Mapping and Sextants, Questions from a Designer's Point of View

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The advantage of using sextants is so high, not using it is imperatively crippling.

Stop perpetuating this hyperbolic nonsense.

Yes, sextants are powerful, to the point where you should at least passively throw them on some maps, even if you're not doing the "chain one map endlessly and sextant block durrrrrrr" business.

But you are NOT crippling yourself by avoiding their use. There are PLENTY of ways to make money in the game, and I'll easily clear 100+ex by the time I'm done any given league without using a single sextant.

Not saying the system needs an overhaul, because it does, but lay off the apocalyptic verbiage.

good post , they definitely need to look into the sextant mechanic .. my expectation is that expansion in june or next one will bring total overhaul of sextants

Great read. Cover more or less lot of feedbacks that came lately about sextant.

I think somebody is going to hate me for that but i did prefer sextant beeing applied on maps randomly ( yeah i know it will remove the hamster sextant block from the game ). It just make sense to me, RnG based game.
Sooo yeah basicly using a sextant would apply to one of the 157 map but you couldn't decide wich one, it would keep offering you the chance to get more currencies, more monsters in maps and so on but randomly at all.

Would also legitimate cost GGG put into releasing 157 maps, not sure they are glad to see a large portion of players are running only 7/10 of them. Well maybe they are i don't know. I wouldn't personaly.

I still want to see the damn ugly circles go.
If Sextants HAVE to still exist, make them snake down the pathways from the affected map.

Map the pathways red. No more of this circle crap.

couldn't agree more, to be honest.

No intention of joining in on it either, I enjoy filling out my atlas, even though it's (for some reason) more rewarding to grind the same map over and over again.

Personally I wish they'd just be something you can use on a map as a one time thing, no blocking involved, and what you get is what you get.

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Abdiel_Kavash wrote:

I do not think it disincentivizes using other systems. Sextant charges are only expended when you run a map affected by that sextant. You can still run any other maps; for Atlas completion, to run Shaper/Elder influenced maps, or just because you like their layouts. The maps that you sextanted will be there waiting for you to return to them. There is no downside to running non-sextanted maps. A sextant you use on a map will always give you the same total benefits, regardless of which other maps you run.

Because of sextant blocking, there is a zone around your sextanted map that you don't want to run. Otherwise it will take further investment to re-setup blocked sextants. Sextant blocking makes running much more profitable and sustainable, you can remove the chance you will get zero return mods like slipstreams, damage, curse effectiveness, etc.

If you want to block a map like vault, you create a deadzone spanning 27 maps in the surrounding area. Lets say you want to run Maelstrom of Chaos; you end up using three sextants you blocked on which won't give you any returns, and one you had on vault. Adding a steep cost, especially for casual players, in running any map within that zone.

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First, I do not see why you consider this a downside. You could say this about any other beneficial mechanic in the game.

Second, I think you are overestimating the benefits a sextant can provide, especially for more casual players.

Yes, if you make a significant investment into managing sextant mods, as well as utilizing various other mechanics such as Atlas shaping, Zana mods, IIQ/R, etc. you can make a profit. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that it is completely crippling to simply ignore them or just sell them.

The problem is how the mods stack, having 8 on a map like vault with IIQ from gear, and Bisco's being multiplied by additional normal packs from sextants and breach, etc. Blocking increases the value of sextants greatly.

The rest of the game tries to reward playing challenging content (rewarding more pack size and IIQ for hard mods) as well as running various maps (elder/shaper influence). This system is arguably the most rewarding to engage in, with little to no risk and very stagnant gameplay.

There is no other system in the game that adds such heavy penalty to engaging with other content. Lab runners, crafters, boss farming, you don't have to worry about the other stuff you choose to do. There is a cost of entry, be it maps, fragments, or bases. But you don't lose any of those by doing something else instead.

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Airrows wrote:

The advantage of using sextants is so high, not using it is imperatively crippling.

Clear sign you don't really know what you are talking about.

At best, it should be phrased like this "If you want to run Vault or other 1 or 2 specific maps and don't run any other maps, because you wanna spend hundreds chaos orbs to sextant block, sextants can be a good idea. For anything else you are better off just selling them tbh."

I am not reading this wall of text .

Very good and I think you are talking out of the mind of thousands of PoE players!

They should once for all admit and either DELETE them and give us back mob density or change it for GOOD.

At the moment it serves only one purpose. The rich shaped Vault/Whatever is meta in the moment mappers, vs people who want to run more and different ones of their favourite maps.

Its only making diversity worse. GGG should check out /820 channel. Its like 80% of the massages in "MASTER SHARING CHANNEL" is about : Hosting sextanted breach shaped vault or EU/US/whatever Poorjoys Rotas.

Seriously, GGG should think about what is broken in this game and not close their eyes league for league. Doing the same map 1000000 times without any risk of dying + TONS OF PROFIT makes them rich. Playing the game to its full potential, testing out all content, mixing maps to spice everything up makes you POOR. You mostly end up with cheap maps and low rewards in general. I DAMN the day where they introduced those damn Sextants... This was a bad day for PoE.

But hey, abusers and Korea grinders will bash me for this opinion. Because according to their reddit hole its exactly like this:

Abuse the systems GGG provides you or go and rot.

This is exactly what defenders of Sextanting are saying. If you dont like it, stay poor and gtfo but let us do our 1 trick pony korea grind without any drawbacks and get MIRRORZ MIRRORZ.

I am so fed up with this crap I better stop ranting...

It's also my first league and while I can see the advantage and investment strategy of using sextends I have not used them at all.

I have accumulated a few EX; without knowing what I'm doing and minimal trade.

I do watch a lot of youtube videos like Ziz, tark, and cutedawg and lifting nerd brere and engineering eternity and also the interview with Chris Wilson. But in watching that interview and seeing the point of view of Mr. Wilson leads me to believe that all of the nuances and intricacies of sextendss and their assorted usage is an intentional design to make the big pushers and movers richer and the proletariat or people who do not have the level of knowledge to compete at the same level as map spammers are just to be left in the dust but content with their lot.

Equalizing the playing field is not what POE is about. Using your game knowledge and doing things efficiently (with various tabs etc) is what the game is really about. As far as everyone using the same strategy, that happens in every game and every time someone posts a video so it shouldn't be any surprise that people are going to be derivative and follow suits.

tl;dr: I'm not saying the system can't be easier to use or improved upon but the obtuseness is probably intentional.