Exploration aspect. Dynamics Atlas and Maps Events. Existed mechanics thoughts

First of all I'm really enjoying the game and can't wait to see what GGG will pull out next, I'm a casual, slow/mid paced player, so most of the things here are from this perspective and just a brainstorm of ideas, nothing about balance and numbers

Atlas Map

I really like the new atlas map, it is one of my favorite new feature, it gives a cool exploration feeling that wasn't exist in poe1 endgame for me, and looks like it have a lot of potential in future updates, it reminds me off some boardgames with a world map like runebound, tainted grail, eldritch horror (and a bit of heroes3 and 4x strategy games) and I think that atlas map can inherit some mechanics from them, to make it more dynamics and make the world more "alive" and not static, for example:

-Dynamic area control. Right now it's only me as a player making moves and conquer the world, but what if the "bad guys" will also making their moves on the atlas ? (each time player completed X number of maps for example, to keep it turn based and not real time), to make the player go back at some maps and retake the control of some zones, because for example controlling some specific number of adjacent maps in a singe biome is making some passive profit to a player ( like Azurite or something, can be various of things). Also for example the bad guys can retake the towers, and create the negative area effects or block the movement of the player in that areas

-Non combat maps. I think finding small towns or some villages, abandoned and destroyed areas that potentially can be restored, or even just some unique vistas that are spread around the world will be a cool addition, right now the whole world is just monster areas, so taking a break in that big journey sometimes can feel good and refreshing, and it gives a lot of room for quests (complete the maps around it, deliver something to another town and etc) and also map hunting (like citadels right now, but more like a side quests, for people who like to explore the infinite map)

-Towers with different behaviors. it's a cool concept and I think towers can not only buff maps, but do all sorts of stuff, for example teleporting you to a random tower far away, having a unique bosses, terraforming the land around to some crazy stuff, towers can give you a directional arrow to a certain quest things (like a citadels), or we should deactivate the tower because it is activated by the bad guys and it have some debuff on the player in that area, there are can be rare towers that can only be activated with some specific items like a unique sword (Excalibur style) or a mirror??, some towers can shift the player to the outer space maps (like we had in poe1). Also right now they are not seams to be towers :D so maybe also add some huge literal towers with a dark creepy floors

-Players fortress maps. it's kinda my dream league mechanic :D so I can't not mentioned this thing, so we have different biomes on the atlas, and as mentioned above, having a control on specific biome can give some a bit of extra profit ( like controlling a trade route for settlers of kalguur kind of mechanics) , and to defend this area more, player can create a stronghold map, with tower defense kind of stuff in it, and we could have a small version of "battle of helm's deep" to keep it save time to time when the bad guys comes there, yeah it's kinda like a Blight maps but a bit different :D

-Tasks and Quests. in poe1 there was the league achievements, that was kinda like a tasks for player to do, in poe2, having such a cool world map, I think it's a must to have a big variety of tasks and goals that are not only league based, but global, I really like the gw2 achievements system, it works like a large quest book, where player can just choose some activities to do for some rewards


Maps

So I see that the design of maps itself is changed, in poe1 maps have a theme behind them, they were like the echos of the past, like the coliseum map or the one with the wall of the castle and etc. and in poe2 it's more about neutral environment of the biome or interior, which seems logic with the having a world map, but I think that they need some variations to keep them more fresh, after running them so much times, for example:

-Outdoor maps having a night/day variants. Since we have a living world, it will be pretty cool to have not only a sunny Savannah map, but also view it at night, or having a burned out version of the Steppe map. Also some weather changing will bring some freshness, like a rain or storm, things like these will already boost a variety of each map and making the world feel more alive

-Biome specific events. So as it says, imaging that there are a very rare/rare/common events that can appear on the map, that are not league based but biome based, it's like when in fallout 2 you find the ufo as a random encounter, for example it can be traveling merchant with some interesting offers, similar to how it is during act3 campaign, desert storms, volcano eruption with lava mechanic similar to Mektul, The Forgemaster boss, payload events similar to the ones from a trials (pushing some item through the map until it unlocks some ancient tomb or something), or collecting some green items for a sacrifice like in act3 that can cause a unique boss fight or something else, unique caves and etc.

-Map generation. I think poe2 maps are lacking some level changing a bit, comparing to poe1, especially when it comes to cave like transitions, in poe1 for example some maps can start on the ground and end underground or vice versa, I didn't encounter such things in poe2, like adding some random small caves in a Steppe map I think is a must :D map feels very same each run, also I really miss some zones from a campaign! why not reuse them with some tweaks, they was really cool, they can be partly reused as some random events mentioned above

-Unknown twisted reality maps. to add intrigue and feeling of risk/reward, some maps can be unknown (due to some twisted dark magic :D) until you enter them, and these maps design can be as twisted as artists and random generation could make, to give some unexpected combinations of assets and environment, precursor tables for example can convert regular map to twisted maps

-Collections. I really appreciate the environment art of the poe2 and I found new maps visuals amazing, sometimes I just like to stay at some forest corner to take a break and enjoy the view (anyone else? :D). So idea of collections is to have something in the environment to find (ancient foliant, silver skulls, rare coins, occult figures and etc.) , that can lead a player to spend some extra time to overview around the character, I understand that this is very not poe like thing for a lot of players :D the goal for such players is to blast through map as quick is possible with a mini-map on top of the screen, but I think that's not all the players, especially with how the campaign unfolds, exploring the environment is looked like a feature that should also go to the endgame, so these collections should not be mandatory, but rather a very side thing to do for players who enjoying colleting and exploring, so the placement of this items can be similar how now you can click the rock on the ground and something drops, also similar can be done to a lot of environment props, and I think these items should not go to inventory but rather work like expedition artifacts in poe1, where they automatically added to there own crate, to not cause problem for players who are not into it, and after you gather the collection of, I dunno, 30 golden scorpions, you gain and achievement and for example hideout item getting unlocked, similar collections approach I saw in guild wars2 and lost ark


Existed game mechanics

Expedition. I really like it in poe1, each npc merchant has it's own unique mechanic and it felt satisficing to use them, and I hope that with a time poe2 version will be kinda the same, cause right now it feels like a simplified version of the better one

Strongboxes. overall this mechanic feels outdated, and it felt like that already in poe1, cause a lot of other mechanics are just much more interesting and thematic, and here it's just a box that spawns some mobs, with such cool other mechanics, this on is just feels not interesting. It can for example be a cursed treasure that lures other exiles and eat their souls, so when you opened it, the mobs are ghost versions of other exiles, and you try to free them or join them if you die, and if you win, the strongbox also drops some treasures similar to the ones that Oswald asks you to find in act3, and you exchange them (or some collection of them) for some unique goods.

Well. I completely forgot about it the endgame, cause there is no reason to use it, so why not make it similar to the wells of the Trials of Sekhemas, like after killing X mobs on the map, you can go back to a hideout/town and "sacrifice their souls" to the well and get (or choose) some minor but meaningful boons for like 5-10 minutes or so?

Una's song. Let me bring her to the hideout and play that song! would be cool to also have some minor buff if a player listens to a song for like 10-15 seconds, potentially player can find other instruments(or music notebooks) in the world to unlock other songs and boons

Rituals. it's a cool theme and I think there can be more depth to it, like a global progress of all the sacrifices, some occult and eldritch stuff, like a sacrifices to a different gods from poe1 Pantheon or something like this. from a pure gameplay perspective they feel a bit claustrophobic, and they definitely needs a dedicated areas like bosses have, cause sometimes you have like 1/4 of the ritual area available due to map generation, while they already pretty tight

Charms. similar to wells, I forgot about them pretty quick, and their mechanic seems strange, maybe I'm wrong, but all the players already have a res capped as a must, so the charm that might give you +% to particular res two times and you will never notice that, looks useless. the most straight forward thing to do I think is to make the charms activated with a flasks automatically, and made them more impactful (like utility flasks in poe1), also the number of a charges feels like should be around 10, and all the slots should be unlocked during the campaign in my opinion

Corruption. very cool mechanic, but I think there can be some more twists to it, the thing that you can't modify the item, as I see it, is doesn't really matter, cause most of the times players corrupt already perfect items, so why not make some (not all) corrupted items feel like the item IS REALLY corrupted, like the Frodo's ring, it's give power, but it also lures Nazguls, something similar might be pretty cool, like some corrupted sword while giving a great power, also randomly spawn some unique bad guys nearby on the maps, it's just a one example of other potential corruption consequences

Unique items. GGG said that they already working on making them more meaningful overall, but I don't think that it's doable with all the unique items in the game ( I might be wrong), but in the same time unique drops feels good, cause it's something unique right, it's also a rare drop and it has a different color and sound, BUT then you check it, aaand it's a useless, GOOD VIBES ARE GONE. So what if unique items can also work as a quest items, that can for example unlock something ( like it was mentioned it Towers sections), or there is a note on the item saying like - "it belongs to someone in particular town", and all of the sudden you have some side quest to do, or some unique items might combine in the set of items to exchange to something more useful (like collect 5 unique rings to combine it to a new unique Thanos glove, and it's the only way to obtain it) I think something like this might partly solve the issue with some unique items being abandoned on the trade, give them some purpose to exist



that's it for now, have a good day exiles!