Echoes of the Atlas Launch Highlights

The easiest to understand league for those of us that struggle a bit. Absolutely loving it!

i see you

I like the new content! Maven is really cool! And the Maven fight looks awesome. And the Envoy with his poetic musings is really a big plus! :)

I figured it out when and how many watchstones you need to spawn her in maps, but the game itself doesn't tell you that info. Unlike the conquerors when you get the message "map too low for a conqueror to spawn". Perhaps that would be a nice addition.

You added the ritual number and completion counter. That is very nice! No more constant checking in the ritual "shop". Ritual fights are altogether really fun!

BIG CON (HARVEST):

My big concern in this expansion is actually HARVEST. Why can we only save 10 crafting recipes in the horticrafting station? I thought since the introduction of savable master missions the company's philosophy was to allow players to experience content WHEN they wanted it? Heist was in line with that as you could decide freely when to play your contracts or grand heists.

Harvest, on the other hand, FORCES you to enter The Grove and start crafting immediately. Which takes at least ten minutes, if done properly. This is very bad when I'm actually keen on completing my Atlas as fast as possible. Or if you are in party and don't want to keep other players waiting! Or don't have proper items for crafting at that moment. I'd like to craft, but I'd rather take 2-3 hours sometime later to craft without being stressed. Then and only then Harvest would be fun! Because of this the Harvest content in the Atlas Skill Tree is not very desirable for me. Very sad!

Another con - this time a small con - are the new graphics. I don't like this preloading. You enter a town and have shitty graphics for 2-3 seconds and everything is lagging! I believe it is done so that weaker PCs or people with bad internet connection can load in faster, but I think it is rather a negative experience for most other players (since you need good internet and good pc in order to play and enjoy the game anyway). Is it absolutely necessary?

On a fun note:

The shaman singer during rituals (Ritual soundtrack) seems to sing in Russian:

"Моя курица играет, и меня не зная и не понимая." (Moja kurica igraet, i menya ne znaya i ne ponimaya.)

"My chicken is playing, without knowing or understanding me."

Is it a hidden easter egg? A hidden message from the Other Gods of the Atlas? :D Let the Envoy come forward, please! He must disclose this valuable information! :D

Like a number of folk, I decided upon Ritual as a "skip" league for me. No real dis on it (it looks mechanically pretty polished for a league, now doubt a result of it getting a LOT more of the time it needed vs. the prior 13 leagues) but just... I wanted to go straight for the Echoes content, and didn't feel like re-grinding the Atlas (yet again) just to get there.

Still definitely showing a lot of promise with the expansion; so far my choice to play Standard this league has felt vindicated, especially since Harvest content is also 100% new to me. While I see a lot of issues with the expansion so far, I definitely notice the direction it's going.

So far, a few of my personal favorite experiences:

• Seeing Harvest still working, and moreover, finally getting paid for the quest contracts I ran in Heist league. Never realized that was a bug rather than weird design. (NOT a fan of The Rogue Harbour being so public, and thus lagging like it's Epilogue Oriath)
  
  
• Trying out Harvest for the first time. Now I see why everyone's been talking about it so much!
  
  
• Getting surprised by the meaning of "reinforcements" in the Valdo's Rest passive "Diplomatic Escort." If you've not tried it yourself, do so ASAP. Trust me.
  
  
• Watching a lot of folk RIP and fail at the big invitational fights, especially when they've got mirror-tier gear. Always a delight, especially when they hear "Scurry scurry" and just... Run to the edge of the Arena and wait for the end to take them.

"

argoniashawks wrote:

Seems strange to highlight things from a 3 month league on the 4th day of said league!

To be honest, it comes across as a nod from GGG in kind of admitting that in spite of their leagues lasting for 87 days, that they become more or less irrelevant after the first week or two. Yes, I know they use the word "launch in the title" but it still presents the game's exciting moments in retrospective.

They pulled the same thing with the temporary races at the tail end of Heist League as well, where we'd get "highlights" like just a day or two into a race. (which was really weird for Endless Delve, given that the race picture on there was hardly settled)

"

morgasmus wrote:

Another con - this time a small con - are the new graphics. I don't like this preloading. You enter a town and have shitty graphics for 2-3 seconds and everything is lagging! I believe it is done so that weaker PCs or people with bad internet connection can load in faster, but I think it is rather a negative experience for most other players (since you need good internet and good pc in order to play and enjoy the game anyway). Is it absolutely necessary?

This. Overall performance took a huge hit in 3.13. The loading experience is terrible, and even in-maps I'm noticing a return of the dreaded "loading freezes" that were supposed to be a thing of the past, even with old content. (e.g, Syndicate encounters)

"

TheMathTeach3r wrote:

Nice

yeah but the disconects and the rollbacks are not a part of the highlights and how the same foocin problem occur each league start :D

Shoulda just highlghted the HC server issue deaths.

"

ACGIFT wrote:

Like a number of folk, I decided upon Ritual as a "skip" league for me. No real dis on it (it looks mechanically pretty polished for a league, now doubt a result of it getting a LOT more of the time it needed vs. the prior 13 leagues) but just... I wanted to go straight for the Echoes content, and didn't feel like re-grinding the Atlas (yet again) just to get there.

Still definitely showing a lot of promise with the expansion; so far my choice to play Standard this league has felt vindicated, especially since Harvest content is also 100% new to me. While I see a lot of issues with the expansion so far, I definitely notice the direction it's going.

So far, a few of my personal favorite experiences:

• Seeing Harvest still working, and moreover, finally getting paid for the quest contracts I ran in Heist league. Never realized that was a bug rather than weird design. (NOT a fan of The Rogue Harbour being so public, and thus lagging like it's Epilogue Oriath)
  
  
• Trying out Harvest for the first time. Now I see why everyone's been talking about it so much!
  
  
• Getting surprised by the meaning of "reinforcements" in the Valdo's Rest passive "Diplomatic Escort." If you've not tried it yourself, do so ASAP. Trust me.
  
  
• Watching a lot of folk RIP and fail at the big invitational fights, especially when they've got mirror-tier gear. Always a delight, especially when they hear "Scurry scurry" and just... Run to the edge of the Arena and wait for the end to take them.

"

argoniashawks wrote:

Seems strange to highlight things from a 3 month league on the 4th day of said league!

To be honest, it comes across as a nod from GGG in kind of admitting that in spite of their leagues lasting for 87 days, that they become more or less irrelevant after the first week or two. Yes, I know they use the word "launch in the title" but it still presents the game's exciting moments in retrospective.

They pulled the same thing with the temporary races at the tail end of Heist League as well, where we'd get "highlights" like just a day or two into a race. (which was really weird for Endless Delve, given that the race picture on there was hardly settled)

"

morgasmus wrote:

Another con - this time a small con - are the new graphics. I don't like this preloading. You enter a town and have shitty graphics for 2-3 seconds and everything is lagging! I believe it is done so that weaker PCs or people with bad internet connection can load in faster, but I think it is rather a negative experience for most other players (since you need good internet and good pc in order to play and enjoy the game anyway). Is it absolutely necessary?

This. Overall performance took a huge hit in 3.13. The loading experience is terrible, and even in-maps I'm noticing a return of the dreaded "loading freezes" that were supposed to be a thing of the past, even with old content. (e.g, Syndicate encounters)

you choose i was forced from ggg and their bad performance :D

Are those HC deaths trying to bail before they die? What's the point of playing hardcore if you're just gonna cheat and alt+f4 before you get killed? If you're that afraid of losing your character, then don't play HC.