Feedback and Ideas for Mapping

Current Mapping Feedback
I've been thinking about posting this for months now because the current mapping system really bothers me.

I love mapping in Path of Exile 1; it's very enjoyable and fun. In Path of Exile 2? It's an overcomplicated, unrewarding mess that eats up the player's time, and every map takes away a little more excitement about running the next one.

The worst part about mapping is its randomness. I don't know exactly how many kinds of maps exist right now, but there are far too many without the player having control over which maps they want to run.

I know GGG wanted different mapping in PoE 2, but it feels like when they release a patch for mapping, the process was to hire a completely new employee who can code, give them no context for what mapping should look like, and the result is what we have now: a worse Delve than PoE 1 has.

In PoE 1, if you go to the Delve, you have flares (we have towers now), dynamite to blow up walls (we have the "stone thingys" on map completion that clears the storm before you can access it), and sulphite (the player's will to run the next map). The whole current mapping system is just Delve, but someone grabbed a post-it note, wrote "Mapping," and then slapped it on. For what? For the sake of difference? It's not that far off from an existing PoE 1 mechanic; it's just called differently, complete with that awful Factorio loading screen after every interaction...

Please let us have control over which maps we want to run, in any way possible. Who wants to backtrack a literal maze with a 75% chance to run into a dead end every single time we go left or right? Nobody wants that. Get rid of maze-like maps or make them unique in some way that makes them worth running.

I assume the response would be that with the new patch, we have more mechanics on every map, so it's not that bad. We don't have too many mechanics yet overall because it's still early access, which is completely okay—this is how it works, and this is what we paid for. However, when the Breach tree's "more breaches trigger on a map" modifier lands on a maze-like layout with tight corridors, and I only get 10% of the monsters that would spawn in an open-layout map, I just want to Alt+F4.

The same applies to every other mechanic:

Expedition remnants get scattered miles away from each other.

Rituals have only like four monsters in them.

Abysses are a joke on those maps, and if the map has the "Overrun by the Abyss" modifier, it's literally an empty zone with only two or three two-meter abysses.

There are literal builds that are not functional in those tight corridors, like that Doedre curse build with Spell Cascade and the required AoE to overlap the curses. My character was acting like she was casting, but nothing happened, which is why I abandoned that build.

So, please, just introduce MAPPING, not a shitty Delve. We should have Delve too, and the current "mapping" is a good base for that. Make it like it is in PoE 1; I know there's no post-it note on it, but the current implementation is just pointless.

Ideas for a New Mapping System
Forget "Delve."

1. The Map Device and Atlas Customization

Make the Map Device act the same as in PoE 1 (including that little stash!).

We should have a socket for a Waystone and three sockets for Tablets (sextants but with a post-it note on them) in the device.

On the Atlas Tree, introduce a UI for favoured or unfavoured maps. Ideally, unfavoured would be better so we can "ban" maps we don't want to run. (This could also be a good indication for GGG about which maps need a rework or straight-up deletion if everyone bans it because we want to play, not suffer).

2. Layout Selection and Control

The layout selection should happen when we open a map:

Just like when we unreveal desecrated mods (or how it was in Necropolis league in PoE1), we should see three map names with layout labels on them (like the ones on the current Atlas when we click on a node and it tells you it's a "grass" or "swamp" biome). Labels could be like "Open Layout," "Wide Corridors," etc.

Maybe use a picture of the layout instead of tags. If you search for exact PoE 1 map names on Google Images, there are pictures of the fully discovered map overlay, and this would be good too if you don't want tags.

Alternative Idea:

Instead of literal maps, we should have favoured or unfavoured layout tags in that Atlas Tree UI.

We should also have Omens for mapping, like Layout Reroll Omens that can be filled into the Map Device's small stash (similar to Omen of Abyssal Echoes' reroll mechanic).

Either way, we would have some control over what kind of maps we are running, minus the Factorio, pathing, towers, wasted mechanics, unlucky seeds with no citadels, inconsistency, unnecessary clicks like the realmgate and the reliquary vault, sanity loss, and overcomplication.

3. Unique Maps, Citadels, and Bosses

Take the influences (like Maven and Eldritch) from the PoE 1 map device and let us decide what we want to farm, using the exact same method as in PoE 1: complete X number of maps - get a fragment/invitation on map boss kill on the counter's Xth map in order to face pinnacle bosses.

The fragment/invitation should be based on (average?) map tier so casual/low-gear players can farm something too to make currency and progress.

Make Nameless Seer have an X% chance to appear on any map when you reach less than 50 monsters remaining. Add a notification like the "map completed" one, just less aggressive, to avoid missing the Seer and to stop players from looking at the top-right corner for the monster count.

That mechanic can also have Omens to boost appearance chance, reroll items, take more than one item, etc. Maybe even make a boss fight out of that to get the item you choose, similar to PoE 1's Mercenaries.