Stories from Development: The Map System

Love the background story and insight. Thanks for the great game!

For casual players, the maps was still a big step to make. I remember me self doing those public dock runs over and over till I finaly had the experience level and gear to survive in the maps.
Never the less the map system saved the game. Now you can build unlimited end game content and tweak it even for different kind of builds. I love it. Thank you GGG

"

Felix35071 wrote:

"

final difficulty level completely flat in terms of area level, so you could play anywhere you wanted in the game. It was also very challenging in terms of monster difficulty. The goal was that players would have immense variety in where to farm

Gotta say, with the game as complete as it is now, I would totally play a "Nightmare" difficulty Wraeclast that's wholly the same level. The whole thing could start at, say, 70, and every time you complete Act X again it would increment by some amount and you'd start over. Quest rewards would need to be redone, but that's about it.

Thats actually a very good idea if implemented properly. Like NG+, another layer of endgame.

dope insight.

"I doubt anyone in our community would disagree, but some Action RPG developers don't realise this and launch with a static world. Having random level layouts, random monsters and random events that occur within those levels means that players can repeat the same content over and over without feeling the same level of repetition that they would if the area was exactly the same each time. "

actually, i would disagree and so would games like grim dawn or nioh. i think what the map system really offers and what makes it interesting is your ability to control difficulty, that is probably the most important aspect of the end game because previously it's completely controlled for you.

i don't think random levels in terms of layout is important, what's more important is the context of what is happening in the level. other aspects of the gameplay can be randomized to enrich the experience, like monster types, monster infrequents that can be deterministically farmed, item drops are always random, level specific drops, difficulty (rolling maps).

the world can be static but if what you are offering behind the scenes and systems are randomized it can be done successfully and will remain interesting to players. poe already violates its premise of random levels are critical in some end game maps like vault which is basically the same everytime you run it. but because it offers things like, drops like divination cards that are exclusive to it, deterministic positioning of dense mobs, and a fun rewards system that offer extended drops in the boss room, it's really fun to run over and over.

i could go deeper into it but that's just some food for thought.

-HeaT

"

XNtrysyti wrote:

"

MiniMinhMo wrote:

Obtaining maps this time around is a lot more difficult compared to last League. I hope this can be improved for the future.

Actually, obtaining maps last league was way easier than any other league. As much as most people hated Harbinger, the two things it did well: easy map progression (Harbinger/Horizon Orbs) and fast endgame leveling (Beachhead).

Obtaining maps is actually already easier than in older leagues except for Harbinger, due to the Atlas having more nodes than ever and packsize being baked into every mod.

I've had a harder time sustaining my shaped map setups this league than in legacy and harbinger. Both those leagues had things that made getting maps a bit easier, but I also had easy access to a certain item called biscos collar.

Bought one today and ran maps as I had been all league and now my sustain is exactly the same as the last two leagues.

People saying biscos doesn't effect maps are wrong or I'm fucking insane and just suddenly had my RNG turn around when equipping it but hey that's just me....

Yeah running T13's and getting T5's in return is fucking amazing. Or, better yet, getting no maps at all is even better.

Level 90 and still don't have uber lab yet because I'm missing 2 shitbag trials. And no, I'm not going to troll 820. Why the hell should I? Is that what this "game" has come down to? Trolling for progression???

GGG needs to rethink their strategy regarding drops and game play. Or, fire the idiots that think limiting progression is a great idea. Morons.

Those elder runs took so much times, wish theres better system to manipulate elder/shaper maps

"

MiniMinhMo wrote:

Obtaining maps this time around is a lot more difficult compared to last League. I hope this can be improved for the future.

No one wants Garbinger league back. Keep the peons out of red maps if you please XD

I love Zana btw

"

FNX_Heroes wrote:

An idea : along with IIQ and IIR scaled on the number of map mods, introduce a third amount, for example IRC (Increased Reward Chance, name it like you want). This IRC would increase just like IIR and IIQ with the number of map mods, but would directly influence the quantity/quality of maps, currency and uniques dropped.

Keep in mind that IIQ on maps does increase the drop rate of maps; it's just that the IIQ bonus from gear, the Item Quantity Gem, group bonuses, etc., do not. I can attest to this, (having run thousands upon thousands of maps and recorded the data from each) the number of map drops I acquire is DIRECTLY correlated to the effective product of the map's IIQ and packsize bonuses. (E.g, a map with 50% IIQ and +20% packsize will, on average, give x1.80 (1.50 x 1.20) times as many map drops as a map with zero bonuses)

As far as a mod to dictate how "good" the items you get are, it'd be problematic for a major reason: the game doesn't inherently have a hard-coded hierarchy of value. A mod can't be implemented to, say, "make your orb drops more valuable" because the game has no way of telling which orb is more valuable than another. I mean, sure, it SEEMS like "common sense" that, say, a chaos orb is more valuable than a blessed orb... Except that the only comparable data on the two in the game files is the drop rate: and chaos orbs are decidedly more common a drop than blessed orbs. IF we went on in-game circulation, chaos are even more commonplace thanks to the chaos recipe.

And you can't even just use arbitrary values, either, since the game has a fully free-floating economy, allowing price shifts to not just be possible, but inevitable. A good example would be to watch any early league: chaos orbs dwarf the value of all currency that's not divines or exalts, and even THOSE aren't worth more than a handful of chaos apiece. Yet by the end of a league? Regrets shift from being worth like 0.25 chaos to 1.5-2 chaos.

Long story short, a huge amount of garbage drops are kinda the inevitable price we pay to have a game where we can freely dictate our trading prices.