Map Management Resource

Awesome guide - thanks for taking the time to put it all in 1 place

Nice guide, man! I'm not an avid Open Beta mapper yet. I soloed them to the highest maps possible in Closed Beta then burned and crashed - 100% out of maps. In Open Beta, the game is significantly harder than what I'm used to, so I've been spending most of my time (and currency...) creating new characters and running them up to/through Merciless. Ideally I'll have a good pool of characters to pick from and use for maps when I start doing them more frequently. :) Got a good range of 69-71s in the stash, almost no 66-67s though.

I'll certainly be using the advice in this guide when I start rolling 'em. ^_^

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MonopolyLegend wrote:

Nice guide, man! I'm not an avid Open Beta mapper yet. I soloed them to the highest maps possible in Closed Beta then burned and crashed - 100% out of maps. In Open Beta, the game is significantly harder than what I'm used to, so I've been spending most of my time (and currency...) creating new characters and running them up to/through Merciless. Ideally I'll have a good pool of characters to pick from and use for maps when I start doing them more frequently. :) Got a good range of 69-71s in the stash, almost no 66-67s though.

I'll certainly be using the advice in this guide when I start rolling 'em. ^_^

The map is significantly harder because its higher level. 66 used to be the end of maps, now its just the starting.
So instead of level 75 doing 63 areas, we are now 80 doing 70 areas. Also, some of the most dangerous monster is introduced in OB.

The resource has been updated to include 75~76 maps. The final pool will be completed tomorrow and the following days should see updates to other portions of the resource.

This is a really good guide you have here. If I had this when I started running maps, I might not have wasted so many.

in some maps you mention "Always roll maze" (Grotto for example) --- now i rolled about 40 alts before i finally got maze and went past about 3-4 40%+ qualities to get maze and it came with +rare (3% quality tho with that) - i did get back a map so i didnt miss out on anything but would i have been better off running one of the 48%'s that i could have handled or is maze still better?

Also thank you very much for your hard work, ive been using the guide exclusively sense i started mapping and its extreemly helpful!

Thank you!

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Obbes wrote:

in some maps you mention "Always roll maze" (Grotto for example) --- now i rolled about 40 alts before i finally got maze and went past about 3-4 40%+ qualities to get maze and it came with +rare (3% quality tho with that) - i did get back a map so i didnt miss out on anything but would i have been better off running one of the 48%'s that i could have handled or is maze still better?

Also thank you very much for your hard work, ive been using the guide exclusively sense i started mapping and its extreemly helpful!

Thank you!

Grotto is 66 dont spend a lot of currency in this map, 66 you can buy it for 1 alchemy

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Obbes wrote:

in some maps you mention "Always roll maze" (Grotto for example) --- now i rolled about 40 alts before i finally got maze and went past about 3-4 40%+ qualities to get maze and it came with +rare (3% quality tho with that) - i did get back a map so i didnt miss out on anything but would i have been better off running one of the 48%'s that i could have handled or is maze still better?

Also thank you very much for your hard work, ive been using the guide exclusively sense i started mapping and its extreemly helpful!

Thank you!

I have clearly stated that you should pace yourself and determine when you want to stop rolling. While Maze is optimal, it does not need to be present in 66 maps. You may opt to settle for quantity instead.

Lyr,

You seem to (generally) favor layout mods (labyrinthine) over demographic mods (hordes). As long as the map responds well to the layout mod, of course. I have questions about how deep your analysis goes. It's really never been terribly clear to me which route is strictly better. Now, obviously, some maps respond extremely well to massive/maze, and in those situations they are probably the best. But how much value do the demographic mods have on those maps, in comparison?

+%pack size: a 40% increased pack size will yield strictly less than 40% more items, with a slightly lower average itemlevel. (1) you don't get more rare spawns - the rare gets more minions but still just one rare mob for each rare spawn. (2) you don't get more chests.

+%map size: a 40% increased map area will yield almost exactly 40% more items, with almost exactly the same average itemlevel. (1) more rare spawns (more packs spawn instead of packs becoming larger) (2) you also get more chests.

Both of the above don't account for the chosen modifier not improving the bossdrop (still only one boss, both mods are low quant, neither improve the boss at all)

So it's clear that given the choice between packsize and increased map area, the map area wins if your chosen map handles that affix well.

But it gets a lot more muddled with the champions affix. If I understand clearly, this affix represents an increased probability of pack spawns turning up as champions. This is strictly different from champion packs becoming 40% larger; 40% more packs are champions. Some things to consider for a 40% champions affix, purely from a perspective of "how many map drops will I get":

1 - Completely shifted the mob demographic. Fewer white mobs, more blue mobs. Base droprate of a white mob is 15%; base droprate of a champion should be 100%. So for every champ-pack you get on the trade, it's (100%-15%)*(100%+Quant bonus)*Pack Size extra items. Hard to translate into something like "X% more items dropped" where for the others that is pretty easy.
2 - Average itemlevel for drops goes up. This has a huge impact on your chances to progress forward. Even if total number of maps dropped is slightly lower than a hordes (which it may or may not be), their average item level went up by close to one third!
3 - Because of guaranteed drops from champions and the significant demographic shift, it's hard to say what exactly the effect on total droprate is. It depends on relative droprate of a rare/champion/white, and the demographic before/after.

To answer the question fully we'd need Panda in here to do some counting. But DDT used to argue that for reasons 2 and 3, champions is still superior to hordes (this was after the nerf to champions affix in CB, mind you). I recall, after that nerf, there was a clip where Chris told Kripparian that from an XP standpoint, hordes is strictly better (this was also a spur of the moment question without deep analysis); I'm not analyzing XP here, but map progression.

I suppose I don't have a simple wrapped up question. If I had to come up with one, it'd go like this: what are your basic reasons for the map affixes you've chosen to favor, and have you done any counting to investigate those choices?

It drives me nuts every time I see a streamer roll off a great map saying things like: ugh, need maze. Other combinations are at least almost as good, and rolling off a maze is pretty expensive. Really there should be a shortlist of combos you're willing to accept.

I realize that knowing for certain would require a tremendous data collection. Actually the kind of data you need to figure it out makes the project impossible without a core group of 10 or so detail oriented and dedicated contributors. The notion of a community log project doesn't work here.

It all falls apart just a little bit when you consider that with 40% more area, you're going to get the 40% more champs. And 40% more rares, and 40% more whites, and chests.

I suppose I'm just advocating not being such a perfectionist with mapmods all the time. A champions roll paired with a high quant difficulty mod is probably just as good as a maze with some other garbage mod on it.

Map progression is more about a strategy: where you get your currency, how much you spend rolling maps, when to spend your high level maps and when to use your low level maps to farm currency.