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

The Atlas is not really made for maps, although there is no reason to unlock one tier completly before going to the next one. The only maps you have to unlock are the drop only ones, every map you can get from upgrades will be there after time.

The most important thing for pure map drops is to unlock as much of the atlas as quickly as possible. Usually after unlocking about half of the atlas you can easily chain higher red maps, usually even if you skip bosses on high quantity maps that just likely mean death.

Not to mention that the new orbs remove a lot of the issues and make tiering up even easier.

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The advice to use zana is pretty silly too. She's slow as fuck for unlocking atlas and her prices aren't that great either.

Zana is great to make a solid build, she sells up to T5 very quickly and it is not too hard to unlock maps with her, and chance orbs are not too useful in SSF, because the quantity she needs is far from those amounts you would need to aim for uniques.

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Emphasy wrote:

The Atlas is not really made for maps, although there is no reason to unlock one tier completly before going to the next one. The only maps you have to unlock are the drop only ones, every map you can get from upgrades will be there after time.

Again, you're crippling your odds of getting maps you need if you do this. The math I wrote for the other guy still holds. If you start unlocking maps before having all of them, you make it so you will very likely have to use the vendor recipe to unlock them. Targeted farming stops working if you change your odds from 1/1 to 1/8.

If no maps were necessary for progression through the Atlas, your point would hold. That's not how it works for most maps, though. Even if you skip farming a map before progressing to the next tier, you'll still need to get that map before moving up again. Only now, it's that much harder to get the map to drop because you cut your chances of it dropping even lower.

The way I unlock maps is mathematically the most efficient way to do it.

After much terrible grinding of maps I never want to grind that gave negligible amounts of XP, I finally got to the point where I can move on to T9. RNG gifted me with four Crypts before I had every other necessary map, which was fantastic since the adjacent Museum is drop-only (aside from shaping Grotto, ha).

I ran four 20% alched Crypts. I had two Arsenals drop. I had no T9s drop. I had no T8s drop. I had no T7s drop.

This is bullshit. Locking maps behind the Atlas is bullshit. It's the most frustrating bullshit in the goddamn game. The only two goddamn maps that dropped (aside from about a dozen T6 or lower) are essentially blanks until I've farmed a bunch of other T10s. Due to the awfulness of the Atlas, instead of getting two good maps I could run, I got zero fucking maps I can run and two map-looking things that will take up space in my stash for a while.

My choices at this point:

1) Unlock other T9s, further reducing my chance for both a Crypt (to farm Museums) or a Museum to drop. This option is shit.

2) Farm lower tier maps hoping for Crypts. Huge downside is that other T8s are also adjacent to non-Crypt T9s. Other huge downside is that I'm absolutely fucking tired of farming these maps, which is why I was so damn happy to move on to T9. This option is shit.

3) Run the Arsenals, possibly getting some good maps, but also completely fucking over my future progression into T10s. This option is shit.

It looks like I'm fucked. On the plus side, that's just the status fucking quo when it comes to mapping under the Atlas.

Please fix this abomination, GGG. I can't even run my best fucking maps! What a terrible fucking system!

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Jennik wrote:

...Regardless, locking basic content behind trading is bad design...

It wouldn't be if GGG... *gasp*... dare I mention it...
actually put trading in the game.

As it stands now: I agree. It is mostly hot garbage.

I agree that it's BS you can't run your best maps.

It's BS that there are best maps. :|

And I doubt there will ever be "toggle this switch to control whether or not this map will drop".

The new Atlas takes the already excessive grinding problem and makes it massively worse. There are branches everywhere that have to be unlocked by grinding instead of via the vendor recipe. The vendor recipe already sucks, since it means you aren't able to run a significant number of the already scant supply of appropriately-leveled maps that drop.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you added something in 3.1 to not make this a complete hell for SSF players. Please don't tell me you simply made the problem worse.



The T2 map next to Dungeon leads to three different maps! This is a goddamn nightmare if you haven't made a significant change in how players unlock maps.

i hope the new atlas is gonna be randomized each league. that'd be pretty sweet. t1 abyss and t15 jungle valley!

yepp...

The current system only "works" if you go with the speed meta shape your atlas for max farming type of unlock.. and preferably buy the maps you need..

If you don't play like that... your boned....


Could do with a major overhaul..

I think this would be vastly improved, by allowing all maps adjacent to every of your unlocked maps to drop everywhere. This way you wouldn't need to hesitate to run your higher tier maps, while still remaining the feeling of carving a path into your atlas (which would get lost somehow with the automatic unlock).
To give players who want to shape their atlas to only have specific maps drop, the same amount of control, one could just give them the option to seal the connections of a map to others (maybe even specific ones, by clicking on the paths in the atlas), for example after they finish the bonus objective of the map.


It would make things much easier for solo selffound players. (And to be exact for a little slower players, even if they try to trade, too - I regularly run into this problem. I'm more of a casual player, by the time I reach late yellow or the first red maps, most others who play a bit more, have long finished everything there is. It's possible, but no fun, trying to find people who trade single low tier maps with you, for one alch, or so, at later times in a league...)

Or they could instead GUARANTEE that you drop a percentage of time maps at the same tier or higher...

Bosses should award you for the first run of those maps with a higher tier map linked, so you could either sell/disregard that and continue progressing/shaping your Atlas...

Hopefully, major improvements to the "Atlas of Worlds" experience are coming with 3.1 aka War for the Atlas...