maps drop rate

My beef with the system is that as someone who only finished Act 2 merciless and got access to maps recently item quantity is by far and away the most important stat on gear, to the extent that anything without it seems useless even if all the other stats make it a big upgrade over the gear I levelled with. I've got a lovely 5L chest which would gives me nearly 1k more ES but I can't use it for map running since it has no quantity, instead I have to use some low stat 3L thing that dropped 20 levels ago just because it has quantity on it, that is plain wrong.

I was lucky enough to get 4 maps while going through Act 2 but once I started doing them, I wasn't getting enough maps dropping inside those maps to sustain myself. Even after downgrading 4/5 items to get some quantity and spending all my alt orbs on rerolling to get the right modsI still can't.

So the problem is twofold really
a). Item quantity is way too important for players new to the endgame
b). Running maps with the same 4-5 mods is really boring, what's the point having all these mods if you are forced into rolling a narrow selection to have the best chance of getting more maps.

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RandallPOE wrote:

My beef with the system is that as someone who only finished Act 2 merciless and got access to maps recently item quality is by far and away the most important stat on gear, to the extent that anything without it seems useless even if all the other stats make it a big upgrade over the gear I levelled with. I've got a lovely 5L chest which would gives me nearly 1k more ES but I can't use it for map running since it has no quality, instead I have to use some low stat 3L thing that dropped 20 levels ago just because it has quality on it, that is plain wrong.

You keep saying quality. You mean quantity, right?

Yes I mean quantity, wrote that at the end of a long day!

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indczn wrote:

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jackals1234 wrote:

Which is precisely why people should stop having these knee jerk reactions about their "bad luck" and claiming (like you did) that everyone who gets maps is just insanely lucky and IIQ doesn't do anything.

QFT. I went through my phase where I didn't find any maps, and instead of going to the forums whining about the drop rate, I fixed it, by getting MORE IQ, and rolling harder maps with MORE IQ inherent on them. After doing that, I never ran out, and have been spewing maps to other people crazy enough to try for lvl 80.

About the only change I would support right now would be to get 1 map as a quest reward for killing merci Oversoul the first time. All these suggestions to make him always drop maps are asinine, and will shortly be followed by whining about going back to farm lvl 60 maps.

In short, figure out how to farm maps, STOP ZERGING THROUGH THEM expecting them to get handed to you, or deal with farming or trading for them.

"whining" ? ... You do realize that this is still closed beta, right ? And the point of this forum is people who are playing the game to "whine" in it... And considering the fact that the whole game is "fanmade" (targeting GGG team, the whole idea, and the development is based on their personal gaming experience) ... Pretty much every "whine" (as you call it) makes the game more fun, AND balanced. Also, you do realize that this topic is mainly checked by players 60+ (in merciless difficulty, or who already have finished it)... and considering the 7 pages of posts for several days... well i guess its not about someones personal inconvinience.
Hell yeah, I will put IIQ... I am already lvl 70+ (bored of farming the Pyramid) and Pyramid is like a walk in the park for me... yeah i will put 200% IIQ and just walk around to stash 20-30 maps before I start running them.
Thats not the point here. The point is that MAPS are supposed to be the "endgame content"... Right now I have the feeling that The "endgame content" is the pyramid itself,cause from 58 to 70 i spend 98% of the time in there trying to find a map. farming to the top and killing the boss. This is definately not fun.

Several people here gave pretty good point... First one was that every player should receive at least one map for finishing Merciless, via quest, or via killing 2nd act boss. Doesn't matter. But New players should receive at least one. To check the map system, to have the chance to achieve another one inside. Some of the people won't even know what to do when entering the laboratory. And even if they do, if they complete the game with no map (like me) they are Forced to go brainwashed grindin pyramid. True, when I was lvl 58 till now 70 i didnt have any IIQ. I knew the drop rate will be low of these maps... But please... grinding my toon from 58 to 70 with a final result in 2 normal 60 dune maps (and one groto found in the second dune)... For me it is several days in playtime (maybe a weekend) and i still wont do it again for a 3maps x5 min. map runs. Now imagine ppl playing for 1-2 hours a day after work ? What ... grind a whole week to get a 60 normal dune ? for a 5 min map run ? .. and for what ? .. an armor with 50 more armor ? or 20 more energy shield ? ... cause for me even the exp rate in the map (considering im lvl 70, but the normal dune are 60) aint worth the effort of grinding like a whole day to get 1 map. So yeah, i Prefer starting a new toon, and have fun with tha game, and test various builds, rather than smoke/sleep on my keyboard while grinding pyramid. Ok.. keep the drop rate low of magic, rare, especially unique maps... Keep the 65+ maps rare too, considering there will be found the very final equipment... But for the normal 60 maps... i think they should be pretty common... just to keep you doing something different and fun with ur toon.

I got into merciless around the time that Patch 0.9.11 came out with my Ice Witch. She was level 49 then. I was fortunate enough that other people helped me speed through it, so I was only level 51 by the time I had first fought the Oversoul in Merciless.

Of course, I didn't find any maps within the time of speeding through that content, nor did I expect to. I made this character exclusively for the sake of playing Maps when they were released (I started the character not long after the first announcement of them). After that, I have hardly upgraded my gear at all, and in fact *reduced* my gear in several regards for the sake of stacking IIQ. My character did her first map at level 55. She barely spent any time outside of them since then.

My analysis is as follows: once players *do* get inside of maps and start hardcore farming them with +70% or more Quantity, maps become very sustainable. Only about 1 in 5 of the maps that this character runs *don't* drop a map. Sometimes I get rather lucky and drop 3 or 4 in the same one. At this point, the system seems to work just fine, and is a solid end game.

However, these are the other conclusions I've made in this time:

1) The "Massive" mod is the most important mod, period. It's too important. This is followed by either the "of Champions" or "of Hordes" suffix. Any map with +50% (or more) increased area is just going to drop a map. It doesn't matter what the base quantity on the map is--it just is all you need. Seriously, is there anyone who would actually want to go through 100% of a more difficult map for +8% quantity instead of through 165% of an easier map? People tend to play this game for long periods of time. Of course, they don't care about the length of time in a map: that's only a plus.

Recommendation: nerfing the "Massive" mod would not be a decent solution. I honestly think that it should just be attached to every map instead. Start each map at 25% bigger than the current base. Then, have an "inherent bonus" of between -25% and +25% increased area to each map. Allow this number to be rerolled by Blessed Orbs. This will give longer playtime to each map, more enjoyability to players, *and* it will make a previously useless Orb suddenly gain *huge* value to players.

2) The need for Increased Item Quantity should be readjusted. It has 3 incredibly valuable purposes that makes it just too strong of an effect: map drop rate, currency drop rate, and overall drop rate, which is doubly important in high level maps because players are looking for high tier white items as much if not more than the rares that drop.

Recommendation: firstly, I feel that Increased Item Rarity should at the very least be useful to increase the drop rates of higher tier items, and higher rarity orbs. If that were done, then 2 of the purposes of Quantity would be reduced. Similarly, if within a map, Increased Item Rarity affected the chance that a map dropped from a mob is of equal or higher level than the area, I think the importance of Increased Item Quantity would at least be balanced with Rarity itself.

3) This is really the least important of these 3, but I wanted to address this somewhere: the bosses inside of maps suck. Their drops suck, and really, they are not impressive at all. I will leave the rest of this in spoiler tags because it goes into detail about a few of the level 60 and level 61 map bosses, and players who have not done these yet may not want what the boss is called spoiled for them.



As such, the "Twinned" map mod only becomes another (generally useless) weak mod that people don't care about because it only gives a benefit in its drop without any real detriment.

Note: I have not yet done a map higher than level 64, and hopefully this problem changes by or after then.

Recommendation: Give more impact to the bosses. Make them meaner. Give them new attacks. And make the loot worth it. Bosses should really be the prime place to look for for maps, with a base 25% chance on every boss to drop one not being out of the question. Rares? Psh. Though they do drop a few pretty often, I don't think that it should be out of the question to make them drop something much more important: items with potentially higher linked sockets, quality on items (like maps and gems), and some nice currency drops. Those are what you come their for in the end; they should really be a challenge in their own right, and worth that challenge!

Probably there will be more extensions for this, cus it just came out and they have a lot work to do with pvp and act3. I am sure its not final state and there will be many things what will change cus when act3 comes out then we get maps there and we don't know how they make it :)

But some map rewards for completing bosses would be good idea.

At first i felt like geting maps is quite hard too, spent several days to farm cople of maps. Made them and got some maps back. But i did em alone and felt a bit bored. So i invited someone to do with my 2 maps what i had left.(magic/blue ones what i rerolled until i got nice bosses,more mobs, bigger area or etc map) It was a lot more fun, a lot more loot and i got 7 maps out from 2 maps. I was like wtf! Then i just joined to random pyramid team and someone opened lvl 60 rare map. ANd we found map again, found alch donator and we did lvl 61 rare map until we finished lvl 64 rare map. So we did 4 maps in a row and we got several lvl 60 and 61 maps too and 2 x 64. Its geting complicated but we had 1 map and we found like mroe maps in every map we did and ended like 7-8+ maps in total. Never had that much of fun before.

To sum up this, make sure you have rolled or rerolled nice map if you have orbs. Do maps with other people for more loot and fun. Many hours of map farming could end up with having fun with people , a lot of items and exp. At first map hunting can be disaster(but still i enjoyed a lot cus i got a lot lvl ups, loots and a lot gameplay fun in those days in pyramid, ofc a lot discos too :D) but find your way out and it could be interesting. Play, enjoy, find bugs, make friends and relax :)

Ok, going back to pyramid cus i miss it :D hopefully get some maps for donating and opening them in public parties too, can't use my private party maps without others.

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Recommendation: Give more impact to the bosses. Make them meaner. Give them new attacks. And make the loot worth it. Bosses should really be the prime place to look for for maps, with a base 25% chance on every boss to drop one not being out of the question. Rares? Psh. Though they do drop a few pretty often, I don't think that it should be out of the question to make them drop something much more important: items with potentially higher linked sockets, quality on items (like maps and gems), and some nice currency drops. Those are what you come their for in the end; they should really be a challenge in their own right, and worth that challenge!

lvl64 merveil boss is absolute disaster

- Boss guarantee map drops
- Map drops base on level (higher the level, higher chance you get low level maps).
- Quantity to affect map related currency.
- Currency to add time limit challenge (add big chests with time remaining for more rares, more maps).

Maybe some NPC could sell a starter map in exchange for a high value orb? It would help players new to the end game.

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hungryneko wrote:

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Recommendation: Give more impact to the bosses. Make them meaner. Give them new attacks. And make the loot worth it. Bosses should really be the prime place to look for for maps, with a base 25% chance on every boss to drop one not being out of the question. Rares? Psh. Though they do drop a few pretty often, I don't think that it should be out of the question to make them drop something much more important: items with potentially higher linked sockets, quality on items (like maps and gems), and some nice currency drops. Those are what you come their for in the end; they should really be a challenge in their own right, and worth that challenge!

lvl64 merveil boss is absolute disaster

ROFL I'm glad someone else has experienced the terror of a lvl64 Merveil. To beat her I had to put on & borrow a Dream Fragments from a friend. Even with 80 cold resist (sans Dream Fragments) I was still getting frozen. That shield dropped 10 min before I got to her, almost as if the GGG gods deemed me worthy of a boon.

As to the original topic, I farm with 120-140% quant & have had uneven results from 60-65 maps. Some days maps will yield up to 4 per run! Others, like yesterday, only 3 dropped from about 6 maps. On the whole, I have probably come out ahead getting more maps than I consume.

I always roll at least larger map size, inc pack size, magic % (probably best for maps to drop) & of course inc rare %. Usually with alts.