Something is wrong with Map Drop rates...

I know Harbinger was an outlier in ease of map maitenance, but I also played a ton in Essence, Prophecy, Breach, and Legacy - and maps have never felt this painful to sustain. I'm 14 maps short of full atlas completion, but using chisels and alcs and often vaals is getting me no where close to sustaining red maps. Basically I ran through the maps I bought to mostly fill out the atlas, and got virtually nothing back. I bought a few more, and after running 12 or so red maps, got about half of them back in drops, but almost a full tier lower then what I bought and ran on average.

Since then I've been running yellow T9 and 10s mostly, and run any T11s or 12s I get on the rare occaison I get them.... and they pretty much never return or upgrade. I just dont see how you are supposed to run red maps without just dumping massive currency into constantly buying your pool - which would bankrupt me lightning quick at the current red map prices, with what is sure looking like a guaranteed negative return on the investment. As near as I can tell, for someone like me, Red mapping is just dead.

Obviously some people are getting maps and posting them... I'm guessing it's people running highly shaped atlases with sextant blockers who get far better returns on their maps then those of us who just like to run the altas with chissels and alcs can ever hope to get. Guess red tier is just sextant blockers only now. Shame.

I play since Breach and this league is the first which i try to understand the map sustain, sextants and blocks but i'm kinda disapointed, once i have only t1-t8 completed and some t13 i have a rly good sustain of shaped gorge after that i move to shaped atoll complete t1-t10 t13-t16 but i'm not even close to sustain my atoll needs.

A frient keep 1 tier before and 2 tier above the map he want to keep running and with that strategy he was able to sustain., but remove all my t10 will cost 200c T_T

Hint: Vendor recipe list
Hint 2: Vaal orbs
Hint 3: Zana
Hint 4: At some points your bonus will grant you enough map drops.
Hint 5: T15 / T16 and generaly red maps except in Harb league were never meant to be sustained.

Happy new year

What does it matter if your map bonus is at 150+ if you run chisseled/bloodlines lava lake 10 times hoping for chimera and maps that drop are in 3-8 range? you arent getting higher than 10 out of those anyway, it just sucks and its very demoralizing tbh.

Yeah, I had that one guardian map, that dropped three other guardians and 2 15s or a Caldera with 8 t12+ maps, but when the next 5 maps drop only white/yellow maps, it kinda makes it even, especially now, where if you want to participate in red elder content, you need atleast 2 maps of each and cannot just sell the unwanted layouts away or upgrade low maps to higher ones nilly willy

The only reason I can sustain maps somewhat this league is only because I got super lucky on lich and elder expensive drops and could buy gear I wanted pretty much immediately and can pump all my currency into maps now since I dont need to save up for anything. Frankly, i had easier time sustaining maps back in Ambush, when I knew jack about mapping and had char, that couldnt do like 7 mods, but compared to now...

Droprates of stuff is something they can change on the fly if they see that it is needed. It was explained in one of the older state of exile podcasts with ziggyd and project pt.

I think it is nothing short of shame that you have to buy the red maps because the drop rate is so low that they do not drop! If the GGG wants to lose players, it has taken the right path!

Im stuck doing T10 at clvl 85. Ok back to standard.

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DreadLordAvatar wrote:

Im stuck doing T10 at clvl 85. Ok back to standard.

I'm in the exact same boat. Gave up on map drops. Just started another toon since the only maps that WILL drop are t3-t7. I am NOT going to run nothing but t7's when I'm level 90. Might as well use them with another toon. Maps higher than the tier I'm running NEVER drop and I am NOT paying for anymore maps because when I do, only t3-t7 drop. They added WAY to many maps mid tier. This is ridiculous. Still stuck at T10 as well, Even after leveling 2 toons.

I'm not 'Stuck' at T11 in the terms of atlast progression, since I went ahead and dumped over 100c on buying most of my atlas. But the thing is, despite all the red maps I bought and ran as 20% rare and vaaled, often getting 8 mods (My 8 mod challenge is completed for every tier 11 to 15 but nothing below that lol) - I got like, maybe half as many maps back as I bought and run - and the average tier of those were diffinately lower then the average tier of all the maps I've bought. I then bought a few more red maps just to see if I could sustain... and Despite having a farily high atlas bonus (143/157), I got almost no returns.

Not only is red mapping not sustainable, but it's pants-on-head retarded to keep trying, because from what I paid for my red maps... I'll never get that much in value back out of running any future red maps I get to drop. They simply sell for more on poetrade then any reasonable expected returns I could get from them.

I think they have just balanced endgame maping around people who shape their atlas and sextant block. I hate that sh**, and just refuse to do it, which I guess to GGG means I should'nt be doing the upper tiers of atlas now. And that just sucks.

Ya, this shit makes me want to quit. Like really, why am I even playing.

Is this the reaction you want Chris?