maps and xp progression

things go way too fast, people are reaching high levels way too fast and I feel like forcing people into massive xp penalty maps by denying them higher level maps that give them full xp is a completely wrong way to do it. Maps are tradable, so big money players and ladder chasers are going to be able to zerg the hard to get maps at a point when average joe can never find them, you cant go back to balancing maps like this. So point 1, we need to slow down late game xp, a lot. 3 weeks to lvl100? Should be like 2 months, and it needs done with a change to the xp needed or the xp formula or something like this, not with "only HvR can afford lvl78 maps and gets to 100 anyway while everyone else grinds 69 maps till they quit the game in a rage".

Second, the xp penalty pushes players into high level maps way too early. By mid 80s you need to be in 77/78s to not get a high xp penalty. We get to mid 80s like day 3 of a char, I have chars who are over a year old and are mid 90s... so 3 days to get past 99.99% of the game you made then the next year stuck in 4 maps, its silly. you should be getting 100% xp from a lvl73 map at lvl86 for example, so that there is no burning gurge to HAVE to be zerging 78s so early, zerging 78s should be something that isnt even a thing till you are say lvl92. Now if you are getting 100% xp from a 73 then that 100% has to be a lot less actual xp than we get now in order to slow down progression. This would also make players ok with the idea that they are only just getting in to 73 maps in the mid to late 80s, they dont feel like theyre getting shit on. Mid 70s maps need to be viable in comparison to late 70s maps for a lot longer in order to give the game some life back and make the content you have designed last longer, 3 days to get to the point where theres 4 maps in the game for you and every other piece of content is worthless is just such a terrible, terrible thing and its why after 3 weeks in a league Im done, Im absolutely done with this game because thats 2.5 weeks stuck trying to chain 4 different maps with the only thing left to do to look forward to is keep on zerging these 4 maps. I should be hitting 90-92 before zerging the top 4 is even the only efficient thing to do, and that in itself should take me like 3 weeks.

third up, rolling hard maps is not worth it, at all. It needs to be. Thats where difficulty comes from, hard map mods. Now you may look at server stats of 100,000s of players and say for sure more maps drop in harder rolled high quant maps but day by day, map by map 100% quant is not enough to make this obvious, its 98% rng and 2% map quant, thats how it feels. 100% quant is not enough to make a noticeable difference. Also, chaosing maps is too random a currency investment for a good map.

Problem 3.5, too much loot drops, even solo in an 80% quant map I cant even see the game under all the loot, its actually retarded and needs changed. I bring this in at this point because the change I suggest is tied to both problems.

Suggestion, you need to stop map quant for a hard rolled map being 100%, it needs to be more like 200%, and then on top of that you need to be able to buff the drop rate by say another 60-100% with a flat cost of 1 chaos to 3 chaos a pop through zana mods that add a bunch of hard affixes. Example, "-10 max res, 100% extra damage as fire, area contains x addition packs of x scary monster, turbo, cursed with flamability" it gives you 80% quant and costs say 1 or 2 chaos, all these mods are additive with existing map mods. So you roll an 80% quant map, which is now 160% with the change, then add this zana to it for a chaos giving you a 240% map. Then you nerf the base drop rate of maps so that it is EXPECTED that you run maps like this in order to get the same drop rate we are currently getting from 80% quant maps.

Now 240% quant loot clutter? Well you just stop quant applying to gear items, let it apply to currency and maps only. Give rarity instead for items and make it additive with player rarity, this stops extreme magic finding in high maps being worth it, which is another problem, mf is too powerful in maps and invalidates farming with proper builds in order to becomes wealthy. So you get 240% rarity, and then put harsh diminishing returns on IIR over 300%, many problems solved with a change like this.

So we are getting more currency now with this? Yes, and rightly so I feel, we dont get enough currency, are bots farming 80% quant high level maps and investing in zana mods? I dont think so, I think theyre zerging low level zones, this puts currency in the hands of the people who should be getting it, people playing damn hard late game maps. We will lose fusing, jewellers and chroms from reducing item quant, so we need currency buff to get those back. We will get more chaos, alchs, exalts etc, and I believe we should be getting more but ONLY if we take on ferociously rolled maps. Currency is a better way of giving people items than actually giving them items, it is not as quick, crafting projects take time, they keep players playing for weeks and weeks to see the project through rather than bam, theres your item drop, youre now done with that item slot. Currency is a slower gear progression, and a more rewarding gear progression, thats what we need, slower progression but more rewarding and with a higher sense of attachment to our gear. Lower the drop rate of mirrors, more people craftig their own imperfect gear, less people mirroring perfect gear. Perfect crafted gear only hurts the economy when mirrored, more orbs, less mirrors, imo way healthier for a longer game that holds players.

the problem with gear progression is that it is tied to the speed of the economy, so the first 3 weeks of a league you cna progress your gear way faster than any other time, and thats when it needs to be slower to give leagues their life. Gear progression is too fast early in a league causing players to get way too far by the end of week 2, then its way too slow mid to late league where it drives players away because now they need to craft, and they just cant craft because we dont have enough orbs, so the answer is to quit the game. Im quitting every league after 3 weeks now because its pointless to keep playing, my gear progession and orb procurement is now way slower than it was in the first 3 weeks because crqafting is bullshit and its all about trading, and trading is about how many other players are on the server, who are also all getting too good gear too early and then leaving because they cant have serious crafting projects.


I feel like you need to add crafting options with masters that unfold with the length of a league. Many people have talked about league mods unfolding over time to give us a reason to keep playing. If you add crafting options on masters than wont unlock until a month or two into a league that means we store currency and dont progress our gear until the options become available.

Heres 1 idea, you can create an eternal style imprint of a rare item on your bench, only storing 1 at a time. but theres a twist, it only imprints 3 stats from a rare item, doesnt not work on blues, a random 3 stats, you dont know what random 3 it chose till you imprint back. This way its not free eternals exactly, its free eternals from a 3 stat to a 4 stat item, then you either eternal exalt the last 2 or you et/ex 1 more stat and then bench the 6th, its taking eternals out of 1 stage of crafting from scratch. This now has another function, which is gambling the deletion of crap stats from an existing rare item, you find a 5 stat rare and only 3 stats are good, so you use this and prey to only delete the 2 crap stats, its a gamble. sure you could eternal the item, then do this, it fails, reprint back to 5 stats, eternal, do it again... how costly is that? thats so expensive that its barely viable, but as a fun gamble to get a good 3 stat its possibly worth it. What do you do with a 3 stat item? you have to exalt the 4th then et/ex the next 2 stats, thats a lot of investment, so I feel this isnt exploiting this mechanic, its just another fun way to alter gear, to craft, its a game knowledge thing, a gambling mechanic, a mechanic to ease the harsh gambling of et/exing an item from scratch etc. Say this only unlocks at week 6 of a league, youre going to save your exalts etc for week 6 rather than craft right now in week 2, that gives people a reason to even be in the game at week 6, part of the game only starts that late in and then you spend weeks 6, 7, 8, 9 etc building gear, and then 9, 10, 11 etc actually playign with ur new gear. so much better than week 3 im done with poe till next league, which is now it feels like me and all my friends see the game now.


How do you keep it back for week 6? Well maybe make daily missions stack 5 times so that you dont need to log in every single day for dailies for 6 weeks. Most people HATE daily mission and being forced to log in every day to do them. Do you want to force players into the game every day for 2 or 3 weeks then they leave or have them in the game a couple of times a week for a few months? Use masters to make gear progression faster later in the league through crafting options and slow down early league gear progression by making gear progression more about crafting and crafting more worth while later on than early league.