[SUGGESTION] The Atlas is too big, too messy, and it lacks any sense of completion.
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Don't get me wrong, the Atlas is beautiful. It's a true marvel of design.
However, it is simply too big. After two weeks of mapping, the Atlas becomes overwhelmingly messy. There's little joy in scrolling across a hodge-podge of biomes that hold virtually no distinction. All of its charm is lost when you have to sift through it like Velma half-blindly looking for her glasses. ------------------------------- This is how I would improve the Atlas experience: The Atlas should have a finite size, about 4 screens in diameter. It should contain no more than three citadels. Upon completing the citadels, Doryani would give the player the option to travel to a fresh Atlas and start anew. Besides being more streamlined, far less messy, and offering a much needed sense of completionism, there are other potential benefits to this. 1. The ability to populate the Atlas with the player's preferred zones.
Spoiler
Upon talking to Doryani and choosing to move to a fresh Atlas, the player could be given the choice of their preferred biome types; desert-type zones, ice-type zones, forest-type zones, etc.
That's not to say that the Atlas should be entirely bespoke, but some degree of individualization would be nice. It could simply be a weighted effect, providing a slightly greater chance of encountering your preferred biomes. 2. Completion rewards.
Spoiler
If an Atlas is finite and has a completion goal (i.e. track down and defeat the citadels), then there is an opportunity to reward the player for continuous completions.
Every time a player completes an Atlas, Doryani might reward them with some sort of valuable item; a means of enhancing Precursors, perhaps. Or, more directly, a means of enhancing future Atlases as a whole. 3. "Special" Atlases.
Spoiler
As a reward for completing a string of Atlases—or perhaps at random—Doryani might offer to transport the player to a "special" Atlas.
These special Atlases would be much smaller than their standard counterparts, but chock-a-block with highly desirable nodes. Imagine an underworld Atlas filled with cave-like zones. Or an Atlas consumed by lava and volcanic rock. How about a misty Atlas entirely overrun by the effects of Delirium? These special Atlases could lean heavily into unique nodes, and be home to certain chase items, making the Atlases very worthwhile and exciting. 4. Progression-based empowerment of Atlas nodes.
Spoiler
If an Atlas is finite, it opens the door to the progression-based empowerment of the Atlas as a whole.
For example, if a player clears 10% of nodes on an Atlas, the remaining uncleared nodes become empowered in some way. Empowerment could mean a higher item quantity/rarity, or a higher monster density, or some sort of defined buff like "uncleared nodes now have one extra Rogue Exile". This could ramp as the player hits further progression milestones; 20%, 30%, 40%, etc. The player would have an actual incentive to clear trivial nodes. Currently, players are incentivized to completely ignore them. 5. A more focused progression-based goal.
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At the centre of every Atlas could be a special node.
That special node would be a one-time event, unlockable by clearing a certain percentage of Atlas nodes. 20%, perhaps. But for every percentage beyond that, the special node becomes more and more formidable. As its power grows, so too does its rewards. I'm thinking that it could operate as a wave-based boss arena. The higher the Atlas completion percentage, the more boss waves occur. When it hits its max limit (which could be around 80% Atlas completion), it spawns a pinnacle-type boss at the end. That would be one hell of an incentive to want to clear the Atlas. Entirely optional, of course, as some players might prefer to rush citadels and move on. But we like options. 6. No more Atlas loading issues.
Spoiler
I'm fortunate enough to play on a decent system, but I've seen the many reports of Atlas framerate issues, as well as lag.
I've also experienced the issue of the Atlas not loading properly when using bookmarks; the bookmarked area remains entirely grey, forcing the player to manually scroll around until the Atlas decides to start loading again. A finite Atlas would do away with all of these issues. 7. Search functionality becomes easier to implement.
Spoiler
A smaller, finite Atlas means that search functionality is very achievable.
The problem with the endless Atlas is that it doesn't load efficiently. The player has to manually scroll across it to jog its memory. This makes a search functionality highly problematic. A finite Atlas (being much smaller) would be ever-loaded, ever-present, and fully capable of seamless search functionality. ------------------------------- Perhaps ironically, the above suggestions would make the world of POE2 feel much larger. In its current endless form, it quickly becomes formless; a mess of random biomes strung together in a way that makes everything look the same. It cheapens the world aesthetic, creating something that feels more artificial than lived-in. Traveling between finite Atlases would give a sense of regional and geographical depth to the world. This becomes particularly true if each Atlas leans into a certain type/set of biome. I just don't think that an endless Atlas is good for the future of the game. It is very cool in concept, but it lacks direction and dilutes our view of the world. Last edited by WaywornExile#0835 on Oct 17, 2025, 8:10:18 AM Last bumped on Oct 28, 2025, 7:03:25 PM
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What I want, is an actual reason to want to clear every node.
This open-world style hodgepodge of ever branching nodes we have now, is functionally really just a linear line of nodes with no branches. The game of Atlas is just pathing directly to the next special node you see, and ignoring all others. So the others may as well not exist. The atlas could be a single line of nodes. I couldn't care less what biome a node is, that's arguably the least important part. It's simply either a node worth doing or it's not. I want them all to be worth doing. |
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I love this suggestion, OP. And I'd add that more distinct biomes would be great, like in delve mine.
Also, yes, I particularly want a reason to clear nodes, what OP is suggesting seems to check the box, I'd be rushing those citadels, move atlases, would be cool! Early to bed, early to rise, fishing all day, making up lies.
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" This leads me to an interesting thought. If an Atlas is finite, there is an opportunity to track competition progress as a percentage of nodes cleared. It could be that for every 10% of nodes cleared in an Atlas, the remaining uncleared nodes (particularly special nodes) become empowered in some way. This would add incentive for clearing trivial nodes. Additionally, Doryani could offer a reward for hitting certain milestones; 50%, 75% and 90%, for example. Furthermore, what if clearing a node had a low percentage chance of morphing it into a special node? You clear a Savannah node and then BAM, it just morphed into a Viridian Wildwood! It would be a very low percentage chance, but that percentage chance could become higher as you clear more and more of the Atlas. There's a lot that can be achieved if GGG do away with the endless Atlas. |
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I actually really like this idea. Pretty much all of it. The infinite atlas just seems pointless because there is simultaneously zero reason to methodically complete all of the nodes (save for corrupted zone, etc) and also no reason to go anywhere specific (aside from citadels, once you find one). It just feels like aimless wandering into the void for no real good reason. My only argument is that this "supposedly" isn't what endgame will be eventually, and I honestly don't want the atlas to be too good in fear that they then won't get rid of it lol.
I know they've said in the past that what we have now was/is a placeholder in the interim so they could launch EA with some form of endgame, and I'm really hoping that still rings true. I don't *hate* what we have, but I look forward to something different/better when the game hits 1.0. Whatever that may be. It would also be kinda neat IMO if we could chance orb waystones to make whichever node we slot it into a unique map instead. Or to focus on biomes for a minute, in the infinite atlas version we have, there could be some kind of completion bonus for completing every node in the biome. 60 min boost to a randomized selection of stats like XP, monster level, rarity, quantity, or whatever else. Last edited by Johnny_Hotbody#4829 on Oct 14, 2025, 8:00:38 PM
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Clearing an atlas and starting fresh is actually kinda interesting tbh.
They could tie in some form of reward or progress to it, loads of opportunity here. It also needs search functionality. |
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" F*ck me does it ever... the bookmarks helped a little, but once you've got 4-5 screens of atlas to comb over it becomes an absolute cluster to sift through.. |
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+1
I had a similar idea to this. Also, it would be good to have a system like favouring maps. So on reset you get a higher chance of more of the maps you like running. |
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Cool idea. I have not explored the atlas too far because there are so many nodes to do. Having to go randomly forward until I *randomly* find something useful (citadels only?) just feels bad.
Some of the choices while transitioning could be to give an option to buff a certain type of event (delirium/ritual/breach/etc) for the the whole next atlas, so that you can sort of decide on what you want to focus on too. And maybe add a choice to regenerate/move on to a new atlas regardless for a fee as well, in case you just don't want it anymore. A lot can be build up from that foundation, does sound more interesting than the infinite randomness! |
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