The Atlas Feels Oppressive

op·pres·sive
/əˈpresiv/
adjective
unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate group.

CRITIQUE

TL;DR = Simply put, the Atlas map system subjects players to wholly unnecessary constraints in its current implementation.

A short list of my current gripes with the system.

1) Forced map type completion is of no benefit. Vaal Factory is STILL awful comparatively. Being forced to complete a string of undesirable maps to reach a citadel or tower or whatever is just patently unfun.

2) Terrible GUI for the Atlas from a player useability perspective. The bookmarks can barely even be considered a band-aid for what is a problem of such magnitude. Navigating the Atlas after you've branched out from the start is just plain obnoxious. Trying to think about where to go next on an atlas that you've been exploring for 2 months is straight up painful. You want an example of a game system that completely shatters the the rhythm of gameplay and rips the player out of the game? The Atlas is a perfect example.

3) There aren't anywhere even approaching enough interesting things to find on the Atlas. You wanna know why people aren't excited about towers besides their obvious design issues (which have thankfully been at least partially addressed)? It's because 9 times out of 10 when you reveal an area after completing a tower there is simply nothing new to be excited about moving towards. Condensing the amount of towers down in 0.2 has only served to exacerbate this issue. In 0.1, towers served as a pseudo-reward to clear towards on the atlas.


SUGGESTIONS

1) Get rid of the pre-defined paths on the Atlas. Just... get rid of them. Give the player a radius/distance that they can travel on the Atlas instead. If an Atlas node is within that radius of a completed node, the player can go there. Let the PLAYER pick the path through the Atlas, not your terrible procedural world generation.

2) Give us some kind of god/meta/world view of the Atlas. It doesn't need to be 10x the zoom, but rather should be a new UI tailored towards displaying the massive amount of information that a largely explored Atlas throws at the player. Let us use filters to hide/highlight the map types/mechanics/bosses/whatever that we want. I guarantee that if the click and drag Atlas exploration that we have now remains as the primary method of Atlas exploration it will become an issue of significant contention in the future.

3) Add more unique maps. Add tons of special modifiers that can randomly spawn on normal map nodes. Add literally ANYTHING that will get people hyped to reveal all the nodes surrounding that next tower.


SOME RAMBLING

I just gotta say, I'm really disappointed that the Atlas as it is seems to be what GGG is settling on as the end-game for PoE2. When EA released I distinctly remember Jonathan indicating that the Atlas was merely something that was rushed together as a temporary end-game so that they could get the game into the hands of the players. Now it appears that the Atlas will be the end-game system that "ships" with 1.0s full release (whenever that is).

I just... I'm not excited to interact with the Atlas at all. It feels even more like a chore than it did in 0.1. Maybe that's just me though since it was new and unique at EAs release and now it's just this thing I have to interact with to do what I want, which is to create interesting maps to hunt loot in and progress my characters power.