[3.9] Atlas, Self-Determined Progression, and Thanks

For the longest time I've played this game, I've held true to one principle that I've never once compromised: Progression should not have to be traded for. As grueling as the RNG in this game is, any player can reach the endgame picking up the garbage rares on the floor or crafting if they're wealthy enough to do it. It's one of the reasons why I've enjoyed the summoner playstyle all these years, as it's a build that wasn't too heavily dependent on gear nor trading in order to succeed.

However, there is one aspect in the game that has given me the most grief, the one thing that has made it difficult for me to enjoy PoE to its fullest, because I felt the progression was gated so hard that trading was mandatory: Mapping. Since as far back as I can remember, the ability to sustain maps got harder the further you climbed up in tiers where it reaches peak difficulty in red maps. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how many maps I modded to have >100% IIQ, I simply could not sustain T11+ maps, and the strats to improve my chances further were way too narrow and the cost in attempting this left me feeling like I'm losing more currency than I'm gaining as my sextants dwindled along with my chaos orbs. In almost every league I've played prior, my playtime stopped after a month as I remained trapped in T10 and lower maps, struggling to get anything higher. My builds were more than ready to tackle the challenge T11+ maps had, but being stuck fighting the same mobs in T10 got easy and boring, compelling me to quit early.

I've only ever had one exception to this, and this was back in Betrayal league before Cartographer Scarabs got nerfed. The huge "more" modifier to map drops was enough to allow me to not only sustain red maps, but also reach and fight the Shaper for the first time ever, followed shortly after by Uber Elder. This was the closest this game has ever been to giving players the freedom to choose how to progress through the game at their own pace, based on their own playstyle. And for this, that league will always have a special place in my heart.

Then everything changed when 3.9 came out. At first I was expecting the redesigned Atlas to be no different from before, where slotting watchstones not only raised the tiers of the maps in the region, but lowered their drop rate. I was wrong. It took me only a week or two to get 16 watchstones and have all maps in the center regions be turned to T14+. I haven't seen red maps drop this commonly since before Cartographer Scarabs got nerfed, and all I do is chisel+alch+vaal my maps while using sextants on the rare occasion.

I was ecstatic!

Slowly but surely, I worked my way around the remaining corner regions. One after the other, I got 4 stones from each of them. With every corner I complete, the more red maps I felt were dropping.

And today is the day I slot in my 32nd watchstone, and I take this moment to look at my Atlas as it sits Awakened before me. 149/154 83/154. All done by me, through my effort alone with no map trading whatsoever. My goal of reaching the topmost challenging content has been met, my principle still held true.

3.9 has, for me, become one of the most enjoyable updates I've ever experienced in the game. I know a lot of people criticize this update for Sirus being a right pain in the ass coupled with the grueling RNG of conqueror spawns, of which I can agree, but the Atlas and the ability to let players progress through the tiers on their own pace is the best highlight of this update.

I can only hope this stays. Nerf the summoner for all I care, nerf metamorph rewards in 3.10, just let us sustain red maps like this from here on out.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making the Atlas into something anyone can achieve. I can finally enjoy PoE to its fullest.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

For the longest time I've played this game, I've held true to one principle that I've never once compromised: Progression should not have to be traded for.

Just to be a butt, If you want to target farm a specific map now for a specific divination card or a hideout with the current system you must basically trade for it :)

Ok now that.. that is out of the way i have a question for you.

Have you ever finished your atlas pre 3.9 and established any shaper/elder target farm strategies for a specific map/s?

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Have you ever finished your atlas pre 3.9 and established any shaper/elder target farm strategies for a specific map/s?

The only time I've finished the Atlas was back during Betrayal league. I never did any successful target farming, because I ran out of maps I wanted to farm, and the means to establish these strategies felt more like I was losing more currency than I was gaining.

I should note that nothing I said in my OP had anything to do with target farming. The topic had more to do about map sustain, specifically red maps.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Have you ever finished your atlas pre 3.9 and established any shaper/elder target farm strategies for a specific map/s?

The only time I've finished the Atlas was back during Betrayal league. I never did any successful target farming, because I ran out of maps I wanted to farm, and the means to establish these strategies felt more like I was losing more currency than I was gaining.

I should note that nothing I said in my OP had anything to do with target farming. The topic had more to do about map sustain, specifically red maps.

Yeah i know it didn't but as someone who's giving positive feedback on the current atlas i was actually curious if you had experienced some of the positive effects of the old one and since you seem like a nice person i thought i'd get a genuine answer out of you.

So thanks :D

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Have you ever finished your atlas pre 3.9 and established any shaper/elder target farm strategies for a specific map/s?

The only time I've finished the Atlas was back during Betrayal league. I never did any successful target farming, because I ran out of maps I wanted to farm, and the means to establish these strategies felt more like I was losing more currency than I was gaining.

I should note that nothing I said in my OP had anything to do with target farming. The topic had more to do about map sustain, specifically red maps.

Yeah i know it didn't but as someone who's giving positive feedback on the current atlas i was actually curious if you had experienced some of the positive effects of the old one and since you seem like a nice person i thought i'd get a genuine answer out of you.

So thanks :D

Well I appreciate you thinking I'm a nice person. Unfortunately, I can't say I've had a good experience with the Atlas in all the time I played before 3.9 on account of my map sustain plateauing at T10 with the exception of Betrayal league and perhaps Harbinger league.

While this is mostly of a self personal experience, I'm not happy with the current system regarding endgame and how many maps it takes to get 32 stones, not sure how's the atlas after 3.9 went out of alpha and moved into beta what we have right now.

The current system has alot of issues that 3.10 must fix.. I was getting more red maps before than this new system that even with x2 100%+ bonuses maps sustaining could give you an issue here and there specially how the real endgame turns out to be.. (complete RNG fest)

congrats to you, good for you if you enjoy it.. but for me as someone who mostly tries to chase the endgame I'm not too happy with how much times it takes and how casino based they designed it.

This has also been the first league where I made it to 36/40, and I might get lucky to hit 39 before it's over. There's no way I'm gonna be able to complete the endgame grind, I keep getting killed by things I couldn't see so level 100 is gonna be impossible and I still need 68 more Sirus kills which are all gated by RNG.

The furthest I've ever reached in any league prior was 31/40 back in Betrayal. This has certainly been the best experience I've had with the game in a long time, and barring things like conqueror RNG and the usual new bugs added onto the pile of existing ones, I hope this trend continues.

I am honestly surprised that you were never able to sustain maps by yourself before. I mean I didn't play Legion and Blight league, only standard, but I had no trouble sustaining maps there selffound during those leagues despite not having access to the league mechanics. Not to mention that Legion was dropping maps like candy according to the forums back then.

Getting so many tier 15/16 maps is nice though, I could sustain tier 14-15 rather easily before, but tier 16 used to be tough. Now I am struggling more with tier 14 then with tier 16.

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Bex_GGG wrote:

We'll also be removing the "x% chance for Maps to drop one tier higher" bonus from Awakening Bonus Objectives.

Changes to the Atlas of Worlds

Of all the things GGG could've changed in the Atlas, they decided to kill the biggest feature and once again force people to fucking trade for maps again.

G-fucking-G, GGG.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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Bex_GGG wrote:

We'll also be removing the "x% chance for Maps to drop one tier higher" bonus from Awakening Bonus Objectives.

Changes to the Atlas of Worlds

Of all the things GGG could've changed in the Atlas, they decided to kill the biggest feature and once again force people to fucking trade for maps again.

G-fucking-G, GGG.

yeah that change fucking suck, as casual it was godsend. Last league that was like that for me was harbinger.