[suggestion] Sextants incorporation into war of the atlas

Assumption :

Current sextant implementation is troublesome for overall balance and implementation of future content as demonstrated by the downgrade of "war of the atlas" implementation due to sextant efficiency.

Proposed solution :

- decoupling sextants from the atlas map, how and why?

-> The why should be obvious, but i'll state it just the same.
It looks fucking terrible! Seeing a fully sextanted atlas has no redeeming factors for the eye's, intuition or anything else. It's a big messy visually represented clusterfuck resembling a piece of paper where you told a three year old to go nuts drawing circles.
It's hard to believe this was the active result of somebody that calls himself a designer putting effort into a system.
Being "user-friendly" or "intuitive" should be one of the main focuses for somebody attempting to design a complex system.
The results of the system can and should be complex but the use of such a system should hide this.

If you agree/disagree feel free to state so and provide reasoning. But in doing so, be mindful of the
"new-player-experience" and project yourself into their position when encountering this "sextant" system currently implemented.

-> Moving on to the "how".

The initial phase of this would come in the form of no longer visually representing sextants on the atlas itself.(if we agree and have established that it only results in a visual clusterfuck that makes it needlessly hard to condense relevant information from it)

We can do this quite easily with some modifications to how sextants operate as a whole and where the player is required to utilize them.

- Zana's map device now gets three additional slots underneath the "activate" symbol used to initiate a map. These slot's can now be occupied with sextant's. Preferably a right click menu is added to facilitate user friendliness and combat fatigue, this menu should allow either one of three sextant's to be put in and would search the stash if you have them, similar to how vendor's operate.
As such a player is not required to take them out of the stash every X maps but can simply activate them from within the map device itself.

When applied to the map device, the sextant is activated and shows it's random property.(hovering over the sextant should display it's property) If the sextant is replaced(random property is found to be negative by the player) the old one is consumed, just like the current system.

With this, we fix quite some issue's that are inherent in their current implementation

- Atlas visual cluttering
- Ability to sextant block
- inability of development to properly account for sextant usage and blocking in overall balance directions

Moving on.

-> Sextants and how they would need to function in this new system.

If such a system is implemented, obviously sextants themselves would require an overhaul, but again, this can be done quite effectively while keeping certain aspects in place already.

Currently we have three sextants available, this can be kept in place. But they would need to be inherently different to accommodate this new system of using sextants.

white sextants : add one random modifier to the map
yellow sextants : add two random modifiers to the map
red sextants : add three random modifiers to the map

This function within the new system, since everybody has a limit of three sextant slots as a maximum. Inherently yellow and red sextants gain favor by allowing more modifiers for a single slot investment.

Take note, that these can also roll "non optimal" map modifiers. So a red sextant might add two optimal modifiers, while also providing a non optimal one, thus creating a harder choice to roll over the non optimal one.(investment vs efficiency calculation becomes a lot harder to accurately pin-point)

So we can deduce from this that an optimal sextanted map could potentially have up to nine modifiers on it, while the lowest would be one and a variety in between.
But using only white sextants(which are arguably cheap/common) can easily favor three positive modifiers, while using higher sextants has a higher probability of also tossing in non-optimal modifiers.

Creating friction between sextants and war of the atlas

On top of these changes, it would be plausible to also introduce rule-sets for unlocking the sextant location on the map device.

For example, Zana could demand you have 15 white maps unlocked on your atlas to grant the usage of the first sextant position.
For the second sextant position she could demand 10 yellow maps be unlocked.
For the third and final sextant position she could demand 10 red maps be unlocked.

It is also possible to use a "trickle down system" in which yellow sextants can only be utilized after you have the second sextant position unlocked.(so after you unlock 10 yellow maps, you can now utilize yellow sextants on both position one and two)
And the same rule could be applied to red sextants. So you would first have to unlock the final sextant position before being allowed to utilize red sextants in this new system.

If you made it this far, cheers.

Feel free to like share and subscribe @BoemInc \o

Thoughts are always appreciated, though hopefully constructive.

Peace,

-Boem-

I think you made it more complex then needed... :)


Change the sextants to the leaguestone concept should do the trick.
And make it so that bad ones gives more bonuses to quantity/rarity/mob density.

Fits perfectyly with war for the atlas since you can run any map without worrying about fubaring your sextant blocking.

League stones gave a lot of player-fatigue.

It's fun at the start but becomes a hassle over the span of 500+ maps.

I tried to make it behave like that system while also incorporating things that combat player-fatigue, like incorporating it in the map device which we already utilize on every map and take sextants directly from the stash without the hassle of having to take them every time you need to load up on a next batch.

It's a similar system though.

My representation is complex because i like to tackle different angles of the mater at once. Implemented it would be intuitive and more user friendly then what we have now though.

Zana could offer the quest to unlock the first sextant position for example and players will utilize a system if they "unlock" it more actively.
Similar to how you spend a passive point when you "unlock" it.

It also combats differences of sextants utility across the players in therms of wealth.(triple white sextant being easier to roll 3 good modifiers, while red sextants possibly allowing 9 modifiers on a map but not all good. On average though, more then 3 good modifiers depending on mod pools)

The system itself CAN be complex inherently. But it should be represented in the game in a user friendly manner and with a low barrier of entry.

So yeah apologies for expanding on it, but it is required to keep the inherent complex value's while also addressing it's design flaws.

Peace,

-Boem-

is it relevant?

i mean what percentage of players uses (masses of) sextants at all? 3%? 5%?

those sextants of "reddit sextant blocker speedygame players" need to come from somewhere as you rarely find them. my guess is, most players just sell them.


the general problem is that sextants can be overwritten which kind of removes the risk of applying them. your solution also has this flaw.

so either make the application permanent for 3 maps or make all sextanted maps have increased monster damage so someone who applied more than 3 sextants to an area has a higher risk (and maybe also higher rewards).

you will definitely see less heavily sextanted atlas after that.


edit: i'm aware that with making them harder even less people would use them. but currently it's simply more profitable to sell them cause they're so rewarding without any backdraw. if they get cheaper more people will sparsely use them.

"

cronus wrote:

Spoiler

is it relevant?

i mean what percentage of players uses (masses of) sextants at all? 3%? 5%?

those sextants of "reddit sextant blocker speedygame players" need to come from somewhere as you rarely find them. my guess is, most players just sell them.


the general problem is that sextants can be overwritten which kind of removes the risk of applying them. your solution also has this flaw.

so either make the application permanent for 3 maps or make all sextanted maps have increased monster damage so someone who applied more than 3 sextants to an area has a higher risk (and maybe also higher rewards).

you will definitely see less heavily sextanted atlas after that.


edit: i'm aware that with making them harder even less people would use them. but currently it's simply more profitable to sell them cause they're so rewarding without any backdraw. if they get cheaper more people will sparsely use them.

The problem with your underlying suggestion

"simply make them permanent" is that people would just sacrifice three maps to get rid of them.

Are you suggesting this in my proposed system, or the currently implemented use of sextants?

I don't consider the ability to overwrite them a flaw, but a sink and cost vs efficiency thought process.
In my proposed system however, somebody that wants to utilize triple red sextants to hunt for great gains also has to deal with the few poor modifiers that come with the good ones.(since one red sextant provides three modifiers all together, thus rolling over it would also negate the positive ones)

And without the ability to block rolls, people would naturally have to deal with more downsides of the system.(though again, in my system this would not be the case for white sextants since they are readily available and only offer one modifier, thus allowing a simple "re-roll" to get rid of it)
Moving to yellow sextants would allow more favorable rolls, but would also invite more chances at bad rolls.(this is in line with map/difficulty progression)

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : to clarify my system

a total of three sextant slots are available

white sextants = 1 modifier
yellow sextants = 2 modifiers
red sextants = 3 modifiers

Making the available range go from 1 to 9 max, but the 9 max is also divided into groups of 3 modifiers per sextant slot thus is harder to manipulate.

Bump and into the abyss it goes.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

"simply make them permanent" is that people would just sacrifice three maps to get rid of them.

Are you suggesting this in my proposed system, or the currently implemented use of sextants?

it was to fix the current system.

"

Boem wrote:

I don't consider the ability to overwrite them a flaw, but a sink and cost vs efficiency thought process.

works as long as they're expensive.

"

Boem wrote:

In my proposed system however, somebody that wants to utilize triple red sextants to hunt for great gains also has to deal with the few poor modifiers that come with the good ones.(since one red sextant provides three modifiers all together, thus rolling over it would also negate the positive ones)

yeah, that would be a desired effect. could work.

my idea was just that the system of circles works for the passive tree and the just copied the tech over to the atlas so it would work there too if people would choose to apply less sextants.

but i'm afraid ggg likes the idea of streamers running maps with an crazy amount of mods with no real backdraw. it looks impressive for outsiders (newbs and maingame players) but that's what eventually counts more than the gameplay experience.

"

Boem wrote:

Assumption :

Current sextant implementation is troublesome for overall balance and implementation of future content as demonstrated by the downgrade of "war of the atlas" implementation due to sextant efficiency.

Proposed solution :

- decoupling sextants from the atlas map, how and why?

-> The why should be obvious, but i'll state it just the same.
It looks fucking terrible! Seeing a fully sextanted atlas has no redeeming factors for the eye's, intuition or anything else. It's a big messy visually represented clusterfuck resembling a piece of paper where you told a three year old to go nuts drawing circles.
It's hard to believe this was the active result of somebody that calls himself a designer putting effort into a system.
Being "user-friendly" or "intuitive" should be one of the main focuses for somebody attempting to design a complex system.
The results of the system can and should be complex but the use of such a system should hide this.

I'm glad you did the sensible thing, and said why, because it honestly isn't that practical to know. I mean, apparently people still think trade is a good thing, and to me it is completely obvious why it isn't. Anyway, back to the point:

I completely agree, but I think you are underestimating how badly the players beat on the original idea here: I'd lay good odds that in the original design conception people used sextants to throw some extra, semi-random stuff on some maps they were gonna run five of, and then the sextant was gone.

This whole sextant-blocking thing where you place them to strategically optimize a handful of maps, which you then proceed to run until your brain falls out, or whatever, is the biggest contributor to the problem you describe.

As a thought exercise to validate this, try this one: imagine that sextants didn't block anything, any longer, and could only be removed by running maps in their radius. Would people now place so many of them at once on the map? (Obviously, I think the answer is no, because the risk of having bad overlapping effects would be too high.)

So... I agree that the current system isn't great, and definitely isn't intuitive or friendly. I'm not sure I agree with your solutions, but it is probably natural that I favor mine. ;)

"

SlippyCheeze wrote:

I'm glad you did the sensible thing, and said why, because it honestly isn't that practical to know. I mean, apparently people still think trade is a good thing, and to me it is completely obvious why it isn't. Anyway, back to the point:

I completely agree, but I think you are underestimating how badly the players beat on the original idea here: I'd lay good odds that in the original design conception people used sextants to throw some extra, semi-random stuff on some maps they were gonna run five of, and then the sextant was gone.

This whole sextant-blocking thing where you place them to strategically optimize a handful of maps, which you then proceed to run until your brain falls out, or whatever, is the biggest contributor to the problem you describe.

As a thought exercise to validate this, try this one: imagine that sextants didn't block anything, any longer, and could only be removed by running maps in their radius. Would people now place so many of them at once on the map? (Obviously, I think the answer is no, because the risk of having bad overlapping effects would be too high.)

So... I agree that the current system isn't great, and definitely isn't intuitive or friendly. I'm not sure I agree with your solutions, but it is probably natural that I favor mine. ;)

^As long as sextant remain something that interact's and is used directly on the Atlas it will be troublesome.

GGG will have to balance and contemplate every and all abuse/excess cases created by this function, for which i believe they simply don't have the personal or time.

As a result of this, they are also limited with actual manipulation of the Atlas for players. We can shape maps currently, but what is to say GGG doesn't want to add other layers to this functionality to allow players even greater control over their mapping experience?
Sextants in their current implementation forcefully downgrade all play-styles that don't abuse an optimal setting severely.

I believe it needs to become an active currency that manipulates maps directly, and not the atlas.

I don't disagree the current system would behave differently if blocking is no longer allowed, but my system accomplishes that as-well while also providing a better and more intuitive frame-work for it.

Peace,

-Boem-

Bumping, maybe others wanna share opinions on this subject.

Peace,

-Boem-