Map Changes in 2.0.4

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AxxiusEQ wrote:

Now that lv 100 is absolutely not achievable for casual players, they will lose incentive to play that much sooner.

Creating content (maps, achievements) that only a few players will ever see is a waste of development resources. Those few players are not paying enough to justify it (unless GGG is actually funded by Etup).

And telling people to go play another game is really fucking stupid. A game developer who likes his job will never tell players to go play another game.

Level 100 is meant to be a challenge for the few. Otherwise everyone could get to level 100 (making it not that much of a challenge) and then people would ask for GGG to raise the cap.

What you are saying is that people's main incentive should be to reach level 100 to feel they have completed the game. However if it was easy it wouldn't be much of a challenge, everyone who is not a complete casual player and is a bit dedicated would have an 100 level character. How could you distinguish the super dedicated players then?

Regarding the content, you don't need to reach level 100 to play the top tier maps. Reaching level 90 is essentially the cap for most players, anything else is just for people who play the game 24/7 or have support teams behind them giving them maps and loot.

Telling people to go play another game is not stupid, it is very reasonable. Otherwise you make a very bad game, meant to attract as many players as possible. You also make it pay2win as sure many would prefer to pay to get loot. Essentially this would turn the game into a casual game.

Casual games are meant to be played by a wide audience and the majority of the players can enjoy it fully without much effort/dedication. This is what most big companies do: They ruin their games as long as they can attract more players and get more money.

GGG has stated from the beginning that they wanted to make a game that appeals to a more hardcore/dedicated audience, even if this means that they would not get as much money if they did so. Indeed many new players turn away from poe when they realise the game is very challenging. However this is good for the playerbase the game is targeted to: hardcore/dedicated players who appreciate a game that is challenging and not necessarily balanced around their convenience.

This is what is all about "go play diablo 3". Diablo 3 is targeted to a more casual audience that want to have a fun experience without having too many obstacles or needing too much effort. Most people prefer this and Diablo 3 is also backed by blizzard who has marketed the game much more and better than GGG, thus it has way more players that poe. However the point of poe I think was not compete with Diablo 3, but to offer an experience to some players that wanted something else. Also diablo 3 tries to attract non arpg players by focusing on cinematics and story, attracting players who would normally play an action adventure game.

Anyway surely there may be changes needed regarding balance and I have also complained multiple times about such issuers!. However sometimes you may need to consider whether some changes, even though not so pleasant may be necessary to have a robust and balanced game.

Maps should really keep their level listed instead of tiers, aside from the added headache of having to look it up, its going to display it anyway as soon as you start the map.

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Asmosis wrote:

Maps should really keep their level listed instead of tiers, aside from the added headache of having to look it up, its going to display it anyway as soon as you start the map.

Well maybe they'll "fix" this too. But FFS, GGG, do you think your players don't know about iLvl?

So... I read the first 5 pages of this thread and half of the posts is about that idea with map tiers is a bad idea. I'm totally agree.
What about ground effects? I don't care actually about server or bandwidth, I care about my FPS. If I get map with good mods and desecrated ground, I will reroll it without doubt. It really, really sucks.

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silumit wrote:

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Asmosis wrote:

Maps should really keep their level listed instead of tiers, aside from the added headache of having to look it up, its going to display it anyway as soon as you start the map.

Well maybe they'll "fix" this too. But FFS, GGG, do you think your players don't know about iLvl?

Evidently, they don't.

Monster level and tier are the two figures in debate. Not ilvl.

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Chris wrote:

We've been working on a 2.0.4 patch for deployment late next week, before the One-month events start on the weekend.

This patch includes several changes related to the mapping end-game. We're keen to test them out in the one-month leagues and will gather data and feedback from players.

Map Drops
We've finished analysing map drops and usage from the Warbands and Tempest challenge leagues. Our conclusion was that map drops were slightly lower than we were happy with. We also noticed that many of the higher maps were being run through Zana rather than through actual dropped maps.

The 2.0.4 patch increases the rate of map drops to help with these two issues.

Map Difficulty
We have been examining the difficulty of maps, particularly regarding spikes of physical damage and the damage dealt by Act Four monsters. While we are relatively happy with the difficulty of the highest maps, the early maps suffer from spikes of damage that are too high. The damage dealt in the lowest two-thirds of maps is being reduced slightly. In addition, the damage dealt by Act Four monsters is being reviewed and problematic cases are being fixed in 2.0.4.

Map Symbol Colours
Previously, most maps had a yellow symbol. We've changed this colour to indicate whether maps are low-, medium- or high-tier. These groups specifically line up with the set of mods available to be rolled on the maps. For example, if the map has a red symbol, then the top mods are available. This also makes it easier to spot the relative tiers of maps in your stash.

Fine , really great , two suggestions : could it be possible to stack white map with 0 quality on stash ?
could you put different symbols on divination cards ?

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Map Levels are now Tiers
There are 15 tiers of maps, from level 68 to 82 inclusive. We've struggled for ages with the confusion caused by this. Players expect to play maps of their level (which can be way too hard for them), or make arguments about that they're level 95+ and can't find a level 80 map. Players with backgrounds in contemporary MMORPGs expect to play content equivalent to their level.

In order to resolve this confusion, maps now display a tier rather than a level. The level can easily be calculated. Tier 1 is level 68 (or level 66 if it's an old map graphic).

As a side note, this makes it hard to distinguish between old (pre-Awakening) unique maps and their post-Awakening counterparts. It may be best to put them in different places in your stash.

I think it will be more confusing and don't solve yours problems because we need to know level of map for drop and xp penalty , not fun for players to calculate level of each map , it is just boring and waste time . I think it will be better to indicate not the "level" of the map but the "droplevel" instead , so it will be stop complaining about map under level of character.

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Experience in Top Maps
Due to the increased levels of content in The Awakening and the ever-improving skill of our best players, people are reaching level 100 too quickly. Watching the intense challenge as players complete to reach this amazing accomplishment would be more fun for the community if it lasted longer. We want to make this change without affecting the regular levelling process.

There's an additional problem where the difference in experience between the highest tiers of maps is too large. The higher maps definitely need to grant more experience, but when an 82 map grants 35% more experience than a level 81 map, which grants 35% more experience than a level 80 map (and so on), then players really feel the pain of not sustaining the top maps. We wanted to reduce the difference between these upper tiers to more like 15%.

We have made some changes to the calculation of experience in level 77-82 maps. They now have effective experience levels (for the experience penalty calculation only) of 76.9, 77.7, 78.4, 79, 79.5 and 79.9 respectively. This achieves both of the above goals, while leaving all other players unaffected. It takes approximately twice as long to reach 100 from 99 as it did previously, and the difference in experience between the top-tier maps is around 15% per tier, rather than 35%. It's far less important to be running a level 82 map for experience than it was before.

well you don't want too much lvl 100 , i think i will never understand that, for me lvl 100 mean an achievement for the player , i don't care about others , i don't watch streamer xp , only guys who explain game/tips or builds.
And for me Poe have a big problem : too easy to skip boss , i dislike boss fight in Poe because you can kill a boss with a lot of dead ( in leagues non hardcore ) or skip the fight with party ( others players with safe build kill boss for you in hardcore league) .
I really prefer boss fight under Diablo3 ( at launch ) , because i was more happier to kill boss because it was mean than my skill/gear was good ( as i was self loot it was my skill ... )
In Poe Lvl 100 mean not really skill but lot of farm
So please don't let the 123 points on passive skill tree, it is unfair to put 123 if you don't want players lvl to 100 .

Balance game about all players not only streamers please ...

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Ground Effects in Maps
There's a lot of work still to do on ground effects. However, in 2.0.4, some changes have been made to how they spawn in maps. These changes have the following consequences:

• Ground effects due to map mods now use significantly less server resources. This prevents problems occurring during times of peak player concurrency.
• Ground effects due to map mods now use significantly less bandwidth, which will result in much less lockstep stuttering. They will also contribute far less towards being disconnected when coming through portals.

There's definitely more we need to do to improve the performance of ground effects (and much of the rest of the game), but these initial changes will hopefully have a positive impact. We're looking forward to seeing how much they help.

The 2.0.4 patch contains a few other things, such as new Divination Cards and bug fixes, but the bulk of work in this patch has gone towards the above map changes.

As they're in 2.0.4, these changes will apply to Standard/Hardcore and also the one-month events. We will get a solid set of data from these events, which we'll then be able to use to fine-tune the map system for subsequent events and challenge leagues.

We're expecting to post full details of the one-month events tomorrow.

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Chris wrote:

Map Levels are now Tiers
There are 15 tiers of maps, from level 68 to 82 inclusive. We've struggled for ages with the confusion caused by this. Players expect to play maps of their level (which can be way too hard for them), or make arguments about that they're level 95+ and can't find a level 80 map. Players with backgrounds in contemporary MMORPGs expect to play content equivalent to their level.

You don't need tiers of maps, just rename level maps like this:

68-70-72-74-76-78-80-82-84-86-88-90-92-94-96-98

P.D. sorry if someone has already said that, but i don't want to read all the messages :)

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theloveduck wrote:

I see this getting, as somebody pointed out, a little too toxic. I've also heard the map system called boring, and repetitive, an assessment that I guess you could say is fair, but I don't agree with fully. And by not fully, I really don't agree with that.

Let's first give credit where it's due: The map system is a really innovative piece of endgame architecture. That was doubly true when it was first created.

The idea that mods on maps could be changed around with the same currency used to manipulate items was the nose in front of our face, but it was a simplistic slice of genius. The map system has done a lot of stuff right. If its weakness is repetition, that is its strength also. That it can be repeated as many times as it has with all these trillions of combinations of mods is staggering, when you think about it.

Still, it's time to acknowledge that if you're going to improve it, you need to first ensure that the improvements you make aren't castrating the strengths of the system. The primary strength of the map system is, in my opinion, its dynamism. The death of dynamism is homogenization.

You're supposed to get aberrations like etup from time to time. They're the exceptions that prove the rule. If it takes the best guy you've got two weeks to do something, nolifing all the way, that's pretty damn good.

The truth is, the map system is fine. It's just most likely not sufficient all by itself.

The problem isn't people are reaching 100. It's that for those people, 100 is the end. There's nothing to do following that point. Fix that problem, and suddenly it's not so bad that people reach 100 anymore.

We need a new endgame, and lorewise, you've already given us the perfect excuse to go anywhere. After killing Malachai in Merciless... you're at the helm of the Imagination Machine itself. You could go anywhere with that. You could have it spawn an endless dungeon. You could even wake it up and fuck up the previous three acts all to death, new enemies, random mods, whatever you wanted to do.

There's real problems with what you're proposing doing with the map system right now. All the same, it's not fair to the progress that's already been made or the people making it to come down so harshly. Hopefully, the larger community is addressing this in such a way that communicates the potential we see within the map system, and not just a bunch of vitriolic bullshit.

I've read through all 50 pages here and this is the most constructive post.
I especially agree with the possibilities there are besides maps. So many things are possible, yet all we have is a map pyramid system that works great but in all honesty the repetitiveness gets to us after those years. I'm still a fan of a 4th optional difficulty (see my post in sig), or other things like endless dungeons, craft your own maps or sequence of, just me (and who am I) can come up with so many possibilities, I'm pretty sure the GGG hive brain can come up with even better stuff that's is not that extremely time-consuming to program.
Just stop finding 'solutions' that aren't necessary or aren't even solutions but mere renaming things, no one will get better from this, nor the players nor the programmers. Add something new that gives us options, stop watching the 0,001% of players that will do highest end level maps anyways whatever GGG comes up with. Think about the players that want to have fun, not the ones that grind to 100 because they are robots.

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leto2626 wrote:

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theloveduck wrote:

I see this getting, as somebody pointed out, a little too toxic. I've also heard the map system called boring, and repetitive, an assessment that I guess you could say is fair, but I don't agree with fully. And by not fully, I really don't agree with that.

Let's first give credit where it's due: The map system is a really innovative piece of endgame architecture. That was doubly true when it was first created.

The idea that mods on maps could be changed around with the same currency used to manipulate items was the nose in front of our face, but it was a simplistic slice of genius. The map system has done a lot of stuff right. If its weakness is repetition, that is its strength also. That it can be repeated as many times as it has with all these trillions of combinations of mods is staggering, when you think about it.

Still, it's time to acknowledge that if you're going to improve it, you need to first ensure that the improvements you make aren't castrating the strengths of the system. The primary strength of the map system is, in my opinion, its dynamism. The death of dynamism is homogenization.

You're supposed to get aberrations like etup from time to time. They're the exceptions that prove the rule. If it takes the best guy you've got two weeks to do something, nolifing all the way, that's pretty damn good.

The truth is, the map system is fine. It's just most likely not sufficient all by itself.

The problem isn't people are reaching 100. It's that for those people, 100 is the end. There's nothing to do following that point. Fix that problem, and suddenly it's not so bad that people reach 100 anymore.

We need a new endgame, and lorewise, you've already given us the perfect excuse to go anywhere. After killing Malachai in Merciless... you're at the helm of the Imagination Machine itself. You could go anywhere with that. You could have it spawn an endless dungeon. You could even wake it up and fuck up the previous three acts all to death, new enemies, random mods, whatever you wanted to do.

There's real problems with what you're proposing doing with the map system right now. All the same, it's not fair to the progress that's already been made or the people making it to come down so harshly. Hopefully, the larger community is addressing this in such a way that communicates the potential we see within the map system, and not just a bunch of vitriolic bullshit.

I've read through all 50 pages here and this is the most constructive post.
I especially agree with the possibilities there are besides maps. So many things are possible, yet all we have is a map pyramid system that works great but in all honesty the repetitiveness gets to us after those years. I'm still a fan of a 4th optional difficulty (see my post in sig), or other things like endless dungeons, craft your own maps or sequence of, just me (and who am I) can come up with so many possibilities, I'm pretty sure the GGG hive brain can come up with even better stuff that's is not that extremely time-consuming to program.
Just stop finding 'solutions' that aren't necessary or aren't even solutions but mere renaming things, no one will get better from this, nor the players nor the programmers. Add something new that gives us options, stop watching the 0,001% of players that will do highest end level maps anyways whatever GGG comes up with. Think about the players that want to have fun, not the ones that grind to 100 because they are robots.

You already have endless dungeons, maps and act 4 :p Quite a bit of variety too if you dont mind xp penalty.

As for level 100 being the limit and these players then having nothing to do, yes - thats the key issue here - and the obvious solution is to remove/increase level caps, but make leveling bonuses after 100 only stat increase (for example). Of course GGG don't want to do this, but they may end up having no choice,and it would give the no-lifers something to do without bringing any significant change (although it may lead to real life problems lolol)


Nonetheless, consider not thatttt long ago how we had less maps and didn't have Atziri. We've come a long way even during quite a short amount of time. We need to give them time to keep building layer upon layer.
In their last Q&A they mentioned future plans for endgame, and considering there are mini expansions before each new act it would make perfect sense that one of the next 2-3 mini expansions before the next act include new alternative endgame activity. Maybe a new atziri style boss (to freshen things up), basically more to do. Essentially they just need time, tweaks/rebalancing like this doesn't affect future development.

Map drop rates have been autrocious to say the least. I don't want to have to be forced to trade for maps.

If I do my grind I expect reasonable maps dropping.

My view hence that changing the drop rate for maps is a must.

I now look forward to this issue being fixed.