Following up on Jonathan's Mapping idea

Hello Exiles.

Yesterday in Tavern Talk, one of the things that was discussed was Atlas Mapping and dying. Jonathan described how he would like to let the player retry an Atlas node if they die, by letting them insert another waystone. However, he was not sure how to make this work without players abusing the system to reset mobs and encounters, and farm specific aspects of the waystone in an unethical way.

I made this thread so we could discuss and expand on his idea.

Here are a few that I have:

1) When a player enters an Atlas node, a "deactivated" version of the waystone they just used is placed into the players inventory.

This waystone can be reactivated to use on other Atlas nodes by using a special new type of item that can be found in certain types of content, such as expeditions and rituals. This means that the player can have a return on investment in an organic way and not feel so bad when they fail.

2) When a player fails an Atlas node, the node does not reset and the player can make a decision on whether they want to spend another waystone to re-enter and finish the node.

The vendor that sells waystones to the player now sells a special type of waystone that just reactivates the map node if it has a fail state. The thing to consider here to prevent abuse is the state of the map content completion upon death.

In my view, mobs/packs would not respawn, boss encounters would reset if they are not dead, and content such as expeditions would already be in the state they are in just before the player failed. The exception to this would be rituals which will be in a failed state, but the player can still do other rituals if they are in the area.

Loot that has dropped will remain on the map until the player enters another node entirely. This makes it functionally the same as if the player just left the map to go to the hideout and came back.
This could effectively allow the player to pick up loot they may have missed by dying, by paying a small fee to the waystone vendor.

3) Portals/retries are tied to the tier of the waystone.

You could ease the player into early mapping by reducing the punishing aspect of there being only one attempt at the start, and as the player progresses through the waystone tiers they get less and less portals/retries.

For example, a tier 1 waystone might have 6 portals and lower rolls on prefixes/suffixes, but tier 12 and above waystones might only have 1 portal/retry but have access to rolling on higher versions of those prefixes/suffixes.

The way this might work is that a tier 1 to tier 11 waystone might only get a maximum of say 200% more gold one of its rolls, and in tier 12 and above that can go up to 300%-400% with a minimum roll of lets say 150%.

You could even divide this even further and have a lower tier (1-6, 6 portals), a mid tier (7-11, 3 portals), and a high tier (12-16, 1 portal).

More risk, more reward.

Trial of Sekhemas

This is going to go a bit off-topic, but it is related none-the-less.
I think that one attempt at the final boss on the 4th floor in Trial of the Sekhemas is too punishing for new players trying to get their ascendancy, due to the fact that the player will inevitably die the first time if they are not running an overpowered build or paying for a carry.

Yes, you could watch a Youtube video guide of the fight before you do it (which I don't like in video game culture in general) but you still do not have the experience of actually being in the fight.
My own solution to this would be to have the boss have as many attempts as the player needs until they get their ascendancy point, then afterwards in future runs they get a limited amount of retries.

Bump