Expedition & Wisp Critique

-Expedition-

I am not sure why Expedition has it's own divergent Atlas tree.

Not only does it visually clutter the maps, Their Artifacts have little value.

The best mechanic for them is rolling new mods on an item to gamble.

Looking at items in the shop for them, might as well be like looking at random drops on the ground.

If anyone is ignoring their item drops, They will likely also ignore the items in the expedition merchant shops.

I don't think they need their own Atlas tree, nor do they need their own Stash tab, all of their Artifacts can fit in the currency tab.

This mechanic might as well only exist on special island maps exclusively. It doesn't need to be something we can mod maps using Tablets for.

It would be great if their loot table for treasure chests had a high drop rate for jewelry. (as long as its a rare occurrence on islands & without a Tablet)

-Wisp-

Wisp has potential to have its own Atlas tree.

It makes logical sense that Wisps would also drop Essence, Visually it comes together.

The Wisp mechanic itself, i'm not a fan of.

Visually the wisp conflicts reality with fantasy. Why do we see animals that we see in the real world as spirit animation, when everything else in the game is a grim dark fantasy? The animations look out of place in this game.

Not just that they look out of place, but visually I think the Animations look bad. Both being rigged to another character model and the skill animations themselves, There is a better way.

I think the Wisps should impregnate a rare monster, but then make their bodies burst. A Wisp mini-Boss spirit erupts from their corpse, taking the hosts buffs as their own, for their own Rare wisp miniboss models. (which shouldn't look identical to a real world animal)

They can still look like fairy dust, but their animations would stem from their own miniboss models, instead of having a mob as a host.

At that point Wisp deserves their own divergent Atlas tree. It's not premium enough in its current state to compete with the others.

Wisps + Essence could be categorized by color, so There would only need to be about 4 or 5 different Wisp miniboss models. They could have a chance to drop several different Essence types depending on their general color.

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

Visually the wisp conflicts reality with fantasy. Why do we see animals that we see in the real world as spirit animation, when everything else in the game is a grim dark fantasy? The animations look out of place in this game.

Having real life counterparts doesn't exclude them existing in fantasty. Harry Potter had an owl, and owls are real. unlike giraffes.

The ezomytes revere a collection of primal dieties known as "the first ones" among which are a crab, wolf, tiger and other types of creatures that exist outside of fantasy. This is lore carried over from poe1. There are also squirrels, foxes, birds and other non-fantasy critters all over the place.

This same lore is also why act 1 boss transforms into a wolf. While geonor is influenced by the beast, its his pact with The Greatwolf that transforms him.

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Direfell#7544 wrote:

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

Visually the wisp conflicts reality with fantasy. Why do we see animals that we see in the real world as spirit animation, when everything else in the game is a grim dark fantasy? The animations look out of place in this game.

Having real life counterparts doesn't exclude them existing in fantasty. Harry Potter had an owl, and owls are real. unlike giraffes.

The ezomytes revere a collection of primal dieties known as "the first ones" among which are a crab, wolf, tiger and other types of creatures that exist outside of fantasy. This is lore carried over from poe1. There are also squirrels, foxes, birds and other non-fantasy critters all over the place.

This same lore is also why act 1 boss transforms into a wolf. While geonor is influenced by the beast, its his pact with The Greatwolf that transforms him.

That is a fair point, lol giraffes

Tell me if this would be against the lore, It would be different from POE1.

The Wisp does an animation possessing a body of a rare mob,
Then the mob explodes,
The spirit creature that erupts from it is no longer a crab,
But similar to the Rotting Prometheans from Warhammer 3,
Basically a giant fantasy crab miniboss.

The color, buffs and drops could be interchangeable, like the crab could be green blue or red, with different buffs.

Not identical to a real animal, but still in fantasy territory.

The model they have for the crab miniboss in act4 is a good example of something similar they could use.

The mob could do a simple death animation and the spirit coming out of the host body could do a Genie effect, similar to the Genie effect on Mac OS when opening apps, something like a ghost from ghostbusters would do.

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

-Expedition-

I am not sure why Expedition has it's own divergent Atlas tree.

Not only does it visually clutter the maps, Their Artifacts have little value.

The best mechanic for them is rolling new mods on an item to gamble.

I never use the merchant items they're too low levels anyway.
Main use for artefacts for me is for the recombinator.
And you need a lot of them for it.

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BlastYa#4875 wrote:

I never use the merchant items they're too low levels anyway.
Main use for artefacts for me is for the recombinator.
And you need a lot of them for it.

I agree, I completely forgot about the recombinator, that is the best part of the Expedition mechanic by far.

It is strange that the Omen to increase successful odds with the recombinator comes from Ritual. There is already so much value in Ritual Omens for multiple things, Why wouldn't something like that come from Expedition itself?

There are so many possibilities, If Expedition was removed from a Tablet mod,
I would expect more quantity of drops from the Expedition maps.
They don't necessarily need to be exclusive to islands either.

Instead of a Tablet mod, It could be Similar to the Realmgate.
You just need a map item to use, like a keystone to go on an expedition.

I really don't like how sometimes the Expedition mobs can be practically invincible due to their mods, that should be removed.

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

Instead of a Tablet mod, It could be Similar to the Realmgate.
You just need a map item to use, like a keystone to go on an expedition.

You mean like a logbook? =)
Logbook is where you get most of artifact and quite a lot of currencies + the splinter to go to the boss.
I'm not sure i understand what you mean lol

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BlastYa#4875 wrote:

You mean like a logbook? =)
Logbook is where you get most of artifact and quite a lot of currencies + the splinter to go to the boss.
I'm not sure i understand what you mean lol

Yeah like logbook,
Logbook is almost identical to what I'm describing.

What's strange too is, I haven't come across a logbook expedition that had practically invincible mobs. I haven't done many, Maybe it does happen there too.

In Act 4 the expedition map, seems extremely difficult for its level. I'v come across Expeditions on that island, and randomly on maps, that were even more difficult than logbooks, sometimes with the invincible mods for mobs.

logbook is great and there are chests that have jewlery and belts. That makes sense, it's completely parallel to what I said.

I think it would be cool if the maps for the logbook had a better theme, like the crabs from POE1, the shipwreck theme, zombie pirates, seagulls, etc.

But I don't think Tablets to mod maps are needed, removing them imo and changing a few things would be better.

The logbook portal mechanic is fine, it is convenient. I think it would be better if there was a landmark on the Endgame map itself, like the treasure island maps, or a ship landmark, where players can enter the expedition map using a keystone instead of a waystone. It's similar just with different UX. The infinity map could conflict with that experience.

I'll wait for the next update before posting about it again.