Crazy map idea

I really liked the suggestion someone made in one of the other threads that the difficulty of a map shouldn't affect the quantity of maps and items that drop within the map, but instead the level of maps that drop.

This way the drop rate of maps could be fairly static, but the only way to get higher level maps would be to do harder ones.


Then I thought of another idea that I think would go along well with the above. Whenever you kill the boss in a map it drops a map that:
- is a mirrored copy of the map you are currently in, with the exact same mods
- in addition to the mods on the map you are in, it gets one additional mod (same as using augmentation, regal, or exalted)
- has no limit to the total number of mods that it can receive
- this mirrored map cannot be altered by orbs


This way, you would always have a map available to run. On the other hand, each time you run it, it would get harder and harder, until it might have 15 mods on it and be insanely difficult. But being that difficult it would have a chance to drop much higher level maps, so there would be a risk vs reward. Do you run that crazy 12-mod 67 map again and risk death to find a higher level one, or start over with a fresh 66 map?

I think with this method the rewards for magic finding vs power building would be more in balance. Currently the magic finding wins out, since the number of monsters in a map are limited, so you need to get the most out of them that you can, and killing speed isn't as important. But with these maps of escalating difficulty, magic finding would still yield more items from each map instance, but perhaps a character that prioritised damage and survivability would be able to continue using the same map for more iterations, and complete them faster. So there would be more equality between the two different play styles.

In such a system the map drop rate would have to be lowered, because you wouldn't need as many. The chisel drop rate would also need to be lowered, since a single chisel would last over many iterations of the map. I'd also remove the IIQ that the map mods give. They are giving a chance to find higher level maps instead, and the fact that you can repeat a single map over and over would mean you would get a lot more items in total from the lifespan of a single map drop, even if it means killing a lot more monsters.

The idea behind making the mirrored maps immune to orbs is to prevent people from just finding one level 69 map, then running it forever and just using a scouring or chaos whenever it started to get too hard. But you should still be able orb maps that drop from monsters normally.

Don't be afraid to tell me how this is a terrible idea, just because I'm a moderator :P
I don't do much end-game grinding, it's just not my style, so maybe I'm missing something important.


Just wanted to add a couple more thoughts about this idea:

- Since the boss always drops a harder version of the map, players could keep their most deadly maps as a badge of honour, to show what they have achieved.

- Using currency to get specific mods (maze, magic monsters, etc.) to optimise map drops would be less important. They would still give a greater chance of a map dropping, but they have a low difficulty rating, so they would most likely only drop lower level maps until they went through a few iterations to get harder mods that allow higher level maps to drop. Still, these mods might prove too powerful, since if they were crafted on there as the first two mods, they would remain for all subsequent iterations of the map. Maybe mods like larger area - which increase drops without increasing the difficulty - should come with a penalty to the level of map drops. So they would still be good if you were more interested in loot than XP, or just wanted to stay around your current level and weren't trying to move up yet. So a map with these mods that don't increase difficulty would need to be more difficult than a map without them, in order to enable higher level maps to drop.

I like how the difficulty could affect the chance for a higher level map. I'm not sure about the mirrored map part, I can't picture how it would work overall. Going to keep thinking about it.

hmm,

-deadly maps
well the problem would be too many mods, once you have CI and BM combinations connected with severel cursings directly affecting the player.
Disabling several builds from doing a certain map.
It starts to not work well in different leagues like hardcore.
A limit of 6 mods helps to reduce incompatible combinations.

-crafting
The value of white maps is highly increased in your suggestion, while "already colored" maps lost most of their value.
You dont have a need to spend currencies on maps, the endboss does it for you. The main-gold-sink after you have done your gear would be gone.

-rewarding players constantly
It would take some time to get a lvl68map, then you are allowed to do this map 1-10times.
It feels more rewarding if we split these 1-10times more even out.

-magicfind balance versus killspeed in its current form
unlike D2s last-hit-mechanic, in PoE you are allowed to always invite a pure-magicfinder to your group, he should come with either Powersyphon or Cullingstrike.
You pay him with empty bottles because if your groupsetup works, he will get the last hits most of the time.
He is weak, guard him.
Big advantage for those that want to share maps with others.
I do not detect a imbalance in there.

-Chisels
I actually like that chisels just improve the levels of the maps that could be dropped.
Somehow feels irrelevant to decide between +50% or +70%.

I like the idea of such guaranteed drop. But it is bad for the end game sustainability of the game.

- As pointed out above, this significantly reduce the currency sink on map. Why would you start at a blue map if you can go over that map 2 times before it even start to be blue ?

- Uncontrolled randomness. Everything in this game is random to some degree. But you always have a chance to modify it. Map that add a mod at random and then have no chance to alter it, which lead to the next point

- Unsinkable item: The idea of collecting hard map as trophy is nice, but you will never want to run it, no one want to buy it (again, who would buy a rare map if they could run a white map 6 times over). This will be even more problamatic in HC. Maybe vendoring map could give some good return to solve this (upgrade recipe or alch shard recipe)

- Backward reward system: The current system encourage you to do hard map for great reward (Chris even pointed out that ppl werent doing hard enough maps). With the new system, you want your map as easy as possible since you will always have guaranteed map. To milk out a map as much as possible, always start with white.

- Confusing mechanics: Mirroed item already exists through the use of mirror. And they are already un-modifiable. Map is itemized in the same system as every other item, They could be allowed to have >6 affixes (like some unique item). But it would be pretty crazy when 10-15 affixes rolling around.

That's my input. It seems like a nice idea at first but it's not practical

*poke* shouldn't this be in suggestions Mr. Moderator.

I think always having a map to fall back on isn't the most desirable idea.

I feel better about making people trade for well everything.

I go back and forth on the never ending endgame vs. Pay-the-piper scenario. Before patch, it was pay the piper and it worked. But yes, we weren't doing hard enough mods.

Now were paying the piper, but he's not giving us anything in return most of the time. The idea that maps are difficult I also feel is somewhat moot for high lvl players. Most alched maps tend to return around 50%IIQ. I'm finding it impossible to play anything difficult. The mods are almost irrelevant for me at this point.

In saying that, I would love to see more mods on maps. Or at least more difficultones. How about friendly fire enabled? Or monsters have 200% more health? Being able to have 10 mods might make this game difficult again, but I can see your idea coming into conflict with HC pretty quickly.

About trading, people USED to trade maps frequently. Very frequently. Now, its mostly WTB. Something needs to change. I still think a floor based on map difficulty would be a great start, and I would assume a fairly easy one to code as well.

I miss feeling challenged. I miss feeling rewarded. I've grown so bored with running low level maps and never gain xp, since I'm such a high level that I've started running fellshrine with groups and crafting items. Not that that's bad, but its not what I would like to be doing.

Further, as I suggested in my map thread, certain mods should provide mote than 1+1 =2 IIQ. -20% resists and increased monster elemental dmg for instance. I like your idea of adding more mods, but I could see your suggestion causing problems rather quickly for many players.

One last thing. Chisels should not be so abundant. Why are they trying to make them required for even low level maps? They should be icing on the cake. A bonus. Not some easy click and make everything better mechanism that I find tons everyday. That's not hard, and it doesn't feel rewarding in its current state.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Further, as I suggested in my map thread, certain mods should provide mote than 1+1 =2 IIQ. -20% resists and increased monster elemental dmg for instance. I like your idea of adding more mods, but I could see your suggestion causing problems rather quickly for many players.

I like that suggestion, difficulty is always multiplicative, making it additive provide no incentive to run hard maps