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Character limit reached. Moved and improved thread to http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/364078/page/1/#p3203169

To me the worst part of the game is the limbo between level 64 lunaris runs that are the same thing every single time, or level 66 maps that are different, varied, fun and can lead to 67+. I can see why maps are items but holy crap, bring back maelstrom of chaos as a 65 area, please. Or a map vendor who sells various types of 66 maps that are just as overpriced as anything else from vendors. Or at the very, very least: greatly increase the drop rate of 66 maps, so that players will always have more places to go to than either lunaris 3 or docks. Players could then make use of the vendor recipe in order to get higher levels than 66.

Luck adds longetivity and the feeling of a reward and whatnot, but when luck can end up with you regressing back to content you're bored of it leads to a not very fun game, period. Of course, this feedback is from the perspective of someone who plays purely solo, so no partying up to always have maps and currency to improve them on hand :/

The Chris quotes are pure genius. He is so smart! I want to build him a shrine.

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Wooser69 wrote:

To me the worst part of the game is the limbo between level 64 lunaris runs that are the same thing every single time, or level 66 maps that are different, varied, fun and can lead to 67+. I can see why maps are items but holy crap, bring back maelstrom of chaos as a 65 area, please. Or a map vendor who sells various types of 66 maps that are just as overpriced as anything else from vendors. Or at the very, very least: greatly increase the drop rate of 66 maps, so that players will always have more places to go to than either lunaris 3 or docks. Players could then make use of the vendor recipe in order to get higher levels than 66.

Luck adds longetivity and the feeling of a reward and whatnot, but when luck can end up with you regressing back to content you're bored of it leads to a not very fun game, period. Of course, this feedback is from the perspective of someone who plays purely solo, so no partying up to always have maps and currency to improve them on hand :/

In the dev manifesto, Chris has already addressed that they will be making it easier to get the starter maps. I have the quote in my OP. In the meantime, I HIGHLY suggest you read Lyralei's map management thread before you start mapping again. I promise it will save you alot of time/currency if you are having trouble with lvl 66 maps.

If I misunderstood and you have been mapping far longer than I, I apologize. Otherwise, I hope Lyra's guide helps you.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/339977

Agree with pretty much all of the OP.
I made several threads about this myself, and since the new patch changed the quantity bonus for some of the hard mods, i tried my luck again, following this rule:

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Chris wrote:
Players are not playing hard enough maps (in terms of mods). If you don't have mods on it, its yield may not average a new map on average. For players who are making theirs rare with difficult mods, they get more maps than they spend, on average.

The outcome of this new try, is this new thread of mine:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/345277
Basically i did 100 crazy hard maps (specifically running hard mods instead of the packsize/champions etc), with the hardest of them all being linked in the thread i just posted.
On average, i did not even get 1 map out of a map.
I ran out of 71, 70, 69 and i am almost out of 68 aswell.
I had stored up all of these maps from my earlier tries where i had used 5-10 chaos orbs per map (+4 chisel), in order to get the desirable mods (packsize/champions etc).
Basically what chris wrote (you dont run hard enough mods) is utter bolocks.

I am going to quote myself from my thread because i think it is very relevant.

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The biggest problem here is that packsize etc functions as a multiplicative quantity modifier (if you have 100% quantity rolled on the map and 50% packsize, then you have a total of triple the amount of loot, while 50% additional quantity through a hard mod would only add up to 150% increased quantity in total (which means two and a half times as much loot instead of triple).
The easy mods are all multiplicative modifiers, while the hard mods dont multiply anything, even though the difficulty is multiplied by a lot.
This makes no sense whatsoever and needs a proper fix, not just an increase of value.
The hard mods need to be multipliers aswell, not just additive values. (atleast regarding map drop rate).

If you just go for hard mods, you will run out of maps, forget about proceeding in the map tier, you will run out of maps.
The easy multiplicative mods are much better than any of the hard mods, especially if you stack em up.
In order to achieve this, you have to use plenty of chaos per map (and chisels in order to have a base quantity which you multiply with the easy mods).
I did use that many chaos per map for quite a long time (and i also managed to stay at lvl 74 maps most of the time), until they nerfed the low lvl chaos recipe.
With the low lvl chaos recipe nerfed, there is no fast way of regaining those chaos back, so i stopped playing.
With the new patch i had high hopes that just alching maps and going for hard mods would now be sufficient to atleast sustain 71-72 maps. I was wrong.

Here is another example.
If you roll the maze mod on specific maps, you pretty much double the size of the map.
This basically serves as a 100% more quantity modifier (not increased).
If you now also roll 50% packsize on top of that (which also serves as a more quantity modifier), you are already looking at 1.2 x 2 x 1.5 = 3.6 times the amount of loot (which equals to 260% quantity modifier) (the 1.2 base comes from 20% chisel).
If you now roll 2 of the "hard" mods on top of this to increase the quantity base by another 35%, from 1.2 to 1.55 (20% chisel + 35% = 55% --> base quantity is 1.55 of its original value), you have this calculation instead:
1.55 x 2 x 1.5 = 4.65 times the amount of loot.
With only 4 mods (the correct ones) you can get almost double the amount of quantity that i have on the hardest map possible (with 6 "hard" mods, and zero easy multiplicative mods).
That map from my thread has 6 hard mods, it is basically the hardest map you can roll, and it only has 128% increased quantity. 1 x 2.28 = 2.28 times the amount of loot.
The hard maps suck and thats why you run out of maps doing them.
The only maps that grant significant map drop rates, are the easy ones with the multiplicative mods, and in order to get them, you have to spend a fortune.

My proposed fix (also a quote from the thread):

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I think the best solution to this problem would be, to have all of the multiplicative modifiers (like champions/maze/packsize/larger area) on one side of the affix table (lets say suffixes), while all of the non multiplicative modifiers (all of the harder mods basically) are on the other side of the affix table (lets say prefixes).
Right now the multiplicative and non multiplicative mods are almost equally mixed between suffixes and prefixes.
This means that it is entirely possible to have 6 non-multiplicative hard mods (resulting in a map like the one i posted on the top) which drops nothing, while it is also possible to roll 5 multiplicative easy mods + 1 additive mod (resulting in the easiest map ever) which drops more than any other map possible.
If the multiplicative mods could only spawn on one side (suffixes for example), while the non-multiplicative mods can only spawn on the opposite side (prefixes for example) then we could never roll hard maps that have less loot than easy maps.

If this would result in too many similar maps (because there are only so many multiplicative mods in the affix table), then you can also just decide to make all of the current suffixes into multiplicative values, while all of the prefixes are non-multiplicative. (atleast regarding map drop rate).

Wait, you feel you should be able to progress in the game, despite the fact that you skip some bosses because they're too hard for you......?

There are a multitude of issues with the map system, but if you can't beat the current map bosses, you shouldn't be complaining.

This is what I was talking about in my OP. My favorite way to map is simply alch a white map and run it no matter what rolls. It's cheap, its surprising, and it is more fun to me than simply stacking mods that increase my abysmal chances at a map dropping.
... hmm map link failure... I'll just post the stats
Promenade lvl 69
Area contains many totems
Players are cursed with vulnerability
75% monster cold resist
Monsters' skills chain 2 additional times
Map yields 63% more items.

Was this map hard? Well... moderately yeah. Vulnerability as melee can be very challenging. But the point is, this map wasn't simply a maze/area magic/packsize blue roll. This map was rare, had some challenging mods, and had decent iiq. And guess how many maps it dropped? ZERO!

Some might say "But this is just one example, you can't base everything off of one bit of bad luck." To those ppl I say... you didn't read my OP =(

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Wait, you feel you should be able to progress in the game, despite the fact that you skip some bosses because they're too hard for you......?

There are a multitude of issues with the map system, but if you can't beat the current map bosses, you shouldn't be complaining.

Never said I skip em. I said the risk vs reward isn't high enough. I skip nothing, admittedly sometimes leading to my death ><

Just because feedback isn't positive feedback, does not make it complaining.
My goal here was not to complain. I only wished to share my experience and show the "not so lucky" version of the mapping community.

Very interesting solution Gh0un. While I think it could help, I don't think it will solve my issues with map progression being very luck based. People will still favor those mods, all it would do is force them to have to run at least 1 harder mod with the easier ones.

Its not even rng that is screwing you over on the hard yellows.
Pure math proves that these hard yellows are crap regarding overall quantity.
Personal experience just cements it. The only way to progress is to try and get as many of the easy multiplicative mods at the same time, and this is horrendously expensive.