Maps arent very random at all.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

There is almost no real randomness in maps when it comes to the affixes and the enemies spawned. You pretty much know exactly the types of mobs in a map based on the map itself and the mods rolled on it.

Lets say you get vulnerability curse as one of your mods, well, you can be pretty certain that there will be a considerable amount of chargers, punctures, and chaos enemies.

Get any ele damage mod and the map will mostly consist of ele casters of that element because it makes the map mod a flat bonus of up to 100% damage extra because their original damage is scaled in a way to take into account players with 79% resistance at the least and still be dangerous. If this extra damage was given to mobs not of that damage type then its only a 21% damage boost because most of it is getting resisted anyways.

This all adds up to equal out to a very bland end-game. Its supposed to be random but its not.

Any player that has spent a considerable amount of time mapping has seen this.

When I see those affixes I already know whats coming so I change my strategy and sometimes gear for the situation, totally defeating the purpose of random affixes in the first place.

I dont really have a solution for this that would be acceptable since pretty much any solution that adds more randomness to the mobs removes a good bit of the threat level. But at the same time, any good player with knowledge of game mechanics will do whatever is needed to remove the risk anyways.

This is just my feedback on mob generation in maps.

Makes me wonder if a buff to the IIQ bonus for running unid maps is in order.

EDIT: For reference for those who don't know it, unid maps currently provide +30% IIQ bonus.

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adghar wrote:

Makes me wonder if a buff to the IIQ bonus for running unid maps is in order.

EDIT: For reference for those who don't know it, unid maps currently provide +30% IIQ bonus.

Yes, this is true, but unfortunately, with the xp penalty, it is not worth it to risk a death because of not knowing the affixes of a map.

Another issue is, most people roll their own maps from white maps meaning there is no unid bonus anyways. The very few yellow maps that drop in comparison to whites makes this almost 100% pointless. I for one have never run an unid map in the group I run high maps with. It is not worth the risk for such rare maps. I have run a few low maps like this when I was first getting serious about mapping and quickly realized that 30% bonus was not equivilent to the risk involved and therefore not worth it to do so. Maybe now that I can faceroll all maps up to 72-73 regardless of affixes since I got some nice upgrades this would be possible but the xp gain is miniscule and the currency gain is almost worthless.

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adghar wrote:

Makes me wonder if a buff to the IIQ bonus for running unid maps is in order.

EDIT: For reference for those who don't know it, unid maps currently provide +30% IIQ bonus.

It would already be nice if there was a way to get unid maps reliably, without doing the "3 for 1" map trade. A bit higher reward for risking it would also be nice though, got a -max res, no regen, multiple projectiles map yesterday, with Voidbearers in it. Thank god I have Arctic Armour with me. :P

Make alts. Maps are in the game for masochists. Current game is only intended for lvl 1-70. This is still beta.

Oh believe me I have made alts. 24 character slots worth and then some because I have had to delete some of the more doomed characters in order to make more viable ones. I assure you I have made alts.

That however wasnt the point of this thread at all.

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thedestroyerofkids wrote:

Lets say you get vulnerability curse as one of your mods, well, you can be pretty certain that there will be a considerable amount of chargers, punctures, and chaos enemies.

I just wanted to chime in on this.

There is definitely a link to monsters and mods, it is most noticeable with the vulnerability mod.

You usually get at least two of the 3 groups that mostly affect you with vulnerability*. Sometimes all 3. Those being;
Charge/Leap - Guard/Rhoa/Goat.
Bomb - Alch/Incinerator.
Puncture - Hellion/Softcrab/Skele/Snake.

I think on one occasion only* I had only one of the three, can't remember which it was, but I remember there were a lot of guards that would have been a second type had they not all been the non-charge ones.

*This can be overridden by a 'monster type' affix, though.

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ShaeG wrote:

Make alts. Maps are in the game for masochists. Current game is only intended for lvl 1-70. This is still beta.

That doesn't make sense, maps are part of the current game, they, and therefore the game, is not intended for 1-70 only.

Whether this is beta or not, has no bearing.

And..

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Chris wrote:

Our largest problem with the Map system is that high-level experience gain is gated by a system that was designed for gating high-level item acquisition. We are 100% happy with how maps work as far as the item system goes (and are amazed by how much even white items from the highest maps are worth), but we're not happy with how it affects players who are trying to grind for the highest spots on the ladder. We are considering some potential solutions (experience equation changes, ways to access maps for experience gain rather than items, etc).

Also, this wasnt a complaint thread. Its just a general observation I have had in regards to the map system.

I feel like its a system that defeats its own purpose. When you have mods like those on a map it should add something interesting to the experience instead of just overwhelming amounts of the types of mobs that best compliment the modifier.

Like I said, I have no idea how they would make affixes like these more exciting and engaging.

But then again we as characters try to build enough survivability to withstand all but the very largest of hits largely trivializing a good amount of the mods anyways.

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thedestroyerofkids wrote:

But then again we as characters try to build enough survivability to withstand all but the very largest of hits largely trivializing a good amount of the mods anyways.

Well, the way I always put it is;

We build/gear to survive a desync in the content we play, which can result in taking focus fire from several of the nastiest mobs one would encounter in that content. With enough dps to be able to take down a double regen leecher, and enough leech to counter reflect.

Which all in all makes the content we do, trivial.