In-Depth Feedback About the Endgame And The Design of The Atlas

Hello, I decided to create this topic because I see a lot of players and content creators talking about the endgame not being very good and lacking direction, but I feel like most suggestions and explanations I've seen only address the issues on a superficial level.

Of course, I know that GGG quickly assembled this endgame just so we have something during the early access, but before 0.3 I thought they would completely revamp or scrap this endgame to create something new up to 1.0. However, now I think this current atlas is not going anywhere and they are going to just improve upon it, so I guess I’ll help with feedback regarding the existing systems.

I'm going to make comparisons to PoE 1, not only because the current atlas was inspired by the Atlas + Delve from PoE 1, but because the first game should be the starting point to PoE 2 improve upon. Right now PoE 2 endgame is way behind PoE 1, so instead of worrying about how to make it different, we should be worried about getting it to a similar level, and then in future expansions they can make it more unique.

LACK OF A PROGRESSION SYSTEM
The main problem with the endgame is the lack of a clear progression system in the atlas. And I’m not talking about bosses or questlines, but something more mid-term to complete, that is not your immediate goal but is always in the background as you progress through the endgame.

In PoE 1, the main progression system was the atlas completion (maps bonus objectives). You complete a specific map, receive an atlas point and slowly progress through your atlas while doing other things, like questlines and fighting bosses. In Delve, you have the depth level and the Azurite system to buy upgrades, where both are related to each other so you can progress through higher depth levels to encounter new places and enemies.

In PoE 2 you just have some short-term objectives, like farming splinters and fragments to fight bosses. Citadels take a bit longer, but they don’t even work correctly in many cases (for a lot of players they just don’t appear on the atlas), and that’s again like a questline to fight a boss. The game needs something that you can complete over time and progress the world in some way.

Of course, not having challenge rewards is another big reason for the lack of direction. Eventually it'll be added to the game and things will get much better, but challenges should complement the game and not be the only mid/long-term goals.

VISUAL PROGRESSION
Another important aspect related to the lack of direction is the visual progression. Not of your character, but the content itself. When I open the atlas in PoE 1, I can clearly see the empty slots and the maps that I have already completed. When I open my Delve chart, I can see my current location and the area that I explored, and if I want to progress, I can clearly see that I need to go down. Having this type of visual representation of you progression through the world is an important aspect to make you feel engaged or show that you have a direction to follow, or just to feel fulfilled about the progress you’ve made so far.

In PoE 2 we don’t have a 2D/Interface representation of our progress on the atlas, so it’s already the first difference to the first game. I think we need some sort of progression map separate from the 3D world itself. Not necessarily an accurate representation of the world space, but something related to the content or completion of the world.

But the 3D world is also another problem, because there’s an overload of information and things happening on every direction, while at the same time nothing feeling important. My suggestion here would be removing the green light from completed maps. Make the node model something like some destroyed ruins or blend it with the terrain, so when you open the atlas you can clearly see the available maps (blue lights) instead of having blue and green lights mixed together all over the map.

Another weird thing is that you may find a citadel, but you also know that there are two other citadels on complete opposite sides. So you progress towards a specific side of the atlas, just to complete it and completely change directions. I like the exploration aspect, but I feel like I should have a main path with citadels slightly deviating from the original path while I explore, instead of being three completely different paths.

Now, if you look at the Atlas and Delve from PoE 1, the PoE 2 atlas is a combination of both, but I think they took too much from Delves and too little from the Atlas.

Delves worked because it was based on a vertical plane, so going down is the obvious direction and that’s something you don’t have on an infinite horizontal plane. In PoE 2 maps actually have a specific name and theme and could progress to some sort of atlas completion, but they appear randomly throughout the atlas and players don’t have the same level of control.

So my suggestion would be perhaps creating an atlas completion system similar to PoE 1, but since these maps appear randomly across the board, use the towers and create something similar to the Azurite power up system to help players with the exploration.

For example, imagine if you have maps where you can farm a currency/material and then you can use this material in the towers to upgrade your account view radius or show a beam through the fog towards a map that you still haven't completed. It'd be useful but not required for completion, and would not affect content and loot.

THE PROBLEM WITH TOWERS
I just talked a bit about towers but everybody agrees that towers feel bad because completing maps not affected by towers feels bad. But I think the problem goes beyond that and is also related to how the game tried to implement the Atlas and Delves from PoE 1.

In PoE 1 each map has a boss, which is the main objective. Killing rares as the map objective in PoE 2 just feels bad because it usually involves some sort of backtracking and also because it’s not that exciting and unique like killing a boss. So straight up, I don’t think it can be solved with rares, every map should have a boss as the main objective even in the basic nodes.

In Delve, nodes are related to item drops and not league mechanics. To me, finding random mechanics or customizing the atlas passive tree to find specific mechanics more frequently feel much better than choosing maps based on their predetermined mechanics.

So again, my suggestion would be going back to what PoE 1 did. Put a high chance of at least some mechanic spawn in any regular map (on top of the current league mechanic), and rework the atlas passive tree so players can specialize or block specific mechanics. Make towers affect the fog or exploration functions only.

Tablets are fine to add more content on top of basic maps if you can find a way to make them usable on any map without the need of towers. Perhaps you can put them in the map device and affect maps connected to the current selected map when the tablet is used, or something like that.

Corrupted areas and unique bosses are cool, I really like finding campaign bosses in the atlas, so nothing to add here.

As for maps in general, I think it could be more similar to Delves. Instead of mechanics, each map could have some type of guaranteed item drop from the boss, such as a type of gear, currency, uniques, etc., or the map itself could be unique or a special type of map without any additional stuff attached. You could also use tablets to change the type of drops of the maps influenced by the tablet in case you want something different, so basically Delve with more control.

ABOUT THE INFINITE LAYOUT
Personally, I liked Delve as an optional exploration content but I’m not a big fan of the infinite layout for the main endgame system. I created this thread to give feedback about the current system without expecting major reworks, but ideally I’d prefer a finite atlas where each map node is a specific map, like a 3D version of the atlas in PoE 1.

+1, very well written thread.

The infinite Atlas is really frustrating to look at after playing the endgame for a lot of hours. Theres TOO MUCH information, too many things to remember (Oh I had saved that abyss map under those 4 towers, etc), too many things to look at, CONTSANTLY try and figure out what map to even go to next.

After the initial impression most players have - Oh cool an infinite mapping system - It's terrible design, and I for one pray that it's COMPLETELY removed from the game.

Perhaps keep it as delve or some similar infinite scaling system, but please don't tie it to mapping in any shape or form.

I hope the next league isn't just another bad band-aid solution like "Less towers".