Vaal Fragment Changes in 1.2.4d

Everything that makes Vaal orbs more expensive is very good imho.

Vaal orbs were pretty much worthless compared to their rarity...

vaal orbs drop rate definitely needs a buff after this change

it's the most usefull kind of orb, corrupt items, corrupt gems, corrupt maps, corrupted items changing colors.. etc.. but the drop rate is very low

I like the idea of corrupted map bosses droping atziri fragments, but i think that it can be much better with some tweaks.

As it is now, (from what i inderstand) a white 66 corrupted map gives the same reward as a 78 +150q corrupted map in terms of atziri fragments. Because of that, nobody will take the risk and people will run low level content in order to get fragments. Also, given the current price and drop chance of vaal orbs, it is not a viable option to corrupt single maps to farm fragments.

I think that the best solution is to increase the drop chance of vall fragments in corrupted maps depending on their difficulty.
Two good indicators of the difficulty of a map are level and item quantity. In order to take those into account, we could add these changes:

-Base drop rate of a fragment will be affected proportionally to the map level, following a linear function like this:
http://i.imgur.com/jjqNR0X.jpg
(paint FTW)
Of course the numeric values can be adjusted, but you get the idea.

-Drop rate of vaal fragments affected by the item quantity of a map, (basically it will multiply the base drop chance determined by the map level).

With these 2 changes, we create a nice risk/reward balance. For example if you run a white 66 (no challenge) you only have a 50% chance (0.5 x 1) of a fragment/gem but if you run a 78 +100q map (challenging) you can obtain up to 5 fragments (2.5 x 2) which would be more fair.

TL,DR: Take map difficulty into account when determining fragment drop chances of corrupted map bosses.

This looks like a potentially great change, and I am glad the GGG team is once again looking out for their players in trying to make the game better.

So far, in Rampage, the number of Vaal orbs I have seen is far too scarce to be able to utilize them for more than a handful of maps. This may just be RNG and not representative of the overall average Vaal orb drop rate, but I do hope you have looked into making sure there are enough Vaal orbs to support this new change.

Thanks again for making a very enjoyable game!

"

Chris wrote:

It was intentional that Vaal Fragments didn't drop in the existing end-game (or from bosses people already run like Piety or Dominus), because we designed the content to be an alternative end-game activity.

Do you guys really think that running mindlesly for severals hours a level 60-67 content with a level 90 char is an alternative end-game content?

"

Chris wrote:

If we had them drop while players were running regular maps then they'd merely stockpile them and occasionally get some free Atziri runs out of their existing play.

And why is this bad? I mean, you were thinking on a solution involving fragments raining ocasionaly when you enter a map? Is not enough to run a corrupted zone and killing a boss to open a vesel with an awful percentage to drop a midgnight frament? What do GGG consider "free"?

Really, sometimes its really obvious how detached are you guys with how your game is played and how your own players feel. Your risk / reward balance is wrong, really wrong, and nothing is done to fix it.

"

Chris wrote:

The problem is that as this process is bottlenecked by finding a lot of corrupted areas, the most effective ways to maximise Fragments per hour involve activities that are at best boring and at worst exploitative. We needed to find a more fun way to complete Fragment sets.

No man, no! You're right about that we need to find a more fun way to obtain them, yeah. But hell, your players did those cheap tricks since the day 1. You spent 8 months, and your proposed solution is just a simple band aid that involved the work the less possible philosophy.

"

Chris wrote:

In update 1.2.4d, bosses of corrupted Maps have a high chance to drop a Vaal Fragment or Vaal Skill Gem. This change works extremely well in testing. It encourages people to play corrupted Maps which are a lot more random and fun due to their crazy eight mods or through being unidentified. It also makes the dual-boss Map mod a lot more exciting.

I'm not saying this is bad. Is better than nothing? Absolutely yes. Sometimes I vaal my maps, +30% IIQ is something nice, and the possibility of getting a +1 level is nice too. Breaking your rolls is not that nice, and with your risk/reward balance doesn't worth to run all those difficult mods, but well, thats the risk of using a vaal orb on your map. But how sustainable will be to farm vaal fragments this way? Did you guys thought about that? Because with the current drop rate of vaal orbs its impossible, and the value of those orbs is higher than getting a little chance of obtaining a fragment. Still have to see the drop rate of fragments, but knowing how GGG do these things, it will be terrible.

This is what I propose:

A) Make Vaal orbs drop rate between fuses and chaos. Currently those are as rare as a GCP.
B) Create a new map mod like "Include one corrupted zone", make that zone inherit the map mods, make that mod as rare as pack size, or even a bit rarer. This is the best solution, but you guys overlooked it.

Problem
Whoosh
GGG's Heads

Desync

Forget it. I give up.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

"

morbo wrote:

+1 GGG

This suggestion was going around even before SotV released. It took some time, but yeah... we all know it makes sense.

Let no Courtyard map be run uncorrupted! :)

so let me get this right, you are going to use a vaal orb to corrupt courtyards, that are worth 1exalt+ each, to try and get a vaal fragment thats worth less than a vaal orb?

No, I'm gonna first check with my accountant, Mr. Bronstein, that does my PoE economeh balance and tax reports... -_-

Yes, Im doing just that. As if I didn't already vaal 78s, for: fun, chance to get 79, just for fvcks because I have a ton of them and don't even like to play 78s tier...

As if vaaling 78s makes them suddenly impossible to run or give zero returns. It's the same map, with a possible bonus risk/reward on top.

"

IchiMorghulis wrote:

"

because we designed the content to be an alternative end-game activity

You guys have to get over the "alternative end-game activity" and let the side areas spawn in maps. This would solve you fragment and vaal gem problem and instantly creat new content without actually creating new content. I suspect that some of those bosses would be very scary in a 70 plus map.

I laughed so hard with "alternative end-game activity" is the reason corrupted zone does not appear in map lol

And they dont wonder why people use the loading trick or any exploit to farm them because its not fun and having them spawn in map would smooth so much end game experience.

lol