Empowering the player - Maps

I've only just started maps & overall they have been a sour experience. The on boarding was not enjoyable & death is too punishing especially when starting out & all you want to do is play the endgame content but all you get is 1 death taking this gameplay away from you.

Now I was successful in 1 map but the joy of that was instant destroyed in the next map again dying only to watch the boss & ritual get removed from the map. Again overall for a player starting out mapping this has made me want to stop playing after massively enjoying the campaign.
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But I have an idea that looks to keep the theme of risk & reward that they seem to want from the current system but doesn't punish the player to an extreme level at the beginning but actual empowers the player making the punishments their choice.

The idea plays into the 0.1.1 announcement trailer for the Pinnacle bosses & that starting out you get chances to learn the systems/fight. At low level on Atlas tree we get the multiply chances (eg. the 6 portals) but as we level up the league trees (Bosses, Breach, Expedition, Ritual, Delirium) we reduce the number of tries we get. This could also be implemented for Trial of the Sekhemas & The Trial of Chaos.

The idea is as we are learning we get multiply tries to attempt the content but once we want to juice the mechanics & increase our rewards & loot we the player are empowered with it being our choice to take on the risk that if we fail we can loss the content.

Current baseline Death penalty:
- Loss of Gameplay - league mechanics
- Loss of Drops - loot
- Loss of Waystone/Map item used
- Loss of Experience

Future baseline Death penalty
- Loss of Drops - loot
- Loss of Waystone/Map item used
- Loss of Experience

The Future of Portals Endgame - Non-league mapping & Base Atlas tree
- Start with 6 portals/attempts.
- Certain nodes can increase/reduce Portals up to max of 6 portals (This allows players to control their risk/reward by selecting a juicing node that reduces portals [say node does -2 portals] but they can then counteract that loss of attempts by picking up a increase of a portal [node gives +1 portal]).

The Future of Portals Endgame - League mapping & League Atlas tree
- Start with 6 portals/attempts.
- Increase league difficult/juicing reduces portals/attempts (eg bosses +1 boss difficult -1 portal, +2 boss difficult - 2 portals etc..)
- Hardest difficult 1 death = loss of league mechanic (but only for the mechanic has the hardest node selected).

This turns Portals into a Player empowered choice while keeping the core theme of the risk/reward that the 1 death mechanic has but moving it to the true endgame/juicing.

Example of Endgame Portal system - Map with Boss, Breach & Expedition.

Player's Atlas/League tree.
- Bosses = Hardest difficult node, 1 death loss of Boss on map.
- Breach = +3 difficult -3 portals.
- Expedition = +1 difficult -1 portal.
- Base Atlas = +2 portal node taken.

This means the player gets 4 Portals/attempts to complete the map (6-4+2 = 4 portals)

But the risks the player is taking on are:
1 Death = Loss of Boss league gameplay
3 Deaths = Breach no longer spawns for this Waystone
4 Deaths = Failure of Map / Loss of Waystone.

Each Death means:
- Loss of Dropped loot
- Loss of Experience

To rerun the map the player must use another Waystone to activate the map but now the map will only have Breach & Expedition.

This allows for players to play the game how they want to. Giving players the ability to learn mechanics, learn maps & mob/boss fights while empowering them to aim for the ultimate endgame juiced map where 1 death has all the current risks of the 1 death but at the Players choice.