Buggy and frustrating Shaper /Elder influence system

So here is my understanding.

There is only one case afaik when you run a map with shaper influence next to your elder influence and elder does not take over that map:
You have 30 elder maps.

At no point can the elder control more than 30 maps. Once you hit the cap of 30 maps, any shaper maps you run will simply remove the shaper influence and not spread elder.

I am guessing this is your case. The system has RNG elements but is actually quite deterministic once you understand how it works.

~Myth

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Mythkiller wrote:

once you understand how it works.

~Myth

Which no one seems able to 100% explain. Where is the 12th, 13, 14th and 15th shaper orb if I've already got 1st-11th?

The 30 Elder controlled maps might help, thank you for that.

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DamageIncorporated wrote:

"

Mythkiller wrote:

once you understand how it works.

~Myth

Which no one seems able to 100% explain. Where is the 12th, 13, 14th and 15th shaper orb if I've already got 1st-11th?

The 30 Elder controlled maps might help, thank you for that.

If you manage to spawn red elder like this, you'll get all your four remaining orbs. Elder and the guardians all fell into red maps yesterday for me.

I have red Elder ready to kill right now. Just havnt bothered to learn the fight. Last time I tried I died to who knows what, some kind of environmental or aoe damage. Not like he'll drop anything good so I havn't really cared.

Would killing him change my shaper orb issue?

"

DamageIncorporated wrote:

"

Mythkiller wrote:

once you understand how it works.

~Myth

Which no one seems able to 100% explain. Where is the 12th, 13, 14th and 15th shaper orb if I've already got 1st-11th?

The 30 Elder controlled maps might help, thank you for that.

Yea, the documentation isn't quite there. If you have specific questions, I can answer what I can.

For shaper orbs (gonna write a full summary before getting to yours, just in case):

The first shaper orb is found the first time you encounter the shaper in a t6 map.
For your second shaper orb, you must get a T7 map to have elder influence (not elder/guardian himself, just influence). You will now see a purple circle around the T7 map and can run it to get a memory fragment.
For your third shaper orb, you must do the above but on a t8.

The idea is that you must get elder influence on a map of the tier your next shaper orb would shape TO. So if this is your second shaper orb, you will eventually get to shape a T2 -> T7. Hence elder influence on a t7 is required.

You continue like this till you hit 10/15 by getting elder influence on a t15 map.

Now orbs number 11-15 are special. You will only get them specifically from elder/guardians themselves in high tier maps (as opposed to just influence so far).

Getting these will grant you duplicates of the shaper orbs from t6 onwards. So at 15/15 you will end up with 2 shaped maps in every red tier (4 fragments from guardians + 1 from elder).

Afaik, there is NO point in farming these fragments except to get the second shaped map of that tier. If you are shaping your atlas, this is usually counterproductive. I believe in the future there will be an uber-elder fight where the elder will consume the shaper guardians themselves. I believe this fight will be gated behind obtaining 15/15 fragments. This fight is not in the game yet (afaik. If it is, man.. that is being kept secret very well lol).

Hope that helps.

~Myth

your word:"At the beginning of this league I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. 2nd best league next to Breach. Now I think this is the worst league. ", I completely agreed with you. When I run a map ,and then pree 'G', I found the sliced bread become more and more smaller, I was very angry.-----------Sorry my english is poor

It’s not just adjacent to the maps have to be physically connected by the dotted lines. I was having the same problem/frustration as you were. I would run a shaper map next to an elder map (trying to expand elder to get guardians and elder to spawn) and boom elder made a retreat or disappeared all together. I was so fuckin pissed saying what kind of dumbass system is this. Then I started paying real close attention making sure that the shaper map was connected to the elder map (by the dotted line) and sometimes it is really hard to tell when the two maps are very close and the elder tentacles are moving around. I even had to pull up a pic of the atlas a couples times to make sure the two maps I was looking were actually connected by the dots. Since I have been doing this “method” I haven’t had any fugazzi shit happen with elder just retreating.

That is my experience hopefully it will help you either way I feel your pain.

Also, memory fragment 15 will only come from T15 elder...goodluck

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GreasyGinzo wrote:

It’s not just adjacent to the maps have to be physically connected by the dotted lines. I was having the same problem/frustration as you were. I would run a shaper map next to an elder map (trying to expand elder to get guardians and elder to spawn) and boom elder made a retreat or disappeared all together. I was so fuckin pissed saying what kind of dumbass system is this. Then I started paying real close attention making sure that the shaper map was connected to the elder map (by the dotted line) and sometimes it is really hard to tell when the two maps are very close and the elder tentacles are moving around. I even had to pull up a pic of the atlas a couples times to make sure the two maps I was looking were actually connected by the dots. Since I have been doing this “method” I haven’t had any fugazzi shit happen with elder just retreating.

That is my experience hopefully it will help you either way I feel your pain.

The UI for seeing the connections is terrible. It blends right in with the elder influence.

I use https://atlas.poekit.net/ to see connections and it makes life a lot easier.

You're right about adjacency. Geographically close on the atlas is completely irrelevant from a shaper/elder point of view. Only connections matter.

~Myth

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DamageIncorporated wrote:

I'm really getting frustrated with the Atlas. Half a dozen times this afternoon, I specifically run a map that has Shaper influence, that is beside elder influence. I periodically press G to check the influence... kill enough mobs and boom! now the map has NO influence! It doesn't make any sense.

I'll do the same "method" on a different map and it works as expected ( Elder takes the map over) but half the time I either get this wacky behavior or even worse, Elder influence retreats!

At the beginning of this league I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. 2nd best league next to Breach. Now I think this is the worst league. The influence system is punitive, and clumsy. On top of this strange buggy behavior, you also have to be careful and not finish the map or it can go from shaper, to elder to no influence. So, the game punishes you for the existence of the influence system and you get screwed out of the potential drops left in the map. This can feel really punitive if you need to change influence, in a t14 or t15. It can also be expensive buying 2 of a t15 map cuz you need to change influence, then run it AGAIN for the shaper orb.

Also, I'm STILL stuck at 11/15 shaper orbs. I've spread influence all over the map, tier 1-15 and there are no other orbs. Do I have to kill Elder or what?

What a terrible system. Who designed this shit?

It's not buggy , just RNG .