Cumulative Atlas Completion Bonus

TL;DR:
Old Atlas Bonus: 1% cumulative bonus to map drop rate per map completed (up to 123~125%). Overall map drops reduced by 33% to compensate at lower levels.

New Atlas Bonus: 1% chance for a map drop to upgrade by a tier per map completed (up to 123~125%). Higher than 100% means it can go up a second tier. Capped at maximum level that could drop from that monster (same as before). There is no reduction to map drop rates.

Explanation:
In Atlas of Worlds, one of the mechanics designed to encourage lateral exploration of the Atlas is the cumulative bonus that you receive for completing bonus objectives on maps. This works really well to encourage players to play a diverse set of map types and to try rolling them to be harder than they normally would.

So far during development, the bonus has been set to a cumulative 1% increase to map drop rates that stacks multiplicatively with other things that increase map drop rates. We picked this because it means that if you aren't finding enough high-tier maps, you can complete more low maps to increase your chances.

Our data shows that players currently find a surplus of low-tier maps, reaching map starvation only in the higher tiers. Because you could now unlock a bonus of up to 123% more maps, we tried lowering the base drop rate of maps by around a third to offset this. Under the new system, you would start off finding fewer maps but would be able to quickly unlock enough to offset this and surpass it. We added more map drops during Merciless difficulty to help ensure that players would have built up a large enough map base before they started mapping.

Our internal testers and alpha testers found that this new system had various problems. The new lower drop rates meant that low-tier map starvation was a real possibility. While the players would have tools to combat this, we do want players of various skill levels to experience the Atlas of Worlds content, so we don't want the drop rates to be functionally that different than they are in the previous version of Path of Exile.

We are now testing with the 1% cumulative bonus per map not being a map drop rate bonus, but a bonus chance to upgrade a map drop to the next tier. For example, a 60% bonus means that there's a 60% chance that a map drop is a tier higher than it otherwise would be. If the bonus exceeds 100% then the remainder represents an additional chance of it upgrading two tiers. (You would not be able to find a map that is unable to drop in the area you're currently playing.)

This system allows us to remove the penalty introduced with the previous one, and means that players who complete more types of maps do find significantly better map drops and can sustain higher-tier content more easily. We feel it works a lot better than the other system and are likely to use this bonus in the released version of Atlas of Worlds.

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mardukthewolf wrote:

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(You would not be able to find a map that is unable to drop in the area you're currently playing.)

Does this means that you can still only find a maximum of two tiers above the map that you are currently playing in?(the way it is now) or would you be able to find a map that is higher than that provided that you have unlocked it (such as finding a t15 from the boss in a t11 map)

Correct, if you're in a tier 11 map then the boss can drop a tier 13 map at most. It's just a lot more likely if you have a huge bonus.