Our view on map drop rates

Good to see the update.

Personally I'd been saving my chisels for lvl65+ maps in case I ever found one. :p

I just didn't see the point of using chisels on the lower level maps when they'd been trading at up to a gcp a piece in game over the past few days.

Spending 4 gcp's on a less than a lvl65 map, (to get 20%), just sounded crazy when there's no guarantee of a map drop within that map.

This change could improve things for many players.

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KoTao wrote:

How so? IIR/IIQ are as functional on non-map drops as ever.

The problem wasn't IIR/IIQ working for non-map drops in maps, but rather taking the risk of wearing MF gear and trying to sustain maps in this new direction that GGG has taken.

I want to say more, but the small patch is out. I see myself as a beta tester more than I do a player so I do like testing out changes.

I think the problem is that, currently, maps are the only end game content. Players will naturally be disappointed if their access to end game content is contingent upon what essentially boils down to a lottery.

I believe a more consistent, less profitable form of end game content should also be made available. I really like one idea another player came up with in another thread: an endless dungeon.

Essentially, you keep going until you die or reset the whole thing (lots of juicy delicious tension for HC players!). Try to go as deep as possible, each new level bringing different randomly generated (underground & dungeon) terrain types. Players are allowed one trip to town per level via a "crumbling" way point (ceases to function once returned to the dungeon). Every so many levels would present a more challenging "boss" monster that must be defeated to progress. Each of these bosses could be guaranteed to drop a map relative to their level within the dungeon (eg, a boss in dungeon lv3 would drop a lv60 map, lv6 would drop lv61,. . . Lv15 drops lv64, and so on). Otherwise drop rates (for all the things) would be similar to unmodded maps. In this way, there is constant access to repeatable end game content, which leads to significantly more profitable, less consistently available end game content.

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Chris wrote:

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dsifu wrote:

I don't want to sound like a wuss, but right now the risk and rewards of running maps is completely imbalanced.

At lv75, the exp loss from dying to get 1% exp just makes running maps not worth it right now. I honestly think that the endgame is a bit broken at the moment.

Would you rather the content was easier? I'm very glad that people are scared of dying in maps, because our #1 concern is having the endgame too easy so that people are not challenged.

There's more parallel endgame coming in the form of PvP, Act three, more events, better trading, guild content, more maps, etc, etc.

Anybody at 75 who has issues running maps has a bad build.

or bad gear... Then again if you still have bad gear by 75 then that might also be a issue.

Just reporting here.

Maps drops still the same and that with a run through pyramid and a map haven't found either any map nor Chisels at all.

This isn't working my map reserve is getting low and starting from this cursed 9.12c patch things are actually worse in terms of map drops.


End game should not be up to chance chris.
End game should have a fair access to all, now inside may be another thing depends on the mods and builds.

still i find the devlopers dancing around the issue and not having a straight answer to this question.
Does your endgame map system depends on chance?

Chris,

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I have one simple question though, as many others:

Why is GGG so stuck on the idea that the availability of endgame should be tied to RNG?

Isn't it enough that everything else is already based on RNG and somewhat controllable by our MagicFind and pace of killing? How would it hurt this game in any way if players had much more control on what map level and difficulty they would engage in?

Even if 95% of the playerbase ends up with sufficient maps to at least keep playing them (regardless of their level), then that means that 5% will be left frustrated. Personally I believe that even a great portion of that 95% will eventually be left hanging dry with no maps and quite possibly rage quit over this.

-There is nothing fun in constantly be on the lookout for new maps as a necessity, in stead of actually focusing on rare items / orbs / quality gems.

-There is nothing fun in trying to engage in actually interesting maps (higher level) and be forced back into 60-61 due to bad RNG

I don't know what's with all the complaining about map drops. I had to buy the first 5 to have a starting pool since they don't drop anywhere in act 2, but once you're actually doing maps there's at least one and usually two that drop every single level.

Do people really run out of these things? And if so, are you actually killing all the monsters? Or are you just diving for the boss, popping a diamond flask or two and then porting home?


lol @ the dude complaining about dieing in maps at level 75.

Since the 9.12d I'm getting enough maps. All I did was rolling for over 50% IIQ and running those; on average I got 2 maps per a map. Just try harder maps guys, it should help a lot.

About the original idea of itemized endgame, I think there is nothing wrong with it if the balance is set right. If you happen to be in the theoretic 5% minority Ferumbras is talking about, you can still buy the map and keep going. Because if there is a minority without maps, there must be also a minority with excess of them. All this is achieved by balancing the map rate for 'average' player. The fundamental mechanic is not flawed.

Also it makes sense to make the availability of high level maps (65+) dependent on your ability to run really hard low level ones. If you can't handle those, you wouldn't be able to handle the high level ones either.