Map drop rates are broken.

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sidtherat wrote:

skill - there is VERY little skill in POE. once it gets added - people riot (lab). arpgs are games for clay bricks with two left hands. there is very little mechanical skill needed. this wont change because the core audience a) does not want this type of thing b) wouldnt be able to cope with it.

You will never create a good, skill-based game, if you follow THIS mentality. "Ok, many players dont like skill-based games, so let's dont involve any skill into our game too". You know, there are games like Dark Souls, that proved - there ARE players who want SKILL-based games! And i see 0 reasons, why ARPG cant require certain skill from player, to achieve good results. BTW, Diablo 2 required a significant portion of skill too, if you werent super-lucky or using cheats/dupes to get super gear.
I remember how hard it was to beat Hell self-found in 1-st playthrough.

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sidtherat wrote:

knowledge - how to sustain maps is actually a pretty good piece of knowledge (how many of you just burn Tempests from prophecies on any leveling area? how many of you actualy USE prophecies at all?). same with sextants. these work THE SAME way as in 3.1 and 3.0. 4 sextants actually pretty much double the mob count in map. but you cannot use that with 'one shaped map pseudo-strategy'? oh, tough life is it?

Is it enough to sustain high-level maps? We both know that the answer is NO. I can accept that you need to use SOME currency to sustain maps, but when you have to use literally ALL your currency for that (including the one you get from selling items you found), it's beyond ridiculous.

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sidtherat wrote:

items - trading. inflation and trading made 'enough' items cost almost nothing. same with 'good builds' - some builds just need nothing to clear everything (it doesnt make people using said builds good btw)

game is too easy right now. there is no effective difference between T1 and T10 maps (except for mod pool). people can 'farm' using 3900 hp windripper builds. something that should not ever be possible

but balance is a joke for more than few months now and unless ggg replaces their balance team and actually make an effort to fix some idiotic aspects of balance - there wont be any difficulty in the game except for random 'you die moments' and 'cheeze builds' that make everything else redundant

note: (i do not like it but still) poe is a trading game. deal with it. currency can and should be used to buy maps and be invested into maps. i know it hurts but.. deal with it

Well, "most items cost nothing" is a natural byproduct of trading. I see nothing wrong with that.
However, trading shouldnt involve access to high-level content, imo. When you HAVE to trade just to get high-level maps, it is BAD design, to me.
I agree, PoE balance looks like a joke now, and over time, it gets only worse and worse. Diffuculty revolves against oneshots - blasting enemy before he even undesrands what happened is the best way to survive. Most defences arent worth investments. Players' AoE, damage and run speeds are beyond ridiculous. Build diversity is minimal. Of course, considering how "easy" game is, you can play build far from optimal and still manage with high-level content. But i talk about diversity about top-tier builds, weaker builds dont really matter.

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postrach_myszy wrote:

Map drops are not "standard". My friend who has not give up pokemon league yet completed atlas at 120/157. It means on T12 map he should have guaranteed at least T13 drop when it comes to maps. Instead of that his drops oscillate within limits T3 - T7 and he is forced to buy any higher then T10 from market, despite "guaranteed" +1 tier drops as a "reward" for 100 completed maps. BTW, this last thing doesn't work apparently.

Thats not how it works, atlas bonus gives a map that drops a higher chance of being one level higher,
so if he is getting T3-T7 without his atlas bonus those would be T2-T6

Please increase red tier map drop rates. I like winning but plowing through yellow tier maps over and over again is as rewarding as playing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

Talking about solo here, bestiary, and casual trading.

Why not implement the following, e.g when you run Beach, have 1 guaranteed map drop, 50 % same tier, 50% higher tier( 25% for desert 25% for arid lake + added atlas completion, and degrading standard game bonus e.g the 50% get's lower as you progress the atlas), and that go up all to tier 15. Perhaps make the very end bit harder, but no idea how that is, because i never get to the end maps cuzz i never find enough maps :D, and i just don't like buying maps over and over.

If i alch beach, proph beach, run sextant on it and i manage to make quantity 100% make it 2 maps if 50% quantity make it a 50% change to have 2 maps.

If you want to cut down higher tier map, i dun care, if i need to run wasteland 2x to get 1x tier 11, but now i even can't run wasteland 2x because i hardly get the stupid wasteland map at all. Hell then i just run the tier 9 to get them, fuk.. only tier 5-7 maps when running the tier 9. So.. fuk that i can't run tier 8's to generate the tier 9's.

People talk about money sinks, ever tried properly crafting? That's the money sink.., but hey what do i know, i hardly sustain enough maps to generate currency to do some crafting.

ps: i do love the game, it's great, and offers many play styles, but heck these maps drop rates.

Couldn't agree more with OP. I have been running on yellow maps for almost 80 - 100 hours with so called "100%" chance for maps to drop one tier higher, but so far I've only got 3 - 4 red maps. Does anyone know how to refund the points you bought?

If the maps actually had mobs in them people wouldn't have quit the league so early, you can ignore beasts but no one is gonna give you a pass for empty maps.

In saying that though you're comparing normal map prices with half the mobs in the game to the cheapest maps ever have (and probably never will be again) been.

Can contribute with one picture up on getting to lvl91 in Flashback.


So, yes, naturaly stuck in yellows. Unique maps nearly all are bought for store. Will use em in Standard, cuz some there are much harder to get. And it seem I`m not goin upper than 91, seems like not worth it.

Just my 5c about maps drop.

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John_Ra wrote:

Can contribute with one picture up on getting to lvl91 in Flashback.


So, yes, naturaly stuck in yellows. Unique maps nearly all are bought for store. Will use em in Standard, cuz some there are much harder to get. And it seem I`m not goin upper than 91, seems like not worth it.

Just my 5c about maps drop.

This looks fine for a 91 character that hasn't invested too much into maps yet tbh. You can't really fall below T10s anymore unless you don't even alch them or skip half the map.

You can start to invest a bit more than just 1 alch in your T10s/T11s and you can alternate between them depending on the currently active mods since you're playing the Flashback event.
Try using chisels or zana mods or roll a couple prophecies for additional monsters or tempests or even multiple things on every single map. Maybe sextants are an option, if you're running a shaped setup or have a couple of the same map.

Don't be afraid to actually put currency into your maps. You'll get the currency back close to every time unless you're really inefficient about it and it's nearly impossible to not get your currency back in a Flashback event.

Thats the result of running 6 red coves I had
Chiseled and alched, with breaches and abysses, even met zana there.

Got 3 coves back tho.

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John_Ra wrote:

Thats the result of running 6 red coves I had
Chiseled and alched, with breaches and abysses, even met zana there.

Got 3 coves back tho.

Let's compare your two screenshots after these 6 maps even tho 6 maps are a low amount. You ran 6x T11s, you sustained your total number of T10s + T11s + T12s because that's where your highest mappool is and that's what you were most likely to find. This means you're fairly save in the area of early red maps. even tho you might have to play a few more T10s just to protect yourself from bad luck.
That's pretty decent for lvl91 if you haven't set up things like shaped maps or Elder or started investing high amounts of currency(15c-40c per map).

You'll over-sustain your currency investment easily since you're running MF-items. This means you should be able to keep this up without even thinking about it and maybe start adding Zana-Bloodlines after a few maps while still checking the Flashback mods(preferably things that can drop maps like Bloodlines, Nemesis) but only invest as much as you can afford. If you barely have the chaos to add Zana mods, skip it or replace it with something else like prophecies or sextants if the map placement on the atlas allows it. Well, or sell things and low maps for more chaos.

Someone will probably call BS or something else since I know these threads at this point. That's why I'll post some stuff from my Bestiary tab as a 100% solo player at the point of ~40days league duration because that's when I was done with the league and started doing dumb things.



TL;DR Map drops are fine, don't be afraid to invest currency, you'll get your currency, more loot and more maps back.