Mapping in 3.14 is bonked
" Not trying to be a dick but, you realize that leapfrog often requires you to buy maps even when being efficient? I was running 20% qual, alc'd, vaal'd, 4 sextant maps from t10 on and still hit map sustain problems up until I completed ~100-110 bonus objectives. |
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" Therein lies the issue. Fully juicing maps, progressing the atlas correctly, and still having map sustain problems. It makes sense for it to play out that way as you increase your atlas & awakened bonus, but the issue with map drops this league seems to be two reasons in my experience: 1) Map tier priority. Scenario: I had 31/32 watchstones socketed and ran t14-16 maps. The majority of all map drops were from the zone with the missing watchstone. Run a t16 map and yield 3x t12 maps. Please .. any map from any of the other 7 regions. It was like this the entire last 2 conq rotations where I had to run low tier maps and hope for higher tier drops. It was very noticeably “unlucky,” if you will. 2) Shared loot pool. Just a hunch, but Ultimatum feels closer to Heist league where contracts & blueprints overwrite some of the map drop %. I don’t want to run contracts, give me my maps. I got there eventually, but yea it was a pain in the toosh this league. Espec with the nerf to harvest and rarely getting the Horizon Orb type of craft which was great last league. |
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" Cool, you go with belief, I'll go with numbers. Besides that your hypothesis doesn't make sense. If people knew that the 'epic, most-fun-I've-ever-had, best patch ever, golden era of PoE' was coming to a close, they should be playing it out while it lasts resulting in the best retention ever seen. It wasn't. It was spectacularly average. |
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At bonus 95% and using 20% quality alched maps, I had exactly zero maps in my first 3 watchstone region. Now, after buying several maps in that region with 3 sextants, I have not had any maps drop to sustain the region, only crap low level maps. I don't mind buying maps, except it's time consuming when 90% of those selling maps don't respond. If sellers have too much currency to care about a few more C's, why don't they set themselves to "DND", or bother listing their maps at prices they don't want to sell for - it's huge waste of time for everyone else.
Edited: besides, I am sick and tired of the Ultimatum mechanic, so I think it's time to say good-bye to this league. Overloaded with previous leagues' content, to an extent that they occur too rarely in maps, and players that have skipped a few leagues, have little chance in enjoying them or catching up. Last edited by Valolrak#2479 on May 6, 2021, 2:53:45 PM
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Even in T12-14 I'm still leaning on Zana to keep my map supply up and fill out missing atlas. It's been a huge drain on currency, but I'm managing so far.
My strat is that I'll run a kinda 50/50 mix of maps pushing my tier and lower maps picked strategically to try and drop maps I haven't seen yet. I use my zana missions about as soon as I get them to get her free map and and to reset her shop. I'll sift through her shop and buy anything I haven't done yet... 6 alcs? Yeah, whatever. 6 chaos? Yeah, whatever. It's easier to trade currency than it is to trade for maps. Nobody ever responds for map purchases... well.. they do, but it's really about 1 in 20 for me, even starting down the list at a higher price. I'm not sure why people list maps for sale if they don't want to sell them, but it's what they do. Buying maps from Zana is reliable at least and the only way I'm sustaining. Map drops are just trash... I do full chisel, alc, vaal, and sextents when I have them. I toss in master missions and scarabs when I have them. Extra vaal fragments to. Map sustain feels okay in yellow maps, just barely. Red I'm not naturally sustain at all. I'm ~110 bonus now. I'm just not sure where the red map drops are. My guess is that GGG wants us to sink our ultimatum chaos piles into Zana, which is what I'm doing. It's workable, but not a fun mechanic. I miss map sustain. |
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"Yeah for me at the start, getting past a T5 sustain was brutal and thats when i had 75 map completion which is more than plenty for that tier, or atleast should be for sustain. Bad RNG ? Maybe but didnt seem that way to me. Fast forward, ive been buying Zana maps every chance i get while also doing any mission of hers i can get to reset her vendor and buy more. Currently im just accumulating t6+ maps and saving and buying all the ones she offers T5+. Oddly enough, for some reason, im getting more EXP out of T5 maps than T6-7 per hour. I feel like the pack size in T6-7, even some T8s is fucked up because of trial master. I noticed this a while ago but it seems trial master intentionally empties a large portion of your maps pack size which is bullshit, especially if youre skipping him. I can somewhat understand it from an EXP standpoint, he has the potential to give a decent bit of EXP but removing Map Monsters in exchange is kinda bullshit if you choose not to engage with the mechanic. For me i have been ignoring the mechanic in T6+ maps because im alch and go, im not wasting my chaos on rerolling my maps since i can run any mods. Its that harder mobs makes the trial even harder. Now that i have a good amount of T-5 and T6, i found that locking off one section by putting in 1 watch stone and leaving the rest empty while running T6-8 will keep my maps flowing. Im at like 95 Atlas completion or something and im now usually getting 2-5 maps per map though here and there i still will get none, or one thats same tier or higher. I suspect mapping has been somewhat been influenced by the fact that harvest is on the map device at certain atlas completion. Harvest sucks! But look at my decked out gear two weeks in! Labyrinth salt farm miner. "But my build diversity" , "Game is too hard!" - Meta drone playing the same 1-3 builds for years. Last edited by Tin_Foil_Hat#0111 on May 6, 2021, 4:20:50 PM
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" It has turned more and more into a kill-before-you-get-killed feast. |
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" That is a very important factor that I hadn't considered. The trialmaster area is always empty of mobs unless you draw them into it. It's definitely eating some mob spawns. My build started really coming together by the time I hit T5 maps, so I haven't skipped much since then. I mostly skipped ultimatums on the way up though, because dying was just too costly time-wise. Ever since my build hit its stride, ultimatum has been easy, even in the T12-14 range of the maps I'm running. The only times I skip now is either 'stone circles' in a tight location, or if the map mobs are particularly harsh for my build... and lately 'skip' has been more like 'do only the first 4 rounds'. I feel skipping the league mechanic makes for a miserable experience and if you're having to skip it and there doesn't seem to be a reasonable path forward to fixing that... reroll might be the answer. You need judge your build once it's all put together of course. My first build, popcorn skeletons, was just terrible for ultimatum and I knew mechanically, that wasn't going to change without extreme investment. I didn't fancy the idea of grinding up through the maps ignoring the league mechanic and missing out on all the massive loot piles, so I rerolled and picked a new build. I'm on a freezing arc mines build now and having a blast. I'm sure somebody is running ultimatums easy mode with popcorn skeletons and will likely chime in that I was doing it wrong. They'd probably be right. Either way, it wasn't working for me and the new build is. |
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Map drops are definitely lower but its workable, its not as bad as it has been but you have to suck it up and push through the bad streaks until you've got enough completion that you can go back to not caring.
I think they have a rate they roughly try to keep us to but every league release is like them putting a blindfold on and throwing darts at the board, sometimes they get it spot on but others they take it off and the darts stuck in a table in the adjacent room. I wouldn't compare it to ritual though thats the easiest its been since harbinger probably. |
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