There are two maps that I almost alway avoid: Alpine Halls and Solarum Ascent.
The first is a set of loooooong corridors, the second is a loooooong walk then a fork.
For both, and even more for the first one, I don’t feel any fun. It’s just walking (hoping we don’t pass by a group of Matrons in a corridor) through the long way, till the place where the action is. Of course we have to fight opponents while walking the way, but I don’t feel good with that. For me it’s boring, unlike other kinds of maps.
Diversity is good, having multiple different kinds of maps is good, but I feel these two particular ones don’t make it.
I don’ think these maps are really the issue, rather its that running straight thru echoes is boring. It would make the game far more interesting if there were bonus side objectives that could increase the echo specific reward (ie 50% chance of an extra unique on unique nodes). It would give all maps more flavor and change the way you run some of them but not all.
You could also use the new challenge to rebalance Arena wave echoes so that 8-10 waves is the norm and 12-16 are the opt in challenge.
Agreed, but I still think these specific maps have a design problem.
They work perfectly fine in the campaign, but not in the echo system.
I’ve seen some other players raising the same issue with the corridor aspect during some encounters. @QuietForMe for example, if I remember well. Finding two or three Matrons in Alpine Hall is deadly and not fun…
Not just not fun. But major problem is there are no alternate pathing throughout the map. example when you get 3 patrols one of the strategies is to opposite direction to you meet up with the patrolling monster. But in Alpine specifically that strategy doesnt work due to sheer amount of random dead ends so you end up following out the longest part on the outside spend upwards to 5-10 minutes depending on corruption/ enemy spawns. If those enemy spawns are large monster variants matrons, seige golem, spine hunters, ect ect. multiple spawn in same hallway if you lack a dash then you back track to kite kill them slowly and add another 3-5 minutes just in killing. which makes this map feel tedious and unfun as a whole. This is why I skip this map whenever I can or fish for specific single kill objectives if I have too. Which is widely more un fun than if I had an alternative route through the map an a diagonal so I can pick my strategy on how to approach the map which I really like alot personally having multiple choices on pathing
