End Game Questline changes feel bad

Gettng through the Corrupted Nexus quests.

It's a bit baffling to me how the basic main end-game questline is RNG gated for one. For two, it serves as a dis-incentive to utilize the nodes that you've beefed up through precursor tables.

Hear me out: it'd be more efficient to run these beefed up nodes with more of my atlas tree completed, not less. But clearing Nexuses requires finding them, which requires beeline exploration through the fog of war. The entire tempo of the basic endgame just feels off, something that was not a problem in 0.1

Yes, there was RNG through the Arbiter of Ash quest line, but that's what I consider chase content. And you could always buy the boss ticket through the market. There exist ways around it.

Yes, you could say that the complete X maps of Y tier quests were uninspired, basic even, but it was servicible, and did not artificially gate atlas tree progression to an absurd degree.

I think what GGG has done with the corruption changes is cool. Maybe even tying a few of the atlas quest points to them would be ok too. But having this be the main way to unlock more points has turned out to be a very bad experience for me.

Please bring back the original questline, or innovate (and I am excited to see what GGG can do) something that does NOT gate basic atlas progression through RNG.

As an aside, it also feels bad that dying once to the corrupted nexus maps wipes off the node, you are denied the atlas point, and now need to do even more lengthy exploration to find the next one. This strikes me as unreasonably punishing.

Finding Corrupted Nexuses is a nightmare. There should absolutely be a marker or some indicator that points you toward the nearest Corrupted area. And when you do finally get one and fail it? It just feels bad. Losing two Atlas points because you didn’t bring a high-enough level map or you weren’t prepared sucks. It's punishing to the degree it makes you want to stop playing. Especially when you can't see any more corruption on your map.

PoE 1 atlas was more fun and the progression was better.

TLDR:
- Agree, nexuses incentivise less interesting and less fun play patterns in favour of optimising.

- Endgame feels overall directionless.

- Progression in endgame overall feels kind of pointless.

- Why is atlas progression not tied to towers since these are already the linchpin of the endgame system?

- Atlas points should be tied to clearing maps that are influenced by towers, so that players are actually incentivised to clear the maps they are juicing as they go, rather than ignoring them for later and beelining to the next nexus.

I think this is a great point that has affected my enjoyment of the new endgame and I couldn't (and still can't fully) quite put my finger on why. As much as the previous iteration had it's problems I mapped for at least a hundred hours in 0.1. In the current iteration I got up to t15-18s, 20ish atlas points, can clear everything comfortably and just kind of felt like 'okay I guess I'm done' within just a few of days of mapping.

My build and gear are very far from optimal, (I have used trade pretty minimally this time around) but I don't really feel like it's necessary or worth the time investment to get stronger when I am comfortably doing the highest map tiers at full juice and killing bosses quickly and easily.

I just feel quite directionless with the current endgame, like yes I could spend dozens of hours trying to find citadels to fight arbiter, or do hundreds of maps trying to get an audience with the king, put in hours farming up a breachstone to do Xesht, or simulacrum splinters to do simulacrum (did these in 0.1).. But it all feels kind of pointless? I don't really need any items from these bosses/events, and there is not really any particular reward/achievement for killing them outside of loot that I don't need. There are some more atlas points in their respective areas sure, but if I already feel like it's pointless to kill those bosses, then getting points that makes it easier to reach them to kill them again also feels pointless.

I only have 22 atlas points, so yeah I can keep searching for nexuses (nexi? nexuses sounds odd lol) and unique maps to get the rest, but again.. Why? It just feels kind of pointless. Some people might say well why not roll a new character then, which is fair and something I have been thinking about, but I am very much the type of player who likes to invest heavily into one character and optimise that character as much as possible, do everything there is to do with that character, try to get to level 100 if I have the time etc. So it's very odd feeling so ambivalent about the endgame and I feel like I will just run into the same issue with any other character.

I think as you pointed out the structure of the atlas points being linked to a nexus means that I am actively disincentivised from doing any of the juiced maps I find/create, as this would be suboptimal compared to just beelining to nexuses and unique maps until I am 40/40, and then coming back to do all the juiced content. This is not great, since I am losing interest before this occurs. I COULD go back and just do some of the juiced maps anyway, but this again feels bad as it is not really helping me to progress in any way that feels meaningful. You could argue well you're getting gear/currency, but again, why do I need this if I'm already strong 'enough'. So it just feels like I'm wasting my time and should be trying to find another nexus instead.

I don't understand why the endgame progression is not intrinsically linked to towers, as these are kind of the linchpin of the whole endgame mapping system anyway. Like why not something along of the lines of:

- You get 1 atlas point when you complete a tower map. This also heavily helps incentivises players to go for towers since this appears to be something the devs want. Make all tower maps have a boss so this feels a bit more rewarding/interesting.
- Then get 1 or more atlas points for completing all (or X amount) of maps within that tower radius that are influenced by that tower. This incentivises players to actually clear the maps they have just juiced with the tower, as well as better introducing this system of juicing then clearing to newer players who might know less about optimising their endgame.

I think this will also feel much better to be able to work through a section of the atlas one area at a time, tick that area off your 'to do list' and then move onto the next area. This would probably also help the atlas be cleaner and more readable, rather than the current system of beelining to towers hoping to find nexuses and ignoring most other maps and ending up with a messy and incomprehensible atlas that spans many screens and is full of a mix of cleared and uncleared maps. If you are instead clearing sections around towers as you go (and not feeling bad/suboptimal for doing this) then it will be much easier to parse the Atlas visually and figure out where you are on it. Not to mention the satisfaction of seeing areas all greened out because you've completed them instead of a random hodgepodge.