Map Management Resource

Great job Lyralei!

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Slamdancer wrote:

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Keatro wrote:

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Slamdancer wrote:

Well.. we usually use Chaos Orbs to roll the Maze Mod on Maps >71. This ensures a guaranteed Quantity of about 50 with the Maze Mod.

If you are short on currency, it might be better to build up a bigger map pool through running the lower level maps first.

Unfortunately, i have been quite unlucky with map drops lately. 1 69 map and 3 70's is my whole pool.

As we all, seperately, had to find out, this is a pretty common occurance and also led to some more or less hefty debates on what would be the best system to eliminate this between us.

In the end, everyone who had a drought like that managed to get back up on his feet mapwise again. How this pans out for solo play though, i have no idea, as i assume you are playing the maps alone. I would probably stick to doing about 30-40 66 Maps, build a steady 67 pool, rinse and repeat, until you have a stable pool of 69's. Reason for this is, most of the 69 Maps are pretty good and the barrier you want to pass is the 70 Maps.

I hope this sheds a bit of light for you :)

Yea, unfortunately i run alone or with a single friend. Trying to find a mapgroup at the moment. Just gonna have to buy some 66 maps, the droprate of maps outside maps is way too low.

So is group play really that much better for map drops? My problem is that I don't like group play. At all. On one hand, the way most of my chars work doesn't loan itself well to group play, or immediate looting for that matter; on the other hand, the screen gets so incredibly cluttered with crap that it's hard to determine where the enemies are. Am I fucked when it comes to higher-level map drops?

It seems like patch 1.0.7 is drastically changing bonuses for certain map affixes. Smothering is taking a big nerf but a ton of other affixes are getting buffed. I wonder how much this will change your map roll strategy.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

So is group play really that much better for map drops? My problem is that I don't like group play. At all. On one hand, the way most of my chars work doesn't loan itself well to group play, or immediate looting for that matter; on the other hand, the screen gets so incredibly cluttered with crap that it's hard to determine where the enemies are. Am I fucked when it comes to higher-level map drops?

Playing in a group does not increase the map drops at all. It is also mentioned by Lyralei in the OP.

What you can do and what we actually employ is a system where everyone takes turns rolling a map, so you dont have only one mappool to draw everything from. Also, as a group, very difficult mapmods are way easier to overcome. While my character is able to do all the map mods with relative ease, this does not hold true for other characters or players with weaker gear. If you play in a party, you can cover those weaknesses for the other chars while they cover for yours.

For example: Syrtis is using 3-Curse, Lyralei, me and Kudos are doing the Damage while Dugler does the lasthitting with quantity+rarity/shocksupport.

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antelopesalad wrote:

It seems like patch 1.0.7 is drastically changing bonuses for certain map affixes. Smothering is taking a big nerf but a ton of other affixes are getting buffed. I wonder how much this will change your map roll strategy.

I was aware of this some time before and have already made plans to review the list. At first glance however, it does not change the general strategy much as even with the huge boosts to certain affixes, the quantity increase does not justify its difficulty.

We tailored the affix strategy to suit newer players such that they gain an idea of what is good and what should be avoided. As you progress onwards, particularly in the 71+ maps, you'll be forced to run with less desirables and all the patch does is to make these more rewarding.

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Lyralei wrote:

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antelopesalad wrote:

It seems like patch 1.0.7 is drastically changing bonuses for certain map affixes. Smothering is taking a big nerf but a ton of other affixes are getting buffed. I wonder how much this will change your map roll strategy.

I was aware of this some time before and have already made plans to review the list. At first glance however, it does not change the general strategy much as even with the huge boosts to certain affixes, the quantity increase does not justify its difficulty.

We tailored the affix strategy to suit newer players such that they gain an idea of what is good and what should be avoided. As you progress onwards, particularly in the 71+ maps, you'll be forced to run with less desirables and all the patch does is to make these more rewarding.

As i was reading through the changes, it seems that you will roll a good map more often and therefore need to spend way less currency on average. The problem with the old system was that there were many prefixes which held a very small quantity increase. Now almost all prefixes were buffed in quantity, 1 suffix has been nerved, and another 2 suffixes have been buffed.

Also, we didn't discuss the high level maps, but it smells that actually the biggest change will come there - how to roll a high level maps. Probably Exalted Orbs will be not viable to spend on a map or just an very rare circumstances.

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Slamdancer wrote:

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

So is group play really that much better for map drops? My problem is that I don't like group play. At all. On one hand, the way most of my chars work doesn't loan itself well to group play, or immediate looting for that matter; on the other hand, the screen gets so incredibly cluttered with crap that it's hard to determine where the enemies are. Am I fucked when it comes to higher-level map drops?

Playing in a group does not increase the map drops at all. It is also mentioned by Lyralei in the OP.

What you can do and what we actually employ is a system where everyone takes turns rolling a map, so you dont have only one mappool to draw everything from. Also, as a group, very difficult mapmods are way easier to overcome. While my character is able to do all the map mods with relative ease, this does not hold true for other characters or players with weaker gear. If you play in a party, you can cover those weaknesses for the other chars while they cover for yours.

For example: Syrtis is using 3-Curse, Lyralei, me and Kudos are doing the Damage while Dugler does the lasthitting with quantity+rarity/shocksupport.

Soloing is good for building up a map pool - lets say you just have 66s and 67s. You wanna run them all and build a base of more 67s, some 68s and a few 69s hopefully. Then like slam mentioned you rinse and repeat and move up that map ladder.

Once you get to 69s soloing is still possible, but then group play becomes a lot more advantageous because:
- the maps become more difficult
- you cover each others weaknesses
- each individual's strengths contribute to the group unit
- it is SAFER!
- ultimately - you have more fun

On the last point - AIM to have FUN!
Grinding maps can become exactly that - a grind.......
- IF you are soloing all the time and
- IF you lose sight of the fact that you are playing this game for enjoyment.

Ultimately you want to have fun WHILST mapping & moving up the map ladder at the same time.

Important note:
At times the RNG can knock you down, but you gotta take it with a pinch of salt and ride the variance in the map drop system.

Variance is simply put - the distribution of probability (if you have played poker, you will know this term well).

Example - on countless nights of cash game poker, i have had sessions where the probability has not gone in my favour. The 5% chance of me losing in a particular hand (due to odds etc) has happened like 5-10 times in a row and i went home feeling absolutely marvellous (having lost a lot of money), despite having played well in terms of my ability......
Then the next night the 60% chance of me winning in a particular hand happens 5-10 times in a row (and then i thought i was a good player haha!)

....Thats the variance.....

In the long run, the variance WILL even out - keep this clear in your head when you don't get map drops for like 5 maps in a row.

To ride it out, you gotta realise that we are here to have fun and play it in that way!

Mullet

Hello, I just found this guide a couple days ago and I must say, great job! These tips have helped me out very much and I appreciate the work you have put in. I am also excited to see that you are updating it regularly, and I am eagerly anticipating an update after the 1.07 changes go live.

One thing I would like to see added is a section on using (or not using) the vendor recipe with maps. For example, do you recommend vendoring 3 lvl 68 spring maps into a lvl 69 overgrown shrine map because of it's high potential, or are the three springs maps better? If it is better to use the vendor recipes to acquire these desired maps, maybe consider adding a guide explaining which maps it is wise to vendor up? If it is not wise, maybe just put a warning somewhere in the guide to stay away from that recipe/strategy.

Keep up the great work and thank you!

Thanks for this thread, a brilliant source of info.

I did my first map today, Tropical Island. Fleet and elemental weakness (thanks for that augmentation).

I did not see any monkeys, and the boss for sure was no monkey boss. I am a summoner and things hurt quite badly, so I was mostly off screen casting arc, but I am quite sure I saw a boss blood elemental. It died easily.

I don't know if fleet and elemental weakness changes the mobs present, but I saw.

- Bandits (Kairyn's)
- Goatmen (and their casters)
- Cinder elementals. Possibly two variants of these, I was busy running in circles.
- Blood elementals
- Some blackguard mages that I think was with the cinders.

I see that the wiki carries the same info that you do. It also says it is based on the forest zone of Act 2, but felt nothing like that at all.