Map drop rates are broken.

Well there WAS a way to sustain red maps on this league and it was called Elder Ring and they are removing it next patch (what a surprise).

If you chiseled, alc'ed and ran Bloodlines on all your shaped red maps on an Elder Ring you'd fill your map stash with shaped maps (72 of tiers 11-14) after about 1000 maps.

But they are removing it from the game. Like all the nice things in this game.

"Sustaining" your high maps can mean different things. Do you want to shape your atlas so that you continually get the same 1 or 2 high level map drops or do you want to sustain a larger pool of different high level maps with access to them all? The former is easier to do than the latter and I'm a bit curious why. In patch 3.2 GGG completely revamped the atlas with the intention to drive players toward more map diversity and changing up what people run, not running the same map constantly. I have not seen any tangible steps toward making it better though. In fact, it has only gotten worse.

There are things you can do to increase your map drop rates, they've all been mentioned in this thread. It is possible to "sustain" high tier maps solo...to an extent. That being said, it doesn't feel like the map drop rates are in line with the goal of adding diversity to map pools. Two major reasons being that sextants and influence are major contributors to mob density and map drops and these will not (always) be in the same spot when running different maps. I would like to see some alternatives to atlas gimmicks that are viable for diverse map sustain at high tiers (you should still have to be able to run heavily modded maps to increase this though).

nerf everything i'm done BYE.

In before "maps drop rates are fine".......

Way Too Late.

I fiddled in Flashback up to level 86 and with that excessive piñata everyone always mentioned, I still saw a distinct lack of map drops. Yeah, only at like 70 on the Atlas, but I ran maps steady for a week and managed one T10 drop to date.

I know, people will poke limitless holes in that, but I agree with the crap drop rate sentiment.

Oh, I got it now.

Just some maps will not sustain pool in ANY circumstances. Why? Simple. Statistics. They don`t have enough pops to create possibilities to roll same tier maps drop. All they can do is lower ones, not much.

Example.
I bought 5x T11 Mesa`s today.
Its a kinda tiny map with low pop. I hoped its buffed as it got higher tier that last version of it was t6 before.. or t5.. not much matter. So. I ran all them, 2 was unided, 2 I full chiseled and alched. And rolled couple of times with chaos. Spent like 20c in all this. What I got? You prolly know the answer.. some T4.. 5.. 6.. one t10 and t11 same old coves. I felt lucky! Also 2 ex chards from harb xD

And felt pity to those whos not running windripper build with 65+ IIQ (like me too)
Stuff just not add up.

Feels like heavy MF geared char vs ventors is really mandatory to play atm.
Just to be able to go reds.

"

John_Ra wrote:

Oh, I got it now.

Just some maps will now sustain pool in ANY circumstances. Why? Simple. Statistics. They dont have enough pops to create possibilities to roll same tier maps drop. All they can do is lower ones, not much.

Example.
I bought 5x T11 Mesa`s today.
Its a kinda tiny map with low pop. I hoped its buffed as it got higher tier that last version of it was t6 before.. or t5.. not much matter. So. I ran all them, 2 was unided, 2 I full chiseled and alched. And rolled couple of times with chaos. Spent like 20c in all this. What I got? You prolly know the answer.. some T4.. 5.. 6.. one t10 and t11 same old coves. I felt lucky! Also 2 ex chards from harb xD

And felt pity to those whos not running windripper build with 65+ IIQ (like me too)
Stuff just not add up.

Feels like heavy MF geared char vs ventors is really mandatory to play atm.
Just to be able to go reds.

you are not going to sustain T11's with just alchs/chisels..
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2137982/page/1#p15499676

I totally agree with the original poster's views. I've been playing for several years (way before the lab was around). I used to burn up my low maps making chisels. Now I grab EVERY map I can (modified my filter to show all) and I can't even maintain a pool of white maps. Level 85 playing tier 3 and 4 maps regularly-it's sad. I pretty much clean out zana's inventory every day just to keep my head above water.

I'm not talking maintaining red or even yellow maps-I can't even maintain whites.

I'd love to play SSF but the thing holding me back is the thought of being stuck in tier 1 and 2 maps forever.

If you look at the public games available the plain vanilla let's map type is very, very rare (again, even white maps).

It's gotten so bad I'm pretty much moving out of incursion, burning up my currency in standard to build and use those maps.

GGG, unless your goal is to drive out the current player base, please do something!

Harbinger orbs need to be a thing, a common thing in fact. One of the leagues I enjoyed the most was Harbinger, because it gave players the ability to progress through the atlas entirely on their own. Since it got relegated to Zana's device in Bestiary then completely removed in Incursion, I've been missing not being stuck stagnating in white and low-tier yellow maps, because it's next to impossible to sustain anything higher.

Personally I would be happy with just Horizon orbs being added instead, particularity because of the Elder chase mechanic. If Incursion gets added, the temple adds a great new source of maps and should keep people happy. You notice the outcry for map drops this league is almost non-existent.

I absolutely agree with ppl who say that map drop rates are total garbage.

I have 90, 85, 83 lvl chars in this league and guess what, all the time passed from the start of the league, I ran like... 10 red maps in total? And actually now I even have a problem with sustaining yellow maps. To be more precise, I dont have any single yellow map now. This is absolutely crazy situation, so if I want to somehow complete my atlas I need to buy t11+ maps and trading process in this game is absolute, refined trash. If I want to buy a map I need to spent like 15 minutes to buy one because nobody responds, many people afking etc. So you spend 15 minutes trading, 5 minutes playing. Is this what you call "play the game"? You are forcing to trade, literally.

If you are skipping bosses or not use alchemy orbs on every single map you will have problems sustaining white maps.

Is this a joke GGG? Really I feel no progression for the last weeks, why are you closing endgame behind your shitty trade? And where is publicity? I mean if you are doing tweaks to drop rates you must tell the community what the hell are you doing and players will give feedback, why are you doing stealthy tweaking behind players' backs?!