Fragment drop + Statistical Info + Graphs

I think it might be best to have GGG sell midnight frags for $2.99 a pop......nothing to complain about there right?

But damn, new content is barely a week old and you guys are all up in arms already.....patience for Christ sake.

allegedly fragment drops depend on the time of day (minutes) in which you make the corrupted instance. i haven't confirmed this but it makes sense considering the hints ggg have been dropping. also fragments can be used to increase quantity of maps in the map machine.

I actually agree with people here.

1. Since corrupted areas won't appear in Maps, as a high level character you will have to make a choice. Either playing maps, and getting loot which has the potential to be anything useful, and also a little XP, or you will have to run low level areas like an idiot, not getting XP or items that are either useful or worth anything for the sake of finding a corrupted zone.

2. Seeing peoples posts here, and discussions about fragment drop rates make this even more useless. Why grind for 20+ hours, in low level areas, not gaining XP or Loot, just to find that stupid Midnight Fragment, so you can do this boss ONCE (and for that matter, seeing the boss videos, she doesn't always drop anything of value...)

3. Since the patch, I (and every single one of my friends aswell) get disconnected from server in 75% of all the maps and corrupted zones before we even get to kill the zone boss.
This means I've lost 1 unique map about halfway through, and about 15-20 rare maps, which has made mapping completely unprofitable. There's NO point in wasting a map, an alch orb, or transmutes and alterations if you know that you will lose the map anyway before finding any good loot at all in it. And yes, I saw that GGG claims to have added crash fixes, but it's bullshit, I still get the crashes.

Don't get me wrong GGG, this has been THE most fun Action RPG I've played since Diablo 2, and you have an incredible quality on your game, especially considering it's F2P. But the recent changes, and the three points I've made above mean that there is absolutely nothing to do for high level characters in the game at the moment. I refuse to start another map in fear of losing it. And the fragment drop rates seem really far fetched (if you even get to the corrupted zone boss without getting a DC).

I see this as a window of opportunity to put PoE aside and pick up Dark Souls 2 instead.

You really have alot of work ahead of you before I consider this a game worth playing again since the recent changes GGG.

Peace!

"

Dudinkalv wrote:

which has made mapping completely unprofitable.

As if maps had been profitable pre 1.1... ;)

"

Peterlerock wrote:

"

Dudinkalv wrote:

which has made mapping completely unprofitable.

As if maps had been profitable pre 1.1... ;)

Honestly, in the long run, yes, I would say that I have made profit by playing maps pre 1.1.

I was really excited for this expansion. I was really looking forward to the new content.
But in the end it was disappointing because most of the changes are either useless or unattainable.

1. Vaal Gems: most are useless
Reasons:
- take far too long to charge (and even longer in Cruel/Merci why?!?)
- you loose charge on map change (so you can't charge Vaal gems for bosses)
- most don't do enough damage without support gems but would you spare the gear-slots for a skill you can only use every few minutes?

Useful ones include: Vaal Summon Skeletons, Vaal Immortal Call, Vaal Molten Shell, (Vaal Cyclone)
Rest is pretty much useless

2. Strongboxes
- this is fun. except when it kills you right away (exploding) which seems unfair

3. Corrupted areas
- fun in the beginning (when you have a chance)
- but in cruel/merci the bosses hit way to hard for a leveling character (even when you are over leveled) so I avoid those because I don't feel like dying.

4. Atziri
She is supposed to be the new big bag. Of course you want to fight her. But can you? No.
She is gated behind some crazy unlikely RNG. Don't get me wrong. Needing fragments to fight her is not a bad idea. But the drop chance of the fragments has to be higher. Way higher. Right now most people will never ever see her. This is not good game design.

5. Vaal Orbs
Pretty much useless. No one in his right mind would use one on his high level gear (or good item) and risk rendering the item unusable. GGG want people to use Vaal orbs on mediocre items for a chance to turn them into good ones. Okay makes sense. But when I need that mediocre item (for resi/slots) I won't risk that item either because loosing it might mean my character becomes unplayable. So the only option left is to use them on items I don't use atm for a chance of getting a better one. I don't bother but others might. It's a personal choice I guess.
The other huge problem with these orbs is that they lock the item. Why? I don't know. It's bad game design in my opinion (enforcing even more RNG). It should be possible to restore items after vaaling them (yes I made that word up) or at least re-vaaling them in case the result is undesirable.

6. Suggestions
- Increase drop rate of fragments (or give all 4 pieces an equal chance of dropping)
- Fragments should drop in maps. If that is too easy than allow using a vaal orb on a map to turn it into a vaal-map which then can drop fragments. That would be a good use of vaal orbs.
- decrease the difficulty of vaal areas while leveling so players with matching level can do them
- remove the restrictions from vaal orbs
- vaal skill gems: reduce the amount of souls required. this does not apply to all gems