Map Drops in The Awakening

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Merciless Act Four is intended to be very difficult content. It'll provide a way to challenge your character without having to play in maps.

This is pleasing.

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Jerle wrote:

Good read.

Though psychologically I'm not sure making merciless A4 end game worthy is going to work. My sense is that most non-casual players will consider the core acts as baseline huddles to clear and a ramped up A4 may be confusing/frustrating to some. But we'll see.

This change will just hurt new players A LOT, the spike between act 2 and 3 in merciless is a example of this, is silly that instead of making players finish the difficulty and jump in to maps, the way to go is unlock the map device in act 3 and get in to maps because the zones get harder and harder and there is just no reward to kill dominus.

Thank you, GGG, for finally rethinking map RNG.

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Masterik wrote:

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Jerle wrote:

Good read.

Though psychologically I'm not sure making merciless A4 end game worthy is going to work. My sense is that most non-casual players will consider the core acts as baseline huddles to clear and a ramped up A4 may be confusing/frustrating to some. But we'll see.

This change will just hurt new players A LOT, the spike between act 2 and 3 in merciless is a example of this, is silly that instead of making players finish the difficulty and jump in to maps, the way to go is unlock the map device in act 3 and get in to maps because the zones get harder and harder and there is just no reward to kill dominus.

This is no longer the case. You get a passive point early in Act 4. Although I'd prefer to see it shifted to be a reward from killing the Beast, obviously there's still a good portion of content missing.

I honestly don't get why you don't just tie what level of maps you get to quantity.

White map = Impossible to get +2, almost impossible to get +1, low chance getting same level.

25 quant = Almost impossible to get +2, low chance at +1, reasonable chance at same level.

50 quant = Low chance at +2, reasonable chance at +1, good chance for same level.

75 quant = Reasonable chance at +2, good chance at +1, almost guarantied same level drop.

100+ quant = Good chance at +2, almost guarantied +1, guarantied same level.

This makes it rewarding to roll tough maps without limiting players ability to progress maps depending on build. (Which is what you're doing now as far from all builds can kill certain bosses as is...I fear how hard jungle valley will be for some builds if you make that harder for example. If I understood it correctly.)

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pinetemplar wrote:

My main concern is for solo players like myself. It is very hard and if drop rate will be even lover almost impossible to play in high level maps. Which will decrease desire to play at all.

yeah I like to play solo as well and this seems like it will be less rewarding for solo players. Well all the false hype and then beta made me leave anyway, I doubt I come back when act 4 comes to live.

I hate that end game is behind a RNG gate and group play. Unfortunately for me, I really love solo play and GGG seems to be forcing group play. I kinda find it amusing that GGG seems to make their changes based on what the top 5% are able to do in a full group of 6 than the other 95%.

So that changes you want just new and solo players just uninstall game? GG well done. PoE is so damn hard game to enter, now I m sure you will get small happy hardcore base and NOTHING more.

Poor map drops were made worse by the fact that there is very little trading going on so people don't have the currency to be chaosing maps at level 74 to push onto worthwhile map levels. Also has this change come into effect as of now?

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Chris wrote:

It's worth noting that +2 maps are a dangerous thing. They can cause players to get out of their depth - playing maps that are too hard for the items they currently have.

Then let the difficulty be the gate, not currency and map seed RNG.

A gate you can freely open and difficulty, content, challenge you can access if you want, dare.

Chris - I was with you when you said 'we want higher level maps to be challenging to run', but you lost me at 'and to sustain'.

If I started anew it would be unlikely to be as much of an issue, but I have characters in the 90s which are really not worth xping on 71s. I chisel alch and go for higher maps and am willing to run 100+ quantity most of the time, but the reason I try to save my currency is *to buy equipment*.

So, can you please, just for once in a manifesto, not tell us what it is you want, but *why*? It seems like your motivation is built purely around top-end racers and league players getting advantages (and yes, to 100 too quickly, as it that affects most of us). But I don't want to put words in your mouth - please enlighten me.