Our view on map drop rates

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TehHammer wrote:

Going to be a lot of data in this post, most of it will be hidden in a spoiler. This is all post-0.9.12d (the map drop rate buff). These are sequential runs, with a couple of breaks in between as I ran some of my kid's maps and I didn't track all of them.

Spoiler

• level 61, 78%->No map.
• level 61, 34%->No map.
• level 60, 87%->1x level 62 map.
• level 62, 48%->No map.
• level 60, 16% (+43% pack size)->2x level 60 map.
• level 60, 48%->1x Level 61 map.
• level 61, 42%->2x Level 61 maps.
• level 61, 67%->No map.
• level 61, 54% (+maze, +magic, +rare)->1x level 63, 60, 61 maps.
• level 63, 51%->Nothing.
• level 61, 48% (+32% pack size)->Nothing.
• level 60, 66%->1x level 60 map.
• level 60, 32% (+maze, +magic)->1x level 61 Map.
• level 61, 57% (+rare)->3x level 60 maps, 1x level 61 map.
• level 60, 77%->Nothing.
• level 61, 66%->3x level 62 maps.
• level 62, 45%->1x level 61 map.
• level 61, 78%->Nothing.

Overall, my 4 highest quantity maps (70%+) resulted in 1 map drop. 3 map runs in the 60%s resulted in 4 maps. 3 map runs in the 50%s resulted in 7 maps (rng for the win!). 5 map runs in the 40%s resulted in 4 maps. 2 map runs in the 30%s resulted in 1 map. 1 map run in the 10%s resulted in 2 maps. Doesn't look very biased toward difficulty/quantity to me. Small sample size, of course.

Great data, now the thing here is the effect of IIQ% has on other factors of the map.
ie Area with +IIQ 50% will yield more maps on avg than say,
+IIQ60% with no area on it nor other mods.

Its all a mixed bag you have to look at.

"

MrDDT wrote:

Great data, now the thing here is the effect of IIQ% has on other factors of the map.
ie Area with +IIQ 50% will yield more maps on avg than say,
+IIQ60% with no area on it nor other mods.

Its all a mixed bag you have to look at.

Correct! Which is exactly why I included +rare, +magic, +area, maze mods in the data.

"

TehHammer wrote:

"

MrDDT wrote:

Great data, now the thing here is the effect of IIQ% has on other factors of the map.
ie Area with +IIQ 50% will yield more maps on avg than say,
+IIQ60% with no area on it nor other mods.

Its all a mixed bag you have to look at.

Correct! Which is exactly why I included +rare, +magic, +area, maze mods in the data.

FYI your +mod maps yielded an avg of 2 maps per map.

i've tried to explain this a million times in general chat and it seems like a lot of people still have a problem grasping this concept

magic monsters have a minimum drop rate, as do rares, whites however do not.

you can kill 40 whites and not get 1 drop with any amount of IIQ, which means no matter how high the IIQ you roll on the map, you're still not guaranteed anything

in the same breath,

you can kill 40 blues and get 1-2 drops per blue
even so much as 25% IIQ boosts this to an extra 10-20 guaranteed drops

to test this:

remove all personal IIQ

grab 2 60 maps of the same area, transmute/alt roll one until you get magic monsters > 20% (25-30 = optimal) (for sake of argument try to keep the other mod or at least the IIQ on the second mod the same as the second map you run)

count the white mobs
count the drops

you'll notice the ratio of white:blue mobs is far in favour of blue mobs than white

rerun a map with 50% or more IIQ on it and no buff to magic/rare monsters

count the white mobs
count the drops

you'll notice the ratio of white mobs to blue is completely in favour of white mobs, as well as a large loot total difference between the 2 maps (even given the 50% IIQ its drastically lower)


i'm not trying to prove that the system isn't broken, just trying to support the claim of +magic monsters providing far better odds at higher maps dropping than any other combination in the game (due to the sheer volume of blue mobs as opposed to say, the +rare affix which i consider far less drops at the same IIQ value)

i think that if the map system were to stay even remotely similar to the way it is, both the IIQ and difficulty of maps needs to be substantially increased in order for people to want to progress

and going back to what i said before.. why would anyone with a goal of trying to get the best gear even bother farming high level maps come launch? its far too much of an orb sink compared to just paying someone off for their mediocre high ilvl drops and rerolling them with the currency they would've otherwise blown trying to compete with RNG 3 times instead of one (rolling a good map, having useful items from that map drop, investing currency in that item)

right now there's little to no tradeoff worth investing the orbs into, and the only thing the map patch caused when combined with the nerf to name matches and the IIQ/IIR stat nerf on chest/belt/mh/oh was a lack of alchs/scouring/chaos for the majority of the playerbase that continually run maps.

what i'd really like to see is an alternative for dumping currency into maps (not pvp..)that allows me to test my character in hard scenarios.

again, as i mentioned earlier, how about harder unique maps with a far more difficult progression curve and higher rewards as opposed to dumping all of my currency? atm vaal pyramids just seems like a novelty and would probably be better off sold than ran anyway

that way at least you guys can tune the individual difficulty of each map and not have to insert random patches to increase endgame difficulty (like the resist nerf) not to mention the possibility of a competitive ladder (first to complete certain maps, furthest progression ladder, etc)

What i don't get is that a lot of people want harder maps and such, but GGG has to keep hardcore in mind as well. People that complete their first char (lets say lvl 60ish and kill Vaal merciless) still require a lot of gear and linked sockets. How on earth can they keep up with upgrading their gear AND rolling maps to actually continue playing? Not to mention that the increased difficulty is simply suicide for a lot of regular builds at that stage.

I have done a handful of maps now on my marauder, and greatly enjoyed it. But so far it has been much more rewarding, both xp and drops, to keep running pyramid. I know this will come to an end due to my level exceeding that place greatly, but to me that seems like something is wrong.

Ok, we continue the story of the map chain started with a single lvl68 map - now with less actual story and more logged data. The idea remains the same - run only blue maps of low quantity with specific mods.

Basically did these maps this morning and kept a record. The only piece of info worth mentioning is that the boss of level67 Mine map is a Loathe, which appears to be of the same stats as the lvl60 one in overgrown ruin. Maybe buff this one or nerf the other. They do have 7 lvl in difference between them after all.



Will continue logging this chain until it runs completely dry or only a few lvl 60 maps remain.

"

drakar8888 wrote:

Ok, we continue the story of the map chain started with a single lvl68 map - now with less actual story and more logged data. The idea remains the same - run only blue maps of low quantity with specific mods.

Basically did these maps this morning and kept a record. The only piece of info worth mentioning is that the boss of level67 Mine map is a Loathe, which appears to be of the same stats as the lvl60 one in overgrown ruin. Maybe buff this one or nerf the other. They do have 7 lvl in difference between them after all.

Spoiler

lvl68 15% - area is 46% larger - gives lvl67

lvl67 38% - area is a maze - gives 3 maps lvls 66 64 62

lvl66 25% - 46% monster pack size - gives 2 maps lvl 60 62

lvl62 39% - area is a maze - gives lvl62 map

lvl64 18% - area is 44% larger- gives lvl61 map

lvl62 17% - area is a maze - gives 4 maps 2 lvl 63 , 62 and a superior 15% 60

lvl63 9% - 18% more magic monsters - no maps were given, however the map barely contained any monsters to kill, I ran it under 5 minutes - tunel map needs more mobs in it!

lvl63 12% - 30% monster pack size - gives lvl65 map and a chisel, dropped from the boss of all things :)

lvl65 3% - 18% more magic monsters, area is 41% larger - gives lvl61 and a chisel

lvl62 8% - 35% pack size - gives lvl62

Will continue logging this chain until it runs completely dry or only a few lvl 60 maps remain.

This ends the streak as only 6 maps of level 60 remain. Talk about the perfect downward spiral. :)
Will keep logging further as I can.

[/quote]


You mean the sample size of 3 maps post?

I killed a boss and got 3 maps off them today. The map had 110% IIQ.

I win.[/quote]

The only thing you win at is RNG, i did a 110% map last night infact without chisels and found a 62 springs map, aside from all the 100+ maps yielding nothing more than 1 map with the exception of 2 in 1 x 2 within 30-35 100+ quant maps. You seem to think quantity on maps has some great significant impact on map drops, how many maps have you actually done man? Im curious to know this given the fact that your a hc player, i hope you realize ever since maps were introduced into this game I have been running them day in day out, also having reserved a shitton of loot in anticipation of map cost, after all in default merc there is nothing for me to do but run endgame, and i have been dissecting its trend for weeks now...badmotorfinger makes a valid guess as to what the problem is and he is probably right given the fact that the maps are not more evident with double the map quantity which means its only worth it to customize your maps towards one direction, area/magic/rare since hard mods that give quant 100+ dont do mapdrops any justice. Also if your going to customize for those mods, at this given state of drops its imperative to use chisels..but even this act is not doing justice to the drops which are still peaking at the 1-2 mapdrop range no matter what the circumstances, 3-4 in a map is a rng jackpot exception atm, prepatch some ppl were at times finding 9-12 maps in 1 map (which is obviously overkill), did a lvl 65 strand map last night with area39%/20%magic and some mob mods + chisels to = 79% quantity on that map, it was 7 mods long so there is essentially no more room for map quantity and till this day that is the highest amount of quantity i could obtain on a map that possessed the area/magic mods and even still only dropping 1 map, so at this point what is the answer to customization? Is it even integral to map drops? Yes it has an influence but the real underlying influence with endgame is rng based drops..quantity does perhaps a shred of what rng does, more and more ppl in merc feel this way as maps are constantly run, and if i have to refer to drakkars scenario again i will, infact just look at his updated post with some maps containing much greater quant than blue maps with 9, 3%?? still producing maps relative to 50% +...

Duplicate post.

Spacke,

If you will start a community log project, I will contribute.

You need about a thousand datapoints to get your 95% confidence interval within 5% of the data, for this kind of thing. What you're suggesting is that map drops are bugged and a constant; to prove that map quant doesn't affect map drops you will need those thousand datapoints.

Well, also, you have to split the dataset up into categories: maps with +rares, +pack size, +magics, +area/maze (should be one category), and none of the above - those are your categories. So you would need to choose one category and collect data only on that, or get a full 1000 points from each category you're interested in.

If you could find contributors, the project wouldn't take a terribly long time.

I just think it'd be far more constructive to set out on a project to prove it scientifically, rather than focusing in so much on your bad luck. Your bad luck should push you to prove that there's a problem, but you can't make any claims until you get some data.

I myself have been having excellent luck, so I don't relate to your claims.