Why is shit tier map farming more rewarding than red tier map farming.

"

Grauthrim wrote:

Of course it's slower. Especially when it comes to legion rares and bosses, running t-16's with full sextants and influence just to have map sustain makes it faaar slower.

As a SSF player, high level bases are crucial ( obtainable in delves too, although elder/shaper bases are very rare down there, but you need the Sulphite anyway, from high maps usually ), so I cannot believe that nice high level bases are not valuable in trade leagues.

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Thats like how your problem, man.

(sorry, could not help)

"

Kulze wrote:

If you're doing red-tier farming via alch&go you're very inefficient.

The best input/return rate is achieved via sextants+chisel+alch+zana+prophecies. Abstaining from a single one of those already reduces the amount of sustain as well as the return overall in a significant amount.

If you're talking about t15/t16, then yes ...
But shaped t11/t12 ?
You hardly need all of that, sure you might want to alch + triple/quadruple sextant those as you can use yellow sextants but ... you don't necessarily needs to throw in chisels ( if the sextants are really good you might want to though, not sure for t11/12 ).
Prophecies ? I don't bother with those half of the time tbh, it's has gotten to a point where it has became a chore


There is also ... xp gains of course, if you can run red maps very quickly, then it's just better in high maps obviously.
I won't talk about Legion of course though.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

sustain is obviously easy math, anything that increases drops increases theoretical sustain.

Also practical, more maps = more profit, as well as more drops from more available mobs. The only thing hindering pure profit is what you're tackling in the next part:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

returns tho, as in the stuff that is not map drops (sustain)... sure adding all those things increases returns, does it increase net returns tho when you factor in what you just spent?

In my experience absolutely not in the majority of cases.

Which means you've lacked the knowledge to make the most out of the opportunities given.

A single 'Nemesis sextant' makes each of your map be roughly 75c worth without taking map drops into consideration, the amount of T1 drops is massive, the investment for those on the other hand is fairly low, 10-15c per map.

Also situations like 'strongboxes are corrupted' are great for 6L, which turns into divines which are of great value, or using map-scarabs with the 500% quantity sextant and best-case ambush scarabs and also bountiful traps as well as the more rare mobs prophecy from strongboxes.

Or getting a 'all unique mobs drop corrupted items' mod which allows for a strongbox setup as well, in this case forcing exile spawns with 'the scout' and 'hidden reinforcements' to make every map roughly the value of 1 ex from 6L items alone, not to speak those will also provide a vastly increased amount of map drops as well as div-cards (provided you're running a map with a decent div-card drop).

The options for red-map farming are plenty, not so much with white or yellow as the relevant sextants just don't exist.

This league especially the scarab-drops are added as well, offering another layer of options to the existing ones.

So all in all, it's a massive hassle to set everything up but on the other hand very effective to do so, the risk of 'burning out' is just huge.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

you can sustain red maps with alch and go, and putting all those things you mentioned on a map will probably not lead to the map dropping additional currency and items that pay for your investment and also make a profit over simply alching the map. So I really dont see how its inefficient to alch and go red maps.

Once again you're seemingly speaking about T11-15 and not T16 here, those often won't even be worth to use the relevant methods on, it's not the 'common' red-map farming method. If you are 'only' running around at a T13 then you're usually not able to return the same amount as if you're eldering a map, for obvious reasons.

Using 5 red sextants is ridiculous to sustain, forget it, doing the same with 3 white 1 yellow and 1 red on the other hand... sustainable and profitable.

Also you're not taking into consideration the proper methods of increasing your quant, 4 chisels = 20% IIQ + 3 fragments = another 15% IIQ. Now we can also add the chance for a tempest via prophecies which is another 20% and then multiply that via ambush and the sextant with another 500%. This combination is just not something you can ignore, that's the reason why 'monstrous treasure' is the price it is, it just scales with other mechanics so ridiculous.

You have a lot to learn about efficient farming if you don't know why it's a detriment not to run them this way, hence why I'm saying that T2 Glacier this league is the superior option, you will return a SOLID 150c per hour at LEAST over time while alch&go red maps will provide... probably around 75c if even that much? Not to speak of different sub-par layouts since you'll need to run different tiers to sustain permanently.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

If I was trying to sustain t16 without buying any maps I might do a lot of those things. simply sustaining red maps tho, I could sustain red maps running them blue, a single alch is essentially worthless and will pay for itself so theres no reason to run them blue, but im pretty sure if I did everything you described to every red map I ran Id lose money. I lose money doing it on t16s, but it keeps me in t16s, like i said I could keep myself in t11s with transmutes so i dont rly see the point.

Sustaining red maps via transmutes is only possible by killing each boss, without them you won't be able to. And even if you're only using transmutes... you realize that you could run a T1 quicker and gain the EXACT same amount of currency as in a T16? The ONLY difference is ilvl and exp gained from mobs, as well as some specific drops which rely on said ilvl, everything else stays the same. IIQ with pack-size is the only relevant factor to decide your return.
So, why would anyone who is sane run a T11 when the same option in a T1 is present, especially since mobs will drop like flies and Legion won't have the higher health-pool which is an issue for many? The only reason to do that are ilvl-specific drops like uber-enchants from legion, abyss jewels (you want T16 for those), styg vises (once again T16), elder/shaper items (once again T16 as you can drop ilvl 86 there from chests) or common rares (for the best return again T16). Otherwise the notion to do it is just nonsensical, the only reasoning are specific div-cards dropping there.

"

Fruz wrote:

As a SSF player, high level bases are crucial ( obtainable in delves too, although elder/shaper bases are very rare down there, but you need the Sulphite anyway, from high maps usually ), so I cannot believe that nice high level bases are not valuable in trade leagues.

Absolutely true! That's the reason why people even do shaper/uber-elder/T16 at all, the specific drops and the high ilvl.

That doesn't make it the most viable choice regarding returns this league though... once again - like in Betrayal league - abusing low-tier areas to quickly rush through the league-mechanic is better then attempting higher leveled content, something GGG sucks at properly implementing sadly.

"

Fruz wrote:

If you're talking about t15/t16, then yes ...
But shaped t11/t12 ?
You hardly need all of that, sure you might want to alch + triple/quadruple sextant those as you can use yellow sextants but ... you don't necessarily needs to throw in chisels ( if the sextants are really good you might want to though, not sure for t11/12 ).
Prophecies ? I don't bother with those half of the time tbh, it's has gotten to a point where it has became a chore


There is also ... xp gains of course, if you can run red maps very quickly, then it's just better in high maps obviously.
I won't talk about Legion of course though.

Yes, once again true.
Though why running a shaped-version of a map? The only reason by now is more exp-gain for a good layout and/or specific drops unlocked by ilvl (like mentioned uber-lab enchants starting T8 from Legion).

Happy with lvl 90 and able to kill uber-elder reliably? Don't bother with Tiers unless you want the specific loot as mentioned.

Also alch as well as chisels are cheap, that should always be done, same going for white+yellow sextants, those are cheap enough to provide more profit as well, at least in conjunction with fragments.

Prophecies are such a chore I can definitely understand why you won't do them, it's the same for everyone, and a big reason I'm talking about a prophecy-tab for so long as well as changes for trade regarding those (and other consumables). But that's another topic.

Nonetheless you'll most likely agree that properly using the methods available will increase your investment/return ratio accordingly with the time you're using, the hard-limit being the time needed to trade for supplies afterwards... which is a darn annoying chore at the moment.

If we're solely going by investement to return ratio with our time then T2 Glacier is the kind of mapping right now. While HH-Emblem-farming is the overall king of returns.

"

Kulze wrote:

The ONLY difference is ilvl and exp gained from mobs, as well as some specific drops which rely on said ilvl, everything else stays the same

This is not true, there are other items only available in specific red maps depending on their position on the Atlas ( Opal rings, Steel rings, etc ... ).

"

Kulze wrote:

If we're solely going by investement to return ratio with our time then T2 Glacier is the kind of mapping right now. While HH-Emblem-farming is the overall king of returns.

If you don't add 'fun' into the equation, it might be ... but I find it a little boring to run low level maps with 0 risks, that give me close to no Sulphite when I meet Niko too.

Personally, I'm still leveling up characters that I'm still playing ( gems xp also matters, and it can turn into profit in trade leagues ), and yeah ... I would not want to farm a t2 maps on a lvl 90+ character, that just would feel like a bit of a waste of time.

"

Kulze wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

returns tho, as in the stuff that is not map drops (sustain)... sure adding all those things increases returns, does it increase net returns tho when you factor in what you just spent?

In my experience absolutely not in the majority of cases.

Which means you've lacked the knowledge to make the most out of the opportunities given.

A single 'Nemesis sextant' makes each of your map be roughly 75c worth without taking map drops into consideration, the amount of T1 drops is massive, the investment for those on the other hand is fairly low, 10-15c per map.

u mean nemesis mobs drop currency? you think you add 75c on average to a map with that sextant? lmao

if you said id adds about 15-20c to what drops id take you seriously. How often do you spawn that mod? at 5c per sextant, how often is it showing up? what does the blocking etc cost you? It might break even on average.

75c lol.

what do you mean by t1 drops? tell me you are not talking about unique items...

"

Kulze wrote:

Also situations like 'strongboxes are corrupted' are great for 6L, which turns into divines which are of great value, or using map-scarabs with the 500% quantity sextant and best-case ambush scarabs and also bountiful traps as well as the more rare mobs prophecy from strongboxes.

Or getting a 'all unique mobs drop corrupted items' mod which allows for a strongbox setup as well, in this case forcing exile spawns with 'the scout' and 'hidden reinforcements' to make every map roughly the value of 1 ex from 6L items alone, not to speak those will also provide a vastly increased amount of map drops as well as div-cards (provided you're running a map with a decent div-card drop).

unique mobs drop corrupted items, you think that will spawn an exalts worth of divines from 6 links every time? again thats just not true, i dunno what to tell you, but thats not even remotely realistic. You could do exactly what you described in that last paragraph and drop 0 links more often than dropping an exalts worth.

The amount of times ive made a monstrous treasure proc in a huge quant 8 mod map, rolled every box for + items, vaaled every single one of them and dropped 0x 6 links, or maybe 1 from the entire map. Youre talking about rolling for a very specific sextant after blocking a bunch and then buying specific prophecies to spawn a few handfuls of unique mobs who will drop corrupted items... no, that is not going to consistently give you 9x 6 link items, which is how many divines go for an exalt right now.

youre talking about rolling for a rare corrupted box sextant mod and then using scarabs and prophecies... by the time youve done all that you could just have carried a few stacks of vaals around with you and probably spawned more corrupted items for the same investment just vaaling boxes in alch n go maps mate.


I havent got a lot to learn, youre just hot airing it a bit tbh. A bunch of "in an extreme situation when you get lucky this can happen" and in reality no, it very rarely results in what you are saying, theres so much rolling for shit and not getting those sextant mods, and not having the prophecies proc, and even when they do you not getting anywhere near the returns you are talking about.

If Ive got a lot to learn then why do I have mirrors upon mirrors of gear? I could pick a single item out of my stash thats worth more than every item every one of your characters is currently wearing added together. Why is that if Im clueless and you are some hotstuff moneymapper with all the strats pulling 75c in currency out of every map on a 15c investment?

"

Sustaining red maps via transmutes is only possible by killing each boss, without them you won't be able to.

killing each boss? Im not sure I quite understand this statement, are we suggesting theres a world where we skip bosses in red maps? As in, the unique mob at the end that dies in a few seconds?

"

you realize that you could run a T1 quicker and gain the EXACT same amount of currency as in a T16?

probably over 13,000 hours of play time in poe, you tell me, do you think this is something Im aware of?

The point you are trying to make by bringing it up entirely escapes me tho.

"

Fruz wrote:

This is not true, there are other items only available in specific red maps depending on their position on the Atlas ( Opal rings, Steel rings, etc ... ).

That's what I meant with 'specific drops' regarding ilvl, you don't want a low ilvl opal ring, if you want one it should be the highest possible usually after all.

"

Fruz wrote:

]
If you don't add 'fun' into the equation, it might be ... but I find it a little boring to run low level maps with 0 risks, that give me close to no Sulphite when I meet Niko too.

Personally, I'm still leveling up characters that I'm still playing ( gems xp also matters, and it can turn into profit in trade leagues ), and yeah ... I would not want to farm a t2 maps on a lvl 90+ character, that just would feel like a bit of a waste of time.

Absolutely true as well, I don't take 'fun' into perspective for pure farming methods. Farming-methods usually aren't fun at all if you're going for plain efficiency, so I don't take it into the equation. Your sanity will be gone after a few hours.

I still find Legion-rushing far more enjoyable though in comparison to Betrayal-farming in the league at least, so... upsides!

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

u mean nemesis mobs drop currency? you think you add 75c on average to a map with that sextant? lmao

if you said id adds about 15-20c to what drops id take you seriously. How often do you spawn that mod? at 5c per sextant, how often is it showing up? what does the blocking etc cost you? It might break even on average.

75c lol.

what do you mean by t1 drops? tell me you are not talking about unique items...

On average? Yes, definitely. I think you're underestimating the power of the mod.

Bountiful traps and Ambush zana for max effect, adding 10 strongboxes. Simply rushing by and slapping an alch onto em will create some which spawn rare mobs, maybe even some which will create 'stream of monsters' which is even better.

As for T1-drops, currency is also split into tiers, a T1-drop relates to either an Exalt, Annul or Divine, each of them has the exact same rarity. If you drop a Divine it could've been an Exa as well and vice verse. The chance to drop at least a single one is fairly large during the sextant, that's the reason for the 75c mostly, taking away the investment I would say... it's 60c extra drops commonly, time-investment to properly run it is higher though, that has to be taken into account. Still a better ratio for your investment though.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

unique mobs drop corrupted items, you think that will spawn an exalts worth of divines from 6 links every time? again thats just not true, i dunno what to tell you, but thats not even remotely realistic. You could do exactly what you described in that last paragraph and drop 0 links more often than dropping an exalts worth.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDK-lP6lB_8&t

Nuff said about that. The same trick works still, so yes, I even took a smaller number for the sake of not overdoing it.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

The amount of times ive made a monstrous treasure proc in a huge quant 8 mod map, rolled every box for + items, vaaled every single one of them and dropped 0x 6 links, or maybe 1 from the entire map. Youre talking about rolling for a very specific sextant after blocking a bunch and then buying specific prophecies to spawn a few handfuls of unique mobs who will drop corrupted items... no, that is not going to consistently give you 9x 6 link items, which is how many divines go for an exalt right now.

If you're trying to block since sextant-blocking isn't a thing anymore... that's an utter waste, you're going with the lucky rolls, everything else costs you, especially time for buying new sextants. Re-rolling is only done when a great sextant appears, and even then only those not interacting with it in any meaningful way.

So right, it's definitely not commonly 9 6L per map, it's usually around 15 with personal testing.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

youre talking about rolling for a rare corrupted box sextant mod and then using scarabs and prophecies... by the time youve done all that you could just have carried a few stacks of vaals around with you and probably spawned more corrupted items for the same investment just vaaling boxes in alch n go maps mate.

Vaals are more expensive then simply running fast through maps and taking your time when a good combination rolls. Also the missing mobs from the sextants will lower your general return for the investment, maps are worth quite a lot after all, they make a big chunk of your profit at T16.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

I havent got a lot to learn, youre just hot airing it a bit tbh. A bunch of "in an extreme situation when you get lucky this can happen" and in reality no, it very rarely results in what you are saying, theres so much rolling for shit and not getting those sextant mods, and not having the prophecies proc, and even when they do you not getting anywhere near the returns you are talking about.

See, you saying you got nothing to learn shows you've got a lot to learn still.
I never said I'm only running those mods, they are the bonus while rushing through maps, not the norm. I'm not wasting currency to get them, they appear relatively often when running enough maps after all, no need to seek them directly, that would be fairly dumb.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

If Ive got a lot to learn then why do I have mirrors upon mirrors of gear? I could pick a single item out of my stash thats worth more than every item every one of your characters is currently wearing added together. Why is that if Im clueless and you are some hotstuff moneymapper with all the strats pulling 75c in currency out of every map on a 15c investment?

probably over 13,000 hours of play time in poe, you tell me, do you think this is something Im aware of?

I had to re-order your post here a little bit, the last sentence showcases the issue.
I don't have time to invest 13k hours, hence I need to make those fewer hours more effective.

Also I'm a collector in looter-games, I don't give a damn about wearing awesome gear, the majority of my characters is 'good enough' for what they're supposed to do.
I could slap on my 300+ exalt shaped ilvl 83 styg, or my legacy uniques, or the quad-tab of perfect rolled + perfect corrupted items. Those are in store though for specific builds in the future which I haven't started yet.
My stored gear in standard is ~10 mirrors as well by now, I just don't slap them into a single character, the most expensive one will be the work-in-progress TS-build in Legion to date, for Emblem-farming since a HH is needed there.

Also I never spoke about investment, you'll roughly pull 40-50c out of each 'great' map in pure profit, those aren't the norm though, usually it will rather be 10-20c at max.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

killing each boss? Im not sure I quite understand this statement, are we suggesting theres a world where we skip bosses in red maps? As in, the unique mob at the end that dies in a few seconds?

Unless you're running... Colosseum, Core, Vaal Pyramid, Cemetery, Lava Lake, Reef, Belfry, Tower, Primordial Blocks, Summit or Desert Spring.
Those all have invul-phases or general multi-phases which slow you down. Not effective for speed-clearing to maximize profit.

I hope I didn't forget one there, maybe? Might be... somehow innocence is missing, dunno which map he was again right now.


What I hope you're growing aware of is that quantity of play-time isn't quality of play-time. Everyone can easily have 50-100 mirrors after 13k hours, usually a LOT more by then if that's the focus, it's not any sort of achievement.

I think I might be pulling out close to 200c per hour if I am doing tier 16s and selling the fragments. If I am to trust currency cop I am improving my chaos intake by about 1000 each day, sometimes more, and I am only playing during the evening. Plus I am having fun so there is that, could care less how inefficient I am and how much better farming the same tier 2 maps over and over is.

Plus there are the splinters. The difference in splinter intake between tier 12 and tier 15-16 is massive, especially when it comes to Maraketh(which is a free exalt).

I think number of splinters depends on the map quantity not on the map tier

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

...
Plus there are the splinters. The difference in splinter intake between tier 12 and tier 15-16 is massive, especially when it comes to Maraketh(which is a free exalt).

Was anyone testing this and came to a conclusion that higher maps or map quantity impact number of splinters dropped by Legion NPCs and chests?

My experience on my ED/Contagion Trickster with early red maps, lvl11 - 13, indicates that there is very little difference. Granted, my sample size is small but war hoard in red maps can drop from 4 to 9 splinters, which is pretty much the same as lower maps--I would say white/yellow maps can drop between 3 to 8.

Is the drop difference coming from individual splinter drop from NPCs, which seems to be rather rare occurrence in white/yellow maps?

I know I'm super late to this conversation, and I hope people aren't too invested in this back-and-forth to let me try to offer clarity on what I think OP is talking about re: easier content is more rewarding than T16 maps.

TLDR: it absolutely is, provided you're talking about a loot-per-hour basis, not loot-per-map. I think a lot of people in this thread aren't using the same basis as each other, which is why they're disagreeing while all saying things that are objectively correct.

Anyway. As Kulze mentioned, Glacier almost always has the monolith right at the entrance to the map. So does Alleyways, for that matter. And those are T2 maps, which means they are are both

A, effortless to sustain even if you run them white and
B, dirt cheap if you ever have to buy them in bulk.

This gives you the freedom to start a map, do ONLY the monolith, and then immediately portal back out. Next map, monolith, out. Repeat. Repeat.

Monoliths are so ridiculously rewarding if you're running a super clearing build that finishing the map feels like a complete waste of time, UNLESS you have to care about map sustain.

You can buy about 300 replacement T2 maps for a single exalt, each of which average out (in my experience running tons of Alleyways on TShot Slayer) to 5-10c in under a minute. Easily multiple exalts per hour, PLUS a steady supply of splinters/emblems to run later on my Berserker. Even my best build of the league so far, which is CERTAINLY no slouch when it comes to clear speed (full Rage/Blitz berserker), can't churn T16 maps nearly fast enough to average several exalts per hour after the cost of maps/chisels/sextants is subtracted.

So yes, of course you get better overall loot from a single T16 monolith than you do in a single white monolith. It just doesn't matter, because it isn't TEN TIMES better, which is the margin it would need to compete with someone running ED / Tornado Shot / etc that opens a map, effortlessly blows away a few screens of lvl 70 enemies, grabs the loot, and is clicking on the next monolith a minute later.

And I'll certainly admit that I don't know the solution to this. Because making T16 monoliths explode into dozens of splinters each and/or making it impossible to get more than one or two splinters per white tier map would only widen the gap between the CASUAL PLEBS and NOLIFE LOOZERS even further than using You-Know-What for Emblem runs already has, and that's already such a hot button issue that I'm scared to type its name into this thread. Maybe making the rate of Generals spawning in the monolith SIGNIFICANTLY higher as map tier rises would do the trick, though? That way you're rewarded for doing higher content with better access to the Domains, provided you're willing to work for it.

Or maybe I'm completely overthinking the issue and the solution is as simple as "always put the monolith far away from the entrance portal." At any rate, it's certainly something worth further discussion both here and at GGGHQ, because I would say the profitability of sandblasting T2 monoliths is about as high as a 600 Delve, only its super easy and you never have to stop.

when I started max map was 76. You are not supposed to "farm" red ttier maps it is only there for the challenge and for those who want to play past the limit where a build won t get better anymore.

You are supposed to re-roll after 90+ only those who level to 100 need to do those maps. So why should they be rewarding? If they make those maps rewarding then they ll lower drops in lower maps for sure and you get most of the player base angry that they won t loot shit.

People doing red tiers are minority, it should not be rewarding in loot but in XP toward the level 100 goal.