a new mapping method - map fragments

I feel that the maps available to us are too large and time consuming. with a normal non funded custom build, it can take long over 10 minutes to clear a single map. the kind of high intensity game play that happens inside of a map can only be paused by using one of your 6 portals, if you haven't already done so to bank loot. I like how short and to the point sacrifice fragments are. a map takes about 2 minutes to clear, including the boss. a quick and cheap map for a quick and cheap reward at the end. I would like to open up the possibility of expanding on this idea as an alternate mapping method. it would have to be balanced to give the same amount of xp and drop as a normal map taken into account it's a fifth of the length and content, but it would definitely be a good way to quickly do a map without committing a large chunk of time. it's a good idea for us traders, as I know it annoys people to hear "be one sec in a map" to buy an item 5 mins later. essentially all I'm suggesting is a new map type for all map levels.

a single map fragment would contain (these numbers are totally out of my head but imagine them being a fifth of a normal map) 10 mob packs, one unique boss, with not too much of a loot table but still farm able if wanted, and a loot chest at the end once you've full cleared the area. the loot chest would have a chance at dropping another fragment along with normal drops.

a person would be able to break apart a normal white map into four random map fragments for the cost of one new currency type, as rare as a chisel and only dropping in maps, the cartographer's gavel. it always guaranteesone of the level below, and the other three left up to chance, weighted the same as normal maps drop in normal maps (meaning a lot of low level maps and occasionally a +1 or even a +2). you cannot make complete maps with map fragments, however. The way that this would react with existing maps is that if i take a lvl 70 map and break it into fragments, i will get one lvl 69 map fragment, and four lvl 66-70 maps with a chance of any of them being +1 or +2. If i break apart a lvl 78 map, i would get one lvl 77, and four lvl 66-78 with a chance of any of them being +1 or +2.

furthermore, you cannot add quality to these fragments and you cannot make them rare, magic only. as with normal maps, you would be able to trade up map fragments. instead of vendoring them, however, you would input four map fragments of the same level into the map machine to run a random unidentified +1 level map with three mods for the cost of another cartographer's gavel, this way you would not be able to hoard a lot of maps and "vendor" them up to high levels, ensuring that high level maps dont become too commonplace and more rewarding. one of those mods can be influenced if all four of the maps share a similar mod. if they all share two, then only one of those will be transferred.

you would be able to get four +2 78 fragments and put it into the map machine and get one lvl 81 fragment. overpowered if it were a normal size map, but a nice little reward if only at 1/5th the size and very hard to get regardless.

the idea behind this suggestion is because I prefer rapid fire gameplay and high intensity battles but I do not like them drawn out over a full map, its stressful, it's boring, it can result in death, and is often disappointing when you spend all that time and not get any maps back. the fix would be to give more drops, but with these map fragments that only give you a small portion of the content.

here is a simple visual representation of the idea:


please let me know what you guys think, and how this can be used to break the game so that I may address that issue with another suggestion.

even with a mediocre build and gear, it shouldn't be taking you more than 20 minutes to solo clear a map. ~15 is about normal.

that said, if you keep it balanced, I can't really disagree with the idea. but keep in mind that most people will not do it because it greatly increases the currency requirements of map rolling. and you can't keep the mods upon fragmenting the map, because things like double boss/extra exiles would be far too valuable.

not to mention that for most people, the boss fight is the most dangerous part of the map (heck a lot of bosses get skipped normally). i really doubt that people would want to increase the number of bosses they have to face for little if any increased reward.

but hey, to each his own.

and to that i offer a solution, to lower the costs of rolling maps, and to appeal to the boss thing.
first, we could remove or lower the impact of certain undesirable map mods, or second, we could add "batch" crafting, where when you fragment the white map, you can pay a couple alts or a chaos for a certain map mod that will exist on all of the maps fragments that are created.

bosses dont need to be overwhelmingly terrifying to fight, since this is a small map i dont see the sense in giving it a FULL boss loot drop table, but i also dont see the sense in giving it an undesirable loot table. keep in mind that part of the reward is to full clear the map and open the loot chest, which includes killing the boss. you can think of the loot chest as the rest of the boss's full loot drop. the loot chest should contain items and currency. the bosses could be easy versions of existing bosses, or entirely new bosses, it doesnt matter, but they should not be as difficult as normal bosses, and should not give the same reward either. think of it as a Alira kill vs a Piety kill.

the only way that i can see to truly balance crafring them would be to alter "flat" mods. for example, if 1 map yields 3 fragments,

1) craft the map
2) split it into fragments
3) all flat mods are similarly divided -- eg "map has 1 extra exile" would become "map has a 33% chance to contain an extra exile" and similar with extra boss.
4) i didnt mentikn this before, but other flat rolls (things unaffected by map size) such as exiles, masters, etc, should have their chances similarly reduced so 1 map's worth of frafments have a equivalent chance to 1 map.

with bosses, it's a matter of workload for GGG as well -- if they have to make new bosses or extensively rework existing bosses, that would add a lot of work. but it's not unsolvable.

i think that the idea's definitely viable, it's just a matter of how much work it would take and how many peoplw would use it.

no, i mentioned earlier that the map has to be white, that was to avoid this whole issue.

sorry, i read it before leaving for work this morning and apparently missed that section.

unfortunately, mandating breaking as whites makes the idea practically unviable. at best, it requires 5x as much currency usage. at worst, it's massively exploitable via exiles/double boss/masters (flat mods/chance to spawn). granted, you could apply my ideas from above, but at that point, you can safely allow splitting nonwhite maps anyway.

conversely, the idea of allowing fragments to add together for higher mlvl is surprisingly not exploitable. for example, @ character lvl 95, your example of 4 lvl 78 fragments -> lvl 81 fragment provides more than double the xp, but at 4x the fragment use, so you actually lose about 50% of the xp. similar mechanics balance map drops regarding this idea.

Why not just add some significantly smaller maps?
If the chance to get strongboxes/exiles/loot/whatever depended on map size, this would be a simpler solution, I think.

to address the exploit-ability of map mods, you could completely remove all of those map mods and add new ones that fit the map fragments better, or like i previously said, in order to craft mods onto them you might have to do it during the breaking process so you can craft all the fragments at once, while using only one amount of currency. as for double bosses or exiles, your example of changing the flat mods to percentages might work, but wouldn't the cost of doing that justify the reward in the end?

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Treffnix wrote:

Why not just add some significantly smaller maps?
If the chance to get strongboxes/exiles/loot/whatever depended on map size, this would be a simpler solution, I think.

this is essentially what we are doing, is it not? to add them into the big maps would not work well, however, because then people will just complain about how they got a "small" map instead of a big map. i feel like it should be more of a play style choice rather than RNG.

The Atziri fragments are already map fragments (I mean, the actual, in game class "map fragment", or so I read from the devs about the loot filter).

i know, and i like that idea, so i want to spread it to different maps. this whole idea is based off of atziri fragments, as i stated earlier. do you think its a good idea?