DECREASED LOOT IS DUE TO BUGGED ATLAS PASSIVES!

I ran 8-mod corrupted maps with the following scarab loadout, with the goal of farming 8-mod maps:

1 cartography scarab of escalation.
2 cartography scarabs of the multitude.
1 cartography scarab of corruption

I experimented with two different atlas passive trees. Both trees were identical except for the following:

1) On the first tree, I took every harbinger-related passive.
2) On the second tree, I took nodes to increase scarab drop chance and shut off undesired league mechanics (which I always skipped anyway).

Running the first tree, I am consistently averaging 6 maps per run.
Running the second tree, I consistently averaged 2-3 maps per run.

In other words, adding drop chance for scarabs on the atlas passive tree REDUCES DROP CHANCE OF OTHER THINGS, LIKE MAPS! In my case, THE DROP CHANCE IS HALVED!

In case anyone asks, none of the dropped maps from the first atlas tree came from harbinger encounters.

i believe this is intended behavior. scarabs most likely share the same drop pool as maps, and increasing chance for scarabs means they get a higher weighting on dropped loot, thus making maps less common.

same might apply for currency, flasks, gear, contracts... everything except unique items since those are handled differently.

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying. That actually jives with other passive node interactions I've seen.

Clearly, this is my fault. I idiotically assumed "3% increased scarabs found in your maps" meant "you will get more scarabs", when it actually meant "you will get more scarabs and less of everything else".

Sarcasm aside, isn't this tradeoff the sort of thing that should be communicated VERY CLEARLY to the player?!