Monster effectiveness is a great scaling alternative to pack size

With the changes in v0.4 to the monster scaling in waystones, the progressing difficult feels smooth and similar throughout from T1 to T15. The monsters feels like they slowly hit harder and are tankier. The monster density feels just about right for the default, not too swarmy, but still enough monsters to feel as if you are running into a pack. Each pack feels separate where you can avoid aggroing adjacent packs. After clearing one pack, I can usually encounter the next pack by sprinting for 1-2 seconds. While running alch-n-go strategy in T15, the loot does feel similar to v0.3, maybe even a bit more (I get a lot more unique drops), which is great for keeping loot balanced when shifting from pack size scaling to effectiveness scaling.

I hope the endgame rework in v0.5 (hopefully) will provide the appropriate dials to turn the difficulty one way or the other in terms of mob density. Keep the v0.4 scaling as the default (with no atlas tree scaling) and allow the atlas tree to either:
1. convert monster effectiveness to pack size for those that like high mob density (as mentioned in the interview)
2. scale monster effectiveness for those that like the default v0.4 scaling (also convertable by #1)
3. significantly scale monster effectiveness while reducing pack size for those that would like even fewer, but tankier mobs

Supporting these 3 styles should allow most people to customize the atlas experience to their preference. This will span entire spectrum of "tons of squishy mobs" to "a few tanky mobs". Hopefully the league mechanics (breach, delirium, ritual, expedition, abyss) can be updated to also scale appropriately with this kind of atlas tree. Breach and delirium still feel very swarmy by default.

it's smooth only if you don't know what are you doing
me and most of my friends skipped from T1-T3 to T10 then to T15

game have just 1-2 mobs less per pack and in difficulty it's the same.
At end it's the same number of mobs - which is still to much

and still having identity crysis
not being for players who like zooming and nor for players who expect slower and meaningful gameplay with positioning and so on.
everyting is balanced around both groups


and it cannot be balanced to work for two groups Johnathan really don't understand how games works anymore...
for slower gameplay - you make map in 4-8 minutes and more juiced = longer - you areprogressing atlas slower
for waster you made map in one minute


50/50 is not a 50/50 as zoomer will progress much, much, much faster with same numbers due to more content and atlass map objective progression, finding strongholds, unique maps and so on.
it will work if more of monster effectivnessfor slower gameplay give you 500-2500% rarity while zooming give you 10-100% but it will not happen
they will tone 50/50 for sure.. and leave core group in trash-bin making us to progress atlas so slow so we can't even find citadels while zoomers will flood the market with exploits and divines from leeching.
Understand that- there's much more issues with that and that simple formula will not be balanced - and you need to take hardcore and SSF players on note here, trade and so on

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saashaa#5518 wrote:

for slower gameplay - you make map in 4-8 minutes and more juiced = longer - you areprogressing atlas slower
for waster you made map in one minute

That makes sense. I would like to keep the traveling aspect of the current Atlas as it adds a layer of purpose to mapping, but the slower vs faster gameplay would create that speed discrepency when traveling the atlas. The various league content also plays affects Atlas travel speed like the Vaal temples. I want to travel to find citadels which means I really don't want to run a Vaal temple because it slows my travel speed (regardless of the Vaal temple loot).

Assuming players move at the same speed, monster effectiveness should incentivize building damage to oneshot mobs while moving and pack size should incentivize AoE and defenses (maybe?) to clear the hoard and not be burst down while moving. Theoretically, that should result in similar clear speed. How that is balanced would affect how much each playstyle can invest in movement speed for faster clear then.