More voidstones = fewer maps

I've unlocked all four Voidstones and all twelve favoured map slots. I get a maximum of two maps back as loot from each tier-16 map, but often only one. The map boss almost always drops one, and sometimes a random mob group as well. Very rarely, I end up with three maps.

I'm running Jungle Valley. I tested the following for the favoured slots: 12x Jungle Valley, 11x Jungle Valley and 1x Mesa, 10x Jungle Valley and 2x Mesa.

When I run Singular Focus, one or three maps appear more frequently. Without Singular Focus, it's almost always two maps.

I'm running Harbinger (Scarabs: 2-1-1-1) with Beyond and have blocked everything except Ritual. I've allocated the entire quantity circle and the three quality/rarity points. Additionally, I'm using all "increased effect of explicit modifiers" nodes, running Eater of World altars with maximum pack size and Eldritch Gaze. However, pushing quantity with the altars doesn't seem to really change the situation.

I've done test runs with T16 maps. With one, two, or three voidstones, more than four maps drop per map. As soon as I use four voidstones, the number of dropped maps decreases.Even using the three "Shaping the..." nodes with four voidstones doesn't seem to change anything.

I could be wrong, but two maps seems too few to me. Is there something wrong with the map drop, or am I doing something wrong?

That is how Voidstones work. You get less maps, but you get more T16 maps since your whole atlas is T16's plus the bonus chance of T17's. With 0 Voidstones and running T16 maps, you might see 5-10+ maps, but if none of them are the four base T16's, then it won't help your sustain at all.

There's plenty of ways to get more T16 maps. Bulk buy inventories of maps on trade (about 3c per map), run a different tree to self farm maps with cartographer scarabs, or alternate between JV and Mesa. Since Mesa is a connected map, you're more likely to get JV's back from running it. Combine Mesa and cartographer scarabs and won't take long to fill the JV tab.

First of all, thank you for your answer.

I'm aware of the switching between Jungle Valley and Mesa, and I've done it myself – unfortunately, without any noticeable effect.

I've been playing with Singular Focus for several leagues and have always had a surplus of maps that I preferred to run. Even without Singular Focus, it wasn't necessary to buy more maps in the past – at least not with 4 Voidstones activated and neglecting the favoured maps. The game was previously designed in such a way that sufficient maps always dropped. Whether or not I liked the layout was another question.

My concern isn't that I'm getting too few Jungle Valley or Mesa maps – nor is it about how well Singular Focus works. The problem is much more fundamental: I generally get too few maps, regardless of which map I'm running or which mechanic I'm using. I've tested various scenarios with 4 Voidstones, but the result remains the same – hardly any maps drop, regardless of the circumstances.

In previous leagues, I never had to rely on bulk map purchases at this stage of progression. As long as you didn't completely mis-skill the Atlas skill tree, it was always enough to just play. There were always enough map drops – again, regardless of layout or favored maps.

And even though I'm specifically mentioning Singular Focus here, I've also tested other variants, such as Canyon without Singular Focus. The result was the same. It apparently doesn't matter whether Singular Focus is enabled or not, whether favored maps are set or not, or whether special league mechanics are used or not. The result remains constant:
– 1 map from the boss (almost always)
– 1 map from a mob (occasionally)
– And very rarely an additional map

I've tried various configurations, but the result remains at 4 active Voidstones: Too few maps, no matter what strategy I use.

Either I have a very long bad RNG streak when it comes to my dropped maps or something is wrong.

I've now done a few more test runs with Mesa. In the atlas, I have Shrines, Eater of World altars, Beyond, and Delve. On the map device, I used Domination. With the altars, I always pushed quantity and map drops. Scarabs were 3x Cartography Scarab of the Multitude, 1x Cartography Scarab of Escalation, and 1x Domination Scarab. My favoured maps were 11x Jungle Valley and 1x Mesa. I tested with and without Singular Focus. In both cases, I received an average of 3-4 maps per run.

The only noticeable differences were that without Singular Focus, I received a few more T17s, and the map boss often didn't drop a map.

Is this intentional? Especially with 3x Cartography Scarab of the Multitude? 1-2 more maps than without the Scarabs? Almost the same result, whether with or without Singular Focus?

Singular Focus does reduce the chance to T17 because of math things I gave up trying to learn. If you care about those, just unspec Singular.

As for pure map drops, it is hard to beat map modifier on T16.5/T17 maps with the high quant/pack size that comes with those maps. I haven't done the strats yet this league because lazy with reroll, but when I was self farming 8-mod maps last league, I was netting 20+ maps on average and had to portal out multiple times per map to stash. And that was only 100% map drops pre-map effect, can potentially hit 150/200, but more chaos orbs than I was willing to spend to roll for it. Can go further with risk scarabs so I've heard, but not something I care for. There's a thing with Blight on those maps and have seen Blight drop 5+ maps on average, no Blight passives.

This was pre-patch, but with 150/200 map drop T16.5 maps, there was a content creator that farmed 2200+ 8-mod maps in 50 maps to give you an idea how silly the scaling can get. But not for everyone as the maps are incredibly hard with the legacy 8-mod only T17 mods. Realistic rolling non-8-mod until runnable 100+ map drop T16.5/T17 at even half or quarter of those rates is more than enough to keep you sustained by alternating as needed.

I still despise T17 mods, but I'll take farming my own with that strat over trying to buy 8-mod maps with regex nonsense. Can feed my mappers the ones I can't run.