Easy fix for the ridiculous stupid map system

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Lord_Kamster wrote:

Map drop rates were corrected pretty well last patch. I alch/chisel 76/tier 9 maps and up, and I've been moving up progressively. I'm on map #215 now and I'm doing 79/80s exclusively at the moment.

Just play the game and you'll get maps. I don't believe map drop criticism is valid any longer with things as they are now.

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restinpieces0815 wrote:

As with a dice there is still a chance to roll 100 ones in a row. The system is flawed there is always someone who get Fed in the A.
And no I didn't get Fed in the A my map pool is still in good condition. Its just so obviously bad that since I started mapping I can't stop thinking about why the keep trying to balancing an unbalance-able system.

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Vhlad wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

Sigh.

If every map dropped a map of same level, then no one would need to use currency on maps. So no one would. White maps all day.

White maps are boring as hell. But there are large numbers of players who will do the min-max thing even if it's boring. So they'd still just run white maps all day.

To correct this, GGG needs to weave into the game a tool which ensures players use currency on maps, for both economic and gameplay variety reasons. Limited sustainability is that tool.

It's a poor tool, because it creates long periods of time where players are running boring content.

Heck, if the only reason people are spending currency on maps is so they can run maps, I see that as a pretty big fail. Bonuses to quantity, rarity, and pack size should provide sufficient incentive to increase map difficulty (if those bonuses actually led to a more rewarding experience, which they don't seem to, because the largest determinant of anything seems to be the map seed, which overshadows your rolled pack size, + magic monsters, quantity, everything).
snip
There are many ways to retain maps as a currency sink, without forcing players to grind content that is so trivial the greatest challenge is not to fall asleep.

• Less affix reward variance. Singular strong affixes not only discourage gameplay variety because people roll for those affixes all of the time, but they also strengthen blue maps and weaken rare maps because rerolling for those affixes is more difficult, which means: less rare maps and even less gameplay variety. The "reward" in "risk/reward" for map rolling should be more about saving on reroll currency, and a little less on making the weaker affixes give less than the stronger ones.
• Simply make the affixes more rewarding. When each affix gives a higher numerical value of reward, the advantage of multiple-affix maps over blue maps increases. If we doubled map affix reward values, instead of a 100% quantity map having 40% more mapyield than that decent blue map, it would have 67% more mapyield. That might be too extreme, but the point is to make rare maps feel more worth it.
• Make all prefixes give pack size and all suffixes give quantity, or vice versa. Let's say all map affixes gave 30% quantity and nothing else, a blue unchiseled map would give 60% quantity and a six-affix rare would give 180%. But if all prefixes gave 20% packsize instead, the blue map would have an effective 56% quantity while the six-affix would have 204% effective quantity. Such a system encourages more affixes, not less.

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restinpieces0815 wrote:

I really didn't want to make this a "Why RNG gated content is bad" thread. I assumed everyone was in the same boat here. But can you give me just one valid argument from a players point of view (Not GGG not a gambling addict) why RNG gated content is good? And no currency sink is not an argument from a players point of view.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Vhlad wrote:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

Sigh.

If every map dropped a map of same level, then no one would need to use currency on maps. So no one would. White maps all day.

White maps are boring as hell. But there are large numbers of players who will do the min-max thing even if it's boring. So they'd still just run white maps all day.

To correct this, GGG needs to weave into the game a tool which ensures players use currency on maps, for both economic and gameplay variety reasons. Limited sustainability is that tool.

It's a poor tool, because it creates long periods of time where players are running boring content.

Heck, if the only reason people are spending currency on maps is so they can run maps, I see that as a pretty big fail. Bonuses to quantity, rarity, and pack size should provide sufficient incentive to increase map difficulty (if those bonuses actually led to a more rewarding experience, which they don't seem to, because the largest determinant of anything seems to be the map seed, which overshadows your rolled pack size, + magic monsters, quantity, everything).
snip
There are many ways to retain maps as a currency sink, without forcing players to grind content that is so trivial the greatest challenge is not to fall asleep.

Italicized portions mine.

I feel like you're moving the goalposts on me here. In terms of a more favorable droprate versus a less favorable one - that is, RNG vs RNG - then I feel there is plenty of room for intelligent debate on the subject.

However, the OP is not advocating one droprate versus another, but a random droprate versus a guarantee. And that is just utter fail, for the reasons I provided.

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I do feel like rare maps do not feel rewarding enough when compared to the basic minimally-rolled maps. A decently rolled, unchiseled blue map can rather easily yield 40% more mapyield than a white map with minimal investment. However, getting 40% more mapyield than a blue map means a 100% quantity map, which can be prohibitively expensive to roll. The large difference in cost with modest increase in effect has led to the surprisingly pervasive myth that quantity doesn't effect mapyield at all.

Maps should want to be rolled rare, and rolled well. Right now the current system doesn't quite deliver. Here are some things which would help the situation:

• Less affix reward variance. Singular strong affixes not only discourage gameplay variety because people roll for those affixes all of the time, but they also strengthen blue maps and weaken rare maps because rerolling for those affixes is more difficult, which means: less rare maps and even less gameplay variety. The "reward" in "risk/reward" for map rolling should be more about saving on reroll currency, and a little less on making the weaker affixes give less than the stronger ones.
• Simply make the affixes more rewarding. When each affix gives a higher numerical value of reward, the advantage of multiple-affix maps over blue maps increases. If we doubled map affix reward values, instead of a 100% quantity map having 40% more mapyield than that decent blue map, it would have 67% more mapyield. That might be too extreme, but the point is to make rare maps feel more worth it.
• Make all prefixes give pack size and all suffixes give quantity, or vice versa. Let's say all map affixes gave 30% quantity and nothing else, a blue unchiseled map would give 60% quantity and a six-affix rare would give 180%. But if all prefixes gave 20% packsize instead, the blue map would have an effective 56% quantity while the six-affix would have 204% effective quantity. Such a system encourages more affixes, not less.

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restinpieces0815 wrote:

I really didn't want to make this a "Why RNG gated content is bad" thread. I assumed everyone was in the same boat here. But can you give me just one valid argument from a players point of view (Not GGG not a gambling addict) why RNG gated content is good? And no currency sink is not an argument from a players point of view.

I am not in that boat at all.

Sorry, but currency sink is an argument from a player's point of view. The lack of currency sinks in Diablo 3 has more to do with its eventual downfall than the auction houses did; economies simply do not suffer those levels of hyperinflation with effective sinks in place. When currency sinks fail, D3 style economic meltdowns are the result.

The problem is that you kind of need to understand in-game economies in order to appreciate this. It's a little bit like paying your taxes. In politics, it's a fairly common strategy to essentially say "paying taxes does nothing for the taxpayer, it's not an argument from their point of view," but I would hope by now we know anyone who says this is either a crackpot or a politician appealing to crackpots. No one who has says this has ever abolished taxation, but at most lowered the tax rate while maintaining the core system. In much the same way, the argument could be made that an in-game economy could lower its amount of sunk currency and still maintain its effectiveness, but utterly removing maps as a currency sink is sheer madness which would destroy Path of Exile from an economic perspective, and thus will never, ever fucking happen.

Thus, "currency sink is not an argument from a player's point of view" pretty much boils down to: "I give absolutely zero fucks about the economy, and I am more than willing to utterly fuck over that part of the game if it means a better self-found experience for me." Or perhaps more succinctly: "currency sink is not an argument from a self-found player's point of view."

Which would be correct. It isn't.

But you're not the only type of player the game has, and you are not more important than players who enjoy participating in the economy.

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There is a point other than currency sink, which is: map affix variety. Playing a variety of map affixes adds new dimensions to content and thus becomes a form of new content itself. Granted, from a self-found player's perspective it would be nice if these random affixes were just there rather than having to create/modify them with currency, but still, maximizing affix variety on maps is important to maximizing the amount of available content in maps.

However, this system is subverted from within itself by poorly designed affixes. As an extreme example, Blood Magic on maps adds exactly zero variety for CI users, as they cannot run the map at all. A good map affix for player enjoyment is one which can be run by any build, and creates new situations and challenges which might not be encountered otherwise. Not all of the current affixes are good in this way.

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Getting a same level map with a 100% certainty means that you have to get enough currency to buy a single lvl 82 map (or lvl 81 if you can't handle 82 bosses), just keep running it white and never run out of maps.

Don't you see how stupid this would become? I'm unhappy with how little I get 79-82 drops, but even then I can see how bad of an idea this is.

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Getting a same level map with a 100% certainty means that you have to get enough currency to buy a single lvl 82 map (or lvl 81 if you can't handle 82 bosses), just keep running it white and never run out of maps.

Don't you see how stupid this would become? I'm unhappy with how little I get 79-82 drops, but even then I can see how bad of an idea this is.

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kcstar wrote:

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Getting a same level map with a 100% certainty means that you have to get enough currency to buy a single lvl 82 map (or lvl 81 if you can't handle 82 bosses), just keep running it white and never run out of maps.

Don't you see how stupid this would become? I'm unhappy with how little I get 79-82 drops, but even then I can see how bad of an idea this is.

Agree ✓


... not worth spending much time on this thread, behavior of OP and his "argument is invalid" is just utter bs.