I still think map drops are fine - boost drops and good players can do 79++ all day long

Hiding the content behind RNG, in my opinion, is because they can't or don't want to hide it behind difficulty.
Here is what I mean:
Imagine each boss was guaranteed to drop a +2 map. If this was the case, then each boss has to be extremely difficult for all current builds to ensure that only the top players will see the endgame content. This requires a great deal of balancing and testing, and GGG just doesn't want to do this, it takes too much time and work and they want the easy way out. So, hiding it behind RNG is the lazy approach that saves them time and hurts the player base.
The laziness of developers also explains the 1shot mechanics, because they can't really think of a way to make the content difficult without it.
So, basically, GGG is too lazy to balance the map system by difficulty so they are hiding the map drops with RNG.

The question is... why should only top-players see endgame content?

Normally the goal should be to present the content to everyone and put challanges as a layer on this content to provide some exclusivity to good players.

But maps don't really provide this right now. They are not rewarding if you are a good player and not really avaible to even some good players. Actually by that meaning good would mostly be defined by players with a lot of time, because that is the crucial point.

Forcing people to run lower maps to get the currency to roll higher ones wouldn't be that bad if you wouldn't have to invest at least some currency into those lower maps as well for them to drop something. And even then you mostly need to trade to get the necessary income to roll the higher maps.

"

Opinionated wrote:

"

joscha wrote:

But what i dont see is that it got worse than before.

Can you imagine an expansion that reduced content?
Why make content the majority of your players never play?
Why pay for content you will never play?
Why do people want the templar to wear pants?
Why do I feel like I entered a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon?

Its not like they reduced the content. They added a bunch of new stuff. In the end u get all the Tilesets, Mobs, Bosses whatever and just miss on a bit scaled up reprise.

Making Content just for a the top players is not uncommen for an Grinding Game. Evene Wow has Raids i most likly wont expirience - even if i played.

Just pay for the content u play.

Idk never played one.

Idk never whatched.

"

Making Content just for a the top players is not uncommen for an Grinding Game. Evene Wow has Raids i most likly wont expirience - even if i played.

It hasn't. WoW has multiple difficulties for its raid. The first one can be done even if half the raid is afk. It actually does the right thing. It gives everyone access to all the raid-tiers (and thus all the sets) but it makes dropped items more powerful if they complete the raid in a higher difficulty.

"

Its not like they reduced the content. They added a bunch of new stuff. In the end u get all the Tilesets, Mobs, Bosses whatever and just miss on a bit scaled up reprise.

Well before it was easy to sustain 76 and it is now, well you need a bit more effort now, but it is possible. However 76 basically is the equal of 74 and they moved some of the maps up in levels without reducing the levels of other maps. They even did this without changing the difficulty of the boss-fights.

The level 79 maps are actually easier than the level 68 maps. Gravicus in Shipyard? Fidelitas in Overgrown Ruin? Hatebeat in Arsenal? Those aren't difficult boss-fights. Only Village Ruins is really tough and a worthy lvl79 map. In the 68 you have Brutus who isn't too hard, but harder as the 3 mentioned before, the same goes for Desert and Pit. The same is true for the 78 maps. Precinct and Springs aren't that hard. Even Academy never was too bad. Crematorium is a bit tougher but even then I prefer it over Pit or Desert.

The 80+ maps is were the actual fun starts. Those are the maps that challange your builds, why shouldn't I be allowed to try them? I might fail but that is the point, I might actually run a map I can't finish in 5mins (or even less sometimes). I even torture myself with Fracture lately since it brings some challange with certain mobs to 74-76 maps you mostly have to run.

So much fun chiseling and vaaling maps for 116% iiq and getting nothing but this out of a 75 map

"

Emphasy wrote:

It hasn't. WoW has multiple difficulties for its raid. The first one can be done even if half the raid is afk. It actually does the right thing. It gives everyone access to all the raid-tiers (and thus all the sets) but it makes dropped items more powerful if they complete the raid in a higher difficulty.

Meybee the Changed it up, havent checked it out for a long time.

"

Emphasy wrote:

Well before it was easy to sustain 76 and it is now, well you need a bit more effort now, but it is possible. However 76 basically is the equal of 74 and they moved some of the maps up in levels without reducing the levels of other maps. They even did this without changing the difficulty of the boss-fights.

Ah there we go. To me lvl 76 is still like 76 not 74. Just because they added something on top its not less then before.

"

Emphasy wrote:

The level 79 maps are actually easier than the level 68 maps. Gravicus in Shipyard? Fidelitas in Overgrown Ruin? Hatebeat in Arsenal? Those aren't difficult boss-fights. Only Village Ruins is really tough and a worthy lvl79 map. In the 68 you have Brutus who isn't too hard, but harder as the 3 mentioned before, the same goes for Desert and Pit. The same is true for the 78 maps. Precinct and Springs aren't that hard. Even Academy never was too bad. Crematorium is a bit tougher but even then I prefer it over Pit or Desert.

I cant argue with that. The Boss fights are scattered pritty radom over the maps. On the other hand if all Higher maps had the hard bosses it would be even harder to sustain and there would be even more complaining.

"

Emphasy wrote:

The 80+ maps is were the actual fun starts. Those are the maps that challange your builds, why shouldn't I be allowed to try them? I might fail but that is the point, I might actually run a map I can't finish in 5mins (or even less sometimes). I even torture myself with Fracture lately since it brings some challange with certain mobs to 74-76 maps you mostly have to run.

There are hard bosses u can try in lower maps. There are hard mods u can run. I havent had a problem challanging myself. But im not geard god enough for the really tough fights so i might get to the point where i will be. On the other hand i dont think that will happen if i lock at my past experiences with this game.

"

ampdecay wrote:

So much fun chiseling and vaaling maps for 116% iiq and getting nothing but this out of a 75 map

Yeah somtimes ur are unluky but in the long run its worth it.

I'm so sick and tired of someone who is lucky saying "yeah, sometimes you are unlucky" when more often than not you are "unlucky" and in actuality, sometimes you are lucky.

But guess what? Why is the end game all about luck in the first place? The few people that are arguing passionately that the end game is fine now have yet to answer that question. So you can be as good at playing this game as the best of them, yet it seems that the best you can do, as it turns out, is get lucky sometimes.

Yeah, you can increase the odds of getting lucky, slightly, by being rich in game. (No EVERYONE IS NOT RICH IN GAME)

I finally got to run a 76 map last night and had enough to chiseled, alc, and then vaal it. After all that It still was only this:


and then how about this for unlucky. The only thing that dropped that was a "map" was a sac fragment from the boss. REALLY?!?! Not a single fucking map. Not even a level 68. Its not that I cant run these maps, its that GGG isn't letting me run them. FUCK YOU GGG

"

joscha wrote:

"

ampdecay wrote:

So much fun chiseling and vaaling maps for 116% iiq and getting nothing but this out of a 75 map

Yeah somtimes ur are unluky but in the long run its worth it.

i guess, level 87 and thats the highest map I've seen yet :((

Guess I've complained too much...

Level 75 map, fully chiseled, alc'ed, and Vaal'ed:


Again I say unto you, GGG, fuck you.

The WoW comparison is pretty funny. Even in the days of the "difficult" WoW, getting access to the bosses and the raids wasn't hard, it just required you to have killed the bosses from the previous raid tier. But they learned that was too restrictive so now everyone can see the content, but for the best gear you need to run it at the highest difficulty.
PoE doesn't have that much content in the first place. Most of the maps are copy/pasted versions of leveling zones with changed monsters and a boss. And not only the content doesn't require any significant skill to finish, not only it is copy/pasted, but access to it is limited by RNG. It's just not good.