Map Drops in The Awakening

one problem I see with making only bosses drop +2 maps is that while you are adding incentive to kill bosses, you are also adding even more incentive to kill the easiest bosses. sure there will be boss rebalance, but some bosses just will end up much easier. maps with these bosses will always be ran and maps with other bosses will be vendored unless absolutely starved for maps.

As being 3rd in the beta I have to say that the cost of getting and sustaining 78+ maps is insanely high, as in 10-20c per map. And since the mobs DMG has been buffed, even a mod like added fire DMG results in my teammates literaly getting 1 shot from blues or rates.

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

Also, while you are adjusting mods. Remove Temp Chains replace it with anything else. It can be something like "Every mob explodes into 5 Atziris" as long as it isn't Temp Chains.

Or Haast, or Abaxoth. I'm at the point where if I run an unid map and its temp chains, I just get out. Don't even care if it's a 75 map.

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ripnburn69 wrote:

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Serleth wrote:

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BlazedAs wrote:

very little trading going on

You're kidding, right? I've made and spent easily 30ex in beta.

You must like staring at trade chat. Most people don't.

Nope. Just running about 110 IIR and doing the occasional frag farming, selling drops I get. I occasionally take advantage of the odd trade flip I see, but for the most part I just throw trade chat off to the left side and glance at it whenever I pause to sip some coffee.

You'd be surprised what running even moderate MF can do for you. I've dropped three Alphas, a Rat's Nest, Pledge of Hands, Apep's Rage and Windscreams. That right there is about 12ex.

@BlazedAs for the same quote, no, SC, but that doesn't really make a difference other than in player population. Prices vary because it's HC but I have experience in both types of leagues and it's just as easy to make bank in either league. The central difference comes in how much you spend rerolling.

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gilrad wrote:

So if you're trying to level and all bosses are super rippy, you're better off skipping them altogether.

Net result, nobody chooses to fight the bosses. Just like now, except in this case there are fewer bosses that are safe bets.

IF you're talking about HC, there's a select few that I won't fight, but I fight most of them. I avoid Jungle Valley, Labryinth, Residence and Palace bosses in HC. In SC, I fight Dominus in both maps.

Quite frankly though, if you're skipping more bosses than that, the problem isn't with the game difficulty, it's with your build. The majority of the bosses in the current state of the game are easy. At most, they require a bit of patience and kiting.


Lastly, some people here are +1 for the full clear map bonus drop. I just wanted to add that I'm fine with that, as long as it's *never* a +1 map.

I actually farmed the Mines back and forth until I reach 75. It's a 68 zone after all. And by the time I reach 75, I had enough gear and maps to safely maintain a map pool.

Dried Lake is a good starter too.

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Serleth wrote:

Quite frankly though, if you're skipping more bosses than that, the problem isn't with the game difficulty, it's with your build. The majority of the bosses in the current state of the game are easy. At most, they require a bit of patience and kiting.

"Builds" aren't the only things out there limiting a character/player from dong certain content.

It's also a question of skill and of the amount of time you put in the game. As a casual player in an even more casual group, we find it hard to get the gear needed to kill said bosses, and we lack skill.

We still enjoy having high level maps we can do easy rolls on, because we still like having prgress on our toons.

The balance shouldn't be araound the streamers. It should be around the majority of the player base. And those players choose not to do map bosses because they aren't a challenge. They choose not to do them because they are sure death. That will not change because of the drops. It will only change how I feel about the maps: That I am locked out of certain rewards because the content is way to hard for me and my group. Not a good feeling at all.

A lot of complaints from casual or solo players here. To be fair, PoE was created for hardcore gamers (meaning nolife, not the league) and party play.

I'm wondering though how big the percentage really is among the active playerbase. You guys should look at it from a business model perspective: If there's a small percentage of nolifing group players out there that can ensure financial independence for GGG then they can easily stick to the hardcoreness of the game.

On the other hand: If they balance the game around casuals, there's a big danger for PoE to lose its flavor and its original fan base.

To clarify: I'm a casual solo player as well and sometimes wish I can get to 100 easier but then I remember what the idea behind PoE was and I simply reset my goal to go to "just" 90. Works for me...

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t_golgari wrote:

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Serleth wrote:

Quite frankly though, if you're skipping more bosses than that, the problem isn't with the game difficulty, it's with your build. The majority of the bosses in the current state of the game are easy. At most, they require a bit of patience and kiting.

"Builds" aren't the only things out there limiting a character/player from dong certain content.

It's also a question of skill and of the amount of time you put in the game. As a casual player in an even more casual group, we find it hard to get the gear needed to kill said bosses, and we lack skill.

We still enjoy having high level maps we can do easy rolls on, because we still like having prgress on our toons.

The balance shouldn't be araound the streamers. It should be around the majority of the player base. And those players choose not to do map bosses because they aren't a challenge. They choose not to do them because they are sure death. That will not change because of the drops. It will only change how I feel about the maps: That I am locked out of certain rewards because the content is way to hard for me and my group. Not a good feeling at all.

a) You're right, which is why I added in "patience and kiting," directly referencing skill. But by the same token if you're able to run high level "easy" maps, you really should be geared properly by that point.

b) This "balance around the streamers" bit is straight up contradictory, though. On two fronts.

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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.

i. I know you weren't necessarily referring to this, so allow me to make that clear. But I wanted to address this because it illustrates a good point regarding that. If map drops were balanced around streamers, they'd either maintain or increase the amount of +2 map drops available. If anything, this change where the only +2 that's possible is from bosses is flat out gating streamers who have nothing but time to chain maps. It's going to slow their progression down.

ii. GGG's all but said that a lot of the changes regarding monster balance is going back to how this game was intended to be: difficult. If you had the chance to play in the original Open Beta or even early after 1.0 release, you'd remember that nobody ever did Shrine piety, *especially* not on a -max map. A combination of damage nerfs and power creep has turned previously difficult bosses into swiss cheese.

I'm not saying that it's a good or a bad thing that they're making Merciless and Maps more difficult. I'm saying that is deliberately their intent. And I'm sorry if it ends up turning the game less fun for you and if it gates you from rewards, then that sucks. And if GGG is willing to lose players because of it, then I guess that's their call.

Personally, I'm behind it, because I enjoy the additional threat. I think the 1.3 version of this game is a joke for how easy it is compared to where PoE was back in 1.0. I'm glad to see something of a return to form, personally.

In that vein:



I applaud your objective perspective on this, r4wb1rd.

Still waiting for the day when maps can drop at any map level this would make the end-game 100x more enjoyable doing lvl 80 tropical islands and mountain ledges, YES PLS!

If you want it to take longer to get to 100 why don't you just increase the xp needed to get to 100? Why slap us in the face with more RNG gating? The whole system of starving the map drops and penalizing us for doing maps lower than our level seems like a really round about way to create an obviously intended time sink.

I feel like you've contradicted yourself in this Manifesto, and I'm not sure how to read into it.

First, you say this is one of your goals:

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For players to find the highest tiers of maps challenging to ... sustain

then you go on to contradict that by saying:

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... there are several mapping groups in Beta happily sustaining the highest tiers of maps... We want to bring this experience to more players

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(We will be) increasing the drop rate of higher-tier maps...

Do you want to make it harder to sustain maps than it currently is in beta or make it easier, as it seems your goals and plans don't align.

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Secondly, you say this is one of your goals:

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For players to choose to play harder maps...

Then proceed to contradict that by saying:

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...+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.

Do you want players to have the freedom to choose more difficult content, or do you want to restrict access to difficult content?

I don't mind either way on both things, but I am confused by what your plans are going forward.