Was there a reason GGG removed the best map in the game?

I know it was removed quite awhile ago but the climbing ledge like map, Gorge, was arguably one of the best maps in the game.

Why was it removed?

Density wasn't the best but the layout combined with all the new league mechanics makes Gorge the most enjoyable to run.

I never understood why they took out the most linear & enjoyable map to run.

Indeed, Gorge was a hell of a map - linear like a Strand, but longer, and only recently with a boss arena detached from the main course. Back at the time it was almost a status symbol.

The replacement, Glacier, tried to compensate the low density by offering first a small area with little to no obstacles, followed by a very short linear path, ending in the original Gorge boss (latest version, I know Leif was the actual original boss of Gorge). I actually found that small area good for both Beyond and Legion - back at the time, the Monolith always spawned in that area rather than the "hallway" part

I tried looking at Reddit, but the only comment I found among the "rip george" was something about that it was too convenient to Shaper it for map sustaining

because they dont want people to reach level 100. That is also why they keep nerfing XP gain.

gorge was my favorite map as well. people will reach level 100 regardless of what they do,so if thats why they removed it then thats just silly

Level 100 has nothing to do with it. Majority will never reach it for plenty other reasons and there are maps like strand which are very similar in linearity.

It was a pretty dull map, which was changed to have that separate boss arena later, and then the whole map was changed to glacier.
They also removed springs map, which was one of my favourites.

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qHEjQbIHtt wrote:

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HanSoloDK wrote:

because they dont want people to reach level 100. That is also why they keep nerfing XP gain.

You really think thats true? If it is i dont even... LULLLLLLLLLLLLL

well that is the reason Chris have given for the last 4 XP gain nerfs. So I would assume it's the same regarding the maps......

God, wait, GGG works in mysterious ways

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girng wrote:

God, wait, GGG works in mysterious ways

And Chris said unto his minions dev team: "Let us drive out the plague of casuals that has infested the lands of Wreaclast and Oriath." And so it was decreed and put forth and a new path of "and we doubled it" was begun in 2020 until all casual players have been driven out of the whole of PoE. And Chris proclaimed "So let it be done!"

Edit: It was either that or "Fun?... We ain't got no fun... We don't want you to have fun... We ain't got to give you no stinking fun!!!"

the original gorge and strand were fun because they dont force you to backtrack. thats why people loved playing them [Removed by Support]


thats how they work with endgame content, if its fun people play it, and then ggg gets in a sulk because people dont play all the [Removed by Support] content they spent time making so they destroy the fun stuff to make sure we play the game the way they want us to play it, [Removed by Support], even though they basically cheated the stats by forcing people into things they didnt want to play by removing the stuff they did want to do and bribing players with exaggerated item drops.


thats why i dont play the game any more, shaped maps, elder maps, the best layouts etc, the things that actually let you enjoy your game by playing the bits you liked to play were all removed [Removed by Support]. they kind of forget the other option too, you can take away the fun content and then players are forced to play the stuff they dont enjoy [Removed by Support]... or they can just stop playing your [Removed by Support] game.



this is basically the path of nonsense endgame had followed. maps as a format force full clearing, full clearing forces backtracking in a non linear layout, backtracking is not fun. they made a decision to use an endgame format that forces linear layouts, then decided they wanted more layout variety than all linear layouts. most people didnt want to play all these non linear maps because theyre not fun given the format of full clear mapping, so ggg has been constantly trying to find ways to force people to play the [Removed by Support] layouts, removing maps, nerfing density, making maps too low tier to be worth playing, putting expensive div cards in unfun maps, removing mechanics that let us play the maps we want to play, everything they can possibly do. and it all boils down to them making 2 design decisions that conflict with each other, we want a map format that is only fun for a lot of people when the zone is linear + we dont want most maps to be linear. its just a really bad decision, they made 2 incompatible choices and rather than change one so their design makes sense theyve set about spending years trying to make their game less fun to make sure that their bad decision seems to work on paper when they look at the player stats for content engagement.

xp is just xp, its a formula, they can change the numbers to whatever they want. the real problem for them is looking at the stats and seeing that a lot of people clearly dont want to play 90% of their content. their solution is to effectively remove the 10% that people do want to play. its the problem with arpgs, remember when whirlwind was by far the most fun build in early diablo 3? so do you try and change things to make other builds that are fun like that? nope, blizzards answer was to remove the original whirlwind, just destroy the build so no one could play it. now people play lots of builds right? i couldnt tell you, i stopped playing the game because they destroyed the things that were fun that made the game worth playing. i started playing the game again years later when they stopped being stupid and started adding fun things back to the game and tried to balance them by adding even more fun things.