Map Drops in The Awakening

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dime wrote:

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Laurium wrote:

GGG does the developing, community just does the crying.

community pays the bills

or do they?

...not if this direction keeps up.

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r4wb1rd wrote:

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...

No game can surive on the hardcore market alone. Eventually they burn out. And those flashy MTXes, Pets, Effects become alot less appealing purchases when you have barely anyone to show them off too. Lets face it, all MMOs are about E-Peen no matter how much people claim it isn't. I'm the best, I'm the Fastest, I'm the Richest, I look the coolest, etc, etc. No game Thrives on just one group alone, and any developer that purposely alienates groups will fail.

The game should be difficult and require / reward skill. However it should be fully accessible to all players of all groups. Heavily Gating something like Atziri as a 'final' challenge is acceptable, heavily gating 76+ maps and character progression behind RNG is not.

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Hemmingfish wrote:

1.4 sounds more and more like a game I don't want to play. Good thing we still have another few months on live before it's forced upon us.

About a month. Not months, plural.

Less map drop with reduced lvl. Time to uninstall I guess.

If you're going to make the HIGHEST LEVEL of maps even more difficult to sustain then live, I feel that it should conversely be easier to maintain a 74-77 pool. Especially for the solo player.

wow i found out how to find maps now. roll yourself an instagib map, kill boss get 66 map. such reward...

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FUZZB0X wrote:

If you're going to make the HIGHEST LEVEL of maps even more difficult to sustain then live, I feel that it should conversely be easier to maintain a 74-77 pool. Especially for the solo player.

I'm hoping this is the case as well. I don't expect to be able to easily sustain 80+ maps, but 73-77 should be doable, especially if they're going to balance out the drops by the affixes rolled on the map.

shouldve added this to my post:

"and in HC it sounds like to sustain our map pool itll be essential to fight each boss... well, with 1-shot mechanics being as prevalent as they are, unless desync is 100% fixed this just isnt an option. i dont skip some map bosses because theyre hard-(even though some are literally impossible for some builds). i skip them because i dont trust the game itself not to rip my character via a d/c or desync (its bad enough being d/c'ed vs an op rare even). hopefully lockstep is fine-tuned enough that this isnt an issue. (ive seen videos now where ppl have desynced even with lockstep enabled)...

also some bosses are a lot more dangerous versus certain builds. it takes experience and awareness to know which boss is the rock to your scissors and to skip them. the map pool above lvl 75 is just on the edge of sustainability playing this way (ie: skipping some bosses/playing as solo or in a duo; and having to buy some maps when our map pool hits 0) but with these changes it sounds like we'll be forced... which would be fine if some bosses weren't tuned the way they are, and d/c's didnt keep our characters living in the server for however long, etc etc... whatever changes are made, please keep this in mind also."

Ok im making a list now.
Jungle valley boss too easy - drops -1 map
Haast too easy - drops no map.
Strand map too ez - no drop
precinct sooo stronk! -2map
Catacomb - no map....

serious?

Cant wait to play my pool down to 68, when the risk is so high that i might get a +1... damn I might get wet pants

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Chris wrote:

• For players to find the highest tiers of maps challenging to complete and to sustain

I don't understand this desire to make high level maps difficult to sustain. Not being able to do difficult and level appropriate content is not fun. Not being able to progress is not fun. Who cares if people who play 12+ hrs a day can get tons of maps already and level extremely fast. What matters is that the average player can have fun doing end game content and part of that is being able to make steady progression. Hitting a wall due to bad luck is not fun at all. Remember getting lucky can be fun, but getting unlucky is most certainly NOT FUN. And with the current map system getting 'unlucky' happens all too often.

If this desire to make the "highest tiers of maps challenging to sustain" is set in stone, at least make it actually challenging. RNG does not equal challenge. The RNG factor in map drops needs to be severely reduced. The variance with map drops (as with many things in this game) is just too high. The challenge of sustaining maps should come from the challenge of rolling them and completing them.