The Atlas system is still hot garbage and a way to fix it

I've been chiseling away at my Atlas for quite a while now. I have all but one T7 map and all but two T8 maps. I went ahead and started unlocking T7s, since I only needed to get three of either Vaal City or Canyon to get the last remaining T7 from the vendor. A ton of maps later, I have two Vaal Cities, one Canyon, and one each of the maps that vendor for those.

I've been trying to farm every T8 before unlocking them. I've run three or four Arachnid Tomb without having Tropical Island or Shore drop. I'm good on the rest, but completely screwed on the bottom left, especially since nothing trades up for Arachnid Tomb.

I can't run my T8s because it would make it insanely difficult to get the remaining T8s to drop. The only T7s I have left are Ashen Woods (which I'm trading up for a guaranteed T8) and two Mud Flats, which I haven't unlocked yet so other T7s drop more frequently. I'm completely out of T6 maps again, which means I'm down to farming T5 maps again, when what I want are one goddamn T7 and two goddamn T8s.

The mechanics of the Atlas are stopping me from running the only good maps I have, which is so unfathomably idiotic I can't believe that garbage ever made it into the game.

Obviously, this is a very frustrating situation. It's the exact same damn situation I've had every league since the Atlas was released. The thing that pisses me off the most is that I know it's only going to get much, much worse the higher I go in maps.

Please fix the Atlas. It was awful when you made it. It's still awful today.

My suggestion, since you seem dead set on keeping the Atlas:

Make players start with the Atlas completely unlocked. Alternatively, unlock the next tier when every map from one tier has been completed. Any map (or any map from an unlocked tier) can drop. Players can still complete the optional map objective for a bonus.

If a player doesn't want a specific map to drop, they can seal it. You can reduce the cost of sealing maps since unlocking isn't optional now, make it a simple right-click on and off switch players can make at will, or do nothing to change the cost.

This will vastly improve the game for players like me who simply want to play a variety of level-appropriate content. Players who want to maximize efficiency and farm one map until they see Strands in their sleep can also do that. If you do this, you will simply have made the game better.

I cleared every single map in Prophecy league and got 40/40 challenges. After Atlas hit, I've done something like three T12s total as my highest maps and don't even bother with challenges. This is purely because of how goddamn frustrating it is to unlock maps now.

Please make the game better GGG. I was super excited about this league. The Atlas has once again ruined mapping for me.

The easiest way to get your Atlas totally unlocked is to share map unlocks with friends. Pow. Bam. Done. EZ PZ. If you don't have friends, check Global 820 or Trade 820. Or join a guild.

SSF is a thing that exists in POE. A fair portion of the community plays that way. Regardless, locking basic content behind trading is bad design. The standard maps are no less basic content than acts 1-10. They have just as much of a need as acts 1-10 of being locked behind insane grind walls and trading.

Also, since it always happens, defending poor game design by saying "that's what you deserve for playing SSF" is an absurdly bad argument. To anyone who was about to go there, please try not to do that in this thread. If you're going to defend the current shitty Atlas design, defend it. Say what's actually good about its current functionality, especially in the context of potential improvements. Argue, for example, why the current Atlas is superior to my suggestion (which is just one of many ways to make the Atlas better).

I like the atlas in general but this issue in particular is really annoying. I had a pretty unlucky streak of no maps dropping yesterday which left me with only T3 maps while I was doing T5. I don't understand why map drops have to be locked behind artificial difficulty like rng. Even worse is a T8 boss dropping a T1 map ...

The change to boss hp is the perfect opportunity to make them also more rewarding. That change is nice because you can't press flask and ignore the fight mechanics but the loot is bad. One guaranteed map drop with a fixed range of tier (something like -1 to +1 tier). Currently they take way too much time for the crappy loot they give. While building my atlas in Harbinger, I can say that 90% of interesting map drops come from regular mobs. Once you have the bonus objective, there's barely any point fighting them.

Orb of Horizon makes it dead simple to unlock same tier maps. If you are stuck on t5-t6 I don't know what you are doing wrong? Are you actually running alched maps? Do you chisel your maps at some point? I already had a few t16's drop, map sustain is as trivial as ever. Maybe not as easy as Legacy, but still more then enough.

OP your "suggestion" is literally "I don't want to grind it out, so just give it to me"... As for the SSF argument, you don't like it but the fact is that the game CANNOT and should not be balanced around players who have made a decision to play the self imposed hard mode. That's reality. Even though you don't want to hear it, it is a legitimate response. Also, you say that there is a problem with locking "basic content" behind trading. You don't have to trade. You can trade for unlocks to speed up the process, but it is doable without trading. It just will take you longer. Which is to be expected if you have chosen to play SSF.

If your goal is full unlock, atlas is annoying and shitty.

If your goal is to shape it, atlas is the best thing that ever happened to end game.

I think they just need to tweak the drop mechanics to make it better for the former without breaking the latter.

There are 2 currency orbs introduced in Harbinger. One was already mentioned here. So there is now currency that will change a map to the next higher tier as well as change a map to a different one of the same tier. I don't know for certain if these orbs will get added to the core game, but my guess is they will. Extra space was added to the currency tab in the core game just like in the league. So looks to me like they already "fixed" it.

Doc, you have elicited a sigh from me. Sigh.

Miska, Orb of Horizons doesn't say "Reforge a T7 map as Catacombs" or "Reforge two T8 maps as Tropical Island and Shore." I could easily burn them all for nothing. It seems especially dumb to burn them on low tier maps when T12+ can be insanely difficult to get.

I'm alching all my maps. I'm not chiseling T5-7 maps. Burning my chisels before I get to red maps would be pretty dumb.

As for the triviality of getting great map drops, it would be good to remember that POE is a game with RNG. Last league I unlocked uber lab at seven trials. This league I've done eight trials and only have three different ones completed. Map drops are the same way. If you're getting great map drops, it's not because map drops are great. It's because map drops are great for you. Some people are eating shit.

Note, however, that this thread has literally nothing to do with map sustainability. I made it perfectly clear that I have plenty of great maps to run. I just can't fucking run them because that would make it even more outrageously difficult to get the missing maps to drop. If I'm not getting the T8s I need when there's a 1/1 chance of one of them dropping, I sure as shit don't want to try when it's something like 2/8.

Again, try to respond to the merit of my post. Defend GGG's current Atlas implementation, especially in the context of arguing against potential improvements. If you fail to do this, there's no conversation we can even have. Try really, really hard to make sure you understand what I've said here. If you're saying things like "it's easy to sustain maps," you have no clue what this thread's about.

I won't reply to further off topic posts. Knock yourself out if you still want to make them, though.

Well OP i can tell you your problem.. And keep in mind this is coming from a player who has consistently hit 124+ EVERY leagues since atlas was added. Last two league of which i never bought a single map or even needed to trade up (Except Vendor) for missing maps with other players Until i hit T13+ and even those was only the last couple out of impatience.

First mistake your making is you claim you CANT run your T8s? WTF the first rule of thumb ive found in completing the atlas the easiest is ALWAYS run your highest map you have for unlock. You should ALWAYS have at least one +1 and if you can one +2 map somewhere on the atlas unlocked relative to the content you're actually running. If you are running T7s right now you need to have some T8s and at least one or two T9s unlocked so when your mapping you can actually have not only your adjacent map but all unlocked maps able to drop on mobs. And always have at least one possible +2 map unlocked so you can get boss drops +2.

Another thing that can not be stressed enough is ZANA! She can help you unlock everything up to T11. After that is when things can get a bit tougher because of losing zanas maps as an option. But everyday always check her maps for maps you're missing. They cost anywhere from an alc or two or chance or few to some of each depending on if they are rare, unid rare, ect.

Other than that you just need to map. Run the maps you like after you have run everything you dont have unlocked and dont worry so much about hole in your atlas while progressing. Its not until red maps or T12+ that you need to really start to worry about every single completed map on the atlas. At that point the main goal will go to unlocking 100%+ Completion at which point map sustain becomes much easier in my exp once you're completing 100%+.

The atlas is fine people just need to look at other options when trying to fill it out. White and Yellow maps you can get for free pretty much. Its once you start getting up into T12-13 or so when you might start looking into either buying missing maps or jump on trade chat and trade then up with other players. Guilds are another great place for trading around maps as well. Unless you're SSF. But hell yellow tier maps alot of players will give away yellows after a while once they unlock theirs.