas completing the traded map behaves the same way as completing a Zana mission behaves, i.e. you are not completing/uncover the map on the atlas.

Otherwise as many people pointed out you will create a situation where people will abuse the system and just unlock maps they want to drop :(

Same unrewarding boring s*t with a slightly different aroma, yeah.. cant wait for Lost Ark.

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acme_myst wrote:

Yeah, that's why I said that I understand that your interpretation follows from Chris' post :)

However his comment about playing legacy maps suggests that they at least thought about this as well.

Yeah, it's still not clear how Atlas and "playing maps as before" is separated. Is Atlas a separate zone / Eternal Lab? Can you run Atlas from your hideout? Do both types of maps - square and circular exist now in the core game?
....

Another "abuse" by limiting your map drop selection, is that you get more maps of the same type to drop and can tier them up more frequently.

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CaoMengde wrote:

new unique maps? maybe, hope so!
im guessing unique maps value will go up a little?? .. maybe?

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Look at Atlas
http://i.imgur.com/mlYvSLl.jpg
I see above Underground River map button new unique map art (left from crab)