Are you more excited for Atlas of Worlds than you were for Ascendancy

50 times more hyped for AoW.

Either atlas it is totally gonna change endgame, or it is gonna disappoint me like no tomorrow.

Yes, a lot more excited.

Yaawwwnnnn!!!!!!

AoW is just a reshuffling of map tiers + 30 new maps and the addition of 4 tier 16 bosses + 1 final uber boss (The Shaper). It's still the same endgame mapping as usual so nothing new and exciting to do has changed in the endgame. You're going to need a BiS top build in order to take on any of these 4 bosses and as such it'll just be for the top 1% or 2% elite players so the majority of players won't get that far. Hell, I've played since CB times and have never seen a red map drop in 3.75 years so I doubt this will change just because we have an atlas to show us which maps we've completed. The red map drop chances are probably the same low rng-gated drop chances as always and thus only 1000+ hour grinders are likely to get any. This is GGG and their "working as expected" mode of thinking as normal with the top elites catered to and the 99% rest mostly left out of the end game content. Yes, always having a higher content goal (harder challenge) to strive toward is always good but at some point if that goal is to be able to catch the brass ring (either a level 100 build and/or BiS gear) and we're riding the PoE merry-go-round and mapping every challenge league like good little zombies but have realized that the brass ring we are reaching out for is getting further and further away as the top elites want it to be then more and more players will come to the same realization that Zenocide has come to and permanently quit. In the end we're still racing through the core 3 times fast and then running 1000s of maps on the never ending merry-go-round. So much for wishing that GGG would give us an alternative to mapping in the endgame (we're fools to believe that GGG would provide more to do than just endless mapping).

So AoW has a few interesting gimmicks (shaper's orb and sextant) but Ascendancy gave us more power to crush the mobs and take on the harder content and thus was a more satisfying update.

Not at all... not even in the same league. Ascendancy promised to change the entire game... and it did. Some like the changes, some hate it. Both are right. Atlas doesn't change much of anything (for me). It will be a day or two of fun figuring out how maps have been rearranged. Maybe another day or two playing new maps. Maybe I'll find reason to play up another character, but probably not. That's ok. Not every expansion has to be a re-invention of the game.

Nah getting ascendancy classes was huge!

I'm definitely looking forward to atlas, but ascendancy was just something huge..

Oh wait i didn't even play in ascendancy because i didn't feel like path at the time. Hehe.. but i would have been more hyped if i wasn't recovering from burnout.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Not at all... not even in the same league. Ascendancy promised to change the entire game... and it did. Some like the changes, some hate it. Both are right. Atlas doesn't change much of anything (for me). It will be a day or two of fun figuring out how maps have been rearranged. Maybe another day or two playing new maps. Maybe I'll find reason to play up another character, but probably not. That's ok. Not every expansion has to be a re-invention of the game.

entire game my ass! it changed building. building isn't the entire game. the game itself has only been changed once, with masters. levelling something that isn't your own level + hideout building. but even that is but another grind though.

Ýes, definitely.

I've always felt the Ascendancy classes, while fun and interesting, restrict the game a lot. The penalty for choosing the "wrong" class can be quite crippling now, whereas before it wasn't too bad if you knew what you were doing. I always enjoyed making the wrong choices because it was fun (to me), like archer witches, 2h melee rangers and such. That's not really viable anymore, and I kind of miss the freedom.

That said, Atlas promises to expand the end game, giving us many new maps and hopefully a more intricate and deeper mapping system overall. That's something I've been craving for years, and that's where the vast majority of my playtime is at. I don't really enjoy leveling new characters anymore, especially since the Labyrinth arrived, so mapping is where it's at!

If I were to play the upcoming league however, I'd claim the opposite. Perandus was freaking awesome and I loved it for the full duration. It made farming great, and I miss that a lot already. The upcoming Essence league looks like a snooze fest to me, I'll be skipping that one.

"

LMTR14 wrote:

entire game my ass! it changed building. building isn't the entire game. the game itself has only been changed once, with masters. levelling something that isn't your own level + hideout building. but even that is but another grind though.

I'm not entirely comfortable bringing your ass into this discussion.

Let's see...

On one hand, we have a complete change to how we play the game on a fundamental level, thanks to an advanced class system offering more specialization and an unprecedented potential amount of power. Add to that a wholly unique new zone, and a new gear enchanting system.

On the other hand...Hey look guiz moar maps.