Suggestion for 0.4 on how to rework towers - Outpost, atlas alive

Nothing here is set in stone. Those are just some ideas, and they can be all changed based on other people's feedback. As long as the idea can get better, please leave a comment


1) The idea


Replace atlas towers with a single movable outpost. You build one outpost, recruit/upgrade npcs, build arrays with tablets... The idea is to be able to move the outpost wherever is needed, with only one outpost present in the atlas at a time

Npcs could be recruited to the outpost for a certain cost, then those npcs would give specific buffs and could also be upgraded (more on npcs later)

The outpost itself (how to interact with npcs and such, aside from the atlas representation of where it's at) can be the hideout, as we already have the map device there and I think it would look quite natural


2) Why


- This gives the atlas more player agency and turns towers from static check boxes to a meaningful, strategic thing

- It would look present and alive in the world. This is a rpg, after all. In my view poe2 is grey, grim, but it has people with ideals, factions, intrigues... The end game has none of it

- An outpost lets players decide where to project power in the atlas instead of mindlessly hunting for tower clusters

- It creates long term progression goals. Upgrading npcs, tablet arrays, etc (later are the ideas for each one)

- It creates emergent and spontaneous content without the need of new map content, in a sandbox way

- Easier for new players to understand and discover. A single outpost with a radius UI is much easier to understand and use than scattered tower nesting

- It can have much more depth than towers. As much depth as the devs want, in fact. The outpost system can be expanded with new mechanics and npcs infinitely, granting the devs creativity freedom


3) Magic array of tablets


Magic arrays are tablet combos the player could help the npcs setting up. A magic array would be upgraded by giving them tablets, further buffing those nodes and encounters which the outpost range covers

As the array gets more and more complicated with more tablets, those upgrades would cost more of a certain currency or material the further someone upgrades it

Different combo of tablets could produce varying combos of encounters, for example Ritual + Breach tablet = Dimension Summoning Ritual (yes I'm bad with names. We already have some combos with abyss and I think they're cool, that's why the idea)


4) Npcs


Below is a few ideas for npcs that could be brought to the outpost, names and lore are just placeholders:

Quartermaster - Butler from a rich family who decided life was too boring and wanted some adventure

Core of the outpost. Converts certain materials/resources into resources that can be used to upgrade other npcs

Fogwalker- A tough mercenary man who gets hired by exiles to walk the fog of war and search for specific nodes.

Searches through the fog of war, clearing it a bit. The player can give the npc certain missions and it will search the fog of war for certain nodes like citadel or unique nodes. Can get upgraded, maybe to unlock the process of searching those higher tier nodes like citadel (player would start only being able to search for some weak unique nodes for example)

Plague Doctor - A researcher who spent most of her life studying plagues and curses.

She reduces the effect of negative modifiers on maps. Can get upgraded, which will increase the protection she gives

Field Engineer - Master of his craft, he's an expert in logistics and maintenance

Reduces outpost and npc relocation cost the next time the player is moving the outpost. Can get upgraded, will reduce the cost further

Rune Forger - A blacksmith who decided to go against his family's lineage and pursue the path of magic forging, runes

Crafts permanent runes that can be imbued into the outpost. Those don't get lost when moving, unlike the array. Can be upgraded for better and more runes

Tablet Scholar - Smart woman

Lets you store part of the tablet array when moving the outpost. Can be upgraded to store more

Geomancer -

Increases radius of outpost. Can be upgraded for more radius

5) Balance concerns and mitigations

Moving the outpost has explicit costs. Npcs transit fee, array setup again on the new place and possibly a cooldown (nothing too long, maybe 5 or so minutes)

If the player wants to move the outpost somewhere else, the old outpost gets removed and the player will have to pay the cost of the npcs moving and also setup a completely new magic array with new tablets

The tablet array could be made very costly in top tier to balance things out, costs increasing exponentially . As for the numbers or what cost, I'm not sure. They could also have a certain charge and this charge will diminish after a certain amount of uses when player enters a node, lowering the power of the array

There can be diminishing returns of perks, soft and hard caps...

All in all, that's the base of the idea

Sounds better then tower hunting and then placing tablets

+1

Sounds like an improvement, but not having the infinite atlas would just be infinitely better in my opinion.

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KaosuRyoko#1633 schrieb:

Sounds like an improvement, but not having the infinite atlas would just be infinitely better in my opinion.

I don't completely disagree with you, but I believe they said the infinite atlas won't go away, only improved because they want the player to have the feeling of exploration instead of whatever the old poe1 thing was. So...

If it stays infinite, it definitely needs dead ends, frontiers, some not rng point of interests (like a bridge that lead to the 2nd west region, a mountain pass leading to the north region,etc) something that you can complete and not just spreading in 4 directions.
Or a base that is handcrafted and when you get to the world border, you go into "the infinite".

lvl 93, still no citadel on my atlas =_='

I get the exact opposite feeling from their infinite atlas so far. Every time I see a citadel at the edge of the map i get annoyed because it's going to take me an hour or more to run 10 maps to get over there, unless I'm just traveling with T1 whites which feels just as bad. The new unique maps are the DNS thing but worse. Chatting around maps to try to open a special map is just incredibly tedious. I can't think of a single genuine positive of the infinite atlas, I despise it so much.

How about instead of a movable building, why not just make it a medieval caravan wagon that serves as a mobile base? The player can move the caravan around and deploy to setup camp with various NPCs. When the player wants to move the camp again, they turn into a caravan to relocate camp.

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CharlesJT#7681 schrieb:

How about instead of a movable building, why not just make it a medieval caravan wagon that serves as a mobile base? The player can move the caravan around and deploy to setup camp with various NPCs. When the player wants to move the camp again, they turn into a caravan to relocate camp.

O that sounds cool too. Maybe with a caravan it would be even more cool than an outpost

Use the Act 2 Dreadnought

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KaosuRyoko#1633 schrieb:

Use the Act 2 Dreadnought

That's a mtx already for hideout, so probably won't happen