Feedback on NEW patch/citadels

I was thinking about this for quite a bit and it feels weird


Jonathan and Mark were correct about citadels spawnrate, It was all about discoverability HOWEVER, and this is the weird part:

Citadels seem to appear certain distance away from other citadels, thats fair
BUT how the atlas works in endgame suggests that correct gameplay is clearing bad maps and towers first, then using tablets to juice up the untouched good maps, then clearing them.

Because of that we are more or less incentivized to clear most of the encountered maps that could be withing range of even multiple towers, but the thing is if we do play like that, we do not explore further away while doing it, so it doesn't really matter where the citadel is, playing for citadels kind of create its own endgame/playstyle.

Feels like you either juice up maps and play those or just rush citadels and lose out on potentially more entertaining gameplay. Especially strange because if you consider searing exach/eater a similar system, it works well regardless of maps you run.

You could import the whole thing and say "okay well X completed maps will cause the next slain mapboss to drop a tablet that causes 1 map to become a citadel in range"

I think both current citadels and the general mapping is done great, but the gameplay seems conflicting for them so it feels bad to give up on one part so you benefit from the other.

I explored straight right from the beginning. This is across 5 characters doing mapping. In that time I ran into 4 citadels, all of which were very close to each other(within a screen or so). I now see 2 flames a bit more right in the fog of war, again about a screen from any nearby citadel.

I did not know how to juice maps so I never stopped and cleared. My 5th character started juicing and sure enough this led me *away* from the 2 citadels I now see in the fog of war.

that's why i enjoyed invitations in poe 1, u could run exactly the maps u wanted, and all of them did count toward invitation progression

still would be nice too see this in poe 2, that means, get rid of the citadels on atlas, make invitations drop after clearing let's say 10-13 x T15 maps, use invitations in the realm gate

At this point Atlas needs a full rework.

Such a long list of cons to match the list of pros the Atlas system offers. Here's just a few:

Pros:
- Relatively new and innovative, I can't think of any other ARPG doing this
- Adds some flavor and story to the otherwise very simple "spam maps" endgame
- Looks alright, when it works and you don't have to pan everywhere, which gives
mapping more identity

Cons:
- Sluggish to pan, not enough Zoom
- Bugs out often, have to relog
- Can't search
- No highlighting for important locations
- Pure RNG, and the player's ability to control the RNG isn't interesting
- Citadels too annoying to find, even after patch (I went from 0 visible to 2 visible, but they are still about 10 nodes out of range)
- Towers are bad, boring repetitive gameplay where the player is HEAVILY incentivized to waste their time running a very low tier map for very low tier rewards, yet they doubled down and added MORE towers.
- Doyani's quests are bad and he does nothing for you, despite strongly suggesting he will be your ally when conquering the Atlas
- 1 death per map... lol

The list does go on, these are just what came to mind quickly.